June 18th, 2025: What A U.S. Attack On Iran May Look Like & Trump Threatens Isolated Khamenei
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Let's get briefed. We'll start things off with a look at how the U.S. might be preparing to enter the war between Israel and Iran. A sudden surge in military deployments suggests that something big could be on the table.

Later in the show, Israel's campaign inside Iran isn't just targeting infrastructure. It's gutting the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei's inner circle, leaving him increasingly isolated. Plus, the U.S. is pulling troops out of Syria again. Kurdish allies say the drawdown could open the door for a dangerous ISIS comeback. And in today's Back of the Brief, the latest on that horrific Air India crash that

killed 270 individuals. Investigators are analyzing the black boxes to uncover what went wrong. But first, today's PDB Spotlight.

It's day six of the war between Israel and Iran The Israeli Air Force is dominating the skies over Tehran, striking deep into Iranian territory with seeming impunity But now the speculation is shifting away from what Israel might do next and toward whether the US is preparing to step in directly

According to our report from Axios, President Trump told regional allies on Sunday that the U.S. did not plan to get involved in the conflict unless Iran directly targeted American forces or personnel. That message reportedly echoed one that was sent just an hour before Israel launched its opening strikes last Thursday, when the White House informed partners in the region that Washington would not take part in the war. But that position

may be shifting. There are signs, both in terms of rhetoric and military deployments, that the Trump administration's calculus could be changing. Whether it's due to new battlefield conditions or fresh intelligence regarding Iran's nuclear program, something seems to be in motion. And here's what we know: a lot of resources are now being moved into position. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegsethra has reportedly ordered the USS Nimitz Carrier Strike Group to redeploy to the Middle East.

Now, the Nimitz can carry more than 60 aircraft and hosts a crew of roughly 5,000 sailors. It's not just a symbol. It's a potent strike platform that can rapidly launch combat operations across the region. Frankly, a carrier strike group is the ultimate display of U.S. military might.

Meanwhile, U.S. European Command has also moved in. Two Navy destroyers were deployed to the eastern Mediterranean Sea on Friday. Their mission is to bolster missile defense and be ready to intercept incoming threats. And there's another key piece that tells us something big might be brewing, and that would be refueling aircraft.

Now, the US Air Force has repositioned a large number of aerial refueling tankers to forward operating bases in Europe. And that might sound on the surface rather mundane, but these aircraft are essential for long-range bombing runs, allowing fighters and bombers to stay airborne for extended missions. If you're planning to strike a fortified target deep in Iran, well, you need tankers.

Which brings us to the real crux of this story. What exactly would US military assistance look like if Trump gave the green light? Right now, much of the speculation focuses on one site, and that would be, of course, Fordow. Located near the city of Qom, about 90 miles or so south of Tehran, Fordow is an underground nuclear enrichment facility dug into the side of a mountain and shielded by layers of rock and reinforced concrete. Originally a secret site,

Its existence was made public in 2009 It houses space for approximately 3,000 uranium enrichment centrifuges

and because of its location fordow is a particularly hard nut to crack for the israeli air force israel does have so-called bunker buster bombs in its arsenal like the american-made gbu-28 but those are limited in what they can penetrate when it comes to deeply fortified subterranean sites like fordow well there's really only one weapon designed for the job that would be the gbu-57

Massive Ordnance Penetrator, often shortened to MOP because nobody loves an acronym like the U.S. military loves an acronym. It's a 30,000-pound Munster built specifically to drill through hardened bunkers. Now, if you're asking yourself, why don't we just hand the bomb over to Israel? Well, these bombs are so big that frankly Israel doesn't even have the aircraft needed to carry them. A MOP can only be deployed from a B-2 or a B-52 bomber. Israel doesn't.

doesn't have either. So even if Washington gave Tel Aviv the bombs, they'd have no way to deliver them on target. That's why any mission to destroy Fordow with a mop would have to be carried out by the U.S. directly.

There could be other options, perhaps, like a special operations raid. Now, that's possible, but highly unlikely. Fordow isn't just deep underground, it's heavily guarded and situated in the heart of Iran. You'd be asking U.S. or allied special forces to sneak deep into hostile territory, locate the fortified facility, sabotage it from within, and then escape. It's not impossible, of course, but it's extremely high risk.

and fordell isn't the only site under scrutiny let's not forget of course natanz now that's iran's other major nuclear enrichment site it's located roughly 150 miles south of tehran near kashan and was one of the first targets struck by israel last week according to rafael grossi he's head of the international atomic energy agency while surface structures at natanz were damaged or destroyed the most sensitive parts of the facility

Its underground cascade halls, well, they remain intact Those halls are where Iran runs both its test and production scale uranium enrichment systems They're heavily reinforced And if Israel's airstrikes didn't reach them, they may require bunker-busting strikes of their own So, while the Trump administration may not yet be officially "in the war" the pieces on the chessboard are being moved

Carrier groups, destroyers, refueling aircraft, massive bunker-busting bombs that only Washington can drop. If the White House changes its posture, either because of a direct Iranian provocation or a perceived nuclear threat, we may soon see the U.S. play a much more active role in shaping what comes next.

Alright, coming up next, Israel is hollowing out Khamenei's inner circle and the U.S. is pulling troops from Syria while Kurdish allies at the same time fear ISIS could rise again. I'll be right back. Hey, Mike Baker here. Look, if you own a handgun, you've likely faced a tough choice. Keep it locked up and safe or accessible but unsecured.

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Sticking with Iran, we're learning that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, newly isolated following the deaths of his top military brass in Israeli strikes, is growing increasingly concerned over the mounting existential risks facing his ruling regime. The 86-year-old Khamenei has good reason to be worried, frankly, as Israel declared Monday that they've established total air superiority over the skies of Tehran.

As we discussed on yesterday's PDB, their air campaign is quickly laying waste to the regime's missile stockpiles, aerial defenses, and offensive launchers, leaving their remaining leadership vulnerable to targeted attacks.

Leaders in Jerusalem and the US turned their attention squarely on the Ayatollah on Tuesday suggesting he could soon face the same fate as former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein if he doesn't cease his retaliatory strikes on civilians in Israel Saddam, of course, was hung after his regime fell in the wake of the US invasion of Iraq

In an ominous statement on Tuesday, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said, "...I warn the Iranian dictator against continuing to commit war crimes and launching missiles at Israeli civilians. He would do well to remember the fate of the dictator in the country neighboring Iran who chose this same path against Israel."

Now, President Trump echoed that message later on Tuesday, issuing a not-so-thinly-veiled threat against Khamenei as he demanded Iran's, quote, unconditional surrender. Now, Trump said, quote, we know exactly where the so-called Supreme Leader is hiding. He's an easy target, but is safe there. We're not going to take him out, at least not for now. But we don't want missiles shot at civilians or American soldiers. Trump added, quote, our patience is wearing thin, end quote.

According to five Iranian sources that spoke exclusively to Reuters on Tuesday, Khamenei is deeply concerned that his battered military could make a costly strategic error that imperils his hold on power, particularly due to the loss of his regime's top military leaders in Israeli airstrikes. In short order, Israel has killed the chief of staff of Iran's armed forces

the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC, the regime's aerospace commander, most of the IRGC's senior air force officials, and several of Iran's top nuclear scientists. Since then, Israel continues to gut Iran's top brass. A wave of airstrikes on Sunday killed the head of the IRGC's intelligence unit, his deputy, and several other senior intelligence operatives. On Tuesday, Israel confirmed that they've also managed to take out Iran's

new wartime chief of staff, just days after he'd assumed the country's senior military role from his terminated predecessor.

The systematic eradication of Khamenei's closest advisors has left the Iranian military with serious holes and raised the risk of a strategic blunder, according to the sources that spoke to Reuters. They said Khamenei views the situation as, quote, extremely dangerous and fears their less experienced replacements could make costly miscalculations on issues of defense and internal stability that could irreversibly damage his regime's grip on power, which, of course, is all he cares about.

He's said to now be relying on a smaller body of top advisors who cover political, economic, and diplomatic issues, as well as his 55-year-old son, who's reportedly coordinating decision-making across Iran's various military factions and proxy groups. It's worth remembering that under the Iranian regime, the army chain of command runs through the defense ministry under the office of the president, while the IRGC, well, they report directly to Khamenei.

The sources said Khamenei's son is seen by some insiders as a potential successor to the Ayatollah, particularly due to his close ties to the IRGC.

Now, we also can't forget that Khamenei is uniquely isolated regionally due to the destruction of his so-called Axis of Resistance over the past year and a half by Israel. His close personal ally in Lebanon, former chief of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed last September. His other close regional ally, former Syrian President Assad, was overthrown by rebels in December.

Okay, shifting to Syria. The American footprint just got smaller in that country as troops withdraw from two more military bases in the war-torn country's northeast.

In a Reuters exclusive, reporters who visited two bases in the Hasakah province in the past week found them mostly deserted. Only small, isolated contingents of the Syrian Democratic Forces, the SDF, the Kurdish-led force that Washington has backed for nearly a decade in the fight against ISIS, now hold the bases. The once-critical nodes of the American anti-ISIS campaign appear

appear, well, dilapidated. Their surveillance cameras removed, their perimeters visibly decaying under sagging razor wire. A Kurdish politician who lives at one of the bases confirmed that U.S. troops were no longer present. SDF guards at the second outpost were less specific, only saying the Americans had left recently.

It marks the first on-the-ground verification that these outposts have been abandoned by American forces. An SDF commander told Reuters from another U.S. base, "...the threat of the Islamic State has significantly increased recently. But this is the U.S. military's plan. We've known about it for a long time, and we're working with them to make sure there are no gaps."

Now, the Pentagon has not publicly commented on the full scope of the departure, but according to the New York Times, the Trump administration's plan is to consolidate forces at a single remaining base, slashing troop levels from roughly 2,000 to 500. That would reduce the total number of American bases in Syria from eight to one since Trump took office.

The SDF commander warned that the presence of only a few hundred U.S. troops on a single base would be, quote, not enough to contain the expanding threat of ISIS. The repositioning reflects a broader American strategy shift amid widening conflicts, including Israel's ongoing war against Iran, which began just hours before the SDF commander's interview.

As we've long tracked here on the PDB, the Syrian dictator Assad was ousted in December, of course, by Islamist rebels, ending more than a decade of civil war and triggering a collapse of the regime's centralized control. In the power vacuum that followed there, the newly formed transitional government has struggled to rein in extremist groups, and ISIS appears to be exploiting the chaos.

According to SDF sources, ISIS cells have reactivated in several cities, including the capital of Damascus. Foreign jihadists who once fought the Assad regime are now swelling ISIS ranks, and the terror group has seized weapons and ammunition from abandoned military depots.

In just the past few days, ISIS terrorists have killed at least 10 SDF fighters east of the Euphrates River in renewed attacks. And hours after the SDF commander's interview with Reuters, the US base was targeted by three Iranian-made missiles, which were intercepted by US defense systems, according to SDF sources. While the SDF commander declined to speculate whether the Israel-Iran conflict would spill over into Syria, he conceded that hopes for containment are slim.

With American troops thinning out and ISIS fighters becoming emboldened, SDF officials are warning that the fragile security order in northeast Syria is starting to fracture. Alright, coming up next in the back of the brief, investigators in India are now analyzing the black boxes to find out just what went wrong in that deadly Boeing crash that killed 270 people. I'll be right back.

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In today's Back of the Brief, investigators in India have begun poring over black box data from last week's Air India crash that killed 270 people as they tried to determine what led to one of the deadliest aviation disasters in modern history

As I'm sure our listeners are aware, an Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner en route to London's Gatwick Airport crashed just moments after takeoff in the western city of Ahmedabad Now, that was last Thursday and the plane hit a medical college hostel near the airport on impact All but one of the 242 passengers on board were killed in the disaster as were 29 people on the ground

Experts from India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau are now probing the disaster alongside investigators from the UK and US and officials from Boeing. So far, it's not clear what went wrong during the takeoff last week and officials cautioned on Tuesday that the investigation could take a considerable amount of time. That's according to a report from the Associated Press. They note that the plane was badly charred and the heat generated from the crash

could have damaged critical data in the black boxes recovered from the wreckage. Officials said a preliminary report will likely take three months to complete. If the data did remain intact, the black boxes will have a record of pilot conversations, emergency alarms, and any distress signals made before the crash. Investigators will also be examining data from the plane's digital flight data recorder, which stores information related to engine and control settings.

Additionally, they'll be probing the training records of the pilots, the total load of the aircraft, potential thrust issues with the plane, and any previously reported performance issues

In the meantime, Boeing is carrying out inspections and performing maintenance on Air India's entire fleet of Boeing 787 Dreamliners, just out of an abundance of caution. We should note that Boeing has been plagued by safety issues in recent years, particularly among their fleet of best-selling 737 MAX planes, which were involved in deadly crashes in 2018 and 2019 in Indonesia and Ethiopia that took the lives of 346 people.

But last week's tragedy was the first time their Dreamliner aircraft, which went into service in 2011, suffered a deadly crash in its 16 years of operation.

And that, my friends, is the President's Daily Brief for Wednesday, the 18th of June. Now, if you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at pdbatthefirsttv.com. And to listen to the show ad-free, which you know you can do, just become a premium member of the President's Daily Brief by visiting pdbpremium.com. And, of course, take a moment, if you can, out of your busy day to check out and subscribe to our very swanky YouTube channel. You can find that at...

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