PDB Situation Report | June 14th, 2025: Anti-ICE Riots Rock American Cities & Iran Dares Washington to Respond
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Welcome to the PDB Situation Report. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's

Let's get briefed. We'll start today's show with a week of anti-ICE riots across Los Angeles and other major cities. Rioters have torched vehicles, clashed with police, and shut down streets, all in protest of immigration enforcement. Oh, all that sounds mostly peaceful, doesn't it? We'll talk with Mark Krikorian. He's the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies about what's really driving the unrest.

Later in the show, Iran has officially rejected a U.S. proposal that would have curbed its uranium enrichment program, calling it, quote, not acceptable to us. So sorry about that. Jonathan Saeed from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies joins us to break down what this means for the ongoing talks. But first, today's PDB Spotlight.

It's been a week of unrest, as you have no doubt seen, as anti-ICE demonstrations continue across the country. Now, what started as a local protest in Los Angeles quickly escalated into coordinated riots from coast to coast. According to ICE officials, the unrest began as the agency targeted individuals involved in criminal activity, specifically money laundering tied to drug cartels.

But that explanation has done little to calm the crowds. Activists and agitators, they're always, always anxious to get out on the streets and throw some bricks, have now taken to the streets in cities like New York, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, and Atlanta, clashing with police, blocking roads, and setting fire to federal vehicles. Again, sounds mostly peaceful. The riots are raising serious questions about how immigration enforcement can function in this kind of environment.

and whether political leadership is fueling the flames. Joining us now to discuss is Mark Krikorian. He's the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies. Mark, thanks very much for joining us again on The Situation Report. Glad to be here. Thanks for having me. Let's start with a pretty broad question. Give me your take on what's been happening in Los Angeles, and now, of course, it's popping up and protests are popping up in other parts of the country, but give me your perspective. Well, I mean, the

What the Democratic politicians who are taking advantage of this rioting are saying is that immigration enforcement

is an optional thing, that if they opt out of it, they get to, you know, that it's okay for illegal immigrants to live there. A sanctuary city in the limited sense is a jurisdiction or a state that says, look, we're not going to help whites. We're going to stand aside. These guys are going a step beyond that.

into actual nullification, like South Carolina in 1860. And they're saying that we get to pick and choose which federal laws apply in our jurisdiction. And sorry, that's not the way it works. What's the legal basis? Let's talk about the way the Trump administration has handled this in terms of their actions with the National Guard. Are

Are they on firm legal ground there? Oh, absolutely. Completely. I mean, the president has the right to nationalize the National Guard in cases, as the law says, in cases of rebellion or a danger of rebellion or...

If federal law can't be enforced by the regular agents of federal law, whatever it is, whether it's there's been a case about the delivery of the mails was being somehow interrupted and

I forget which president it was, used the National Guard to make sure that federal processes were carried out. Obviously, enforcing immigration law is a lot more important than the mail getting delivered, but the principle is the same. If the normal process of enforcing federal law is being interfered with at the local or state level, the president has explicit authority from Congress to use National Guard to make that happen.

This may be a simplistic question. It may show my ignorance on the matter of sanctuary cities. But are they, I mean, meaning the sanctuary cities, are they on firm legal ground for doing what they did? I mean, it's been in place for some time now. But how did that process start? And did anybody ever ask, are they actually allowed to do that? Yes. Unfortunately, they have pretty broad authority in that regard because of the 10th Amendment.

Under the 10th Amendment to the Constitution, the feds can't, the way the courts put it, can't commandeer the resources of states. They can't say, you have to use your resources for this objective that we have selected, whether you like it or not. Often they do anyway, they cooperate. But what the issue here is,

in LA is it's not that they're not assisting, it's that they're obstructing federal law and that they do not have the right to do. There's one wrinkle to this. Congress in 1996 said it was illegal for any state or jurisdiction to prohibit its employees, its law enforcement people from communicating with immigration. In other words, they're not allowed to say like,

The LA County is not allowed under federal law to tell its deputies, you're not allowed to communicate with ICE. And yet they are getting away with it and the law has no consequences, no punishment for jurisdictions that do that. Yeah. I mean, it really is. It's fascinating because they do seem to be walking a very fine line here, meaning that the

the city management Karen Bass in Los Angeles, you know, telling the LAPD to stand down and to not respond, I mean, she's potentially contributing to violence, contributing to potential, you know, danger to human life, etc. by telling them and giving them those instructions. Now, if we look at, I'm not even sure how to describe it, the

behind the curtain support for this. I'd like to take some time talking about that because my belief is always anytime you see a protest, it's not organic, some sort of grassroots, just earnest people taking to the streets. There's always some element of organization there. From your perspective, what do you know about the individuals, the groups, the entities that are helping to organize this, that are providing funds and material support to these

these protests? Yeah, I don't have - there's other people who've looked into this and there is - it's clearly not just an organic thing that's bubbling up from the bottom. This is - I'm not sure how much money is necessary, what's needed is a kind of

It's almost like honeybees, they send the message out and they will all focus on - because they all kind of have the same instinct, they just need to kind of be activated to do it. So, it doesn't require George Soros in his mountain lair pushing a button or something like that, that's not the way it works. There are just large numbers of these anti-borders folks

who are just waiting for an opportunity to vent their opposition to border enforcement or immigration enforcement in general. And the thing is that

It's kind of like these Hamas protests. It's just they've sort of, some of them the same people as I understand it. They're just switched issues. And the Democrat, the regular Democrats elected kind of mainstream establishment Democrats much prefer that their street thugs work on immigration issues than on, you know, than supporting Hamas because that creates tension within the left.

Whereas opposing the very concept of limits on immigration is something that's a litmus test at this point on the left. So, it doesn't create those kind of internal conflicts. Yeah, I mean, there is a fairly deep pool of professional...

agitators and activists and it doesn't really matter what the cause is, they're just - they're happy to get out there and throw a brick or spray paint a police car or set fire to something. But again, the point that I think is really valid here is people need to watch this, what's unfolding on the streets and understand that it's not just

you know, some, you know, well-intentioned individuals taking to the, there are some, right? There are some, just like there are some, you know, gormless, well-intentioned students out in universities protesting. But for the most part, there's an active effort behind there. That's why you see, you know, materials handed out. That's why you see the same signs. That's why you see porta-potties out at protests. That's what, there's a reason why these things happen

the way that they do, and that's because they are being supported by a variety of organizations that tend to oftentimes not really care what the issue is. I mean, I take your point on sort of the broad-based support within that element.

for open borders. But they still, whether it's that or whether it's Hamas or Gaza or anything else, I think they're just looking for an opportunity to get on the streets a lot of times. What do you think of the messaging from the Trump administration in terms of what they're doing, what they're trying to do? I mean, are they...

Are they helping themselves? From your perspective, is it a good messaging effort in terms of explaining to the general public why they're out there on the streets with this effort?

Yeah. And I think, yes, but with a little bit of a reservation. The yes part is the administration has handled this pretty well so far. People don't like anarchists burning cars, waving foreign flags, all that stuff. And as long as they don't overreact...

they're going to win that narrative because that's what this is about. Rioting is politics by other means, to borrow from Clausewitz. And so the reaction, in other words, it's a political act and you have to win a political fight, not just bash the heads in of a couple of dirtbags, as satisfying as that might be to watch.

And so, so far, I think they're doing that fine. National Guard is not actually enforcing immigration laws, even though federal law would permit that. They're doing security for federal buildings and federal officers. So it's a kind of defensive thing. It's a smart move.

The only area of the reservation I would have is that the administration and the president have talked all the time about this being about deporting criminals. And a lot of the people they're getting are real scum of the earth criminals. But most illegal aliens aren't criminals. And if you're going to reassert authority...

and end impunity in immigration law, that means lots of non-criminals have to be also taken into custody and made to leave. And the reason for that is that they compete with American workers unfairly, they burden the welfare state, they create problems for assimilation. And you need to make that argument as well as the argument about criminals because everybody, even the people on the left, some, most of them anyway,

think that serious criminals should be deported. It's just that that's, there's just not that many, I mean, okay, let's say there's a lot of criminals among illegals, most of them still aren't. And if you want to deport illegal immigrants, you need to make a case to the public that this is about both deporting criminals and deporting regular illegal aliens.

Yeah, that's a really important point. I want to pick up on that in our next segment, Mark. But if you would stick around, we've got to take a quick break. We'll be right back with Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, and more on the Situation Report. Don't go away. This Father's Day helped Dad be all he can be with a gift from the Home Depot. Because he's not just Dad, he's the handyman of the house, the plumber in a pinch.

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Welcome back to the PDB Situation Report. Joining us again is Mark Krikorian. He's the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies. Mark, thank you very much for sticking around.

You made a really important point here. We were talking about the messaging from the White House, the effort to kind of push back against the narrative of what's out, for the most part, in the media, that ICE agents are just out on the streets conducting random raids and splitting up families and all the typical things that you hear. And the question being is, what grade do you give the Trump administration in terms of their messaging and their ability to help change

shape that narrative and get people understanding what they're doing. Your point, I think, is absolutely spot on. It's one thing to say, we're going out there and picking up criminals. I think you're right. Most people, and I would argue there are some on the hard left that would not be in favor, but most people are in favor of getting the criminals off the streets. But when you start going into Home Depots or you start going into wherever, Walmarts, and starting arresting people who are working, it

It creates a different feel. It creates a different dynamic. And particularly among the folks who are not in the Trump base, perhaps, the moderates or the independents, the people that he needed to vote for him, and they did to win this last election. But they're the ones who get a little sideways, get a little squirrely when that happens. How would you advise them on that? How do you do that?

There's two things I'd point to. One is, like I said in the previous segment, they need to talk about the issue as both getting rid of criminals but also workers and people who just shouldn't be here have to go even if they're not criminals. But the other thing is I think they - and I think they're working on this, they need to find a few employers

to make examples of them, employers of illegal aliens. Because the way the law is now, it's illegal to employ an illegal alien. Before 1986, it wasn't. It was explicitly permitted in the law to employ illegal aliens. In 1986, that changed.

But there hasn't been that much enforcement since then. And the law was written such that it's hard to make a case against an employer who has illegals on his workforce because you have to show that he knew they were illegal.

And there's all kinds of games they can play to avoid that. But the law says, look, if their documents are plausible on their face, you have to hire them. Because if you don't, we're suing you for discrimination. So the employers, to some degree, are caught kind of between a rock and a hard place.

And so, but they know, there are employers they know are dirty. And when you arrest illegals, now you have them and you can get them to sing like canaries about who in the HR department gave you the fake documents, that kind of stuff. Because that happens all the time. They're not, the illegal immigrants aren't going to talk unless you, unless there's some incentive for them. It's like arresting a street level drug dealer in order to get his manager kind of, you know what I mean? So-

They need to get some employers and they need to make the case that employers need to follow the rules, use things like E-Verify, which is an online system to screen out illegal workers.

And, you know, sort of share the burden, say that, look, illegal workers have to go, but employers that are knowingly hiring them, we're coming down on them like a ton of bricks. That is both right in a policy sense, but it also will help, as you were talking about, help sell this program to kind of people in the middle who want immigration enforcement, but maybe a little squirrely about it.

Would it have made more sense, this is all just speculation, but would it have made more sense for the administration to simply focus their energies and their efforts only on the criminal element?

within this community, right, of the illegal immigrants to say, okay, all we're going to do in the first phase is pick up the criminal element because that's what people understand. And then you say, okay, now we're going. And maybe that gave you enough time. A, you're building up goodwill by taking these people off the streets. But B, you're also allowing, you're giving yourself more time to create the message for perhaps a second phase. Because

I mean, I know I'm throwing a lot at you right now, but what I'd also like to talk about is the numbers. What numbers? They're all over the map, right? You hear, ah, it's 12 million, it's 20 million. They're all over the map. From your perspective, if the goal is anybody who's here illegally, how many people are we talking about?

Well, let me get to the first point first about the criminals only. Tom Holman had said, has always said, they're going to follow a worst first policy. But worst first doesn't mean worst only. And the analogy I use is to say traffic enforcement.

If you're a state trooper, obviously, if someone's driving 100 miles an hour through a school zone and shooting a machine gun out the window, you're going after that guy first, obviously. But there's not that many people doing that and you need to have routine enforcement if deterrence is going to mean anything. You can't concede anything.

that non-rapist illegal aliens get to stay. And that's what the left really wants. Even the mainstream Democrats, that's what they want to get that idea in people's heads. And you can't let that go. Like I said, the president, the administration are partly responsible because they haven't joined, combined the talk about criminals with the talk about the rest. But as far as the numbers go...

Our estimate now, our best estimate is something like 16 million illegal immigrants in the United States and it may be off by another million or so, but then the 25, 30 million, 50 million estimates people come up with, it's just not true. Because if it were, you would see it in the birth records, in the death records, in the school records. In other words, you can't have 10, 15, 20 million extra people

than you thought without seeking evidence of that. And one of the reasons though, people say, how can that be? One of the reasons is illegal immigrants come and go. Even under Biden, there were illegal immigrants who went home too. People do that for their own reasons all the time. The goal has to be to have more people go home and fewer people come in. But at the same time, our legal so-called, I put that in quotes, our legal immigration system, about one out of four people every year are former illegal aliens.

So, the population of illegal immigrants is kind of always changing and there are people leaving the illegal population even if they're still here. And then the ones who have children are US born, so they're US citizens. So, there may well be 50 million people who once were illegal or whose parents were illegal, that kind of thing, but actual illegal immigrants today, probably 16 million.

I realize I'm playing devil's advocate here, but realistically, they're not deporting 16 million people. So what is there a number they're looking to hit? I mean, what's the end game from your perspective with the administration on this issue? Because I don't see them sending 16 million people home.

Right. There's a couple of points here. One is, I don't know if the administration hasn't articulated an end game, and they really shouldn't in a sense, at least not yet. I just hope they have one in mind. You know what I mean? But they're talking about their goal is deporting a million people a year. I don't think they'll get there this year, but they might next year. It takes real resources. That's ambitious. But

The goal also is to get a comparable or greater number of people to self-deport. That's, in other words, to go home on their own because they don't want to get arrested. And they made a big push in that direction. If you turn yourself in, they give you a free airline ticket, oh, and a thousand bucks when you get off the plane.

So, but that ties into my earlier comment. People aren't going to self-deport if you're only going after criminals because most illegal immigrants are, I mean, they've committed immigration related crimes, but they're not rapists or murderers, they're just regular working stiffs.

If you go after regular working stiffs, well, now you've increased the odds that they're going to get arrested by ICE. And to avoid that, there are some significant number of people who will say, look, we're thinking about going home anyway, let's pack up and get out of here before we get arrested.

Is there an accurate or somewhat accurate number for those who have self-deported so far during this administration? Not yet. It's only been four months. The government data like this takes a long time to come up.

We're not sure about those numbers. My number cruncher research director has said, "Well, I don't know, that's kind of iffy numbers," but it is going down. And some people are going home and the goal is you got to do everything plausible to increase the number leaving and decrease the number coming in and then what you end up with is attrition. Over time, the illegal population shrinks.

But the end game should be at some point when they've reasserted control, there's still going to be some illegal aliens left. And for me, the end game is...

Amnesty the rest, rip off the Band-Aid in exchange for cutting legal immigration in the future. Because ultimately, we just have too much immigration period, legal or illegal, for purposes of assimilation, economic purposes, the welfare state, all of it. We need to dial immigration down from 11, which is where it's been for a long time.

I think you touched on a really interesting point that sometimes gets lost in the wash there, which is the sort of the attrition, right? If you're going after individuals, if people are self-deporting, if the message, basically you're talking about messaging again, if the message is, look, this is not acceptable, right? You do start getting fewer people saying, I'm going to make the trip into the U.S. You know, it's difficult, it's costly, it's dangerous.

And you get fewer people even starting that process to try to come into the U.S. And I think that's an important part of what you're talking about. It's just...

I know we started out by talking about the protests. I'd love to be talking more about those to get your perspective on where you think that's going to go, but that's going to have to wait for next time because we have run out of time. Mark Kukori, an executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies. Look, it's always a pleasure. Very much appreciate your time, appreciate your insight, and I hope that you'll come back again on the Situation Report.

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Welcome back to the PDB Situation Report.

This week, the Islamic Republic formally rejected a U.S. proposal that would have curbed its uranium enrichment capabilities. Now, Tehran says the offer was, quote, not acceptable and is now preparing a counterproposal of its own. Meanwhile, President Trump weighed in during an interview with Miranda Devine on her Pod Force One podcast. He expressed growing skepticism about reaching any meaningful agreement with Iran and made it clear the Mullahs, quote, will not get nukes on his watch.

All this comes just days before a planned sixth round of nuclear talks between Washington and Tehran. I'm sure that will produce the same as the previous five rounds. Joining us now to break it all down is research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Jonathan Sawyer. Jonathan, thank you very much for joining us today. It's a pleasure to be with you. Thank you. Let's start with this upcoming sixth round. That's six rounds of talks already.

That's going to be taking place between Washington and Tehran. What are you anticipating to come out of this latest round of discussions?

The latest round is particularly important because we're approaching a critical deadline called the snapback, which is arriving in October 2025. So, if the West, America and the European partners of the JCPOA, which be Britain, Germany and France, if they fail to agree on re-imposing sanctions

on Iran, they would automatically be lifted by this deadline. So from Tehran's perspective, their strategy has been to drag out talks to the best of their ability to one, revive their economy, and two, try to delay this potential snapback mechanism that would hold them accountable for their nuclear violations, such as enriching uranium in undeclared sites, weaponization efforts, and other similar matters.

Let's imagine that they are successful in dragging this past the deadline. Then what? I mean, then what takes place? I mean, if you could explain it to our viewers, I mean, what would be the options should the U.S. for instance want to lay on additional sanctions?

So, one angle would be, which is a very likely possibility, is for them to postpone this deadline. And that would signal to the Iranians that this administration is really, really keen on making a deal and is not necessarily seeking to leverage the existing weaknesses that Iran has.

That is one, perhaps, approach. The other approach would be to, of course, if they were to, in fact, initiate a snapback, Tehran has reiterated more than once that they are going to follow through with even more violations of the JCPOA that they've already withdrew from. So, as we approach this deadline, it's more so about the signaling as to where Washington and Europe stand on the issue, and it would be indicative of how much leverage Tehran thinks it has over the negotiations.

Do you think they have any leverage? Their leverage is gradually, I think, building. So when the talks first started, Tehran's defensive missile capabilities were a lot weaker. So their air defenses were destroyed by Israel's October 2024. In addition to that, they didn't have any nuclear

ballistic missiles and their stockpiles were also destroyed. So, that diminished their deterrence. In addition, their economy was definitely, I mean, it's still weak, but especially back then, the rial was trading for over more than a million over to the US dollar. As time has gone and as Iran has bought time, and as Washington has played into Tehran's strategy, their leverage is gradually actually building up and tilting the other way. So, their economy is now in a better shape than it was slightly.

because of course, the market is greatly about perception and they've started to redeploy some of their air defense systems around their nuclear sites. So from their perspective, they see Washington's reluctance. They also see that Trump is not providing Netanyahu with a green light to attack and they see that as leverage for themselves. So it has definitely shifted since the beginning of the talks. Okay. I mean, let's look at the economy just briefly. It's interesting that you said that it's in a

Well, relatively speaking, it's in a better position than it had been. What accounts for that? It comes down to perception in that particular case. So, when the average Iranian foresaw a war happening and saw a potential military strike led by both the United States and Israel, that immediately stoked panic. And what we saw as a result of that was the real went up over a million. And as soon as there was discussions of continuation of talks and when both sides mentioned that

Talks are looking more and more productive. The economy kind of revived to an extent. I think the real dropped to maybe about 7,000 to 800,000, which is still very, very high compared to years ago.

But another angle of looking at this is the domestic discontent against the regime, specifically by a sector that has been historically pro the Islamic Republic, talking about laborers. So truck drivers, people who work in the energy sector. And we saw massive, massive strikes very recently, like about a month ago, that was taking place all over the country.

So the momentum is there internally. And I think ultimately when we say the regime's Achilles heel, it's his economy that means you would have to leverage this domestic discontent against the regime.

On the PDB, we've talked about the protests, the truckers, but it seemed to go away as soon as it, you know, as quickly as it popped up. And yet, the initial coverage, the initial talk was, this looks like it could be sticky, right? That these protests could build for a change. Because it was, as you said, it was involving elements of the population that typically hadn't been out on the streets.

Where do the protests stand at this point? The way to analyze Iranian protests, the key there is the interval. So, what we've seen so far is that post 2009, and then you had 2017-18, then 2019, then 2020, what you see is they're happening at significantly shorter intervals. And that's for major nationwide protests. When it comes to demonstrations and strikes in

They practically have not stopped. And the fact that those trucker strikes were able to continue as long as they did, I think it went over about two weeks, that was unprecedented for the supply chain sector across the country to be stagnant to that extent.

Another angle of looking at it is there is no necessarily widespread organization between the different sectors. And that perhaps continues to be the weakness of the Iranian civil society. So if there were to be one strike fund for these strikers and there were to be more coordination across sectors, so people in the energy, oil, electricity, working at power grids, if they were to join the truckers, that would definitely yield a lot longer results.

But the issue at hand is the average Iranian who opposes the regime currently sees the West, the Europe and currently Washington saying, well, there's a possibility with a deal. We don't want to attack Iran. Trump has even said that Iran can be a great country with his current leaders. And that is perhaps the most demoralizing sentiment an Iranian can hear right now and definitely does not play into Tehran's weaknesses.

Definitely demoralizing. If you think about people risking their lives and their families, their livelihood to take to the streets and then, you know, hearing the West, you know, say things like, you know, they could be a great country under their current leadership. From what you're seeing, are there protests still ongoing or were they squashed completely?

What we've known is that they don't really squash or they don't totally diminish. The resentment builds up because none of these grievances are ever addressed. For example, looking at 2022 with the Women Like Freedom, the most major nationwide protest, it was not necessarily predicted when it would happen or what would be the prime catalyst.

And same with 2019 over the gasoline prices. No one could have predicted just simply raising gasoline prices would lead to such major protests across the country. So the fact that it's to an extent unpredictable, that means the resentment is just an underlying factor.

Another angle of looking at this would be demographic. So Iran is 60% under 30. You're talking about a population that is young. You're talking about a population that is no longer in the Cold War era. They have access to internet to an extent, of course, there's limitations, but they see Instagram, they're worldly people. The youth definitely look up to the West. So this gap between the society and the state has never been wider, which is why the momentum right now, specifically with Gen Z being

as vibrant as it is, is crucial. But Iranian birth rates are in severe decline as they are with most parts of the world. But in the Iranian case, the point is right now is great, great momentum. And if we lose this in the next few years, it would be significantly more challenging. It's a fascinating statistic to say that 60% of the population is under 30 years of age.

Approximately, yes. Maybe about half at this point. But roughly, it's a very, very young country. And the important fact about that is these are people that no longer buy into the regime propaganda. When you talk to the average Iranian young person, they're fascinated by America. They're fascinated by Europe. They follow Western pop culture.

Not to say they've lost their identity, but the closeness that you see by the regime is definitely not something you see on the streets talking to Iranians. Having actually grown up there, I moved to the States in 2013, and I still talk to my friends back home. The sentiment is still there. They're yearning for more support from both NGOs and, of course, governments.

What's the access like for young folks to the internet, to information out there? I mean, how heavily censored is it by the regime?

It's censored, but the most important component of that is the surveillance. So for the most part, most Iranians can theoretically have access to VPNs. That is basically an internet circumvention tool that allows them to browse the internet freely. And the regime to an extent has turned this into a racket. They benefit from it.

But on the other hand, that means they might allow you to go on Instagram perhaps, or maybe watch YouTube or watch foreign movies. But as soon as you utilize that internet access for political protests, or if you were to organize, then the regime would immediately crack down on that.

So, it definitely has changed a lot. The Trump administration limiting foreign aid through USAID to Iran has hindered the NGO's ability to an extent to provide VPNs, but technology is always advancing. So, what we're seeing now is actually Starlink getting smuggled inside the country, which is again really, really helpful with Iranians maintaining their connection to the outside world.

Another angle, when we look at it when it comes to political protests, originally, for example, in 2019, the regime fully shut down the internet overnight and they killed about less than 2000 people over a weekend. They just shot them on the street. But what we saw in 2022 was a pivot from that. They didn't fundamentally shut down internet. They did internet throttling, which means certain areas didn't have access to internet because a nationwide internet shutdown is even costly for the regime itself.

I want to pick up on that point. But Jonathan, Soy, if you can stick with us from the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, we do have to take a quick break. So don't go away. We'll be right back with more of the Situation Report. Stick around.

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Welcome back to the PDB Situation Report. Joining me once again is Jonathan Soye. He's a research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. We've been talking all things Iran. Jonathan, let's look at the U.S. administration's dealings with the Iranian regime up to this point over the past few months. What do you make of the

The gap between what we're hearing from the administration in the U.S. saying absolutely no uranium enrichment, that's a red line. And then we're hearing talk that they've submitted a proposal that would allow them to continue enrichment, but only up to obviously civilian levels, civilian purposes. What do you make of all of that?

To give credit to this administration, the latest proposal that was of course rejected by Iran was a clever diplomatic play.

So, my understanding, of course, we have to rely on leaks and open source information when it comes to these. But the understanding here is that Iran would have theoretically have had the opportunity to enrich, but they have to have built new facilities. And that would be under US supervision, actually a consortium that would involve different countries. But until that infrastructure was built, Iran had to dismantle its existing centrifuges.

And that's why probably they rejected the deal because the Supreme Leader has invested significant funds on these new centrifuges that they have thousands of, the IR-6 and 4s, I believe, that can enrich at a much larger scale and more rapidly. So that was, I think, the clever play that, hey, if you're claiming that your military use is civilian, then so be it. We'll allow you to enrich under our supervision, but you have to get rid of these high-tech ones and you have to ship

out, you're already enriched uranium, I think is about 400 kilograms. Yeah. And what's the likelihood that we would have transparent... Say that happened, right? Say we got that deal. But in your mind, what's the likelihood that we would have full transparency to know that in fact, they've shut down and dismantled all the facilities, not just the ones that we know about, and that they've shipped out their highly enriched uranium?

Very low. So, as we saw even in 2015, Iran had in theory allowed inspectors to come in, but we had to unfortunately rely on Israeli intelligence to tell us that there are undeclared sites

throughout the country that were enriching uranium. And when that was brought up to the foreign minister of Iran, he just laughed it off and said, well, no, that is bogus until the IAEA actually went and found signs of enriched uranium across. So that's always been the pattern with Tehran, that they try to always do it covertly to the best of their ability. When it comes to this specific current one, of course, in the short term, it might limit their ability to enrich. But again, we don't know how many sites there are.

Another angle on that would be that Washington has started the negotiations by saying one, no enrichment and two, inspections anywhere and anytime. And the fact that they're spending months effectively just arguing over enrichment itself, that means Washington is unlikely to follow through with inspections anywhere at any time. And they would, in theory, would have to just agree to limit it to just whatever enrichment they agree on. So it seems like inspections are becoming not a priority as much as...

enrichment is and that again has been Tehran's tactic of delaying and trying to cause distractions for the process. Yeah, I mean you could argue if you were a cynical person like I am, you know, and had to watch this situation over the years,

that any agreement that doesn't allow for full transparency is worthless, right? It means nothing. And if you base your expectations on past behavior, right? I mean, that's usually what a logical person would do, then you would have to assume that they would continue to cheat and not abide by any agreements.

I guess where I'm going with this is if we don't get a deal, you either get a deal or there's another option. That other option, of course, is a military strike against their infrastructure. I want to move in that direction. Again, nobody wants conflict, obviously. We're all hoping there's no conflict, but hope doesn't tend to be a very good foreign policy strategy.

Talk to me about the military option here, what that might look like. From your perspective, is that something that the US would support? Would Israel, even without US support, go at it on their own? I know I'm throwing a lot of questions in there. There's some speculation. I'm going to turn the floor over to you now. Sure. Absolutely.

Israel has signaled that it might contemplate a possible scenario where they would unilaterally bomb Iranian nuclear sites. They've indicated their capabilities of doing so. So in October 2024, where they bombed over 20 different sites, some of them were 500 kilometers east of Tehran, which is further than Yemen is to Israel, which means they have the capabilities to do that. They've eliminated Iranian S-300s that Russia provide for them.

So, Israelis to an extent have that capability. Now, even if American B-2 or B-52 bombers were involved, it is still debatable how much damage it can do.

And of course, it's not going to be an overnight operation. It's probably going to be a campaign because if you're going to escalate to that extent, then you would have to ensure that there's credible deterrence for Iran to follow up or not. So, in addition to targeting the different sides in the Trans-Fordal, you have to also take out their ballistic missile stockpiles like they have, and they're rapidly getting more and more fuel from China to further advance their domestic manufacturing capabilities.

So, as we analyze all these angles, I think the underlying factor is it's again a matter of time until they rebuild their nuclear infrastructure because they see it as deterrent. Which brings me to the main point being that the most effective way of ensuring that these weapons, Iran doesn't, the Islamic Republic doesn't acquire nuclear weapons is to ensure that the regime is in a fragile state that you can push it towards its collapse given that it's already so fragile.

But if they're going to pursue the military angle, I mean, the underlying question that I think I really have is whether they're going to limit it on the military front or they're going to go further and actually target the IRGC and the army and even the Iranian police's headquarters to perhaps provoke a sense of anti-regime uprising throughout the country or whether they would limit it strictly to military and not pursue, I guess, a regime change angle with that.

Yeah, I think once you start putting a potential scenario on the table with the title of regime change, you know, I think that that's where people get very squirrely, right? They, you know, they can understand a strike on the actual infrastructure. And I agree with you. Look, I think...

You know, if I was a betting person, which I am, I would put money on a military strike having to take place because, you know, I don't see these negotiations resulting in a meaningful agreement. Now, the caveat there is maybe the U.S. administration is just so keen to get any agreement

that they're willing to sign up to something that would look very similar, frankly, to the 2015 agreement. So, there's that angle to it. But I think you're right. You're absolutely right. A military strike is just putting Band-Aid on a sucking chest wound, right? It's a temporary fix. It kicks the can down the road. And so, you are talking, if we're going to be pragmatic and realistic, you are talking about

regime change, the fall of the mullahs and the IRGC as the only thing that actually improves, changes, provides for a much better, more stable, prosperous Iran for all the people and for the region. Now, what do you think about support from the region in the event of a military strike? Would this be the sort of thing where they'd all say, publicly, they'd be against it, but privately, they'd all be kind of nodding their head and say, well, it's about time?

If you're talking about the region specifically, the Persian Gulf Arab countries I think would be at stake. So we're talking about Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, the UAE. And open source intel suggests that they have signaled to the Iranians that, hey, if this were to escalate to a military confrontation, we're staying out of it. We're not going to allow them to use our airspace.

And that is in part because I think Saudi still remember what happened when Iran basically bombed Aramco with both missiles and drones, and they didn't necessarily get a slap on the wrist even. So when Iran targeted Saudi infrastructure, America did not respond immediately. So from the Gulf's perspective, I don't know if they can necessarily see America stepping in on their behalf to defend them in case Iran retaliates. And of course, Saudi Arabia being perhaps

to an extent, a leader in the region, I guess a regional power, if you will. Their policy has shifted a bit. The MBS started by waging a war in Yemen and yet the Khashoggi scandal. And of course, they were very staunchly anti-Iran at the time. But I think they've pivoted away from that. And they're focusing on building their economy, building their tourism industry, just turning Saudi Arabia into a

in their vision, perhaps a leader in different sectors that is just beyond military endeavors. So from the Gulf East perspective, I think they do prefer de-escalation. They don't want to get involved in this. But that said, I don't know if necessarily there's a major need for their direct involvement. Of course, the more support there are, the better. Ideally, we would see a coalition in this context. But as we've seen, Israel was able to take out their air defense systems and the American bombers are able to target Iranian nuclear infrastructure that are very, very deep underground.

Ideally, we would have European support as well that would further legitimize this because we don't want to clash with the Europeans the same way we did during the first Trump term over Iran. And it seems like Washington and Europe are more aligned this time around.

Yeah, no, I think that's a very interesting assessment. I think it's accurate as well. Look, I've really enjoyed, and I know our viewers have really enjoyed this conversation. Jonathan Soye, research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. We really appreciate your insight and your comments here today. And I hope that when we call you back, because we're going to call you back, that you'll pick up the phone and agree to come back on the Situation Report.

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