PDB Situation Report | March 21st, 2026: The Fight With Iran Takes A Dangerous Turn & Inside China’s Iran Problem

President Barack Obama. Virginia, we are counting on you. Republicans want to steal enough seats in

Congress to raid the next election and wield unchecked power for two more years. But you can stop

them by voting yes by April 21st. Help put our elections back on a level playing field and let

voters decide not politicians. Vote yes by April 21st. Paid for by Virginians for fair elections.

Ready, Seth? Go get your Toyota today with great deals on your favorite cars at your

local Toyota dealer like sporty new Camrys and stylish Corollas. Visit Toyota.com to find out more.

Toyota, let's go places.

Welcome to the PDP situation report. I'm Mike Baker from your eyes and ears on the world stage.

Let's get briefed. First up, the war with a rot you may have heard about it,

enters a new phase as both sides begin targeting critical energy infrastructure,

raising the risk, of course, to global supply and global economy. We'll be joined by research

analysts at the foundation for defensive democracies, Jonathan Syay for more on that. Later in the

show, China has a major stake in the war with Iran, relying on Tehran for the vast majority of its

oil imports. Casey Flemming CEO of Black Ops Partners and an expert in national security strategy

and unrestricted warfare. We're going to ask him what that means. Join us to break it down,

and how China could respond. But first, today's situation reports spotlight.

We're now three weeks into the war against Iran, and we're seeing a clear shift in the battlefield.

This fight is no longer confined to military targets or civilian infrastructure. It's now moving

into the global energy system. That shift became clear after Israel, struck around South

Paras gasfield. It's one of the largest in the world, and a critical piece of infrastructure

that they share with Qatar. Now, Iran responded, as you might suspect, by targeting energy

facilities across the region, including major LNG infrastructure. And it's now warning of

broader attacks if strikes on their infrastructure continue. So what's emerging is a new phase of

the conflict, energy for energy. I end with an Australian war moves under pressure. Of course,

the risks of global supply is growing and prices are rising. From more insight, we're joined by

research analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Jonathan Syay, Jonathan,

thanks very much for joining us again here on this situation report. It's a pleasure to be back.

Well, hopefully you'll feel that way after we finish our conversation. So let's start from the

kind of the top, I guess. It seems like we've kind of broken the dam here in a sense with

the targeting of energy infrastructure. Talk to me about that. So this was really a retaliatory

measure because you know, you're right to point out there's an economic angle. But the war started

with going after the military apparatus. And parallel to that was the refreshing size that we'll

get into in depth a little bit later. But afterwards, once everyone realized they don't have the

capabilities to meaningfully match or respond, uh, striking back at Israeli-American military,

they pivoted towards the civilian infrastructure. And that was a lot of, of course, homes, residential

areas across the Persian Gulf states and Israel. And after that, they quickly shifted towards

economic targets. So they did strike Saudi oil facilities. They went after ports that are

logistical hubs for some of these transports. And more importantly, I think it came down to how

they blocked the street of hormones. The economic implications of that are really like not even

comparable to other scenarios. So I think it's because of that that we seeing a retaliatory measure

from the United States and what mostly Israel against Iran and oil facilities. But that said,

the way that Iran went about this war of not only regionalizing it, but really,

yeah, going after the economic, I guess, chokehold of the street of hormones to this extent,

I think is going to be the main reason that Washington really hasn't concluded the war. They

could have declared a military victory probably by now given that they've destroyed all the military

sites, silos, launchers and some of the nuclear assets as well. But because of the implications of

how the street is closed right now, it unfortunately now or really fortunately, depending on who we ask,

the United States now has to finalize this before we move on to the next phase or before we

even reach a ceasefire. But they must have known. I mean, and by that, I mean, the US administration.

They must have known that this was going to come down to essentially the straight of hormones,

right? And energy because as you point out, I mean, look, there was no chance in the writing

regime was going to go toe to toe with the US and Israel, you know, missile from missile. I mean,

it just wasn't going to happen. Well, you have to assume I'm maybe I'm being overly optimistic,

but there must have been significant discussion and scenarios drawn up and then responses you would

have thought, although we're not seeing them, regarding what would happen if they block the

straight. Correct. They're certainly were, which is why the United States let the efforts against

the RGC Navy, Iranian naval assets as a whole, because that was seen as the primary way or tactic

for everyone to block that straight. But I think it parallel to that that maybe perhaps

many had not assessed or did not think about it that thoroughly was the drone component. So we

talked about Iran's military capabilities. It was mostly missiles. We went after the launchers.

So even they might still have thousands hundreds left, but they can't launch them anymore as often

as they used to numbers don't lie. But that's not the same case with drones. And they're actually

using these UAVs to go after some of these vessels. The issue with that is, of course, they're

smaller, they're cheaper. Iran has plenty more of them, but more importantly, they don't need a

launch site or launch pad. They could just be operated from practically anywhere. And it's because

of that that we can't really pursue any options of boots on the ground to secure the south,

the southern coast of Iran, because with these drones, our personnel would be really exposed to

any attack given the capabilities here. So maybe comes to that kind of a tactical decision there.

On the other hand, maybe the understanding was that by targeting the command structure of

the Islamic Republic, these forces would not have the capabilities to attack or you know, carry out

operations. Now we realize or maybe had already anticipated, but now it's very evident that the

regime's main body, the core military apparatus does not need a command structure or a supreme leader

to tell them to close the straight target civilian infrastructures or open fire on Iranian dissidents.

Given that this is a contingency plan, they had really a really structure for half a century. So

I think comes down to those two pillars that maybe we're not seeing immediate results in the

state of forms. Yeah, you have to assume they've had a playbook on the shelf for quite some time,

right? It is not the first time they've they've they've moved to blockade the straitings out the

first time they've made threats about doing that. So I guess I along with I suspect a lot of people

are really curious to know what conversations took place ahead of time to kind of anticipate the

way this was going to go because there weren't that many options for the Iranian regime. And I

do get the sense that to your point, talking about the command and control, the the structure,

the leadership, you know, you get the sense that perhaps there was an overconfidence that you know,

decimating some of that leadership would result somehow in a sea change within the direction of

the Iranian government, right? Maybe you know, IRGC commanders would rise up and say, okay,

enough's to not. Whatever there may have been some some optimism there and some hope. I don't

think that's ever a good way to to to base your your strategy. But let me let me ask you this if I

could Jonathan. The the strikes that Israel has claimed they're responsible for on the South

Paras gas field, right? Which then resulted in the Iranian retaliatory strikes, including against

cutters largest LNG facilities. Uh, Jerusalem saying that was us. Trump's come out and said, I

didn't know anything about it. You know, do you think that's true? Do you think there was no consultation

between the two nations on something of that importance? It is tough to really assess what we've

picked up so far between Washington and Jerusalem is that the overall objectives are the same,

but to one might have a different bar as to whether it would really label a success versus another.

So as we noted for Trump declaring a military victory, I would have a lower bar given the

given how overpowered the Islamic Republic's armed apparatus were. And you know, you can just

look at the numbers, how they don't have any missiles and launchers. So but then again, that doesn't

mean it's a military victory equates a moment comparable to the Berlin Wall collapse, for example.

The political successes, they were different from the military victory. But nonetheless, you know,

Trump can still sell that as something that he neutralized. It was a major threat from the

Islamic Republic and an attack was able to battle a lot of that. It is not the same thing for Netanyahu

because his policy against Iran needs to stand out compared to Israeli war against Hezbollah or

what happened in Syria with with Army the Jews or what have you. I think for the average,

Israeli voter looking at Netanyahu and of course, there's a lot of internal political unrest

against them. They want to see how this war was going to is different from the 12-day war.

So if this were to conclude and the regime would still stay in power, they might lose some

missiles, but they would still have the capabilities to rebuild them in let's say 5-10 years,

that is not going to be seen as a victory by Israelis. So because of that, I think the bar is

different, but the objectives are not between the two. And it really comes down to how we

assess the next phase of the war. If it's going to be somehow leveraging someone from within

the system to talk to, to see if we can get some sort of a deal that blitz unlikely,

or we're going to go about systemic regime change and really a transition of power across Iran.

Yeah, I like how this possibly apical of nothing, but I like how the New York Times in particular

when Al-Alarjani was killed just the other day. I like how they tried to paint it almost as if

he was a moderate, right? Like, oh my God, he was the one guy who could have these conversations.

And he was leading the nuclear talks. And of course, they didn't bother to mention that he was

also the architect of murdering thousands of Iranians during the recent protests and the

detention of tens of thousands of others. So it's always interesting how to see these things get

framed. But let me ask you this if I could. Do you think that regime change, let's call it that.

But again, sort of a significant change in the government. Is that a possibility from your

perspective based on what you're seeing at this stage? It certainly is, but very quickly,

I really want to address what you mentioned because it's very significant for us. As we're

engaging, whether we can talk to the Islamic Republic or not. So growing up there, there was the

2009 Green Movement. That's when a lot of people, myself included, we had hopes of bringing

somehow change from within the system. I like to, I can't quote, quote, unquote, the reformists.

Those who put up a facade of negotiations and appeasement, who as in reality, as you

noted out, they still have the worst crackdown resume. They still were about uranium enrichment.

They were still about arming proxies. But now the word reformist has now shifted to pragmatists.

All of a sudden, we hear this new term that somehow some of these individuals are meant to be seen

as rational thinkers or somehow different from the clergy. Different sides of the same coin,

this is if the Islamic Republic was a clock, these are different moving parts with the same agenda.

The idea that somehow we're going to turn it into a Venezuela scenario where we can somehow use

someone from within the system. One, it's not going to play well with the Iranian populists. They

want this regime gun in its totality. That's one and two. I don't know if Israelis are going to be

receptive to that. And three, and the most important one, you cannot get behavior change from an

Islamic Republic that was built on Islamist ideologies, anti-Americanism and gender apartheid. You

just can't do it. That point is no longer an Islamic Republic. But to your immediate question

about whether regime change is possible or not, this is the closest we've been. I think there's

a few factors that we need to really consider. Another war against the Islamic Republic was

inevitable after the 12-day war. It's really thought that we're not done with the situation.

Nuclear issue was so lingering. The missiles were a major issue. So it was about maybe they were

anticipating sometime later, 2026 to go about this. But what happened in January changed everything.

Once the regime weren't open fired on 40,000 on armed people within 48 hours, that was just

unprecedented. But it really informed the intelligence calculus in the West and Israel that not only

the regime less, more unpopular than we thought, but more importantly, the anti-regime momentum is

real. If the Crown Prince called on protests to take place and we saw millions come out

unprecedentedly, that in itself tells you that the opportunity was maybe closer than we thought.

So I think that shaped how we went about this war. And you look at how Israelis are going after

taking out the internal security infrastructure, the repression apparatus, going after different,

not only buildings, but individuals. Like now we see hyperlocal targets

specifically going after unit. And the publicize that they talk to Iranians and they say,

your time is near, the message of solidarity is there. So Israel definitely has an incentive

to push that through. The average Iranian on the ground sees this as no way but through. Because

if we fail to get regime change out of this conflict or regime collapse more so in this scenario,

Iran is going to turn to North Korea. And I think Trump was very accurate that when he said in

February 28th that it is now or never meaning if you fail to leverage this chance, this is for

generations to come, you're going to be stuck with this regime. So what I'm looking at for is

defections, any sort of signs coming in from inside the country that these military officials no

longer see a future with the regime. And they rather have their lives spared, join the movement.

And I think the next few days of not week is going to be critical. And it comes down to once the

day comes that the Crown Prince is going to call on protests to take place, that's we can truly

measure how much like how much we're able to degrade the regime's internal refreshing and how

much we cost fractures amongst the intelligence apparatus. Okay. I want to hold that. We're going to

pick up right where you just left off there for a second. So that raises a couple of other questions.

But Jonathan, if you could stay right there, we will be taking a quick break. And then we'll be

back with more from Jonathan from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies right here on the PDV

Situation Report. So you know what I'm going to say next, right? Stick around.

Hey, Mike Baker here. Let me ask a quick question about your personal finances. Have you looked

at your credit card statements lately? Now, you know what I mean, right? You're working 40, 50,

maybe 60 hours a week, just to buy groceries and gas and things you used to be able to afford.

Meanwhile, the credit card companies are charging you over 20% interest rates for the privilege of

using their cards. Well, look, if you're a homeowner, there is a real solution. American financing

wants to work with homeowners to help ease the high interest debt problem. American financing

has mortgage rates in the fives, right? They're showing homeowners how to use their equity to wipe

out their high interest debt. And the average savings for their customers is $800 a month.

Talk to a salary-based American financing mortgage consultant. There are no upfront fees,

no obligation, just to see how much you can save. And if you start today, you could delay

two mortgage payments. Give American financing a call. America's home for home loans is American

financing. 866-885-1881. That number again, 866-885-1881. Or just visit Americanfinancing.net-PDB.

Hey, Mike Baker here. Now, look, I do not mess around when it comes to comfort. And if something's

going to be part of my daily routine, well, it better, be comfortable, and it better,

hold up. And that's why I love cozy earth. Have you heard about them? Well, we recently tried their

socks. My wife got a pair and noticed a difference right away. Said they were soft, breathable,

comfortable all day. No bunching, no slipping. Who needs any of that? Then look, they've got sock

options for everything, right? They got working out socks. They got boot socks. They got

lounging around the house socks. I kind of sound like Dr. Seuss. So I gave them a shot. And yes,

they deliver. You put them on in the morning, and that's the last time you think about them,

and that is frankly what you should have with socks. Then there's the bedding. We got their

comforter on the bed now, and it's the same story. It's lightweight, doesn't trap heat,

and just consistently comfortable, right? No overheating, no kicking it off halfway through

the night. Just solid sleep. And that's really what cozy earth does very well. No hype,

just well-made products that do what they're supposed to do with incredible comfort. And they back

it up to a one hundred night sleep draw at a 10-year warranty. Think about that at a 10-year warranty.

Come on. So you can try it out without taking your risk. Go check them out. You're going to like

what you see. Discover how care and every detail transforms simple routines into real comfort.

Head on over to cozyearth.com and use my code PDB for up to 20% off. That's PDB for up to 20% off.

And if you get a post-purchase survey, well, be sure to mention you heard about cozy earth

right here on the PDB. It's not just something you made. It's the

privilege that you get to work with your hands. It's building something that serves a purpose.

Proof that you have the grit to keep going. At Timberland, we understand you take your craft

seriously, and we do too, which is why our products are built to the highest quality.

We put in the work so you can perfect yours with purpose in every detail and crafted with

intention. Timberland, built on craft. Visit Timberland.com to shop.

Welcome back to the PDB situation report. Joining us once again is Jonathan Sire,

research analyst at the Foundation for Defensive Democracies. Jonathan, thank you very much for

sticking around. We were just talking about the potential at this stage for regime change,

shift in the government in Iran, and you mentioned the idea that the next few days will be

very important. First, I want to ask you what's important about the next few days, and also

have you seen any indications or heard of any indications that you give credible reference to

for defections? Anybody coming out of the IRGC or any other elements that could provide

Graf's top cover for the people of Iran to come out on the streets.

On your first question, time is of SS for numerous reasons. Number one, the economic implications

and the oil prices, the market as a whole, that poses significant challenges. I think

Washington also has an incentive to conclude this as much as they can. On the other hand,

we've seen how Trump is able to enforce a ceasefire, like they did in the 12-day war.

Israel has had more of an appetite to keep the war going during June, but America put an end to

it. We know that the preference from this administration, of course, as they've always stated,

is to not bled wars drag out for too long. On the other hand, the Israeli population has been

going really at this for years. Since October 7th, they've been at constant war with different

entities. They have also economic implications for Israelis as well, but more importantly,

the average Iranian, who's on standby right now, hoping that this is going to be the last or

final battle as they call it on the ground, we risk losing them. So the idea here, or at least

how the war was perceived by the majority of Iranians, was that this was the help that was

promised to them. So once Iran is remasricred on the street, we saw them call for humanitarian

intervention, and this is that, this is what they were hoping for. But that doesn't mean they

won't regime change at any cost. They do not want to see heavy, heavy strikes against their

own as it's been going on. There's a limit. That's so how much the average Iranian can tolerate

before they get this illusioned parallel to that. You don't they do not want to see their country

fragmented any swarm of backing separatist groups, some of them that have tied to terror networks

isn't going to alienate the average Iranian. Also, because of that, I think it's in everyone's

interest to really move swiftly with this. So that's why the next few days are going to be

critical. I'm sorry for interrupting, but what does that mean to move swiftly on this? Yeah.

How does this, you know, it almost feels like, right? We're in a way, I don't know this

going to sound wrong, but in a stalemate, right? We're continuing the air campaign,

eating additional target packages. The straight aid is effectively blockaded. Now we've expanded

to hitting energy infrastructure, which is going to have an increasing shock on the global autonomy.

And yet, we're not seeing any real significant fissures within the Iranian government,

at least that, you know, we're aware of. So what does that mean? It needs to move swiftly.

What is the actual practical way that anything breaks free here? That would really answer your

second question that you originally proposed. But quickly, I would notice, I would mention that

when there was a new wave of conflict in Syria, it took a week for us to fall within that.

It would like within like a few days Assad was gone. Or another way of looking at it,

before Israel carried out the pager attacks, none of us could have speculated what the

Mossad was capable of until it happened. So I'm inclined to think there's a lot of covert

operations that a lot of us are not familiar with until it happens. That might be too optimistic,

but that has been the case in other Middle Eastern countries in the last six months. So that's

critical. Well, I would push back on the Syria thing only because obviously that was an armed

conflict, right? You had, you had an armed, yeah, you know, what do you want to call them,

a certainty or an armed force, whatever, uh, moving on the Syrian government. And of course,

say the Syrian military just collapsed and Russia did not come in to provide a support,

et cetera, et cetera. Here, you've got people who know if they go out on the streets,

there's a high potential for them to get killed. And, and I'm just wondering, you know,

how do you, how do you get past that? And I know what you're saying about the defections and the

cracks in the government and will you get that? And, and again, I go back to that earlier comment

that I think, you know, conversations were probably overly optimistic about what, how that might

happen. They were, they may have been too ambitious. I guess it's too soon for us to tell, but

the thing about fractures is that you're not going to hear about them until the day of the major

clashes that going to take place. Yeah. Uh, this, this stuff, so like for the IRGC, the personal

that would want to defect, you wouldn't hear about it now. So the Wall Street Journal put out

something very interesting that I think answers your question to an extent. So the most sought is

specifically going after certain mid-level commanders informing them that now's not the time,

but there will come a moment, will you have to decide whether you're going to be on the

side of the people or you're going to be eliminated just like your Supreme Leader was. So the idea

is that you have to change the calculus and how do you do that? You need to ensure that the average

IRGC or message personal on the, on the ground fears their lives as much as the protesters do.

And for the first time ever, they do because of the hyper-local attacks. So everything is in motion

for us to get there. And you have to one, you have to ensure that at least some of these guys,

as we said, defect and the first steps to that are desertions. And we're getting reports of that.

We're getting reports of IRGC guys. Again, not nothing is confirmed because it's a war zone,

so it might not be true. But there are a lot of reports that hinting at some of these guys

of refraining from showing up to the post because they're no, they're going to be killed.

There's no real air defense system. There are commanders that abandon them or they've been killed.

And rationally, it does make sense. If your foot-soldiers on the ground, even if you believe in

martyrdom, you still are not going to sit there like a sitting duck to just be exploded. So there's

an incentive there. Now, if I were to be a bit more pessimistic, the question is, do these

are personnel really think if they join the movement, they're going to be spared? Given the

blood that they have on their hands? So to your point, it's definitely not going to be that easy.

It's probably not going to happen overnight. But once that moment comes, also, we're talking about

numbers here. So if you have millions that are taken to the streets, that are backed by Israeli

drones as we've seen so far, there might be any incentives to arm them. There might be other

areas where Israel might be supporting separatist movements. Again, that's going to have its own

ramifications. So you have to look at it in a multiple stage level. But again, as to the very

details, I think that is going to happen very swiftly. And when it does, there's going to be so

many different developments that we have to, I guess, weigh in and see until then. But I think this

roughly addresses. I think you're right. I'm sorry for interrupting. I think you're right in the

sense that there's undoubtedly a lot of conversations going on, right, that we're just unaware of.

Within maybe the mid-level ranks, maybe even some senior level ranks of the Iranian military,

again, the IRGC, maybe other organizations, looking at this and talking about what their future might

look like, right? And we've had some good reporting, and we've covered some of that on the PDB

recently, that the Israeli strikes on the internal security apparatus are having a significant

impact on the besieged militia and other elements that have been responsible for suppressing

the people and maintaining internal control. And we're seeing, you know, some of that impact. And I

think that's from a strategic point of view, right? I think you could argue that they could have

even done that sooner. Obviously, they were busy working the missile program as target packages.

But, you know, I think going after the internal security, because if anything is going to give

the people on the street hole, it's seeing those elements that have been directly responsible for

keeping them, you know, under the boot, you know, being targeted. So I think that's a really good

point that you raised. It's certainly, and in the initial stages, they were going after this.

But here's the issue. They were going after the infrastructure. And it took the Iranian armed

apparatus 48 hours, if not 24 hours, to realize that they cannot stay in their basis. So they

evacuated it. So when we hear numbers that they struck like 8,000 targets, I think,

the sent-con was sent-con was claiming. Right. So that, and now we pair that with how many have

been killed, the numbers are generously 10,000, maybe 5,000. So that tells you a lot of these sites

where maybe one man was guarding it if anyone. And also, when you talk about the total armed

apparatus, it's about half a million. If you combine RGC, Basage, the conventional military,

the armed forces, different battalions. So that's still in quite an extensive number. But I think

what is the recent wave is the hyperlocal ones, specifically recording a video of it. And that's

the ideological aspect of recording these and saying, this is a Basage guy, and that was his fate.

Do you want to end up like him? Or do you want to take your chances and really maybe the fact?

Yeah, part of this is always going to be a situation like this is always going to come down to

some level of propaganda, of covert action campaigns, of trying to reach the people and get them,

so that in particularly in an information-starved environment, so that they understand

what's happening. And so, yeah, I guess part of the problem is, and you've certainly been

closer in this, is that over the years, so if you've watched what's happened since the revolution

79, you can develop a certain sense of cynicism. And every time you think, maybe this is it,

maybe this is the moment, then they continue. The regime continues to display this level of resilience

that it just didn't imagine that they would have, or the opportunity for the people at a certain

point, and then it just goes away, and it's back to business as usual. So there was just such

an enormous amount of hope, and it continues to be at this point, I think, within a lot of circles,

that maybe this is that time, but yeah, it's very tough to read, because again, part of the problem

is as you pointed out, it's a war zone, and it's Iran, and it's always been difficult to get

information out of there, intelligence out of there, that you can count on.

Very true, and you're right to point out that we've seen different episodes started in 1999,

2009, that again, we saw it in 2016, 2017, 2022, and now with the recent wave. But I do think

there are a few factors that set the support. One, I think post-October 7th, Israel is set on

something major in Iran. So I think that is one key element there, that is really trying to

advance some sort of regime-shaped policy. We haven't seen that level of appetite from Washington,

really post George Bush, even the fact that Trump went this far, I think, was unprecedented.

Post that era. So that's one key factor. The other one is that Iran is a very young country,

and you have these young people, it's 60% about the age of 30, that have only lived under regime

brutality. And that in itself has really, I don't want to say radicalize the population, but as

we could cultivate a sentiment amongst the people that it is really now or never for us,

because it's either this or as Iranians, we cease to exist. And that was not the mindset.

I remember being on the ground, we did not feel like as a country that there was an existential threat

against us by our regime. Now that's the mindset. So that's very different. And like, listen,

you saw 40,000 people die, get massacred on the street. For them to risk their lives, that was

also unprecedented. I would not have predicted, no one would, that this many Iranians would risk their

lives and really take to the streets. The question is, does the same energy exist? Does the same

morale exist? And that's why I say time is of essence for us to be leveraging that against the

against the Islamic Republic. But that said, you know, cynicism is there. But at the same time,

we can't let the Iranians people to lose their hope because that is ultimately the main leverage.

And the more this drags out and the more there's less information that risks of demoralizing them.

It's really interesting what you said, Johnson. You know, the idea that you couldn't imagine that

that that many people would turn out on the streets in protest. But I suspect those people who

did couldn't imagine that even their repressive government would be that brutal, right? In that

moment, just shocking. Jonathan, say, listen, I always a fascinating discussion. And it really

appreciate you taking the time to join us here on the situation report. And I hope you'll come

back again. Thank you for having me. Great conversation. Jonathan Sayy of the foundation for

the answer democracies. Great. Great guy. Terrific insight. First hand insight into, you know,

how this is playing out on the streets. All right. Well, coming up next, the war with Iran is

creating a high stakes dilemma for China. That's right. One that could both impact its economy and

its global strategy, national security and unrestricted warfare expert, Daisy Fleming joins us to

explain what Beijing's next move could be. Stay with us. Hey, Mike Baker here with an important

message about improving your personal finances. Now, a lot of folks have had experiences with bad

credit, unfortunately, at some point in their lives. And if you're in that boat now, I want to tell

you about ava, ava, ava is an incredible credit building app designed to work fast. So your credit

score can start climbing with almost zero effort. Ava reports all your on time payments, including rent

and utilities up to 24 months back. So you build positive history. In fact, members improve their

scores by an average of 30 points in 30 days. Take control of your credit today. Download the Ava

app. That's ava. And when you join using my promo code Baker, well, you'll get 20% off your first

year monthly or annual your choice. Again, grab the Ava app and use my promo code Baker and you'll

get 20% off any plan for up to a year. That's promo code Baker. Thanks to Ava. Now go get yourself

good credit. Hey, PDB listeners, Mike Baker here with a quick recommendation for your podcast playlist.

Look, if you like deep and insightful conversations with world-class thinkers and who doesn't, come on.

Check out the Jordan Harbinger Show. It's available on the Apple podcast Spotify or wherever you listen.

Jordan sits down with people who've been in the room at the highest levels from national

security leaders to thinkers reshaping how we understand the world. You'll hear ideas and stories

that go way beyond the usual sound bites. Two episodes I'd recommend are you interview with our

friend Ryan McBeth on Venezuela's collapse. That's a clear look at how a once wealthy oil state unraveled

in what that means, of course, for regional stability and also his conversation with Douglas Murray

where they explore the pressures facing Western democracies and what those trends mean for long-term

stability. Download the Jordan Harbinger Show. That's H-A-R-B-I-N-G-E-R just like it sounds.

On Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your shows or just go to JordanHarbinger.com

slash start to dive right in. It's one of those podcasts to make you smarter. So give it a go.

Work moves fast. Every email, report, and proposal counts. That's where Grammarly comes in.

It's your one place to think, write, and finish. Grammarly's AI agents help you find natural

phrasing, fine-tuned tone, and confidently write wherever you work. It's the premiere writing

tool that 93% of users trust to get more work done. In a world of generic AI, don't sound like

everyone else. With Grammarly, you never will. Download Grammarly for free at Grammarly.com.

Welcome back to the PDB situation report. As the war with Iran enters its third week,

now, time flies, China is watching closely, of course, and it has a lot of stake here.

Beijing has built a deep strategic and economic relationship with Tecron,

and nowhere is that more evident than in the energy sector. China currently imports roughly

90% of Iran's oil exports, making it a critical lifeline for the regime as it navigates international

sanctions. That means any disruption to Iran's production or the flow of oil through the region

as direct consequences for China's economy and its broader strategic ambitions.

The question now is whether Beijing stays on the sidelines or becomes more directly involved.

Joining me now is Casey Fleming, CEO of Black Ops Partners, and a recognized expert in

national security strategy and unrestricted warfare. He's also the author of a terrific book,

if you haven't picked it up yet, I don't know what the hell you're doing with your time.

The book's called The Red Sinami, the silent storm killing your freedom.

It's available on Amazon, and I highly recommend you go get it, okay?

All right, Casey Fleming, thank you very much, man, for joining us here today.

Thanks for having me, Mike.

Well, let's approach this from 30,000 feet to start with.

Talk to me if you could, and explain to the folks watching the significance.

Why is China so concerned about what's happening with the Iran conflict?

And I guess the second part of that question,

do you see any scenario where they get more involved in the support of Iran?

So China is the 4,200-pound gorilla in the room.

They have been added for well over 40-plus years to destroy America from within

for complete and utter takeover.

It's called unrestricted war against the people.

In the past, we've been trained that war is with military to military.

Not in this case, they realized back in the Gulf War that they could not go ahead to head with us,

so they said, how else can we get them?

So it's weakening the United States from within by putting every man, woman, and child on the

front lines, fentanyl, drug warfare, COVID, all the rest of it.

So they are the grand puppeteer underneath them, Russia, Iran, Pakistan, North Korea,

drug cartels, and underneath Iran are the terrorist organizations.

So that is really the big picture. Don't be distracted with the war of the month, with Iran.

However, Iran is one of their key components, their key partners, their key pillars.

They are the strategic forward operating base for Russia and China in the Middle East,

just like Venezuela was the forward operating base for China, Russia, and Iran in the Western

Hemisphere. So all of this is connected. If Venezuela, drug cartels, as I just mentioned,

Iran all roads lead back to the Chinese Communist Party and their complete and utter destruction

of the United States. So Iran is their key pillar. They've been funding Iran. They've been

ensuring Iran against all the sanctions that the US put forth. They say, hey, don't worry about it.

Any sanctions US puts on you. We'll take them off. We'll cover it. So just even after the

attacks started, we saw that there are two Iranians ships, immediately after the attacks,

our offensive started. Two Iranians ships were in port in China receiving solid rocket fuel,

and they made it back to Iran. Now, will you see boots on the ground? Will you see ships? I doubt

that. I think it's everything that they can do to support them in that war, whether it's components,

and they're building drones for Iran in China, supplying components for the drones, the electronics,

and engine mechanisms, and so on. So it is a strategic partnership. Don't be distracted by the

war of the month. The biggest strategy, the biggest enemy, incidentally, the head of the FBI,

Christopher Ray, for seven years, said the largest single threat to the future of the United States

is the Chinese Communist Party. Kashpatel has echoed that as well, and so this follows all along

the same lines, and again, it's unrestricted war, where every American is on the front lines,

and they sense it, but nobody would step forward and tell them the truth. Nobody would step up

and connect the dots until now. We've talked about it a lot on the PDB, and I've talked about it

over the years in terms of China's influence, our efforts, their theft of economic intelligence,

their economic espionage, their theft of research and development, the cost of all that,

it's not even quantifiable, it's so significant. And I think it's only been that past few years,

where there's been an effort, mostly by, and again, look, love them or hate them, but mostly by

the Trump administration, frankly, to focus on the threats coming from China. Now, I want to talk

about their involvement with Iran, because there's a school of thought that says, China never gets

involved. They only do what's in their best interests. They always talk about, we just want peace,

everyone should work together for peace. They never get their hands dirty in things. That seems

to be because, in part, maybe they don't like the chaos, but when you look at the potential

damage that a change of government and alignment with Venezuela and a change potential, I'm not sure

if it's going to happen, and a lot of people are skeptical about whether you get a change in

government in Iran, but that's really significant, you would think, from Xi Jinping's perspective.

It is. And don't forget, we took out the head about a Mexico with our assistance.

Insistence took out the head of the worst cartel with strong operations and all 50 states in

the US. So all of those are basically putting Xi Jinping on check, because he has been expanding

for the past 30 years unchecked, and in certain circumstances, other administrations have been

accelerating their growth with Iran, with China, and so on. So yes, Lovermer Haydom, Trump

has basically put him in check over the last few months, took 30 years of complete ignorance

towards China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, and their global aggression towards the free world and

taking over the free world. So Lovermer Haydom, he did this for America, he did the housekeeping,

nobody else would do over the past 47 years, and it doesn't matter where you start, the longer you

wait, the uglier the housekeeping is, and we're actually there. So it's a nasty situation, but it had

to be done. Yeah. What do you think about this? There's been some fairly credible reporting,

of course, the Kremlin denies it all, that Moscow has been providing Iran not just with

intelligence, but also now assistance in making their drone strikes more lethal, more more

effective, right? And obviously sharing their experience over the past four years of Putin's

invasion. Now, have you seen anything that would indicate that China has been engaged in anything

along those lines with Iran? Yes, they've been providing satellite intelligence as well,

they've got their own satellite system to compete and replace US GPS, which is a by-do that they

use of their own satellite system, which is really excellent in targeting. Same thing with the

Russian thing, as you mentioned, with the drones, their targeting has gotten a lot sharper,

even since the beginning of the war, which is not good for us and not good for our allies in the

Gulf. So it really is stepping this thing up to be very serious, make no mistake. So make no

mistake, Russian and China are completely behind Iran financially, military equipment, military

training. And by the way, even in Iran, you had the Iranian IRGC using Chinese surveillance

and AI and tracking to track the dissidents in the non-believers and the non-supporters

for murder. So they helped execute 32,000 people by identifying them for the IRGC to go in and

kill these people. So China's got blood on their hands on this thing. But again, to your point,

they always like plausible deniability. And don't forget, these guys still follow SunZoo to the letter.

So everything is done on deception. If the CCP is moving their mouth, they're lying and nothing

that they've ever agreed to since day one with Nixon and Kissinger and Bill Clinton and the WTO,

they've never honored any agreement that they've ever agreed to do. So this is the true enemy. It is

the most serious enemy the world honestly has ever faced. It's the number two economy that we

built this monster. So again, China is the, you know, all roads lead back to China. And let me say

there's only one China. And it's completely controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. And if

you remember high school history, communism and freedom do not mix. They are oil and water. They

cannot coexist. So that's what China is up to. They are trying to non-coexist by taking us out of

existence. Yeah, I want to pick that up up to the after the break because, you know, the past

well, several decades. You know, it's all better about what? Oh, you know, we're not really adversaries.

We're living in the same, you know, global economy. And we want to find strategic partnerships and

et cetera, et cetera. That's always been the approach. And whether people believe it or not,

nobody wanted to come right out and say, look, they've created with our help an unleveled

playing field. And they also believe that their rightful position is at the top of the food chain.

And Xi Jinping, in particular, has been very clear about that. KC, if you could say right where you

are, we've got to take a quick break. We'll be back with more from KC Fleming. And you should,

again, check out his book. It's an excellent one. It's the red tsunami, the silence storm,

killing your freedom. And again, it's available on Amazon, but we'll take a quick break. And then

we'll be back with more from KC Fleming here on the PDB situation report. So as you know, stick

around. Hey, Mike Baker here with some good news from our friends over at CB distillery. The VIP

sale is happening now at CB distillery for limited time. You can save up to 50%. That's 50% on

everything when you use the code VIP. If you're looking for better sleep or managing daily stress or

easing stubborn post workout discomfort, well, CB distillery has plant based options to support

sleep and mood and focus. And yes, it's true. They even have CBD products for your pets.

My own favorite is their sleep gummies with a combination of melatonin and CBD. Look, I'd

spend a lot of time traveling and constantly moving through different time zones can really mess

with your sleep. Every CB distillery product is made with premium, clean ingredients with no

artificial fillers with over 2 million customers. Get that CB distilleries become one of the most

trusted names in CBD. So if better sleep, calmer days or natural relief sounds good,

well now's the perfect time to check out CB distillery. Take advantage of the VIP sale and save up

the 50% side wide with code VIP. But hurry, the sale won't last long. Visit CB distillery.com

and use code VIP to save that CB distillery.com code VIP. Specific product availability depends

on state regulations. Craving the coffee flavor you love. But without the caffeine,

kachavas got you covered with their newest coffee flavor. This all-in-one nutrition shake delivers

bold, authentic flavor, crafted from premium decaffeinated Brazilian beans. Quality nutrition

shouldn't be complicated. Just two scoops of kachavas all-in-one nutrition shake and you've got

25 grams of protein, 6 grams of fiber, greens, and so much more. Whether you're craving that

coffee taste to kickstart your morning ritual or as a nutrient-packed reward to round out your

afternoon, kachava keeps you fueled and satisfied wherever your day takes you. Plus, it actually

tastes delicious. No fillers, no nonsense. Just the good stuff your body craves. And for the times you

feel like switching it up, you've got 7 flavors to choose from, all with the highest quality ingredients.

Treat yourself to the flavor and nutrition your body craves. Go to kachava.com and use code

news. New customers get 15% off their first order. That's KAC-HAVA.com code news.

The New York Post has been delivering impactful headlines for over two centuries and every

weekday morning I'll bring them straight to you. I'm Caitlin Becker host of The New York Postcast.

From Washington to Wall Street, if it matters to you, you'll hear it here. And it wouldn't be

the post without the stories other outlets like to ignore. So ask your smart speaker to play

the NY Postcast. Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome back to the Situation Report. Joining me once again is the CEO of Black Ops Partners,

Casey Fleming. Casey, thank you very much for sticking around. Let's just talk briefly for

a good about China and Taiwan. Now, it was interesting. The recent testimony up on the Hill,

Capital Hill, where the general consensus from the latest Intel assessment, you know,

sort of their annual report about what to watch and what to be worried about indicated that they

felt China wasn't interested in moving on Taiwan in 2027, looking forward just a brief bit.

What are your impressions of this? What's your perspective on China's intentions, you know,

particularly from a timeline regarding Taiwan? Our intelligence community and our federal government

has underestimated China and the Chinese Communist Party since day one. So Xi Jinping just gutted

all of his top generals. He has no operational experience, but that's not going to stop him.

He's been very clear in 2027. He fully intends to take over Taiwan. And now, now with,

if you look at it from his perspective, from the global impression and the global branding that

Trump went in and took out Venezuela, Mexican drug cartel head, and now Iran, that gives them in

his mind full license to go forward. There's also school of thought that says those top two generals

that were left that were fairly loyal to him did not want to engage Taiwan. And so that's why he

let them go. But that's really what's at the crux of this thing. And by the way, their economy is

being run into the ground for five years. Their real estate economy is vapor, toxic cards.

Their banking economy is a house of cards. And now the rest of their economy is a house of cards

as well. So what you have is don't say, well, how are they going to fight a war? Well, guess what?

Wars have a tendency to reset all the banking figures and reset the economy. So in other words,

I can't think of another country that can use a war than China right now. So don't count them

out. You know, if you the other thing is you know this, Mike, when you're at war, you have to

become intimate with your enemy. You have to think like them. And that's what we've done. When we

came aware of this, my team and my company came aware of this 16 years ago, we all roads led

back to the CCP then and they do even more now. So we've become very intimate with that enemy.

They believe that they ran the world for 2300 years. The last century, 1850, tonight with which

started with the opium wars to 1950 World War II where the Japanese came in and the Americans had

to kick them out. That is the century of great humiliation. And then they feel like the rest of

the world is theirs for 23 new, the additional, the next 2300 years. And it's their rightful destiny

to to run the world. And if you're not Han Chinese, that's H-A-N Chinese, then you're inferior

and you're either going to be a slave or you're going to be killed with additional viruses

that are coming out. Now, I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I work off of data, facts and intelligence.

And that's coming from the intelligence community. Yeah, look, I mean, you go back to late 2019

and there were rumblings about, you know, problems and something happening and concerns over

the Wuhan lab. And then suddenly all that got, again, it was a very strange time. But the

speed with which the administration at the time wanted to not talk about China as the origin of

this rather, you know, and from a lab perspective was very puzzling. It's interesting what you

mentioned in terms of how Xi Jinping interprets or processes what's happened recently in Venezuela

and now in Iran, possibly in Cuba. As, okay, you know, now the gloves are off. I see that's how

the world's going to operate at this point, a regime change or removing leaders. And so I think,

I think you're right that Xi Jinping looks at it possibly as the door is open now.

Absolutely. The other side of it is that it's always been their plan and we know this from our

own intelligence to keep the United States spread between three wars and a terrorist organization.

So that's Ukraine, that's Middle East, a future war with North and South Korea, or you name it,

and then terrorist organizations to keep the main land of the United States on the back of your

heels with this terrorist event, that terrorist event and so on. So at that point, they are weakened

enough to where we can get what we want by taking over Taiwan. And by the way, the rest of the

South China Sea, which is rightfully, quote, in their words, rightfully theirs.

Yeah, it's interesting. China looked at, I think they've, well, they've been following a

long since the, you know, certainly the, the efforts in Afghanistan. But they've, they've looked

at our effectiveness in conflict zones, right? And from a US military perspective. And of course,

you know, then they kind of got on the giddy up to improve their own military capabilities.

How effective have they been? And you touched a little bit on the restructuring, the reshuffling,

the removing of, of key leaders within the PLA. But how effective do you think they've been

in modernizing their military at this point? They've been very effective in stealing. We taught

them how to manufacture. We taught them how to manufacture efficiently. We gave them intellectual

property and the intellectual property we didn't give them. They stole and they've got a massive,

they've got an incredibly effective system for stealing intellectual property. So all that

combined, the issue is they have trouble putting it all together at the end. So it all looks good.

But there's final tweaking that needs to be done. So that is, that's not that far off. So

you have to understand what unrestricted warfare is. Unrestricted warfare says we're going to,

there are no rules. And we are going to take out our enemy from the inside, have them destroy

themselves from the inside with cognitive warfare, which is social media, tick tock, schools,

all that, drug warfare, fentanyl, all that other stuff, biological warfare, which is COVID-1,

COVID-2, COVID-3. Incidentally, COVID now is known to be an absolute bio weapon, which was a lab

leak. That's on the White House's website calling it a lab, lab leak. So it's out there now. So

everybody knows this is going on. So that's really what's it's saying. So unrestricted warfare,

they never want it. They follow SunZoo when the war without fighting. So the last stage of

unrestricted warfare, which they hope they never have to go to, is military conventional, the hot

war. They want us to capitulate. They're killing 150, they're murdering 150,000. Yes, double the

number than the government reports. They're murdering 150,000 American military age young men and

women every year with fentanyl. My question to you is, why are you not seeing that on the front

page of every paper and on every news program? Because your mainstream media is corrupted and

compromised. So you're losing 150,000 murders every year. That's the same as 2737s going down

every day. 350 family funerals every day. And the same as World War Two never ending. So why are

we not holding the Chinese Communist Party accountable? And why is our government not standing on that?

Yeah, I think it goes online with, I'll bring up that intel assessment, the latest intel report.

They came out that was discussed up on Capitol Hill in the latest hearings.

And John McLeft was there, Tulsi Gabbard was there. And they talked about their assessment.

But the intel community's assessment of China is that, and I find this interesting,

right? I find it, I don't want to say it's, it's because it's not naive. A lot of smart people,

you know, that are involved in this. But it's the way that it gets phrased is that, you know,

they don't want to take it by force. They don't want to, you know, they're not going out. And then

the implication becomes, because you've said that, because, you know, the assessment is that China is

not looking, you know, to engage, they don't want to engage in military takeover of Taiwan. The

implication there is that, oh, okay, we don't necessarily have to worry about this. But there's,

there's little talk beyond that of this, these other efforts to go on, right? To win the war without

firing a shot. So it's very important what you're talking about. It's, you know, look, the Soviets,

you know, have did the same thing in their day. You know, the Russian intel operator, I just still

believe is the same thing. They can, they can corrupt America. It will fall on its own,

because it is corrupt and they'll do everything they can to help support that move.

Yeah. So, you know, we do tend to get kind of blind, blinders on where we just look at,

well, how many naval ships do they have? You know, how many aircraft do they? How many tankers do

they have? And we forget about everything else that goes on. And I'm glad you raised, again,

this, this point of the theft of information, they, they had a whole plan and said, we're going to,

we're going to bypass the research and development, all the heavy cost of that over the years,

and just hoover up everything from the US and, and, and allies in the West. Now, you could argue,

they bypassed a generation or two of engineers, you know, developing that, that ability, but they've

been working very hard now to, to, you know, correct that problem. They have by putting their,

what us allowing their students to go into US universities and to steal information. People don't

understand that when a Chinese person, Chinese communist citizen leaves the country, they have to

check out with their local police station and they have to sign a loyalty pledge to the Chinese

communist party. They must talk about, they must agree to espionage for national, the national security

laws of the CCP of 2015, 16, 17, 18, that they have to be loyal to the CCP. So we're teaching these

kids right next to our own kids. And then I've, I've had CEOs tell me, well, how the hell do these

guys have all this information? How can they act us so bad? I mean, how can they be so good at

this? I said, well, I can promise you this. It has nothing to do with their kids sitting right next

to our kids in internet security classes and master's degrees in internet security. I promise you

that's not the case. And so it's all those things. By the way, one of the things that you mentioned

also is, you know, our government kind of downplays this. Don't forget, our government is politicized.

And a lot of our lawmakers receive CCP money in their re-election packs. So that's called

foreign influence. And that absolutely has to stop. If you think there's any foreign influence

inside the walls of China, there's not. And they have a Chinese firewall with technology. Nothing

gets in. The same thing needs to happen with us. Block everything from China and absolutely

foreign influence will get you treason and your luck will give you a rub. But that would imply

campaign finance reform would imply maybe the end of stock trading. I'm not sure any of those

going to happen, but I'm glad you got your book up there because that's, we've run out of time,

but tell people value book and how they can get it. The book was written for you. It's written for

every man woman in China, because you're on the front lines of this war. It's unrestricted war.

It's the most important thing you'll ever read in your entire lifetime. I'm not a book guy. Never

wanted to write a book. Still don't. But here it is. I connected the dots for you when nobody else

would. It's backed by over 20 top intelligence. Who's who? In the world as well as subject matter

experts and it connects the dots for you to understand what's going on and what's happening now

and in the future. This is the most important thing that's going on in your life. Nobody's told

you about it. Excellent and available on Amazon. Amazon everywhere. Amazon Barnes and Noble. Ingram,

you name it. Well, I'd recommend that the BDB global community go out and check out that book. It

is an incredibly important topic. In case you're Fleming, I want to thank you very much for taking

the time and to join us here on the situation report. And I hope you'll come back next time we pick

up the phone and call you. Well, that is all the time we have before today's BDB situation report,

right? If you have any questions or comments and I hope you do, just reach out to me at pdb

at thefirsttv.com. You know what we do with your cards and your postcards and your letters and your

fax. Anybody write letters anymore? People send postcards anymore? I don't know. I think we'd be a

better world if we did. Maybe you write one letter every week to somebody you know, right? How

much fun is it? You go to the mailbox. You actually have a letter instead of a bill. I'm going to

start a campaign. I think we need to bring that back along with cardigans and fedoras. Yeah,

I'm going that direction. All right. Once a month anyway, we gather up your best questions and

comments. We mash them all together into what we call and ask me anything episode. We got another

one coming up here very shortly. So keep those cards and letters coming. And of course,

to listen to the podcast of this show ad free, you can do that. It's very simple. Become a premium

member of the president's daily brief by visiting pdbpremium.com. I'm Mike Baker. And until next time,

you know the drill. Stay informed. Stay safe. Stay cool.

Rinse knows that greatness takes time, but so does laundry. So rinse will take your laundry and

hand-deliver it to your door expertly cleaned. And you can take the time pursuing your passions.

Time one spent sorting and waiting, folding and queuing, now spent challenging and innovating

and pushing your way to greatness. So pick up the Irish flute or those calligraphy pens or that

daunting beef Wellington recipe card and leave the laundry to us. Rinse, it's time to be great.