PDB Situation Report | March 7th, 2026: Fighter Pilot Breaks Down The First Week Of The Iran Air War

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Welcome to the PDB situation report.

I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage, and yes, I am back on the road.

Alright, let's get briefed.

First up, we're now one week into the conflict with Iran, maybe you heard about it, and the

air campaign shows known signs of slowing, as coalition aircraft continue hitting military

targets across the country.

Former US Air Force fighter pilot Ryan Bodenheimer, you may know him as a max afterburner,

joins us to give us this insight of the ongoing air campaign.

Later in the show, the fight against Tikrán may be moving on to the ground, with reports

that Kurdish forces could soon engage Iranian troops along the western border, we'll break

it down with Bill Grosio from the foundation for defense of democracies.

But first, today's situation reports spotlight.

The US and Israeli air campaign over Iran continues to intensify with coalition aircraft

striking missile launch sites, air defense systems, and military infrastructure across

the country.

Officials say the goal is to degrade Tehran's ability to retaliate, while steadily piss

the regime's command and control networks.

Over the past week, waves of aircraft and long-range strikes have targeted radar installations,

air bases, and ballistic missile facilities, all part of a broader effort to establish

air superiority, and keep Iran's remaining military assets under constant pressure.

The big question now is how sustainable that campaign is and what targets make them

next.

Joining me now is Ryan Bodenheimer, aka max afterburner.

Now he's a former US Air Force fighter pilot who flew 70 combat missions in the Middle

East.

You can check him out on his YouTube channel at max afterburner USA.

Ryan, welcome back, man, to the PDP situation report.

Mike, thanks for being here, man.

Thanks for having me.

We got a lot to talk about today.

Do we?

Do we now?

I think so.

I think there's a little something going on.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well, let's get into it.

Give me, if you could, your assessment, I know this is a big broad question, but give

me your assessment so far of the air campaign.

Yeah, I think we've seen kind of the systematic approach, which is, which is normal.

So there's operational plans that are built that have all these different phases in them.

Now they're classified.

I had the ability to work on those with the F-15E.

And basically the air campaign just gives you a phased approach to achieve air dominance.

And that's something that we kind of, we saw happen, play out.

So early on, you do what's called standoff weaponry.

So you use AGM-158, these are like stealthy cruise missiles.

I mean, you can see videos online of these stealthy cruise missiles going in at low altitude,

initially hitting a lot of the IADs, the integrated air defenses.

So everything I can tell is it followed just a really solid approach to, all right, take

down the different things that can shoot us.

And you need to do that off the bat with stealth and standoff.

So it looks like that was executed really well.

It looked like air dominance was achieved within a few hours.

And that's combined with different cyber systems, space systems to also help take down the

ability of the Iranian regimes IADs to communicate with each other.

So that really followed what I think was a very solid recipe for success in the southern

part of Iran to allow them.

Now we've got heavy bombers going in with impunity at this point.

So there's different phases, but that first phase is basically create what's called silent

corridors where you can't get targeted from the different surface to air missile systems.

And then you just ramp that up, make sure those things stay quiet and you have the ability

to strike them as they turn on.

And now you just have the bombers go in and start just taking out targets.

Are you surprised at how quickly the military declared they had air superiority over Iran?

You know, I thought it would be a little harder than Venezuela, but I think it's a testament

to the focus of their specific squadrons in the U.S. Air Force that focus on this exact

thing.

That's what they do every single day.

So the training they get to go in and do this is just, it's insane.

It's like, you know, you've got special teams on a football team, you've got defense,

you've got offense.

Well, the U.S. Air Force has what's called seat suppression of enemy air defenses.

And that's a mission, specifically those specific fighter jets that that's all they do.

So now that I like look at how long it took, you know, maybe an hour or so, it doesn't

really surprise me, but I did think some of the Chinese systems that were being brought

in, you know, the rumors that they are, this isn't confirmed, but rumors that they were

in service to air radars being in, being brought in.

I mean, I'm sure China would love to test some of that stuff against F-35s, right?

So I thought, yeah, this is probably going to be harder because some of these systems

might be more advanced in Venezuela, but I think the men and women in those coppits had

prepared for that.

Yeah, it's interesting.

I'm glad you brought up the Chinese aspect to this because we did see that, right?

We saw Chinese defense systems that they had exported to Venezuela.

We also saw in Pakistan, some of the great, not perform necessarily the way that the Chinese

marketing brochures were touting them, right?

I mean, because they've been out there for some time now for years, right?

Advertising themselves as an alternative to Western arm suppliers.

And so the reporting is that the Iranian defense network was sort of a patchwork quilt of

Chinese systems, Russian systems, homemade systems, you know, reverse engineered in Iran.

So is it, is it your impression that those systems that are being produced by the Russians

and Chinese in particular are some quality?

Or is it that we're just, this is going to sound wrong, but is it that we're just so

capable?

Yeah.

I think you're spot on, you know, China, they wanted the PR.

They wanted a sales pitch here if they could do anything coming close to taking down,

not even just an F-35, but any type of Western fighter, that would be huge PR for them to

sell a lot more of their weaponry, right?

So I think they probably, through the kitchen sink at, you know, the capability that they

tried to give Iran, not to mention, they liked the fact that they were, you know, getting

most of Iran's oil.

So thinking of that, okay, they brought in their top systems, yeah, I think, you know,

fighter pilots have never been accused of being humble.

And I think this is another case where they don't need to be because you're just, you're

so focused on that and you actually tactics like where certain aircraft will be the bait

to try to draw out what's there.

I mean, that takes some serious cahonis, you know, and that's the mindset you have with

these aviators that they're like, you know, I'm going to go up there and be the bait because

we're so good that I can be the bait and still take out your surface to air missiles.

So that confidence, I think, comes from a lot of, you know, behind the scenes, you know,

back room vaults where you see American ingenuity playing out, these engineers that are building

a lot of these systems are, I mean, they're big brain people that have a capability that

a lot of fighter pilots don't have, but then you combine, you know, that kind of disregard

for your own life.

Like I'll go up, I'll be the bait with some of the advanced engineering.

But I think it is, yeah, it is a good point.

I often today that I'm amazed at what smart people can do, right?

I mean, if it was up to people like me, we'd still be sitting around trying to figure

out how to make fire.

But so I am always astounding and these are the sort of the moments, right, during this

conflict, when you, you understand just how, how advanced we've become in terms of creating

these systems, and also to your point about fighter pilots, one of my brothers, I was

the F4 pilot in Vietnam, and yeah, we've never, we've never, ever described him as humble.

That's just never happened.

That's an insult.

I mean, no, I just kidding.

So is it, is it the case that, and I know technology, you know, changes to some degree

things that happen, but is it the case that the way that you were describing the process,

the beginning of a conversation, and how they approach this sort of campaign?

It may be think almost like, well, there's not much new under the sun when it comes to

how you structure a campaign like that.

I mean, is that the case is what we saw in the initial week or so in Iran?

Can you say, well, that's just how you do it, and that's how we've done it for generations

in terms of building an aerosol.

And again, realizing that technology can factor into this and make some adjustments.

Yeah, I think the cool thing about our military that people might not know is, you know, we've

got these plans on the shelf ready to go.

And so our fighter aviators, our bomber pilots, you know, our aerial refueling pilots, ISR intelligence

surveillance or a condescension drone operators, your part is all, you know, in that book, and

now books being continuously updated, you know, and it's classified what's actually in

it, but it really puts everybody on the same sheet of music.

And as technology advances, you just change the plan, update the plan.

You get intel from, okay, now Iran maybe has this system, so we need to train this way,

or counter it this way.

And a lot of our fighter squadron, you know, training curriculum is based on the intel

we're getting of what's this latest system and how do we defeat it?

And those are on the shelf for North Korea, you know, those are on the shelf for the Taiwan

Straits, they were on the shelf for Iran.

So as you're getting close to, you know, maybe a conflict going down, you're going to pull,

so every squadron is going to have a version of that that they can all share, you're going

to pull that down and update it and iterate it because, okay, this game is, you know, this

game might be more closer to happening than the North Korea ones, so we're going to focus

on this one.

Is it the case that, when you, I mean, again, I know conditions on the ground.

Change constantly, but do you have the, the, the intelligence that tells you we're going

to be going in and we're going to be facing this type of air defense system?

I mean, how specific and realizing it can change from conflict to conflict, but to what

degree is, is that a factor?

Yeah, I think it's a factor, but even before that, you know, we, as fighter pilots, you

get a, you have a threat briefing pretty much every day from, and your intel, every

fighter squadron has an intelligence officer and department integrated with it.

As you get a threat briefing, pretty much every day that keeps you up to speed on what

the threats are, you know, with every single country.

And then so what I would do, I would get that threat briefing from intel in the morning.

And then when I took my formation out to go train, you know, with two ship or four ship

of F 15 ease, I would integrate whatever that latest threat was into the actual training

we were doing.

And we would have that be replicated and, you know, pretend like we were going up against

that exact threat.

So it keeps you kind of, you know, fresh where you're updated and you're training to the

latest threat.

So then when it's time to go into Iran, you're like, yeah, I've been training against this

for a week or two.

All right.

Hey, listen, and if you could stay the right way, our Ryan, we do have to take a quick break.

I apologize for that, but we'll be back with more from Ryan Bowdenheimer.

You probably know him as max afterburner.

Check out his YouTube channel for sure.

But we'll be right back with more with Ryan here on the PDB situation report.

Stick around.

Hey, Mike Baker here.

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Welcome back to the PDB situation report.

Joining me once again is former U of S Air Force fighter pilot Ryan Bodenheimer.

You probably know him as Max Afterburner and you can check out his YouTube channel and

I think you definitely should be checking out his YouTube channel if you haven't already.

Just search up at Max Afterburner USA.

Hmm?

That's that simple.

Ryan, thank you very much for sticking around.

Appreciate it.

Hey, thanks Mike.

Thanks for the plug.

Really appreciate that.

Of course.

Well, what I have, a marketing machine, that's what I have.

So listen, there's still a lot of ways to take this conversation that we've been having

about the air campaign.

One of the questions I did have is I think people have been, I don't want to use the term

in press.

I mean, there's everyone's got different views on this conflict, but I can't help

would be impressed by the coordination between the Israeli and U.S. Air Force teams, right?

So talk to me about that.

How complex is it when you're in a conflict like this and you're working so closely with

a liaison partner with another nation?

Yeah, it definitely can be challenging if you don't do it a lot, but the thing that's

really impressive about the Israeli military, US military is how the communication has been

really good for years.

And so when you have that, we have the ability to train together, like we've done quite a

bit, and then you have similar systems.

So the F-35i, for example, is very similar to the US F-35 that's flown by the US Air Force

and the US Navy.

There's a few adaptions that Israel does to their own avionics and things like that.

But overall, the fighter pilots can kind of talk the same language, the aerial refueling

tankers all have the same connections, just little things like that, just make it easier,

right?

So you're kind of speaking the same language when it comes to that.

And then right now, you're in operation centers where there's an Israeli liaison and a

US liaison pretty much in all the different headquarters.

So you can de-conflict, it looks like a lot of the de-confliction they did was to have

Israel focus on a lot of the targets in the north of Iran.

The U.S. is focused on targets in the southern central part of Iran.

So again, that's just on the same sheet of music.

So so far, it looks like the de-confliction has been really good.

Yeah, that would seem to be critical, right?

I mean, ensuring that target packages are properly divided up and there's not that crossover

necessarily, unless it's designed in that way.

Absolutely.

And fighter jets, right?

So you've got a sky full of dozens, hundreds of fighter jets at any given time.

And we saw what happened with the friendly fire incident in Kuwait, so the whole goal

is to prevent that.

And Israel's got a massive amount of jets.

U.S. has a massive amount of jets.

So it's really important to make sure the aircraft are all talking to each other.

They're all synced up on the same network.

And a lot of that comes to the avionics specialists, the maintainers, the people on the ground

on both the Israeli and US Air Force to make sure the jets have what's called the right

crypto.

And that's basically a discriminator of who's friendly and who's not.

And you have to change that sometimes every 24 hours, sometimes every 48 hours.

So just little things like that could literally mean the difference between life and death.

And I think so far, you know, what we've seen is just the professionalism of both sides

has made no blue on blue incidents happen, like we saw in Kuwait.

Yeah, I don't want to ask you to speculate, but do you have any insight or thoughts on

that Kuwait friendly fire incident?

Yeah.

I mean, very bizarre right off the bat.

The only insight or info I really have is that it was a legacy F18.

And what that means is it's just the least advanced F18.

The US Navy has pretty much, I think, fully primarily transferred to the F18 Super Hornet,

which is way more advanced avionics, way easier to see what's going on, bigger screens,

bigger interoperability, and that matters.

When you're a fighter pilot in the heat of the battle, if you're in an analog setup,

which is like the Super Hornet is, it can cause more mistakes.

So I don't know the details behind this Kuwaiti pilot, how much training they had, but I

will say they're already at a disadvantage.

If maybe you're getting communications from a ground-based radar saying there's some

hostels in this area interpreting the radar in a legacy F18 is going to be tough for

even the most advanced fighter pilot when you're in a combat situation with drones and missiles

all around you.

I'll say that, I think my opinion is this was an accident.

This is a really big mess up, but there'll be a full investigation from the US military,

Kuwaiti military, to see what actually happened.

But the goal here is, you know, make sure it's not on purpose, make sure that there wasn't

some buffoonery, like with loading those types of crypto things I was talking about, that

wasn't being done correctly.

I mean, that's something you've got to fix right away.

Is it just buffoonery, you got a technical term?

It is, yeah, we learned that day one of flight school.

Well, that's going to be bummer if you walk out and, you know, the only fighter jet left

in the parking lot is like a legacy, you know, FAT, you say to God, it's like going out

in an enterprise lot and all you got left is a, I don't know, I don't know, I don't

have it.

I don't have it.

I don't have it.

I don't have it.

I don't have it.

I don't have it.

I don't have it.

I don't have it.

So the initial week or so of this campaign?

Well, I've seen a lot of the Gulf partners kind of step up, which I think is cool.

I know early on Saudi Arabia, Qatar, you know, they were kind of saying we don't want

any part of this.

If you can't use our bases and things like that.

So I think the relationship that's been built from the US military to the Gulf partners

a lot to say about how that's been beneficial. Early on, Iran launched two Su-24s, which

are Russian attack bombers. So they looked there about fighter-sized aircraft with their

built for bombing. And from all the reports I've seen, they took off from southern Iran

and they went to about 80 feet over the ocean. So really low. Trying to make their way

to Al-U.D. Qatar to drop bombs on, you know, likely U.S. the U.S. base there, but who

knows, we know what they were going to target. So seeing the Qatari F-15s who train a lot

with U.S. F-15 pilots, they were scrambled, they launched, and they shot those things

down a few miles before they could do any damage. Now, there's patriot missiles on the shoreline

and other things that could help defend against those. But I mean, it's pretty awesome to

see the Gulf state stepping up and saying, oh, okay, we see Iran's true colors. And now

it's kind of, oh, it's clear to the world that there are terrorists regime.

Yeah, I think that's, you highlighted, at least from my perspective, what is one of the

most important aspects of this campaign so far, which is the way that the Iranian regime

imagined that they struck out at, now they've attacked, I think it's 13, neighboring

Gulf states, Arab states. And there a thought process you would imagine is that, okay, if we do that,

then those states, you know, Azerbaijan, Turkey, Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain, all of them will

pressure the U.S. and Israel to stop the conflict. And it had the opposite effect. It appears,

anyway, not necessarily publicly, right? And you can't, right? They ask, I don't think it

be nice if they would come out forcefully and say, that's enough. That's it. We are, you know,

we're united here against this brittle Iranian regime, but I don't think that's a realistic

thing to expect. But, you know, behind the scenes off the radar, they have, kind of united

in a way against the Iranian regime, further isolating the Mullahs and the IRTC. I think that's

a really important point there. Absolutely, especially as we see what comes next, right? Like,

what do you think comes next? Well, I think right now that I really enjoy the focus

that's happening with the air campaign, striking, you know, B2s just last night, striking

ballistic missile facilities, underground hardened facilities. So I think continuously taking

it to these missile launchers, so you eradicate their ability to launch any of these ballistic

missiles. And then the production facilities are now being targeted according to the admiral

of Senkham admiral Cooper. So that'll be, I think that's smart. Take away any of their ability to

produce any of this and just prepare the battlefield. So I think, you know, again, the timelines

and the operational plans that I worked with are all classified. Well, let's just say a broad

number. It takes us, you know, two months to completely wipe out all their ballistic missile

facilities launchers. Because again, these launchers are hiding now, right? So they'll pop out,

they'll launch, and then they'll go in and just hide in like, you know, like a doctor evil style cave.

So they're going to keep doing that. Like, that's their, that's what they're going to keep doing.

So we got to keep targeting them. Yeah, people with a certain age are really appreciative of the

doctor evil reference. A younger folks who I'd what? Yeah, they are. Or younger folks,

younger folks see the doctor evil memes. They haven't watched the movie, but I'm pretty sure

they know the memes. So they should be watching those movies. So there were no finer films ever made

than the all powers. Classic, man. And they relate to the Ayatollah. If you think of Austin

powers, just, you know, replace them with the Ayatollah. There you go. Yeah. Or, or, of course, the,

well, no, they go to the South Park movie. And, yeah, it's never mind. Let's just stack the wand

it off that, that might feel. So let's, if I could, I want to be mindful of time. One last question.

There was a lot of talk about now. I don't want to get too much in the weeds in terms of,

you know, the various aspects of the various aircraft. But we were a lot of talk about the growlers.

How important are those to a conflict like this? Yeah. Very important. So a big part of the

growlers, what they do is electronic attack. And when you go up against an I add system,

integrated air defense system early on, if you can just electronically scramble the signals with

those different radars and keep them from talking to each other, you just break down the network.

And what that does is it disconnects the radars from each other because when the radars are

teamed up with each other, they give a full picture of let's say the southern part of Iran.

But if a growler comes in and is able to, you know, scramble the different electronic

communication waves in that radar, then it can't talk to the next one. And then that basically

just weakens and isolates and gives more of an ability to fly other jets in without even having

to drop any weapons on it. What did you call a silent corridors? Yeah, silent corridors.

It's a part of that. So the E18G would be a part of that. F22s would be a part of that.

And then there's F16CJs, which are uniquely suited once they find where these things are.

They're uniquely suited to strike them with harm missiles. But their number one mission is to

strike any surface to air missiles. So the E18G is a super capable electronic attack aircraft,

but it's kind of, it's a team member that teams up with other aircraft. Well, listen,

ride. We really appreciate all your insight. It's terrific having you on again.

Do you have any, any questions for me by any chance? Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, your

background CIA kind of where my military thoughts go is all right. So we've got the pointy into

the spear now going in, hopefully removing all the infrastructure of the IRGC, which it looks

like daily. It's being plinked off, taken away, reduced effectiveness. But we're seeing IRGC

members in the streets. I saw it on X yesterday. They're in the streets with machine guns,

just firing machine guns into apartments. You know, they're basically kind of the death throws

their own. Their last leg, it seems, or their desperate. And now we're potentially going to

allow Kurds to come in and fight. But what does it look like taking down these IRGC members?

You know, there's said to be a hundred thousand of them. How do you root that out at a country

that's, you know, relatively advanced infrastructure wise? Yeah, the problem is it's not,

the Venezuela situation can't be used as a template for Iraq. You don't have a defined,

I mean, there's an opposition, but it's not, there's no history in recent times of a defined

opposition, right? It's always been external outside the country. And you're talking about unarmed

people as we've seen from the recent protests, whether they slaughtered thousands of them.

And so, and the IRGC is, you know, essentially not all, but mostly made up of real believers

of an ideology standpoint, the Islamic Republic. And they, you know, swallow that completely. So,

you're shifting them off of a position getting a fracture within that organization is what's

hoped for. And you're looking for people within the IRGC within the armed forces and other

elements to say enough, and not, and maybe we can, maybe we can lead a transition, right? So,

you get that splintering of those organizations, but, and then the, from an all perspective,

that's what the CIA does. Well, looking for those, those openings, they're looking for people

that they could, they could use. And then you get that top cover for the, for the, for the people

of Iran. But a lot of the IRGC's already come out. They, they were very clear over the past,

you have 48 hours. So, you come out in the streets, we'll kill you, meaning the, you know,

the people of Iran. And they declared that. So, the heads, you're asking a lot from unarmed

Iranian people who've just seen thousands and thousands of their friends and family members

slaughtered on the streets. In recent protests, you're asking a lot of them to come out

when there is no internal armed opposition. So, I think that has to happen. You have to

get a major splintering within the existing infrastructure in order to give that, that ability

for the variety of people to rise up. Yeah, that makes sense. So, when it comes to, like,

let's say the Kurds as an operator, you know, CIA operator, how do you know who you can trust

and who you can't? Like, which of these factions? Because if you turn loose and even worse faction

in Iran, you might have a worse problem, right? So, human dynamics wise, how do you adjust?

I don't know what you're talking about. We've, we've never seen that happen before. Now,

never. So, yeah, the problem, well, first of all, you know, I think this sounds really cynical,

but you never really trust. And I don't, I'm not talking about anyone. I trust my wife

who's the best person I'll ever meet in my kids. But I think you, you, you have to approach

the Kurds and understanding that they're a number of different factions, right? And some

that we don't want to get involved with for a variety of reasons. It's not, the Kurds are not

really the answer to any of this, right? It's interesting. And you could cause some chaos

up in the western frontier area. And I think maybe that's what they're, they're thinking

if they are, in fact, dealing with some Kurdish factions and possibly arming them. I think

they're looking at that. They're not talking about the Kurds coming in and, and, you know,

creating a, you know, sweeping change in the regime that they just don't have that ability.

But they ought to cause chaos and perhaps pull some resources from Tehran and elsewhere

that from the Iranian regime to have to deal with it. I wouldn't make much of that, though, frankly.

That makes sense. Yeah. I think that's the biggest problem right now, right? Is how do you

fight against IRGC members that have weapons training? They've got all the weapons. That seems

like a tough problem to me. Yeah. I don't know that we're heading towards, you know, that happy day

when you do get, you know, the removal of the models in the IRGC and do government that actually

provides a really bright future for the people and also peace and stability for the region.

You know, I'm not saying that, you know, it's going to be the end all. We're always going to have

peace, but you'll never get shorter midterm peace as long as you've got the models in the IRGC

there. It's not in their game plan. So I don't know that we'll get there. You know, we may find that

that the best case scenario is, look, we've just defanged them. We've, you know, destroyed all their

weapons to the degree possible. And, you know, there's maybe we kicked the can much further

down the road than we have in the past, right? And so it will be a problem, but it will be a problem,

you know, 15, 20 years, whatever, 25 years from now. That's, that's a possibility.

Ryan Bowen, Iver, everybody knows him as max afterburner. When I got to tell you, thank you very

much for being on the PDB situation report, man. And everybody should be heading over to YouTube

and check out at max afterburn USA. Listen, thanks very much. I hope to see you soon. Thanks, Mike.

Great to be here. All right. Well, coming up next, a potential new friend in the war we

were on as Kurdish fighters along the country's western frontier may soon enter the fight.

Some reports say that they already have in small numbers. We'll break it down with Bill Rosito

from the foundation for the fads of democracy. Stay with us.

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first order. Welcome back to the PDB situation report. We just talked about the war in the skies over

Iran, but now it's time to talk about what may be unfolding on the ground. New reporting suggests

the CIA has been quietly working with Kurdish opposition groups along Iran's western border.

The idea appears to be to arm Kurdish fighters and encourage them to engage Iranian security forces

inside the country. If that happens, well a good force to run to divert troops away from major cities

potentially creating space for unrest against the regime while it's already of course under pressure

from U.S. and Israeli strikes. But the plan carries risks. I know you're shot by that.

From Kurdish factual rivalries to concerns from regional players like Turkey. For more on this,

we're joined by Bill Rosio, he's the editor of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies,

Long War Journal, and a friend of the show. In quite the sharp dresser too might I add.

Bill, great to see you, man. Always a pleasure, my friend. Thanks for having me back on in this

very interesting times. What was something going on in the world?

Yeah, I'm not sure what, but we'll figure it out. So let's, there's so much to talk about here,

but let's start from this perspective. Do you think that the Trump administration is moving

towards putting boots on the ground? I think the Trump administration is very, very hesitant

to do to put boots on the ground. I really hope they are not considering this. The only type of

boots on the ground I would support is let's say they needed to occupy some islands off the coast.

There was small, small portion to conduct some operations or to arrest you or position or to

I would not recommend this administration that boots on the ground for a actual, you know,

an operation to overthrow the regime or anything like that. Because, frankly, look at our

history, look at Iraq, look at Afghanistan, look at how these war, you know, punishments of

thousands of troops at times in both countries. Governments that were supportive of our effort,

I mean, we still lost these wars. I mean, Afghanistan, 20 years to turn it back over to the

Taliban. Afghanistan or Iraq, I think we, we shorted ourself the Obama administration. That was

a 20 plus year plan, but he withdrew and basically that's become an Iranian state trape. So,

you know, if this isn't an issue of capability, I never questioned our military's capabilities.

It's a question of political will and we have to keep in mind that both of those wars were

launched with significant support. I believe Afghanistan was around the 90% mark of support

for the American public and Iraq. I don't know the exact numbers. I'm positive is over. I have

any puts that. I don't know what the numbers here in Iran. I haven't looked at the polling,

but I can't imagine it's close to 50. That's just a bad starting point. Those wars ended,

those are Iraq and Afghanistan ended badly. You know, with a beginning with popular support,

we read and you know, we'll say one more thing too. I'm very aware that the Trump administration

has significant concerns about life. So last summer, I'm aware that they were very concerned.

I won't say how, but I'm aware, but they were very concerned about just bombing Iran last summer

with leading to an Iraq situation. They did not want to repeat that. And I think that information

made it out into the public. But yeah, so I can't see them doing this, but I could see them being

pushed to do this. This is the problem when you get into operations, mission creep. That's the,

you know, everything start, you know, it's great idea to win an air campaign. You can

overthrow the government, be the air, and then that doesn't work. And then people start saying,

well, maybe we need to do this and looking history is right with the look at Vietnam. It started

within and buys an assist mission and turned into one of the longest wars. Yeah, I think that

the mission creep point is a really sound one. But I do think that there's two parts to this,

right? One is when we talk about that for potential here, I think one of the things that they

could prevent that, right, why you would have this hesitancy within the military command structures,

because a lot of these guys at the mid-level, the senior level didn't come out of the global war

on terror experience, right? They came out of that 20-year war that you referenced in Afghanistan,

they came out of the extended period of time in Iraq. And so perhaps now there's two parts of this,

like I said, perhaps they've learned their lesson. The other side of that quote is I don't think

we're very good at learning lessons from even recent history sometimes. And there is a

very strong tendency on the part of the human condition to think, well, we can do it better this

time, right? We saw it going into Iraq. We saw it going into Afghanistan. Yeah, we understand

there were problems. There's been problems going all the way back in Afghanistan, Alex and the

Greg, yada, yada, yada. But we can do it better. So I worry about that balance there. But I do

think also the White House, but they were very clear early on, right? Not necessarily the stating

their objectives. That took them, you know, two days, three days to get to the point where it's

okay, let's walk about our objectives. But they were clearly on, say, this could take, you know,

four weeks, take five weeks, whatever. They tried to define the fact that this was going to be a

short-term operation, even if it did take a matter of weeks rather than days. What can you tell us

about the situation with the Kurds? There's been some talk. It's kind of died down a little bit,

but there was some talk about, look, the agency, the CIA is out there working with the Kurds,

possibly trying to arm one or more of the factions. There was some talk, even that hundreds,

maybe thousands of Kurds had moved into Iran during the past week as part of an effort to create

chaos, perhaps, and I don't think they're big enough. I don't think the potential is there, I mean,

for them to take over the country. It's not that simple, but tell us what you can about the

Kurdish situation. Yeah, first on the issue, but you had mentioned the administration. I don't

worry so much about the military leadership, although I do worry about them some. Look at Admiral

Cooper played basketball, especially designated global terrorist in Syria. So what lessons did he

learn? Did we learn there and basically put al-Qaeda's head of the Syrian, not put them in charge,

but accepting of that? I look at this and I wonder what lessons, but these decisions are ultimately

made politically, and I do hope that the Trump, and I do suspect with JD Vance. I think President

Trump himself are very, very sensitive to the issue of goodwill ground, but the issue with the

Kurds here, your actual question to me. You know, it seems like every problem we have in the

Middle East seems to boil down to the Kurds, doesn't it? In Iraq, it's the Kurds. In Syria,

it was the Kurds. The Kurds in Iraq that we worked with, I could accept the Kurds we worked

with in Syria. That was the PKK or the Turkestan Workers' Party, and we ironically named them

the Syrian Democratic Forces. This is a Marxist terrorist organization listed by the U.S.

government as a foreign terrorist organization, and we backed them. Bad idea. It caused Turkey to

have Syrian look. I'm not going to defend the Turkic government or Iran or anything like that,

but if you want to sour relations with the Turks, start working with the PKK. In Iran, this group

that has said that this PKK that is said to launch an operation with thousands of troops, I'm still

trying to figure out what exactly happened here that we're talking about back in. It's pure

Iranian version of the PKK. Oh, it's a subsidiary, basically. Yes, yeah, exactly. It's an actual

subsidiary. It's the Iranian blanche. We abandoned our Kurdish allies after 10 years, and they basically

got smacked down by Al-Taita's branch in Syria. I, the Kurds want the solution here. They can

be a thorn in the side of the Iranian regime. They could operate locally in the northern areas

of a land. Sure, that's fine. I just really, PKK, by the way, is all listed as a foreign terrorist

organization by the U.S. government. If you want to have a ground game in Iran, it needs to be the

Iranian people. It needs to be the Iranian opposition needs to organize and needs to earn. The Kurds

aren't going to do this alone in organized resistance, which I'm not seeing any evidence or very

little evidence of. Yes, they're going to the street. Yes, they're fighting against police

and whatnot, but they're not picking up arms because they're very difficult to get in Iran because

it is a police state. But look, if groups like the PKK and blanche separatists and whatnot,

you get weapons, so can the Iranian people. That's where if we're going to have regime change,

and my position is if you want to ensure Iran doesn't have nuclear weapons, and it's not going

to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles, back in Fretinus, it's not to destroy the missiles

and nuclear program that exists on the ground. It's changed this regime, and if you want to change

this regime, it needs to be done on the ground and it needs to be done not by us, not by the U.S.

We could support them via air by providing with covert operations, etc., we could be a support.

We should not put American boots on the ground. I'm with you on that. Look, I think the problem

that the Iranian people face is that, because I think that we always look at things in very simple

terms, and by that, I mean, the West tends to, because that's how the media does it. We've got a

three-minute segment that we can do here. Let's have a beginning, a middle, and then so everything

gets simpler. The Kurdish situation gets simpler. Now, the Kurds, we're arming the Kurds, and now they're

going to move in and they're going to help take over the country, and you think, well, what

faction of the Kurds? There's a number of them, as you pointed out, some listed as terrorist

organizations, some with definitely competing agendas. You've got the problem of Turkey,

and though they're a NATO member, they've been very clear for some 40 years about their feelings

towards the PKK and any branch of the PKK. It's a very complex situation. I think I would

argue, and I want to talk to you about this on the other side of the break, but I would argue that

you can't stand back. You can't stand outside of your Iran and think, well, how come the people

aren't taking their opportunity now? Well, they tried to take their opportunity. They were

slaughtered by the thousands, right? Just recently, by the regime, tens of thousands detained.

They're not armed. You've got a security apparatus that is very repressive and brutal, as they've

proven over years. Unless you get a significant fracture, I think the way this has to work is

you get a significant fracture within the IRGC. The armed forces somehow were able to identify,

and maybe those conversations have already been happening. You're able to identify individuals

within that infrastructure that are willing to step out and make a change. If they can do that,

and they have the credibility with those organizations, and there's enough of them, and they've

build up some mass that they do splinter and separate from this regime, then you've got a chance.

That would be a scenario that I could see happen otherwise. Well, let's talk about what otherwise

happens when we get back from this break. Bill, I'm sorry for bearing it on. I'm going to step off

my soapbox now, and we're going to be right back with Bill Rosio after this quick break. I

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Welcome back to the PDB situation report. Joining us once again is Bill Rochio

editor of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies Long and Ward Journal. Bill,

thank you very much for sticking around. Let's talk about that. Have you seen any indications

of fractures or fissures within the regime itself? Any sense that there is an ability to

high-balth elements of the IRGC, the Armed Forces, and get them to support some change from

this current repressive regime? Well, first, you weren't on a soapbox there. You merely were reading

my mind. You were saying exactly what I'm thinking. That certainly has to happen. I do think

the Iranian people do need to organize and arm themselves, but one way they can definitely

make a make inroads is to get elements of the military to support them if not get the

entirely. So keep in mind, those the IRGC or Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, that's basically

the Praetorian Guard for the Islamic Mollable Regime. They have hundreds of thousands,

they have the Navy, they have an IRGC Air Force, they have IRGC ground force, then there's

the code sources, which is basically their external operations branch, special forces. They're

probably the most ideological driven, there's tens of thousands of them, but the Rand also has

its own army, its own Air Force, its, you know, and its own Navy. The Iranian people need to be

working with them to clear them. I have not seen evidence of this happening, but the theory is that

US military pressure will hit these, hit all elements of the regime, not just the IRGC, but the

the right of your army and Navy and Air Force, and force them to make a decision, force them to

decide. I know certain this could be done in four to six weeks, that's that's my big concern.

I look, I'll use an example, Saddam Hussein in Gulf War I, Saddam Hussein in Gulf War II,

he did not break, his regime did not break, even with the US invasion, a ground invasion,

did not, the Iranian, or I'm sorry, the Iraqi military did not discard Saddam and his regime,

it's stuck, it's stuck it out, and I, you know, that was essentially an oppression regime,

a regime of fear. The Iranian regime, the IRGC, their believers, their true believers in the

cause, in their Islamic revolution, the Iranian military supposedly not so much, but a lot of what

I'd heard is that elements of it have become more radicalized over time. But yeah, so I haven't

seen evidence of this happening. The idea is that this military pressure will force these

divisions. I just, I'm concerned that it's not enough. Yeah, but we've heard some reports that,

you know, and again, you never know until you get something that's verified, actually credible,

there have been some reports that there's been back child conversations going on on the

intel side, right? So the agency is CIA, you know, having conversations off the radar with

elements of the Iranian intel apparatus and possibly looking for that transition capability,

right? Do we have, do we have any chance of that happening? Now President Trump came out and,

you know, I was, as said, on a handful of occasions, you know, put down your weapons, you'll,

you'll have complete immunity, right? But, but do the right thing. You know, whether that, whether

that is, is a strong enough message, but again, back to your point, but this, I think there was a

sense going in that we do this, we drop some munitions, that people see that and ride is up,

and it's just discounting how difficult that process would be for those people to do this. So,

what's a scenario? Are we looking at a situation, I don't want to sound cynical, but are we looking

at a situation where the end of all this, whether it's six, six weeks, whether it's four weeks,

whatever it may be, we're looking at basically a reshuffling of the decked fairs with the regime.

We've certainly, you know, killed a number of their leaders and obvious commanders

with the IRGC and elsewhere, but are we looking at that where we've pulled all their teeth,

we've destroyed their, their ability for the medium term to, you know, produce manufacture

weapons, but essentially that's it. People are still living under that same regime,

and what we've done is said, okay, we've done enough damage for now. We'll have to deal with this

whatever, 10, 15 years. So, first, how do you mention the back panel negotiations with

elements of intelligence? I just would remind people, keep in mind, the Iranians are really good

at stringing us along with negotiations with parks. I don't put much stock in that.

I just look at how we dealt with the Taliban, how the Taliban fooled us in the negotiations.

Back in 2011, we thought we were talking to the Taliban, and one of the top Taliban leaders

who eventually became the Taliban's amir, and we were actually talking to some guy, you just

wrote hundreds of thousands from us. So, I have a question, you know, do we know who we're

talking to in Iran, right? I've been at this a long time. I do tend to be cynical. I hope I'm

wrong about this. You know, you raise an interesting point. I want to make one more thing. The Iranians,

I know they've made significant sacrifices, tens of thousands slaughtered and detained.

I hate to say this in my Iranian friends, hate to hear this.

But it's not enough. Clearly, they have to fight harder if they want to overthrow this regime.

I get the sense that they're sitting back waiting for us to do the heavy lifting for us.

A lot of perfect analogy of a look at the American Revolution. We fought for years and lost

tens of thousands, which if you translate that and those numbers with population where it goes

to $2 million at the time, I mean, the horrific percentage of casualties of the population

took years before France came to our support. And then still, we had to spill a lot of blood,

not just in soldiers, but in civilians that were killed. You know, if you weren't to overthrow

an oppressive regime, you have to pay a horrible price to do it. I wish that wasn't so,

but those are the facts. Now, to your question, that does factor into this here.

You're correct. If the regime will be a hydrant, we can defang it, but those fans can grow back. We

can chop off heads. Those heads will grow back. And I fear, yes, we could set their program back

five years, 10 years, 20 years. But who are you leaving behind? Are these people going to be even more

determined and more angry at the West? Did they redouble efforts to conduct terrorist attacks

against using asymmetrical warfare and terrorism throughout the Middle East?

They're not, I just, they're Italy. I look at our campaigns against Alpaita for two and a half

decades, the Islamic State for a decade. They rose up in 2014. We've conducted masterful decapitation

campaigns and get these groups processed. And we think that, do we think that we can decapitate

in a reigning regime, which is just as ideologically fervent, you should rule believers

as much if not more than Al-Qaeda or the Islamic State that have the resources of a regime and

hundreds of not millions of people that that are true believers that wield the power of the state.

This is where, yeah, I don't think this is cynical cynicism by me. I think this is

this is just reality. And I hope I'm wrong about this.

Being pragmatic, Bill, I think it's not, again, yeah, between the two of us, I've said this before,

it's like, you know, where those two old guys of them up a chill up in the balcony.

It's just hollering at things and just complaining and saying, this is not going to work out,

but I think it's, the West has a hard time and we've seen this over the years, right?

Decades now that we've been engaged in this, you know, long standing war on terror. And

the West has a hard time understanding the value system of the radical, you know, ideologues.

And so we think about this and we go, well, of course, they're going to fold. Of course,

they're going to look and say, we want something better. We want a better life. Of course,

we want the bombing to stop and we want to say, okay, what else can we do? Now, let's have a stable

society where we can, you know, all the, you know, that's not how it works, right? It works for

a lot of people, but not for the people that are in charge right now. So I don't know, you know,

where this goes, but I really wanted your, your tadyk on, you know, the, I guess if you,

if you had to, game this out, right? If you were going to jump into the polymarket or

calcium, whatever this, those predictive markets are, and you're going to play some of that,

as a terrible way to end our conversation, but where would you say this is going to be?

Let's give it, let's give it another month. Where are we in a month's time?

You know, and I want to reiterate a point you just made, our greatest failure in the war on terror

and currently is a failure to understand the ideological fervor of our enemies.

They are true believers. They're not pragmatic, like we think of pragmatic.

You know, they, they're not just salesmen, businessmen, leveraging for the best possible outcome

for them. They believe where do I, if I was to put money, I would go with what I'll call the

Boothie scenario. Keep in mind, last year when the Trump administration launched its war against

the Boothies, because they shut down the Red Sea, they, they created a campaign plan that was

supposed to take six months to destroy all Boothie capability. President Trump tired of this

within a month. He didn't like the results of what was happening, because the Boothies were still

capable of striking, I mean, these Boothies who are compared to the Iranians have probably

100th the capability. He, he cut a deal with them, right? Now, is, is Trump going to cut a deal with

the Iranians? I don't know, but he can declare that military operations are over, that we succeeded

in defying the Iranian regime and keep them around. That's, that's probably where I would place

my bet. I'd like to see what all the options are, but you know, when I keenly that all out, I

suspect that's what, what happens. But if there certainly there is a, there is a reality or a,

you know, an alternate universe where the regime does collapse. I mean, but even if their regime

collapse, collapses, I would expect there to be some type of insurgency. So those are the two

options that I think I would, I would place my bet first on the Boothies scenario and then possibly

some type of collapse or power vacuum, maybe in the Balkanization of the of the Iranian state

and a civil war. So like, neither of those outcomes are all that great for us. You know, the best

alkanal beat. There's not a lot of these elements to the past that spend much trouble over the

years, right? They love nothing more than a power vacuum or chaos, right? That's, and, and we've

seen that repeatedly. So, and I think that has been the concern all these years, right? You can

argue, why is every administration kicked the can down the road and, you know, gone through this,

this is feckless charade of, you know, nuclear discussions over the years. And it's because of what

you're describing. Well, it's because of this fear of, well, I don't know what's going to happen,

right? And history tells us oftentimes that what back fills a change in this sort of situation

is not better. It's works. So that's been the fear. But I'm also of the mind that all we've been

doing for administration after administration is putting lipstick on a pig and trying to deal

with this repressive brutal regime that has caused so much death and mayhem and instability.

And you never will get to a long-term peace in the region. I completely believe this with,

as long as the mollas and the RGC are in charge, but that change has to come. As you correctly

pointed out, I believe from within, right? You need a collapse of the regime internally from within.

You need brave enough people or people with enough vision or people who just have enough

self-preservation instinct, you know, to say, and maybe their families are hammering on them say,

why don't you defect? Why don't you, you know, you do something, right? Um, maybe that's what happens.

And that gives top cover for the Iranian people to have a better life. Bill, I gotta tell you,

this is a great conversation. As always, and I hope you do come back and we pick up the phone

and call you because I think that's going to be the near future because I'm going to hold you

to that bet. Um, well, let's go ahead. This is going to look like it about a month's time.

Yeah. We definitely should check up on that. Yeah. Look, I'd be Iranian. Look, Will, again,

I say this all the time, Will's win war. The Iranian people need to find that will to fight against

a regime that has will and abundance. And yeah, I would love to come back to you in a month,

and let's see where we are. Yeah. Hopefully it's a happy ending.

All right, man. Bill Rocio, the foundation for the defense of democracy. Thank you again for joining us

here on the situation report. And that is all the time we have for the PDV situation report.

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