The President's Daily Brief - PDB Situation Report | February 28th, 2026: Former MI6 Chief Sounds Alarm On Iran & U.S. Combat Aircraft Move In

Episode Date: February 28, 2026

In this episode of The PDB Situation Report: Western intelligence officials are warning that Iran could activate proxy networks across Europe if the United States moves forward with military strikes against Tehran. From sleeper cells to Hezbollah-linked operatives, the threat landscape could shift quickly beyond the Middle East. Former head of MI6 Sir Richard Dearlove joins us to break down what Europe may be facing — and how serious this warning really is. In a historic first, U.S. combat aircraft are now operating from Israeli soil as Washington prepares for the possibility of strikes on Iran. The deployment marks a dramatic expansion of military coordination between the two allies. Defense analyst Ryan McBeth joins us to assess what aircraft are in play, what missions they could be tasked with, and how Tehran may respond. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President’s Daily Brief by visiting https://PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Cardiff: Get fast business funding without bank delays—apply in minutes with Cardiff and access up to $500,000 in same‑day funding at https://Cardiff.co/PDB  American Financing: Call American Financing today to find out how customers are saving an avg of $800/mo. NMLS 182334, https://nmlsconsumeraccess.org APR for rates in the 5s start at 6.196% for well qualified borrowers. Call 866-885-1881 for details about credit costs and terms. Visit http://www.AmericanFinancing.net/PDB  DeleteMe: Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to https://joindeleteme.com/PDB and use promocode PDB at checkout. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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turn your big business idea into... Sign up for your $1 per month trial at Shopify.com slash special offer. Welcome to the PDB Situation Report. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. First up, Western intelligence officials are warning that Iran could activate proxy networks across Europe if the U.S. moves forward with military strikes against the Iranian regime. We'll be joined by Sir Richard Dearloff, former head of UK's MI6, for more on that. Later in the show, in a first U.S. combat aircraft are now operating from Israeli soil as Washington, prepares for the possibility of strikes on Iran. We'll be joined by good friend of the show. You know him, you love him, Ryan McBeth for details. But first, today's situation report spotlight. Western intelligence officials are warning that Iran couldn't direct proxy terror attacks across Europe if the U.S. launches military strikes against Tehran. Interceptic communications shall rise in coordination among Iranian-backed networks, raising concerns, of course, about asymmetric retaliation

targeting U.S. embassies, military facilities, or allied interests. Now, this is not without precedent. Hezbollah has carried out attacks in Europe before, including a deadly bombing in Bulgaria, back in 2012. Iranian operatives have also been convicted for plotting attacks under diplomatic cover on European soil. Security experts warn that Europe could become an asymmetric battleground, not just operationally, but politically, if Tehran seeks to fracture Western unity. joining me now is Sir Richard Dearloved. Sir Richard spent 38 years in Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, known as MI6. He yelled numerous overseas posts, including Washington Station Chief, before becoming head of operations and eventually director of MI6 for several years. And I should point this out

because you need to be listening to this. He's also the co-host of the terrific geopolitical podcast One Decision. And Sir Richard, I want to thank you very much for taking the time to join us here on the Situation Report. It's a real pleasure to be with you, and I'm delighted to contribute to your podcast, as you have to mind. Well, thank you, and that was a delight as well. If we could, I want to start with these reports about the potential, should there be U.S. military strikes on Iran, the potential for Iran to activate their various proxy networks, to conduct potential attacks in the, EU. First of all, I want to know whether you give much credence to these reports and this potential and how concerned you are about the possibility of this. Well, I certainly give credence to that

sort of intelligence, but I would say that the IRGC, who would probably be driving this, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is essentially the Mueller's intelligence and the sort of overseas are in the Cuds Force will be behind such activity. But I think that what I would say is that their choice of targets, if they do this, would be, when I say careful, what I mean by that is they would be very specific in who and what they go after. So if you look at Iranian terrorist activity historically, it's either been aimed at the the opposition or specifically American targets, I think they would be reluctant to go after specifically European targets in a manner like ISIS, because this is a state-driven terrorism.

It's not the sort of anarchic terrorism of ISIS. So you have to make a distinction in terms of what we're actually talking about. But it would be lethal. it would be organized and it would be pretty professional. And it seems it wasn't that long ago, I believe, when reporting out of the UK, basically they were saying we've uncovered, I think it was almost two dozen potential plots being conducted or at least planned by Iranian intel operatives. Again, that's within the UK and within the course of about a year, I believe.

they say they disrupted close to a dozen plots. Yeah, I think the activity in the UK has been inspired through extremist Shia groups in certain mosques. And I think the evidence points to attacks on Israeli or Jewish targets. But the fact is that what we're talking about is organizations, organized terrorism, not lone wolf terrorism. And I think if the intelligence is good, it's easier to counter state-driven terrorism if you have a certain penetration or a certain level of information.

So I think what we've been looking at in the UK, the security service has mentioned the numbers. Obviously, it's not being specific about the targets or the plots, but it's pretty clear that MI5, which is our equipment of the Bureau, the FBI have been reasonably, well, I'd been efficient at taking down this sort of potential activity in the UK. And of course, there's been this dispute in the UK about designating the IRGC as a terrorist organization, which I'm not sure exactly where the situation is now. I think it has been designated, but it's rather than. late in the day because this has been long-going concern for a long period of time.

This may sound like a strange question, but I'll give it some context. In the U.S., obviously, during the past few years, there's been a lot of criticism about the lack of controls at the southern border in particular for the U.S. and depending on what estimates you read 8 to 10 to 12 million people coming across the southern border and very little in terms of vetting when you actually drill down into what Customs and Border Protection were able to do in terms of vetting individuals coming across the border and those are not the gotaways those are not the ones who came across without being detected so that became a big issue obviously seeing the concern that perhaps terrorist groups, certainly transnational criminal groups,

were using this, this porous border situation, to take advantage and perhaps put sleeper cells in the country. And that's been a concern for quite some time. Obviously, at border security is tightened up during the course of the president, or the president administration. But in the UK, here comes my question. I know you're thinking, I thought he said he was going to ask a question. In the UK, and I suppose, you know, in the EU as well, how would you assess over the recent times, how would you assess the vetting of immigrants, of people coming into both the UK and the EU in general? Well, let's take the UK first. Given the level of illegal immigration coming across the channel, I think that there is very little betting indeed.

you can easily insert sleepers or operatives into that group. And I'm pretty sure that we have a problem in that there are probably a few. I don't think the numbers would be large, but there will be a number of sleepers who are sitting there waiting for a crisis. But, I mean, bearing in mind what I said about the IRGC, the cuts forms from Iran, and this is not non-state terrorism. It's organized by an intelligence organization, therefore they would be driven and controlled

by policy decisions back in Iran. So the question is how that situation now that we've got in the Middle East escalates. But I think that there is definitely a potential here in the UK for people who are, unidentified sleepers who have a link back to the IRGC who could be activated in a crisis to go and blow up, let's say, a synagogue or mount some attack. But I think it would be, it would not be a random attack.

It wouldn't be a sort of ISIS shooting in a shopping street. It would be attack on a specific target. It would be an American military base in the UK, maybe the embassy in the UK. It would depend. But what I'm saying is it's a planned operation. It's much, much easier to penetrate a planned operation than it is to kind of track an individual or two or three individuals who might be just on the edge of the visibility of the security service. But the trouble is, you know as well as I do, that at any point in time, the security

service has to prioritize 15, 20, 100, 200 targets and decide who are the real threats, who might be imminent. So I imagine at the moment the situation, because of what's happening in the Middle East with both Gaza and this buildup of US forces around Iran. it's a pretty challenging and difficult time to prioritize where the threats may come from. No, I think it's an excellent point to note the differences between the state-sponsored terrorism and the sort of coordinated plan-directed attacks and Wolf, I suppose there is a concern that you would then get copycat potential from other elements that are out there who see these

think, let's do this. Something that you also just said made me pause also is you referenced Gaza. And how remarkable it is that the situation in Gaza has just taken a complete backseat. I know it hasn't. And from a certain perspective, there are a lot of people focused on it, but in terms of just the general attention being paid to it out there in the world, it's just taken this. It seems like it's been swept off the headlines. Well, it has in a way. I mean, you know, we in the UK have had significant demonstrations by Hamas sympathizers.

And that's been a real policing problem, particularly in London, given the legal situation and the restraints on public support for Hamas as a terrorist group. But on the other hand, like you, I'm surprised. The terrorist incidents that haven't happened but have almost happened have really been by individuals who have been arrested. I mean, we've just had a couple of arrests here in the UK, but they were clearly inspired or radicalized by Hamas, but they were lone walls. They were not part of any major terrorist organization. So, you know, striking this balance is very complicated.

And I think at the moment what's extraordinary is that ISIS, you know, which is a real problem, is in abeyance. Politically, Hamas supporters are not. There have been some radicalized individuals, but they're not organized centrally by any sort of Hamas brain. So it's quite a complicated situation, and we have a big Muslim diaspora, as you know. And in fact, we have a by-election today in the UK. I mean, maybe I shouldn't bring this up in the context of terrorism, but we have the Greens in this particular constituency who have gone heavily pro-Palestine

without expressing pro-Hamas in order to try to secure an extremist Muslim vote for a sort of highly left-wing extremist Green Party. So it would be very interesting tonight to read the results of this election because it's the first time the Greens have held a by-election or have been represented in a by-election with a very, very large Muslim population. And they've been really campaigning in the most cynical fashion to appeal to, you know, the Gaza shocked,

Muslim community. You asked me about, you know, Iranian-driven terrorism. I mean, I think there is a problem generally in Europe, but it isn't specifically different from what I've described here in the UK. Sir Richard, if you could, I've got another several pages of questions for you. I won't throw them all at you today. But let's stick around, Sir Richard. We've got to take a quick break.

And then we'll be right back with more from former MI6 director Sir Richard Dearlove here on the BDB Situation Report. Please stick around. Hey, Mike Baker here. Now, many of you may know me as the host of the President's Daily Brief, at least I hope you know me as the host of the PDB, but did you know I'm also a business owner? That's right, have been for years, and I want to take just a moment to talk with all you business owners out there. Now, you probably already know this, but small businesses face an uphill battle with big banks, right? Where getting a loan means endless paperwork and delays. But I want to tell you about a business out there that's working to make life easier for small businesses. and I'm talking about Cardiff.

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that's cardiff.com.com slash PDB. Real growth, fast funding, that's Cardiff. This episode is brought to you by Redfin. You're listening to a podcast, which means you're probably multitasking, maybe even scrolling home listings on Redfin, saving. Saving homes without expecting to get them. But Redfin isn't just built for endless browsing. It's built to help you find and own a home. With agents who close twice as many deals, when you find the one, you've got a real shot at getting it. Get started at redfin.com. Own the dream. Welcome back to the PDB Situation Report. Joining us once again is Sir Richard Dear Love, former director of the UK's MI6. Sir Richard, thank you very much for sticking around. I was hoping

to wrap up our conversation. We kind of were focused on, in a sense, on what's happening with Iran right now. And I wanted to get you a assessment of the negotiations, the conversations that are taking place, foreign minister of Osiraghi talking with, I believe apparently the only two on-voice we have in the U.S., Steve Whitgoff and Jared Kushner. But those conversations, those discussions, do you have any insight into or thoughts on the seriousness of them, whether there's any potential for a negotiated deal that would then cause the U.S. to back off from the military posture? I think there is the potential, as far as the Iranians, are concerned, on a partial nuclear deal. I don't think as far as the Iranians,

in view is expressed, there is acceptance of the possibility of a larger deal. What I mean by that is a complete ban on their nuclear program. And additionally, some sort of deal which limits their ballistic missile capability, and then the third element being their support for sheer militias, or let's say, what's left of what we call the access of resistance across the Middle East. You know as well as I do that. The Iranians are very, very tricky and difficult negotiators, and even when they negotiate, I'm not sure that they stick by the agreements.

I was a huge opponent of the JCPOA, the original deal over Iran nuclear. And the reason being, I think it gave the Iranians what I would describe was that lesse-passes, to misbehave across the Middle East after they had signed the JCPOA. And we were all seen what the consequences of that are now. So I'm extremely skeptical that the Iranians are going to accept any sort of negotiated deal with Whitkoff. Now, I sure your skepticism there. And I guess I'm not sure that this is a question. It's more of a thought that I have been puzzled.

recently over this idea that we're having some sort of good faith negotiation or attempting a good faith negotiation with a regime that just finished murdering thousands of their own citizens and detaining tens of thousands of others and somehow imagining that there will be some good faith compromise or that they would even abide by any terms of an agreement. So I start from that. I realize that from a pragmatic geopolitical perspective, you have to have these conversations. You have to look for opportunities for diplomacy and create channels of communication. Put, I suppose, at another level, it's rather galling.

You cannot have a good faith negotiation with Iran. And the reason for that is they always have a duality of policy. They will agree one thing, and they will, as it will, as it will, create a framework that tries to persuade you that they've agreed something, but at the same time, there is another dimension to policy. And you've only got to look at the intransigent character of the supreme leader. The fact is that the identity of the Iranian regime is defined not by anything internal in Iran, it's defined by commitment to destruction of the state of Israel. And there is no compromise.

It's ideological, it's religious belief, it's a conviction that does not submit to negotiation. And negotiation is about compromise. we've learned this lesson over and over again with the Iranians and the JCPOA is a great example of them agreeing a deal which was very complex but at the same time regarding that deal as I've already said a laissez-passi to do what the hell they wanted across the Middle East and to cause chaos

so I'm very very strongly of this view I mean, a lot of my maybe foreign office colleagues in the UK do not agree with me, but many of my intelligence service colleagues would agree with me. Yeah, we have that interesting dynamic as well in the U.S., and we've seen it over the years, where it's probably not fair of me to say, and I'm saying it because I'm biased, I suppose, but the intel community tends to be, I think, a little bit more realistic, a little bit less hopeful in the face of track records of whomever you're dealing with

and certainly on the Iranian side. If you were a betting man, where do you think this goes in terms of the potential for conflict? An aerial strike on Iran. Yeah. I just don't see at the moment, although, you know, the report coming from the meeting in Geneva is, oh, it went extremely well. That's what they would say. I don't think there's any common ground.

I don't think it's in the DNA of theocratic regime to compromise with the devil, if you see what I mean. And that's what we're talking about. I mean, I think there are elements in the Iranian regime which would like to do a deal. But ultimately, I'm what it reminds me of. is maybe it's not a great parallel, but it's a significant parallel, is that when Yassarrafat could have done a deal at Camp David, when he got up to the line, he backed off. He just couldn't do a deal psychologically, which is one of the great tragedies of the Middle East.

And I mean, I discussed that many times with your former director, a close friend of mine, George Tannet, and both he and I dealt with Arafat at the time. Matter of fact, could have done the deal, but he just couldn't bring himself. Now, if Aravak couldn't bring himself, there's certainly the theocratic leader cannot. So if you make a sort of comparison because he is far more ideological, he's far more committed to his sheer vision of the world. It's just not on the cards. So I think we are heading for a crisis.

Well, I want to move if I could. I want to shift from one crisis to the next. And I want to kind of steer as... There's a lot of them we can go to, but this one is related to Putin's invasion of Ukraine, four years on, into the fifth year. And this, I may sound like a strange, you know, start to the conversation,

but if I'm not mistaken, I understand that you've dealt with Vladimir Putin face-to-face. Well, I'm like, right, but I mess with Tony. way back when he was first elected president and in effect I think I was almost responsible for Tony Blair

going to go to the opera with him in St. Petersburg for a new production of Boris Goodenov whilst he was running his presidential campaign on the grounds, he's a new leader, maybe a dialogue with him. And for a brief period of time after 9-11, we have nearly

interesting relationship with Moscow, with Russia. And, you know, I had the extraordinary experience of going to Moscow to meet the head of the GIU to talk about Afghanistan. Sergei Varnoff was then Minister of Defense talking to Sergei Varnoff. And we made a big effort to have a different relationship with Russia in that window, that brief window, it lasted about 18 months. My final visit to Moscow, things were already going awry.

I mean, it's too long to explain the detail, but they were, and it was frosty, cold, and difficult, and was an indication of what was subsequently going to happen. But we certainly gave Putin a chance to have a different relationship with the West. Okay, we didn't succeed, which I think is a great tragedy,

and, you know, things have now evolved to where they are, which are pretty catastrophic. I'm catastrophic for Russia and very, very difficult for global security. If I could ask, what's your assessment? The character of Putin, how would you describe the man? Ice cold, almost inhuman, and very much wedded to a vision of Russian history, which is intransigent and very out of date. I mean, what I mean by that,

you know, revival of a Russia which no longer exists and which no longer is going to exist. I mean, what I find extraordinary about the war in Ukraine is actually it's a civil war. It's not a European war. I mean, Kiv, is old ruse, it's a fundamental part of Russia. What I mean by that is I'm not echoing Putin's interpretation of Russian history,

but the identity of the two countries is very, very close. And I think that's why the war is so vicious, because if Moscow loses Kiev to the West, then it's always been a hinge between East and West. This is a fundamental crisis for Russian identity. So in a way, you can understand why Russia has conducted this war, but on the other hand, the movement of the hinge swinging towards the EU and towards NATO, which is effectively what's happened,

is a geopolitical change of huge historic significance and it's not going to swing back the other way I mean we now have a Ukrainian army of nearly a million holding off Russia which has now been fighting in Ukraine longer than it fought the Nazis in World War II with casualties and deaths

well above the million mark and there's no way that Ukraine are going to be defeated. So where does this actually end up? I mean, it ends up possibly with Russia occupying 19% of Ukrainian territory with a line of truce, but with Ukraine definitively leaving the Russian orbit, in spite of the ethnic link between the two countries. I mean, this is massive geopolitics. Do you see a scenario where Putin would come to the table and negotiate a deal that provides that territory,

not the territory that they don't currently occupy, that seems to be a red line from Keeves' perspective for obvious reasons? But then one of the other elements, which you've referred to. to is this idea that then Ukraine swings fully to the west. That seems to be for Putin, that seems to be almost as important as territories, this idea that, you know, you're not joining NATO, you're not becoming part of the EU in terms of, you know, your leading. You're not going to have an unlimited military. He doesn't seem or hasn't shown any interest in backing off of those demands.

There is no reduction in Putin's original demands in relation to this war, and he's in a hole and still digging. So what happens? Does he just continue, or I think in the end, it probably ends in some sort of line of truce, and an unresolved conflict rather like the last Cold War line of truce which still exists between North. and South Korea. But the Ukrainians are not going to concede

and they're nowhere near military defeat. In fact, militarily in the last two to three months they've been doing rather better and regaining territory and I think the Russians are having a rough time of it. So

there's an intransigence about the situation and I'm a thing that really concerns me being a huge supporter of your country is that this doesn't seem to have quite got through to the White House in terms of their apparent wish to end the war with which I agree but it's only going to be ended on certain terms and I mean those terms have to be to an extent coercive on Putin because otherwise he's just going to carry on. And I think we're in a very sensitive and difficult situation at the moment.

And, you know, no one expected the Ukrainians to have fought so hard. And in effect, you know, the Ukrainians on the part of Europe are conducting Europe's war. And what I find extraordinary is that the war has not escalated outside of Ukrainian territory, which is remarkable. It's been contained. The thing, the element that worries me is if the Ukrainians do gain the upper hand militarily, which isn't out of the question, then I think we are faced with the risk of Russian escalation. What I mean by that is a desperation on the Russian side which could lead to the use of what we call a battlefield, a tactical nuclear weapon, which would be catastrophic in consequence. So, I mean, what I would like to see is an end to the fighting, but along the current line

of division, saying that you have a truce, which is not going to be policed by foreign armies. This is, you know, the idea of boots on the ground, the coalition of the winning, it's completely, you know, the Ukrainians don't need that. They've got a million men under arms. They can police their own line, maybe with some observers on both sides. But I think that's what we should hate for. And what we have to aim at is that Russia gives up its ridiculous claim to territory, which it is not one militarily. I think you've raised what appears to be from Zelensky's point of view, a real key element here, which would be some official, some confirmed security guarantees. And I agree with you. I think this idea of the international force boots on the ground, I hate to say it and sound cynical, but much like, you know, in Gaza, I don't see Hamas as in disarmed. I don't want to go off in a different direction.

But, you know, you're not going to get an international force of boots on the ground there. I don't believe. So, you know, for Zelensky, I can see why he's so focused on this idea of security guarantees should Putin, and I suspect he will, he didn't start this invasion with the idea of just taking 19 or 20% of the country. He wanted the whole thing. I don't think that changes. The security guarantee could be quite straightforward. You can have an aerial security guarantee based outside Ukrainian territory, which would, as it were, give air cover to an extent which the Russians would find it very hard to deal with. So you can have a security guarantee based in Thailand, based somewhere else, where aircraft could be deployed,

and they can guarantee a line of truce. That's the only solution. But to put boots on the ground, the Russians are never going to accept that. as whoever it is, whatever countries. I'm particularly not from any NATO member country, even if they're there in an individual capacity. Anyway, look, these are details, but they're important ones. Do you imagine, last question, sir,

I want to be mindful of your time. Do you imagine that we'll be having the same conversation towards the end of this year? Or do you see some sort of off-ramp within 2026? not yet it has to go worse for Russia before we get to an offer although there is one

encouraging statistic and they shouldn't speak about it as a statistic it's more a tragedy the Russians are losing casualties and soldiers at a faster rate now than they're recruiting

that's pretty significant and I mean the kill rate The casualty rate is somewhere between 25, 40 to 1 on the Ukraine. I mean, one Eucres for up to above 30 Russian casualties and deaths. I mean, this is catastrophic. In humanitarian terms, it's catastrophic in military times, it doesn't make sense. And I mean, bear in mind, when this initial invasion,

took place in February 2020, the guards forces that set off down the main road to Kiev had their dress uniforms in the back of their vehicles and thought they were going to be prading down the Maidan in six weeks' time and that they would have knocked over the government, they would have controlled the whole country. Didn't happen quite like that. I don't think anybody saw the level of mistakes, of misinformation, miscommunication, on the part of the Kremlin. And you're right. I remembered people talking about giving a matter of days

at the beginning of that move. But, sir, I suspect and I hope that you'll come back on and we'll be able to work through what looks to be several more pages of questions that I had for a few. Right, totally. Yeah. And I encourage everyone to tune in, put it on your favorites list. It's Sir Richard Dearloves co-hosting the podcast, One Decision, a great geopolitical podcast.

And we're very much thanking for his time here on the Situation Report. Amazing experience, almost 40 years in the UK's intelligence organization, eventually running MI6. Great guest to have on. Terrific Insight. All right. Coming up next, nearly a dozen American F-22 Raptors have arrived in Israel. giving the U.S. new basing flexibility, of course, and strike capability amid the Iran standoff. We'll be joined by a friend of the show Ryan Macbeth. You know, you love them for more on that. Stay with us. Hey, Mike Baker here. Let me take just a moment to talk about personal finances and reaching your financial goals, both very, very important topics. Now, look, let's be honest. For many folks right now, it can seem like the math just isn't adding up.

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Ask your doctor about Evglis and visit ebglis.com or call 1800 lilyrx or 1-800 545-9759. Welcome back to the PDB Situation Report. As the U.S. continues its build-up in the Middle East, a major first American F-22 Raptor fighter jets have been deployed to Israel for a potential wartime mission against Iran. Now, it marks the first time that the U.S. is stationed top-tier combat aircraft in Israel specifically for possible offensive operations. The move represents a new level of military integration between Washington and Jerusalem and expands options should President the Trump move forward with strikes on Iran's nuclear or missile programs. With some Gulf states restricting U.S. basing access, Israel now becomes a critical launch point

and defensive hub. For more insight into this in the ongoing military buildup, I want to bring in a friend of the show, you know, Ryan Macbeth. Ryan's an open-source intelligence analyst, a smart guy and friend of the show. You can check out his YouTube channel at Ryan Macbeth programming. Brian, thank you very much, man. It's good to see you again. Thank you so much for inviting me on and letting me smoke. I really appreciate it. Yeah, look at that. Look at that with the smokes. Yeah, you know, I would do the same thing, but I'm not allowed to smoke in my own office. It's so sad. Yeah, just when you think you're, you know, you're charting your own course.

You're a man of yourself, you know, you're king of the castle, and then I find out I can't even smoke in my office. it's a great thing about my life. I have nothing alive in my house. I don't even have a plant. It's just me. So no one's going to complain. Well, I guess that's probably not why people tune in to hear you talk. But let's get stuck into a couple of the things that we really want to cover here.

The buildup in Iran, or off the coast of Iran, essentially. A couple of carrier groups. and a lot of support assets. I want to go out of two different ways. First, give me your assessment of that build-up, right? What it means. I mean, there's a lot of been talk about, well, this is the biggest thing since 2003 and the Iraq and Kurdishen back then. But then on the other side of the fence, I want you to talk about the Iranian defenses, right?

Their capabilities, not just to defend themselves, but also then maybe perhaps to. strike out at U.S. assets that are there within reach. Absolutely. Well, to start, we have a lot of iron in the Middle East right now. More aircraft than interest since 2003. We also have more tankers. And you know how Mr. Rogers said, look for the helpers. Well, Ryan McBeth says, look for the tankers. If you want to know what we're going to do, it's tankers that make that happen.

In fact, I even have a patch right here that it's dedicated to the tankers, as alcoholics moving cargo. People have actually put this on their uniform. AMC, alcoholics moving cargo. But yeah, these tanker guys are absolutely incredible, and they are the force multiplier, all right? They are the guys that can get the stuff where it needs to go. And it doesn't matter if you're even something like NF15,

which I believe carries 25,000 pounds of gas. I might be off on that. but you're going to need to refuel at some point. And that's where these tankers come in. They enable these long-range strikes. It's costing $6.5 million a day per aircraft carrier strike group in the Middle East right now. That is not a small amount of money. And back on January 1st, I put out a video where I came out with my bingo card for the year.

And my free space was Maduro will be gone sometime this month. and that's because you don't send a $6.5 million a day strike group into the Caribbean unless you intend to do something with it. So, gang, it is likely that all this metal means that something is likely to happen either Friday, probably at around 8 o'clock our time, 2 o'clock, Tehran time, or perhaps in mid-March. Now, for the Iranian side... Look at... Wait a second. Wait a minute a second.

I don't want to bury the lead here. Here's just, here, that's what we do here on the P&B. We make very specific predictions. Yeah. Or at least Ryan does. Okay, so that's, okay, I'm putting down that marker. Yeah, I would say Friday. Friday, because it'll be about two in the morning in Toronto.

And that's because, you know, the Ford is ready to go. The Lincoln is ready to go. And these assets, they cost money as they're floating, right? The Ford needs maintenance. Maintenance has been pushed back. So we need to get the Ford in the fight and then back to Norfolk where they can refit. And then when you take a look at advantages, right now it's Ramadan, right? So that means the Iranians are going to be fighting hungry and thirsty if they're fighting during the day.

All right. So once we hit mid-March, we've kind of given up that because Ramadan ends on, I believe, the 19th of March. Now, March gives us a little bit more time to get more force to do theater. It gives us more time to safely put satellites over the target because it takes a lot to maneuver a satellite. But if you maneuver it correctly, the slow way, you can save a little bit of fuel. So it might be waiting until mid-March, but I would say either Friday, probably around 8 o'clock at night, or perhaps on mid-March that we will strike Iran if we choose to do so.

Now, what Iran can do back is kind of interesting. So I can go over all of Iran's missiles, but they have so many of them with a million different names. Unlike the United States, when they create a variant of a missile, they rename it. They don't give it the B designation or the C designation, you know, the fire, and then there's another one, and there are all these different names. So Iran has a limited supply of missiles, ballistic missiles that can reach Israel, which would probably be a major target. Iran has multiple short-range missiles, which can hit bases in Qatar or even hurt oil production in Saudi Arabia. They probably only have about 2,000 or so of them.

And they most likely spent a lot of their long-range missiles hitting targets in Israel the first time. These things aren't easy to make. Remember back when we talked about planetary mixers? It was a couple episodes ago. These planetary mixtures, they make the fuel that goes into the rocket. Now, rockets are all great, but they only have maybe 100 or so tells or transport erector launchers. So if you can only fire these missiles and batches of 100, it makes a lot easier to intercept.

Now, for the naval strike group out in the Arabian Sea, or as I like to call it, the Sea of America, whenever we have an aircraft carrier there, a little bit of a different story. In order to take out a strike group, number one, you have to find it. And this strike group is always moving. So, ISR, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, how does Iran find that strike group? They only have two satellites, so that means that satellite has to be over the target, right when that strike group is there. It's hard to do.

China has a lot more satellites. They could be feeding Iran information, so that way they can glean information about what it would be like to attack the American carrier strike group. But, again, does China want that smoke if we found out Iran helped them? Iran has a navy, very small navy. We put it to the bottom of the ocean, at least half of their ships. I believe it was in 1986, 1987, Operation Paring Mantis, I believe. With Reagan.

So, now nowadays, Iran does have anti-ship missiles mounted on fastboats. They could perform swarm attacks. They could perform drone attacks. But again, the hard part is finding the carrier strike group in the first place. Do you have any insight into there had been some reporting that China under Xi Jinping might be looking to close a deal to sell anti-ship missiles rather sophisticated to Iran? I haven't heard about that, but they did before. That was the Silkworm missile, which I would even hit the USS Stark back in, I think it was, 1986 or in the mid-80s around that time. So, you know, these, China has a reputation of selling weapons and equipment to Iran. Iran is actually, they have a lot of engineers of that country, very smart people.

They make their own stuff and some of it's cheap stuff. But it is, it is, there's value, right? Iran is like the Costco of the Middle East, right? Kirkland brand missiles, right? And these things, they are good enough for what you need to do. You look at the Shad drone. Chad 1-36, it is good enough, right? Only might have a 250-pound warhead, but it's good enough to cause terror inside a city.

It can hit a city block. Might not be able to hit directly into an air vent, but it's good enough. Now, in a case like that, I don't know if China can get those missiles over fast enough, and even if they do, you always need training, right? It's one thing to just drop off a bunch of missiles, but after you do that, all right, we have train people up on this, we have to teach him out of fire it, and Iran still has to find the carrier group in the first place. Yeah, it's interesting because, first of all, I never thought I'd mention a weapon system or potential arm sale to you that you hadn't heard about. So I'm

feeling very clever right now. But it seems as if, to your point about China, maybe not wanting the smoke, given that we've got potentially, well, supposedly a summit that's going to be occurring, in the not too distant future between Trump and Xi Jinping, you would think that they would drag their feet on delivery of a more capable anti-ship missile system. And I think they were talking about it. I think it's designated the CM302, something like that. And so I would be surprised also there's no telling how long it, again, take to close that deal, may not have any immediate ramifications for what's

happening right now. But, you know, I guess there's also the concern, and you talked about it, you mentioned Israel being a likely target. When I have conversation, sometimes people say, well, why, you know, why would that be the case? Well, it's the case because a stated objective of the Iranian regime is the destruction of Israel. So in a conflict like this, if it kicks off, they may look at it and think, well, now's the time. Why don't we, you know, make an effort? And so targeting Israel, perhaps because they feel like it's an existential threat for the Islamic Republic. Maybe they try to go out swinging. Well, they can try that, absolutely.

But like I said when we were talking before, they have maybe 1,500 and 2,000 missiles left of varying ranges. So let's say they have 200 that have the range to hit Israel. So if each one has a 2,000-pound warhead on it, then we're talking 20,000 tons of explosives, or 20,000 pounds of explosives could fall on on Israel, right? Now, when you look at World War II, I think we used to drop like every single raid on Berlin. Yeah, we'd drop like 100 tons of bombs every single night. Iran could launch a couple of missiles at Israel, right? And it's horrible to do this math because I was actually speaking with an Israeli, and he said, should I worry, should I be close to my shelter?

And I said, look, maybe they'll fire 200 missiles at you. Some of them are going to get shot down. Some of them are going to land in the sea. Some of them are going to land in the desert. A couple are going to land on people's heads. But no more than 20,000 tons of explosives are going to be coming down. And Germany got way more than that every single. single night during World War II, you'll be five. Yeah. It's, it is though from a, from a perspective of

not just their ballistic missile program, what can you tell us about their drone capabilities? They have some incredible drone capabilities for a country of their tech level. They really kind of drilled down into the tech tree when it comes to drones. The Shahed 136. Fantastic thesis of equipment. The only problem is it's not really guided. So once you set that target up on the Shahed, you let it go. It's going to go to that target, but it can't necessarily seek targets on its own.

So if you thought, well, we can fire, but we can blanket the Sea of America, formerly known as the Arabian Sea, we can blanket that with drones, well, those drones. can't really talk to each other and say, hey, I found a target. And meanwhile, as it's doing that, we're shooting them down because we have AWACS aircraft, specifically the E2 Hawkeye, which is a Navy aircraft that loiteres above the carrier strike group, and it uses a very powerful radar to find targets. So the exact range is classified, but Wikipedia range, I believe, was around 400 nautical miles or so. So we're detecting these things as they come in 400 nautical miles. These things are extremely slow. You always have to, you do an equation whenever you manufacture any kind of weapon system,

missile, a drone. About a third goes to the actual structure and engine. About a third goes to fuel, and about a third goes to warhead. If you want more warhead, you got to get less fuel. If you want more fuel, there's less warhead, right? So in a drone case like the Shahed 136, you might be able to throw them all out at sea, but we're going to detect them coming. And the last time Iran used Shahed drones against Israel, we knew they were coming for about 10 hours. In fact, I was on Newsmax at 8 o'clock and I said, I'll be back on at 6 o'clock to do the damage assessment, because that's how long it takes those drugs to get back. I believe we shut all them down. These days, do we actually have a rocket system? It looks like the old Zuni rocket pods. You can fit these on to a fighter, and

it's a very cheap way of destroying these slow-moving drones. That is something that the F-18 should have installed. The F-15 hasn't installed, if any are flying and doing cap out of Jordan. So I think that dealing with the drone threat, especially these slow-moving drones, or maybe a lot of them, we have a lot more ways to kill them now than we did even just two years ago. I'll tell you what, don't go anywhere, Ryan. All right, stay right where you are. We have to take a quick break, and then we'll be right back with more from Ryan Macbeth here on the Situation Report, smoke them if he got them.

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Joining us once again is Ryan Macbeth. Now, you can check out his YouTube channel, and you should be checking out his YouTube channel regularly. It's at Ryan Macbeth programming and on his substack. Don't know what that is, but you probably do. So it's substack.com slash at Ryan Macbeth. I'm going to say that one more time. Substack.com slash at Ryan Macbeth. And after the show, I'm going to look up and find out what substack is.

We'll have links to both of those in the show description, by the way. Ryan, thanks very much, man, for sticking around. Absolutely. If I could ask, obviously we've been talking about the buildup out there. from the U.S. military side. And we're always talking carrier strike group. There's the Ford that's going out there. It's a carrier strike group.

If you could, in relatively simple terms, tell us about what a carrier strike group consists of and its most impressive capabilities. Absolutely. So, boy, the most impressive capability is to put 4.5 acres of sovereign U.S. territory wherever the hell we want. I joke before that right now, the Arabian Sea is the Sea of America. That's because whenever we put that carrier, it is essentially a little piece of

America that's floating in the middle of the ocean. Typically, a carrier wing will have four squadrons of fighters. In the Abraham Lincoln's case, I believe they have one squadron of 35s and three squadrons of Super Hornets. They also have six growlers, and growlers are extremely important. These growlers provide electronic warfare, and also another capability called C or suppression of enemy air defenses. So these guys will take off from the carrier, and they will essentially play chicken with surface-dair missile sites. They'll get close to it, try to get it to turn on, and as soon as they turn on, they start electronic countermeasures, and they fire a missile. They'll follow that radar beam down to the surface air missile site and blow up the radar.

So essentially, any kind of package, you have the seed aircraft going first. They find all the surface air missile sites. Once they're gone, you have the strike groups come in and they can start hitting targets. Now, in addition to this aircraft carrier, this aircraft carrier has multiple escorts. I believe we have 20 vessels in the area right now. And of these 20 vessels, a good portion of them are U.S. Navy Arley-Burk class destroyers. Now, these can carry up to 72 Tomahawk missiles, although each VLS tube, which is essentially, think of it like a small shipping container that pops into the destroyer vertically. This thing can open up. It'll fire a missile out of the container, and to reload, you just pop in a new container.

There's a little more to it than popping it in, but it's a very easy way to load and store these missiles in a very fast way of firing them. Now it's more likely these Arly Burke class destroyers of perhaps 20 tomahawks on them and a mix of self-defense missiles like the SM2, SM6. However, these tomahawks provide a very, very powerful cruise missile punch if that means to be used. In addition to those screening destroyers that surround the carrier to make sure nothing gets to it, we also most likely have in the area an attack submarine that is protecting the carrier strike group from below and perhaps an Ohio-class cruise missile submarine. These were former ballistic missile submarines that had their ballistic missile tubes taken out and cruise missile tubes put in.

I believe it's instead of one launcher per, instead of one missile per tube, they have four in each of these Ohio class cruise missile submarines. And these will be able to launch, I believe it's 196. I might be getting the math on that wrong. Cruise missiles into Iran. So these are all options. And we haven't even talked about the air options yet from the Air Force. Good Lord. Okay. So in the scheme of things, right, and this is going to probably sound like a bit of a simplistic question.

But if you were organizing this, right, and say that it was going to kinetic action, we were going to engage in conflict of some sort, what would you recommend as the target package here when we're talking about the Iranian regime? and what, from your perspective, is the most logical objective? You know, what's interesting about Iran is that it's really a country with two armies. Imagine if America had the U.S. Army and then we had a religious army. And Iran is kind of like that. The IRGC, Iranian Republican, Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, they are the religious army. It's about 125,000 hardcore Islam. Then you have the Artaish. The Artaish is what you might consider the regular army, the people's army of Iran. Now, when you get conscripted, you can go to either place. They kind of randomly assign you based on needs of the military. However, for the most part, the Artaish is composed of people who are loyal to the country. They're loyal to the regime too, but they're loyal to the country. So this kind of gives you a target package. What you probably don't want to do is target the Arteche. You want to target command and control.

sites for the IRGC. Those are the bad guys. Those are the guys you want to take out. And at some point, the Artesh is going to wake up and go, you know what? The IRGC got all of our funding. They have a budget of about $6 billion a year in U.S. dollars. The Artesh gets a little less than half that. So there's a little bit of animosity between these two organizations. So ideally, you target these IRC sites and at some point the Artesh is going to rise up. Hopefully, and take over the country, and then you will see the end of the mullahs. So ideally, you attack IRGC sites, specifically command control sites. You leave the army alone, and at a certain point, the army goes, you know what? We're done. We want a country again. We want wealth and

prosperity, and we're going to get that with America, not with the mullahs in charge. How effective... It's two parts to this. First of all, what was your assessment? after last year's U.S. strikes on nuclear facilities. And did you see any bomb damage assessments that, you know, from your perspective, seem, you know, highly credible? And what is the utility of going after those nuclear facilities currently? If there's a decision to strike, I guess what I'm wondering is, you know, are you focused on their nuclear program?

or you focused on ballistic missile program or you're focused on regime. There's a lot of layers here. regime change. Anyway, I throw that back at you. So from what I've seen the same pictures you've seen when it comes to satellite footage. And of course, if I had any more knowledge,

I wouldn't be able to talk about that, of course. But what we've seen is that Iran has covered a lot of their nuclear sites with sand or tents, which means one of the two things. either they're covering that site in order to seal off any possible hole. It is very difficult to go through sand. Or they're covering it so they can perform some sort of excavation operation to try to recover what equipment they can.

Now, when you're talking about something like the uranium centerfuge, that thing is very delicate. Those things probably all have to be refurbished or they have to be remanufactured because these are centerfuges. They spin literally at the speed of sound to try to see. separate the heavier uranium from the light of uranium. So with something like that, it's not something you can just go down to Target and replace, right? Just like the planetary mixers. We can't get a KitchenA mixer and mix rocket fuel with it. There'll be too many air

bubbles in it. However, there may be a point of admission returns and going after these nuclear sites. Those may be reserved for heavy bombers, and the fighters will be reserved for targets of or IRGC sites. So perhaps after one or two days is not going to be a lot remaining from the nuclear program because we took out so much of it before. And you can move rocks. You can move one, you're turning big rocks into little rocks at this point, right? So after that, you get the B-2s back at Whiteman and you continue along with the small

tactical fighters hitting these targets of opportunity. So that's probably how that sort of thing would roll. Yeah, it's interesting because in the immediate aftermath of the 12-day war, after the U.S. strikes on the facilities, you know, there was some talk out. We completely obliterated them. We completely destroyed them. And, you know, I mean, part of that was, you know, kind of trying to, I think, drive a narrative. But I don't think anybody really believed it. you know, we weren't going to completely obliterate the Iranian nuclear program. But I take

your point, there was significant damage. I think the problem is I have not seen, and not that I would, it would be, you know, speculation, but I've not seen anything that looks like highly credible bomb damage assessments from those strikes. So you just kind of wonder, as they're preparing target packages, which I'm sure they've already prepared and they're sitting on the shelf, to what degree they thought let's revisit that or let's focus elsewhere. And part of it is also you've got this, you know, the recent murder of thousands of their own citizens.

Part of this could be retribution in the sense that, look, you're trying to send a message to all those people who were brave enough to get out on the streets and protest, right? If you identify the units that were involved in the significant portion of that repression and the killing of citizens, detaining of citizens, then maybe you target those facilities that house those units. I don't know. I don't know that there's a question in there, Ryan, and we're just having a conversation.

Well, like I said, when it comes to obliterate, all right, if you drop a bomb inside a facility that has centerfuges, and those centerfuges are highly sensitive pieces of equipment, you might not necessarily destroy those centerfuges as in blow them to bits. but if you've knocked them out of alignment and it takes two years to refurbish the centerfuges, you've effectively obliterated the site, right? So I have no doubt that the bombs were being used. I believe 12,000 pound bombs, essentially artillery shells packed with explosives that can penetrate deep.

And the first bomb knocks the lid off the vent shafts. It's literally the end scene in Star Wars. The first bomb knocks the lid off. The second bomb goes right into the trench, right? And if you have that kind of earthquake-type concussion, that can certainly damage these centrifuges. So they might not be destroyed, but they have to be scrapped or they have to be refurbished,

and that takes time. The interesting thing here, yeah, no, please. I was going to say, interesting fact that I'm sure people will be fascinated but is I've only seen the first Star Wars movie. I had a conversation the other day with our executive producer about this. He seemed incredulous at the idea. But I watched that first one and then I had no interest in one. Not that it wasn't a good movie.

It was a very entertaining movie. But, you know, I think it was 1977. I never watched another one. It was like with me with Star Trek. I watched all the episodes with William Shadner had no interest in anything that followed on after that. Yeah, right now people are listening going, thank you, Mike, for that. in sight. That's fascinating. Last question. Being mindful of your time, Ryan, and the fact that I know you've got to go

get a new cigar. What do you make of the reporting that came out where Israeli intelligence was saying, look, despite the size of this military buildup for a potential conflict with Iran, that the intel assessments from the Israelis, I believe, were saying, look, in terms of a sustained operation, you're probably not more than a few days. It seemed somewhat pessimistic about the ability to maintain a weeks-long assault. I can tell you this. Every time Sentcom fires a tom-lock, someone in Dupacom cries. And we're all going to be speaking Chinese in 10 years if we keep shooting million-dollar missiles at camels. All right. Now, I can tell you this. For every night that we're dropping munitions

inside of Iran, that is one more night that we're not going to be able to fight China when China invades Taiwan essentially next year. Next year, maybe in 2028. Wait, a second, ladies and gentlemen, a second prediction

from Ryan Macbeth here. And this one's based on Taiwan. Okay, wait while I make a note, Ryan. April, 2012 2027 or October 2027, if I was Xi Jinping, I would invade Taiwan in April or October 2028 because it will be during the presidential election.

But He Jinping has said to his army, you must be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. When a dictator tells their army something, they've already started building the landing barges. They've done that. I've just recently read a document that was translated from Chinese that was in the Chinese military magazine that mentioned how reunification of China is a priority. And this was in an article in this Chinese magazine about landing craft. So they're prepared. And if it happens,

it'll most likely happen in April or October of 2027 or April or October of 2028. And that's because that's when the weather window, that's when the sea state in the strait of Taiwan is low enough for ships to land. Ladies and gentlemen, that's why you should be checking out his YouTube channel. That's at Ryan Macbeth programming. And also, whatever substack is, you should take out substack. Substack.com slash at Ryan Macbeth. Ryan, I had a bunch more questions to ask you, but yeah, we ran out of time.

Listen, thank you, as always, man, for being on the show. we'll definitely be calling you back and I'm going to be holding you to these predictions frankly Well I would say it's likely how about that Using ICD 203 I would say that

It is likely that if attack occurs On Iran it will be Friday night Or this weekend I should say And I would say it is likely That if an attack on Taiwan occurs It will happen in May or April or Occas October of 2027 or April October of 2028.

Nice. Well, I'll make a prediction as well. I'm going to predict it. We're going to have you back on the Situation Report here in the not too distant future, man. Thank you so much. Cool. Take care, Ryan. Well, that's all the time that we have for today's PDB situation report, great guests. And if you have any questions or comments or humorous anecdotes, please reach out to me at pdb at thefirsttv.com. You know what we do. Once a month, we all gather around our very fancy conference table and our very fancy conference room and we sift through the mailbags. We select a bunch of your questions and comments and we push them into an episode

that we call Ask Me Anything. The most recent one hit the airwaves not too long ago. I hope you've enjoyed it. And there you have it. Don't forget. Keep your cards and letters coming. To listen to the podcast of this show ad-free, well, become a premium member of the president's daily brief by visiting PDB Premium.com. It really is that simple. I'm Mike Baker, and until next time, you know the drill. Stay informed. Stay safe. Stay cool. Starting a business can seem like a daunting task, unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website to marketing, to selling and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need. There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel, Heinz, and all birds continue to trust

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