Iran’s Leaders Are Terrified of Another Uprising & Moscow’s Secret Drone Network

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
Late Night Bites with Friends?
Already hard to beat. That first too hot bite of fries you couldn't wait for, followed by ice cold Pepsi. Now that hits different. Suddenly, the energy kicks back in, the night goes longer, and the laughs don't stop, because Pepsi brings out more flavor, more fun, and more of the moment. Food deserves Pepsi. Grab a Pepsi Zero Sugar today.

**Mike Baker** (0:39)
It's Tuesday, the 18th of August. Welcome to The President's Daily Brief. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. First up, Iran declares it is going, quote, fully offensive, threatening a new military attack, even as some of its leaders fear economic collapse and another uprising at home. But to be fair, the regime's been offensive since 1979
Later in the show, Russia reportedly builds a network of secret drone bases capable of launching devastating attacks deep inside NATO territory. Plus, Jared Kushner concludes two days of Gaza negotiations, but Israel and Hamas remained far apart. Who could have seen that coming? And in today's Back of the Brief, an embarrassing security breach for Britain's new prime minister after he exchanges messages with someone posing as President Trump's chief of staff. But first, today's PDB Spotlight. Iran says it's done playing defense. With diplomacy collapsing, a senior Iranian official now tells Reuters that Tehran is moving to what he called a, quote, fully offensive posture and preparing a military operation to break President Trump's naval blockade. The official says Iran is giving Washington a matter of weeks to fully implement the temporary agreement that was reached back in June. The exact deadline has not been made public, but the regime says it will share the details. Well, that's nice with American officials and governments across the region. If the US refuses, Iran is threatening what it calls a, quote, timely and precise attack against the blockade, with Iranian military and government institutions being told to prepare for escalation in the Strait of Hormuz and beyond. That threat comes just as the original 60-day deadline for reaching a broader peace agreement officially expired on Monday. That would be an important milestone, I suppose, for anyone who was pretending that the agreement wasn't already dead. In practical terms, that deadline has been meaningless for quite some time. The June Memorandum of Understanding or Misunderstanding was supposed to immediately and permanently end military operations, while giving Washington and Tehran two months to negotiate a final agreement covering Iran's nuclear program and American sanctions. Instead, the ceasefire began unraveling almost immediately over the Strait of Hormuz. Iran claimed the agreement gave it the right to manage the waterway, which it shares with Oman. Washington rejected that interpretation. Tehran began firing on ships that refused to follow its approved routes while the US reinstated its blockade of Iranian ports.
President Trump declared the agreement over back in July. Now Iran is effectively replacing that meaningless deadline with one of its own and attaching an explicit threat of military force. But Tehran's increasingly aggressive rhetoric may be masking a much deeper concern inside the regime. In a separate report, Reuters says Iranian officials are growing increasingly worried that additional American economic pressure could deepen the country's hardships, reignite nationwide protests, and further erode the Islamic Republic's legitimacy.
Reuters based that reporting on conversations with three Iranian officials, two political insiders, a former official, and roughly a dozen ordinary Iranians. The picture that they describe is, well, grim. Iran's annual inflation rate reached 66% in July. Consumer prices were nearly 88% higher than they were one year earlier. Food inflation reached an astonishing 128%.
Despite a large increase in Iran's minimum wage, the collapse of the real has reduced its actual value from roughly $105 a month in late March to just $86 a month today.
Iranians interviewed by Reuters described losing their jobs, shutting down businesses and cutting back on family meals. One government employee said his salary disappears within days. American strikes have damaged factories, power plants, bridges, and transportation networks. Goods that once arrived by sea are being rerouted through neighboring countries or across the Caspian Sea, increasing shipping times and, of course, prices. The naval blockade has also effectively cut off Iran's gasoline imports. According to an Iranian lawmaker, the country is now consuming roughly 137 million liters of gasoline per day, while producing only around 130 million. That leaves a daily shortfall that Tehran may struggle to manage if the blockade continues. President Masoud Bizechian acknowledged the worsening situation last week, saying Iran's problems had multiplied while its income had fallen. The country is selling less oil, collecting less tax revenue, and paying more to move basic goods.
For Iran's rulers, however, the greatest danger may not be the economic pain, and they'll just push that down to the people. It's what that pain could unleash. Nationwide demonstrations over economic conditions erupted earlier this year, of course, before being violently crushed by the Revolutionary Guard and the Basij militia. Thousands of people were reportedly killed, with thousands more detained, many of whom have since been executed. Now, Reuters notes that Tehran has appointed Hossein Ta'eb, a key architect of previous government crackdowns, to lead the Basij militia. That's a revealing personnel decision. While Iranian officials publicly prepare for an offensive against the US., the regime is also preparing its forces for another possible confrontation with its own people. Arrests, prison sentences, and executions targeting journalists, lawyers, activists, and students have reportedly intensified in recent months.