Iran's Secret Island Bases Are Under Attack & Ukraine's Robot Assault

**Mike Baker** (0:12)
It's Thursday, the 16th of July. Welcome to The Presidents Daily Brief. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. And, well, it pains me to say, but congratulations to Argentina. They downed England two to one in typical Argentinian fashion and move on to play Spain in the finals.
Well, we got four years to go. Better luck next time. All right, let's get briefed. First up, American forces are now targeting three small islands that have become a key part of Iran's ability to threaten shipping through the Strait of Hormuz. I'll have the details. Later in the show, China is expanding its presence across disputed waters, and now the US. Coast Guard is joining the effort to push back. Plus, Ukraine has carried out what appears to be the world's first fully robotic amphibious assault, say that three times fast, offering yet another glimpse into the future of warfare. And in today's Back of the Brief, the Justice Department indicts three Russian nationals accused of helping orchestrate a cybercrime network that caused millions of dollars in damage across the US. But first, today's PDB Spotlight.
The US has opened a new front in its campaign against Iran, striking a little known military outpost in the Strait of Hormuz. On Wednesday, US forces targeted Iranian cruise missile storage and launch sites on Greater Tum. That's an island that the regime has spent decades transforming into a heavily fortified base for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC. At first glance, it might seem like an unusual target, striking a small island, until you look at the geography of the Strait and the regime's military infrastructure that they put in place in and around the waterway. To understand the targeting strategy, let's start with the geography. At its narrowest, the Strait of Hormuz is only about 20 miles wide, with commercial shipping squeezed into even narrower shipping lanes as tankers and cargo vessels move in and out of the Persian Gulf. Scattered across those waters are three small islands, Greater Tum, Lesser Tum and Abou Moussa. They don't look particularly impressive on a map, but their location gives whoever controls them an extraordinary military advantage over one of the busiest shipping corridors on Earth. Iran has understood that reality for decades. In 1971, just before the UAE gained independence, Iranian forces seized all three islands. More than 50 years later, the UAE still considers them occupied territory and continues to press its claim through diplomatic channels and international legal forums. How's that working out? Meanwhile, Tehran has spent decades turning the islands into military outposts. The IRGC has established a permanent presence there, constructing radar installations, missile sites, drone facilities and infrastructure for the fast attack craft that have become a hallmark of Iran's naval strategy. From those positions, Iran can monitor nearly everything moving through the strait. In a conflict, those same positions allow Tehran to launch anti-ship cruise missiles, deploy drones, coordinate swarms of fast attack boats, and threaten commercial shipping passing through the strait. Together, the islands form the foundation of Iran's strategy for holding the waterway captive. And that's what makes Wednesday's strike so significant. According to the US military, American forces specifically targeted cruise missile storage and launch sites on Greater Tum. Over the past several days, US forces have systematically targeted Iranian radar sites, air defenses, drone launch positions, anti-ship missile batteries, and Revolutionary Guard naval assets all along Iran's southern coast. Viewed together, the strikes reveal a clear pattern. The US is attempting to dismantle the entire network that Iran would use to contest control of the Strait of Hormuz. And that brings us to today's second development. According to new reporting from Axios, President Trump convened his national security team in the Situation Room on Tuesday to discuss what sources describe as a much broader offensive against Iran.
While the current campaign has focused primarily on protecting shipping and degrading Iran's ability to attack vessels in the Strait, the next phase could reach much deeper into the country. In an interview with Fox News before the meeting, President Trump hinted at exactly that. He said the US would hit Iran, quote, hard over the coming days before warning that unless Tehran returns to the negotiating table, future strikes could target the country's electrical grid, bridges and other strategic infrastructure. Trump also revealed that US intelligence is closely monitoring activity at what's called Pickaxe Mountain. It's a deeply buried underground facility that American and Israeli officials suspect could eventually play an important role in Iran's nuclear program. Whether that site ultimately becomes a target remains to be seen, but it offers another indication that Washington is already looking beyond the immediate fight around the Strait of Hormuz.