September 15th, 2026: Iran’s Government Is Splintering Over the War & China Fears the AI Revolution

Mike Baker (0:12)

It's Tuesday, the 15th of September. Oh, look at that. We are officially halfway through the month.

Is it time to start humming holiday tunes yet? Well, soon. 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, new reporting says Iranian hardliners deliberately sabotaged a peace deal with Washington by attacking ships in the Strait of Hormuz, exposing an ongoing power struggle inside the regime over, well, who's actually in charge. Later in the show, China's top spy chief is warning that artificial intelligence could become a direct threat to Communist Party rule as Beijing confronts the political risks of increasingly powerful AI. Plus, NATO is responding after Russian drone attacks near Poland, including a strike that hit a rail station shortly after a group of senior foreign officials had passed through. And in today's Back of the Brief, a former CIA officer caught with hundreds of gold bars stashed at his home and millions in cash is now negotiating a plea deal with federal prosecutors. But first, today's PDB spotlight.

Iran's war with the US may be influenced in part by a war within the regime over who's actually calling the shots. New reporting from the New York Times says hardline figures, are there any other kind within Iran's security establishment, deliberately undermined a memorandum of understanding or a temporary ceasefire, or whatever we decided to call it back then, reached with Washington in July by orchestrating attacks on commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz. And according to Iranian officials who spoke to the Times, President Masoud Pezeshkian didn't know the attack was coming. Neither apparently did some of Iran's most senior military officials. The episode unfolded in early July. Pezeshkian was in neighboring Iraq, attending funeral ceremonies for Iran's former Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. At the time, according to the reporting, Pezeshkian had reasoned to be optimistic. Iran and the US had just negotiated an agreement aimed at ending the fighting. Then Iranian forces suddenly opened fire on three commercial ships in the Strait of Hormuz. A Qatari liquefied natural gas tanker was set ablaze. Other vessels were damaged and whatever momentum existed toward ending the war disappeared almost immediately. According to the Times, Pezeshkian was furious. He called General Ahmad Wahidi, the commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC, demanding to know what had happened. Wahidi reportedly, anyway, told him that he had not authorized the attack, and more surprisingly, again according to Wahidi, he hadn't known about it beforehand. Iran's Supreme National Security Council, which supposedly plays a central role in both the war and negotiations with Washington, was also reportedly unaware. Pezeshkian returned to Tehran, and by the following morning, the US had responded with airstrikes, and the two countries were back at war. What followed inside Iran, according to officials interviewed by The Times, anyway, was one of the most serious confrontations among the country's leadership in years. There were shouting matches. Two senior generals reportedly threatened to resign, and officials accused one another of betrayal and treason. An internal investigation eventually pointed toward one of the most powerful figures in Iran's security establishment, Hossein Tayeb. Tayeb is a cleric and long-time intelligence operative who spent more than two decades leading intelligence operations for the Revolutionary Guard, again, the IRGC. He was removed from that position in 2022, following a series of embarrassing security failures, including Israeli penetration of Iranian networks. But after Ali Khamenei was killed, Tayeb returned to prominence. Iranian officials say he played an important role in helping Khamenei's son, Mostaba, wherever he may be, become the new Supreme Leader. Tayeb also strongly opposed the ceasefire agreement or memorandum of understanding with Washington. According to three Iranian officials cited by The Times, government and security inquiries traced the decision to attack those commercial ships back to Tayeb. One former Iranian official described the objective very plainly, destroy the agreement with President Trump and make another round of negotiations far more difficult. When Pezeshkian demanded answers, he was reportedly told that commanders in the field had acted understanding orders, allowing them to attack ships that they believed violated Iran's control of the Strait of Hormuz without first seeking approval from Tehran. But the internal dispute exposed a much bigger problem for the regime.

Normally, Iran's supreme leader would settle a fight like this. Except as we know, Iran's new supreme leader is nowhere to be seen. Mustafa Khamenei has not appeared publicly since taking the position, and his voice has not been heard publicly. Even members of his own family have said they have little or no contact with him, because supposedly of extraordinary security measures. According to The Times, some Iranian officials, including Pezeshkian, have also questioned whether statements attributed to Khamenei are actually coming from him.