The Iran War Just Entered A Dangerous New Phase & Wagner's African Opioid Trade

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**Mike Baker** (0:42)
It's Wednesday, the 15th of July. Welcome to The Presidents Daily Brief. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. First up, the battle for the Strait of Hormuz is entering a dangerous new chapter. We'll examine why the Trump administration has once again shifted its strategy against Iran and what it says about where the conflict may be headed. Later in the show, the remnants of Russia's Wagner mercenary force, remember them, have reportedly traded the battlefield for the drug trade. We'll look at allegations that they're operating a growing opioid empire in one of Africa's most lawless regions. Plus, the Trump administration is launching a new campaign against the International Criminal Court, the ICC, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio vowing to curb the Tribunal's influence and shield Americans from its jurisdiction.
And in today's Back of the Brief, Congress is moving to honor the late Senator Lindsey Graham by reviving one of his signature priorities, a sweeping new package of sanctions aimed at Russia.
But first, today's PDB Spotlight.
Just a few weeks ago, President Trump was celebrating what the White House hoped would be the end of America's latest conflict with Iran. An interim peace agreement had supposedly re-opened the Strait of Hormuz, or at least was intended to reopen the Strait. Negotiations over Tehran's nuclear program were supposedly set to resume. And after months of fighting, there was at least some hope, at least from folks who were hopeful, that the region might be headed toward a more stable footing. That at least was the narrative from the US side. Today, that optimism is gone. The ceasefire has collapsed. American warplanes are once again striking targets inside Iran. The US. Navy has reimposed its blockade of Iranian ports. And according to new reporting from the Wall Street Journal, the conflict has entered what may be its most dangerous phase yet. And here's why. The Journal reports that the Trump administration has now fundamentally shifted its military strategy for the third time since joining Israel's campaign against Iran earlier this year. The first phase was what many analysts described as a, quote, shock and awe campaign, a sustained wave of American air and missile strikes designed to cripple Iran's military infrastructure and force Tehran to the negotiating table in a meaningful way.
That was followed by an economic strategy. Washington imposed a naval blockade aimed at choking off Iranian commerce while allowing international shipping to continue moving through the Strait of Hormuz.
And then came last month's interim peace agreement, which temporarily lifted that blockade and was supposed to reopen one of the world's most important waterways.
But that agreement quickly unraveled, if in fact it was ever raveled in the first place. According to the Wall Street Journal, one reason may be that Washington and Tehran appeared to have walked away from the negotiating table with completely different understandings of what they had actually agreed to.
Or as another reason, and here I'm just spitballing, a reason could be that the Iranian regime wasn't and never has negotiated in good faith. Nah, I'm just spitballing. The Trump administration viewed the deal or ceasefire or memorandum of understanding as the thing that would reopen the Strait of Hormuz to international shipping. Iran, meanwhile, insisted the agreement effectively recognized Tehran's authority over the waterway. Regardless, less hopeful or less optimistic folks and count me among them believed that the ceasefire was doomed almost from the moment that it was signed. Now, with commercial vessels once again coming under attack, the administration has shifted into a third phase. Rather than returning to the overwhelming air campaign that we saw at the start of the conflict, the United States is now pursuing a more measured but open-ended military strategy. American strikes are increasingly focused on the specific military capabilities Iran uses to threaten shipping through the Hormuz Strait, coastal radar sites, anti-ship missile batteries, drone launch positions and naval infrastructure. The goal isn't necessarily to overthrow the Iranian regime. It's to strip Tehran of one of its greatest sources of leverage, in fact, possibly its only source of leverage, and that would be the ability to threaten one of the world's most strategically important waterways. As one Middle East expert told the Journal, quote, this is really a fight over leverage. It is not a fight over the regime, end quote. Military superiority has never really been in question. The US can strike targets across Iran largely at will. The bigger question is whether Washington can deny Iran the ability to disrupt shipping in the Strait without becoming trapped in another long-term conflict in the Middle East. That's because Iran doesn't necessarily need to defeat the US militarily. It simply needs to convince Washington that keeping the Strait permanently open will require an endless commitment of American military power. And that's what makes this latest phase of the conflict so dangerous. Both sides appear to believe that they can outlast the other. The US is trying to convince Tehran it cannot hold the global economy hostage. Iran, on the other hand, is trying to convince Washington that restoring freedom of navigation will come at a political, economic, and military cost that the American public eventually won't accept.