The PDB Situation Report | July 25th, 2026: The Next Phase Of The Iran War Has Begun & Russia Feels The Pain

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**Mike Baker** (1:07)
Welcome to the PDB Situation Report. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. And yes, thank you for asking, I am still on the road. All right, let's get briefed. First up, the war with Iran is expanding as the Houthis, remember them, move into the fight threatening Red Sea shipping and raising the risk of a much wider regional conflict. We'll be joined by Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies to discuss what happens next. Later in the show, we'll take you inside Russia, where fuel shortages and Ukrainian drone strikes are making the war harder for ordinary Russians to ignore. We'll be joined by Konstantin Samoilov of the YouTube channel Inside Russia for some insight into that. But first, today's Situation Report Spotlight.
We're now two weeks into the renewed conflict with Iran, and the battlefield is no longer confined to the Persian Gulf.
This week, the Iran-backed Houthis escalated the war by launching attacks on Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea after declaring a new naval blockade, raising fears that the Iranian regime's network of proxy forces is opening a second major front in this conflict. At the same time, the US continues its air campaign against Iranian military targets, while positioning additional forces in the region, fueling speculation, of course, that Washington may soon expand operations beyond Iran itself. To help us break this down, we're joined by Jonathan Schanzer. He's the Executive Director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Jonathan, thank you very much for joining us again here on The Situation Report.

**Jonathan Schanzer** (2:40)
My pleasure.

**Mike Baker** (2:42)
Well, let's start from 30,000 feet. If you could, give me your current assessment of where we are with this conflict. All right.

**Jonathan Schanzer** (2:51)
Well, look, I mean, I think we all know what happened in the beginning. US and Israel own the Iranians, and the Iranians struck back. They hold the Strait of Hormuz hostage.
They withhold 20% of the world's energy from hitting the markets. So Trump declares that ceasefire. The ceasefire holds for a time. Nobody really thought it was going to hold for much longer than it did.
But what we're looking at right now is the situation where the Iranians appear to have reached the conclusion that peace or calm is not in their interest. I think they're afraid of internal dissent. I think they're afraid of internal battles that could bring down the regime. So they've elected for what I would call low intensity conflict, a couple of strikes here and there around the region that invite a response from the United States.
I think the US can do this for quite some time. And I think the regime is probably at a disadvantage, the longer this dynamic continues. But I would also argue that there is a lot of room for miscalculation, that trying to keep things at a low intensity conflict, that is where mistakes happen. One strike that was miscalculated could lead to something really nasty. I mean, we saw the killing of three service members the other day in Jordan. That's the kind of thing that leads to significant escalation on the part of the United States. And so I don't know if the Iranians can keep things as calibrated as perhaps they hope to. But I don't think the US is in a bad spot. I'm not saying that I see some sort of strategic genius here. I just think this might be a grinded out kind of war that in a few months the regime just may not be able to sustain the kind of beating that it's taking. And we could kind of watch this thing end with a whimper instead of a bang.