VICTORIA COATES 7-14-26

Scrolling with Haley. I'm Haley Karenia. I scroll with the homies here in the live chat because there's a lot to scroll through on X, on Instagram, on TikTok. Cutting through the clutter, one hot take at a time. Love seeing you all in the chat before the show. I tried to jump in just a few minutes before to say hello. I love the chat interaction. Thank you for helping. But I do it to get all of the videos and all of the content that you won't find anywhere else. Scrolling with Haley. Just search that up and I will be there. Follow and listen on your favorite platform. Head to mind here from the Wall Street Journal, the editorial board says Iran kills deal and Trump revives the blockade. And they say, let's hope the president realizes the memorandum of understanding Iran signed with him was a fraud. I do like how they put it, though, there. They said Iran killed the deal. Wasn't that Trump killed the deal or the U.S. or whatever? It was Iran. It was their fault. They killed it. So let's talk more about this right now. Victoria Coates is joining the show. She's with the Heritage Foundation. She's also a former deputy national security advisor. Victoria, thank you so much for coming on today.

So I wanted to get your reaction to the fact that the blockade has been reimposed. And I'm sure you agree with what I said there that, I mean, Ron, they were the ones that killed this deal. Oh, absolutely. I mean, Iran is the one that created the situation, provoked it, you know, left the president no choice but to take kinetic action, and then, yes, signed the MOU, but then started violating it immediately. You know, and the administration has given them every chance to come to some sort of a reasonable deal. They, you know, said they prefer diplomatic negotiation to military action, but Iran just isn't having it. And we've been doing this for 47 years, and I think rightly the president is the one who said, you know, it ends now by whatever means. And he's gone now to this kind of mixed approach of both blockade and the economic pressure and continuing military strikes. And it will just be a case of seeing how long Iran can sustain itself under these circumstances. Well, and part of the issue, though, too, was, you know, we don't want the straight to be completely closed. And there was good news, even before the memorandum of understanding was signed, we were getting some ships through with American military help. Is that kind of a big part of this? Have we figured out how to open at least part of the street to get some of the shipping through so Iran doesn't have that leverage? Exactly. Yeah. And I think, you know, particularly the channel that goes to the western side of the strait, close to Oman, that's where we need to focus our attention and continue degrading Iran's ability to target these ships. Right now, they can still do it fairly precisely. You know, they're hitting the engine rooms. You know, they're not just taking random pot shots. But if we continue to degrade their ability to do that, you know, eventually they're going to cause some sort of a disaster through a misfire. And there's also the fact that there was reporting that the Iranian authorities had reached out to the administration and said, hey, the people firing on the ships aren't our people. I don't know who they are, but the regime was trying to distance itself from the attacks on civilian shipping. So it's not entirely clear they're going to be able to control that situation. So as I said, I would focus on the western side of the strait, as much security there as we can, and that should be pretty solid. And then, you know, the Iranians can just kind of go pound sand on their side. Yeah, I've heard that as well, that there's sort of a split and who... who's kind of running things in Iran because you have those trying to negotiate, but you also have the Ayatollah, who we don't even know he's alive, I guess. Then you have the IRGC, and they think maybe it's rogue elements there. Although I heard Mike Waltz, who is a former national security advisor now, the ambassador to the UN, he said,

You know, if that's the case, let's say it's rogue elements. Why wouldn't the regime come out and apologize? It still seems like the regime, you see an attack and the regime, like, promises more or something. Right. And so there's a whole lot more. You're absolutely right. They could be doing if these really were rogue elements. I mean, maybe they don't want to admit they're not fully in control. The Supreme Leader didn't even go to his own father's funeral. He put out a written statement this week, the first we've heard from him, since he theoretically became Supreme Leader in early March. So what I'm kind of wondering, Yaffe, is we just have a kind of a slow motion unraveling. inside Iran going on and the administration knows this and they're sort of trying to hasten it through these additional strikes but they know Iran is on this downward spiral that they can't fix they can't reestablish command and control they can't reestablish their currency you know all the basic things that you're supposed to do with your governing sovereign country are kind of breaking down before our eyes so they may just think you know we can we can let this continue to unravel over the course of the next couple of months, you know, that then would be the opportunity, best opportunity for the Iranian people, you know, as the regime continually weakens to take matters into their own hands. And that may be the sort of working theory right now. Victoria Coates is with the Heritage Foundation. We're talking about the latest in Iran. Yeah, I've seen a lot of voices say that basically we need the regime to fall to really have a complete victory here. That as long as that regime stays in place, we're never really going to be able to make a deal and we just need them to fall. So you're saying maybe we understand that. We want it to kind of be an unraveling instead of us doing regime change. Is that kind of what's going on? I think that's much more advantageous to the United States. And I don't think I've talked to you since I got back from Iceland, where I was the week before the 4th of July, and thinking a lot about Rejavik and that meeting between Gorbachev and Reagan, the 40th anniversary will be in October. And what was set in motion there, you know, a lot of... of our liberal friends like to talk about it in terms of nuclear arms control and building rapprochement between leaders. But what Reagan set in motion with that meeting in Rochevac was the end of the Soviet Union. Make no mistake about it. He created the circumstances by which they could not compete militarily with the United States with the Strategic Defense Initiative SDI, which is of course well known to your to your audience. that is how you do this. And then, you know, the Berlin Wall came down almost exactly three years later. So if we can have that kind of a process to the dissolution of the Islamic regime rather than, you know, the chaotic, violent upheaval, I think that would be desirable, not just for the United States, but also for the Arabian people. So you're in Iceland. Did you get to visit Reykjavik? Is there like a museum there? I have no idea.

But no, and it's actually a little bit sad. The house, it's a historic house. It's actually fairly modest. It's small, right on the coast, on the port of Rejavik. And it's still there, but it's not open. There's a, you know, there's a plaque. So I was going to talk to Roger Zakai, my friend who's with the Reagan Institute and see if maybe we as Heritage and they as the Reagan Institute might want to do a little American friends of Rejavik kind of a thing and see if we could get it. spruced up and it would be a really fun place to, you know, to visit and, you know, to think about the Reagan legacy. And also for the, for Iceland, you know, that would be, it would be a fun attraction and the role Iceland has played as a setting for that kind of diplomatic engagement. Very interesting. Speaking with Victoria Coates, you've spent a lot of time in Washington, D.C., you know, a lot of the key players. Did you ever meet or know Lindsey Graham, who died tragically on Saturday? U.S. Senator from South Carolina? Oh, yes. Yeah, I mean, this has been a really sad weekend. And so I met Senator Graham when I went to work for Ted Cruz more than 10 years ago. And, you know, it was... It was a somewhat contentious relationship. Senator Graham threatened to murder Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate at one point. Wow. A lot of that was Ted Cruz's national security policy, which was what I was in charge of. And so, you know, there was definitely disagreement there. But at the same time, they were very good friends. And, sorry, I have to let my dog in. They were very good friends and Ted Cruz has been talking a lot about. you know, on his ex-feed about his wonderful memories of Senator Graham and travel that they did together. So that really, I think, is the tribute to him that even if you had substantive policy disagreements, which we did, at the same time, he could still have a very warm personal relationship with you. He was a hilariously funny man and, you know, just a real loss to the Senate. And I think also a real loss to the president. because he doesn't have that many folks around him who don't depend on him for a job, which you see what I mean? And so Senator Graham was somebody he could talk to and Senator Graham would just express his opinion. You know, and not trying to, you know, get the president to do anything except what he thought was the best course. So I think it is a tremendous loss. It was a very sad day. And, you know, I think it's great that Darlane, that his sister is going to be taking that position for the next couple of months, you know, to sort of wrap up his legacy. And then we'll see what the good people of South Carolina decide.

So one thing that's kind of interesting, he had just got back from Ukraine. He had talked about new sanctions against Russia. He said he's been more optimistic about the war ending than he's been in a long time. That's what he was working on right up until he died. What are your thoughts on the latest there and what he was doing there, the sanctions? They're pushing a bill against China, to sanction China now in his name. But what do you think about the Ukraine situation? No, I think that we really are moving on to a new phase here. And I had a piece on Fox News and op-ed a couple of weeks ago because it really struck me that the momentum has shifted in Ukraine from this kind of grinding war of attrition, which favors Russia, to much more momentum on the side of the Ukrainians. And some of that is... the drones, the long-range attack drones that they've engineered and are deploying to great effect against the Russian energy infrastructure. So Russia can have as many barrels of crude as it wants, but if it can't refine those barrels of crude, they can't put them in people's cars. So, you know, that is a real problem for Vladimir Putin. Now, you know, he is still lashing out. He's still killing Ukrainians. But if this isn't... This isn't a casewalk for him anymore. And so I think we will continue to see pressure build on him to get to the negotiating table. And if some of that pressure is coming from inside Russia, that could be all the more effective. Yeah, I feel like that's the only way, honestly, to get Vladimir Putin to negotiate. In some ways, you know, he's not a religious zealot, maybe like Iran, the Iranian leadership, but he's still kind of this. this figure who just doesn't want to stop you know he's very hard to negotiate with it seems like but you can't really trust him so it would take no it would take people inside the country i think yeah Yeah, no, I agree 100%. And I think, you know, his driving force is what he understands to be Russian nationalism and reestablishing Russia as one of the world's great powers. And that's his driving motivation. And he just doesn't see other things. And in that worldview, Ukraine is an extension of Russia. It is not an independent sovereign country. It's why he likes to refer to it as the Ukraine. And it drives the Ukrainians crazy. No, we're not the Ukraine. We are Ukraine. And so that's, you know, that's his worldview. And in a way, it's as intractable as the theocracy of the mullahs in Iran. Yeah, it's a crazy situation. Victoria Coates, she is a national security foreign policy expert with the Heritage Foundation. Victoria always appreciate it. I know we'll talk to again soon. Sounds good. Take care, Yaffe. We'll be back in a moment right here on Talk Radio 102.3. Scrolling with Haley, join Haley Caronea as she scrolls through the biggest headlines. If you haven't watched this show before, we do blind reactions. I have not seen these videos, so I am seeing them for the first time with all of you. We're going to implement the tinfoil hat time segments and all the stuff you know and love. And I'm going to finish the show and answer some of your questions. Someone asked me, what made you get into podcasting, and I was producing podcasts for other people. And I was like, I could do this for myself. And here I am. Scrolling with Haley, follow and listen on your favorite platform.