Buck Brief - Trump Pummels Iran and Gets a Hostage Out

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Trump getting more results in his showdown with the Mullahs of Iran. And military actions underway will discuss all this here. Let's dive into it. The Mullahs in Tehran are trying to play the goodwill card, it seems, right now, by releasing an American woman that they had held hostage. for over a year and a half. This, while, of course, in the background, the U.S. is engaged in its most significant military action against the Iranian regime in decades. And here's the situation right now. The United States is pummeling them, and we're enforcing this blockade. We've got hellfire missiles. We've got all kinds of stuff. blowing up sites of Iranian military capability, whatever they may be. So with this hostage release and the strikes on their military, they just disabled the tanker in the strait by the way. So what does this all mean for global energy, the Trump doctrine and action, the future of this Iran showdown? Well, let's get into some of the news that has just been breaking. An American dual citizen. Dina Karari has been released by Iran. It is on her way home. She's 53 years old. She was visiting family in Shiraz. By the way, it is the city that the wine is named for. In French, it is Syrah. But Iran, a long time ago, was a well-known wine-producing region. In December of 2024, in the regime seized her passports, slapped her with an exit ban, and later charged her with espionage, and collaborating with a hostile state. Her lawyer, Jared Genser, says she was never physically thrown in a dungeon, but she was interrogated dozens of times by Iran's notorious Ministry of Intelligence and Security. So she endured severe physical and psychological hardship. It's classic Iranian hostage-based diplomacy. That's how they do things. President Trump didn't mince words. He said, look, this is a gesture of goodwill from Iran. He's noting it correctly. But let's be clear, this isn't just because the mullahs suddenly grew a conscience. It happened because Donald Trump is back in the Oval Office. The United States is projecting strength, and the mullahs are in a tough spot right now. This woman's lawyer, by the way, directly credited President Trump's extraordinary and relentless efforts to get her out. So we know there's a huge difference between this administration and the last one in a whole bunch of ways. This is certainly one of them. And while they're letting one American go, that's a good thing. The Iranians are still trying to strangle the world's oil checkpoint of Hormuz, 20% going through there. So yesterday U.S. forces were enforcing that naval blockade in the Strait of Hormuz. and a commercial tanker was disabled. The Belma, which is flagged out of Curacao, trying to run toward Iran's main export terminal on Karg Island. The ship ignored multiple warnings. U.S. aircraft put hellfire missiles into its smokestack and disabled it, and that's after two other tankers returned around the day before. So...

This is CENTCOM, U.S. military, taking direct action to keep the straight open on the one hand, but to choke off the Iranian regime's ability to use the straight and therefore to fund its terrorism, nuclear ambitions, and all that with oil money. The broader air campaign remains while it is operational, relentless. Over the past week or so, we've seen strikes deeper into Iran than in previous rounds, hitting military barracks, including the 388 mechanized infantry brigade in the southeast, targets near Tehran and coastal assets that Iran uses to threaten shipping. Iranian state media is, of course, freaking out about this. They've got murals up in Tehran showing President Trump in a coffin, and Lindsey Graham with devil horns. These are lovely people. So the pressure is definitely on them, Pretty angry about it. So let's talk about why this does matter so much right now. The Strait of Hormuz has been discussed so many times. It's a critical energy artery. About 20% of global seaborne oil trade passes to the Strait of Hormuz on a big chunk of liquefied natural gas, LNG. And this is a stretch of water between Iran and Oman. So when Iran threatens to close it or actually harasses ships with drones, fastboats, and mines, the entire global economy starts to feel that pinch. Higher gas prices here at home, supply chain chaos. This gives the Ayatollah some degree of leverage, an ability to punch back, to hit back a bit at what we are doing in this country, what the Trump administration is doing, trying to get them to concede. So for years, really for decades, Iran has used the threat of closing Hormuz as a blackmail tactic. And they've gone after commercial shipping. They've used proxies. They've mined the waters. And before Trump, U.S. response was usually stern statements and more sanctions. But of course, the Iranians have become experts at evading those sanctions. And so evading accountability, evading punishment for what they've been doing. Not under Trump, not on this guy's watch. President Trump has made it crystal clear. It's going to do whatever is necessary to keep that straight open. There's no permission asking from the mullahs. There's not negotiating over this with the IRGC. The straight is open. That is a precondition for any other agreement or talks. And Trump is going to keep escalating this. In fact, the president was asked point blank whether he would wipe out the IRGC. in a way similar to how he helped take out ISIS in his first term. And his answer was, we'll see what's happening. For Trump, that means it is certainly a possibility. He's also been very clear, no American ground troops invading Iran to do the regime change work for the Iranian people. That's critical. It's not our job. The president recognizes that, but we will continue to degrade Iranian military capability from the air and from the sea until they can no longer effectively threaten international shipping or build nuclear weapons on our watch. Senator Tom Cotton, chairman of the Intelligence Committee, put it perfectly on Fox earlier today. He said, the victory condition here is simple.

put Iran's military in a position where it can't continue to harass the strait, keep the southern channel open, protect the ships, and finish the job of degrading their ability to threaten the world's oil supply. So this is the Trump doctrine playing out here. It is peace through strength. It is knowing who the bad guys are, maximum pressure against them for actual results. And remember, Iran only released this American citizen after the strikes ramped up and the blockade went back into effect. So it's likely that the mullahs are feeling the pressure once again. Their economy is getting strangled. Their military assets are being hit. Their propaganda is becoming nastier and more desperate. So that's important. But at the same time, they're still the same regime. revolutionary fanatics who chant death to America, and they mean it. They're not moderates in suits. There are no real moderates running the show in Tehran. One faction maybe plays the bad cop while the other pretends to be the good cop and wants to talk, but it's all theater designed to buy time and to bleed us over time. Vice President JD Vance made the point the other day that the Iranians, these people have never been serious about a real deal, and the last couple of weeks have proven it. It's why the blockade is back. That's why the strikes continue. Now, the good news is we've already shown we can move through the straight under pressure. We've already shown we can handle that economically from an energy perspective. This is why the blockade is over the long term going to work in our favor. And this is not about, for those who are concerned, Trump has made very clear, starting a wider war. This is about finishing the job of neutralizing the threat that Iran poses because of a stealth nuclear program, because of funding terrorist proxies throughout the Middle East, and yes, of course, its ability to threaten global commerce. So that's important. And the mullahs, in the meantime, can release a hostage and paint angry murals and do all the things that they're doing, knowing that President Trump has given them a very straightforward choice, come to the table for a serious agreement that is enforceable or watch your military capability get degraded further and the oil revenue you have get strangled slowly but surely. I might also add into this that Iran has... called on the Houthis to prepare to cut off the Red Sea gateway. And this is an expansion of the conflict that this were to happen. Iran has reportedly instructed Yemen's Houthi terrorists to prepare to close a critical Red Sea gateway. If the United States attacks Iranian power infrastructure, this is from Fox News, or actually this from Reuters, rather. This threat should be taken seriously, according to some experts. Recent escalation, U.S. strikes on Iran. Tehran has already signaled that this could become part of its response. So Iran is trying to find a way to increase its leverage. I think it's unlikely to reach, it's unlikely to get what it wants here from the Houthis, but they're bad actors, the Iranian regime, they're bad people, bad hombres, and Trump is going to continue to hold them to task.

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