Buck Sexton (3:14)
President Trump Demands Unconditional Surrender from Iran as the air campaign of US And Israeli strikes intensifies, we are walloping them. That much is clear. Secretary of War Hegseth has laid out that there is first of all, no similar capability anywhere on the planet to what the US And Israel have been able to bring to bear here. We are not even losing a single plane and destroying the entire military infrastructure of a nation of 90 million people in a pretty big country that had all kinds of access to Russian and Chinese and North Korean rocketry and surface to air missiles, air defense technology. And the Iranian regime is just being militarily, at least defanged day after day. So Trump is now saying the mullahs have to just have an unconditional surrender and then this all stops. The big question here is who will take over if we get to that point now, this is likely to go on for weeks. This could go on for months. That is very much still an open question. I think based on the pace and scale of these strikes, the Iranian regime will cease to be in a position to assert meaningful control over large swaths of the country. Now in the northwestern corner of Iran and near Kermanshah, there's a Kurdish pocket. It's about 15% of the population of Iran is Kurdish, and they will be able to stabilize that. And this will be at least one area that I think we don't have to have very much concern over, even if the government ceases to function in a security sense in Iran, which is what we want. But then we have to get into the other options. What else can happen here? And there are really a few different pathways. The one that is Most likely is some kind of coup within the existing security forces. I'll break these down into three options. Right, you have a coup within the existing security forces. This is the most likely because the military's institutional power, there already are internal divisions, and the strikes have eliminated key leaders. So there's a leadership vacuum that we've created within the structure as it exists. And so the irgc, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or the Conventional army, which they call the Artesh, could be the primary force here. You basically have somebody from inside who goes, all right, we're going to get rid of the bums who have been in charge. We're going to stop trying to fight against America and fight against Israel. And we're just going to say, enough is enough. This pragmatic group would have to have control over much of the regular army, seize government buildings and media outlets, and say it's essentially a restoration of order and part of a transition process. So that would be. This is the most likely one. This is the one that we would like, that we would hope would happen. And the external pressure that we're putting on the regime in Iran is meant to bring this about, I think most likely. And the big pitfall here, rather, the huge challenge is you want to avoid factional infighting that then just turns into something more like a civil war. Right. Different groups within are shooting at each other and fighting over power. Another option that people will be talking about, I think is probably less likely is a monarchist restoration led by Reza Pahlavi and supporters. So you have the exiled Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi. He has symbolic appeal among some Iranian nationalists and the diaspora community of Iran. And there are some protesters who are also supportive. We've seen that. How many? That's tougher. But if you're looking for a pre1979 throwback government, if you will, the Shah is obviously something that you could look to. And with these protests that have been happening on the streets, if they were to combine with security forces defecting to them, let's say defecting to some of these factions that are pro shah, then maybe there could be the usage of social media and essentially a popular uprising from the streets, but also from the outside, supported by the diaspora groups and by those who want the Shah in power. And the idea, I think, would be he comes back as a transitional figurehead to establish a constitutional monarchy or a secular democracy of some kind, and there'd have to be a national referendum. You'd want to make this look legitimate. And this would require some international backing, but I think that would be easy for the regional players to throw their hat into. And, and yeah, who's going to oppose democracy and self rule for the people of Iran? So that's another option. And then finally there's insiders like reformist clerics or IRGC commanders who come forward and push and basically say, look, we surrender, but we want to work with the system that we have here with obviously negotiation steps with, with the US with Israel, probably just with the US in the early days and, and try to get to some form of, of national election. This is I think the least likely version of it. But it's essentially the system itself says we've taken out all our leaders, we give up, we don't need to storm the government palaces and everything else. We're willing to play ball. It's like, it's like Iran cries uncle with the people who are in charge. I think this is very unlikely. But if you have economic collapse and just fatigue with all the strikes, this, this could happen. So those are some of the ways that you're certainly not going to have some external force. I don't think you're going to have US boots on the ground there. I think that's a terrible idea. Maybe in a very limited capacity like we had in Syria at some point to sort of direct airstrikes. But no, we're not going to be policing the streets of Tehran with 19 year olds from, you know, from Kansas and from Maine and from Oregon. You know, we're not going to be doing that. I think the administration recognizes that's a disaster politically, a disaster from a national security perspective. So this is where we are with Iran right now, continuing airstrikes and trying to form some kind of opposition and transition the Iranian nation state into a whole new era. It's high stakes. Let's talk Venezuela next and then also a little Cuba doing a bit of a deep dive into national security here. But gold, look at the price of oil and look at how instability makes that go up. You know what also goes up when people are worried about things? Gold. You know, it goes up when there's money printing gold. Gold makes sense. And Birch Gold Group is who I trust for your gold purchases. See if holding gold in a tax shelter retirement account is right for you. Birch Gold Group can help you with that. They can help you convert an existing IRA or 401k into an IRA in gold. Just text my name Buck to 989898 to receive your free info kit on gold. Text my name Buck to 98, 98, 98. Birch Gold Group has an A plus rating with the Better Business Bureau. Tens of thousands of happy customers. Let Birch Gold Group help you diversify with gold so you too can have peace of mind. Birch Gold Group, my friends, check them out. And now let's talk Venezuela. Now Venezuela, I think is a very positive story right now after the capture of Maduro and his wife, by the way, didn't get as much attention in the media. But Celia Flores from Caracas, they were extradited to the us. They faced narco terrorism charges. Currently, Vice President Delsey Rodriguez is the interim vice president. She was sworn in. Supreme Court of Venezuela has backed this. A lot of the Maduro cabinet and even the ruling party there. And the US has said, look, we're going to work with you on this. Ok? So they already have the infrastructure in place, the political infrastructure. And now this means that some opposition figures have been sidelined here, like Machado and Gonzalez. But this is, I think, the smarter play right now. They should be those opposition figures I'm sure are going to be able to run in the next election. But instead of throwing things into chaos right now in Venezuela, it's, let's stabilize things. And the big news that came out this week is the US and Venezuela have agreed to reestablish full diplomatic and consular relations the first time since 2019. And you've already had Secretary Burgum meet with Rodriguez in Caracas to talk about mining access and resource deals. And Venezuela has signed agreements for gold sales to the US oil sector, privatization reforms to get more investment. So they realize, get the trade going, get the oil flowing, get the money transactions happening and everything starts to become more possible, more, you know, the future starts to look brighter. There's also been an amnesty process that 3,200 people, political prisoners, a lot of them have been released in Venezuela. So there's no immediate presidential elections planned. The focus is really on stability right now in Venezuela. But this is a, this is, this is moving the way you'd want it to move for the benefit of the Venezuelan people. You know, they were basically just removed the bad apple. And it doesn't look like we have to, you know, we have to do more than that right now. We can work with what's there. And that I think could lead us in a very positive direction. We'll talk Cuba here in a second. But that's also a place that's obviously getting a lot of attention from the administration. All right, look, switch to pure talk. It just makes sense. Time to save some Money. 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So they have huge fuel shortages, blackouts rolling up to 20 hours a day in some places, canceled flights and tourism services paralyzed. I mean, Cuba is a just in a really rough state right now. They've had all kinds of shortages of food and medicine. Inflation is rampant, GDP is contracting dramatically. And Trump has said that the regime is going to fall soon. And Secretary of State Rubio has even said, you know, maybe we need to do some kind of a quote, friendly takeover. So US Officials are thinking about criminal charges against Cuban leaders. So they want regime change this year in Cuba. And this is, this is great to see if it happens. The Cuban regime is disgusting and despotic and has ruined what is otherwise a beautiful country, country with wonderful people. So another place here where Trump is playing a high stakes game, but I think so far he's planted very well. We could have a different government in 2026 than we had in 2025, and a much better one aligned with global norms and not American values per se, but just sort of more normal civilizational values, rule of law values in Iran, in Venezuela and in Cuba, which would be an incredible transformation of the global national security situation, have effects on China, have effects on Russia, have effects on all these other, all these other national security challenges that we have. So it could be great. Hopefully it'll be great. And that is our deep dive national security brief. Talk to you soon. Shield time.
