Latest / The President's Daily Brief / September 9th, 2026: Another War Is Erupting in the Middle East & Pentagon Rethinks Middle East Posture

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September 9th, 2026: Another War Is Erupting in the Middle East & Pentagon Rethinks Middle East Posture · The President's Daily Brief

0:12
It's Wednesday,
0:13
the 9th of September.
0:14
Welcome to the President's Daily Brief.
0:16
I'm Mike Baker,
0:17
your eyes and ears
0:18
on the world stage.
0:20
Alright,
0:21
let's get briefed.
0:22
First up,
0:22
the civil war in Yemen is heating up.
0:25
Iran-backed Houthis have
0:27
struck four Saudi cities while Saudi-backed forces
0:31
launch a major offensive and vow to retake the Yemeni capital of Sana'a
0:36
because apparently 2026
0:39
just didn't have sufficient conflict.
0:41
Later in the show we'll take a look at a new report that
0:44
says the US military is considering a smaller footprint in the Middle East
0:48
once the war with Iran ends.
0:51
Plus an Iranian airline accused of moving weapons and
0:54
cash and personnel for the Revolutionary Guard Corps,
0:57
the IRGC
0:59
is growing despite years of US sanctions.
1:02
Oh,
1:02
they're adding routes.
1:03
I wonder if they're
1:04
adding any direct flights to Tehran to Orlando.
1:07
And in today's back of the brief,
1:09
the US military says suspicious drone activity along the US southern border
1:13
has decreased dramatically after troops began using a high energy laser weapon
1:19
to target drones.
1:21
But first,
1:21
today's PDB spotlight.
1:23
A war that had been quiet for years
1:26
may now be roaring back to life in Yemen.
1:29
Iran-backed Houthi forces have launched one of their
1:31
largest attacks on Saudi Arabia in years,
1:34
striking four cities in Saudi Arabia,
1:36
hitting energy facilities,
1:37
and
1:38
wounding 73 people.
1:40
At the same time,
1:41
Saudi-backed forces inside Yemen
1:43
are mounting a broad new offensive against the Houthis,
1:46
with commanders openly saying
1:48
their goal is to retake the capital of Sana'a.
1:51
Although a 2022 truce dramatically reduced the fighting.
1:55
Yemen's civil war never truly ended,
1:58
but direct attacks between the Houthis and Saudi Arabia became far less frequent.
2:03
Now that uneasy quiet is breaking down.
2:06
The latest escalation began early Tuesday when the Houthis launched
2:09
what they described as a large scale missile and drone attack
2:13
against targets across southern Saudi Arabia.
2:15
4 cities were hit,
2:17
and Saudi authorities say 73 people were wounded,
2:20
including women and children.
2:22
Several energy facilities were also struck,
2:24
forcing some operations to temporarily shut down
2:27
as emergency crews battled fires and assessed the damage.
2:31
The Iran-backed Houthis say they used dozens
2:33
of ballistic missiles and drones in the operation
2:36
and targeted several major sites including Aramco
2:39
facilities and King Khalid Air Base.
2:42
Saudi officials are calling the overall attack a dangerous escalation
2:46
and warning that Riyadh will take whatever measures
2:48
it considers necessary to defend the kingdom.
2:51
And there are already signs that the response may be underway.
2:55
Houthi-controlled media reported Saudi air strikes inside Yemen on Tuesday,
2:59
including several attacks east of Sana'a.
3:02
Forces aligned with Yemen's internationally recognized government
3:05
have launched new attacks against Houthi positions across several provinces,
3:09
including Daiz,
3:10
Al Qaeda,
3:11
Al Jaf,
3:11
Marib,
3:12
and Hodaidah,
3:13
and government commanders are claiming advances in some of those areas.
3:17
The Houthis dispute parts of that account.
3:19
And say they have repelled major assaults.
3:22
And as is typical in these conflicts,
3:24
independent confirmation from the battlefield remains limited.
3:28
But one thing is clear the government side is
3:30
talking about objectives that we haven't heard in years.
3:33
Yemen's Deputy Defense Minister,
3:35
Major General Samir al Salri,
3:37
says the goal is to retake Sana'a.
3:40
Now that would be
3:41
an enormous undertaking.
3:43
The Houthis seized the capital in 2014,
3:47
setting off the civil war that
3:48
eventually drew in Saudi Arabia,
3:50
Iran,
3:50
and a long list of regional powers.
3:53
Since then,
3:53
Sana'a has remained the political center of Houthi-controlled Yemen.
3:57
So when government commanders say they intend to recapture it,
4:00
they're not talking about a small tactical adjustment to the front line.
4:04
They're talking about reversing the central outcome of a war
4:07
that's lasted more than a decade.
4:10
Some of the fighting now underway is taking place in areas
4:13
that could matter to any future push toward the capital.
4:16
Al Jaf sits northeast of Sana'a and connects to Sada,
4:20
the Houthis' historic stronghold.
4:22
Al Baida sits near the center of the
4:24
country and links several northern and southern provinces.
4:27
If government forces can make sustained gains in those areas,
4:31
they could put new pressure on the Houthi heartland,
4:33
but that is a very big if.
4:36
Yemen's terrain is difficult.
4:37
The Houthis are deeply entrenched,
4:39
and they've spent years building military
4:41
capabilities with significant Iranian support.
4:44
They've also demonstrated repeatedly that they
4:46
can strike far beyond Yemen's borders,
4:49
and that is what Saudi Arabia is confronting now.
4:53
Jazan,
4:53
one of the areas hit Tuesday,
4:55
is especially important
4:56
because it sits on the Red Sea
4:58
coast and contains major Saudi energy infrastructure.
5:01
The kingdom has relied increasingly on Western export routes,
5:05
as fighting,
5:05
of course,
5:06
with Iran has disrupted traffic through the Strait of Hormuz,
5:09
and the Houthis sit beside another critical maritime choke point
5:13
that would be the Bab al Mandeb Strait,
5:15
the narrow passage
5:16
connecting the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden.
5:19
So even though the core of this story is about the renewed fighting itself,
5:23
the consequences could extend well beyond Yemen.
5:26
The Houthis are striking Saudi territory
5:28
while also threatening shipping in the Red Sea.
5:31
Saudi-backed forces
5:32
are opening new fronts inside Yemen,
5:35
and Riyadh,
5:36
which spent years trying to reduce its involvement in this conflict,
5:40
may now find itself pulled back toward a much larger war.
5:44
Hundreds of people have reportedly been killed or wounded
5:46
in the renewed fighting over the past several weeks,
5:48
while tens of thousands have already been displaced.
5:52
All
5:52
right.
5:52
Coming up next,
5:53
the US military considers a smaller post-war footprint in the Middle East,
5:58
and a sanctioned Iranian airline tied to the Revolutionary Guard Corps
6:02
continues to expand.
6:04
I'll be right back.
6:06
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7:11
Welcome back to the PDB.
7:13
The 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks is just days away,
7:18
and a quarter century after those attacks transformed
7:20
America's military presence across the Middle East,
7:24
officials in Washington are once again looking at
7:26
whether that presence should shrink.
7:29
CNN reports that officials inside the US military and intelligence communities
7:34
have been discussing possible cuts to the number of
7:36
American personnel and facilities permanently stationed across the region.
7:40
Once the war with Iran
7:42
comes to an end,
7:43
whenever that is,
7:45
while there's been no formal order from President Trump to conduct
7:48
a broader review of America's military posture in the Middle East,
7:51
officials are reportedly talking through what a smaller presence could look like,
7:56
and the war with Iran has given them plenty to think about.
7:59
For years,
8:00
the US has maintained a large network of bases and
8:02
intelligence facilities and military personnel across the Middle East.
8:06
Before the September 11th attacks.
8:08
Roughly 27,000 active duty American troops were stationed across the region
8:13
after 9/11.
8:14
Of course
8:15
that number surged.
8:16
The US expanded its military and intelligence presence
8:20
to support the war in Afghanistan,
8:21
followed by the invasion of Iraq and
8:23
then counterterrorism operations in places including Syria,
8:27
Yemen,
8:27
and Libya.
8:29
By 2003,
8:30
during the invasion of Iraq,
8:32
an estimated 250,000 American troops were stationed across the Middle East.
8:37
Between 2007 and 2011,
8:40
troop levels never fell below roughly 100,000.
8:44
Even after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began winding down,
8:48
the US presence remained substantial,
8:50
generally ranging between 30,000 and 60,000 troops.
8:55
Today,
8:56
roughly 50,000 American troops remain in the region,
8:59
along with two aircraft carriers and more than a dozen guided missile destroyers.
9:04
The war with Iran has exposed just how vulnerable some of that infrastructure is.
9:09
Iranian drones and missiles have struck American installations in Bahrain,
9:13
Qatar,
9:13
Saudi Arabia,
9:14
and Kuwait.
9:15
18 American service members have been killed during the conflict,
9:19
and CNN reports that some facilities have suffered serious damage.
9:23
One US official and a former intelligence officer told the network that
9:27
a CIA outpost in Riyadh,
9:29
Saudi Arabia was effectively destroyed by an Iranian attack.
9:34
Now officials are deciding whether some of those
9:36
damaged facilities are worth rebuilding at all.
9:39
The Pentagon acknowledged that possibility back in April of this year.
9:43
Pentagon Comptroller Jules Hurst
9:46
told reporters that officials still didn't know how much it
9:49
would cost to repair bases damaged in the war,
9:51
in part because the Pentagon had not decided what it actually wanted to rebuild.
9:56
Some of the changes under discussion could go
9:58
much further than just closing individual facilities.
10:01
CNN reports that officials inside the CIA and US Special Operations Command
10:06
have discussed whether certain sensitive missions could be carried out without
10:09
keeping personnel and equipment permanently stationed in the Middle East.
10:13
Those forces could instead remain in the US,
10:16
deploy into the region for specific missions,
10:18
and then come home.
10:21
The Pentagon is also looking at how to better protect the forces that do remain.
10:26
Military officials are evaluating whether
10:28
some installations should be moved underground
10:31
to make them harder to target.
10:33
Now the vulnerabilities of the US bases and facilities
10:36
were apparently known before the war with Iran.
10:40
One US official told CNN that the problem was
10:43
that Washington over the years never acted on them with much urgency,
10:47
but the conflict with Iran,
10:49
specifically the regime's attacks on the US facilities,
10:51
has created a sense of urgency.
10:54
Senior Pentagon officials are also looking at
10:56
reducing troop levels in several Gulf countries while
10:59
pushing regional partners to take on more of the defense burden.
11:03
Some of the larger American bases are expected to remain,
11:06
but rebuilding them
11:07
could depend on whether host governments are willing to help pay a bill
11:11
that could run into the billions of dollars.
11:13
Of course,
11:14
none of this is happening tomorrow.
11:17
The war with Iran is still underway.
11:19
Tehran continues targeting American forces,
11:21
and there is no clear timeline for a resolution.
11:25
CIA officers who were evacuated during some of the heaviest fighting
11:28
earlier this year are now being sent back into the region.
11:32
The US military is still escorting ships through the Strait of Hormuz,
11:35
and
11:35
tens of thousands of American personnel
11:38
remain deployed across the Middle East.
11:41
Now previous US administrations have looked at this issue before.
11:45
Barack Obama tried to shift more American attention and resources toward Asia
11:49
during his first term.
11:50
President Trump identified China
11:52
as America's primary strategic competitor,
11:55
but the Middle East
11:56
keeps pulling the US back in
11:58
ISIS,
11:59
Iran,
11:59
and its proxies,
12:01
and now a war with the Iranian regime.
12:03
Almost 25 years after 9/11 fueled a massive expansion of
12:07
America's military and intelligence presence in the Middle East.
12:10
Officials are once again asking
12:13
how much of that presence is still necessary.
12:17
Staying with the Middle East,
12:19
I want to turn to Iran,
12:20
where the Trump administration is making a new push
12:23
to ground an airline that Washington has spent 15 years trying to isolate.
12:27
But instead of disappearing under sanctions,
12:30
Mahan Air is instead expanding its international network.
12:34
Now for those of you who are not frequent flyers on Mahan Air,
12:38
it's a commercial airline based in Tehran where folks
12:41
buy tickets and board flights to destinations across Asia,
12:44
the Middle East,
12:45
and Russia.
12:47
So on paper,
12:48
Mahan is a private civilian carrier,
12:50
but the consensus across several US administrations
12:53
has been that the airline has a more clandestine purpose.
12:56
The US Treasury Department first sanctioned Mahan in 2011,
13:00
accusing it of using their aircraft to transport
13:03
weapons and personnel for the Quds Force.
13:05
It's the overseas operations arm of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps,
13:10
the IRGC.
13:12
Washington says the regime has been able to use a civilian airline
13:15
to help move the people and weapons supporting its terror operations abroad.
13:20
Washington says Mahan carried Quds Force personnel into Syria and Iraq,
13:24
sometimes bypassing normal security procedures,
13:27
and also transported weapons on behalf of Hezbollah.
13:30
There's also a pretty remarkable admission
13:32
from one of Mahan's own former executives
13:35
about how willing the airline was to cooperate with the IRGC
13:39
in a 2022 interview with The Wall Street Journal.
13:41
He acknowledged that Mahan would transport weapons and IRGC officers when asked.
13:46
He said,
13:47
quote,
13:47
If the army or IRGC ask Iranian companies,
13:50
they should help them.
13:51
We will transport
13:53
if they pay money.
13:54
It's a patriotic obligation.
13:57
The European Union blacklisted Mahan in 2024 for
14:00
allegedly helping send Iranian drones to Russia,
14:03
while the US Treasury Department later accused the airline
14:06
of expanding weapons deliveries to Venezuela.
14:09
So according to Washington,
14:10
Mahan Air has repeatedly given the IRGC something enormously useful
14:15
a civilian aviation network.
14:17
Capable of moving personnel and weapons
14:20
beyond Iran's borders,
14:22
and now Mahan is adding destinations.
14:24
In July,
14:25
the airline began flying from Tehran to the Thai resort island of Phuket.
14:30
That's lovely.
14:31
Then on the 30th of August,
14:32
just six days after Treasury Secretary
14:34
Scott Besant launched Operation Economic Outcast,
14:37
Mahan opened a new service to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City
14:41
in Vietnam.
14:43
The airline now advertises regular service to 20 destinations
14:46
including Moscow,
14:47
Istanbul,
14:48
Oman,
14:49
and Guangzhou in southern China.
14:51
At the same time,
14:52
the airline continues turning up around some
14:55
of Tehran's most important regional proxies.
14:58
This summer,
14:58
Yemen's Saudi-backed government struck the
15:01
runway at Sana'a International Airport
15:03
to stop a Mahan Air flight
15:05
carrying Houthi officials from landing after they attended the funeral
15:09
of Iran's former Supreme Leader.
15:11
Of course
15:12
keeping that network in the air requires aircraft.
15:15
Oh,
15:15
and for that
15:16
I award myself today's PDB Statement of the Obvious award.
15:20
This summer,
15:21
the Treasury Department says Mahan managed to get its hands on at least 3 Boeing 777s
15:26
despite the sanctions designed to prevent exactly that.
15:29
According to the Treasury Department,
15:31
the retired aircraft were diverted through the UAE and Oman
15:35
before ultimately reaching Mahan Air,
15:37
with foreign intermediaries helping facilitate the purchases.
15:41
And that's the network that the Trump administration is now trying to break apart.
15:45
On Tuesday,
15:46
Treasury announced 36 new Iran-related sanctions
15:49
targeting the country's aviation sector.
15:51
It sanctioned all of Iran's remaining active airlines,
15:54
along with foreign companies accused of helping Mahan acquire aircraft,
15:58
move cargo,
15:59
and maintain its international operations.
16:02
Among the targets
16:03
were a Turkish logistics company accused of
16:06
coordinating shipments that included drone components and a
16:09
Malaysian company accused of helping ship American-made parts to Iran
16:13
on Mahan's behalf.
16:15
So
16:15
rather than simply sanctioning Mahanaira again,
16:18
the Trump administration is going a step further,
16:21
targeting the foreign companies and intermediaries
16:23
that it depends on to keep flying.
16:26
Besant is warning those companies that they could pay a much larger price.
16:30
He said Tuesday.
16:32
Let this be a warning to anyone doing business with Iran's remaining airlines.
16:36
You are at risk of being cut off
16:38
from the global financial system.
16:41
OK.
16:42
Coming up in the back of the brief,
16:43
the Army's new anti-drone lasers are already changing
16:47
the fight along the US southern border,
16:49
with cartel drone activity dropping sharply
16:52
in the Rio Grande Valley.
16:54
More on that
16:55
when we come back.
16:58
Hey,
16:58
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19:09
In today's back of the brief,
19:10
we recently brought you a story about
19:12
the US military's deployment of high energy lasers
19:16
to shoot cartel-linked drones out of the sky along the US southern border.
19:20
Now,
19:20
less than 2 weeks later,
19:22
drone activity in one part of the Rio Grande Valley has dropped 75%.
19:27
In a new report,
19:27
military officials told CBS News that
19:30
they're already seeing a significant change since the lasers entered the fight.
19:34
Now,
19:35
as I previously discussed here on the PDB,
19:37
the army began using the weapon operationally along the border late last month,
19:42
taking down its
19:43
1st 3 suspected cartel drones on the 25th and 26th of August.
19:48
Over the following 10 days,
19:49
the lasers destroyed 11 drones.
19:52
Since the beginning of this year,
19:53
US forces have stopped more than 300 drones
19:56
that officials say were linked to illicit activity,
19:59
including more than 100 in August alone.
20:02
Cartels have been using drones in many cases for surveillance,
20:05
watching where American troops and law enforcement are positioned
20:08
to help smugglers avoid authorities.
20:11
The military can already jam those drones and force them to retreat,
20:15
but that leaves the cartel free to recover the aircraft and try again,
20:19
and officials say they've sometimes seen the same drones repeatedly return.
20:24
The laser gives American troops a different option,
20:28
as Army Colonel Robert Fellizio explained to CBS News,
20:31
quote,
20:31
The game changer is ensuring that the drone can't be used again against you,
20:36
end quote.
20:37
Now officials can't say that the lasers deserve all
20:40
the credit for that 75% decline in activity.
20:43
It's possible that the cartels are changing
20:45
their routes or adjusting their tactics.
20:47
Still,
20:48
the army is also expanding its investment in the technology.
20:51
US military officials say multiple systems are
20:54
already being deployed along the border,
20:56
while the service just awarded a $465 million contract
21:01
for dozens more,
21:02
and the economics help explain why
21:05
some conventional air defense interceptors can cost millions of dollars,
21:09
while the manufacturer
21:10
says firing the laser costs roughly $3 per shot.
21:14
That is a
21:14
bargain.
21:15
The system still has limitations though,
21:17
including weather that
21:18
can weaken the beam and the safety concerns
21:21
around civilian aircraft that we've previously discussed.
21:25
Military officials say they're now regularly coordinating though
21:28
with the FAA when the lasers are used.
21:30
Well,
21:30
that's a good thing,
21:31
and there's another reason that reducing cartel
21:33
drone activity is considered critically important.
21:36
Most of the drones
21:37
appearing around American forces so far
21:39
are currently being used for surveillance.
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The concern is what happens if that changes.
21:44
Mexican cartels have already demonstrated inside Mexico
21:48
that they can turn drones into weapons.
21:50
A recent US funded study identified 221 incidents involving armed cartel drones
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between 2021 and 2025.
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Those attacks resulted in a reported 77 deaths.
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And just across the border there are now more than
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8000 American service members deployed across roughly 1900 miles.
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So military officials have to consider the possibility
22:14
that a technology currently being used to watch American troops
22:18
could eventually be used to attack them.
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And that my friends is the president's Daily Brief for Wednesday,
22:24
the 9th of September.
22:25
Now if you have any questions or comments,
22:26
and I hope you do,
22:27
just reach out to me at PDB@thefirstv.com.
22:31
I'm Mike Baker and I'll be back later today with the PDB
22:34
afternoon bulletin.
22:35
Until then,
22:37
stay informed,
22:38
stay safe,
22:39
stay cool.