Is that correct? Yes, they're Shiite.

And the regime that has been in power since the Ayatollah Khomeini back in 79 is a sect or a branch of Shiite Islam called Twelvers.

That means they are followers of the 12th Imam.

A line, father, son, father, son of Imams down from uh 632 when it is at least said or believed that muhammad if he ever lived we'd have no proof of that but we'll just say that he did died it was reported to have died and there was a succession of 12 imams they say following after him down to the 800s or the 9th century when the 12th one was just a little boy And he either was hidden away by his family for fear of assassination, or alternatively, as the story goes, he may have fallen down a well and drowned.

But in any case, there would never be a 13th Imam.

Well, the group that is in command, the IRGC, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, forget the clerics.

They're not in power anymore.

That's something that's unheard of in Muslim countries, isn't it?

Do you anticipate that looking at what we saw in Venezuela, that that could also be any means of future action when it comes to Iran, China, Russia, any of our adversaries?

Well, you know, naming all of those adversaries of the United States exactly gets to the point of why Venezuela has been so important in our Western hemisphere for President Donald Trump.

I don't know if I've mentioned this, but full disclosure, I actually served in Caracas back in the 1990s before the Chavez regime came in.

But in any case, since he did, and then after him now, the regime of Nicolas Maduro, that country became an absolute hub of operations for all of those adversaries that you just named there, to include obviously Iran, which has drone production facilities there, drones that can be for surveillance, yes, but also can be weaponized to carry a payload with the range to reach the United States, Iran.

Hezbollah has been there for a long time as well, terror proxy of Iran.

And Hezbollah has been working through a number of attacks.

the narcotrafficking groups to channel narcotics up to the United States.

What do you think the end game is for U.S. reaction to Iran and its crackdown on its own people?