September 09, 2026

Good morning! Today is Wednesday, September 9th 2026, and this is The American Conservative's Morning Brief. Joseph Addington warns that Trump's sweeping Venezuelan oil deal, which hands Washington functional control of 65 billion barrels through a single shady middleman, is a flashy gamble that could delegitimize the Rodriguez government and hand a future Venezuelan nationalist a ready-made grievance. Eldar Mamedov argues that Vice President Vance's dismissal of Iran's leaders as "crazy people" is a strategic dead end, pointing to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei's subtle rebuke of hardliners as evidence Tehran's pragmatists remain open to diplomacy. Mamedov urges Vance to use the coming UN General Assembly to build a regional security framework with Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, and Gulf mediators rather than pressing an open-ended war. and now for the details. We begin in Caracas, where President Trump's late-August deal with the government of Venezuela is drawing scrutiny. Under the agreement, the United States, acting through the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Capital, will take a thirty-five percent stake in a corporation called North American Blue Energy Partners, controlled by Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt. Washington will gain veto power over board appointments, a guaranteed twenty percent of production from seventeen oil fields, and the right of first refusal on the rest. All told, that amounts to functional control of about sixty-five billion barrels of crude—roughly one and a half times America's own proven reserves. The White House says the deal will refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and shore up energy security. Writing for The American Conservative, Joseph Addington calls it a big gamble dressed up as a foreign policy triumph. Addington argues the flashy, sweeping nature of the deal is precisely the problem. By transferring a major share of Venezuela's natural resources directly to a foreign government, Washington almost certainly weakens the Rodriguez government it has chosen to prop up, and hands a future Venezuelan nationalist—perhaps the next Hugo Chavez—a ready-made grievance. Addington also raises concerns about Betancourt himself, a so-called "Bolívar Boy" dogged for years by allegations of bribery, corruption, and money laundering, whom the administration has now effectively installed as the head of a quasi-governmental oil enterprise. Addington notes none of this risk was necessary. A series of smaller, diversified partnerships could have delivered comparable benefits without staking American credibility on one man and one megadeal. Turning to the ongoing war with Iran, Vice President J.D. Vance recently urged Tehran to "stop acting like crazy people," and claimed the United States does not target civilians. Those remarks come against the backdrop of credible reports of American strikes on a wedding party in Sirik County and on a girls' elementary school in Minab earlier this year. Writing for The American Conservative, Eldar Mamedov argues that dismissing Iran's leadership as irrational is a strategic dead end. Mamedov points to a recent message from Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, carried by the IRGC-linked Tasnim agency, which criticized the false choice between war and negotiation and publicly praised moderate President Masoud Pezeshkian. That, Mamedov writes, is a subtle rebuke of hardline voices like the editor of Kayhan newspaper, and a signal that Tehran's top leadership remains open to pragmatic solutions. From Iran's perspective, Mamedov notes, the tougher line since the collapse of the Islamabad Memorandum reflects a rational response to unmet American promises on sanctions relief. Mamedov urges Vance to use the upcoming UN General Assembly to engage regional stakeholders—including Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan, Egypt, Qatar, Oman, and the UAE—and, if possible, Iran itself, in pursuit of a durable regional security framework rather than an open-ended war. Those are today's highlights. For the full stories and more, visit theamericanconservative.com. Thank you for starting your morning with us.