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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Hi everybody. Welcome to a new episode of Ask Khabiv Anything. Armin Navabi is an Iranian born political analyst known for his activism against the Islamic regime in Iran. He built an international network advocating for liberty, secular government and freedom of expression for people living under religious authoritarian rule. He's now host of the YouTube channel Liberty Politics. Today he's going to take us inside the mind of the Iranian people, of the Iranian regime, of the Trump mou. We're going to talk about what the future might bring, how they see the war from that side. There's not one Iranian side. There are many factions and different elements there. And that's going to be our topic today. Before we get into it, I want to tell you that this episode is sponsored by Tori Sepa and Ron Schatzmiller, husband and wife physicians who run the Pasadena Neuropsychiatry center in California. They're proud to be one of the few elite providers of brainzway transcranial magnetic stimulation, an Israeli technology used for treatment resistant depression. Ron was born in Israel and Tory was born in Iran. They would like to dedicate this episode to the memory of the 40,000 peaceful protesters murdered by the Iranian regime. Thank you for that dedication. I'd also love to invite everybody to join our Patreon community and subscribe to our substack. If you're interested in asking the questions that guide the topics we talk about. That's done over there. You also get to take part in monthly live streams where I answer your questions live. Join us at patreon.com askhavivanything or khabivgur.substack.com Armin, how are you?
- [01:44]
B
Great. Thank you for having me.
- [01:47]
A
Thanks so much for joining us. Let me start at the beginning. How are Iranians doing? Ordinary people, I feel like, I don't know, really have a good sense of what's actually happening on the ground in that country. They haven't exactly been online for a few months now. What can you tell us?
- [02:05]
B
Well, they are online now very much. Ever since the Internet was reconnected. They're very, very active online. I do have other than liberty politics, I also have a channel in Persian with my audience mostly in Iran. 80% of my audience on my Persian channel are inside Iran. The rest is the Iranian diaspora. And so right now we have a really good sense of what they're thinking about and it's a lot of upsetting.
- [02:37]
A
Can you just clarify this point? There are no restrictions to the point where they're logging in on Iranian Servers to your website, to your channel, to your content.
- [02:47]
B
Well, they have to use VPN. So it's not, it's all VPNs. Okay, it's all VPNs. Right? And I mean, almost anybody who's on the Internet inside Iran has vpn. VPN is like, very commonly used. Like every is. People know how to get them. Some, I mean, they're expensive, but people know how to get them. So the Internet is back on, but it's filtered. Most useful websites are blocked, but because the Iranian people's daily lives depends on using these blocked services, especially for example, Instagram, most people, most Iranians are on Instagram not just for personal reasons, but for business reasons. Like, everybody that has a business has to also be on Instagram to be able to sell their stuff. So given that Instagram and other websites, YouTube, you know, Telegram, all of these are blocked. Therefore everybody, almost everybody who is active online is using some sort of a vpn. In fact, there's a mafia by the Islamic Republic itself when it comes to VPNs. So the Islamic Republic blocks the Internet and then sells you the VPNs to go around its own block. So the, the couple of months that the Internet was completely shut down, then at, at that time, VPNs were no use because there was no Internet. But now the Internet is back on, but with those previous filters that were always there. So it's not like it's free and open Internet to use, but people know how to get around them. And the Islamic Republic itself, the irgc, makes a lot of money from, for selling you the ways to go around the Internet. And those are not safe, by the way, because a lot of people, a lot of people try, who have more money, try to use foreign VPNs because they're worried that the IRGC might be listening in on them because These are IRGC VPNs. I have many contacts in Iran that give me information and work for me and, you know, also manage the network that I have inside Iran. And for, for a few months I didn't have like, my telegram was completely off, you know, except a few that had Starlink. I wasn't getting any messages from inside Iran. I used to get daily messages from inside Iran on telegram. And as soon as the Internet came back up, my inbox and my telegram just blew up with all of them messaging me back, saying it was sad because we didn't get to celebrate Khamenei's death with each other in our network that we have. People don't use their real names in their real pictures. Right. For security reasons. So for so many years, I had friends that I was very close with, and I didn't know their real name and how they look like. And then once the uprising started and also the war started, some of them sent me their pictures and their real names, telling me that, armin, if I die, send this to the other people in our group, telling them that this is what I look like, this was my name. And so I had a whole bunch of pictures and names of people who were just wanted to make sure that if they died, the rest of our group knows who they were.
- [06:03]
A
Wow. So what are the Iranian people feeling thinking? Not one group, not one thing. But where do they really. Where do they come at this moment?
- [06:14]
B
So I was saying there's a lot of ups and downs. You know, for example, the day that the Iranian people came out in the millions, that was such a beautiful day. And people saw our numbers like never before. It's not just that our size of the crowd was bigger than ever before. The protest started in early January after the call to action by Princess of Pahlavi. It was also that everybody was more united compared to other uprising. It wasn't a protest against the Islamic Republic only. It was also a protest for something, not just against something. So it was against the Islamic Republic, but for the return of Pahlavi. Because in the previous protests, uprisings, that element was missing, that unity was missing, that, what are we, four? That part was missing. So it was much bigger in number, it was much more united, it was much more, you know, organized. And we had leadership and everything. And the Iranian people came and the sense of connection and unity and love for each other, that was such a. Such a beautiful day. But then one of the most beautiful days in our history was followed by the darkest chapter in our history when the massacre happened. And Iranian people, like before it were, they saw the numbers, they thought that this is it, that we're going to be free pretty soon. Like, how could anything stop this? And then that hope turned into the greatest nightmare, like the biggest nightmare that the Iranian people have ever experienced, something that nobody could have even imagined. It was unbelievable. And that darkest chapter, then eventually, when help arrived by United States and Israel, then we had so much hope. Khamenei dying, that lifted the Iranian people up. That brought them back to an understanding that victory is right around the corner, that Iran is going to be liberated soon. People were praising Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu. And then so many days after that, the Explosions, the IRGC leaders dying, the Basiji bases being blown up, the IRGC bases. Like every single day, one good news after another. And one of the messages that we kept on getting over and over again from inside Iran was, please don't make the bombing stop. Like, we had messages of people saying that when we. When they don't hear explosions for a long time, they get so nervous that, what if? Did they leave? Did they abandon us? So every single explosion that they hear, like you could see people seeing explosions right next to them. And they celebrated, they cheered, they clapped. So every explosion was a confirmation that they're still here, that they haven't abandoned us, that they're going to go all the way until the regime falls. And then it stopped. And everything was progressing exactly how Iranian people envisioned it would go. First, the rocket launcher, the air defense, the rocket launchers to make sure that we could protect Israel. Then they went for the rest of the military, the air force, the navy. And then they came. Once they started attacking the Basiji and IRGC bases that were responsible for controlling the protest by the uprising of the Iranian people. The Iranian people were filled with hope. Like, oh, my God, these people are going all the way. They're not just targeting things that are threats to Israel and the region. They're now targeting bases that are threats to us. The Iranian people, they are removing all of this so that we could do an uprising. And then after that, they went. Israeli drones were going for the checkpoints, the Basiji checkpoints, and they were filled with hope, like, this is how far they're going. But then at some point, it stopped. And to this day, the Iranian people are still wondering what stopped, that like they were. Everything is working so beautifully and why it stopped. And now we have a mix of gratefulness for things that have already been done, but by some Iranians, but also disappointment and sometimes anger for why it stopped. And there's a lot of mixed feelings. It's interesting because in Iran, there's a common understanding now that Israel and Iran are very much aligned. And Israel was going to. Wants to go all the way with the toppling of the regime, but United States is not as much aligned. And some. And there's a bit. So in Israel, there's a lot more unity in the Iranian people, that Israel is the ally of the Iranian people and our interests are aligned. But on the United States right now, there is division and there are camps of people who think that, no, we should, you know, United States, we should celebrate United States. They're responsible for everything. That happened. And President Trump has caused more damage to the Islamic Republic than any president in history of the United States. And then there's the other camp that says that President Trump stops Israel every time we're getting close to victory. And if President Trump would just get out of Israel's way, Iran would be free right now. Right.
- [11:47]
A
So, first of all, you know, there was so much there. Pahlavi. Why do you support him as the solution? I have to tell you, you hear in the United States tremendous profound skepticism of the Pahlavist movement. And you hear in Israel also not. It'd be great if Iranians rose up, toppled the regime, you know, helped out by the Israeli American air war. And we'd be talking about a whole different, you know, constitutional monarchy that looks, you know, more like Britain than like the Middle East. That wouldn't. That would be ideal. But if you can't topple the regime, then the Pallavist movement is just not successful. It doesn't have that. That cachet on the ground. People are saying, we saw the pro regime protests. Now, these are people close to the regime. The IRGC owns 50% of Iran's GDP. It's this vast patronage system. They're people who literally feed and live off of the regime. Can you lay out for us, though, you know, what do Iranians want and by what percentages what you just talked about Pahlavi, the protesters, even if they're not monarchists, but nevertheless hate the regime, want to see it toppled. How big is that in Iranian society? How big is support for Pahlavi? How big is support for the regime?
- [13:03]
B
Why would I care about the skepticism in the west instead of looking at what the Iranian people want? Right. So Iran's future and what happens in Iran should be based on what the Iranian people want. The Iranian people want Pahlavi. So I don't. If the skepticism on the west could only be justified if people are not interested in the Iranian people being able to choose their destiny. Before we address the skepticism, first we first have to understand that the future of Iran. Do we agree that we want that to be based on what the Iranian people want, or do we want that to be based on what American think tanks or analysts want? Right.
- [13:51]
A
The only stable solution is what the Iranian people want.
- [13:54]
B
Okay, so if the Iranian people are not skeptical about Pahlavi, then it's irrelevant if some American analysts are skeptical about Pahlavi. Is that. Do you agree with that?
- [14:06]
A
I completely agree with that premise.
- [14:09]
B
Okay, fantastic. A lot of people keep focusing on American analysts saying like, oh, I'm skeptical about this. But then you should listen to the Iranian people. You should talk to the Iranian people. You should see what they want instead of what the Americans want. Right. I mean, many the American analysts, a lot of them are responsible for years of appeasement with the Islamic Republic and releasing billions of dollars to the Islamic Republic. A lot of that going to funding operations like October 7th. Right. A lot of those analysts led to the Islamic Republic being able to afford many operations like that. American analysts also at some point were responsible for the Islamic Republic being in power anyways, abandoning the Shah before the Islamic Revolution and, you know, supporting Khomeini. So we have to go back to the reality on the ground and actually look at what objectively is happening inside Iran. Right. So what we know regarding the sticking power on the ground when it comes to the Pahlavi movement is what we saw in early January. Right. What we saw in early January is that Princess of Pahlavi gave out a call to action to the Iranian people to come out in protest. And we have seen the greatest mass uprising of the Iranian people against the regime in the history of our country. And when the regime came out and shot into the crowds of the Iranian people, killing them in tens of thousands in a matter of only 10 hours, five hours on a Thursday, five hours on a Friday, killing more than, you know, people say 40,000, some people say more. But even if we go with 40,000, that's 40,000 people in 10 hours. Not in two days, in 10 hours. And when the regime was doing that, what the Iranian people did was continue to shout jaw. And the Pahlavi would return and people put their hands into their own bloods in the streets and wrote Javishah on the walls of Iran when they were being shot at by the Islamic regime. That is the sticking ground, as you say, the sticking power of the Pahlavi power, the Pahlavi movement inside Iran. There's nothing that comes close to that, not even close when you talk about the regime protests. The regime protests are government employees that are forced to come out into the streets. They're given cooking oil, they're given rice, they're given free insurance. These are all recorded. They're given gift baskets for government employees, which is a huge number of the people in Iran. It's mandatory for them to show up for high school students, for university students. Many times it's mandatory for them to show up. And those crafts, even with it being mandatory and all of the other rewards, so IRGC members have to show up with plain clothes, without uniform to fill up the protests and with all of that in absolute safety, nobody's shooting at them. So the Iranian people came out in the millions knowing that they're risking their lives and their regime supporters came out not being able to match that crowd even, you know, even remotely, like it wasn't even close. Even though they're coming out in complete safety while being rewarded, while being mandatory for many of them, they couldn't match the Iranian people that came out against the regime. I don't, honestly right now I don't think the regime support. The support for regime is less than 3%. Right. In my opinion, even the most even, especially now, I think even the most die hard pro Islamic rule Iranian people don't support the regime anymore because they think a coup d' etat has happened. But I don't know what other sign do Iran do?
- [18:10]
A
Does the coup d' etat of the IRGC against the ayatollahs, against the religious leadership.
- [18:16]
B
That was the original coup d' etat that we have been in the middle of for the past few decades. But now we. And that's a coup d' etat that was happening of the boots against the turbans, but now we have a new coup d' etat of the suits against the turban and the turbans in the boots, which is basically the Khalibov camp, which get get into. Once we finish.
- [18:40]
A
Before we get into that. One last, one last question. So what does. What does Pahavi represent to those Iranians? Come at it as if I'm five and don't know anything. It's a monarchy. And it's a monarchy that hasn't been around for 47 years. And his father was not at all as bad as the anti Sha propagandists claim. But wasn't, you know, wasn't amazing, wasn't great, wasn't some golden age for Iran. There was an oppressive police. There were right. The people who overthrew him turned out to be far, far, far worse. What is that symbol that people rally around? Why him?
- [19:15]
B
Okay, so there's a lot of misunderstanding here. First of all, Princess of Pahlavi is not fighting for monarchy. Princess of Pahlavi is fighting for the Iranian people to be able to choose their own Destiny. For 47 years, he has said that he's not fighting for monarchy. He wants to create the conditions where the Iranian people could choose in a referendum whether they want a constitutional monarchy or if they want a republic without a monarch. There will be a referendum. He is not a leader to bring monarchy back to Iran. He's a leader that wants to bring sovereignty back to the Iranian people so they could decide the form of government that they want. This understanding, this claim that Princess of Pahlavi is the representation of monarchy for the Iranian people is something that I keep hearing over and over and over again. In fact, at one point he suggested that his personal choice would actually be not a constitutional monarchy. But it's not up to him. He will have one vote and the Iranian people would be choosing that. So first let's clarify that. What does he represent? He represents four principles. Democracy, the border integrity of Iran, secularism, and equal individual rights for all Iranian people. These are the four things he represents, and these are the four things that the Iranian people also are fighting for. Secularism is a high priority for Iranian people. Even for Muslim Iranians, they don't want Islamic government anymore. The border integrity of Iran is the most sacred thing to the Iranian people. Democracy, basically the right to choose their own destiny, self determination is a priority for Iranian people. And equal individual rights for all Iranians. All Iranian citizens.
- [21:31]
A
Why do you need Pahlavi for those things? Why can't those things just be a flag with four stars on it for a political movement that just wants those things?
- [21:40]
B
So because of princes of Pahlavis. First of all, he doesn't call himself Prince, okay? He tells people. We call him that. Some people call him King, some people call him Prince, some people call him Pahlavi, some people call him Rza. Some people are referred to him publicly in front of everyone else as rp. Rp Jun Dear rp. And he has made it clear that I am not going to tell you what to call me. And all of the power that is given to him is because of the Iranian people allowing him to be the representative. And if they choose him as a representative, he's going to just be reflecting of the will of the Iranian people and the Iranian people.
- [22:19]
A
You personally, why do you. What do you see in here? You want a free Iran, I want a free Iran. Why do we need a guy named Pahlavi who. I mean, as a citizen. Sure. Another one who wants a free Iran. But why is he the movement?
- [22:32]
B
Because the Iranian people's revolution needs a leader. And the Iranian people have chosen Princess of Pahlavi as the leader. Historically, most successful revolutions had a leader of the revolution. So we want a leader for our revolution and the Iranian people is pretty simple. We have a revolution. As long as we have a revolution, which we do against the Islamic Republic, then The Iranian people have chosen Princess of Pahlavi to be their leader. And there's no one else. Like there is zero. It's not like him. And then a second runner up with a huge margin in between, it's him and absolutely no one else. There are many reasons why they have chosen him. First of all, because he reflects their views. So it's true that there's a little bit nostalgia with the Pahlavi government before the Islamic Republic and a lot of people's fonds memory of the Pahlavi, which was actually amazing. I need to clarify some of the misinformation regarding the Pahlavi dynasty and what happened back then. It's true. But I don't think Princess of Pahlavi, if his views did not reflect the Iranian people, their views, I don't think they would choose him as the leader of the revolution even if he was his father's son. The Iranian people want secularism. The Iranian people want democracy. Iranian people want their border integrity to be defended. The Iranian people want equal individual rights. The Iranian people want a friendly relationship with, with United States and Israel. And Princess of Pahlavi represents that. And by the way, Israelis especially should understand how valuable Princess of Pahlavi is not just to Iran but also to Israel. Because everybody else that is trying to compete as a leader against the Islamic Republic is anti Israeli. They are leftist anti Israelis. And the Iranian people have said no to all of them. And they have chosen a leader that wants not just a normalized relationship with Israel. Not just a normalized, a friendly, an ally. They want Israel to be an ally of Iran, not just a country that has normalized relationship with Iran. So I don't like in Israel especially, a lot of Israelis should be, I think, very interested in Princess of Pahlavi and wanting to support him. Saying IRGC can't be toppled is also misinformation. Like, you know, the Soviet Union took 45 years to collapse. I don't know why people, after three months of war with the, with the IRGC, oh, it didn't work after three months. So it can't be done. The Soviet Union had nukes. The Soviet Union was considered superpower that collapsed under the economic pressure and many other ideological pressure and everything else. So I think it's premature to just say IRGC can collapse after only the first phase of their revolution and the military operations. Also when people say why Pahlavi? I do want to clarify something about Princess of Pahlavi's father. But before that, people who are saying not Pahlavi I want to ask them, who else? Like, show me a leader that has united this many Iranians, that has this much influence over the Iranian people, that with his call to action, caused the greatest uprising of the Iranian people in the millions against the Islamic Republic. That is for secularism. That is for equal individual rights. That is for democracy. That is a friend of Israel and United States. What is your option? Who do you want to support? This is somebody who's this patriotic. Like, do you have another. At the end of the day, the fall of the Islamic Republic can only happen with boots on the ground. And nobody is going to send boots on the ground inside Iran. So the only way to topple the Islamic Republic is by utilizing the boots that are already on the ground, which is the Iranian people. And if you want to invest in the Iranian people to get rid of the Islamic group, there is no other way. There is military operations from the air helps weaken the Islamic Republic. That doesn't lead to the toppling of the regime. You need a mass uprising to topple the regime. So you need to mobilize the Iranian people. And the only way to mobilize the Iranian people is to be in communication and coordinate with the person that they have told you represents us and leads us. That is the only way. So if you are against the Islamic Republic, the only way to effectively do that is to be for Princes of Pahlavi.
- [27:18]
A
Okay. All right. It's extremely helpful to me to get the perspective from someone within the movement because, you know, we get a lot of the. So much propaganda and dissimulation and God, what they did with Mossad, you know, being a CIA toppling Mossadegh in 53, which is simply not the case. It's simply not true that that's some kind of American crime against Iran. So thank you.
- [27:48]
B
Mossadegh was doing the coup d'. Etat. Mossadegh was doing the coup d', etat, not the Shah.
- [27:53]
A
If you read the elected prime minister and. And the CIA's minor role in that whole story was turned into something just to. Just for political narratives that have nothing to do with the actual history. Yeah.
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B
And just two things. The A coup d' etat has two characteristics. First of all, it needs to be legal. Second of all, it needs to be from the bottom up. Like somebody from the bottom but then position remove somebody from the top right. The Shah had. Within the constitution of the Iran at that time, the Shah had complete authority and right to remove the prime minister. So it was within his legal rights. So that cannot. That was legal thing to do what Mossadegh did was illegal and also based on the constitution. The Shah was above the Prime Minister, so it couldn't be a coup, given that it happened from the top down, not from the bottom up. So how is it Mossaddegh was doing a coup? Trying to remove the Shah by force, illegally. That is the definition of a coup. So Mossadegh was.
- [29:00]
A
We lost some people here who don't 100% know what we're talking about. I urge them to go look it up, read about it, and read the critiques of the prevailing sort of argument. I don't know much about the older the Shah, but the whole Mossada story, diving into it and diving into real historical writings about it has been a very frustrating experience. It turns out that the rewriting of history to serve modern political peccadillos is not unique to the Jews and to the Israelis. The. The forces that be will do that anywhere they need to to make their point. So thank you for that digression. It was very helpful to me. Hopefully people will find it useful to understand where you're coming from and where this movement is coming from. You said some fascinating things just now about the regime, about the coup against the coup, about the suits against both the turbans and the boots. Did the war weaken this regime? So many of the leadership were lost. They retained so many abilities despite losing, you know, the top two layers of leadership essentially to act in Hormuz, to negotiate in Islamabad, the missile launch capability was reduced, except that all the missiles are still there. Not all, but most. Their economy was, was smashed. But they're a standing threat to the Gulf states in ways that the Gulf states can less sustain than the Iranians. There's so many contradictory messages that we seem to be getting. How's the regime doing? How is the Iranian economy doing? What are the chances these people are falling anytime soon? Tell us that story.
- [30:40]
B
So, yeah, the, the internal divisions within the Islamic Republic has never been this high. And we saw that coming, by the way, from five years ago. This is the greatest weakness of the Islamic Republic. The Islamic Republic faces pressure from three fronts. One is the external pressure, mostly by United States and Israel. But then there's a greater threat even above that, which is the uprising of the secular minded Iranian people against the regime. That is a greater threat, even a greater threat than the first one. But then there's a third threat that is even greater than this one, which is the supporters of the regime itself turning against the regime. And so that's the third threat. And the regime itself fears this third threat more than any other. And this is what a lot of analysts get wrong. Because a lot of analysts look at what the Islamic Republic is doing and sometimes they get confused and think that this is irrational. It doesn't make any sense. Wouldn't this encourage the Israelis to attack? Wouldn't this encourage the Americans to attack? Wouldn't this action encourage another uprising? Wouldn't this lead to another uprising? How could the Islamic Republic tolerate another uprising? Right now? This doesn't make strategic sense. These people are too ideological and they're like they're. And that, that's why they're only driven by ideology. So that explains why they're making all of these mistakes. However, what people don't understand is that the regime is actually pretty rational, even though it has a lot of followers that are irrational and you know, ideological and making, making decisions based on end of time narratives. But it itself, the ideology is a tool. It's not necessarily. If you understand that the greatest threat to the regime is losing its last base of support, then everything that they do actually makes rational sense. And you will see that the motivation is wealth and staying in power and survival. One thing that people need to understand, that the Islamic Republic is not a monolith. So if you want to make sense of what the Islamic Republic does, you have to understand the different segments of them. Because it's not about the survival of just the Islamic Republic, it's about the survival of your fragment, your hold up to power and your survival. Each one of them are making decisions based on their camp and so the survival of their camp and their own individual power and influence. So the way I try to categorize it, I say the Islamic Republic has four different segments. I don't know if this is getting into too much detail, but it does. I mean even these segments could go get categorized like into subcategories into sub segments. But I'm not going to go into that much detail, but a simple version of it is to just have the Office of the Supreme Leadership, the irgc, the Paidari camp, which is the ideological pressure camp, and then the negotiation facing so called moderate camp. Right? So the way to make it simple, we call the Supreme Leadership camp, we call them the Turbans, the irgc, we call them. I mean I came up with this to make it simple for people. The IRGC or the Boots, the Paidari ideological pressure camp, we call them the streets because of the recent events that they're constantly in the streets and protesting for maximum pressure on Israel and United States and I don't know for hijab and stuff like that. So we call them the streets. And then the negotiation facing track, we call them the suits. So the turbines, the boots, the suits and the streets. These are the four different segments and they have different agendas and different sources of power. The main one, the greatest power, is the irgc. A lot of people think the greatest power is the Office of the Supreme Leadership. That is not the case. The economic power and the military power of the IRGC means that they are basically dominant over everyone else. The second greatest power is the Office of the Supreme Leadership. The Office of the Supreme Leadership does have a lot of money, but it's not even remotely close to what the level of control over Iran's economy by the IRGC is such a small fraction compared to that. So the office of the Supreme Leadership's main power comes from his soft power, the pro regime Iranians. Their respect and their faith and their loyalty to the Supreme Leadership. That is the main source of power, which as you could tell is not at all as powerful as what the IRGC has, which is all the guns and all the money. The IRGC controls like two thirds of Iran's economy. Right? So that's a huge source of power. This is why for the past couple of decades we knew that the Islamic Republic is moving from a theocracy to a military dictatorship. Given the nature of this between the Supreme Leadership and irgc, it's inevitable that IRGC will eventually have full control. And the Supreme Leadership would be just a symbolic role. But we already also knew that when Ali Khamenei dies, and we also knew that they're going to pick Mashtaba as the next Supreme Leader. We knew that this transition would mean that the IRGC's rise to power and full control will, you know, escalate, like speed up a lot.
- [36:05]
A
Just clarifying you, because the IRGC controls the gas industry, the oil industry, the steel industry, all the beating heart of the economy essentially are controlled by the irgc. Because the Supreme Leader also has his huge funds, his bonyads, his great foundations, which are vast. I mean, billions upon billions. But none of that is compared to actually controlling the economy. That was what you're referring to. So the IRGC's power comes from that. I mean, Iran exports oil. That oil goes straight into some, is that correct? Some significant part of it goes straight into the IRGC's coffers.
- [36:38]
B
Yes, and also almost every other major industry, like building dams, tech companies, any company that gets big in the private sector. I had a friend that made a startup in Iran and as soon as it got a little bit big, got a knock on the door from IRGC coming there to take over every company that becomes remotely successful. You know, this is why the private sector in the Iran is so weak, because the IGC just comes and just swallows everything that is successful.
- [37:08]
A
Yeah. Okay, so these different camps in the regime.
- [37:13]
B
Yes.
- [37:14]
A
So what happened to them after this war? Where do things start?
- [37:17]
B
Okay, so this is the, this is the interesting part. So the weakest part of the regime is the area that I call suits used to be the weakest part because they have basically very little financial power, very little soft power. They're hated both by anti regime people and pro regime people. And they're very. No, they have zero military power. That segment of the Islamic Republic usually gets filled by people who are called reformers. And they are, you know, people, you shouldn't see them as reformers. They're actually, they, their main role has been to whitewash the image of the Islamic Republic for foreigners and also to be false hope for the Iranian people as a pressure release vault, basically. But the Iranian people have now completely recognized that. And they chant against one of the most common chants in Iran used to be, which means reformers, hardliners, both of your times are up. Right. So the Iranian people actually hate the so called reformers more than they hate the so called hardliners. Right. But they were always just a puppet of the Supreme Leader to just put in front whenever they needed to talk to the west and they needed to appease the west or basically capitulated the west because the Supreme Leader and IGC wanted to maintain their image to save face among pro regime Iranians who want maximum pressure against the United States and Israel and against hijabless women whenever they needed to. Whenever the Islamic Republic feel that they need to capitulate a little bit, they wanted to make sure that the pro regime Iranians don't blame the Supreme Leader or the irgc. So they would just bring these so called reformers to do their dirty job for them and not basically be their scapegoat. Right. That was their main role both to the foreigners and the, and the Iranian people recognize that that's what their role is. Right. But it always has been a puppet and has not been a power. And you could see that people who have been filling that role have been sidelined completely recently, like Zarif, Rouhani, Khatami, they have been sidelined. But now there's a new character that came out and has refilled that role. And he's not a traditional reformers or anything like that, his Kalibaf. And he somehow has managed to make this segment of the Islamic Republic the most influential and currently right now the most powerful, maybe even parts of the Islamic Republic, given that everybody in the Islamic Republic is now bending the knee and kissing his ring from the Pardari camp, from not the people in the streets. He's hated by them from the Pardari camp, from the irgc. And even the supreme leadership kind of came and kissed his ring. And the reason why this segment of the Islamic Republic now with the Ghaliba's leadership is now the strongest one is because of the American military being present in the region. So Khaliba has turned. Khaliba is very motivated to keep the negotiations going because he doesn't want to die. His understanding is that if we go back to kinetic military operations, he's going to die just like they killed Larijani and Shamkhani. So he's personally very motivated to keep the negotiations going. So the Americans went through different layers of people within the Islamic Republic killing. They're probably talking to Larijani. They didn't get what they want from him. Shamkhani. But now with Khaliba, they have an inside man that is being used by the United States to make moves against different segments of the Islamic Republic. And these other segments of the Islamic Republic realize that. But Khalibov has too much power to go against him right now. Right. So it is. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Kali Bav has helped with the Americans to get them information to the Israelis to take out some of the most key figures within the Islamic Republic. I'm not saying that is the case, but if it comes out that that has that's what's happening, I wouldn't be surprised. And I also heard that sort about
- [41:42]
A
Qaani, by the way, the head of the Quds Force in the irgc, for people who don't know, because he's still alive. And it's very strange that the man who literally leads the Iranian military effort to annihilate Israel was never taken out by this Israeli, by multiple Israeli operations over the skies of Iran. And so there are rumors of that. So you're saying Khanibouf actually has a not dissimilar role. How strongly do you believe this? How likely is this? Is this 70% likely or 25% likely in your view? I would say yeah, he could be doing some of this I would say
- [42:18]
B
more than 50% because he is so easily. He's out now, right? Yeah, he's out. He's walking around outside, which makes him an easy target for the Israelis. So given that he's alive, he's probably. The Americans have made Israelis put him on a no kill list. And the only way that he gets on a no kill list is that if he's useful to the Americans and basically selling out different parts of the regime and also giving him enough cash to play with to threaten people who are not doing what he wants or basically bribe the people to move on with the negotiations, he's very, very unpopular in Iran. He's almost like everybody, like almost everybody hates him. The anti regime Iranians obviously hate him because he's anti regime. But the so called, you know, I don't know if we could still call them the pro regime Iranians, but the pro regime Iranians think that the coup d' etat has already happened in Iran and Kalibov has won. They, a lot of them think Kalibov has now captured the Supreme Leader, put him in a cage and is basically capitulating to the Americans, selling the blood of the Supreme Leader for just a bunch of hay and corn and soy. They're like, he's not pushing for getting revenge for Ali Khamenei and all the other IRGC leaders. They feel humiliated. I do think that President Trump, I know there's a lot of criticism against President Trump when it comes to the ceasefire and the negotiations. I do think he has managed to really turn the regime against itself by doing these negotiations. Like these different camps are at each other's throats. And as much as I appreciated the military operations, I do think that this internal division is needed to go at the Islamic Republic's roots. Because if you keep cutting down this tree of the Islamic Republic, if you don't get rid of the roots, which is the ideological battle, it keeps growing back. And the only way to ideologically attack the Islamic Republic is by turning them against each other and make them call each other out and admit that they're being defeated. So during the, you know, with economic pressure and military pressure, what happens is that these people, these, you know, never admit defeat. These ideological minded people, they keep in the middle of war or economic hardship, they still think that they're winning against the Americans and Israelis, no matter how many of them that you kill. But it's only through negotiations and making them come capitulate and sign an agreement with the very people that killed your Supreme Leader, that humiliation turns them against each other and finally gets them to a point where they come out and accept that they're being defeated by their enemies. And that humiliation does a huge damage to the roots, which is the ideology of the Islamic Republic, the soft power of the Islamic Republic, which cannot be done with just military operations and economic pressure alone. And that's why I think I appreciate all of this. And I do also think that at the end of the day, there is no military operation that could effectively get the enriched uranium out. I do think the Americans are not just standing by right now. They're pulling the T. They're defanging the Islamic Republic in Iraq and Lebanon as we're speaking, while these ceasefires happening. If, I guess a very big if, because it's very hard to do this. If you could get the uranium out with a deal, you have basically defanged. You have removed the only three remaining leverages that the Islamic Republic has, which is the Strait of Hormuz, the proxies in Hezbollah, Lebanon, and then the enriched uranium. Again, it's not like these leverages are going to go completely away, but if you could weaken the Islamic Republic in these three areas, then it becomes so vulnerable for farther attacks in the future. So a lot of people, first of all, the MoU is not a deal. We're so far away from a deal right now.
- [46:33]
A
Just, bottom line, you're a fan of the MoU. A lot of Israelis are very, very skeptical or very worried. A lot of, even Trump supporters are very surprised. Vance has said some things that didn't make anybody feel any better about it. You think the MOU is actually setting the regime against itself and is an extension of the war and weakening the regime further, by the way, I would have challenged you on this very, very fiercely until the Lebanon Israel deal brokered by the State Department. That very much fits what you're saying. It's very much about weakening Hezbollah, empowering the Lebanese government, strengthening Israel's leverage over Hezbollah and its ability to pull out much slower given Hezbollah's own weakening as sort of the condition that does seem to be. People talked about two camps in the Trump administration. Vance versus Rubio. Lebanon was a Rubio deal. MOU was a Vance deal. Maybe. Or maybe these people talk to each other and there's the kind of strategy you're talking about. So you're a fan of the MoU.
- [47:35]
B
And the Lebanese peace agreement also commits the Americans to stop the Hezbollah getting funded by the Islamic Republic. If you read section 11 of the Peace deal, which is significant, if they commit to that. The defending of the MoU depends if it keeps going. So the MOU does not bind Americans. Right. The MOU puts a pause on the military operations for the Americans to deal with their election, for the oil prices to remain low so that we don't have too much of a high inflation before the midterms. Because no matter how much criticism that we have for President Trump and things that we wish he could do and he didn't, it would be far worse if the Democrats take over Congress and Senate. Then we have basically allies of the Islamic Republic. We don't want the allies of the Islamic Republic in the House and the Senate and the White House. That would be worse than anything that you. President Trump, at the end of the day, has done more damage to the Islamic Republic than any other US President in history. And I think we need to be grateful for that. Even though if we wanted him to do more, that is Khamenei is dead. I know the Israelis kill Khamenei, but I think that's only possible with US Military backing Israel, especially when it comes to defending Israel, when after the Islamic Republic response to Israel. So I think US Backing is always required for operations at that level to happen. But yeah, I think the MOU is doing more damage to the Islamic Republic than people realize. But because you visually don't see it, things blowing up, people don't see it as significant. And I don't know, like Ali Khamenei dying and stuff like that. And also I think a lot of people don't understand that military operations is not like a video game that people like. You know, you keep, just keep pressing a button and then, you know, people just die on the other side. Right. So the one people. United States has the greatest military power on earth, but there has it. It has limitations. Right. It's not as it's not unlimited military power. And it does make sense for United States was getting. Losing the cushion when it comes to the missile interceptors for its defense. Right. So United States was going through its missile interceptors at a rapid pace. And people say, well, it had enough to keep going. Yeah. But it would be responsible for United States to go through all of that, given that other things might happen around the world, like, I don't know, China. What if China wanted to attack Taiwan? What if Russia all of a sudden did something? So it does. United States military needs some breathing room, needs to restockpile its munitions. It can't just go through all of this. It's very expensive to keep defending all The Arab countries around the Persian Gulf and Israel at the same time, and US Bases at the same time. They need a pause. They need a pause to restockpile that. And again, if you're angry with the pause, you should be angry with Biden, who basically didn't fund these, restockpiling these United States defense against the Islamic Republic and all of its enemies. President Trump is now working on increasing the budget for all of that. So if they do want to do something like this in the future, they could just keep going farther. But again, I think the expectations that we have from United States is as if they have unlimited godlike power. And the only reason why they stop is because they just decided to. They don't want to do something, you know, so we have to. I mean, they can't just come out and say that this is our limitation because they don't want to project weakness. But we have to understand that this is something that they have to do. But, but they're still busy. Like, while they're, while this is, we're dealing with a ceasefire, they're basically defangling the Islamic Republic from many different angles. While this is happening with. With a lot more like the Islamic Republic is being defanged internally, using Gali Baf as the inside man, making positions against irgc, the supreme leadership and the Pride Ari camp. So that's happening. I think the Americans are actually doing that very effectively with Kalibov. Yeah, I'm not a fan of Kali Bav, but I wish him the best of luck as long as the Americans are using him. And I think people need to be appreciate, like people who want the Islamic Republic gone. They have to see that the Islamic Republic has never been as weak as it is right now. Like, this is the weakest the Islamic Republic has ever been. This is the strongest the Iranian opposition against the Islamic Republic has ever been. So as much as I think that the current negotiations and the MOU is moving us in the right direction, slower than what we wanted to, but still in the right direction, so this ended up not being a sprint. It's a marathon. It's a sprint. So I know that we are in a rush because all of us want the Islamic Republic to be done and over with sooner. But even though it's much slower than what we want, we're still moving in the right direction. And I still do think that the frustration of the Iranian people and Israeli people and their criticism of the White House is useful even. Like, I'm not saying just because I think that the MOUN negotiation is working. I don't want this pressure to stop on the White House. I think the pressure is useful for people to come out and say, stop dealing with terrorists, stop negotiating with our oppressors. Finish the job already. That pressure has its utility. So I don't want to discourage people from putting that pressure, that, that political pressure is useful to be there.
- [53:10]
A
What's your sense of what's happening on the ground for the Iranian in terms of how ordinary Iranians, you know, again with all the caveats that there's complexity and diversity. What are ordinary Iranians saying online right now about the MoU?
- [53:23]
B
So even though me and some people see what that, what the MOU is causing the regime a lot of division and infighting at the beginning, most Iranians were very, very frustrated and felt betrayed and abandoned because of the mou. And they were basically calling it the same as Obama and everything else on my show. My audience usually gets convinced by me that the MoU will do damage to the Islamic Republic in ways that missiles and drones can't. And at first some people were, you know, felt a bit more hopeful in my audience at least. And then it's interesting because once we saw so many videos that we share on my Persian show with Iranians inside Iran regarding the hilarious and dramatic infighting of different segments of the Islamic Republic, and we enjoyed those so much, and now some Iranians are warming up to like, okay, I mean, they're enjoying watching the drama and them calling each other out and they're accepting, think that they're being defeated with the negotiations in a way that they weren't being defeated with the military operation like this coming from the different, very important people within the regime and supporters of the regime. So we are now back to starting to get like, in a better mood. But I must admit that most Iranians are very frustrated with the MOU and negotiations. And it makes sense for us to continue putting that pressure that stop talking to the Islamic Republic. That pressure is justified. Right? One thing to add to what you were saying, being grateful to the Americans, I think as Israelis and Iranians, at the end of the day, we have to realize that this is our neighborhood and this is our responsibility to clean it up and destroy our enemies. I'm not saying we shouldn't put try our best to get help as much as we can, but I think our attitude should be that we, we use our political capital to try to get help from America when it comes where we should show appreciation and gratefulness. And when it doesn't, I don't think we should turn anti American or basically insult President Trump or. That doesn't help politically. That does not help us. At the end of the day, this is our neighborhood and we have to figure out a way to do what needs to be done with or without help coming. And I know Israel is doing that. Israel is becoming more and more militarily self reliant with the Iranian people. I think we need to speak more now regarding arming the Iranian people and with coordination with Princess of Pahlavi, not with Kurdish separatists, not with any other separatist groups which will turn the Iranian people against anybody who's supporting separatist groups. Right. Including the vast majority of the Kurdish Iranians who are against the Kurdish separatists. The vast majority of Iranian Baluchis are against Baluchi separatists. The mass majority of Iranian Azeris are patriotic Iranians who are against Azeri separatists. Right. The Iranians are united based on their national identity, not based on their ethnic identity. And we're all united based on Iran. You know, if you ask Iranian Kurds, they always tell you that I'm Iranian first, Kurdish second. That's the difference between an Iranian Kurd and an Iraqi Kurd. An Iraqi Kurd is Kurdish first, Iraqi second. An Iranian Kurd is Iranian first, Kurdish second. We're all united based on our national identity, not based on our ethnic identity. And the main enemy of Kurdish separatists in Iran are Iranian patriotic Iranian Kurds, which are the vast majority of Iranian Kurds. Right. So if we want the Iranian people to be taken more seriously and for their ones to matter and their fight against the regime to work, it's unreasonable to expect them to come out again and again in millions unarmed in front of machine guns by the Islamic Republic. They already done that. They already show you their determination and their bravery and their will. It's ridiculous to ask them to continue doing that if they're just going to be mass slaughtered every single time. They have to be able to fight back. They have to be armed. And if they're getting armed, it has to be done with the leadership of Princess of Pahlavi with his coordination with him and his team. That's the only way to do that.
- [58:08]
A
Is that doable? How do you do that?
- [58:12]
B
It is.
- [58:13]
A
How do you get guns into Iran? What about the Pahlavist movement can distribute those guns? How are you not just arming a neighborhood that in the end the guns all get taken by the besieged themselves? Just I don't know that you can Solve all these, you know, logistical problems. Right. This is a vast, vast intelligence issue. We have seen unbelievable intelligence penetration of Iran by the Mossad, by the CIA, by Western intelligence generally. But you genuinely think that somehow this dispersed activist protest movement that can turn out, as you say, many hundreds of thousands, millions maybe, can turn them out at the height of it when it's all mobilized. But maybe that moment is coming. The regime is weaker than it was before. And you think that we can put guns in their hands, spread through the big cities of Iran? Spread through. We need to get to a lot of places in Iran. The IRGC is very diffuse in terms of its ability to remain functioning in one province. You could take down Tehran that doesn't take down the IRGC in the south somewhere. Right. How. How do you do that? Is it doable? Make us, you know, I don't know anything about what this would involve, but make me believe it.
- [59:26]
B
So if you just drop weapons, airdrop weapons into different cities in Iran, you are arming the irgc? Not data, any people. It will certainly go into the hands of irgc. Right. If you want to do, you know, secret ways of getting weapons into hands of a few Iranians by vetting them, by making sure they're trained and everything, the level of weapons that you probably could move in would be only enough for special operations, not like a ground army that could go and liberate cities. Right. So I think there's two ways to do this. One of them is on a mass scale. The other one, I don't know if you could reach the volume that is needed. The second way, the first way is to. It would involve the Americans, the Israelis, Princess of Pahlavi's team, and the Ukrainians, because we already did this in Ukraine. When we talk about arming the Iranian people, many people think about guns, but I want people to think drones. Like we saw just a few Ukrainians went to Syria. An arm trained and armed opposition against has said with drones, which is. Which is actually a lot easier to get good at in a short amount of time. They're becoming more and more user friendly and, you know, it only takes a few months for somebody to get good at it without, without any prior military experience. A lot of people, I, I used to say this as a joke, but then some expert told me, actually army. You're correct. You're. You're right about that. I used to say, like, we already have a lot of young men in Iran who are trained on drone technology because they play video games. It can't be that different. And I was joking about that. But some people are saying like, no, actually, you know, this stuff is so user friendly right now that, you know, video game experience actually does help. Right. So what you need to do, in my opinion on, you know, other, you know, maybe experts could come, military experts. I mean, I did, I did check this for military experts and they said this is feasible if it's the commitment to it. You need to liberate at least one city in southern Iran next to the Persian Gulf, especially when the Americans are there to provide air coverage. Just one city. You use USS Tripoli and USS Boxer to get the Marines. You don't need to do something like 20 years ago with the mass ground invasion of Iraq with the American troops only enough that you liberate one city, for example, Bandera Bos, right next to the Strait of Hormuz. So as the Iranian army gets trained and expands, the Strait of Hormuz will also become completely free. So you have an immediate win even before the fall of the Islamic Republic. If you start the army from Bandar Abbas, then the expansion of that army would give the Americans an immediate win, which is the freedom of the Strait of Hormuz even before Tehran falls. So once you liberate that city, what you do is that you get Princess of Pahlavi to put a call to action for the Iranian people who are close to Bandarabas to come to Banderabas to get vetted, trained and then armed. You don't just hand weapons to people. You could use Mossad intelligence and Princess of Pahlavi's team's know how to vet the Iranian people, train them and then arm them with drone technology and other types of weapons. What you could also do the Americans, so the Americans could do the initial liberation of that one city. One thing else the Americans could do is basically take some of the Islamic Republic oil tankers in the Persian Gulf and give it to this new freedom fighting army of the Iranian people to sell in the free markets and use the money to that to pay the Americans for their air coverage. So the Americans and their initial military operations to liberate the city as a way for the Americans to be able to sell this politically in Washington, saying like, look, this doesn't even cost us money. The Iranian people use their own oil to pay us for our military services. So we might actually be making even a profit out of this. We're not stealing the oil because we're giving it to the rightful owner of the oil, which is the Iranian people. The same money from the Oil tankers then could be used to arm the Iranian people. They could buy drones from the Ukrainians. You could get Ukrainians to come, come in and train the Iranian people on how to use drone technology and keep going city by city from southern Iran and go north and start liberating cities starting from now. And this will be a multi year operation, right? So to keep expanding from the south, going all the way to Tehran. And again, you have, once you get started in Iran, you have everywhere that Most of the 90% of Iranian oil comes from southern Iran, more than 90% of Iranian oils. So this army, as soon as you liberate southern Iran, this army is now going to have access to a huge amount of revenue. And the army of the Islamic Republic, the irgc, will lose that revenue. So as soon as you liberate southern Iran and give the Iranian freedom fighters the access to the oil revenue, that oil revenue could go in. Paying the Americans and Ukrainians and, and paying the Ukrainians to train the Iranian people and buying drones from them also helps funding Ukraine against Russia at the same time. So it's a win, win, win. It's a win, win, win. It's a win for the Iranian people, it's a win for the United States, who could make a profit out of this. It's a win for Israelis because now they're supporting the Iranian people against the Islamic Republic. Instead of supporting the separatist groups, they're supporting the patriotic Iranian people. And it's a win for Ukraine against Russia because they will come up selling their weapons and train the Iranian people. And that would be a source of fund against Putin as well.
- [65:26]
A
Armin, I want to believe I could see so many problems, but I can also see so many solutions to those problems. The IRGC does not have the ability to control the air against a polity like that, a rebellion like that. Enough people have to be happy about that army approaching them. To not fight that army they'll be the great weapon that they'll use is of course guerrilla and terrorism to disrupt the ranks, to blow up those refineries, things like that. They will do a scorched earth and burn Iran to the ground as that army approaches. But that is not a great argument against that liberation army of Iranians. But it would mean real commitment by the forces that be, that would help those kinds of forces. Maybe there's the money in the Gulf, maybe there's the willingness to take on burdens and costs and even bleed and sent special forces by the Israelis, maybe, maybe the Americans in some way I have to tell you, I walk away from this with a sense of the scale, of the ferment, of the hunger to see change, of the end of this 47 year nightmare of this regime. The fact that people are thinking in these fascinating new ways and willing to imagine the regime falling. Maybe that's the turning point. If it takes 10 years, maybe we'll remember that. The turning point was that moment where Israeli planes overflew Iran back in June, or maybe American Israeli planes now and discovered that the IRGC had never built an Iranian air force of any value, had never built anything in Iran except its own control, its own robbery, mass robbery of this, of this nation. Armin, one last question and then we'll call it a day. And thank you so much. And I've stretched a little longer than we said we would, so thank you for your patience. The Iranian protesters did not return to the streets in this war. We know that the Basij were in every street corner. We know that the regime was ready and willing to shoot and prepared and lock down neighborhoods and adjeckpoints. What would it take to begin that protest? Does it have to begin with a naval assault on Bandar Abbas? Or is there an internal mechanism within Iran that will see that protest rise up again?
- [67:56]
B
So I just want to remind people that every time they said that the Iranian people, why didn't they rise up? Eventually they did, and, and at much bigger scale than anybody anticipated. So the Iranian people always come back, they always rise up again. So the idea they question why didn't they rise up? I've heard that so many times before the mass uprising of early January, and we told people that they would rise up when it's the right time to rise up, and they did. And I will tell you again, they will rise up again. And they will. The timing needs to make sense. I mean, it's a unreasonable expectation after what we saw the Islamic Republic did, for the Iranian people to repeat that exact. Every time the Iranian people did a new uprising, they did it in a different way based on what happened in the previous uprising. So the next uprising would not make sense for people to come out in mass numbers given that the Islamic Republic, even without its, its air force, without its navy, without its, you know, air defense, without its, you know, many of its rocket launchers, it doesn't take much to get a couple of machine guns and then just start shooting and raining fire upon mass numbers of unarmed Iranian people. The Islamic Republic is not at all close to the level of weakness where it can't do that, that is easy to do, then the Iranian people are brave, but they're not stupid. They need to be able to fight back. Right? And even if this plan that I told you doesn't happen or anything resembling like that doesn't happen, I do think the Iranian people will find ways to arm themselves internally. Like they can't get their hands on drones. They are going to be able to turn those drones themselves into deadly weapons if they have to. Right. If help arrives, they will appreciate it and they will use it. But if it doesn't, one way or another, the Iranian people are not going to. Here's what I do know. The Iranian people are not going to tolerate the Islamic Republic. They are going to keep fighting until the regime falls. I don't know when the regime falls, but the Iranian people are not going to give up fighting the Islamic Republic until it falls. And I also know Israel is not going to stop fighting the Islamic Republic until the Islamic Republic falls. And this is why the Iranian people find themselves so in line with the Israeli people. I don't know if your audience knows how much love for Israel exists now in Iran. More than this has already been increasing in Iran. You know, in the past five years, the love for Israel has increased. But I want your audience to know that the appreciation and love and the sense of alignment with Israelis, I was optimistic that we wouldn't get to this point one day. But even for me, I didn't see it getting this high at this point in time. And so many Iranians are excited not just for free Iran, but also the bond. Like a lot of Iranians have rediscovered the bond between Iran and Israel for thousands of years. Like they, they, they think that they, these two countries, they believe that these two countries are linked. You know, they have ancient bonds like no two other countries has ever had before. Like, you know, for yours is the bond is biblical. That's how far back it goes. The Iranian people are very, very eager to make sure that Israelis know that the hatred that the regime has for Israel does not at all, is not at all reflected by the people. It's not at all the view of the Iranian people. The Iranian people, for years they went from, for years they didn't hate Israel, but they didn't have love for Israel. But in the past five years they went from just not hating because for many years when I was a kid in Iran, I lived in Iran for 20 years, the Iranian people just, you know, they didn't, they understood that the hatred for Israel is just a regime thing. They didn't want to disrespect Israel for so many years. Like, if you had flags of Israel on the floor in universities, there's so many videos even before all of this that the, you know, university students will go around them, try to make sure not step. Step on it because they didn't want to disrespect the flag, even, you know, the flag of Israel. This was before any of this was before the mass revolution, before the lion and sun revolution, before any of the. This years ago. You could go, the videos of them are online, right? But that was just not them not wanting to disrespect Israel. But now there is deep sense of love because the Iranian, the, the main thing the Iranian people want right now is to liberate Iran, bring back Pahlavi and destroy the Islamic Republic. And they see Israel, Israel killed Ali Khamenei is. It was Israeli fighter jets that killed Ali Khamenei. Even before that, the Iranians were loving Israel more and more when they killed Nasrallah. When they killed Nasrallah, more Iranians fell in love with Israel. When they killed so many of the IRGC commanders, Iranians kept falling more and more deeper in love with Israel. But I don't think. I think many Iranians went from liking Israel for doing all of this before they killed Ali Khamenei to after the moment that they realized that there was the Israeli fighter Jews that killed Ali Khamenei. It went from liking or loving to a deep sense of admiration and love. And I don't know how to communicate how high that appreciation and love is. I think a lot of people will not believe it until they see it. But it's all over Iran. Like, it's huge. And it's still growing. It's still growing. I talk to Iranians every day, every day. And, you know, right before the Internet was cut in Iran, I was receiving videos directly from their revolution in the streets of Iran. People saying, armin, I'm sending this to you, put this out there. And I posted it. People saying, I'm Israel high in Tehran, in the streets of Iran, wanting to make sure Israelis see that. Like they're risking their lives saying I'm Israel chai in the streets of Iran when they were protesting. So just know that that exists and also that the Iranian people can't wait for us to go back. Being friends and allies once the Islamic
- [74:32]
A
Republic falls made the day come and we'll all see it right, right there in a free Iran. Speaking out loud. Armin, thank you so much. For joining me. This was absolutely fascinating.
- [74:44]
B
Thank you. Thank you for having.