Saagar Enjeti (2:22)

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Saagar Enjeti (2:39)

We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you@breakingpoints.com let's turn now to the most critical thing, the Strait of Hormuz. The White House is all over the place on the Straits of Hormuz. They are claiming that as part of the ceasefire that the strait would be free and open. And yet immediately after the ceasefire was implemented, Iran announced yao ships. You can pass maybe only 12 to 15 a day with the permission of the IRGC in coordination with Iranian military forces. You have to avoid the mines. Only we know where they are. So you're gonna have to go exactly where we tell you to go. Oh, and you're gonna have to pay us. Here's what the White House, how they reacted to some of this news that clearly the strait was not open. Let's take a listen. State media is saying that Iran has now closed off the Strait of Hormuz today in response to Israeli attacks on Lebanon. What's the White House response to that

Sponsor Voice (The RealReal) (3:32)

with respect to the first reporting out of Iran media? The President was made aware of those reports before I came to the podium. That is completely unacceptable. And again, this is a case of what they're saying publicly is different. Privately. We have seen an uptick of traffic in the Strait today. And I will reiterate the President's expectation and demand that the Strait of Hormuz is reopened immediately, quickly and safely.

Krystal Ball (3:57)

That is his expectation.

Sponsor Voice (The RealReal) (3:58)

It has been relayed to him privately that that is what's taking place in

Krystal Ball (4:01)

these reports publicly are false.

Saagar Enjeti (4:04)

Yeah, these are false. Hmm, not so far, actually. Let's go and put C2 up there on the screen. Don't believe us. Believe the oil industry. The oil industry has gone and lit up the White House switchboard saying, hey, you can't have this happen. You can't just allow them to charge tolls. One of them even said, but you said you won the war. And here we are having to pay the Iranian government and potentially in crypt and or in one to circumvent the petrodollar and any sort of US sanctions regime. They say, quote, we didn't have to do that before. I thought we won the war. Any place you have access to the administration, you ask, what are you guys thinking? The response administration officials were giving is not a cold shoulder. It's more like, yeah, okay, we'll take note.

Krystal Ball (4:56)

Noted, Noted.

Saagar Enjeti (4:58)

Getting left on thumbs up if you're the CEO of Exxon Mobil. Shows you who's got the power in this relationship, though, doesn't it?

Krystal Ball (5:06)

Not to mention, I mean, get used to it. This is the new reality. And as I was saying, Yanis Varoufak, I think we know now how this will ultimately end. Now, does it actually end now in some sort of agreement? Or does the US Is it too much for Donald Trump to swallow right now? Does he need to go in and take more pain before ending up with effectively the same agreement that they would have to come to now, which includes incredible concessions to Iran? You know, it's just a question of when. Because the Iranians have de facto effectively already won wars, really reveal what the actual power dynamics are. And Iran has proven that there is effectively no military operation that could take back control of the Strait of Hormuz. There is going to be a new reality there, period, end of story. That is going to be consequential, not only in terms of Iran becoming tremendously, I mean, quite wealthy, wealthy. The toll that they're gonna be able to charge, having incredible power now, they have effectively the ability to sanction countries and wield levers that they did not have before. So you have the rise of Iran as this new fourth world power, but you're gonna have other countries around the world who are like, hey, we've got a key waterway here as well. Why can't we do what the Iranians do? Why can't we also charge a toll? If they're gonna do it, we're gonna take advantage of that, too. So this is a whole new world. And the oil industry executives can bitch and moan all they want, but at the end of the day, I'm sure the Trump administration would love to figure out how to get the Strait of Hormuz back to the status quo that existed before they themselves started this incredibly stupid war. If they knew how to do that, they would have already done it.

Saagar Enjeti (6:46)

Remember, all the Zionists in, like, 2023 were like, there was a ceasefire. On October 6th, there was a ceasefire. It's like, well, there's free and open Strait on February 27. There was a free and open Strait of Hormuz on February 27th. Now there's not. Okay, well, they're the ones who get to set those terms. Let's put C3 up there on the screen. Iran now demands crypto FE for ships passing Hormuz through Ceasefire. I'm gonna read through this just to show you exactly how much control they have over the Straits of Hormuz. So you can actually hear it out. Hamad Hosseini, he's the spokesperson for the Iranian Oil and Gas Exporters Union, told the Financial Times Iran wanted to collect toll fees from any tanker passing. And to assess each ship, quote, Iran needs to monitor what goes in and out of the Strait to ensure these two weeks aren't used for transferring weapons. Everything can pass through, but the procedure will take time for each vessel, and Iran is not in a rush. So this is not just charging a fee. This is like being boarded by the Coast Guard, some sort of customs union. And we're not talking about, you know, we're not talking about in their destiny, just in their territorial waters. We're talking about in a previously free and open international shipping corridor, where basically it's now like, here in the Potomac river, where if you have a boat and this coast, and they're like, oh, where's your license? Can we see the cargo list? What do you have on board? Now, let me continue. They also say that it is halting passage of the oil tankers in response into the Israeli strikes on Lebanon. But before that, any tanker passing must send exactly, as I said, a cargo listing that informs them of what is on board. Iran will then inform them of the toll to be paid. He said that the tariff is now $1 per barrel of oil, adding that empty tankers may be allowed to pass freely. Once the email arrives and Iran completes its assessment, vessels will be given a few seconds in Bitcoin, ensuring that they can't be traced or confiscated due to sanctions. The tankers on the Gulf have received a radio broadcast saying they will be targeted with military strikes unless they first gain approval from Iranian authority. That is total and complete control of the Strait of Hormuz. It literally rivals, like, you know, any other choke point in the globe, like the Panama Canal or Egypt. As Yanis said on our show, Panama only owns or gets 5 billion from its transit through the Panama canal. Egypt gets 10. Iran is on track. If this were to hold to get 70 to 90 billion dollars, it would make them one of the wealthiest countries in the entire Middle East. So if they're able, let's say that even if we don't take sanctions relief off, and, yeah, you get Bitcoin and yuan, I mean, this country will be filthy rich. They may be richer than Riyadh, than Qatar, than the uae, because they have an Intellectual base. They have natural resources, they have water. They don't have to rely on industrial base desalination. They have an industrial base now. I mean, this is a very, very educated country with the dia. Maybe the diaspora will go back. I mean, who knows? Like, you could envision a scenario where you got direct flights, Tehran to Beijing, new planes. I mean, there's an entire new ecosystem which is going to be happening here. Maybe, you know, these shahed drones that will become one of the biggest exporters, you know, they will be the biggest exporter to any American adversary across the world. And we're gonna pay for it literally with the oil. Like the. This is a nightmare of a strategic defeat for the United States. It's crazy.

Krystal Ball (10:08)

And imagine over in Yemen, the Houthis look at this and they're like, oh, Bab el Mandab Strait, which is at least as important as the Strait of Hormuz. Also very critical choke point. Yemen has been a very poor country. Imagine they're, okay, we'll set up a toll and they've got Iranian support and access to those shahed drones and what they need. It doesn't take a lot to demonstrate your ability to control those choke points. And I mean, it's really, really upends the way the whole world has operated and the way you have to think about geopolitics. So like I said, I think whether or not this happens in the next couple weeks, or whether Trump is not ready to swallow this level of a clear defeat and decides to go back in and try some crazy thing and see if he can bomb their electrical grid or whatever into submission, it's ultimately going to fail and we're going to end up in something like this new world. The crypto part is obviously also really significant. What does that indicate? They are bypassing the US led global financial structure. Again, that makes it so it is on their own terms. It doesn't mean that it's the total end of the petrodollar, the end of the US as the global reserve currency, or any of that, but it certainly does undermine it. It certainly does start to push the world more aggressively in that direction. And that is a massive, massive, complete change as well.

Saagar Enjeti (11:33)

Right. And I mean, let's think even bigger, shall we? Like, let's think just globally about the Straits of Hormuz and what this level of destruction. You know, I'm really just thinking about what Yana said, the law, not the entire law of the sea. Cause I don't think the US was even a signatory of it. Even though we were like the guarantor of the international law of the sea, it was based on the post World War II Blue Water Navy ethos of we control commerce on the high seas anywhere and everywhere. This goes back to like the Barbary pirates that Thomas Jefferson dispatched the U.S. marines to say, no, we will not allow a pirate veto. It's like, well now we just did. Now what do we do? Like what do you do in this scenario? And because we didn't envision a place where the American public, I mean if you were to poll and ask ultimately, did America have the capability of actually taking over the Straits of Hormuz? Yeah, we do. It would take hundreds of thousands of troops, lives, endless amounts of money. It would take a literal, almost a Pearl harbor type event for somebody to really be able to support that. But we don't. And so in the interim you are actually left with trying to accomplish it from the air with these billions of dollars in weapons. The price that I have now seen was that the war cost hundreds of millions a day. The total cost was between 33 and 53 billion dollars just for the six or seven weeks of the war. The backlog in weapons will take probably five to 10 years to completely replace. Even with the 1.5 trillion defense budget, it is a strategic disaster. And for this to be now the result. So what do we have left? We have left nukes or ground troops. We don't want to use either of those things. So we have to live with this reality. And also just to show you their control, can we put C5 up there on the screen? Yesterday oil had the biggest drop since COVID So it dropped all the way down to like $90 a barrel. Well, as of this morning, actually they've increased significantly. It's now some $98 a barrel in terms of Brent crude. And from its all time high, it's only down about 7%, whereas it was actually down almost 15% at one point. Same whenever it comes to the crude oil futures here in the United States, which means that those gas prices are really not coming all the way back down. Remember the national price of gas before the war was some 280 a gallon. That's phenomenal. That's great actually for trying to check inflation. Now if we're living around 90, I mean if everybody's watched that Landman quote, you're living in a world of about a dollar more a gallon than where you were before. And it's not gonna go down anytime soon. So there's punishment for the US economy for the US Military and majorly empowered Iran, who, yes, they lost their ayatollah. Maybe it's the best thing that ever happened to them. He was a doddering old man. Now they've got a much more hardcore, battle tested reality of the people who survived with much more cynical, much more willing to use hard power. They could emerge from this stronger than ever. In fact, if, I think, if all of this status quo stands 25 years from now, I think they'll be filthy rich and I think they'll be, they'll either be a full blown nuclear power or they'll have some sort of latent nuclear deterrent like they did before, maybe some North Korea style program which they can switch on at any moment and sprint in six weeks if they need to. 25 years. That's what I would predict if the current status quo were told.

Krystal Ball (15:05)

Absolutely. The logic is clear. The logic is as clear as it could be. Just so you guys see what the current reality is. So since Israel has continued, not just continued, but escalated their bombardment and massacres in Lebanon, we can put C6 up on the screen. So the number of ships in the Strait of Hormuz has reduced directly. So this is some of the details about what they had indicated while these negotiations are going on. They told mediators they will be limiting the number of ships crossing to around 12 per day and imposed tolls. But now yesterday, that should have been the first day where the new law of the land, okay, 12 per day and we're going to assess tolls where that happened. Only four ships passed through, but reportedly none of those ships actually had oil on them. They did not have cargo on them. And so effectively zero tankers actually went through the street. And that was a dramatic reduction. That was the fewest ships passing through of any day in April so far. So this is their threat. Now, they have not done, I do think they maybe shot some missiles towards Israel yesterday, but they have not re upped as much, you know, as much of the missile barrages and drone barrages as they had been doing in the past. Instead, they're using their economic leverage, which is the thing that the US And Trump is most sensitive to. And we can see C7 as well. There was a tanker that was actually turned around that was headed toward the Strait of Hormuz. Panama flagged tanker Aurora. In any case, they are clamping down completely now, which will hurt them because that means they're not getting revenue either. But it is the reason why we're seeing oil prices go back up right now, both because of the realization there's going to be a new reality, period, but also because of the realization that this thing is far from being completely settled and it may be quite a while before you actually have any sort of traffic flowing through the Strait of Hormuz. So long as Israel continues to bomb and invade Lebanon.

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Saagar Enjeti (19:43)

all right, let's get to Israel, shall we?

Krystal Ball (19:45)

Yep. So Netanyahu making plain in a speech yesterday that he does not want the war to end, that he does not think the war is ending, and that he remains ready to go back in and accomplish their quote, unquote, objectives. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that.

Saagar Enjeti (20:00)

And Israel is stronger than ever. This is the bottom line of this campaign up until now. Let me say there are still additional objectives for us to achieve, and we will achieve them either by agreement or by resumption of the fighting. And we are ready to resume the fighting at any moment. Our finger is on the trigger. As you know, two weeks ceasefire has been announced between the US And Iran. No, we were not surprised in the last moment. And I want to emphasize this is not the end of the war.

Krystal Ball (20:38)

So he says there one thing that's interesting is he says it's a ceasefire between the US And Iran, does not include Israel in that at all. But and we can put the next one up on the screen that just has the direct quote here. He says the truce is, quote, not the end of the war, but a stop on the way to achieving all our goals. Got it. And of course, Israel already doing what they can to destroy, you know, this, quote, unquote, ceasefire. They have long. He, of course, was very influential. We know he was in THE Situation Room, apparently at the head of the table making the hard sell for this war, which Donald Trump chose to, you know, go along with, and has also reportedly been one of the most hawkish people in the administration in terms of wanting to pursue this absolute insanity. And that is not going to change. Israel is going to continue trying to destroy the ceasefire, trying to blow up any potential negotiations that could end the war. And even if there is some sort of agreement which is reached in the short term, they will never stop trying to undermine it and try to go back to war. Because as much as this is a strategic defeat for us, I mean It's a disaster for the Israelis, especially in their way of thinking, because they have no interest in coexistence and trying to live peaceably with their neighbors.

Saagar Enjeti (21:55)

Well, look, look, don't take our word for it. Take the Israelis word for it. Listen to the Israeli opposition. Put D3 up there on the screen, shall we? Naftali Bennett, the former prime minister, slams the government for leaving Israel exposed to a vengeful Iran after truce. I mean, he's not wrong. He is kind of right, isn't he? The former prime minister joins the chorus of opposition criticizing the government over the ceasefire, arguing in a live TV announcement that Netanyahu had failed to achieve the war's goals. And this will leave Israel facing a vengeful Iran, which will be even more determined to go nuclear. True. The reason why so many people feel disappointed tonight is that the leadership sold us illusions. All their empty promises have exploded in our face. Unfortunately, each of us sees with our own eyes that Hamas is getting stronger. Hezbollah and Iran are standing on their own two feet. This is happening because a government that dismantles Israel from within cannot defeat the enemy from without. And then you have Yair Lapid, the made opposition leader. Let's put his statement up there on the screen. Translated from Hebrew. There has never been such a political disaster in all our history. Israel was not even at the table when decisions were made concerning the core of our national security. The military carried out everything that was asked of it. The public demonstrated amazing resilience. But Netanyahu failed politically, failed strategically, and didn't meet a single one of the goals that he himself set. That it will take years to repair the political strategic damage that Netanyahu wrought due to arrogance, negligence and lack of strategic planning. More details here today.

Krystal Ball (23:27)

Important to keep in mind that all of these people supported this absolutely insane and stupid war, which was the original sin of, you know, how they end up in this situation. But yeah, think of it from their perspective. They were hoping to collapse the Iranian state into a failed state, some sort of civil war, you know, dramatically degraded their capabilities, maybe install some sort of a, you know, US Israeli puppet leader, but more likely just completely destroy this thing. You know, let's arm the Kurds. Let's get some sort of civil war going now, and so that they could be the undisputed hegemon in the region. And Netanyahu, at the beginning of this war was talking about them being a global superpower. That was their ambitions at the beginning of it. Now the Iranians are going to have much more power. They have demonstrated their military effectiveness. They have proven they can strike inside of Israel and cause significant damage. They have proven the holes and the, you know, also the dwindling supplies in terms of the Israeli air defense. And now they're going to be wealthy with this toll that they're charging. You know, we'll be able to charge at this straight on the Strait of Hormuz. And again, I'm not saying this is all coming to pass right now because it is entirely possible we go back to some sort of a war and then it's a while before this all shakes out, but that is where things are heading. And not to mention, and this was mentioned by Naftali Bennett, Iran is far more likely to pursue a nuclear weapon now. They are far more hardline, more hardliners in control. They are far more likely to pursue a nuclear weapon. In fact, if they didn't, it would be foolish of them, frankly. And their ballistic missile capacity has been degraded somewhat. But they'll be wealthy. They can buy however many ballistic missiles manufacture. However, ballistic missiles, their shahed drones are incredibly inexpensive. They will be able to rebuild and in a relatively short period of time. So you have done nothing but strengthen them and absolutely weaken your own position in the region. And you've once again antagonized everybody in the whole region and the entire world. And your political horizon in the US is really dim. You know, if you look at young people under 50, Republican, Democrat, forget about it. I mean, the sentiment is overwhelmingly against Israel. If you look at the entire population, Israel has something like 60% disapproval at this point. This is a sea change in American politics. And so you will no longer be able to assume that whether you get a Republican or a Democrat in the White House, you're gonna have their full throated backing. And that is what has allowed Israel to behave in this absolutely brutish, barbaric, rogue way.

Saagar Enjeti (26:08)

Yeah, and let's put D5 up there on the screen. You guys are gonna love this. So AIPAC and its statement on the ceasefire, it says, a historic Israeli campaign. We must end Iran's nuclear program. We must address what remains of Iran's missile and drone program. Cut off support for militias, and all of this must be voted on by Congress.

Krystal Ball (26:29)

Love it.

Saagar Enjeti (26:30)

Now, how incredible is it that Lindsey Graham and AIPAC support a war illegally launched unilaterally by the President? But if you try to make peace, well that, hold on, we gotta ratify that by Congress. You can wage war as long as you want, but the peace itself, that must be approved by Congress must have review and we itsselves will have the up or down vote as to whether that happens. I mean, it's a literal backwards of the US Constitution, right? It's not a treaty, as we all learned with the Iran nuclear deal and all that. Trump himself, how many executive deals has he signed? Okay, that's fine with me. Peace, cool. You can do that unilaterally. But war, no. I mean, the founders were very explicit whenever it came to the power of being able to launch war. So that is America, under Israeli or AIPAC and Lindsey Graham's control. The President may launch a war. The peace must be approved by the Congress.

Krystal Ball (27:23)

Otherwise you are required, you are obligated, you're forced by the Congress to continue the war indefinitely until we decide that, you know, that, that we've had enough. It really is absolutely incredible. We can just go through a little bit just for our perusal year of There's a Zionist Twitter meltdown happening right now. We can go through a few of these. Griffin pulled a lot. He really went wild on the elements for this section. But let's go ahead and put a few of these up for D6. You see, the time has come. Instead of Israel and the US eliminating the regime, the regime is bombing Israel. Dear Trump, what did you do all this for? Eve Barlow. The ceasefire is disappointing. The end of the day, the people of the west have prioritized their own needs over the liberation of the people of Iran. Think of how twisted that is she is. She is saying that we need to keep bombing Iran, that that's really the good thing for the people of Iran. I have a feeling the people in Iran feel a different about that. This guy says, don't know how I feel about this. Another one says, this makes me sick. Let's do one more page of these Twitter reactions. Dr. Eli David says, WTF? Trump just shared Arachi's post that he accepted the regime's 10 point proposal. As a reminder, here is the 10 point proposal, which of course has the new reality and straight of Hormuz, complete easing of sanctions, et cetera. And one more here. This of course will be seen as weakness by the entire Middle East. Ceasefire is a very bad idea. I don't like it at all. Iran has not conceded anything. So there you go, a little bit of how it's being received on Zionist Twitter. And let's go ahead and take a listen to Mark Levin, who unfortunately, maybe people don't really listen to him that much in terms of the public, but he is very influential, apparently in terms of the White House and certainly in terms of sharing the views of the most influential Zionists in the country. So let's take a listen to his reaction.

F (29:12)

We're not doing regime change. Everybody says no regime change. Okay, then the regime survives in one form or another. The fundamentals survive. And so the question is, how do we keep this, this enemy, this poison, this cancer, These Islamist radicals, 7th century barbarians, how do we keep them in a box? And that's what we have to figure out if we're not going to completely take them out because of the huge isolationist strain in the Democrat Party among the woke. Right. But again, Maga, the Republicans are behind the President. But if we can't do it because of the political wins, if we can't do it because of other reasons, then how are we going to keep them in a box? It can't be just peace in our time. We have a 10 point deal and they've agreed to this, this, this. I just think it's going to be very, very complicated, very, very difficult. And I would say this to the President of the United States. I personally know that you will do the right thing, that you're going to try and make sure that it works for now and forever. And so I have complete faith in this man because he's brought us to this point where he's blown out their nuclear system, where he's taking out or trying to take out all the enrichment, where he is not taking them at their word, where he has used our military in one of the most brilliant, spectacular military campaigns in American history. I'm glad he's there as President of the United States. There's some very complicated and difficult issues on the table and I think if anyone can handle it, he can handle it. But this enemy, make no mistake, they are the enemy. They're not going to go away if there's not regime change. And we're going to have to figure out, and it's not going to be easy, how to keep our, our foot on their throat.

Krystal Ball (31:02)

So you see the game he's playing here. Very unhappy with the deal, still pushing for regime change, but of course has to frame it in like, of course I trust Trump and of course he's brilliant and magnificent and the military operation has been the best in history, et cetera.

Saagar Enjeti (31:15)

Yeah. Also, by the way, I literally just saw this come across. The Israeli military just issued evacuation warnings for Beirut, southern suburbs. And so still happening. Interesting, isn't it? Even though, what did JD say? They're going to check itself.

Krystal Ball (31:29)

He said that he did say they're going to check itself.

Saagar Enjeti (31:32)

So apparently that's what it looks like whenever Eternal operation.

Krystal Ball (31:35)

Sure we can rely on them for that, right?

Saagar Enjeti (31:37)

Yeah, Operation Eternal Darkness will check itself. Got a great guest standing by. Let's get to it.

Sponsor Voice (Public Investing) (31:44)

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Krystal Ball (34:47)

for more on the war in Iran, we're joined this morning by Behrouz Gamarri. He's a fellow at the center for Place, Culture and Politics at the CUNY Graduate center and also author of the new book the Long War on New Events. Dense old questions. Welcome. Great to see you.

Behrouz Gamarri (35:01)

Thank you so much for having me.

Krystal Ball (35:02)

Good to see you too, of course. So a lot of questions for you, but let's just start with how do you view this war in terms of the sort of long history of the country of Iran, but also specifically with this particular Iranian government? Do you think that it has helped strengthen their position in the state?

Behrouz Gamarri (35:22)

First, let me thank you for having me here. And this current war is part of a very long project. And as the title of my book suggests, this is a long war on Iran. And we can basically go back to the time of the Iranian revolution of the 1979 that for the better or for worse, the revolution changed the map of the Middle east. Because before the revolution, Iran's state under the Shah was one of the most important allies of the United States in the region. And some people refer to his reign as the policeman of the Middle east on behalf of the interests of the United States and by extension the interest of Israel. So you can imagine how significant the revolution was in terms of the interests of the US and the allies of Israel in the region. So this is a war pretty much designed as a project since the time of revolution in Iran and in one way or another. First, the eight year war with Iraq and crippling sanctions. Many people argue that sanctions actually are more brutal than any actual war. Recently there was an estimate that in the past 30 years, around 30 million people have died as a result of sanctions around the world. Not only in Iran, but of course, Iran is under one of the most severe sanctions, the crippling sanctions that created a situation between the two countries that, as I very reluctantly predicted in my book, that eventually is going to be resolved by an actual war that just started a month ago. And that will define our situation.

Saagar Enjeti (37:25)

Right, sir. What I'm very interested to hear from you, and you know, to the extent that you're able to, is what life is like in Iran. We hear so many caricatures from the United States. It's a theocracy. They beat people, they throw gay people off of a building. But then I also see videos of people in a coffee shop that looks like it could be out of Brooklyn or New York City. Obviously, maybe both of those things can coexist. We did see. Can we put E1 up here, which is. This is some video of people in Iran who were celebrating the ceasefire. Clearly, the regime has some level of control, even in some of the more secular, or maybe even secular is the wrong word. Can you describe to us what life is like in Iran and especially how the regime, how people feel about the regime now in the aftermath of this war?

Behrouz Gamarri (38:16)

Yeah. Let me start from the last part of your question, that when a war starts, I think one of the most significant events that happens is the collapse of the distinction between the state and the nation. And this is what we witness today, for the most part, in Iran. All these people who are celebrating on the streets today are not necessarily supporters of the. The state, but they are part of a nation that finds itself under brutal attack by Israel and the United States. But also, I think one of the reasons that this war became palatable to many people was that there is this kind of erasure of civil society in Iran, which has been quite vibrant in the past at least 30 years. And one of the reasons that people say that, okay, the only solution now is an external intervention in Iranian affairs, because whatever we did, we could not change society, which is absolutely not true. A lot of things have changed in Iranian society in the past 35 years, especially at the end of Iran, Iraq war in 1988. And there is a vibrant civil society, a very vibrant publishing business. I mean, In Tehran alone, 28 daily newspapers come out, and many of them quite critical of the government. And there has always been a very strong women's movement in Iran, student movement, labor association. And if you want to compare Iranian Society in 2020, 21, 22 to Iranian Society of 1990, you see a huge and significant difference between these two societies. And so one of the reasons that we don't hear about this, we always hear that Iran is a totalitarian state and people cannot breathe. People are afraid of voicing their dissent, which is absolutely not true. I'm not saying that, you know, it's not a rosy picture of Iran, but it's a picture that highlights all these efforts and struggles that people have been doing. And sometimes they gain some grounds, sometimes they lose some grounds. People are arrested, people are executed, people are exiled. But nevertheless, it doesn't mean that we are facing a very stagnant and static society. And I think that's quite an important thing that it's usually erased from the mass media in the west, in Europe and in the US and in my own scholarship, I always try to highlight that. But whenever you highlight that, then it sounds like you are defending.

Saagar Enjeti (41:22)

Yeah, like apologia. Right. You just mentioned execution.

Behrouz Gamarri (41:25)

Right.

Saagar Enjeti (41:26)

Yeah. I mean, what about how does the protest movement fit into that? I'm sure that's going to be the most, you know, people will say, oh, how can that be true if we just had this major protest?

Behrouz Gamarri (41:33)

No, I mean, the protests always happen in Iran. You know, it's not a new thing. And every two or three years since the end of Iran, Iraq War, we have a major protest movement in Iran. Sometimes the government is flexible enough to accommodate some of those demands. Sometimes, if they feel an existential threat, they respond with brutality and violence and killing. And this most recent protest in December and January, for example, it was. I mean, it started as a protest of economic grievances. And, you know, tens of thousands of people demonstrated. And the government actually was very open in opening a channel with a conversation with protesters. And the president himself met with many of them. And so long as these protests have demands that are realizable under the existing order, the government shows flexibility and tries to accommodate. But once these protests become a protest for regime change, of course, that suddenly turns into a national security issue and the government reacts very violently. And of course, in the recent protests in January, now there are a lot of reports that coming out that these protests that were expressed through economic grievances and turned into a regime change demand was also instrumentalized and exploited by the Israelis, by the CIA, and by, you know, President Trump admitted that we sent arms to protesters.

Krystal Ball (43:20)

Well, and how much does that? Because so Trump said at least that, you know, we sent arms to the Kurds and the Kurds were supposed to give them to the protesters. He says, oh, I think they kept them for themselves. Who knows what of that is true. But we have a lot of indications that there was certainly US And Israeli involvement and that the protests turned quite violent and were met with a violent assault. We don't know the number. They throw numbers on 30,000, 40,000, but

Behrouz Gamarri (43:43)

I think that's part of that project. You know, if, if the numbers are 3,000, just add another and then, you know, it justifies external intervention.

Krystal Ball (43:53)

I mean, how much does that meddling from the US And Israel, which is sort of omnipresent, how much does that undermine the reform movement within Iran?

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Behrouz Gamarri (47:06)

oh, I mean it undermines it greatly. I mean, and that's one of the issues that has always been part of the Iranian politics and its relation with American policies. And if you remember for example after 911 in 2001 when President Khatami was in office in Iran and Iranians actually the government decided to change gears and become part of this war on terror as George W. Bush called it. And you know, American delegations in Bonnie conference in Germany after the collapse of the Taliban, they were very open about it that without Iranian help they could not topple the Taliban in Afghanistan. And, but then you know, right after that we have the access of evil speech at the State of Union 2002. Right. But, but there you have a reform movement in Iran that is trying to change the context of its relation with the US and it's met with an access of evil speech in the Congress here. So that undermined, I think that's the point in 2002 that the US definitely undermined any possibility of reform in Iran. Because if you, if you say that, okay, we are accommodating, we are bending backward to define a new kind of relationship with you and you're met with this kind of very hostile rhetoric. And indeed, some of the neocons in the White House and the Congress wrote a memo to George W. And saying that, you know, Iran is supposed to be the target of war on terror. Iran cannot be a part of war on terror. So you have to, to change gear and Iran should be the target of this new policy, not a collaborator.

Saagar Enjeti (49:18)

I want to ask you about the new system in Iran. So my analysis that I gleamed from Trita Parsi and others was that while the Ayatollah, the old Ayatollah, was cast in the US as this evil madman is that he really was, was kind of a doddering older gentleman who was actually incredibly risk averse, who didn't either want to go all in or also didn't want both, didn't want to go to war, but also didn't want to appear weak and probably put them on the path to where things are today by not making a real decision. Now, his son is the new ayatollah. We have E2. We can put it up there on the screen. And some of the reporting from the White House right now is that he actually reached a true truce with Trump and instructed the Foreign Minister, the President and the speaker to pursue some sort of deal with Donald Trump. What do we know about the new Ayatollah? I've tried to read it. There's not a whole lot about him and generally the new, you know, the system that will be in power after this war, if it is indeed a real ceasefire.

Behrouz Gamarri (50:19)

Yeah, I mean, we really don't know much about him. And there is, I read all these reports about him that the assumption is that that is more hawkish, is close to the IRGC Revolutionary Guards. But there are many people who were very close to the Revolutionary Guards and it turned out that they were actually very liberal minded and reform oriented. And the very fact that he was close to the Revolutionary Guards, I don't think says that he's more hawkish or more militant. And so we really don't know much. He's not written much. He doesn't have a high kind of religious credibility. He's not an Ayatollah. And so it's a sort of a wild guess that what he would do after this and people around him now that most of the old guards of the Revolutionary Guards are assassinated. The new younger generation, I mean the old guard, they were all veterans of the Iran Iraq war and they learned about strategy of war in the fields and they were very sort of well trained in the field kind of revolutionary commanders. But the new generation has different kind of experience. They're mostly veterans of war in Syria and in Iraq, of course, post 2003. So. And they have a different kind of understanding of war fighting.

Saagar Enjeti (51:53)

And so they're used to more asymmetric warfare because they fought the United States.

Behrouz Gamarri (51:59)

Yes, that's exactly the point. That the old guard was a symmetrical, I mean, very conventional landmines, conventional kind of warfare, which was Iran, Iraq war was the longest conventional warfare of 20th century for eight years with half a million people killed. But these are a new generation of people who are basically coming out of that kind of asymmetrical warfare and very well versed, so to speak, of designing and strategizing in that kind of war. And also very different kind of political framing of war. And so how they would behave, how do they rethink their position that they are now in the position of decision making in the revolutionary cars? It's yet to be seen. And I don't think we should rush to sort of a judgment that they're more militant or more radical regardless of

Krystal Ball (52:55)

sort of who is in charge and who has the most sway. Though, hasn't the argument of the hardline position been strengthened by what we've seen here? You know, for the reformers, they did the deal with Obama, obviously, Trump rips it up, backs out of that deal. Biden, even though he's a Democrat, doesn't choose to get back in. Trump uses the pretext of diplomacy as ruse to start a new war. And now what it looks like is that Iran has been able to achieve much more in terms of their own security and their own wealth through this war, through violent means and taking a harder stance than they were through the reformist posture. Do you think that logic will be ascendant within the country?

Behrouz Gamarri (53:34)

Yes, yes, absolutely. And I mean again, and that started from access of evil speech because the Supreme Leader, the old supreme leader, older Khamenei, always said that we should not trust Americans. And whenever you try to do reform, they would stab you in the back. And everybody said that he's paranoid, he's crazy and this and that. But after 20 years of being stabbed in the back by the US his words had gained a lot of credibility. And with the negotiating in the middle of negotiation, 12 day war in June, in the middle of negotiation, this current attack, which according to the Omanis, the British, they were very, very close to an agreement in Geneva. And in 48 hours, instead of the first, instead of finalizing the agreement, the Supreme Leader is assassinated. So I think in general people are becoming more and more skeptical of the honesty and sincerity of the US in these negotiations and US policies towards Iran. And I see that now in the past few weeks also, so that more and more people are joining forces to people who were in the public squares in the middle of the night, on bridges and so on and so forth to sort of say that they see now that kind of mistrust of American policy which led to undermining any kind of reform minded political trend in Iran and give more legitimacy and credibility to a more militant and radical politics that comes out from the US. And you know, I always told, I've had many conversations with the people in the policy circles that the US policies towards Iran, when the stated objective is to help democratizing Iran, actually constantly help radicalizing the Islamic State, Islamic Republic. I shouldn't say Islamic State, Islamic Republic. And this is such a fascinating thing that although all the people who come up with these policies in the US government see the result of their policies, but nevertheless they continue to perpetuate those policies and which really produces results exactly opposite of their stated objectives. Unless the stated objectives is to radicalize. That's a different kind of worms there.

Saagar Enjeti (56:30)

Yeah. This might be a provocative question. How radical is Iran? So we're told that they're theocratic, that they want to kill us. Al Qaeda, Islamic State, that basically analogize them. At the same time you have it in Ayatollah who was a Shia cleric who extremely cautious, you know, in my estimation, we bombed their nuclear sites, the only token attack back. Even here, the religious cleric who's supposedly radical instructs his foreign minister to pursue a ceasefire deal. It seems highly rational. I mean, I'm curious, like, are they radical? Like and radical in what sense? Whenever we use that word, I think

Behrouz Gamarri (57:07)

it is true that they see themselves as an anti imperialist force.

Saagar Enjeti (57:12)

But that's nationalistic.

Behrouz Gamarri (57:13)

But that's totally nationalistic.

Krystal Ball (57:15)

I mean,

Behrouz Gamarri (57:18)

Henry Pracht, who was the director of Iran desk at the State Department in 1980s, always used to say, and he wrote this piece in the Foreign affairs, that Iran is mostly concerned with security and independence domestically rather than dominion abroad. And the dominion abroad is a posture, it's a defensive posture for them because they know that the US and US allies and Israel are determined to overthrow this regime. And it's true. I mean, it's not paranoia. It's not.

Saagar Enjeti (57:55)

No, it's literally true.

Behrouz Gamarri (57:55)

It's literally true. There's this little book about the Supreme Leader that came out a few years back and said the Iranian Supreme Leader was so paranoid because. Because he thought that the US wants to overthrow him. But you know, very Russia, they killed him.

Krystal Ball (58:14)

It's just reality.

Behrouz Gamarri (58:14)

We don't call that Baron, we call him political realism, you know, but they also, as you said, they also always followed a very pragmatic policies because their number one concern is to maintain their sovereignty and their national interest. And if you look at their policies in the region, for example, in the dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia, that Azerbaijan is a Muslim country, Armenia, Christian country, Iran always took the side of Armenia.

Saagar Enjeti (58:53)

That's a good point. I didn't think about that.

Behrouz Gamarri (58:55)

No, I mean, that's even in disputes between Pakistan and India, for the most part, Iran always took the side of

Saagar Enjeti (59:03)

India because they buy all the oil. Right?

Behrouz Gamarri (59:04)

Buy the oil. It's truly a very rational, pragmatic understanding of foreign affairs. And they are not driven by that kind of radical ideology because whenever people say that they're motivated by ideology, it means that they're irrational and they turn like the entire Islamic Republic into like a suicide bomber, you know, like that they don't care about their own well being because they're motivated and moved by their ideology and they disregard any kind of tangible gains for their own country, for their own people and so on and so forth. So in that sense, I think they're very pragmatic and they've shown, I mean, it's not a kind of a statement or analytical statement, but this is sort of a historical fact that in the past 30 years they always followed a very pragmatic policy in the region. And all these things about Iran's allies in Hezbollah or in Iraq or in Yemen, these are always understood in Iranian context from their standpoint as defenses postures. And I remember when Hillary Clinton was the Secretary of State and they were talking about overthrowing Bashar al Assad in Syria and she made this comment in Istanbul. She was in Istanbul, she said that we're going to clip the wings of the Islamic Republic. So for them, when they hear this, they completely understand. And today it has become quite clear when they were saying that, no, we are fighting in the streets of Damascus and southern Lebanon and in Palestine, we are doing that so we won't be ending up fighting in the streets of Tehran. Now that statement has gained a lot of credibility because with the weakening of those allies in other parts of the region, now they're fighting in terror. Iran. I'm not saying that, you know, it was really good news for the people in Syria that Iran is there. Or maybe it was for some, it wasn't for some others, but that was the rationale. It wasn't coming out of a blind ideological commitment. It was coming out of a very calculated, rational, pragmatic politics that they were fighting in Syria or in Lebanon.

Krystal Ball (61:39)

Meanwhile, we've got a secretary of war who's got a crusader's cross tattooed on him, constantly talking about how God is protecting our bombing campaign. So I'm not sure we're in a position to lecture on theocracy at this particular point in time. Behrors Gamari, thank you so much. Great to have you on.

Behrouz Gamarri (61:54)

Alice, thank you so much for having me.

Saagar Enjeti (61:56)

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Behrouz Gamarri (64:17)

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