← Call Me Back - with Dan Senor
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- [00:04]
Kareem Sajapur
You are listening to an art media.
- [00:06]
Dan Senor
Podcast.
- [00:09]
Kareem Sajapur
For any population suffering under dictatorship. When they see the abrupt collapse or the rendition of a dictator, it makes them realize that, you know, our dictator is not all powerful either, right? Maduro is sitting in a jail cell in New York City and you know, people are wondering, you know, could that be the case with Ayatollah Khamenei? Think it opens up possibilities for people in their head and in this view that, you know, no dictator lasts forever.
- [00:52]
Dan Senor
It's 11:15am on Sunday, January 4th here in New York City. It is 6:15pm on Sunday, January the 4th in Israel where Israelis are winding down their day and following events closely in Iran. On Saturday, the US military, specifically US Special forces, captured Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro and his wife while carrying out strikes on the capital city of Caracas. Maduro and his wife were flown to a detention center in New York City where Maduro is set to face federal charges related to drug trafficking and working with gangs which are designated terrorist organizations. This comes after months of heightened hostility with the US moving warships to the region and conducting strikes on more than 30 boats that the administration claimed were carrying drugs, smuggling drugs to the US this was a complex operation involving something like 150 US aircraft, this operation to retrieve and take out Maduro. Several hours after the operation, President Trump and his national security team gave a press conference in which the President revealed plans for America to control Venezuela for the time being, stating, quote, we're going to run the country until such a time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition, close quote, adding, quote, we are not afraid of boots on the ground. A number of world leaders have condemned the operation, accusing President Trump of breaching international law and calling for immediate de escalation. But joining another group of impressive leaders in support of the move, Prime Minister Netanyahu praised the president, stating, I salute your decisive resolve and brilliant action of your brave soldiers. Israeli Foreign Minister Gidon Sar added to the praise and expressed hope for the renewal of friendly and even diplomatic relations between Israel and Venezuela now that Maduro is gone. In other news, on Thursday, January 1, Zoran Mamdani was sworn in as mayor of New York City. Among his very first actions as mayor, Mamdani revoked city agencies use of the international Holocaust remembrance definition of antisemitism as well as a measure aimed at combating the Boycott, Divestment and sanctions movement, both of which were implemented by Mamdani's predecessor, Mayor Eric Adams. A number of Jewish organizations across the spectrum have responded with concern over Mamdani's decision to so quickly reverse these measures aimed at protecting Jews and Zionists. In New York City, meanwhile, for days Iranians have been taking to the streets in massive numbers, risking their lives to protest the ruling Islamic regime, which will be the focus of today's conversation. On Saturday, hundreds of people, including many Iranians and Jews, gathered outside 10 Downing street in London to demonstrate and support for the Iranian protesters. Entering its eighth day, Iran's nationwide uprising reached a critical turning point. As the protests have become a broad revolt against the dictatorship, the regime's attempt to suppress momentum through a four day holiday has failed. Instead, unrest has intensified, spreading from Tehran to the provinces amid escalating state violence and growing public defiance. Against that backdrop, after U.S. airstrikes hit Caracas resulting with the capture of Maduro over the weekend, attention in Tehran, Moscow and Beijing has shifted fast. As Maduro, now in custody, moves closer to facing judgment, the message is hard to miss. The struggle between the west and its adversaries is no longer distant or theoretical. It's global, it's visible, and it's entering a more volatile phase. To better understand how Tehran could or should read the events of the past 48 hours, Kareem Sajapur returns to the podcast. Kareem is an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He teaches at Georgetown University. He's a prolific writer, including a recent piece in Foreign affairs magazine, which we will link to in the show Notes from the Fall issue, which Foreign affairs has declared one of its most important essays of 2025. And Kareem is also a regular guest on our podcast. Kareem, welcome back.
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Kareem Sajapur
Thank you so much, Tim.
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Dan Senor
I want to start with what's happening on the ground in Iran. How would you describe or how would you walk us through the current status of the protests in Iran?
- [05:31]
Kareem Sajapur
So anytime you have protests and essentially what is a totalitarian regime, it's significant because every single one of those people that goes to the streets is really risking their lives. That said, so far what we've seen in terms of the crowds have not not been the same size as the last major protest in Iran, the Women Life Freedom movement. There have been crowds of probably I've seen small thousands in many dozens of cities throughout the country. But it hasn't yet reached a tipping point where you think, well, this could be existential for the Islamic Republic. And what I say, Dan, is when you see protests in a country like Iran, I'm always looking at the interplay between three forces. Obviously one is the supreme leader, 86 year old supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, likely the longest serving autocrat in the world. What is his physical health? What is his mental state? One of the things that America and everyone frankly missed in the 1979 revolution was that the Shah of Iran had terminal cancer. Nobody knew that. And that had a profound impact on his ability to quell popular unrest. So, number one, what is the physical and mental state of Iran's 86 year old supreme leader? Number two, how cohesive are the country's security forces, namely the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij militias? So far we haven't seen any signs of defections or any signs of splintering. You know, that's an important prerequisite for any government to collapse. And then number three, what is the psychological state of the protesters? If indeed we anticipate this coming crackdown, is that going to silence them or could that embolden them? And these three things are all interrelated, DANIEL because if the security forces see that the leader may not be either physically or mentally there or has lost his morale, that has an impact on their cohesion. If the protesters see that the security forces are no longer strong and cohesive and the leader is no longer all there, that emboldens them. So the interplay between these three forces, I think are going to be determinative.
- [07:42]
Dan Senor
KARIM during the protests, the 2022 protests you just referenced, when there was a sense that something real was happening and then they were ultimately successfully suppressed, a senior intelligence official, senior Western intelligence official, said to me, the two inputs, the two conditions that this particular intelligence agency was looking for, tracking to see if the 2022 protests would get, you know, real momentum, was one, who is the central organizing force behind them? Is there a real leader or kind of organ that is organizing it? This intelligence official said that his intelligence community believed was necessary and did not exist. And two, there were no religious leaders involved in 2022, that in order to really for the regime to feel serious pressure and to potentially fall, there had to be a religious player in the mix or set of players that were making the case for the fall of the regime on religious grounds as well as all the non religious players that were part of the movement. And this intelligence official said, so far we don't see either of those. Do you agree that both of those inputs are important and if how are you seeing them?
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Kareem Sajapur
I agree on the first point, Dan, somewhat less so on the second point. Let me explain why. Number one. Yes, I think leadership is critical in any type of dissent or revolutionary movement. There's a Wonderful book which I always recommend to people by Jack Goldstone. It's just a book on the history of revolutions. And he said that every revolution needs two kinds of leadership. You need inspirational leadership, but even perhaps more importantly, you need more organizational leadership. And in a country, as I said, in a regime like the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is essentially totalitarian, the one thing they essentially do effectively is repression. They're very effective at decapitating individuals who are capable of that kind of leadership role, whether organizational or inspirational. The name of Reza Pahlavi, you know, as his supporters would call him, Prince Reza Pahlavi, has been mentioned much more this time than in previous protests. And, you know, he, to the extent anyone, is being viewed as a potential leader of this movement, I think there's no one else's name that I've heard. One of his major challenges is that he's 4,000 miles away, and it's very difficult to organize when you're thousands of miles away. So, yes, the leadership factor is very important. When it comes to the second point you reference that there needs to be some type of religious leadership or religious support for these protests there, I'm a little more skeptical because I think this is a society which is post revolutionary, but in many ways it's kind of like not saying that it's no longer a religious society, but it's certainly post Islamist. And so people are not taking their cues from the religious establishment. And there was a wonderful book written about a decade ago from two political scientists who essentially argued that empirically, we know that revolutionary dictatorships, revolutionary governments tend to have a longer shelf life. They tend to be more durable than just your run of the mill dictatorship. And we can cite some of the examples, right? Soviet Union lasted three generations. Cuba is still around. China, Communist China has lasted several generations now, whereas run of the mill dictatorship, Hosn Mubarak, Bashar Al Assad, in Syria, those tend to be a little more brittle because one of the arguments here is that revolutionary dictatorships tend to have this powerful organizing principle which helps to maintain the cohesion of those security forces. It's my sense, Dan, that the Islamic Republic at Most has perhaps 15% popular support. I think there's probably 15% of Iranians who say, you know what? This government has done a good job managing us economically, politically, socially. I would say the vast majority are opposed. But 15% who are united, highly armed and highly organized and willing to kill en masse can continue to prevail over the 80, 85% if they're unarmed, unorganized leaderless and not willing to die en masse.
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Dan Senor
The protests began. These protests began with grievances over inflation and the collapse of the Rial as we understand it. But it seems to have quickly expanded into broader political dissent. So what would you identify as the key triggers that transformed the nature and the scale of these protests?
- [12:09]
Kareem Sajapur
Because of the fact that this is a regimental, which is somewhat unique in that it's not only politically authoritarian and economically authoritarian, it's also socially authoritarian. There's few governments that are the combination of all those things. Venezuela's government, for example, obviously politically and economically authoritarian, but let people have boyfriends or girlfriends or drink alcohol, dance, et cetera. Islamic Republic tries to police every aspect of people's lives. So, you know, what we saw in 2022 was the trigger for the popular uprising was social. A young woman, Mahsa Amini, was killed for showing too much hair. This time the trigger, as you referenced, was economic. But the reason I mention is that there's just so many grievances which people have that are motivating them. And you know, ultimately I would say when you're ruled by a regime which is a theocratic regime, this is a regime which purports to represent God's will on earth, they purport to represent the Prophet Muhamma will on earth. It's actually even more insulting when a regime like that is repressing you and stealing from you than just your run of the mill dictatorship, because at least Vladimir Putin doesn't have pretensions of carrying out God's will or being moral superior. So I think the Islamic Republic, its subjects, find it even more offensive because it does, you know, all of this graft and repression in the name of God. And it's obvious for people to see that over the last two, three decades, all of the resource of the state have been spent on projects which have been total failures, right? A nuclear program which they perhaps spent upwards of half a trillion dollars on when you consider all of the sunk costs, but all of the opportunity costs for them essentially under rubble. Now, their regional proxies, you know, they spent tens of billions of dollars trying to build Lebanese Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis in Yemen, the Assad regime in Syria, you know, those proxies have either been deposed or decimated. And Madura and Venezuela is the latest example of one of their allies who's been deposed. And so I think that most citizens look at the priorities of the government and they say we've wasted our resources on either these loser proxies. Or this losing nuclear program. And we should be a wealthy country. Iran should be, in my view, a G20 nation. It has the human resources, the natural resources, the history to be a G20 nation. And it's punching way below its weight. There's probably no country in the world with a greater gap between its state and its society than Iran. And so this is a perennial source of frustration. But you know, the way I think about the Islamic Republic of Iran is it's, it's like a zombie regime in that it's ideologically dead, it's financially dying, but it's still capable of killing to survive. And you know, with these types of dictatorships, you know, that type of, kind of ruthlessness can oftentimes be more sustainable than we'd like to think.
- [15:26]
Dan Senor
What can you tell us about the diversity of who's protesting and what does that tell us about how things could develop further?
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Kareem Sajapur
Well, as you mentioned, this was triggered by currency traders. And so the collapse of the rial mobilized them. And merchants in the bazaar. Usually that strata of society has been either somewhat apolitical or even supportive of the Islamic Republic. It's been more traditional strata of society. And ultimately merchants and business people everywhere want to see stability. So popular revolutions are not what business people usually like to see. And so the big question there is, can those folks be ultimately co opted by the government somehow? And the government in fact did try to appeal to them by saying, actually your grievances are well founded. We're going to work with you to improve that. So so far you've had these currency traders and bazaar merchants rise up. Then as always, you've had universities been a hotbed for protests, university students, young people rising up. We haven't seen the same level of protests among the Iranian middle classes. The vast majority of people are rooting for the protesters. But as we've seen, the numbers have been not in the tens or hundreds of thousands, they've been in the low thousands. And so I think people are just kind of watching on their mobile phones to determine what to do next. And you know, what we know about revolutions, Dan, is that the paradox of revolutions is that, you know, for a revolution to happen, it needs to attract a critical mass of people. But a critical mass of people won't join it unless they think it's going to succeed. Right, because no one wants to join a movement which is going to get crushed. And that's why revolutions quickly go from the old Hemingway saying about bankruptcy. It happens gradually and then suddenly. And so right now we're in the gradual stage and it could snowball, but it could get crushed again. The only caveat I'd like to add here is that at the end of the day you still have an 86 year old Supreme Leader. He's not going to be around that much longer. And I believe this is a country very ripe for some kind of political transition.
- [17:41]
Dan Senor
There have been reports which I'm skeptical of, but I do want to just put it out there. There have been reports claiming that foreign intelligence services like the CIA or the Mossad have been somehow involved. Is there any credible evidence of external involvement as far as you're concerned?
- [18:00]
Kareem Sajapur
I'm skeptical that any foreign intelligence is directly involved. The Iranians have never needed outside encouragement to dislike their rulers. My sense is that the CIA's capabilities inside Iran are much less than the Mossad's capabilities. And ultimately what we know obviously from history, Dan, is that as much as it's in America and Israel's interest to see political transition in Iran, I think both governments would acknowledge that it's going to be up to the Iranian people to determine the outcome. We can try to influence things on the margins, but we're not going to be able to shape the end game.
- [18:40]
Dan Senor
And you said that Khamenei, the Supreme Leader is old and doesn't look particularly strong. To what extent was his vulnerability heightened or the sense of his vulnerability heightened as a result of the Israeli operation, ultimately the joint Israeli U. S military operations against Iran? There was this sense that they had projected that Iran was this major hegemonic power about to become this major hegemonic power in the region. And it had been telling its citizens that everyone in the region, everyone in the world from Washington to Jerusalem and many of the Sunni Gulf states were terrified of potentially provoking Iran. That Iran was impervious to other powers in the region or the threats from powers in the region. And suddenly one day Israel and the US conduct this military operation. Iran is barely unable to respond. It demonstrates that it has no real air defenses. It has no capacity to protect its nuclear program from an attack. To what extent has that weakened the perception of Khamenei's political strength and political hold over the country?
- [19:46]
Kareem Sajapur
Well, his leadership has also proven to be totally bankrupt. At age 86, he is fighting a very high tech, sophisticated three part war against America, Israel and his own society. And he recognizes that his system has been totally penetrated by Israeli intelligence. You know, around two dozen of his top military commanders were essentially killed overnight either in their bunkers or in their bedrooms in the 12 day war. And he's always been someone who has ruled with tremendous paranoia. But now you can only imagine the sense of paranoia that he has. Of whom can he really trust, who is in his inner circle? That paranoia was obviously certainly heightened in the last couple days when Nicolas Maduro was plucked from Caracas by the United States and is currently in a jail cell in New York City. I'm sure he's got to be thinking to himself, can I TR everyone in my inner circle? And when you have so few people whom you can rely on and you can trust, your ability to take decisive action is much more limited. So Ayatoll Khamenei is someone who is going to be 87 later this year. He should be playing with his great grandchildren. He's not someone who is well equipped to be fighting this incredibly sophisticated three part war. The vast majority of Iranians, including within the regime, are just waiting for him to die. And, you know, the cost benefit for them of taking action or trying to launch a coup or protest against an 87 year old are, you know, why don't we just wait it out? I think is the mentality of a lot of people. And then the big question is what comes next in Iran? And I think it's really a country which is up for grabs right now.
- [21:47]
Dan Senor
I do want to get to the impact of the US operation against Maduro because I do think it's a significant development for Iran. But before we do, Khamenei and other Iranian officials have, as we've talked about, publicly vowed to crush what they call these rioters, even as the President of Iran acknowledges the legitimacy of their economic grievances. So what does this suggest to you about the internal power dynamics and how it may affect the outcome? Because it does seem what, what's different this time, among other factors, is that the leadership is acknowledging what, at least at this point is one of the drivers of the protest. They're acknowledging the legitimacy of it.
- [22:28]
Kareem Sajapur
For me, the statements of Iran's president or his foreign minister are almost irrelevant. You know, they're notable in that, as you alluded to, instead of just labeling all the protesters as Zionist or American stooges, they've tried to appeal to their grievances. But ultimately those are not the decision makers in Iran in the statements from Khamenei and the senior Rev Guard commanders is what matters. And Khamenei's most recent statement in the last 48 hours signaled that it's time to clean this up and to crush these protests. And you know, what's central to his worldview is first the experience of the 1979 revolution for him, because years ago I wrote a monograph about Khamenei in which I was looking over all of his major speeches over his three, four decade career and he said something which always stayed with me. In late 1978, when the protests against the Shah were mushrooming, the Shah went on state television and he gave a speech in which he famously said to people, I've. He apologized to Iranians. And he said, I've heard the voice of your revolution. You can watch this speech on YouTube, Dan. And Khamenei said that the Shah thought by going on state television and apologizing to us, he was going to pacify the revolutionaries and we were going to accept his apology and go home and stop protesting. But it was just the opposite. We sense then how weak and vulnerable this guy was and we smelled blood and we pounced. And for him, that experience was always very formative, that when you're under pressure, never compromise, never cede to the demands of your protesters because that's not going to alleviate the pressure against you, it's actually just going to embolden them. And that experience for him has been consistently reinforced. He believes that the collapse of the Soviet Union was because Gorbachev tried to appeal to popular demands for reform. The Arab Spring, the autocrats who initially collapsed, people like Hosna Mubarak and Ben Ali in Tunisia, initially tried to appeal to popular grievances. So his mentality is that when you're being pressured, never compromise. And so if you've looked at Iran over a period of decades, presidents come and go, foreign ministers come and go. We've had two leaders over the last 47 years now, Ayatollah Khomeini and Ayatollah Khamenei. And it's their statements which have really been reflective of how this government conducts itself.
- [25:03]
Dan Senor
I want to now get into where Venezuela and Maduro and the impact of the US operation against Maduro fits into all of this. But before we do that, can you tell us a little bit about the relationship between Iran and Venezuela? Because as you alluded to earlier, there's a real history there.
- [25:19]
Kareem Sajapur
Yes. So essentially, since Hugo Chavez took power in Venezuela, the two countries, the Islamic Republic of Iran and Venezuela, you know, they established this bond of like minded, anti imperialist, third Worldist, anti American partners. And even though the two countries are not natural partners and that they're thousands of miles away and they're very similar economies, they don't have Complementary economies. You know, they're both major energy producers. What binded them was this common antipathy towards America. And it was interesting. A friend of mine years ago was writing a book about anti American regimes and there was a direct flight between Tehran and Caracas. And he actually was trying to book that flight to get on it. And he said that he tried to book it a month in advance. There was no seats. 2 months, 3, 4 months, 6 months in advance. He never could get any seats. And he realized that this was not a flight for Iranian citizens or Venezuelan citizens to fly back and forth because there was virtually none of that happening. It was essentially the Revolutionary Guards funneling arms and cash to the Chavez and then the Maduro government in Venezuela. And so that's essentially been the basis of their relationship. And Lebanese Hezbollah also operates pretty freely in Venezuela. Venezuela was one node and of Iran's axis of resistance. Not that many countries formed it. Essentially. Iran, Syria, its regional proxies, Hezbollah, Hamas, North Korea, Venezuela.
- [27:00]
Dan Senor
But what it gave Iran was some kind of forward projecting outpost in the Western hemisphere.
- [27:07]
Kareem Sajapur
It did, but at the same time it also just exposed the non fungibility of Iran's revolutionary ideology. I'll give you an example. Viewers can Google whether this still exists. But I remember there was a time about 12, 15 years ago that Iran tried to launch like a Spanish language television channel to appeal to people in Latin America. I think it was called Hispan tv. And you know, you realize that a government like the Islamic Republic, which is so socially repressive, Right. Prevents people from drinking alcohol, listening to music, dancing, is just so, so alien to culture in Latin America that I think its ability to project its soft power was very self limiting. Yes, it got its arms and cash to the Maduro government that helped prop them up. But ultimately its hope to kind of spread that ideology throughout Latin America proved to be a real failure.
- [28:07]
Dan Senor
Okay, so how is the Iranian protest movement responding to the events of the last couple days in Caracas?
- [28:13]
Kareem Sajapur
You know, I think it's still premature to say. I mean, on one hand you could make the argument that given the world's eyes, and American eyes are perhaps now focused on Venezuela, the regime may see this as an opportunity to further crack down. When America is not paying attention, President Trump's attention is being directed elsewhere. At the same time, for any population suffering under dictatorship, when they see the collapse, the abrupt collapse or the rendition of a dictator, it makes them realize that our dictator is not all powerful either. Right. Bashar Al Said, virtually overnight, suddenly flies to Moscow and is a totally different Reality in Syria, Maduro is sitting in a jail cell in New York City, and people are wondering, could that be the case with Ayatollah Khamenei? And Iran is still. I think you have a strong conspiracy culture. And this view that perhaps there was a deal that a Russian American deal or a deal that the Trump administration did with the Venezuelan military to throw Maduro under the bus, could that happen in Iran? I think it opens up possibilities for people in their head and in this view that no dictator lasts forever.
- [29:34]
Dan Senor
So if it opens possibilities in the minds of the protest movement, I presume it also opens. Opens up new fears or conspiracy theories in the minds of the leadership in Tehran and in whom. So how are they reading Maduro's fall and how might it shape its own moves?
- [29:52]
Kareem Sajapur
So for the regime, again, it's humiliating that they're very limited dream team of the axis of resistance, just one additional leader who has been deposed. Does that change their calculations in any way? I'm not sure if it does. I think that their commitment to staying in power, their commitment to repression will still prevail and for society. Venezuela is not next door to Iran. So we saw in the Arab Spring there was a domino effect among neighboring countries. It went from Tunisia to Egypt to Libya. Venezuela is not top of mind for most Iranians. So I think it was interesting for them. But ultimately, I'm not sure if we'll look back and say that the events in Venezuela were a game changer for Iran.
- [30:40]
Dan Senor
My last question for you. Given the scale of these demonstrations and the economic crisis and the regime's security apparatus, including the irgc, the besieged, other organs, just factoring all of that in and kind of jumbling it all together, what do you think are realistic scenarios? And you can give me two or three or however many directions you want to take it, what do you think is realistic that would not surprise you in terms of happening over the coming weeks?
- [31:08]
Kareem Sajapur
Unfortunately, we have seen numerous protests in Iran over the years ultimately get snuffed out by a regime which, as I said, has a kill or be killed mentality and has a monopoly of violence. And so at the moment, that looks like a real possibility in these protests and that the scale, the size of the protests has not been as large as previous protesters. And it's possible that they get temporarily snuffed out. I don't think anyone believes that that restores the regime's legitimacy or ends people's grievances. It simply delays the next protest. And, you know, I think it starts to impact the considerations and calculations of Iran's security forces. You know, if we look at Egypt as an example, when the protests against Hosni Mubarak in 2011, when they endured, at some point the Egyptian military said, you know what, in order to preserve our own political and economic interests, we're actually going to have to cut loose this dictator. And that's what they did by letting Mubarak go. And you know, we've seen that the military is now ruling Egypt. In the case of the Revolutionary Guards, up until now, their top several tiers of commanders are handpicked by Khamenei. And so they've always been loyal to him. And there's a symbiotic relationship between them. It's politically expedient for Ayatollah Khamenei, economically expedient for the Revolutionary Guards. At some point in the coming months, among some of the senior Revguard commanders, they're going to say, you know, should we continue to risk everything, all of our entrenched political and economic interests to preserve the rule of this 86, 87 year old who is perhaps not all there, or should we make a move to take power for ourselves now? That's a risky endeavor for them. And for that reason, I was saying earlier, Dan, that they may just decide they're going to wait it out, wait for him to die. But I do think it's never wise to make predictions about political change. But to the extent I'm comfortable making a prediction in Iran is that the next powerful leader in Iran is not going to be wearing a turban. We've essentially already entered kind of this post Islamist phase in Iran. Nationalism is going to be a much more powerful factor in Iran than Islamism and revolutionary ideology. And the other factor which I think could should prove politically popular is economic populism. Anytime you have a country which should be very wealthy, as I said, in my view, Iran should be a G20 nation, but it's economically floundering and it has a hollowed out middle class, huge gap between a small sliver of elite and everyone else. Populism usually plays effectively in those places. A leader to come and say, I'm going to put the oil money on your dinner tables, I'm going to make Iran great again. Oftentimes I'm not talking about a transition to democracy. We know From World War II to the present, only around 20% of authoritarian transitions lead to democracy. More often they lead to another form of authoritarianism. But my argument is that this current form of authoritarianism in Iran is on Borrowed time. A regime whose official slogan is Death to America and death to Israel rather than Long live Iran has, in my view, proven to be totally unpopular and ideologically bankrupt.
- [34:43]
Dan Senor
You know, you compared this to Syria earlier. The fall of the Assad regime, or it's just important to keep in mind that there was this civil war, there was this protest movement, there was the response to the protest movement in Syria that went on for something like 14 years and seemed to have been successfully repressed by the Assad regime. And then suddenly, in the last, you know, a little over a year ago, a new protest movement came and a new insurgency came. And then instead of 14 years and 14 days, the Assad regime, which had been in power for 53 years, was gone. So, you know, these things can simmer and simmer and simmer and kind of be held together by the regime, and then suddenly things can just come tumbling down very quickly.
- [35:22]
Kareem Sajapur
Yeah. You know, there is this quote, perhaps apocryphal, attributed to Trotsky, in which he said, you know, while dictatorships rule, the collapse appears inconceivable. And after they've fallen, their collapse appeared inevitable. And we're kind of at the midway stage of that in Iran. And that, I think, the collapse of the Islamic Republic is no longer doesn't seem necessarily inevitable, meaning it's imminent. Let me put it this way. I actually do think it appears inevitable, but not imminent. I don't think it's any longer inconceivable for people.
- [35:55]
Dan Senor
But, you know, not to belabor the point, but if you think about some of the factors that have changed for Iran over a year, which is the collapse of the proxy system, now the nuclear program largely, if not, you know, entirely in rubble, and this just sense that they're no longer this regime that's impervious to pressure. They just look generally weak and all that. The irony of ironies is that sequence of events, that parade of horribles for the regime, actually began with Hamas's attack against Israel on October 7th.
- [36:28]
Kareem Sajapur
That's very important to note because Ayatollah Khamenei was the only leader in the world to publicly Praise Hamas on October 7. The only leader in the world to come out and say, you know, this was a wonderful attack and it's going to accelerate the demise of Israel. And, you know, obviously, the exact opposite thing happened, and Iran's power peaked on October 6, 2023. And from then on, all of the major investments internally, regionally, globally, have been collapsing before their eyes.
- [37:03]
Dan Senor
Kareem, we will leave it there. Thank you. I'm sure we'll be having you back on in the weeks ahead. Until then, thank you for doing this.
- [37:09]
Kareem Sajapur
Thanks for having me on. Foreign.
- [37:19]
Dan Senor
That's our show for today. If you value the Call Me Back podcast and you want to support our mission, please subscribe to our weekly members only show, Inside Call Me Back. Inside Call Me Back is where Nadavael, Amit Segal and I respond to challenging questions from listeners and have the conversations that typically occur after the cameras stop rolling. To subscribe, please follow the link in the show notes or you can go to ark media.org that's ark media.org call me back is produced and edited by Lon Benatar. Arc Media's Executive producer is Adam James Levin. Already our production manager is Brittany Cohn, Sound and video editing by Liquid Audio. Our Associate producer is Maya Rockoff, Community management by Gabe Silverstein. Our music was composed by Yuval Semo. Until next time, I'm your host, Dan Senor.