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Foreign.
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This episode is brought to you by Lincoln. Whether it's bonding digitally or exploring the world Together, the 2026 Lincoln Nautilus Hybrid is built for connection with lots of smart tech that helps bring worlds together both on and off the screen. So help turn everydrive into an opportunity for discovery with the 2026 Lincoln Nautilus Hybrid. Learn more at lincoln.com available connectivity, features and functionality vary by model. Package pricing, trials and term lengths vary by model. Video streaming and games are only available while parked when it comes to the bombing of Iran, the killing of Supreme Leader Khamenei and Iranian top brass, the unspooling of regional war and the prospect of a prolonged conflict, it is very easy for me to distinguish between what I hope and what I fear. What I hope is that the Islamic Republic just rolls over and gives up, that a nation brutalized by this horrific regime emerges from this episode as a richer and freer society whose stability extends peace across the Middle East. That is, I hope this moment represents a break from history. What I fear is that history is repeating itself. Donald Trump has bombed Iran and killed its leadership without a plan. It sometimes even seems without even the pretense of a plan or a timeline. And in this sense, this feels to me like a bit of an eerie echo of a very American tendency. Go back to the 1960s when President Lyndon B. Johnson and his top advisors claimed that, quote, limited pressure and modest escalation would stabilize Vietnam. Instead, what happened is we tiptoed into the catastrophe of war, which ended up spilling over into a regional calamity that killed millions of people. In the Gulf War of 1991, George H.W. bush bombed Iraq and sent aircraft to drop leaflets on citizens and troops telling them to rise up and topple their leader. Instead, Hussein remained in power and massacred tens of thousands of his own people. In Somalia, the Bush and Clinton administrations attempted regime change on the cheap again, only to watch that end with Black Hawk down in Mogadishu, leading to a rapid U.S. pullback. And then in Afghanistan, George W. Bush tried to break Al Qaeda and topple the Taliban with overwhelming military force, only for the US to be drawn into a democracy building enterprise that lasted for decades. Overseeing that infamous rebuild effort. Then in Iraq, Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claimed that the US could topple Saddam with a lean force, only for that war to require surge after infamous surge. In Libya, Barack Obama presented a coalition led intervention as a brief operation, but after the killing of Gaddafi, that state fell into crisis. Over and over and over again. It Seems history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes. And in the case of US intervention on the cheap, that rhyme scheme is not particularly subtle. Donald Trump is a unique historical figure, but this blueprint is not unique. This is what we do. It is no defense of the Islamic Republic to point out that the US keeps getting seduced by the prospect of cheap intervention, keeps bargain shopping for the cheapest way to topple our adversaries, only to find quite frequently that lasting change is hard or bloody or just not worth the effort. You know that meme from Arrested Development where Tobias is telling his wife Lindsay, it never works for people, but they keep deluding themselves to believe it might work for them and, oh, it also might work for us. That kind of feels like he was talking about America's belief that cheap regime change is a button that we can just press. And then even after all of that, there's still my hope. I still feel like, you know, this isn't the 1960s. Iran isn't being backstopped by a communist empire. Maybe this will work. This isn't the 1990s. Iran's leader has actually, in this case, been taken out, unlike Saddam Hussein. Maybe this can work. Iran isn't Somalia. It's a resource blessed country that in another timeline might be one of the richer countries in the world. Maybe this can work. So that's my big question for today. Which way does the future go? Today's guest is Karim Sajadpour, an American policy analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Karim provides necessary context to understand why the US and Israel might have launched this attack. And we propose several ways this war might end. From complete regime change to moderate regime evolution to a bloody and calamitous regional war. And then finally, we consider the prospect that, as so often happens in history, a great amount of fire and fury fails to change the status quo. And that for all of this moment's chaos and carnage, the state of affairs at the end of 2026 might look, tragically, a lot like the state of affairs at the end of 2025. I'm Derek Thompson. This is plain. This episode of Plain English is presented by Audi. We all know that feeling a change of plans, a new opportunity. Instead of overthinking, what if you just said yes with the all new Audi Q3? The answer is easy. It's made for the yes life, with the power and room to handle whatever pops up. Yes to adventure, yes to right now. Because saying yes without hesitation, that's real luxury. The all new Audi Q3 made for the yes, life. Learn more@audiusa.com Kareem Sajjadpour, welcome to the podcast.
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Thank you, Derek. Great to be with you.
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You have written that to understand why Trump attacked Iran, we have to understand the miscalculations of both Trump and Khamenei. Why did each man miscalculate?
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So if we start with President Trump, I think that what he wanted to do in Iran was what he managed to do in Venezuela, which was he subjected Venezuela to, to significant economic pressure, significant military threats as a prelude to essentially a political decapitation. Maduro was captured from Venezuela, taken to New York City, and within a very quick period of time, the Trump administration managed to do a deal with his successor, Delsey Rodriguez. I think that was what he had been hoping for in Iran. And so we saw over the last six weeks that this remarkable military escalation in the region and Steve Witkoff, Trump's special envoy, even alluded to the fact that they were surprised that Iran hadn't yet capitulated. And so that essentially, in my view, was kind of, in the broad sense, Trump's miscalculation. He thought that with enough economic and military pressure, he could have a Venezuela style outcome in Iran. And I think he actually, when you listen to his public statements, he's still somehow hoping for that outcome. In the case of Ayatollah Khamenei, he's really had one big idea over the last four decades and that's resistance against the United States. And he's actually continuously miscalculated vis a vis Trump. I think that they had often at times not taken Trump seriously, thinking he was merely bluffing. There's a few good examples of this. The most notable one perhaps is in 2020, January 2020, when Iran did a number of provocative acts against the United States and U.S. allies in the Middle east. And Khamenei was publicly taunting Trump and a few days after that public taunting, Trump chose to assassinate Iran's top military commander, Qasem Soleimani. Last summer was Operation Midnight Hammer. Iran thought it was in the midst of negotiations with the United States and the United States wasn't possibly going to attack. They thought Trump wanted to do, he's a deal maker. He wanted to do a deal. That was another miscalculation. And so this time around, Ayatollah Khamenei paid for that miscalculation with his life.
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B
Turning to the strike itself, can you walk us through what the US Actually did here? What was targeted, what was, what was at least the stated military objective and what distinguishes this from previous US Military actions in the Middle East?
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So we're still early days. I don't think it's even been 72 hours. And the administration hasn't been terribly forthcoming on the specifics of the operation. And I should note, Derek, that it's not only a US Operation, it's a joint US Israeli military option. It's. It seems that the division of labor is that the United States is focused on military targets, degrading Iran's missile capacities, perhaps some of the nuclear facilities, perhaps the command and control of the Revolutionary Guards. It seems the Israelis are the ones that are more focused on the targeted political assassinations. And so I think it's still unclear to us whether it was American missiles or Israeli missiles that actually killed Iran's supreme leader. There's been some reporting that it was US Intelligence which led to his killing. So when President Trump has been making public statements about his endgame, he says contradictory things. He said that he's, of course, he's repeated the fact that he aspires for the Venezuela model in Iran. He said that he knows who the new leaders of Iran are and he's prepared to do a deal with them. He's also said that he's willing to keep these hostilities for another five weeks, and his goal is to essentially implode the regime. And so this style in which it's almost like a kind of regime changed by jazz improvisation, is really unsettling. If you're the Iranian regime, obviously this is an existential moment for the remainder of Iran's leadership. A lot of its top leadership has been wiped out. And in part, it's a period of tremendous. It's the fog of war. Do they believe that they can save themselves by escalating, or do they believe that they can save themselves by de escalating and trying to compromise? And we can talk about the arguments for both.
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B
I love your observation that this is regime change by jazz because it helps me to frame something that's confused me in the last 48 hours. What I'm used to seeing is America engage in war after the president makes clear to the American people what we're doing and why. And instead of that, what you have is the president seeming to call various reporters at the Atlantic, Axios, the New York Times, and giving them entirely different interpretations of why we're fighting this war and what we should expect. He will, for example, tell the Atlantic that we're ready to talk and the Iranians are ready to hop on the phone, and then he'll Tell the New York Times or Axios, no, we're willing to extend this war for days or even weeks, which suggests that there's no counterparty that's ready to pick up the phone on the other end. This seems to me like a very strange, unusual way of operating a military engagement with another country. How unique is this as an American strategy?
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Well, Derek, I think of Donald Trump as the Jackson Pollock of grand strategy. To his supporters, it's the art of the deal and there's all a method to the madness. And to many, or perhaps most others, it's someone violently throwing paint on canvas and seeing what happens. I think that the statements, on one hand, you could argue that someone who makes these types of contradictory statements, you keep adversaries on their toes and obviously you also keep allies on your toes with this kind of conduct. And I'm always reminded of something that one of Trump's first term senior cabinet officials said he said when Richard Nixon was president, Henry Kissinger, who was then Secretary of State, went around the world and tried to convince foreign adversaries that Nixon was a madman. And he said when he was in Trump's first term, he didn't need to convince anyone. All they needed to do was watch CNN and they could kind of figure out that this president is very erratic. And so I don't think that there is. I mean, I'm hard pressed to understand what is the point of offering so many contradictory statements to so many journalists? Because in this current context, if you've chosen to take this path of war, you want to signal a resolve to the adversary that, you know, we're prepared to fulfill our objectives and see this through. The challenge also here, Derek, is that it's not totally clear what those objectives are. He's moved the goalposts on several different occasions. And so in some context, you could argue this is useful to keep an adversary on their toes. But in this situation where we're literally talking about war and peace, the other side is not quite clear for them, as I was alluding to earlier, are they better off compromising, believing that if they de. Escalate, there is a way out in which they can save themselves? Because ultimately the goal, the paramount goal of the Iranian regime is to stay in power, or if they feel that any type of compromise will project weakness and further embolden their adversary, then they will continue to escalate. And so I think this is a risky strategy. And I almost, I think the word strategy conveys a little too much. Let me.
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No, hold on that. That's exactly where I want to go next. So I do think it's important to say that there's two layers of uncertainty here. One layer of uncertainty is what exactly is the game plan. The other layer of uncertainty is who exactly are we negotiating with? I mean, the US Government didn't just assassinate Khomeini. It assassinated many of the top leaders of Iran. And so who's even at the top of that PEZ dispenser seems to me to be a big, open question. But going to strategy specifically, Trump and Vance ran explicitly on a no wars, no regime ticket of peace message. They called themselves the peace ticket. They said Iraq and Afghanistan discredited American interventionism. This is a point that has been made 100 million times on the Internet in order to accuse the administration of hypocrisy. I want to ask you whether, following the decapitation of the Venezuelan government, following that kidnapping, following now the decapitation of the Iranian government, now there are some people talking about this strategy being employed in Cuba. Should we see this as a new doctrine, or do you see it more as something that's being improvised and shape shifted as we go along?
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A
I do think it's improvised, Derek, but what ends up happening? And I credit General Petraeus for first pointing this out, that the success and the seemingly swift success in Venezuela emboldened the president to try to transfer that strategy elsewhere. Now, historically, that can be very dangerous. And the point that General Petraeus made is that America's seemingly swift victory over The Taliban in 2001 gave us unrealistic expectations about what it would take for success in Iraq. And as a result of that seemingly swift victory in Afghanistan, deposing the Taliban, I think we downsized the number of troops that we ended up going to Iraq with. And also we went to Iraq with great deal of confidence. And so it's too soon to say we're 72 hours into this war. But I've also read the reports that the president is keen on potentially applying this formula to Cuba. Frankly, Cuba would have little more parallels with Venezuela than Iran. Iran is a totally different beast. It's 6,000 miles away. We have very limited. We haven't had an embassy in Tehran since 1979. I once remember a statistic that there are more Albanian speakers in the State Department than Persian language speakers. From talking to people in government. It was clear on one hand that we have very talented and professional military planners who've been planning out versions of this operation for perhaps two decades now. But there was very little thinking about the Day after this. And as Anne Applebaum has very eloquently written about the institutions that we use to help win the Cold War against Soviet Union, the soft power institutions like Radio Free Europe, National Endowment for Democracy, and just institutions within the State Department that had really been thinking about democracy, development and day after scenarios, those institutions have either atrophied or, as Ann has written about, we've unilaterally disarmed them. So I think that there's two parts of this operation, and obviously no government in the world can militarily bring down governments like adversarial governments like the United States. But as we've seen over the last quarter century in the Middle east, we can't push a button and dictate our preferred political outcomes in those countries.
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B
It seems to me like you're pointing to specific reasons why we should be skeptical that regime change is imminent or likely or even peaceful in the next few weeks. We don't have Iranian speakers, Persian speakers in the US Government. We have gutted the State Department's capacity to plan for democratic transitions. It also seems like there's a general principle here. There's a famous book, Robert Pape's Bombing to Win, that argues that aerial campaigns very rarely produce regime change. You're not on the ground forcing a switch from one group in power to another. You don't have the ability to control political developments on the ground if you're simply flying over, dropping bombs and then flying back to the Pacific or back home. Does that framework importantly apply here? Is it useful for us, in thinking about what comes next to look at the history of bombing campaigns and see that regime change rarely is achievable from simply flying over and dropping bombs.
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A
Derek, that's a very important study, and I think there's another companion to that, which is that we know empirically From World War II to the present, around three out of four authoritarian transitions lead to another form of authoritarian government. Iran 1979 is a good example of that. Collapse of the Soviet Union is another good example of that. We also know that when that authoritarian transition is triggered by internal or external violence, the likelihood of a transition to democratic government is even lower. Because when you introduce a power vacuum into a country, it's not usually the poets and artists and intellectuals who emerge in those power vacuums. It's men who have arms and can mobilize violence. Now, what I'd also say is that we start from a low bar in Iran. This was after North Korea, one of the worst governments in the world, both in its treatment toward its own population. It massacred as many as 30,000 people last month. And just its malicious role in the world. And so the metric shouldn't be said that we have to achieve Denmark in Iran. That's an unrealistic metric. The question is, is it even possible to help transition Iran from a government whose ethos is revolutionary ideology, death to America, death to Israel, to, to a government that puts national interests and the economic interests of its people before revolutionary ideology? Even that would be a victory for the President. If you can kind of get Iran to behave like a nation rather than a cause, as Kissinger once put it, that would be a big victory. But again, 72 hours into it, it's not clear yet whether that is going to be achievable here. It remains to be seen.
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B
I'm really glad that you answered my skepticism about the clarity of this mission with a reminder of just how decrepitly awful the Islamic Republic is. And before we go any further, I'd actually like you to go a bit further there because I don't want any critical analysis of this strike to crowd out a clear eyed description of what the Islamic Republic has done to Iran, has done to its people, has done to the economy of Iran, 92 million people. Before we talk a little bit more about the various pathways from here, how this strike could evolve into a new reality in Iran, what should people who are listening know about Khamenei and what the Islamic Republic has done to this country?
- [23:47]
A
So in my view, Derek, Iran should be a G20 nation. It has the human resources, the natural resource, the history to be one of the world's top 20 economies. It should be an energy superpower, second largest reserves of natural gas, third largest reserves of oil. And instead of being South Korea, it's behaved like North Korea, actually. I think even according to its own statistics, its top export is brains, brain drain. It loses 150,000 of its top mines every year, which, you know, that's a lot of cost when it takes a lot of money to educate someone, a citizen from kindergarten through university. And all of the top mines are just desperate to leave Iran. And it's also proven itself to be one of the most murderous governments in the world. It's long had per capita, the highest execution rate in the world. And again, what we saw last month in terms of its violence set a new low. And one thing I tell people about the Islamic Republic, Derek, is that I think one of the reasons why it's so loathed by, I would argue probably 80 to 85% of its society is that it's this social, political, economic dictatorship, and it rules from the moral pedestal of a theocracy, purports to be carrying out God's will, and it's elbow deep in corruption and repression. And so that is particularly insulting to citizens when it's one thing if you're a dictatorship and you don't have any of those moral pretensions, but to do all of that in the name of God is particularly insulting for people. And so I think, Derek, that this could have been one of the few instances, certainly in modern history, in which I would argue perhaps a greater percentage of the society that was about to be bombed was supportive of the military action than the society that was going to be doing the bombing. I think probably had there been scientific polling, we know in the United States there wasn't a lot of popular support for this conflict, and perhaps those numbers have even dropped since it began. But inside Iran, after the massacres that took place in January, most of the people. Again, this is unscientific, it's anecdotal, but most of the people who protested wanted President Trump to make good on his promise to come to the aid of protesters.
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B
I want to spend most of the rest of our time outlining four pathways from here, four possible outcomes. I am not asking you to predict the future here. I mean, we are what you said, 72 hours, 100 hours into this war, if war is even the right noun to use for what's happening. But I want to start with the most optimistic pathway, which is the pathway of great regime change, the administration's own stated objective. What would that pathway to regime change actually look like? What would have to happen on the ground in Iran for this strike to end in a total upheaval in the regime of Iran that even if it doesn't turn Iran into Denmark overnight, creates an administration that improves the economy, increases civil liberties, and brings Iran a little bit closer to what you said, being a G20 country in the world.
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A
So I think there's at least a couple different models that the president is thinking of in his head, which is there's the regime implosion, which is the country's security forces, namely the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij Militia, they essentially unravel, and people see these fissures, and then they rise up and they're able to seize the country's institutions, and it's like a revolution along the lines of what we saw in 1979 in Iran, a wholesale change in the leadership. I don't sense that that is the model that the Trump administration thinks is most viable. And we saw they had that choice in Venezuela as well when they removed, when they physically captured Maduro and brought him to the United States. They had probably a split second to decide whether they wanted to try to bring to power the Nobel Peace Prize winner, very brave woman, Maria Machado, or do they simply kind of go the path of least resistance and try to do a deal with Maduro's successor, Delsey Rodriguez. And obviously they chose that option. It's my sense in Iran that that is the option that they that's the path of least resistance outcome that they would prefer. The challenge at the moment at least, is that because Khamenei's death is so fresh, it's just been a couple days at the moment, there isn't yet a clear successor or a leadership council that has the legitimacy, the authority and the will to reverse 47 years of culture of political resistance. And so perhaps, you know, this could be the strategy that they think that with more military power, at some point the regime will cry uncle. But I think I may have alluded to this earlier at the moment, as of today, and this could change tomorrow. At the moment, this appears to be a regime more prepared to break than to bend.
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B
And we're going to get to the consequences of its break rather than bend attitude in just a second. But I just want to hold a little bit longer on this possibility of regime change. In January, you wrote an article for the Atlantic that listed five conditions that determined whether a revolution could succeed. Those five conditions were, number one, a fiscal crisis, two, divided elites, three, diverse oppositional coalition, four, convincing narrative of resistance, and five, a favorable international environment. Favorable here, meaning an international environment that wants to overthrow the regime. We have at least a little bit of all five. And so I'm interested if you still think that the path forward to regime change is murky or unlikely. What is the most significant obstacle to regime change at the moment?
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A
I think, Derek, we have 4.5 out of 5. And the 0.5 I would say when and I want to give credit to my co author Jack Goldstone, who wrote, in my view, the definitive book on revolutions, the political fissures that we talk about. We have seen signs of political divisions in Iran. What we haven't seen are signs of divisions within the military, within the Revolutionary Guards. And that is essentially what is keeping this regime afloat. And it's for so many of us, given Iran's inaccessibility to independent reporters and academics and journalists, it's somewhat of a black box. What are the internal deliberations within the Revolutionary Guards? My view is that at the top levels, these are individuals who have been handpicked by Ayatollah Khamenei, and so they share his worldview, his commitment to revolutionary principles. But among the rank and file, it's oftentimes people who are not willing to kill or die for this cause unless they perhaps now feel like it's kill or be killed. And so I want to emphasize that the Revolutionary guards are approximately 150,000 men. It's not 150,000 people who all think the same. And I think that certainly the top leadership are ideological. But if this regime is to change or to collapse, you will need to see some meaningful fissures among those rank and file folks.
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B
I really want to hold on this point before we zip through the other three potential outcomes, because last year, after the 2025 bombings, Ray Takei came on my podcast and in our interview, this is what he said about regime change. And it goes, I think, directly to your point. This is a direct quote from Retake quote. Regime change is a casual phrase, but it tries to capture a psychological phenomenon. For a regime to collapse, critical elements of the security services have to deflect, which means they have to believe that there is a future for them in the aftermath. What happened in the Soviet Union is that the KGB decided it could exist without the Communist Party, and they were right. Whether the Islamic Republic's officials make that calculation is the key question. End quote. I wonder if what Ray said is a decent recapitulation or pre capitulation, because he said it a year ago of what you just said. And if indeed this is the key, that members of the Revolutionary Guard have to find a way to see for themselves a future in the aftermath of what should we be looking at to know if that is imminent?
- [34:06]
A
I 100% agree with that statement from Ray. And again, Jack Goldstone's book on revolutions. This is perhaps the most critical prerequisite for regime collapse is that the regime insiders need to start peeling away and believing that they will survive. They can play not the same role in the countries tomorrow, but they're not going to be hung. It's not kill or be killed. And so the challenge in the Iranian context is this military attack by the United States. Do they feel that there's no way out for them and they simply have to continue fighting, or do they feel that if they actually do put down their arms, there's a better life for them. And this is important not only in the context of US Policy, but it's also important in the context of the Iranian, the opponents of the regime, the Iranian opposition. The goal should be to peel those folks away from the regime. This is in some ways what Ayatollah Khomeini did effectively in 1978 to try to defang co op the forces, the security forces within the Shah's government. And that's a challenge, Derek, given the level of hatred that people feel for this regime. And, you know, I'm always amazed there's some unique people in history, like Nelson Mandela, who can take that anger and hatred that many members of his society felt and channel that towards a constructive end. Those are the kind of rare opposition figures in history.
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B
If scenario one is regime change, let's call scenario two nothing or no regime change. The regime survives, it reconstitutes itself, and we are simply back at essentially the status quo antebellum in six months. What would make this the most likely outcome?
- [36:22]
A
Well, if the Trump administration, and we can just say President Trump believes that the ratings for this war, both the TV ratings and popular ratings are badly going down, and he decides he's going to pull the plug on it will be in, arguably you could say worst of both worlds, and that not only does the regime prevail, but it's likely going to be even more brutal than it has been and go on a rampage against its population in order to do everything it can to remain in power. That would be a very bad outcome, above all, for the people of Iran. Now, the President may say not all was lost because we significantly degraded them militarily. But in my view, one of the important goals, and I've written this for many years, one of the important goals of U.S. foreign policy toward Iran should be to help shepherd this country's transformation into a nation rather than a revolutionary cause. People like Mike McFaul have written about this in the Soviet context. It wasn't American bombs or American arms control diplomats who ended the Cold War. It was brave Russian and Soviet dissidents. And in this context, the Cold War that we've now had, and now it's obviously a hot war that we've had with Iran over the last five decades. That's not going to end until you have new leadership in Iran. So simply leaving the same kinds of folks in place and wounding them is going to be a devastating outcome for the people of Iran, which this conflict, this decision to invade was. Ostensibly, it was an effort to try to, to improve the Lot of people in Iran.
- [38:36]
B
Let me jump in right there. It's not so much that I disagree. I mean, you know infinitely more about the subject than I do. I don't even have a basis to disagree. But I am surprised because I thought that pathway one is the death of the regime. Pathway two is the survival of the regime. And when I asked you what would make that most likely, a part of me, I think, expected you to describe circumstances on the ground in Iran that would make the survival of the regime most likely. But you went in a different direction. You started by describing the domestic politics of the United States. You said, you know, if the polling for this aerial assault seems negative, Trump will pull back. If, let's say, oil prices skyrocket and, you know, the markets start puking, maybe Trump will pull back. And so I just want to note, just want to reflect back that I'm surprised that you said maybe the key dispositive piece that will prolong the survival of the Iranian regime is really about what happens in the US Rather than what happens in Iran. Am I misunderstanding you or putting meaning on your words that you didn't mean? Or is that, in fact what you meant, that it's American domestic politics that are the most important ingredient here?
- [39:50]
A
So if I heard you correctly, you gave me a one year timeline. Was that right? What happens in the next year?
- [39:55]
B
Yeah, let's call it a one year timeline. Yes, that's exactly right.
- [39:58]
A
So in my view, this is a regime which is on borrowed time. It is eventually going to end up like the Soviet Union. It's going to collapse under the weight of its own contradictions and malaise, widespread malaise. But if I'm just looking at this 12 months out, my fear is that they're now, at the moment, they're a wounded animal. And the president even essentially told Iranians that for the first few days, you're spectators. You know, don't protest because it's going to be dangerous. But then once we're done, go seize your institutions. And Derek, what I want to emphasize is that probably not a lot of your listeners have lived under totalitarian dictatorship. And when I lived in Tehran, it is incredibly frightening when you go out into the streets and you're not armed and you see thousands, potentially tens of thousands of people holding machine guns with their finger on the trigger. And it's my view, as I said earlier, that this regime has somewhat negligible popular support at this point. Let's say 15%, but even 15% of an adult population of 60 million people is millions of people. And if those millions are still ready to go out and kill and die for you, it's a regime which can last longer than we expect it to. And so I think what's happened is that in the aftermath of these protests, given President Trump's repeated statements that America is going to help, people were essentially waiting for the United States to intervene. And in the aftermath of all of this death and destruction, it may be that I'm wrong. And even if the United States decides to pull the plug early, people will again mobilize. But I see this as more likely a society which is in profound trauma, that was already traumatized by what the regime did to it last month, and now this shock of war, I'm not certain that the natural reaction will be to want to mobilize politically. It may be that people just try to hunker down, at least for that first year, and rebuild their lives, and people are quite shell shocked.
- [42:42]
B
Right? No, I think it's really important to retrace the fact that regime change via popular uprising would very likely be an event that ends in the death of thousands, tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people. We are talking about a nation of 92 million that would have to rise up against a heavily armed guard. So I think it's important to put a very fine point on just how bloody that process would be. So if we've talked about scenario one, regime change, scenario two, the regime hangs on by the skin of its teeth. The third pathway that I want to discuss with you is the pathway toward regional war. I mean, Iran has already been targeting civilian and military infrastructure in Dubai, Riyadh, Kuwait. What is Iran trying to do here? What are they trying to force the Gulf states to. To do? And what are the odds that this spills over into what we would have to describe as regional warfare?
- [43:44]
A
So I think Iran's goal here is fairly clear in that they're not powerful enough to retaliate in a meaningful way against America and Israel. And so they're retaliating against their more vulnerable Gulf neighbors and. And the hopes that those countries, which do have very close relationships with the United States, will weigh in with President Trump and say, please put a stop to this. And I think that those countries have been incensed at the way that Iran has gone after civilian outposts and civilian buildings and, you know, oil refineries in Saudi Arabia. And so far, it seems to me it hasn't had Iran's desired impact. Rather than compel those countries to tell President Trump to exercise restraint it may be. There's been some reporting that those countries are now encouraging President Trump to actually, you know, potentially finish the job or to remain steadfast. And so I think the Iran's strategy is clear. What's not clear is whether it will have the intended result.
- [45:02]
B
So if we have, again, one, regime change, two, no regime change, and essentially we're back to the status quo in 2025, 3, something much messier and regional, what is a fourth likely pathway here that we haven't had time to describe? I mean, I suppose we didn't outline a possibility like a true civil war in Iran. Maybe there's other outcomes that you consider possible or even likely that I didn't prompt you to describe. So what is that fourth door here that we haven't opened?
- [45:36]
A
You know, what's somewhat unique about Iran for being a large, powerful country is that over the last century, it's only been really ruled by four men. Reza Shah was the man who built modern Iran. His son, Mohammad Reza shah, ruled for four decades before he was deposed in 1979. And then you had the 1979 revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini, and then the last 37 years, Ayatollah Khamenei. And so this is, for whatever reason, kind of a political culture that tends to gravitate towards large men and cults of personality. And so one of the questions is, who is going to be an individual who emerges from all of this? Is it going to be someone from within the military or security establishment, like an Iranian Putin, that could take the country in different directions? It could be someone like a Putin who wants to harness historic grievances and continue with anti Americanism. Or it could be someone who says, listen, death to America is a failed organizing principle, and we need to say, long live Iran. And kind of a nationalist, autocratic leader. Could it be that more of a populist leader emerges? This is a country which should be a wealthy country, and yet, because of the profound mismanagement and sanctions, far more people are living under the poverty line than they should. So I think in Iran's future, regardless of what happens, economic populism will probably do well. Someone who comes and says, I'm going to be the person who puts the oil money on your dinner tables. There's also, you know, I would argue that if there were to be a free and fair election tomorrow in Iran, the individual who would get the most votes, I would argue, is probably the former Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi. There's a great deal of What I call forward looking nostalgia for how things were before the revolution. And he represents that. And so one of the kind of things for me to watch is that as a country which, as I said, over the last century has only been ruled by four men who are going to be the new or potentially renewed personalities that emerge that captivate the popular imagination, one thing I would feel confident predicting, Derek, is that the next powerful leader of Iran is not going to be wearing a turban, even if they choose another Ayatollah to succeed Ayatollah Khamenei. I don't think this is a society which is going to want to be led by a religious cleric that will, in my view, be more of a transitional figure than a new strongman.
- [48:48]
B
Is it fair to say that this fourth door essentially is somewhere between doors one and two? It is a bit of regime change. Potentially. You get a new charismatic leader who might uphold some of the principles of the Islamic Republic, but it's essentially regime change with a twist. And the person who maybe comes to power will initially seem to be a continuation of some of Khamenei's politics in a way that makes it seem like the regime has survived the attacks from America and Israel. But maybe that to your point about the turban, over time, this is a ruler who could slowly modernize the country. Maybe the same way an MBS type figure modernized Saudi Arabia. Am I wrong to see this fourth door sort of. I know we're getting into weird door metaphors here, but sort of weirdly fitting in between doors one and two.
- [49:42]
A
So the analogy that's commonly made in the Iranian context is the China model. And can Iran transition as China did post Mao with Deng Xiaoping like figure who comes and puts economic national interest before the Cultural Revolution? And so I do think there's obviously great popular demand in that for Iran. The question is whether, number one, they can pull it off. Iran is a very different type of economy than China. It's actually closer economy to that of Russia, a resource economy rather than one driven by an incredible labor engine. So, you know, can they pull it off? And number two, will society accept that? Or is the society just kind of so infuriated with this government that even an easing of social restrictions and potential economic opening, rather than prolong the shelf life of the regime, could that actually accelerate its demise? And this was actually always the fear of Ayatollah Khamenei and why he was hostile to any reform because he believed that when Gorbachev tried to reform the Soviet Union, it took a sledgehammer to the pillars of the building and it collapsed on top of their head. And so for that reason, these folks inside Iran, we call them hardliners, but they call themselves principalists because they're loyal to the Principles of 1979. Either case, my view is that if they don't change those principles, eventually they're going to implode. If they do change those principles or try to dilute them, it could even hasten their demise. And so in the near term, this regime may manage to stay afloat, but in the medium to long term, I think that the Islamic Republic as it exists today is on borrowed time.
- [51:44]
B
I have very little confidence in my ability to predict the future of the Middle East. I do, however, feel like I have a decent line of sight into some norms of American politics. If there's a near future where military deaths start to creep up on the American side, a future where oil prices start to rise, a future where people within the Republican Party, even within the MAGA coalition, start to get a little bit jittery about the prospect of the US Embarking, and not just a swift decapitation campaign, but a prolonged military involvement with a country tens of thousands of miles away that many Americans don't think about on an hourly basis. Given those as the inputs. Right. What do you consider the most likely output in Iran?
- [52:40]
A
So if this operation, we've started it, we've wounded the regime, and if the plug is pulled prematurely, I don't see. I think we actually have altered Iranian internal political dynamics and that the assassination of the Supreme Leader has really energized and further radicalized an already radical group of true believers. And I think that the impact of that, in my view, is not a positive outcome for the vast majority of Iranians who would like to see political change.
- [53:26]
B
Well, I hope to guide you. Wrong. I have many friends from Iran whose families are from Iran, and I know that they, like you, hope that this is a country that achieves its promise as a G20 country, achieves its promise as a modern, free country that celebrates civil liberties. But I also, I think I share your skepticism that this sort of, like, telescoped warfare that Trump seems comfortable with, where we engage in interventionism, but from such a long arm away where we're not going to put boots in the ground, it's hard to feel like you control the outcome when you're just passing by in fighter jets. So who knows how this goes? But, Kareem, I really appreciate you lending your expertise here. Kareem Sajadpur, thank you very much.
- [54:13]
A
Thank you for having me. Derek.
- [54:29]
B
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- [54:46]
A
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B
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