What's Next in the Iran-Israel Conflict: War, Peace, or Revolution?

Summary

Plain English with Derek Thompson: Detailed Summary of "What's Next in the Iran-Israel Conflict: War, Peace, or Revolution?"

Release Date: June 25, 2025
Host: Derek Thompson
Guest: Ray Tak, Iranian-born scholar and author at the Council on Foreign Relations

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of Plain English with Derek Thompson, host Derek Thompson delves into the escalating tensions between Iran and Israel, exploring the potential pathways toward war, peace, or revolution. Joining him is Ray Tak, a distinguished scholar with expertise in Iran's modern history and geopolitics. The discussion navigates through recent military actions, the historical context of Iran's nuclear ambitions, internal political dynamics within Iran, and the broader implications for regional and global stability.

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Recent Escalations: Bombings and Ceasefires

[07:12]
Derek Thompson opens the conversation by outlining the recent military engagements: Israel's bombings of Iran, Iran's missile strikes on Israel, and retaliatory attacks on a U.S. airbase in Qatar. He highlights the volatile ceasefire attempts by President Trump, which were quickly violated, indicating a rapid shift from potential peace to renewed conflict.

Derek Thompson: "This is a transformative moment for the Islamic Republic of Iran moving forward. Its internal politics and strategic calculations will actually be quite different."
[07:10]

Ray Tak emphasizes the unprecedented nature of these actions by Donald Trump, noting that unlike previous U.S. presidents who refrained from direct military strikes against Iran, Trump has now directly engaged Iran militarily, marking a significant departure from his initial anti-war stance.

Ray Tak: "I'm joking a little bit when I say he's been mind infected by the neocon ideology... it's a very strange blend of foreign policy ideologies."
[09:59]

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Understanding the Motivation Behind the Bombings

[11:13]
The discussion shifts to the strategic motivations behind the U.S. and Israel's aerial campaign against Iran's nuclear facilities. Ray Tak explains that prior methods like sanctions and cyber attacks had failed to curb Iran's nuclear advancements. The recent bombings aim to disrupt nuclear progress, particularly targeting sites like Fordo, which were previously resistant to Israeli attacks due to their fortified nature.

Ray Tak: "The perceived success of Israel's aerial bombing campaign presented a unique opportunity for the Americans... the Fordo was so deep on the ground that Israeli munitions and aircraft were not capable of destroying it."
[13:58]

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Historical Context of Iran's Nuclear Program

[14:45]
Delving into the historical roots, Ray Tak outlines the origins of Iran's nuclear program, tracing it back to the 1950s under the Eisenhower administration's "Atoms for Peace" initiative. This program was intended for civilian purposes but gradually diverged into efforts that could support weaponization. The emphasis on science within Persian culture and its strategic value to both the Shah and the Islamic Republic underscores the complexity of Iran's nuclear ambitions.

Ray Tak: "Science as the highest point of achievement has a special place in the Persian Iranian imagination... nuclear science was going to do everything for everybody at all times."
[15:15]

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Current State of Iran: Economic and Political Turmoil

[21:27]
Ray Tak paints a grim picture of Iran's present-day situation, highlighting severe economic struggles exacerbated by sanctions, corruption, and a significant brain drain as talented individuals flee the country. Politically, the Islamic Republic faces dwindling popular support, frequent protests, and a governance system that has become increasingly detached and unresponsive to its citizens' needs.

Ray Tak: "Economically, it's obviously in a very difficult stage because it's been hammered by sanctions, mismanagement, corruption... the politics have become more stale and less representative."
[21:44]

He further explains that the government's attempts to manage dissent through security services and militias have not quelled the growing disaffection among the populace, setting the stage for potential revolutionary sentiments.

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Potential for Regime Change and Revolution

[27:52]
The conversation turns to the possibility of regime change in Iran. Ray Tak discusses the challenges inherent in predicting revolutionary movements, emphasizing that true revolutions are psychological phenomena that are hard to foresee and even harder to control once they begin. He outlines the necessary conditions for a successful revolution, including the loss of faith in the security elite and the confidence among the populace in a viable post-regime future.

Ray Tak: "Revolution is something that you never know that is happening... it's a purely psychological phenomenon."
[32:13]

He highlights that while elite dissatisfaction is evident—evidenced by Israeli infiltration and targeted assassinations of Iranian officials—the absence of mass protests complicates the immediate prospects for a large-scale revolution.

Ray Tak: "The Iranian people have gone from disgruntled to dissident. At which point are they going to be in critical mass street protests in a systematic way that can overwhelm the regime?"
[32:35]

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International Dynamics: Iran, Russia, and China

[33:18]
Ray Tak examines Iran's relationships with Russia and China, noting that these alliances have not provided the strategic support Iran desperately needs. Russia's offer to mediate conflicts and China's economic engagements, such as purchasing discounted Iranian oil, have not significantly bolstered Iran's position. Instead, these relationships often leave Iran feeling exploited and unsupported in its time of crisis.

Ray Tak: "The relationship with Russia was supposed to be military to military... the only thing that is kind of out there is when former Russian President Medvedev says, now we're going to give Iran nuclear weapons or something like that."
[35:43]

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Future Scenarios: War, Peace, or Revolution

[35:55]
As the episode progresses, the focus shifts to potential future developments. Ray Tak outlines the limited options available to Iran in the face of continued Israeli bombings. He suggests that Iran may resort to reviving terrorist networks as a response, further destabilizing the region and increasing the risk of attacks on the U.S. and its allies.

Ray Tak: "Not many, no immediate options. Terrorism is a weapon of the weak, and they certainly are weak."
[35:55]

He also reflects on the possible outcomes of U.S. intervention:

• Success: Iran's leadership may abandon its nuclear ambitions and seek to engage diplomatically to lift sanctions.

  Ray Tak: "Success will look like the Iranian political leadership coming together and putting aside the nuclear program and coming to terms with the international community to lift sanctions."
  [43:04]

• Failure: Iran might deepen its clandestine nuclear efforts, making non-proliferation more challenging.

  Ray Tak: "Failure is just what I said. We're going to have to develop a program in a more clever way, in a more careful way and a more secret way."
  [43:50]

• Uncertain Outcomes: The potential for unforeseen developments, such as a military coup within Iran's Revolutionary Guards or a fragmented political landscape, complicates predictions.

  Ray Tak: "A revolution is purely a psychological phenomenon... it's hard to see a government coming out of that sort of catastrophic situation that's liberal in its pretensions and form and substance."
  [45:05]

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Conclusion: Navigating Uncertainty

In wrapping up, Ray Tak underscores the immense uncertainty surrounding the Iran-Israel conflict and the broader implications for global stability. He cautions against simplistic expectations of regime change leading to democratic outcomes, citing historical precedents where revolutions have often led to unpredictable and sometimes adverse results.

Ray Tak: "The hardest thing for a citizen to do, to go from disgruntled citizen to a dissident to a street revolutionary... it's very difficult to chronicle in retrospect because a revolution is almost impossible to predict."
[32:36]

Derek Thompson thanks Ray Tak for his insightful analysis, leaving listeners with a nuanced understanding of the complexities at play in the ongoing Iran-Israel tensions.

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Notable Quotes

• Derek Thompson:
  "This is a transformative moment for the Islamic Republic of Iran moving forward."
  [07:10]

• Ray Tak:
  "Revolution is something that you never know that is happening. It's a purely psychological phenomenon."
  [32:13]

• Ray Tak:
  "Success will look like the Iranian political leadership coming together and putting aside the nuclear program and coming to terms with the international community to lift sanctions."
  [43:04]

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Key Takeaways

• Unprecedented Military Actions: Donald Trump's administration marks a significant departure from previous U.S. policies by directly engaging Iran militarily.

• Historical Context Matters: Understanding Iran's nuclear program requires a deep dive into its historical and cultural significance within Persian society.

• Economic and Political Struggles: Iran faces severe economic hardships and political instability, fueling discontent and potential for revolutionary movements.

• Complex International Relations: Iran's alliances with Russia and China offer limited strategic benefits, leaving the country vulnerable in times of crisis.

• Uncertain Future Paths: The potential outcomes range from diplomatic resolutions and successful demilitarization efforts to increased clandestine nuclear activities or unforeseen revolutionary upheavals.

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This episode provides a thorough examination of the intricate dynamics fueling the Iran-Israel conflict, shedding light on the historical, cultural, and political factors that shape current events. Whether you're a casual listener or a policy enthusiast, Derek Thompson and Ray Tak offer invaluable insights into one of the most pressing geopolitical issues of our time.

Transcript

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[Derek Thompson]

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[Ray Tak]

Brought to you by ServiceNow. We're for people doing the fulfilling work they actually want to do. That's why this was written and read by a real person and not AI. You know what people don't want to do? Boring busywork. Now with AI agents built into the ServiceNow platform, you can automate millions of repetitive tasks in every corner of your business, it HR and more. So your people can focus on the work that they want to do. That's putting AI agents to work for people. It's your turn. Tap the banner to get started or visit servicenow.com AI agents hello again. A reminder that this week I've moved my writing from the Atlantic to Substack. You can sign up for my newsletter at Derek Thompson Substack. Tons of free articles, interviews, including a transcript of our latest phone call with Zoran Mamdani, the Democratic Socialist candidate for mayor of New York City. If you like plain English and you also like to read, I think you will like this product. Check out Derek thompson.substack.com today a very Strange war with Iran. One thing you can say objectively about Donald Trump is that the news he makes is often quite rapidly unmade by subsequent events. He'll declare a tariff on Monday that's gone by Tuesday. He'll announce a policy on Wednesday that's Overturned by Friday. He'll announce an initiative on Friday that will die from neglect by Monday. Remember Hollywood. Tariffs, anyone? No. We're somewhat in this zone of uncertainty today with the bombing of Iran. Donald Trump ran for office initially as a critic of the neoconservative tradition. He was opposed to war in the Middle East. His current national Security Advisor is Tulsi Gabbard, who's frequently critical of military action against America's presumed geopolitical adversaries. But after weeks of Israel's aerial attacks on Iran, Trump shocked the world with targeted strikes of several nuclear facilities, including Natanz and Forda. Suddenly, it seemed like President Trump was getting the US Involved in yet another Middle east conflict. But then, just as it seemed as if the US And Iran were sliding toward further military action, Trump announced a ceasefire on social media, a ceasefire that was almost immediately violated by yet more missiles. As if this writing. Calls between Trump and Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu seem to have quelled the bombing for now. But reality seems to shift dramatically every 12 hours. In this particular story, just today, Trump offered this big picture analysis of Israel, Iran relations.

You know what?

[Derek Thompson]

We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard.

[Ray Tak]

That they don't know what the fuck they're doing.

Do you understand that the case against bombing Iran could be easily made. The threat posed by Iran to the US Is minimal. The countries were already engaged in negotiations over monitoring Iran's nuclear program. Congress had not authorized any military strike, and Democrats were not reportedly even notified that a strike was imminent, despite decades of warnings that the country was weeks away from developing a nuclear weapon. Iran has never actually developed a nuclear weapon. There are questions of urgency here. Did this really have to happen? And there are also questions of feasibility. How do we actually expect this to work? An attack such as this might set Iran's domestic program back a year, but it could also backfire. And allies like Russia might step up their efforts to supply Iran with nuclear technology that the regime might now believe they need more than ever. On the other hand, the case for bombing Iran was made with some clarity by the Atlantic's Graham Wood. The way Wood frames it is Iran's military presence is sprawling and its devotion to killing Americans and American allies is legion. The Islamic Republic has set up armed proxies in Lebanon, Yemen, Gaza, Iraq, and less overt forces around the world. It has already attempted to kill or actually killed Americans at home and abroad. What other country does this with impunity? Imagine, Graham says, if Venezuela relentlessly plotted to kill Americans in locations around the world and then tried to acquire a nuclear weapon to safeguard its campaign of violence for generations to come. That's the clearest case for case against that I could make. But now there are several fairly urgent questions to ask here. What happens now? What is the US Even trying to accomplish? Is regime change in Iran something to hope for or is it a fast track to chaos we should hope against? Today's guest is Ray Take, an Iranian born scholar and author at the Council on Foreign Relations who's written many books about the modern history of Iran. From the Shah of the middle of the 20th century to the Islamic Republic that rules over this country. Today, we talk about what just happened, how to frame it and understand it in the historical context and the many ways it could play out from here. I'm Derek Thompson. This is plain English, Ray Take, welcome to the show.

Thank you very much for having me.

We are speaking on Tuesday and in just the last few days, Israel has bombed Iran. Iran has responded by sending missiles into Israel. America has bombed Iran. Iran has attacked a US Air base in Qatar. A tentative ceasefire was announced by President Trump and almost immediately melted upon contact with reality. Israel, at this moment of our speaking, has resumed pounding Iran with bombs. Before we unpack strategy, motivations, the path forward, how would you summarize what's just transpired in the last few days in Iran?

Well, on the one side, it was a moment that a lot of people anticipated because for 20 years we've been talking about who and when somebody will bomb Iran. Prime Minister Netanyahu has been talking about this all along and so has everybody else. But when the moment came, it was still an extraordinary one. I don't know what exactly it means for the United States and Israel, but it's a transformative moment for the Islamic Republic of Iran moving forward. Its internal politics and strategic calculations will actually be quite different.

Before this weekend, so many presidents had saber rattled in Iran's direction, but no US President had ever bombed Iran in a conventional military airstrike. And here we have Donald Trump, a man who distinguished himself in the 2016 primary by criticizing George W. Bush's war in the Middle east, now becoming the first president to bomb Iran. How do you make sense of the fact that this isn't just any president making history in this moment, it is Donald Trump.

You mean how did the neocon globalists get into the Trump administration?

Sure, yeah. How was he mind infected by the very ideology that he in part became popular by opposing?

Well, on the one side there were U. S Iran negotiations going on during his time with Steve Witkoff leading those talks, deadline was compressed and the demands were maximalist. So it was the usual kind of a tempo that the President wants on the other side. I think once the Israeli attack came and it appeared to be successful, then there was an opportunity to join a successful enterprise. If you recall, the very first statement made by the Trump administration came from Secretary Marco Rubio, and he essentially said, we're not involved with this, we don't know about this, and so on. It was essentially a disclaimer. But once the Israeli strike became successful in terms of his operational dexterity, then the President decided to join the successful enterprise. At first he said, these are American weapons. The American weapons were great. Then came the, of course, the attack on the photo nuclear installation.

What do we make? I'm joking a little bit when I say he's been mind infected by the neocon ideology. In a way, he's only been half infected because he sends the bombers over, they bomb these nuclear technology sites, and then mere hours later, he just goes onto Truth Social, declares a ceasefire that maybe neither party was particularly serious about. And so he's simultaneously declaring a kind of war and announcing a kind of peace. It's a very strange blend of foreign policy ideologies. How do you make sense of that?

Well, it's not the conventional way of doing things, if that's what you mean. But there's nothing conventional about the second Trump administration. Essentially, it's even a departure from the first Trump administration. And the whole thing about the President is that he is capable of unpredictable action. He always said, you don't know what I'm going to do. You don't know what I'm not going to do. I'm going to go to war, I'm going to take a ceasefire, I'm going to rebuild Gaza. So it has to do with that particular temperament, I suspect. I can't explain it in its totality because it's outside the sort of a mainstream way of thinking about this, but that's just the way. That's just the way things are going nowadays.

What do you think was the expected value in the US bombing of these sites in particular? I mean, the US and Israel have in the past used a variety of tools to blunt the Iran nuclear program. They've used sanctions, they've used cyber attacks, There have been assassinations of Iran's nuclear personnel. And yet, time, over time, Iran just keeps building back toward this nuclear threshold. What seems to have been the strategy here with this aerial bombing campaign? Why now? What's the expected value of it?

Well, why now? Because as I said, the Israeli success presented a unique opportunity for the interest. The other aspect of it is the sanctions, sabotage, targeted assassinations. There was a perception that they had failed to retard Iranian nuclear program. It had kept moving forward and there were a lot of problematic features about it, enriching to 60% for which there's no real civilian purpose. And recently, actually in May, Iran was rebuked by the International Atomic Energy Agency for its lack of cooperation with inspection regime. So there was a feeling that this program is beginning to defy its confines, I would say. And it has to be said that it was a judgment of the American intelligence services as presented by Tulsi Gabbard, that the program had many problematic features in it, but it was not being misused for weaponization purposes. Now, some people say that's a distinction without difference. An expanding nuclear program gives you the option to weaponize even if your intentions have not been made clear. But it was not a program. It was a program that was expanding in disturbing ways. But as far as one knows, it was not on the urge of weaponization.

Before we turn to Iran, I want to make sure I understand something that's still tripping me up a bit. Yeah, you're saying that one motivation for the United States might have been the perceived success of Israel's aerial bombing campaign. But you are also telling me that the intelligence services found that Iran wasn't particularly close to a nuclear threshold. That would mean they're weeks, months, a certain amount of time away from developing an actual nuclear bomb. And I think it would be hard to argue that Iran poses a direct threat to domestic American security at the moment. So why was the. If the motivation here was that Israel seems to be succeeding in aerial dominance over key parts of Iran and disarmament and disarmament. Why get involved anyway if Israel's already succeeding along that particular front?

Well, in one particular site that everybody has heard about by now, the Fordo was so deep on the ground that Israeli munitions and aircrafts were not capable of destroying it. And Israelis did bomb it a number of times that required a specific American intervention, as you saw with the B2 bombers and the so called bunker busters. Whether they succeed or not remains to be seen. But there is a technical superiority that the United States had. Israelis for a long time had been asking for those munitions and aircraft. But the United States under any administration wasn't about to hand over its B2 technologies to other countries. So there was A technical aspect of this military operation that required American intervention for its at least success for a period of time.

Turning to Iran here, the history of nuclear technology in Iran goes back to the 1950s, when it was the US working with a very different Iranian state, an ally of America at the time. Now, seven decades later, we are flying bombers over Iran to destroy their nuclear technology. You've written about this history extensively, and I want to give you a platform here to go a little bit longer because this is really, really your area. What does the nuclear program mean to this Iranian regime?

What it means, as you said, in terms of its history. It began under the Eisenhower administration with the Atoms for Peace program, and the nuclear reactor was given to Iran. The Tehran Research reactor that's still there is actually operational. They use it for medical isotopes. Then the program actually becomes dormant until the 1970s when this revives again because Iran suddenly had all this money that it could spend on nuclear science. But I want to take it apart from the regimes monarchical or the theocracy. Science as the highest point of achievement has a special place in the Persian Iranian imagination. If you're a smart kid and you have to have entrance exams to get into the universities, which are very competitive because there's so many people trying to get in, and they decide what you study. If you do really well on entrance exams and you're particularly smart, you go into sciences. If you're not, you get to study history. And nobody in that country obviously studies economics. So the idea of science as a point of achievement has captured Persian chemistry, physique, physics, biology. Biology. I mean, those are kind of revered people in the society. Engineering. Mohandes, even when they. If you're engineer, your name is not Derek Thompson, it's Mohandes Derek Thompson ENGINEER Ray Tak so that the targeted assassination of the scientists really did disturb that particular Persian cosmology, irrespective of the governments. Now, that's essentially science. And then the Islamic Republic and before that, the monarchy presented nuclear science as the highest point of scientific achievement. And they exaggerated the value of nuclear science. It will lead to medical isotopes, it'll cure cancer, it grows agriculture. If you experience hair loss, hey, nuclear science is for you. So nuclear science was going to do everything for everybody at all times. Obviously, beyond this sort of a cultural celebration, the value of nuclear science was also potentially a weapons one. And it was for the Shah and it was for the Islamic Republic as well. And for a lot of the same reasons. Being in a dangerous neighborhood and the Shah's calculations, we can go into it were different than the clerical leadership that succeeded him because the clerical leadership obviously bought into Iranian statecraft. A very distinct anti American ideological perspective that the Shah didn't have. So in that particular sense you began to see the value of science to the Iranian people at large. Nuclear science as a point of departure and for the respective regimes it also had the advantage of having a strategic weapon that could potentially be used as a deterrence or power projection.

I love that as a cultural explanation for what science has meant to the history of Persian civilization. I wonder today for the Islamic Republic with an 86 year old Ayatollah who's dealing every 18 months it seems with some other popular uprising, with a Middle east that is in certainly it's a shaken kaleidoscope. It's hard to know exactly where some of these alliances are going to fall out. What does the nuclear program mean to Iran today, to the Islamic Republic?

Well, it was a part of a Ali Khamenei supreme leader's 30 year project. It had two distinct aspects to it that essentially would transform Iran into a regional power on the cheap because it didn't have the resources to build large armies, navies and so on like the United States does. One was it was use proxies across from, from the Arabs, Pakistanis. It would have proxy armies that it would deploy to do its bidding. Hezbollah being the most effective one and the most lethal one, but to lesser extent Hamas and we see all the militias in Iraq and so on. The sort of the proxy strategy which was as I said, imperialism on the cheap, it very much resembled and they would, the Ali Khamenei would be very offended by the comparison to British imperialism. British imperialism used Indian forces and so on with very little British manpower involved to police large sectors of the empire. So that was one and beneath it was of course nuclear weapons potentially as a strategic equalizer, as the ultimate weapon of deterrence. However, for whatever set of reasons, and it's a reason that has bedeviled analysts, government officials, anybody who looks at this issue, Iran had not crossed the nuclear threshold and actually assembled a weapon for whatever reason, he seemed to have been hesitant to take that step. Those reasons may be penetration of intelligence. Who knows that 35 year project has collapsed in the past two years. The proxies have been decimated, possibly revived at some point. And the nuclear program that became this kind of a legitimizing aspect of the Islamic Republic, an aspect of his self image has been damaged, ruined, destroyed, obliterated. Pick tick, anybody you pick will give you A different explanation, but it certainly has been damaged. So today he stands as a failed ruler at home and a failed ruler abroad. As I have mentioned before, if he had died in 2023, he would be one of the great revolutionaries of the modern Middle East. He's not that today. His 35 year old project to ensure Iranian predominance in the region, that the Islamic Republic's predominance in the region has essentially collapsed today and go a little.

Bit deeper into the state of Iran. I've heard you talk about and read a little bit about the really putrid state of the economy, the utter lack of popular support for this Islamic regime. How unstable is this country economically and politically?

Economically, it's obviously in a very difficult stage because it's been hammered by sanctions, mismanagement, corruption. Corruption has been particularly galling for the Iranian public because it's being conducted by men of God. These are the people who say, hey, be virtuous, sacrifice, you know, and then they get into BMW and go home. Well, the mullahs aren't virtuous and sacrificing. I am. So corruption in a state that professes its mission to be God is more galling than some sort of a tin pot dictatorship in Latin America. That's sort of expected. So there is. The economy is not necessarily producing for the younger generation of the country. The way the Islamic Republic has dealt with it. It has sanctioned brain drain. If you're a computer scientist, you're not doing well. Go to Australia, go to Canada, go to India, you can't come to America. So essentially which is very damaging to the country, the politics of the country are less interesting in the past 10, 15 years than they were before. Before there were real factions and real debates about the Islamic Republic maintaining some kind of a democratic pretense. You know, it has an election for parliament, election president. And the idea being that you can still register your voice if you're a citizen by voting and you can get a president. Like in the 1990s, President Khatami, who talked about reform and democratic empowerment, civil society, media and so forth. The politics have become more stale and less representative and less means of regime controlling the public. So now if you're an average Iranian citizen, you're impoverished, your opportunities are limited unless you connect it to the state in some way. And your political voice is non existent because the elections and plebiscites no longer allow you to inject your voice in the deliberations of the government. And you begin to see you had series of protests and uprising, as you said, almost every 18 months. 2017, 2019, 2022, there'll be another one at some point. So the regime is beset by popular disaffection. I would say one thing. The Islamic Republic has experienced sporadic cycles of protest for 45 years. That actually has come to their advantage because they're kind of used to dealing with it. Shah's regime that collapsed in 1979, it didn't necessarily think it had domestic dissent to worry about. So when it came with the ferocity came, the regime just didn't know how to deal with it. The mullahs have the virtue of knowing that people hate them. That's actually a good thing. They're kind of self aware, so they have tried to develop overlapping security services and militias and so forth to deal with the internal security situation. That doesn't mean that force cannot be overwhelmed and it will certainly have difficulty maintaining control of the country in 2022. But nevertheless, they have sort of experience dealing with domestic turmoil the way their monarchical predecessor had not.

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[Ray Tak]

Netanyahu has said Some American politicians have said many American commentators have said that they see this war today as potentially a unique opportunity for regime change in Iran. And I want to work through a couple arguments on either side here. On the one hand, we don't have mass protests happening right now on the ground, akin to the largest uprisings that had been happening every 18 months over the last decade or many decades. On the other hand, a point that I heard you make is that Israel could not have succeeded in its attacks if there weren't cooperation inside the upper levels of the Iranian security elite. The drone technology was clearly smuggled into Iran for assassinations. It may have been assembled in Iran. It was clearly deployed in Iran against military leaders in Iran. And that suggests a certain large contingency of the Iranian security and military elite are dissatisfied enough with the Iranian regime that they're helping its arch enemy carry out assassinations of major Iranian generals. So in thinking about this moment today as a historically unique opportunity for regime change, how do you weigh, on the one hand, this kind of elite pressure that seems to exist with a lack of mass protests on the street akin to the largest uprisings we've seen in previous years?

Well, that is certainly the point. The Israeli tactical dexterity is, of course, quite pronounced. But they could not have succeeded with domestic accomplices in critical nodes of the government. There's no question about that. And that's been the case for a while. The Israelis essentially can penetrate that country in a way that they could not have penetrate. Perhaps other places, the public at this point, like the leadership, is sort of traumatized, is trying to figure out what just happened. Suddenly you get up one morning and there are bombs falling and things are happening that your leadership had insisted would never happen, particularly from Israel. They had always depicted Israel as a decadent, weak state about to collapse. And sort of the depiction of Israel as. As a sort of a evaporating entity, suddenly that evaporating entity looked pretty real to me. So there is that. It might have been better off if they haven't been bombed by the Americans. Because then you say, hey, there's a great Satan. It's a superpower.

They were eventually.

They were eventually. But initial successes came from the Israelis that are depicted in the most absurd caricatures in the clerical pronouncements. What the regime change people are talking about is that eventually we'll see another opposition movement emerge in Iran. As you said, every 18 months. At some point, it will come when people take accounting of what has happened, and the regime will be sufficiently weaker as a result of this recent exposure that that opposition movement may actually succeed. Now, you're asking a very interesting question. How does the revolution start and how does it succeed? Nobody knows the answer to that. Writing my second book on the 79 revolution, simply because I can tell you, a revolution is something that you never know that is happening. You often don't know what's happening when you're living through it. And as I have found out, it's very difficult to chronicle in retrospect because a revolution is purely a psychological phenomenon. Things happen that they shouldn't happen. It is not reasonable for a citizen to confront a regime with superior firepower. That's not a reasonable thing to do. And the hardest thing for a citizen to do, to go from disgruntled citizen to a dissident to a street revolutionary, that cycle is. You saw that cycle in 79. You see it very rarely. So the Iranian people have gone from disgruntled to dissident. At which point are they going to be in critical mass street protests in a systematic way that can overwhelm the regime? 1979 example, that's 46 years ago. That's also 20th century. But the regime was overwhelmed simply because there was so much protest in every street that the security forces were ultimately demoralized. For a regime to collapse, that's truism of almost every revolution from the Russian Revolution to the Iranian Revolution. Critical element of the security services have to defect, have to be neutralized, which means they have to believe there's a future for them. In the aftermath of the Islamic Republic, what happened in the Soviet Union is the Communist Party, and there was kgb. KGB decided that it can actually exist without the Communist Party. So it didn't do anything to save the Communist Party because it said we have a future ourselves in a post Soviet republic. They were right. Whether the Islamic Republic's own officials will make that calculation. You're talking about psychology of individuals, a sort of a mass psychology in a set of circumstances that is awfully difficult to predict ahead of time. So regime change is a casual phrase, but it tries to capture a psychological phenomena that's almost impossible to explain or predict ahead of time with any degree of proficiency.

One thing I take from that really interesting answer is that a critical aspect of revolutions and regime change in world history, or at least in modern history, which I'll take as sort of post 1900, is loss of faith in the security elite combined with confidence that they can thrive in some post regime change order. Right?

Correct.

You need both tell me if I'm misframing this.

And that's why that magic is so difficult to catch in a bottle. That's why most protest movements fail. That's why most have failed in Iran since 1979.

I think that's so interesting. Can we broaden the scope a little bit and talk about the relationship between Iran, Russia and China? Iran has Invested, it seems to me, a great deal in this anti American axis. Is Russia coming to its aid? Is China coming to its aid? Is there something that's happened inside this anti American axis in the last few hours or days that makes you think there's some new reality we have to pay attention to?

Well, as far as one can tell, it is an investment that didn't pay off by the Iranians. The Russian Federation knew anything. The first person that Vladimir Putin called was Prime Minister Netanyahu. The Russians offered to mediate the dispute. This is after the Iranians got themselves involved in Russia's war in Central Europe. That had no strategic, ideological or political benefits for Iran other than opprobrium of sending drone technology, which they could have used recently, to another war front. The China relationship is a little bit different because that is commerce. The Chinese are the only ones who are willing to purchase Iranian oil and defy the American sanctions regime. But the Chinese are also exploitative. They purchase your oil, but on discount. They say, hey, we're going to pay $50 for your oil, not 75. It's not us. Go ahead and sell it to these Norwegians. And there's a lot of popular resentment toward China within Iran because a lot of these trade agreements are barter trades. You get oil for commodities. The Iranians don't want to use Chinese toothpaste. They don't want to use Chinese products. So there's a lot of resentment of China. The relationship with Russia was supposed to be mil to mill military to military. The air defense networks that were so easily penetrated were the Russians. The only thing that is kind of out there is when former Russian President Medvedev says, now we're going to give Iran nuclear weapons or something like that. I don't know if that means anything. But the conversation between the three parties that one is aware of is not the one that the Iranians benefited from. Abol Salah Shi went to Russia. The Iranian foreign minister met with Putin. I don't know what that did. Russians and Iranians cooperated in Syria during the Assad regime and that was effective cooperation. And certainly the Iranians have purchased a lot of military hardware from Russia of sophisticated variety, although that not sophisticated enough. But that great power, that great power patronage that the Iranians were asking for for 20 years that finally seem to be coming together has not necessarily come together in their time of urgency and crisis.

I want to talk about what's next. As we speak, Israel is continuing to bomb Iran. What are Iran's options right now?

Not many, no Immediate options. Terrorism is a weapon of the weak, and they certainly are weak. They can try to revive those terrorist networks, and I think they will. And at some point, the United States may be subject to that terrorist attacks, whether students, installations, diplomatic compounds, or what have you tried to rebuild its domestic infrastructure to the extent possible. I think what's coming out of this is a number of lessons that the Islamic Republic learned in 1979 AD and has sort of not remembered lately. Number one, self determination means self reliance. You can't count on the Russians, you can't count the Chinese. That was the original mantra of the revolution, neither east nor west, so you're on your own. Number two, the strategic value of nuclear weapons has actually never been greater. The pathway of getting there is dangerous and perilous, but it's never been greater because in essence, the Iranians invested in a very problematic way in the NPT bargain. The NPT Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty bargain was you can have access to civilian nuclear technology if you don't weaponize. They invested in that bargain. These facilities that were attacked were infrequently inspected, but they were still under the safeguard of the international community. That bargain has just failed them. So why would you invest in international conventions? What did the United Nations Security Council do to redeem the promise of NPT in this case? What did Rafael Grossi, the Director General of iea, do for you? Why should you allow his inspections and inspectors to come back in? What happened to those international organizations that were supposed to mitigate this sort of a thing? Well, nothing happened. United Nations Security Council held some sort of desulatory hearing. That's what they do over there. But, you know, so there's again, your security depends on what you do. And this increases the value of nuclear arms today more so than the day before the bombing. How you get there becomes a little more challenging, shall we say?

One thing I'm not sure I entirely understand right now is what Israel thinks it's going to get out of several more weeks of bombing Iran. Donald Trump is many things. One of them is a showman. And one aspect of his showman psychology is that he rarely goes far out of step with public opinion for a very, very long period of time on an issue. The American public does not want war in the Middle East. The American public does not see strategic advantage in Iran airstrikes. And Donald Trump just hours ago said to some reporters in the front lawn of the White House that he, quote, doesn't know what the fuck they're doing with regard to Iran and Israel this is not how someone talks. If they're really excited about backing up Israel's aerial campaign for a second time. It sounds like someone who frankly is quite frustrated that he didn't find a way to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 12 hours of bombing three nuclear sites in Iran and ending a confrontation between that country and Israel. Where does Israel go? What is Israel looking to get out of a continued aerial campaign against Iran without the President's support?

Well, I suspect those campaigns will cease now. But what the Israelis were targeting recently were Iranian security establishment was military bases, was Basij, the paramilitary force that Iran uses to deal with protesters. They hit the political prisoners with a prison that houses political prisoners Evin prison. They were actually trying to hit targets including the state TV that limits the ability of the regime to communicate and control the population. They were trying to establish some kind of a predicate for an uprising that could succeed because the nuclear facilities as more far the ones we know of have been hit and hit and hit. So what the Israeli campaign was trying to do and even they attacked some of the economic infrastructure, the gas fields and so forth. So they were trying to create conditions for some kind of an uprising. I suspect that will stop now. Sometimes they did symbolic attacks like there was a clock in one of the Iranian cities that tries that tells you when how the time is running out on Israel. Like the clock, they hit the clock. So some of that is like, hey, you know, here you go, that's feel good bombing, you could say. But at this point, I suspect Prime Minister Netanyahu cannot be too far out of step with President Trump on this issue. And Israel is still a more junior ally to the United States. So I suspect it will calm down unless there is some kind of Iranian attack that creates civilian casualties in Israel. Then that cycle begins again.

What are you looking for in the next three months? Well.

Should the Iranian nuclear program go from a civilian nuclear program, which I don't think Iran will have a civilian nuclear program coming out of large centrifuges, large plants vulnerable and so on, they will be most likely transitioning to a clandestine program, small facilities with enriched uranium, weaponization program, a strict nuclear weapons program as opposed to civilian nuclear program that could potentially be transported, transformed into a weapons program. And if there is intelligence on this, you're going to see this attack again. We have switched counter proliferation strategies now. Counter proliferation strategy toward Iran will no longer rely on inspections, diplomatic agreements like the Iran nuclear deal and economic sanctions. It will rely on timely intelligence detecting a surreptitious facility with suspicious activity and taking action against it. So we may see a repeat of this, not to the scale, but this might be the beginning of a cycle of military intervention against Iran's nuclear infrastructure that is now likely to be surreptitious and heightened and so on and so forth. So we're entering a different challenge than we did before. In some way a more problematic challenge, because the country's gonna go dark.

Now, let's frame the conclusion of this interview with two sharp questions. What would success of US Intervention in this conflict look like in the next year? And what would failure look like?

Success will look like the Iranian political leadership coming together and said, okay, we invested this much money in our nuclear program that went up to smoke. Obviously, we're too penetrated and too vulnerable to resume the program. So let's just put it aside and let's see if we can come to terms with the international community to lift sanctions. Because what is the basis of lifting sanctions today? Before it was nuclear concessions for lifting economic sanctions. How did the sanctions come off? Now nobody's talking about that. So let's come to terms that's successful. They've essentially been scared straight. Failure is just what I said. We're going to have to develop a program in a more clever way, in a more careful way and a more secret way.

There's direct success, which is getting Iran to the bargaining table. There's direct failure, which is pushing Iran into a more clandestine. By the way, there's a development program. You could have both at the same time. This is where I'm getting at. You could have both at the same time. And I'm thinking, like, what are some of these sort of orthogonal or sort of sideways outcomes that wouldn't count at the State Department or at the Defense Department as clear success or failure? I mean, if, for example, there is some kind of popular uprising that happens in Iran, as Israel seems to want, as maybe some Americans seem to want, that itself could go in 10,000 different ways. It's not as if this is like a PEZ dispenser where if you click out the Ayatollah, the next PEZ that rises to the top of the little candy machine is like liberal democracy. And suddenly there's, like, Thomas Jefferson, like, waiting in the wings. That itself could go in any number of ways. So maybe close by talking a little bit about just the kind of uncertainty that Iran would be facing if the thing that many people are looking forward to, regime change in Iran, actually came to pass.

By the way, Thomas Jefferson is a problematic figure in American polit history today, in high schools and so on. So you might want to pick a.

Definitive Abraham Lincoln with a vice president of fdr.

Yeah, that's better. One of the things that could go wrong is actually a military coup in Iran with Revolutionary Guards taking over and maintaining the religious leadership as a symbolic representation. And essentially they're making all the decisions. Then you have what people always said about Prussia, where the army has a country as opposed to the other way around. That's one of the bad outcomes, by the way, the civil military balance is going to switch to the military anyways. So Ali Khamenei, coming out of this experience, may be leader, but he certainly will not be supreme, not after the cascade of miscalculations. If there is a popular uprising and there's a massive bloodshed, it's hard to see a government coming out of that sort of catastrophic situation that's liberal in its pretensions and form and substance, because coming out of violence like that, it's hard to see scores not being settled. You will require a magnanimous leader like Mandela saying, okay, we're going to have a Truth and Reconciliation Commission. There will not be a Truth Reconciliation Commission in Iran because it doesn't produce giants like Nelson Mandela. That's another bad outcome. The third is it's possible, just possible, that the Persian public, liberated from Islamic Republic, may try to create a government that is accountable to us economically and responsive to it politically. That's also a possibility.

One can hope. Ray, take. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Sa.