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Right now, Iranians have no Internet. They are living under an almost complete blackout because their government has cut them off once again. Now, we do not know exactly what is happening on the streets of Tehran. We do not know how many protesters have been arrested. We don't know the real death toll. But what we do know is that Iran's youth is not backing down. I mean, this is not their first fight. And now Trump is deciding how and if America is going to get involved. Now, before we get into anything in the story and what is happening in Iran, I just want to take a second to say just how lucky we are. Like, I hope everyone appreciates we live in a country that, at least at this point, does not cut off Internet access, that still has freedom of speech, that I'm allowed to sit here behind a microphone and criticize our government if I want to, that we can vote actually for our elected officials, because millions around the world do not have that privilege. Because right now, as we are sitting in the comfort of our own homes, as I am sitting behind this microphone with my telephone streaming to you guys, Iranians are fighting for basic human rights under a real. A genuine fascist, religious extremist government. Not the kind the left complains about, but a real fascist regime. And they are taking to the streets to fight for a better future. And allegedly, based on the few videos that we have been able to see that have made their way out of Iran, again, they are living under a blackout. These are what the streets have looked like for days now. Iranians have been in and out of blackouts for weeks now, and information is limited. But human rights organizations have reported the death toll to now be in the tens of thousands. But that number has spiked just in the last 48 hours. Because I started looking into this and prepping this episode earlier this week on Monday, when reports were saying that only a few hundred had been killed. And then when I sat down to record this episode, it looks like now it is estimated to be at 12,000. Now, first of all, I wanna give my usual disclaimer per usual, that I am not claiming to be any kind of expert on Iranian geopolitics, but I did learn a lot about the history as I was researching this episode. It was things that I did not know that maybe you also didn't know. So I just wanted to share that before we get into what is happening today, because I think it is really important context. So let's just take it back to 1951, when Mohammad Mossadegh was elected as prime minister in Iran. Now, an important fact and something that we are seeing everywhere, all the time in geopolitics is that everything basically comes to oil. And Mohammed nationalized Iran's oil industry, which was previously controlled by the British. Effectively, they were telling the west to go F themselves. We don't want foreign interference in our government. We are going to be autonomous. Go F yourself. And this is where it really gets interesting because in 1951 there was a coup against Muhammad executed by the CIA and MI6 in the UK. It was called Operation Ajax. And Muhammad was overthrown as Prime Minister. And they reinstalled the Shah who is the head of state, the King who was Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. And hopefully I am pronouncing all of these names correctly now. It was not until the early 2000s the people actually learned of the United States involvement. This was not known back in the 50s. One article reads that the New York Times published a special report based on a leaked CIA internal history that the extent of American culpability was finally revealed. In response, the then Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright could do little to deny the charges, admitting that the coup was clearly a setback for Iran's political development. And we're gonna remember that for later in this episode when we're talking about new American involvement. President Obama agreed. And in 2013, the CIA admitted culpability, explaining explicitly referencing Operation Ajax, the code for the American operation in Iran, in an internal history released by the agency in 2017, the publication Over 1,000 files concerning American activity in Iran were released through the Foreign Relations of the United States series, confirming beyond all doubt long running suspicions as to foreign involvement. From the documents now available, it is clear that the CIA and their Iranian assets collaborated closely with the Shah and Iran's most reactionary forces to force Mosaddegh from. I mean, the whole thing is just crazy. What is important to note is that after that in Iran, there was a deeply anti Western sentiment among many Iranians. Although it was only rumored at the time that the US was involved. Iranians were again, they were in the 50s, fed up with foreign influence, especially Western influence in their country. Now here is where it gets really complicated because if you have been on social media recently, like myself, I'm sure that you have seen all of these old photos and videos from the 1960s and 70s in Iran. You know, women in skirts with their hair showing, attending universities, young couples out at parties on the beach. And people are posting this saying, you know, look what Iran used to look like. This is what they're fighting for. This is what Iran could look like again. For example, Tommy Robinson posted this video and said, this is how Iran was and this is how Iran will be once again. Make Iran great again. Another woman said, this was my mom and her mates in Iran before the Islamists, with the help of the communists and the diabolically dim witted Jimmy Carter, took over the country again, saying, make Iran great again. Now, all of that is true. Those are real photos, those are real videos. Those were real experiences that people did have in Iran. But the Shah, again, after the CIA involvement, when they overthrew the government, he was not popular among all Iranians in large part because of his secret police force called the savak. Hopefully, I'm saying that correctly, that brutally suppressed dissent in Iran. There was also massive wealth inequality, which led to great unrest with the students of Iran and the working and middle classes. They also believed once again that their cultural identity as Iranians was being erased as the country became more and more Western and embedded with foreign influence. And so my point in bringing all of that up is that when you are scrolling on X and TikTok this week and you were seeing those photos, remember that, yes, that was real, but that freedom and that happiness did not exist for all Iranians. And the Shah, while he might be, you know, better than what they have now, was still called a dictator. He was authoritarian. And all of this brings us to the 1979 revolution, because this revolution was not anti freedom. They were not, you know, looking at themselves in their bathing suits and their hair showing and going, man, we all want to wear hijabs. We don't want to be like this. No. They were anti dictatorship and they were anti, possibly most importantly, anti foreign control. They wanted democracy in Iran. They wanted freedom and they wanted their cultural identity respected. But after the revolution, they did not get democracy. They got yet another kind of dictatorship. The Shah was overthrown. But Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, hopefully I'm pronouncing his name correctly, established a theocratic state with himself as the first supreme leader. So they essentially just, you know, did a swap. They replaced one dictator with another. And this created what we now know as the Islamic Republic of Iran. Sharia law was imposed, women's rights were stripped almost immediately, and their country continued to deteriorate economically. The Ayatollah established Islamic law as the basis for all legislation. They put religious leaders at the top of the political food chain. But again, this is not what the people of Iran wanted when they started the revolution. They wanted a democracy and very quickly, in 1979, they realized that that is not what they had gotten. One article reads, On March 8, 1979, tens of thousands of Iranian women took to the streets demanding the right to choose what to wear on the first international Women's Day of the post revolutionary Iran. Post revolutionary, the rally that was supposed to be a celebration of women became the start of a six day battle against the newly imposed Islamic dress code. On them, it was perhaps the earliest sign that the revolution they had fought for had been hijacked only weeks before. Many of these same women, students, doctors, lawyers, nurses, teachers and activists had marched against the dictatorial rule of the Shah, fighting for freedom, democracy and equality, unaware that they would become the first victims of Iran's Islamization by the Ayatollah. These peaceful protests, these demonstrations, the one that started on International Women's Day, they were once again met with government brutality like they had experienced under the Shah, they were experiencing once again. So then fast forward 20 years, then in 1999, students then led the charge with another set of protests. And an article from that year reads, iran on the Brink. As students protest three days of clashes between reformers and Hezbollah hardliners erupt after a newspaper ban. But still nothing changed. The next big protests would once again come from young women in 2022. So another 20 years after that. And these protests were spurred after a young woman, 22 year old Masha Amini, was arrested for, quote, unquote, improper hijab. But only a few days later, under their arrest, she died. And the Iranian authorities said that she died coincidentally of a heart attack. But her family believes this to be untrue. Most of Iran believes this to be untrue. Her father said, quote, what makes me sad that is that the authorities are spreading lies about my daughter every day. They said Masa had a heart disease and epilepsy. But as the father who raised her for 22 years, I say loudly that Masa did not have any illness. She was in perfect health. The person who hit my daughter should be put on trial in a public court, not a fake trial that results in reprimands and expulsions. Her family members also told news outlets that they were denied access to her autopsy report, pressured to quickly bury her and told not to speak publicly about the case. But they decided not to do that and the story could not be suppressed. And protests erupted after her death, which then turn led to 500 other deaths and over 20. Now what made these protests very different and arguably a lot more powerful than the ones that took place in 1999 and 1979 was the Internet because not only were the people in Iran able to see how people lived in other countries, but they were able to show us the realities of their country. They were filming everything. It was all over social media. Within hours videos were flooding out of Iran just like this. Women in Iran set their headscarves on fire in fury. They are tired of the morality police beating them up and the Islamic Republic leaders who police their every move. Their protest is sparked by the death of this woman. And this is what the government of Iran that is run by old 80 year old men does not understand. The Internet is forever. You cannot erase videos seen by millions of people around the world. 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But not Gen Z. This is a different story. Gen Z, and they're the ones leading this fight. So all of that context, all that history that brings us to the protests that we are seeing right now. And they started back in December, this report reads. The protests that erupted in late December 2025 began with strikes by bizarre merchants and shopkeepers in Tehran, triggered by a deepening economic crisis marked by hyperinflation, rising food prices and the rapid devaluation of the Iranian rial. Within days, demonstrations that began over economic grievances evolved into broader political demands, including calls for an end to the Islamic Republic. Many young Iranians say that their generation differs from those not only in age, but in outlook. Tarlin told Iran Wire that unlike her parents, she and her peers grew up with the Internet and constant access to information. There was no Internet in my parents youth. They were cut off from the world, she said. But from the beginning we understood that this is not a normal life. Through social media, young Iranians follow events and protests in other countries. They see peers elsewhere challenging their governments and believe that they too can demand change. So while these older generations have lived through this time and time again, whether it was in, you know, the 50s, the 70s, 1999, they might be tired of fighting. They might feel hopeless. But Gen Z, these young Iranians, they even, they feel like they have nothing to lose and they are not ready to give up because again, they grew up online. They can see Turkey, a Muslim majority country with no mandatory hijabs. They can see Indonesia, which has the largest Muslim population in the world with a democratic government. They see, you know, South Korea and Singapore, which in the 70s had a very similar economic level as Iran, but obviously developed very differently. And they're seeing all of this online and they're asking, why can't we have what they have? Why can't we rise up and overthrow our government and finally get what we want? And so over the last couple of weeks, these demonstrations have just gotten bigger and bigger. And the Ayatollah responded by cutting off the Internet, as he does, while he and his government attacked and killed protesters, just hoping that the rest of the world wouldn't see. Even when Elon Musk brought in Starlink to try to give Internet to the people of Iran, the government was actively trying to jam the satellites to keep the entire country dark. All the while, the Ayatollah was on X tweeting, blaming Trump for the deaths of thousands of Iranians. Like, you cannot make this up. Like, I'm sorry, bud, but I think we are beyond damage control at this point. The world knows what you and your government are capable of. We know what you do. Now, speaking of that and all of us being very aware, the other thing that I want to point out is that even with all of these videos coming out, the articles, the reports, there is one sect of our country here in America that is totally silent. The side of the country that conveniently is constantly yelling about fascism and religious extremism and women's rights and gay rights, and yet consistently turns a blind eye when real dictators are murdering people on the streets, when real fascists and religious extremists are beheading women because they dare to show their hair, who throw gay people off of buildings. The golden globes just happened 48 hours ago. Not a word was said about Iran. They were completely silent. Jack Mack, my good friend from barstool, he summed this up well. Listen to what he said.