← The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim
The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim
What's it actually like in Iran right now?
00:32:24
In this episode, Richard and Yalda lift the curtain on what life is actually like in Iran, as Richard details how he managed to get into Tehran this week - and what he's found out about a country still reeling from the ramifications of the war against...
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- [00:11]
Yalda
Hello, it's me, Yalda, and I'm currently in London.
- [00:14]
Richard Engel
And me, Richard Engel, and I'm not in London.
- [00:17]
Yalda
Yeah, and we're going to get into where you are in a moment, Richard, but welcome to the world.
- [00:27]
Unnamed Speaker
Do you see a regime change in here? Look at the people. Do you see fear in their eyes? This is Ashura Tasua. This is Muharram.
- [00:39]
I think it's close. I just spoke with some of the.
- [00:42]
Richard Engel
People involved and we think within the next week, we're going to get a ceasefire.
- [01:01]
Unnamed Speaker
Everyone dies. The best way of death that the religious can wish for, everyone dies. So it's the best way is martyrdom. And everyone just dreams of becoming martyrs.
- [01:24]
Yalda
So, Richard, we've had to delay our podcast record by a couple of days because, of course, you're in transit. Just tell us where you are.
- [01:33]
Richard Engel
So I am in Tehran at the moment, and I wasn't trying to be deliberately coy last time or to delay people, but getting into Iran is far from certain these days. It is a long journey. I didn't want to say, and I'll be joining you next week from Iran, because I really didn't know until the last minute how I was going to get in. If I was going to get in, would the visas come through? Would they be canceled? So in the last minute, I got the Iranian visa and I got on a flight to Mashhad, which is the second largest city in Iran, right along the borders of Turkmenistan and Afghanistan, and then drive overland across the desert. It's about 12 hours, a little bit more, and you count for stops to get into Tehran. So now I'm here. I've been in Tehran for a couple of days, gathering, seeing what this place looks like, talking to officials, met the deputy foreign minister earlier today, was out on the streets talking to people and getting a sense of what happened to this country during the war with Israel and where it's going.
- [02:38]
Unnamed Speaker
How we feel is that a country attacked us out of nowhere. And in the middle of their attack, they ask help from America, a country which is being supplied by all Western nations, European countries, and they ask help and they ask for ceasefire. You tell me who is winner, who is loser? And by the way, look at the people. Do you see fear in their eyes? This is Ashura Tasua, this is Muharram. And we have war warnings because our enemy, like a raging animal, they attacked us out of nowhere. And we know at any time it's going to be a terrorist attack by Israeli regime. But do you see fear in People's face, look at them.
- [03:17]
It's the other side. The other side is always trying to continue its wars and I don't think it's over yet. But we are, we are also. We see it, we see the war to still be. It's heated.
- [03:34]
Richard Engel
Did you support the negotiations to calm things down, the negotiations that were happening before the war?
- [03:43]
Unnamed Speaker
I was never hopeful of these talks because we know the history of the United States and their negotiations with Iran. They reneged on their deals and the history of the revolution. But officials in Iran were hopeful. They went forward to issue an agreement. But I think my guess was right.
- [04:06]
Yalda
I mean, as you say, it's difficult to get into Iran at the best of times, let alone when they've just gone through this massive 12 day war. Now they're effectively in a state of ceasefire, but a lot of uncertainty. So just talk us through the last time we spoke about Iran. You were in Iran at the time. The idea of a war was not in minds really. You were talking to us about how close they were to a potential deal. You're back in Iran. Talk me through what it's like right now.
- [04:39]
Richard Engel
So officials and people on the street were optimistic about a deal. And we reflected that on this podcast. I was talking to the top level people who were saying, we're gonna sign a deal, we wanna do a deal where we're 99% there. They were ready to put the pen to paper. And then they were attacked in this surprise attack. And suddenly they were at war. A country that really didn't want a war. The currency was starting to go up in the bazaar which is famous for its carpets and spices and all of these things. People were telling me, you know, it's just a matter of time before the tourists start flooding in and we can engage in E commerce and we can sell our goods around the world, not just to tourists who come here, but you can't really export anything. You can't really bring currency into the country. There was a mood of optimism and then suddenly the war began. And now a lot of people here feel cheated. They feel they were tricked. They feel they were lured into a trap. And they not really blaming the government in this case because, and we've talked about this a lot of times how there's, you know, not everyone loves the Islamic revolutionary government. It's been tough on women, it's been brutal and human rights abuses and a litany of complaints. But in this case, people thought, well, the government tried. They were trying to negotiate, they were giving it their best Foot forward. They wanted to compromise. The Supreme Leader had said, we're willing to compromise, and had thrown his weight behind it. And they had it thrown back in their faces. And Tehran was attacked. This city hadn't been attacked since the Iran Iraq war in the 1980s. And Tehran is a big city. It looks a bit more like Cairo or any of the sort of mega cities in the Middle east and near east. Millions and millions of people. And they were attacked from above and that frightened people. And according to the Iranian median or official Iranian death counts, they lost about 1,000 people. And they felt blindsided, they felt cheated, and they were angry. And at least right now, a lot of those differences that were among Iranians have been pushed aside. And I haven't seen people as united, united behind their government. They did not want to see sort of a chaotic civil war begin. This fear and this feeling that they were sucker punched while in the midst of negotiations has had the opposite effect, at least in the short term. I was just walking around Iran. The cops are out, the traffic police are out. There are checkpoints in Tehran. There are checkpoints coming into the city. The officials are going to their office. Banks are open, restaurants are open. Any. Anyone who dreamed that there was going to be some quick regime change and there would be a popular uprising in the street, that was a fantasy. It didn't happen. In fact, it seems that people are more united behind the government right now than they were even a few weeks ago because they were attacked, they were frightened, and they felt, well, it wasn't Iran's fault. They had no one to blame but the United States and Israel.
- [07:57]
Yalda
You know, Richard, I left Israel a few days ago and, you know, it's kind of. It's almost like I can't believe. And I'm sure you feel the same way. What exactly was that sort of 12 days? And has now the situation pushed the Iranians in a more sort of isolated situation when it comes to revealing their nuclear sites. For example, the Iranian President, Massoud Pez Keshian has now enacted into law something that was passed in Parliament last week, where they basically are saying, we are no longer going to cooperate with the iae. We are no longer going to just allow them to float around the nuclear sites and give them the kind of access that we did before, because there is a feeling that, you know, they were working and meeting their obligations, even though the IAEA said they weren't. The consensus was that the Supreme Leader had put a fatwa in place in 2003, saying that they were not going to build a nuclear bomb. And even when you speak to the Israeli intelligence community, they will say, and they said to me, you know, off the record, they actually believe that that fatwa is still in place. It may die with the Supreme Leader. He's 86 years old. But for now, for as long as this supreme Leader is in place, the idea of building a bomb is not necessarily something that they are planning on doing. And when I said to them, why did they reach the high level of uranium enrichment? Then they say, because it's to tell the world and show the world we can. If we want, we can, and that to send a clear signal to the United States and the Israelis. So we are now in a situation where perhaps this idea that, you know, they didn't want to build a bomb before because of this fatwa, maybe now it will compel them to move in this direction, because frankly, they've seen what's happened. Every single red line that existed has now gone.
- [09:59]
Richard Engel
Well, it's certainly a possibility. The Iranian officials say that is not their strategy, that they are still committed to not building a nuclear weapon, that they're not going to race toward a bomb. The deputy foreign minister told me that they are still open to negotiations. He said the window is not entirely closed.
- [10:20]
Unnamed Speaker
It is not closed in the sense that we would stop all sorts of cooperation with the agency. Our ambassador in Vienna is in contact with the Director General of the IAEA, explaining our position to that effect.
- [10:38]
Richard Engel
There were negotiations going on between Iran and the United States before this latest war. Do you see any way that those negotiations can resume again? Put this war behind us in a way and start a negotiated process?
- [10:59]
Unnamed Speaker
You cannot put this act of aggression behind you easily. Our people have suffered a lot as a result of a naked act of aggression by Israel and the United States. How can we forget this? How can we put this back? People have been killed, people have been maimed as a result of this aggression. So this is a biggest blow to diplomacy. This is the biggest blow to the trust needed for a genuine negotiations. How can the Americans explain this? We want them to explain as to why they misled us, why they took such a egregious action against our people.
- [11:51]
Richard Engel
So where do we go from here? Do you expect more rounds of violence, more attacks from Israel and potentially the U.S. no.
- [12:02]
Unnamed Speaker
As far as military action is concerned, we have to. We have to be prepared for different eventuality, and that is what we are doing. We are taking every measures to protect our people, our nation. We do not want to be tricked again. That is why, while we have said that we are for diplomacy while we are for dialogue, but the biggest question for us is to have an answer to this question from the US they need to convince us that they are not going to use military force while we are negotiating.
- [12:46]
Richard Engel
Yes. Parliament passed this law, passed it in anger. It's hard to overstress how cheated people feel in this country. They went for negotiations, they put their faith in this system, and then they were cheated. It's like breaking one of those old and ancient rules of diplomacy. You don't kill ambassadors and you don't bomb people when you're in the midst of negotiating. You don't lure them in and trick them. And they feel that that fundamental principle of war and peace, of negotiations was violated. It's been violated in the past. Some people here are calling it the Red Wedding. I'm not a Game of Thrones fan, but apparently there is some scene, we'll have to look it up, where one of the characters invites everyone in to a wedding and then kills them all. And they feel that they fell for that kind of trap and they don't want to do it again. There was an editorial I read the other day, and I have seldom taken as much issue to this one editorial. It was in a US Newspaper and it said that the old Pottery Barn rules no longer apply. Now, this one, I will need a little explanation because Pottery Barn is a store in the US and it sells pottery, right? Crockery and dishes and things like that. And they have a well known policy that if you're in the store and you break something, you have to buy it. You break it, you own it. Even if your child knocked it over you, you have to buy it. Fair enough. And the expression became famous when Colin Powell said it about the Iraq war, cautioning against the Iraq war, saying, don't go into Iraq because if you break it, you're going to own it. And this editorial said, well, what the US had just done, it was celebrating what President Trump had just done, said they don't apply anymore. We can just break things and we don't have to own it. And that is so wrong. You do things, there is always going to be a consequence. And what the US did in this case was break a fundamental rule of, let's call it a norm of diplomacy. If you're negotiating with someone, you can't just sucker punch them, whether you like them or not, there will be consequences down the road whether it leads this country to break out to develop a nuclear weapon against something they say they're not going to do, or it has an unforeseen consequence that we don't know. But this kind of preemptive war for no reason. I mean, all the analysis, including officials you're talking to, say that this was a preemptive war, that Iran wasn't on the cusp of getting a weapon, that it was done because Israel saw the moment and the United States saw a moment to do it because Iran was weak. So I'm convinced there will be some sort of consequence from this, because every action leads to a reaction.
- [15:32]
Yalda
Absolutely. And we've spoken at length about the fact that, you know, you've got two leaders who are, you know, one's in their 70s, one's in his 80s, and they believe that this was some kind of messianic mission, that it was God told them to go down this path of whether it's Netanyahu thinking that this is his moment to take on the existential threat, or whether it's the Supreme Leader believing that he needs to protect the Islamic Republic of Iran from this threat, from Big Satan and the Little Satan, which is a chant that they've used since the beginning of the 1979 revolution. But what I do think, fundamentally has happened in both Israel and Iran is we talked about this idea of patriotism, you know, and the idea that people are rallying behind whether or not, you know, they are happy with Benjamin Netanyahu or the Iranian regime and the Supreme Leader, people in Iran. I suspect from my conversations with Iranian people is that they did not want Israel to come and bomb their cities and drive citizens out and see tens of thousands of people on the road trying to flee and kill Pilates, teachers, artists, scientists, hit the outside of a prison. And of course, that's a notorious prison. But exactly what was the motivation around all of the things that happened over the course of the last 12 days or so? So I think what we're seeing now is Iran coming to terms with the events of the last week and a half, two weeks. Israel is doing the same thing. The question now is, will this ceasefire hold or have the sort of red lines that we've talked about being crossed now so that we will see Israel freely fly over the skies of Iran, launch strikes whenever it wants to, and then how will Iran react to.
- [17:20]
Richard Engel
There is a full expectation here that Israel is going to attack again? That is the belief among government officials. That is the belief among people. And even if people want regime change here, they don't trust Israel to do it or to do it for them. Or the United States to do it for them. And they look at several examples. Iraq. Saddam Hussein was in power in Iraq, a hideous odious leader. The US with a sort of coalition of the weak and cajoled, joined that war, toppled Saddam Hussein and pushed them into a decade long civil war that was absolute misery. Gaza. Gaza has been totally destroyed. Hamas was in charge. Most Gazans didn't like Hamas. They voted them in once and then Hamas never left power. But look at what the war of regime change brought to Gaza brought. Absolute misery and still no government there. The regime change war in Lebanon brought nothing but destruction and civil war. The regime change war in Syria pushed out Bashar Al Assad and brought in a former Al Qaeda Islamist who we don't know what kind of leader he's going to be. So Iranians say, yes, okay, but we want change, but we don't want that. We don't want regime destruction and civil war like Israel and the United States have brought to other countries around us. Thanks, but no thanks. Don't do this. And there is a feeling that this is not over, that there might be more strikes. And you talked about it earlier, the IAEA inspectors not being allowed in or maybe being allowed in or this missing uranium. We talked about that in an earlier episode. I really worry about these loose threads that could be picked up on to restart the war. Ah, there's the missing uranium. We better go attack that. The IAEA is not working. We better go attack again. If you want to find a pretext for something to attack the Israelis and the Americans will attack Iran. That's certainly the way it looks and feels from where I'm sitting tonight.
- [19:34]
Yalda
And you know, when I've spoken to the Israelis, I think that one thing that isn't lost on them is they do take Iran seriously as an enemy. They know that it is a country of 90 million that survived under these crippling sanctions. Sure, you know, there are a lot of issues domestically and internationally with Iran, but they've been able to survive and thrive and cope with being a pariah state. So they do take Iran incredibly seriously. Even though we've seen, you know, frankly, one has to question the level of competence when top commanders get taken out in a number of strikes, when top scientists get taken out. But I guess the question is, can you bomb your way through every scientist, every regime official?
- [20:20]
Richard Engel
You cannot bomb someone into being more moderate. It doesn't work.
- [20:24]
Yalda
Yes, that is the point here, that Iranians, when you talk to them, will say, if we want regime change, we'll do it from within. We don't want this imposed or brought on us by Israel. So there are a lot of moving parts here, I think. And one of the things, Richard, you know, that I think is really important is to go back to the timeline of when this all began. And of course, for Israel, they say for them, you know, while Benjamin Netanyahu has waited decades for this, it was post October 7, you know, when they saw a series of things that took place in the Middle east after the biggest attack on Israel and its history took place. They saw this as a moment to decapitate Iran's proxies, Hamas, Hezbollah, take on the Houthis and then Iran itself. And so I do believe that we have now entered a sort of uncharted territory in terms of could this escalate again? And does Donald Trump have the ability, he escalated the situation by launching those strikes on the nuclear facilities in Iran to de escalate the situation? But is that where the benchmark is now? And is that what's going to continue to every time they find what Iran is doing, a threat, or are they actually going to go to the negotiating table and be able to strike some kind of deal? And does Iran have the leverage? You know, a lot of people are talking about the fact that they have moved things to secret enrichment sites and moved a lot of the material before the nuclear sites were hit. So do they have things up their sleeve that they can use as leverage? And of course, you know, when we talk about that timeline, this is all then linked to another conflict that continues, another sort of war for Israel. And a lot of people will say, well, this has now become a war on the people of Gaza when we see the devastation. And I think we can go to a break now, Richard. When we come back, we should talk about the situation in Gaza.
- [22:22]
Richard Engel
And I want to talk more about timelines, because they have a very different way of seeing time here. And it seems like every time the US Goes to war, they pick the country in the Middle east that they understand least to attack.
- [23:04]
Yalda
Well, welcome back. We were just talking about the situation in Iran, Richard. Of course, you're in Iran at the moment, you're in Tehran after this long and arduous journey to get into the country. And we know that the airspace over much of the country remains closed, they say, for security reasons, although the East, I understand, is still open. But let's talk about Gaza, because of course, we are hearing again, you know, this momentum building up off the back of the Iran ceasefire. I've spoken to you Know the Qataris, I'm speaking to the Israelis, I'm speaking to the Americans. And they're all feeling that there is this momentum now building around being able to come to some kind of agreement, a ceasefire deal in Gaza possible.
- [23:47]
Richard Engel
It is possible, maybe. And let's go down the path of why it could work. Benjamin Netanyahu can no longer have the reasoning or the excuse or the public justification that everyone in the world is out to get Israel at the moment, and Israel needs to take this aggressive posture that it took post October 7, roughly two years ago, because people could say, listen, all your enemies have been weakened or destroyed. Why are you still doing this offensive in Gaza? You've effectively destroyed Hamas. Gaza is in ruins. Hezbollah, which was a threat to you, is in ruins. Iran's nuclear program has been set back by a lot. So what's the issue? Now is the time for a ceasefire. So I could see easily a lot of pressure being put on Netanyahu to accept some sort of ceasefire. But ceasefires never last very long here. Ceasefires. There's supposed to be a ceasefire in Lebanon. There's still fighting going on in Lebanon, and Israel picks and chooses the target it wants to. And I'm quite convinced that even if there is some ceasefire in Gaza or a ceasefire here, if the Israeli military sees a target, sees a person that it wants, or sees a piece of equipment that it wants to take out, they will take the shot. And I spoke to Israeli official who told me the same thing, that they want to maintain the ability to continue to fire at will across the region. So is there going to be some big, beautiful bill? Yeah, I'm sure they'll be there. Maybe they'll be there. Trump will sign a piece of paper and Netanyahu will sign a piece of paper, and they'll have some sort of big cocktail party. But will it be a real ceasefire or will it just be something that they sign and then Israel takes shots as is needed? Again, we talked about this last time. Is it regime change or regime destruction that we're seeing across the Middle East? Yeah.
- [25:43]
Yalda
And I think, you know, specifically on Gaza, we've seen now for the last 21 months multiple ceasefire deals, multiple blockades on aid in Gaza. So we had, you know, I remember being on the ground in November 2023, when Hamas released some of the hostages, the women and children that they kept. And that ceasefire deal fell apart quite quickly. And then, of course, just as Donald Trump was coming back into the White House, one of the things that he announced, he sent Steve Witkoff and I was in doh time. And they said, look, this is going to be a very complicated and complex ceasefire deal, but there are going to be phases and we're going to get the first part of it, you know, done. And then once that's done, we'll see whether we can get into phase two and three. Well, it never got there. The whole thing collapsed.
- [26:35]
Richard Engel
I've never seen a ceasefire last very long in the Middle East.
- [26:38]
Yalda
At least there was respite in that moment for the people of Gaza. There was some aid going in. And then of course, the aid stopped. We saw an end, an almost 80 day blockade in Gaza where international aid agencies were screaming and shouting and saying, you know, we have famine again in the Strip. And they were sort of the measures that they use. Then, of course, they brought in this Gaza Humanitarian foundation, which everyone is saying is basically, you know, a death trap. Every single day we hear about dozens and dozens of people getting killed as they try and get aid. So we are now in a situation where Benjamin Netanyahu, who will be meeting with Donald Trump early next week in the White House, and Donald Trump is desperate to strike whatever ceasefire deal he can. He did it the other day with the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda. You know, he saw that he could pull something off with the Iranians and Israel last week. He takes credit for the ceasefire deal that he came up with between India and Pakistan. So he's again putting pressure to try and wrap up the situation in Gaza. But like you, I'm not quite sure this ceasefire deal is going to hold for now. It's being described as a 60 day ceasefire deal where the hostages that are kept there, as well as the bodies of the dead hostages get sent back. Now, for Hamas, they've always said it has to be an end to the conflict, not just a ceasefire, but an actual end to the conflict. The Americans and the Israelis are saying, well, first hand over the hostages, let's get to this ceasefire deal of 60 days, then we'll talk about the potential day after. So there is so much mistrust and distrust on all sides, it's difficult to see how this particular situation is going to get resolved. And I Remember straight after October 7th, speaking to an Israeli official and I said, when do you think it was? Very early days. And I said to him, you know, several thousand people have been killed. When do you think this is going to come to an end? He said to me, 10 years. And we are now two years into this conflict. And actually, I'm starting to believe that perhaps, you know, he fully understands the mindset of Benjamin Netanyahu. He was quite high up in the intelligence community and he knows that, you know, this is just going to continue whether or not global leaders come in and start talking about, you know, ceasefire deals or two state solution or bringing everyone around a negotiating table. We are two years in, and it doesn't feel like there is an end in sight.
- [29:14]
Richard Engel
Ten years, I think, is conservative. This region, most of it anyway, was built badly after World War I from the debris of the Ottoman Empire. It has been in a constant state of war since the end of the First World War. And I'll tell you on another episode about this conversation I had with then President Bush in the Oval Office, he invited me in to talk about the Middle east. And. And I told him, I said, you know, this is an opportunity to restructure it, restructure it and build it better, instead of just having, you know, constant wars, constant over and over and over again. He wasn't interested in the idea. But I'll tell you more about that on another thing. But before we wrap up today, you talked about timeline. And if Israel has a timeline that is, you know, it's going to take us 10 years to redefine the Middle east so that Israel feels secure and that there's not another October 7th here in Iran right now and across the Shia world, it is Muharram, which is a holy month. And I was at one of the Muharram. It's not really a celebration, it's a festivity. It's a religious event where people come out and cry and mourn and they wear black and they're remembering the Shia martyr Hussein, who is one of the founders of Shia Islam. And everyone that I spoke to, and really everyone in this country was drawing a comparison to the seventh century, to Hussein, who was with a small band of fighters who faced a much larger enemy and was killed on the battlefield. But the people never forgot. And they say, well, that is what is happening to us now. We are a weaker enemy, we're surrounded by larger adversaries. But. But we're going to go down fighting, and that death with dignity is better than humiliation, and we will live to fight another day. We've been here for thousands of years. We will continue to go. So the timeline here is broader than just the first 60 days or the next 10 years. People are seeing this in Persian terms, in deeply Middle Eastern terms, where this is a difficult phase, but from a nation and a people who've faced difficult times before. And have been betrayed before.
- [31:32]
Yalda
Richard, really fascinating hearing all of that from you, especially about Haram and the rituals and the comparisons that are being made. Stay safe, and I look forward to hearing more about your reporting and travels in Iran at this extraordinary juncture in Iranian history as well.
- [31:51]
Richard Engel
Can't wait to get into it with you. And until next time. And thanks for everyone for listening. Thank you for all of your questions. We didn't get to any of them today, but please do send them in. We read them and we're going to get to them next time, I promise, because they're fascinating.
- [32:04]
Yalda
And of course you can follow us wherever you get your podcast, Apple or Spotify. And as Richard said, send us your thoughts at the usual place. Theworldsky.uk Richard, so good to see you.
- [32:15]
Richard Engel
Great to be here.
- [32:17]
Unnamed Speaker
SA.