Geordana. I was starting to ask you, thank you for sticking with us here for a minute. How would you describe to the average person walking around the United States right now? What is the very latest and what are we witnessing in Iran.
Well, we are witnessing a major wave of protests sweeping across Iran. They began in Tehran two weeks ago because the currency nosedived there. But they're coming on the backdrop of many, many complaints by Iranians.
Right.
First of all, there's water shortages, there's rolling blackouts again, the economy is terrible, and Iran finds itself in a weakened position geopolitically as well. After the war with Iran, the war with Israel, right the twelve day war that really took out, we could say Delta a serious blow
to Iran's nuclear program, its ballistic missile program. It also saw its proxies, the terror groups, if you will, that instead of pouring millions of dollars into their people and their country, the Iranian regime pours it into Hamas and has Blah, both of those taking a huge hit. So the people on the streets of Iran are coming with grievances for many years, but in the last two years it kind of has reached a tipping point and we are seeing tens of thousands of Iranians again across the country.
But to get some perspective, we can look back at nineteen seventy nine and we can say that we're not in a moment yet where it looks like the regime is about to crumble. Right back in seventy nine, it took a year of protests not to bring on the shaw and in those months, right in the end, millions of Iranians were in the street. Right now, we're not
seeing those numbers. Unfortunately. What we are seeing is the regime cracking down brutally as it has in it over the last decade, killing, wantonly shooting and killing protesters in the street. As you said, the number is now over two thousand by a US group tracking them here in Israel. The intelligence services here say the number is higher, somewhere between four and five thousand, not twenty five hundred. And the big question is what President Trump is going to do.
He's offered to provide help, He's encouraged protesters to keep going on the streets, even to quote unquote takeover institutions, which seems to hint at regime change. But what is the president going to do? It is a fateful moment. There has never been a moment like this. We American president is willing to intervene and has threatened to intervene even militarily, to stop the protests, to stop the regime's brutality and support these protesters who want a democratic, secular
government right. They don't want a government run by the Ayatola.
You know, is go ahead? Please go ahead, Jordana.
I was going to say that, you know, but the president is facing It's a really complicated picture, and I think, you know, God bless President Trump and his advisors. They have a really difficult decision to make. Are they going to do something to try to actually topple the regime, which runs the risk of a regional war, or are they going to do something a little scaled back and hit symbolic sites, but that would keep the regime in power.
Would that be selling short the protesters for America? Perhaps President Trump is still interested in getting that nuclear deal and you know, and neutering Iran's nuclear ambitions, and that would be a plus, even if the regime doesn't change, you know, and what's the calculation. Will the Iranian strike US basis? Will they hit Israel? It's a lot and I know obviously the Israelis are watching closely.
Well, you know, I'm curious, Jordana, and I'm trying to dumb this down a little bit, and thank you for doing so. For a lot of us who are here, we follow what's going on in Iran. We knew about the nuclear sites that President Trump blew up not too long ago. But you know, depending on who you believe, you know, a sociologist Charles Kurzman says he thinks that there were two to three thousand killed during the Revolution of nineteen seventy nine. Historian Stephen Tucker has said roughly
that's about right. A lot of people think there was a lot of propaganda with a current Islamic government saying as many as sixty thousand were killed. But the bottom line is is let's say you split, you know, say it's seven or eight thousand, like you said, The bottom line is is we are seeing mass killings. Are these just from what you're able to gather from people on the ground. Are these people that are protesting that are
getting killed? Are they people who are violently protesting are they people who are just anti regime and they're pulling them off the streets and executing them. And now they're talking about public hangings there.
That's right. Iran is set to hang a twenty six year old that they detained on Thursday night. They put him in a kangaroo court, convicted him of offenses against God. It sounds almost comical if it weren't so tragically true. And he did not have any lawyer, he could not appeal his decision, and he is set to be hung today publicly in Iran for protesting against the regime. The people that are being killed are coming from all kinds
of different socioeconomic classes in Iran. It's students, it's the middle class, it's the older Iranians that have lost faith in the leadership of the Ayatola. It's intellectuals, it's artists who are often involved in this, and you know, and it's women. It's women who are among the most oppressed in Iran.
Right.
There are all kinds of Sharia laws against you know, what they can Iranian laws against what they can wear and not wear, and covering their hair, not covering their hair, h So this is uh, you know, these are this is a you know, we should really give credit to the Iranians who are going into the streets and risking their lives, hoping, praying that their demonstrations can really bring a change to this regime. And I think it's only possible, really, uh,
if there is some kind of help from the outside. Uh. And over time, the regime is not according to the Israelis, the regime is not in a moment today where it can be bombed out of existence, right. It needs to be weakened over time until it falls over, much like you know, much like the Syrian victator, right who unfortunately
in that case it took years. But I think Iran is a different case, and getting rid of the Iranian regime would change the entire region in the Middle East for the better, right, I mean the entire world, right right, Right, So this is you know, this is a regime that you know, it's not it's not yet on its last legs. But this is another important moment that could be wisely used to continue to weaken the regime. And I think the president has obviously a lot of options on the table,
right he can he can impose more economic sanctions. He can think about targeted assassinations that would weaken the regime. He can think about cyber attacks, right right, he can, and he can think about limited military strike or if if you know, if the assessment is that, you know, the regime would really fall in a couple of weeks, then you know, if that's the assessment, which it's not, that's not the assessment here in Israel, maybe he would
carry out you know, much wider scale attacks. You know, there's still you know, iron still poses a threat to the United States according to Europe and to the region.
Yep, yep, Jordana. I can't thank you enough for your time and your expertise, and godspeed over there in Jerusalem. We certainly appreciate you taking the time to join us here today in Cincinnati.
Okay, we'll talk Sin