Is the world about to see the US intervene in another country, this time Iran. US President Donald Trump is threatening to take action against the regime, declaring help is on the way and by.
The way, to all Iranian patriots, keep protesting, take over your institutions if possible, and save the name of the killers and the abusers that are abusing. You're being very badly abused.
Since the end of December, Iran's been rocked by the largest protests in decades. The government has responded with brutal force, shutting down the internet, killing hundreds of people and detaining thousands more. I'm Nicole Johnston and you're listening to seven AM today Treta Parsi, an Iranian expert from the Quincy Institute in the US, on a regime fighting for survival while the world watches to see will this lead to war.
It's Thursday, January fifteenth. Trader Aaron's been in a communications blackout, but enough's leaking out to show what's happening is huge. Can you take us through the situation on the ground.
Yes. So, for about three days, the government completely blacked out all Internet communications, even very difficult to even get in touch with folks by phone. They even jammed the starlink and did so, I think, far more successfully than anyone had expected. So for the first twenty four to thirty six hours, whatever came out actually came out by people who left the country and took the video with
them on their phones. The image that has emerged, of course now is that the government used extreme brutal force against protesters. According to the estimate of the US government, it was about one thousand, six hundred deaths. I think there are human rights organizations that have put it closer to two thousands. These are huge numbers. It shows that the regime has really probably used the most amount of violence than we've seen since nineteen eighty eight towards the
end of the Iraq War. There's also another element of this that is also quite unprecedented, which is that there is at least an element of the protesters that also have been using a degree of violence that we have not seen in previous protests. When you take a look at this over the course of the last twenty five years, you see a steady radicalization of the protest movement, which frankly is mainly driven by the repression of the government itself.
What is it that's triggered this latest round of protest and how did we really end up here?
Well, the in media trigger was the collapse of the currency, which caused shopkeepers and were immediately affected by that to start protesting, But it very quickly morphed into much broader protests. It is not just about the economy, but about the lack of freedom, the lack of political freedoms and the Islamic Republic as a whole, with clear calls for the downfall of the current regime. It went very fast from economic protests to that.
Now.
Iran's been run by theocratic clerics since the country had an Islamic revolution and overthrew the shower back in nineteen seventy nine. We have seen these types of big protests before, maybe not on this scale, though. Could you tell us about the previous ones and why this one feels so different.
Well, the biggest process we've seen in the country was in two thousand and nine, where the government cheated in the elections and ensured that then President Admadinejad essentially one a second term, even though everything indicates that he actually had not won. You had at one point two million people out on the streets in Tehran calling for the
votes to be counted. You had major protests in twenty seventeen over economic issues, and then, of course the twenty twenty two protests over the death of Massa Amini, a young woman who died in police custody or was killed in police custody over what they accused of or failure or wearing proper hirdjob.
Tens of thousands flocked to Massa Ameni's grave just outside her hometown of Sekis. This is the year of blood, chanted the mourners, the supreme leader will be overthrown.
Even though they failed to overthrow the government, they absolutely succeeded in achieving a cultural revolution in which today the government no longer is enforcing the hedejob laws in the manner that it was doing before. But this feels different for several different reasons. One is, of course, massive speed in which it grew. They're also very different for another reasons. If you take a look at footage from all of
the previous protests, they were protests during daytime. These protests, except for the first couple of days, were all taking place at ninth It makes it much more difficult to assess exactly what's going on, and then of course you have now slogods that are being heard that were never heard before. Maybe not representative of all protesters at all in any way, Shop performed, but nevertheless in a noticeable way in favor of the sun of the former Shaw.
That is also something we haven't seen before. Whether that is a deeper change or whether that is one of the most aggressive ways of insulting the theocracy, It's unclear at this point, because the son of the Shaw has tried to play a leadership role. He did call for people to go out. As I said, this is a war, and war has casualties. In fact, in order to preserve and protect.
And minimize the death roll, minimize innocent victims yet again be killed by this regime, action is needed.
How is the regime justifying its brutal response.
It is justifying it by saying that there are foreign elements that are fueling this, that these are not the legitimate concerns of people. There's is vandalism, there is violence.
We have recorded voices of individuals giving orders from abroad two terrorist agents instructing them to fight at police forces and to fire at demonstrators if police forces were not present. Their intention was to spread killing.
And you know, it is pretty standard for the Rarnan government to say that the protests are driven by elements on the outside. But for the first time, you actually now have Israeli officials and Israeli TV saying that Israel is involved in these protests. You have the former head of the CIA saying that Israel is involved in these protests.
The real wild card in all of this now is what will Trump do? What's he been saying, and how prepared is the US to attack Iran.
Well, Trump has been saying quite a lot, but one of the more important things that he said is that suddenly, even though he had earlier on said that he might attack Iran again over its nuclear program and over its missile program, now suddenly he said that he's going to attack Iran. If Therny has killed protesters, then of course the Varani has killed the tremendous amount of protesters.
I think it's already it looks like it.
There seemed to be some people killed that aren't supposed to be killed. These are violent, if you call them leaders, I don't know if their leaders are just they rule through violence. But we're looking at it very seriously. The military is looking at it.
There's been no military action, but there's been preparation, and the United States is probably in a position, if not now, within twenty four or forty eight hours, to take on strikes.
You ask him to say, what will they do, Where will we attack where? And at what angle will we attack from.
If Trump thinks that he can do another Venezuela and try to do some sort of decapitation of the regime, I think the system here on is very different from that of Venezuela, much more difficult for the United States to do, nor will it necessarily lead to the type of transition towards the government that the people want. So it's much riskier, and Trump in the past has been attracted to bold action that at the end of the day, carries very low risk. So it remains unclear whether he
is bluffing or whether there's a sincerity behind it. From his own basis, is not a popular move. They aren't understandaby he's involved in more foreign military entanglements since he made it clear that he's running into end wars.
During the four years of the Trump administration, we had no terror, We had no wars against other countries, expensive, never ending, stupid wars like we had under other presidents. I won't say which one.
That he's going to try to win the Nobel Peace Prize, and that he's going to not be the type of a president that gets the US dragged into new wars, particularly not in the Middle East.
Coming up?
Could US intervention lead to civil war and an even greater catastrophe for the Middle East? Traitor if the United States did intervene, What sort of options would Trump have? How could that happen?
Well? I think some of the things they probably are looking at is to see if they can do what the Israelis failed to do in June, which was to decapitate the regime by taking out as many of its key leaders as possible. These Raelis were successful in killing about thirty top Ivanian generals and commanders, but that neverthe only paralyzed the army and the state apparatus for about
a couple of hours. The United States obviously has far greater capabilities than Israel does, but the United States does not have the element of surprise which the Israelis had back in the summer. There could also be exactly what Trump probably was planning or being advised to do earlier on but is go after some nuclear sites and go after missile sites and then say that this is being done to protect the protesters, even though it doesn't have
any direct bearing on that. And the degree to which the unasitates would have to take them all out quickly before the Yvanias started using them to strike at the US or at US basis is another element and again a much riskier proposition than what he has been pursuing elsewhere.
More broadly traded, since the war in Gaza, we know Iran's been losing its regional influence. Could you take us through some of those big moments that have really shaken the region to its core over the last couple of years, and it hasn't left it fund mentally weakened to try and send off any attack by the US.
So it has suffered some tremendous blows to its regional position. A key one, of course, is the Pager attacks against the Hesbola leadership that really weaken Hesbola, which was in many ways Iran's first line of defense against Israel.
The leader of Lebanon's Hesbola group, Hassan Nostrada has just delivered his first televised speech since the device attacks that killed at least thirty two people across the country. Nostrada also admitted this week's attacks were an unprecedented blow to the resistance movement, but said Hezbolah will not fall.
The fall of the Asset regime also a very very significant blow to Iran's forward defense that they had put together. It doesn't necessarily change the picture tremendously for its potential to be able to fight back or defend itself against the US. And those are two very very significant losses that I think account for more of the loss that Ivan has suffered. But then there's a new picture in
the region right now. Countries such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Iraq, Pakistan are now very concerned that the United States will attack Iran. They do not believe that it will lead to some sort of a smooth transition to a new stable government, but rather that it will lead to a regional war, perhaps the civil war in Iran, major refugee flows, major instability.
How could Iran decide to fight back if there was a war, where would it want to target?
Well, I think the Iranians probably understand they're not going to win a war against the United States. The United States is overwhelm mainly powerful. But there's a different way that the Ivanians may think that they can win, which is that they don't have to defeat the United States militarily, and they can't. They just need to make sure that
they destroy Trump's presidency before they lose the war. If this war between the United States and Iran would go on for several weeks, perhaps two three months, there would be large number of casualties on the US side as well, because the Iranians will be targeting American bases in the region or other types of assets that the US has. This would be devastating for the Trump presidency, who has promised that he would get the US out of all of these wars, would no longer go back into war
in the Middle East in particular. And now suddenly, three weeks after talking about the Western Hemisphere, the US is back bogged down in the war in the Middle East.
And finally, Trader, does Irun look anything like a regime on the brink of collapse or do you think it can continue to hold on?
So in many ways, the regime is actually on the brink of collapse. I think they definitely did see themselves being in an existential situation. I think they right now probably think of themselves that are in a safer situation, that they have turned some sort of a corner because they clamp down on the protest. But at the same time, every time they use this amount of force, and this time more than m before, they continue to erod their
ownly vicimancy. So yes, I think in many ways it is on the brink, but it's also been on the brink for some time without necessarily collapsing.
Treeta, thank you so much for joining us.
Appreciate it, thank you for having me.
Also in the news, the federal government says it will look at stronger legal protections for religious groups, people with disability and too LGBTQ plus Australians after new hate speech laws pass Parliament. The laws were written in the wake of the Bondai beat shootings and will be debated next week. The bill is expected to provide protections against anti Semitism and speech threatening other racial groups, but its scope has
prompted calls for broader protections. Prime Minister Anthony Alberesi has indicated he expects further legislation will be introduced and Palestinian Australian writer run to Abdulphutter is threatening defamation action against South Australian Premier Peter Malinowskis in a statement posted to Instagram. She claims Malinowskis commented publicly about her character, implying she's a terrorist sympathizer, and says her lawyers have now written
to the Premier. The Premier's comment came amid a mass boycott of the Adelaide Writer's Week after Abdulphutter was removed from the program. This led to the entire event being canceled. Thanks for listening, PATCHA Tomorrow