Hey, guys, Saga and Crystal here.
Independent media just played a truly massive role in this election, and we are so excited about what that means for the future of the show.
This is the only place where you can find honest perspectives from the left and the right that simply does not exist anywhere else.
So if that is something that's important to you, please go to Breakingpoints dot com. Become a member today and you'll get access to our full shows, unedited, ad free and all put together for you every morning in your inbox.
We need your help to build the future of independent news media and we hope to see you at Breakingpoints dot com. Let's turn now to the most critical thing. The Strait of Horror moves. The White House is all over the.
Place on the Straits of hornor moves.
They are claiming that, as part of the Seasfire, that the strait would be free and open, and yet immediately after the Seasfire was implemented, Iran announced yao ships you can pass maybe only twelve to fifteen a day with the permission of the IRGC in coordination with Iranian military forces. You have to avoid the minds. Only we know where they are, so you're going to have to go exactly where or we tell you to go.
Oh, and you're going to have to pay us.
Here's what the White House how they reacted to some of this news that clearly the strait was not open.
Let's take a listen.
Safe media is saying that Iran is now closed off the straight at four Moose today a response to really attacks on Lebanon. What's the White House response to that?
With respect to the first reporting out of Iranian state media, the President was made aware of those reports before I came to the podium.
That is completely unacceptable.
And again this is a case of what they're saying publicly is different privately. We have seen an uptick of traffic in the strait today, and I will reiterate the President's expectation and demand that the strait of her Moose is reopened immediately, quickly and safely.
That is his expectation.
It has been relayed to him privately that that is what's taking place in These reports publicly.
Are false, Yeah, these are false. Not so far.
Actually, let's go and put C two up there on the screen.
Don't believe us. Believe the oil industry.
The oil industry has gone and lit up the White House switchboard, saying, hey, you can't have this happen. You can't just allow them to charge tolls. One of them even said, but you said you won the war, and here we are having to pay the Iranian government and potentially in crypto and or in one to circumvent the petro dollar and any sort of US sanctions regime. They say, quote, we didn't have to do that before. I thought we won the war. Any place you have access to the administration,
you ask what are you guys thinking? The response administrations officials were giving is not a cold shoulder. It's more like, yeah, okay, we'll take note noted, Yeah, noted.
But getting left on thumbed up.
If you're the CEO of Exxon Mobile, it shows you who's got the power in this relationship, though, doesn't it?
Not to mention? I mean, get used to it. This is the new reality.
And as I was saying, Yannis Farah Fox, I think we know now how this will ultimately end. Now does it actually end now in some sort of agreement or does the US Is it too much for Jerome Trump to swallow right now? Does he need to go in and take more pain? Before ending up with effectively the same agreement that they would have to come to now,
which includes incredible concessions to Iran. You know, it's just a question of when, because the Iranians have de facto effectively already won wars really reveal what an actual what the actual power dynamics are, and Iran has proven that there is effectively no military operation that could take back control of the straight of hormones. There is going to be a new reality there period end of story that is going to be consequential, not only in terms of.
Iran becoming tremendously I mean quite.
Wealthy, the toll that they're going to be able to charge, and having incredible power. Now they have effectively the ability to sanction countries and wield levers that they did not have before. So you have the rise of Iran as this new fourth World. But you're gonna have other countries around the world who are like, hey, we've got a key waterway here as well, why can't we do what the Irradiance do.
Why can't we also charge it toll.
If they're going to do it, we're going to take advantage of that too. So this is a whole new world and the oil industry executives can bitche moon all they want, but at the end of the day, I'm sure the Trump administration would love to figure out how to.
Get the straight of hor.
Moves back to the status quol that existed before they themselves started this incredibly stupid war.
If they knew how to do that, they would have already done.
Air. All the Zionists in like twenty twenty three were like, there was a sea spire on October sixth, there's tea spiring. It's like, well, there's free and open straight on February twenty seven. There was a free and open to straight of horn moves on February twenty seven. Now there's not. Okay, Well, they're the ones who get to set those terms. Let's put C three up there on the screen. Iran now demands crypto fees for ships passing horror moves through c SPAR.
I'm going to read through this just to show you exactly how much control they have over the straits of Horror moves, so you can actually hear it out. Hamad Hosseini, he's a spokesperson for the Iranian Oil and Gas Exporters Union, told the Financial Times. Iran wanted to collect toll fees from any tank or passing and to assess each ship quote. Iran needs to monitor what goes in and out of the strait to ensure these two weeks aren't used for
transferring weapons. Everything can pass through, but the procedure will take time for each vessel, and Iran is not in a rush. So this is not just charging a fee. This is like being boarded by the coast guard some sort of customs union. And we're not talking about you know, we're not talking about in their destinarily, just in their
territorial waters. We're talking about in a previously free and open international shipping corridor where basically it's now like here in the Potomac River, where if you have a boat and this coast they're like, oh, where's your license?
Can we see the cargo list? What do you have on board?
Now?
Let me continue.
They also say that it is halting passage of the oil tankers in response into the Israeli strikes on Lebanon. But before that, any tank or passing must send exactly as I said, a cargo listening that it informs them of what is on board. Iran will then inform them of the toll to be paid. He said that the tariff is now one dollar per barrel of oil, adding that empty tankers may a lot be allowed to pass freely.
Once the email arrives and Iran completes his assessment, vessels will be given a few seconds to pay in bitcoin, ensuring that they can't be traced or confiscated. Due to sanctions, The tankers on the golf have received a radio broadcast saying they will be targeted with military strikes unless they first gain approval from Iranian authority. That is total and complete control of the strait for mouse. It literally rivals like you know, any other choke point in the globe,
like the Panama Canal or Egypt. As Yana said on our show, Panama only owns five or gets five billion from its transit through the Panama Canal. Egypt gets ten. Iran is on track if this were to hold, to get seventy to ninety billion dollars, it would make them one one of the wealthiest countries in the entire Middle East. So if they're able, let's say that even if we don't take sanctions, relieve off and yeah, you get bitcoin and wand I mean, this country will be filthy rich.
They may be richer than Riot, than Qatar, than the UAE, because they have an intellectual base, they have natural resources like oil, they have water, they don't have to rely on the sunding. They have an industrial base. Now, I mean this is a very very educated country. With the maybe the diaspora will go back. I mean, who knows, Like you can envision a scenario where you got direct flights.
Tehran to Beijing, new planes.
I mean, there's an entire new ecosystem which is going to be happening here. Maybe you know these shah Head drones that will become one of the biggest exporters. They will be the biggest exporter to any American adversary across the world. And we're gonna pay for it literally with the oil. Like this is a nightmare of a strategic defeat for the United States.
It's crazy.
And imagine over in Yemen, the houthies look at this and they're like, oh, bob el mandebs, which is at least as important as the straight up form. It is also very critical choke point. Yemen has been a very poor country. Imagine they're like, Okay, we'll set up a toll and they've got you know, Irani and support and access to those shaw head drones and what they need. It's not doesn't take a lot to demonstrate your ability
to control those choke points. And I mean that it's really really up ends the way the whole world has
operated and the way you have to think about geopolitics. So, like I said, I think whether or not this happens in the next couple weeks, or whether Trump is not ready to swallow this level of a clear defeat and decides to go back in and try some crazy thing and see if you can bomb their electrical grid or whatever into submission, it's ultimately going to fail, and we're going to end up in something like this new world. The crypto part is obviously also really significant.
What does that indicate?
They are bypassing the US led global financial structure again, that makes it so it is on their own terms underdog.
It doesn't mean that it's the.
Total end of the petro dollar, the end of the US you know as the global reserve currency, or any of that, but it certainly does undermine it. It certainly does start to push the world more aggressively in that direction. And you know that is a massive, massive, complete change as well.
Right, And I mean, let's think even bigger, shall we, Like, let's think just globally about the straits of horn Moves and what this level of destruction. You know, I'm really just thinking about what Yanna said, the law not the entire law the sea, because I don't think the US was even the signatory of it, even though we were like the guaranteur of the international Law of the Sea. It was based on the post World War two Blue Water Navy ethos of we control commerce on the high
seas anywhere and everywhere. This goes back to like the Barbary pirates that Thomas Jefferson dispatched the US Marines to say, no, we will not allow a pirate veto. It's like, well, now we just did. Now what do we do? Like what do you do in this? And because we didn't envision a place where the American public, I mean, if you were to pull and ask ultimately, did America have the capability of actually taking over the straight storm, Yeah, we do. It would take you know, hundreds of thousands
of troops, lives, endless amounts of money. It would take a literal almost a Pearl Harvard type event for somebody to really be able to support that, but we don't, and so in the interim you are actually left with trying to accomplish it from the air with these billions of dollars in weapons. The toll, the price that I have now seen was that the war cost hundreds of millions a day. The total cost was between thirty three and fifty three billion dollars just for the six or
seven weeks of the war. The backlog in weapons will take probably five to ten years to completely replace, even with the one point five trillion defense budget that was It is a strategic disaster and for this to be now that the result.
So what do we have left? We have left nukes.
Or ground troops. We don't want to use either of those things. So we have to live with this reality. And also just to show you their control, can we put C five up there on the screen. Yesterday oil had the biggest drop since COVID, so it dropped all the way down to like ninety dollars a barrel. Well as of this morning, actually they've increased significantly. It's now
some ninety eight dollars a barrel. Into terms of Brent crude, and from it's all time high, it's only down about seven percent, whereas it was actually down almost fifteen percent at one point. Same whenever it comes to the crude oil futures here in the United States, which means that those gas prices are really not coming all the way back down. Remember the national price of gas before the war was some two point eighty a gallon. That's phenomenal.
That's great actually for trying to check inflation. Now if we're living around ninety I mean, if everybody's watched that Landman quote, you're living in a world of about a dollar more than where you were before, and it's not going to go down anytime soon. So there's punishment for the US economy, for the US military and majorly empowered Iran who, yes, they lost their eyetola. Maybe it's the best thing that ever happened to them. He was a
doddering old man. Now they've got a much more hardcore, battle tested reality of the people who survived with much more cynical much where're willing to use hard power.
They could emerge from this stronger than ever.
In fact, if I think if all of this status quo stands twenty five years from now, I think they'll be filthy rich, and I think they'll be they'll either be a full blown nuclear power, or they'll have some sort of latent nuclear deterrent like they did before, maybe some North Korea style program which where they can switch on at any moment and sprint in six weeks if they need to. Twenty five years. That's what I would predict if the current status quo were Absolutely the logic
is clear. The logic is as clear as it could be, just so you guys see what the current reality is.
So since Israel has continue not just continued, but escalated them their bombardment and mass massacres in Lebanon, we can put see six up on the screen. So the number of ships in the straight offor moves has reduced directly. So this is some of the details about what they had indicated while these negotiations are going on. They told mediators they will be limiting the number of ships crossing
to around twelve per day and imposed tolls. But now yesterday that should have been the first day where the you know, the new law of the land. Okay, twelve per day and we're going to assess tolls where that happened. Only four ships passed through, but reportedly none of those ships actually had oil on them, they did not have cargo on them, and so effectively zero tankers actually went
through the street, and that was a dramatic reduction. There was the fewest ships passing through of any day in April so far.
So this is their threat. Now they have not done.
I do think they maybe shot some missiles towards Israel yesterday, but they have not re upped as much, you know, as much of the missile barrages and drone barrages as they'd been doing in the past. Instead, they're using their economic leverage, which is the thing that the US and Trump is most sensitive to. And we can see C seven as well. There was a tanker that was actually turned around that was headed toward the straight of horror
moves Panama flagged tanker Aurora. In any case, they are you know, they are clamping down completely now, which will hurt them because that means they're not getting revenue either.
But it is the reason why we're seeing oil prices go back up right now, both because of the realization there's going to be a new reality period, but also because of the realization that this thing is far from being completely settled and may be quite a while before you actually have any sort of traffic flowing through the Strait of Hormuz. So long as Israel continues to bomb and invade Lebanon.
Yeah, well, all right, skeets Israel, shall we yep?
So neat Yahoo making planes in a speech yesterday, that he does not want the war to end, that he does not think the war is ending, and that he remains ready to go back in and accomplish their quote unquote objectives. Let's go ahead and take a listen to that.
And Israel is stronger than ever. This is the bottom line of this campaign up until now. Let me say there are still additional objectives for us to achieve, and we will achieve them either by agreement or by resumption of the fighting. And we are ready to resume the fighting at any moment. Our finger is on the trigger. As you know. Two weeks ceasefire has been announced between the US and Iran. No, we were not surprised in the last moment, and I want to emphasize this is not the end of the war.
So he says there one thing that's interesting is he says, it's a ceasefire between the US and Iran does not include Israel and not at all. But we can put the next one up screen that just has the direct quote here he says the truth is quote not the end of the war, but a stop on the way to achieving all our goals. And of course Israel already doing what they can to destroy this quote unquote seas fire. They have long He of course, was very influential.
We know he was in the.
Situation room, apparently at the head of the table making the hard sell for this war, which Donald Trump chose to go along with, and has also reportedly been one of the most hawkish people in the administration in terms of wanting to pursue this absolute insanity. And that is
not going to change. Israel is going to continue trying to destroy the ceasefire, trying to blow up any potential negotiations that could end the war, and even if there is some sort of agreement which is reached in the short term, they will never stop trying to undermine US
it and try to go back to war. Because as much as this is a strategic defeat for US, I mean, it's a disaster for the Israelis, especially in their way of thinking, because they have no interest in coexistence and trying to live peaceably with their neighbors.
Well, look, don't take our word for it, take the Israeli's word for it. Listen to the Israeli opposition. Put D three up there on the screen, shall we nef? Tally Bennett, the former Prime Minister, slams the government for leaving Israel exposed to avengeful Iran after truce. I mean,
he's not wrong. Is kind of right, isn't he? The former Prime minister joins the chorus of opposition criticizing the government over the ceasefire, arguing in a live TV announcement that Netanyahu had failed to achieve the war's goals and this will leave Israel facing a vengeful Iran, which will be even more determined to go nuclear.
True.
The reason why so many people feel disappointed tonight is that the leadership sold us illusions. All their empty promises have exploded in our face. Unfortunately, each of us sees with our own eyes that Hamas is getting stronger, Hezbola and Iran are standing on their own t feet. This is happening because a government that dismantles Israel from within, cannot defeat the enemy from without. And then you have Yayer Lapede, the main opposition leader. Let's put his statement
up there on the screen, translated from Hebrew. There has never been such a political disaster in all our history. Israel was not even at the table when decisions were made concerning the core of our national security. The military carried out everything that was asked of it, the public demonstrated amazing resilience. But Netanyahu failed politically, failed strategically, and didn't meet a single one of the goals that he
himself set. It will take years to repair the political strategic damage that NATANYAHUO wrought due to arrogance, negligence, and lack of strategic planning.
More details here today.
Important to keep in mind that all of these people supported this absolutely insane and stupid war, which was the original sin of you know how they end up in this situation. But yeah, think of it from their perspective. They were hoping to collapse the Iranian state into a failed state, some sort of civil war, you know, dramatically degrade their capabilities, maybe install some sort of a you know, US Israeli puppet leader but more likely just completely destroy this thing.
They you know, less arm the curds.
Let's get some sort of civil war going now, and so that they could be the undisputed hedgemon in the region. And nat Nyala at the beginning of this war was talking about them being a global superpower. That was their ambitions at the beginning of it. Now the Iranians are going to have much more power. They have demonstrated their military effectiveness. They have proven they can strike inside of
Israel and cause significant damage. They approve in the holes and the you know, also the dwindling supplies in terms of the Israeli air defense. And now they're going to be wealthy with this toll that they're charging. You know, we'll be able to charge it this straight on the straight Offoe Mews. And again I'm not saying this is all coming to pass right now, because it is entirely possible we go back to some sort of a war and then it's a while before this all shakes out,
but that is where things are heading. And not to mention, and this was mentioned by enough Tolly Bennett, Iran is far more likely to pursue a nuclear weapon now. They are far more hard line, more hardliners in control. They are far more likely to pursue a nuclear weapon. In fact, if they didn't, I would be it would be foolish of them, frankly. And their ballistic missile capacity has been degraded somewhat, but they have and they'll be wealthy.
They can buy.
However, many ballistic missiles manufacture. However, many ballistic missiles, their shaw headrones are incredibly inexpensive. They will be able to rebuild and in a relatively short.
Period of time.
So you have done nothing but strengthen them and absolutely weaken your own position in the region. And you've antagonized, once again, antagonized everybody in the whole region and the entire world. And your political horizon in the US is really dim. You know, if you look at young people under fifty Republican Democrats, forget about it, I mean, they're the sentiment is overwhelmingly against Israel. If you look at the entire population, Israel has something like sixty percent disapproval
at this point. This is a sea change in American politics, and so you will no longer be able to assume that whether you get a Republican or a Democrat in the White House. You're going to have their full throated backing, and that is what has allowed Israel to behave in this absolutely brutish, barbaric rogue way.
Yeah, and let's put D five up there on the screen.
You guys are going to love this, so APAC and its statement on the Sea spire. It says a historic Israeli campaign. We must end Iran's nuclear program, we must address what remains of Iran's missile and drone program, cut off support for militias, and all of this must be voted on by Congress. Love it now, How incredible is it that Lindsay Graham and APAX support a war illegally launched unilaterally by the president. But if you try to make peace, well that hold on, We've got to ratify
that by congres. You can wage war as long as you want, but peace itself that must be approved by Congress must have review, and we itselves will have the up or down vote as to whether that happens. I mean, it's a literal backwards of the US Constitution, right, It's not a treaty, as we all learn with the Iran nuclear deal and all that.
Trump himself, how many executive deals does he sign, Okay, that's fine with me. Peace cool.
You can do that unilaterally, but war no. I mean, the Founders were very explicit whenever it came to the power of being able to launch war. So that is America under Israeli or a pac and Lindsey Graham's control, the President may launch a war. The peace must be approved by the Congress.
Otherwise you were required, you are obligated, you're forced by the Congress to continue the war indefinitely until we decide that you know that we've had enough.
It really is absolutely incredible.
We can just go through a little bit just for our perusal year of there's a Zionist Twitter meltdown happening right now. We can go through a few of these. Griffin pulled a lot. You really went wild on the elements for this section. But let's go and put a few these up for d six. You see, the time has come. Instead of Israel and the US eliminating the regime, the regime is bombing Israel.
Dear Trump, what did you do all this for? Eve Barlow? The CeaseFire's disappointing.
The end of the day, the people of the West have prioritized their own needs over the liberation of the people of iron.
I think of how twisted that is she is completing.
She is saying that we need to keep bombing Iran, that that's really the good thing for the people of Iran. I have a feeling that people in Iran feel a little different about that. This guy says, don't know how I feel about this. Another one says, this makes me sick. Let's do one more page of these Twitter reactions. Doctor Eli David says, wtf Trump just shared Arachi's post that
he accepted the regime's ten point proposal. As a reminder, here is the ten point proposal, which of course has you know, the new reality and straight up for moves, complete easing of sanctions, et cetera.
And one more here.
This, of course will be seen as weakness by the entire Middle East. CeaseFire's very bad idea. I don't like it at all. Iran has not conceded anything. Oh there you go a little bit of how it's being received
on Zionist Twitter. And let's go ahead and take a listen to Mark Levin, who, unfortunately, you know, maybe people don't really listen to him that much in terms of the public but he is very influential, apparently in terms of the White House and certainly in terms of sharing the views of the most influential Zionists in the country. So let's take a listen to his reaction.
We're not doing regime change. Everybody says, no regime change, okay, Then the regime survives in one form or another. The fundamental survive. And so the question is, how do we keep this enemy, this poison, this cant, these Islamist radicals, seventh century barbarians. How do we keep them in a box? And that's what we have to figure out if we're not going to completely take them out because of the huge isolationist strain the Democrat Party among the woke right.
But again Maga, the Republicans are behind the president. But if we can't do it because of the political wins, if we can't do it because of other reasons, then how are we going to keep them in a box? He can't be just peace in our time. We have a ten point deal and they've agreed to this. This I just think it's going to be very very complicated, very very difficult. And I would say this to the
President of the United States. I personally know that you will do the right thing, that you're going to try and make sure that it works for now and forever. And so I have complete faith in this man because he's brought us to this point where he's blown out their nuclear systems, where he's taking out or trying to take out all the enrichment, where he is not taking them at their word, where he has used our military in one of the most brilliant, spectacular military campaigns in
American history. I'm glad he's there as president of the United States. There's some very complicated and difficult issues on the table, and I think if anyone can handle it, he can handle it. But this enemy, make no mistake, they are the enemy. They're not going to go away if there's not regime change, and we're going to have to figure out, and it's not going to be easy how to keep our foot on their throat.
So you see the game he's playing here, very unhappy with the deal, still pushing for regime change, but of course has to frame it in like, of course I trust Trump, and of course he's brilliant and magnificent, and the military operation has been the best in history, et cetera.
Yeah, also By the way, I literally just saw this come across the Israelly military just issued evacuation warnings for Beairroot southern suburbs and so still happening. Interesting, isn't it? Even though what did JD say? They're going to check itself? He said that he did, they're going to check those, So apparently that's what it looks like whenever Eternal Operation.
Sure we can rely on them for that, right.
Yeah, Operation Eternal Darkness will check itself. Got a great guest standing buying.
Let's get to.
It for more on the warner, We're joined this morning by Bayrus Gamari. He's a fellow at the Center for Place Culture in Politics at the Cuning Graduate Center and also author of the new book The Long War on Iran, New Events, Old Questions.
Welcome, Great to see you.
Thank you so much for having me.
Good.
Yeah, of course, so a lot of questions for you, but let's just start with you know, how do you view this war in terms of the sort of long history of the you know, the country of Iran, but also specifically with this particular Iranian government. Do you think that it has helped strengthen their position in the state.
First, let me thank you for having me here. And this current war is part of a very long project. And as the title of my book suggests, this is.
A long war on Iran.
And we can basically go back to the time of the Iranian Revolution of the nineteen seventy nine that for the better for wars, the revolution changed the mahap of the Middle East because before the revolution, Iran's state under the Shah was one of the most important allies of the United States in the region, and some people refer to his reign as the policeman of the Middle East on behalf of the interests of the United States and
by extension, the interest of Israel. So you can imagine how significant the revolution was in terms of the interests of the US and the allies of Israel in the region. And so this is a war pretty much designed as a project since the time of revolution.
In Iran, and in one way or another.
First the eight year war with Iraq and crippling sanctions that many people argue that sanctions actually are more brutal
than any actual war. Recently, there was an estimate that in the past thirty years, around thirty million people have died as a result of sanctions around the world, not only in Iran, but of course Iran is under one of the most severe sanctions, the crippling sanctions that created a situation between the two countries that, as I very reluctantly predicted in my book, that eventually is going to be resolved by an actual war that just started a month ago.
So that where we find our situation, right.
So, what I'm very interested to hear from you, and you know, to the extent that you're able to, is what life is like in Iran. We hear so many caricatures from the United States. It's a theocracy, they beat people, they throw gay people off a building. But then I also see videos of people in a coffee shop that looks like it could be out of Brooklyn or New York City. Obviously maybe both of those things can coexist. We did see we put e one up here, which is this is some video of people in Iran who
were celebrating the ceasefire. Clearly the regime has some level of control even in some of the more secular or maybe even secular is the wrong word. Can you describe to us what life is like in Iran and especially how the regime, how people feel about the regime now in the aftermath of this war.
Yeah, let me start from the last part of your question that when a war starts, I think one of the most significant events that happens is the collapse of the distinction between the state and the nation. Yes, and this is what we witnessed today for the most part in Iran. All these people who are celebrating on the streets today are not necessarily supporters of this state, but they are part of a nation that finds itself on
their brutal attack by Israel and the United States. But also, I think one of the reasons that this war became palatable to many people was that there is this kind of erasure of civil society in Iran, which has been quite vibrant in the past at least thirty years.
And one of the.
Reasons that people say that, Okay, the only solution now is an external intervention in Iranian affairs, because whatever we did, we could not change society, which is absolutely not true. A lot of things had changed in Iranian society in the past thirty five years, especially at the end of Iran Iraq War in nineteen eighty eight, and there is a vibrant civil society, a very vibrant publishing business. I mean, in Tehran alone, twenty eight daily newspapers come out, and
many of them quite critical of the government. And there has always been a very strong women's movement in Iran, student movement, labor associations. And if you want to compare the Iranian society in twenty twenty, twenty one, twenty two to Iranian society of nineteen ninety, you see a huge
and significant difference between these two societies. And so one of the reasons that we don't hear about this, we will always hear that Iran is a totalitarian state and people cannot breathe, people are afraid of voicing their dissent, which is absolutely not true. I'm not saying that, you know, it's not a rosy picture of Iran, but it's a picture that highlights all these efforts and struggles that people have been doing. And sometimes they gain some grounds, sometimes
they lose some grounds. People are arrested, people are executed, people are exiled, But nevertheless, it doesn't mean that we are facing a very stagnant.
And static society.
And I think that's quite an important thing that it's usually erased from the mass media in the West, in Europe and in the US, and in my own scholarship, I always try to highlight that. But whenever you highlight that, then it sounds like you're defending.
Yeah, like a college I just mentioned execution, right, yeah, I mean what about how does the protest movement fit into that? I'm sure that's going to be the most people will say, how can that be true if we just had this major protest?
No, I mean the protests always happened in Iran, you know, it's not a new thing. And every two or three years since the end of Iran Iraq War, we have a major protest movement in Iran. Sometimes the government is flexible in to accommodate some of those demands. Sometimes if they feel an existential threat, they respond with brutality and
violence and killing. And this most recent protests in December and January, for example, it was I mean, it started as a protest of economic grievances, and you know, tens of thousands of people demonstrated and the government actually was very open in opening a channel with a conversation with protesters, and the president himself met with many of them, and so long as these protests have demands that are realizable under the existing order, the government shows flexibility and.
Tries to accommodate.
But once this protests become a protest for regime change, of course, that suddenly turns into a national security issue you and the government reacts very violently, and of course, in the recent protests in January, now there are a lot of reports that coming out that these protests that were expressed through economic grievances and turned into a regime change demand, was also instrumentalized and exploited by the Israelis, by the CIA right and by you know, versident Trump
admitted that we sent a protesters.
Well, and how much does that because so Trump said at least that, you know, we sent arms to the Kurds, and the Curds were supposed to give them to the protesters, so I think they kept them to for themselves. Who knows what of that is true, but we have a lot of indications that there was certainly US and Israeli involvement and that the protest turned quite violent and were met with a violent assault. We don't know the number they throw numbers thirty thousand, forty, but that's.
That's whether that project.
You know, if the numbers are three thousand, just add and right, and then you know it justifies external intervention.
I mean, how much does that meddling from the US and Israel, which is sort of omnipresident, how much does that undermine the reform movement within Iran?
Oh? I mean, it undermines it greatly. I mean, and that's one of the issues that has always been part of the Iranian politics and its relations with American policies. That and if you remember, for example, after ninety eleven, in two thousand and one, when President Hotami was in office in Iran and Iranians actually the government decided to change gears and become part of this war on terror as the George W.
Bush called it.
And you know American delegations in bond conference in Germany after the collapse of the Taliban, they're very open about it that without Iranian help they could not topple the Taliban in Afghanistan. But then you know, right after that we have the access of evil speech at the State of Union two thousand and two. Right, But there you have a reform movement in Iran that is trying to change the context of its relation with the US, and it's met with an access of evil speech in the Congress. Yes,
so that undermined. I think that's the point in two thousand and two that the US definitely undermined any possibility of reform in Iran, because if you say that, okay, we are accommodating, we are bending backward to define a new kind of relationship with you, and you're met with this kind of very hostile rhetoric. And indeed, some of the neocons in the White House and the Congress wrote a memo to George w And saying that you know, Iran supposed to be the target of war on terror.
Ion cannot be a part of war on terror. So you have to change year, and you know Iran should be the target of this new policy, not a collaborated in the realized I want.
To ask you about the new system in Iran. So my analysis that I gleamed from Treaty Parsi and others was that while the Ayatola, the old Ayatola, was cast in the US as this evil madman, is that he really was kind of a doddering, older gentleman who's actually incredibly risk averse, who didn't either want to go all in or also didn't want you both didn't want to go to war, but also didn't want to appear weak, and probably you know, put them on the path to
where things are today by not making a real decision. Now, his son is the new Itol. We have E two. We can put it up there on the screen. And some of the reporting from the White House right now is that he actually reached the truce with Trump and instructed the Foreign Minister, the President, and the Speaker to pursue some sort of deal with Donald Trump. What do we know about the new iotol I've tried to read it.
There's not a whole lot about him, and generally the new you know, the system that will be in power after this war, if it is indeed a real ceasefire.
Yeah, I mean, we really don't know much about him.
And there I read all these reports about him that the assumption is that it's more hawkash. She's close to the IRGC, the Revolutionary regards, and but you know, there are many people who were very close to the Revolutionary regards, and it turned out that they were actually very liberal minded and reform oriented. And the very fact that he was close to the Revolutionary Guards. I don't think says that he's more hawkish or more militant, and so we
really don't know much. He's not written much. He doesn't have a high kind of religious credibility. He's not an iotola, and so it's a sort of a wild guess that what he would do after this and people around him. Now that that most of the old gods of the Revolutionary Guards are assassinated, the new younger generation, I mean the old Guard, they were all veterans of the Iran Iraq War, and they learned about strategy of war in the fields, and they're very sort of well trained in
the field kind of revolutionary commanders. But the new generation has a different kind of experience. They are mostly veterans of war in Syria and in Iraq of post two thousand and three, and they have a different kind of understanding of warfighting and and so.
They're used to more asymmetric warfare.
The definitely, yes, that's exactly the point that the Old Guard was a symmetrical, i mean very command conventional kind.
Of warfare, which was Iran Iraq War was the longest conventional warfare of twentieth century for eight years, with half a million people killed.
But these are a.
New generation of people who are basically coming out of that kind of asymmetrical warfare and very well versed, so to speak of designing and strategizing in that kind of war, and also very different kind of political framing of war. And so how they would behave how do they rethink their position that that they are now in the position of decision making in the revolutionary course is yet.
To be seen.
And I don't think we should run to sort of a judgment that they're more militant or more.
Radical regardless of sort of who is in charge and who has the most way. Though, hasn't the argument of the hardline position been strengthened by what we've seen here? You know, for the reformers, they did the deal with Obama. Obviously Trump rips it up back sound of that deal. Biden, even though he's a Democrat, doesn't choose to get back in. Trump uses the pretext of diplomacy as ruse to start
a new war. And now what it looks like is that Iran has been able to achieve much more in terms of their own security and their own wealth through this war through violent means and taking a harder stance than they were through the reformist posture. Do you think that logic will be a senate within the country.
Yes, yes, absolutely, And I mean again that started from access of evil speech because the Supreme Leader, they all Supreme Leader older comedy always said that you know, we should not trust Americans, and whenever you try to do reform, they would stab you in the back. And everybody said that, you know, he's paranoid, is crazy, and this and that.
But after twenty years of being stabbed in the back by the US, his wars had gained a lot of credibility, and with the negotiating in the middle of negotiation two of the war in June, in the middle of negotiation, this current attack, which according to the omanis to British, they were very very close to an agreement in Geneva, and in forty eight hours, instead of the instead of
finalizing the agreement, the Supreme Leader is assassinated. So I think in general people are becoming more and more skeptical of the honesty and sincerity of the US in these negotiations and the US policy sees towards Iran. And I see that now in the past few weeks also that
more and more people are joining forces. Two people who were in the public squares in the middle of the night on bridges and so on and so forth, to sort of say that that they see now that kind of mistrust of American policy and which led to undermining any kind of reform minded political trend in Iran and give more legitimacy and credibility to more militant and radical
politics that comes out from the US. And you know, I always told him, I've had many conversations with the people in the policy circles that the US policies towards Iran, when the stated objective is to help democratizing Iran, actually constantly helps radicalizing the Islamic state Islamic Republic, I shouldn't
say Islamic States Islamic republic. And this is such a fascinating thing that although all the people who come up with these policies in the US government see the results of their policies, but nevertheless they continue to perpetuate those policies and which really produces results exactly opposite of their stated objectives. Unless they said the objectives is to radicalize, that's a different kind of worms there.
Yeah, this might be provocative question how radical is Iran? So we're told that they're theocratic, that they want to kill us al kaieda Islamic state that basically analogized them. At the same time you have an Iatola, who was a Chia cleric who extremely cautious, you know, in my estimation, with bomb their nuclear side the only token attack back. Even here, the religious cleric, who supposedly radical, instructs his foreign minister to.
Pursue a cease fire deal. It seems highly rational.
I mean, I'm curious, like, are they radical and radical in what sense whenever we use that word.
I think it is true that they see themselves as an anti imperialist force, but that's nationalistic. But that's that's totally nationalistic. I mean, Henry Pratt, who was the director of Iran desk at the State Department in nineteen eighties, always used to say, and he wrote this piece in the Foreign Affairs that Iran is mostly concerned with security and independence domestically rather than dominion abroad. And the dominion
abroad is a posture. It's a defensive posture for them, and because they know that the US and the US allies and Israel are determined to overthrow of this regime. And and it's true. I mean, it's not paranoia, it's not it's not really true. You know, there's this little book about the Supreme Leader that came out a few years back and said that Iranian Supreme Leader was so paranoid because he thought that the US wants to overthrow him. But you know, reality, you don't call that political realism,
you know. And but they also, as you said, they also always followed a very pragmatic uh policies because their number one concern is to maintain their sovereignty and their national interests. And if you look at their policies in the region. For example, in the dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia that Azerbaijohn is a Muslim country, Armenia Christian country, Iran always took the side of Armenia.
And you think about that.
I mean, that's even in disputes between Pakistan and India, for the most part, Iran always took.
The side of India because oil.
You know, it's it's true, a very rational, pragmatic understanding
of foreign affairs. And they are not driven by that kind of radical ideology because Whenever people say that, you know, they're motivated by ideology, it means that they're irrational and they turn, like the entire Islamic Republic into like a suicide bomber, you know, like that they don't care about their own well being because they're motivated and moved by their ideology, and they disregard any kind of tangible gains for their own country, for their own people, and so
on and so forth. So in that sense, I think they're very pragmatic, and they shown I mean, it's not a kind of a statement or analytical statement, but this is a sort of a historical fact that in the past thirty years they always followed a very pragmatic policy in the region. And all these things about Iran's allies, you know, in Heswala or in Iraq or in the Yemen, these are always understood in Iranian contexts from their standpoint
as defensive postures. And I remember when Hillary Clinton was the Secretary of State and they were talking about overthrowing Bashara Assad in Syria, and she made this comment in Istanbul, she was in Islam. She said that we're going to clip the wings of the Islamic Republic, you know, so for them when they hear this, they completely understand. And
today it has become quite clear. When they were saying that, you know, we are fighting in the Studi, Damascus and southern Lebanon and and in Palestine, we are doing that, so we won't be ending up fighting in the streets of Tehran. Now that statement has gained a lot of credibility because with the weakening of those allies in other parts of the region, now they're fighting in Tehran.
I'm not saying that that.
You know, it was a really good news for the people in Syria that Iran is there, or maybe it was for some, it wasn't for some others. But that was their rationale. It wasn't coming out of a blind ideological commitment. It was coming out of a very calculated, rational, pragmatic politics that they were fighting in Syria or in Lebanon.
Yeah.
Meanwhile, we've got a Secretary of War who's got a Crusader's cross tattooed on. I'm constantly talking about how God is protecting our bombing campaign.
So I'm not sure we're in a position.
To the lecture on theocracy at this particular one time, Bears Gomorrow, thank you so much, great time, Thank you.
So much for having me.
Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate it. We've got John meyer Scheimer on the Friday Show tomorrow. Don't want to miss that. See you then,