A Special Briefing on Looming War With Iran

Welcome to today's podcast sponsored by Hillsdale College, All Things Hillsdale at Hillsdale dot ed or I encourage you to take advantage of the many free online courses there, and of course I'll listen to the Hillsdale Dialogue all of them at Q for Hillsdale dot com or just Google, Apple, iTunes and Hillsdale Morning Laura and Evening Grace America. I'm Hugh Hewittt. Special emergency pod this week is war Looms

Well, thank you very much. You thank you very much.

I don't want to waste your time, so I'm going to dive right in and begin with Iran. Michael Durant at the Hudson Institute says, the regime there is failing. They have fuel shortages, electricity shortages, water shortage. Kareem Sajiport. Carnegie is posting the videos of the spreading protests. Mark Dubovitz, So this is a quote. If President Trump brings down the Islamic Republic of Iran, he will cement his place as the greatest foreign policy president since Ronald Reagan. I think it would.

Actually I already did that.

I thought I just about that with Midnight Hammer. You did that? How much well can I do?

You know?

We just had Venezuela, which has had Midnight Hammer. We settled eight wars, eight.

In the quarter.

But I'm willing to accept that. I'm willing to accept it.

What about Iran? Is the aim with Iran the collapse of that awful forty seven year tyranny.

Well, I don't want to say it, but I will tell you they're not doing well, as you know, probably better than anybody. They're doing very poorly. And I have let them know that if they start killing people, which they tend to do during their riots they have lots of riots, if they do it, we're going to hit them very hard.

Now dozens have been killed. I know you don't do red lines, but if you communicated to them what that limit of your patience.

Is, well, some have been killed by problems of crowd control and other things. We're watching it very closely. The crowds are so large. There's been a stampede. There's been three stampedes, and people have been killed in that. And I'm not sure I can necessarily hold somebody responsible for that. But they know, and they've been told very strongly, even more strongly than I'm speaking to you right now, that if they do that, they're going to have to pay.

Hell.

Do you have a message for the people of Iran, President Trump?

All I can say is you should. You should feel strongly about freedom. There's nothing like freedom. Your brave people. It's a shame what's happened to your country. Your country was a great country. I remember years ago when I was a young real estate developer. Friends of mine went to Iran and they did great. They built buildings in Iran. They're still up barely by the way, but there's still I see pictures of the apartment houses. And they did very well in Iran. I ran, they passed away. They

I sat in the office of former President Nixon with Great Price on a couch with our end, watching the fall of the shot, and he just kept shaking his hat. He couldn't believe Jimmy Carter was letting it happen. Would you meet with Crown Prince pob Lobby Poblai, who is the heir to the constitutional monarchy. He doesn't want to rule. He would be a symbolic ruler like King Charles Well.

I've watched him and he just seems like a nice person. But I'm not sure that it would be appropriate at this point to do that. As president. I think that we should let everybody go out there and we see who emerges. I'm not sure necessarily that I it would be an appropriate thing to do.

All right, let me switch to China. Mister President, last time we talked, and now he's ask you this. I asked you about Jimmy Lai, who is dying in real time. He's been convicted. Have you talked to Jijenping? I know you get.

Along with it. I have, I have. I talked to him and I mentioned Jimmy Lee. I don't know Jimmy Lai. I know of Jimmy Lai, and he was an activist, to put it mildly, but a positive activist. But if you're a Presidency, he wasn't a positive activist. I spoke to Presidency when I was in South Korea and we had a great talk about it, and I left it with him. He didn't give me an answer one way or the other. But obviously so far it hasn't been I got a lot of other answers that turned out positive.

If Jimmy Lai was free, would you consider that to be a very significant gesture by China? I would.

I think it would be a great thing. I think I told President's that he's an old man who's very sick. I met his son, who is a very nice young man who loves his father a lot. His son is the primary person that's working very hard to get him out, and I felt I owed it to the son. I like the son. I mean, look, I don't know him, but I met him fairly briefly, but I love that he was fighting hard for his father. I thought that was I like to see sons that fight hard for fathers,

All right, let me turn to Cuba, mister president. For sixty seven years, that police state dictatorship has sucked the lifeblood out of the people of that island. Is it time to increase the pressure there, maybe even quarantine it as you have Venezuela.

Well, I don't think you can have much more pressure other than going in and blasting the hell out of the place. Look, they are their whole life blood, their whole life was Venezuela. They got their oil, they got their money from Venezuela. And as you know, when our great soldiers went and we had nobody killed, they lost many Cuban fighters during that battle. Many amazing job that the American soldiers did, led by a man who happens to be sitting right next to me, General Caine. Ah

I got a little advice for you, mister President. Don't play golf and give strokes to Director Ratcliffe. Don't do that. Don't get many strokes.

He's a good golfer and he's a very good guy too.

Back to Cuba, Miguel Diez Canal. Do you think he could fall like Hamini and Iran might fall?

Yeah? I think. I look, I think that Cuba is hanging by a thread. Cuba's in big trouble. Look, Cuba got all of its money for protecting. They were like a protector. They're tough, strong people, they're great people. Marco has a little Cuban blood in him. I think Marco's not doing a bad job, right, What do you think? Can I ask you one question? How is Marco Rubio doing?

Is the equal of any secretary of state in my lifetime? And I'm glad he's not taking the Dolphins job. He should work for the Browns if he leaves your administration, that's right, all right, Yeah.

He goes will be successful. But no, I think that I think that Cuba is really in a lot of trouble. But you know, people have been saying that for many years. In all fairness about Cuban. Cuba has been in trouble for the last forty five years, and you know, they haven't quite gone down, but I think they're pretty close of their own volition.

I want to try and define the Trump doctrine, mister President. I've been trying to do it on the air. It's down to that, don't kill or threaten Americans or our property or American security in general, or we will hit you very very hard.

Is that the same and included in theirs don't send drugs and don't send things that are going to kill our people. But you can you can sort of make the savement that you've indirectly said that, but it's a pretty direct statement, don't send drugs into our country.

It's a great doctrine. Now the next question. I'm a Salem host of Fox Contributors, so this is a bit unusual. Brett Bair does the best interviews with you. I'm exempting myself from consideration, but I think you got to give Tony Dokapol a chance over at CBS to see if they've really changed their ways.

Is that on the agenda, Well, it hasn't been on the agenda, but if you recommend it, I would do it.

I have a lot of.

Respect for you, as you know, and I think you're doing a great job, and you've done a great job. You went a little bit liberal on us for a while when you were at nbcby I can't believe. I couldn't believe you sitting on NBC trying to answer questions that you didn't believe in. You only gave them partial answers. You would never fully there, but you couldn't get out fast enough. It was very fun to watch.

I'm happy with I.

Hear good things about Tony, and I can tell you that David Ellison is a fantastic guy and his father, Larry is one of the great been good friends of mine, both of them, but David's doing a fantastic job, and they feel very strongly about Tony.

Yeah, I don't want Barry Weiss and Tony to overtake Fox and Salem. But I would like you to give him a shot to see if he's got the shop.

Well, it'll be important to you, I do it. No, are you good things about Tony now?

You gave two hours of The New York Times yesterday. I appreciate you. The most successful president to the media in history, actually, but I would like to see you sit down with Matt Contenetty, Guy Benson, Spencer Brown, Mary Catherine Ham, the Mandels, Philip Wegaman. All of our superstar youngster people are under forty forty five. Is that on the agenda sometimes to sit down with art it would be I.

Mean, they have to ask, and it would be I certainly like all the names that you mentioned, And I will say that I think the Times treated me pretty fairly yesterday.

Well interesting, I haven't read it yet, the transcriptors and outs.

I'm waiting for the shock and it's a little hard not to. We have the greatest potential economy in history. We have eighteen trillion dollars coming in the record is three and that was from many, many years ago. We have something that just took place with Venezuela that everybody considered as one of the most brilliant attacks they've ever seen. And you know we had we lost no people in the middle of a fort. Don't forget that house was built in the middle of a fort with thousands of soldiers.

I talked to an active duty naval officer yesterday who's very jealous that they were not there because it was such an extraordinary mission.

You know what, we had an extraordinary attack a few months ago in a place called Iran. We knocked out the Iran nuclear threat and it was obliterated. And we also took out Solomoni and we took out Al Bagdaddy. So we've had some good attacks so far. We haven't had the Afghanistan disaster. That was the lowest point I think in the history of our country, Biden. But if you look also the Jimmy Carter disaster, that was a disaster with the hostages. And you know, when we were.

Very democratic president, a.

Disaster two planes. I said, I hope it's not a Jimmy Carter deal.

Carter, Clinton, Obama, Biden. They've all been disasters in national security. Let me ask you about it.

I haven't had I haven't had any disaster.

Yet, and I hope it stays that way.

I hope the word yet is going to disappear.

Yeah, well, we got to talk about the Golden Fleet because this is important. I want to take my hat off to you on the Golden Fleet. We need guided missile frigates and attack submarines and the Columbia class. And the worst way is there going to be enough money in the budget to get everything built that we need, including new shipyards.

Well, we are going to have plenty of money. And if you notice what I did yesterday, I told all defence companies there's going to be no more buybacks. You're going to put the money into building new plant and equipment, and going to be no more stock options, and there's going to be no more salaries of fifty million dollars

Oh yeah, provided they've got lots of missile tubes on it. I'm all for them. The more missile tubes that see, the better.

I said, why don't we take some of them out of bath balls. The new ships will be one hundred times more powerful than those battleships that we so admired.

Now I know you're up up upping the construction Philadelphia Shipyard and enhancing capacity.

And numerous others.

Yeah, I was wondering, are you gonna build a new.

Walk into the shipbuilding business?

That is that's the best news. Do people understand how important that is to the economy.

I think they know. But the Philadelphia Yard is one of the yards that's going to be opened up. But we have numerous yards that are opened up. Some of those yards have been built up by housing projects. You know, they're all in the water, so they tended to be in nice locations. But we have many yards opening up, and we're going to be very much back in the

We have to be all right now. I want to switch to one of my other favorite topics with the image at the Supreme Court. I know you don't expect a retirement in the spring, but if one happens, you've appointed sixty Appeals Court judges. Would you expect to take either a runner up from last time? I Judge Ktlidge or one of your appointees. Judge Row is fifty three on the DC Circuit. Judge Rushing on the fourth is forty three. Judge Strass on the eighth is fifty one.

Ye, she did a great job. She's a great judge.

Yes, she did, and she came to the right constitutional conclusion about the illegality of the appointment.

Highly respected. Yeah, So those are all great names. Every one of those names is a great name. Now, Ted Cruz. The nice one about him is, we get a one hundred percent approval. Every Democrat would vote yes, and every Republican would vote yes because they would love to get him the hell out of the Senate, all of them, so that he's the only one that would be guaranteed confirmation. And he's a smart guy. He's a good guy. And I say that jokingly, but I always say Ted would

I know who is advising you on judges this term, as Leonard is not and the Federal society is.

Not well I'm using some people actually that you know, i'd rather tell you on a personal prisis, not on a phone call. But I have some very good people that are advising me, people that you know in respect.

I have the legislative agenda for this year. I know I watched your talk to the Republicans at the Trump County Center, and I know you talked about healthcare. That would be great, but it would be easier to get done if you have bundled it with, for example, the Dreamers Act, the AM Radio in Every Car Act. Both of those have got super majority. Do you think that's the strategy, bundle healthcare with very popular laws, get them to the floor and move them.

Well, I think healthcare is so big and so important that it probably supersedes some slightly less you know, a very popular thing, but less important. I like the AM in every car, the AM radio in every car. I like that. I'm in favor of it. It's interesting. A lot of people don't know about that, but it's actually a very big subject.

So it's a huge deal.

It's a huge we're going to be doing something on that. All of the things you mentioned I like, but I think healthcare is so big and so powerful, it's going to really going to have to stand in his own way, all right. So I want, you know, with healthcare, it's pretty simple. I want because if you take a look, I don't know if you study insurance companies, but these

I do too. I think that would be a genius. I just think to get Democratic vote you might have to put the Dreamers Act in or the Radio Act.

In along with the Democrats is they're totally in bed with the insurance companies. And what you know, what I'm doing is the exact opposite. I'm giving the money to the people. They've given the money to the insurance companies. It's hard for them to vote against the insurance companies who have made a fortune because of the Democrats.

Now, Miss President, when we have that sit down that probably talk about judges, I would like to talk to you about Richard Nixon, because I believe your understanding of American power projection is very similar to his, and I think he also liked to keep people guessing. Some people call it the Madman theory. I just thought it was a strategic sense. Do you think that comparison is apt?

Well, look, I don't know. We're just respected. We're respected again as a country, and I'm respected, but we're respected. We had a president who shouldn't have been there. First of all, it was a rigged election, and that's now coming out loud and clear. But we knew that. I knew that four years ago. But it was just a rigged, horrible election. That's where we go. We got a man that allowed millions of people our country from jails and mental institutions and drug dealers, and what a shame that

A disaster, and Tim Wills would have been the vice president instead of vice president of Vance. I can't believe it. Let me turn to politics. In my last couple of minutes, mister president, I want to honor your time. You crush the debates in twenty fifteen sixteen. The last one was just Secretary Rubio Senator Cruizer, We've talked about Governor kh and U, and then there were no more. You skip

Well, I always liked them. For me, I love debating. But I think I did the right thing. I had, you know, ten people. They're all smart people, they're you know, governors and senators, and I figured, why should I allow myself to be whacked by all ten people? At the same time, I think I did a very fun A lot of people said you have to be in the debates. I said, I don't think I do. And then I had the debate with Biden, which turned out to be

Uh, Yes, he would have been, and that would have been a disaster. For the party, even worse than Kamala Harris, because you can't hide the fact he was infirm. He was infirm, he wasn't there well.

He didn't do too well, I would say that.

So let's talk about the Democrats.

To wrap out is not the greatest go ahead.

Who is the strongest Democrat in twenty twenty eight? Gavin Newsom, AOC, Jasmine Crockett, Jared Poulos in Colorado, Chris van Holland, Wes Moore, Andy Basheer. Who's their best choice?

You know, as you rattle off those names, I'm just seeing in't and amazing. With three hundred and fifty people, of course, we have no idea that Biden let and so many nobody knows. But with let's say three hundred and fifty million people, that that's the best they can do, it's pretty sad. I think Newsom's hurt because he's done so badly in California. He has, he's done so so badly. I just you know, look, he's a sort of a

Well, that does make some sense to me. Okay, let's close with mister mayor, Mom Donnie, and you decide when to conclude the interview. Mister President, I know you love New York City. It's going to be a nightmare. I've only lived there once. I've only lived there in nineteen eighty. It's going to be worse than nineteen eighty, which was damn bad and I left and went to law school because it was so bad. Will the city be able to recover after?

Mom, Donnie, Well, it's going to be interesting. You know. I've met him and came to the Oval office. Yes, we've had some nice conversations. Are very good. And then he hit me a little bit on the tremendous victory and you would say it was a tremendous victory on Venezuela, and I said, gee, I thought he would have at least waited a month. I was surprised that he hit me on that, but he did. You know, So, what

They did never work. The last thing I'll say to you, miss President, Golden Dome is the most important legacy you're going to leave if it gets built. I've read some studies that say Ravenna, Ohio is where the hubb out it be for space Force to control that because of the polar ice cap. Have you decided where the central lopecation of Golden Dome will be yet?

But I love Ohio, I can tell you that. And I've worn Ohio big everything every time, and everybody I've endorsed from Ohio is one and you know, it's been great. But I've heard that's one of the one of the places very much being considered.

All right, mister President, thank you for the time. I appreciate it. Come back again soon and I look forward to talking to you again. Congratulations on a great first year in your second term.

Thank you very much. You take care of yourself. Thank bye.

Morning Glory and Evan Grayson Mac. I'm who ewit in the Relief Actor Studio West. Earlier today, President Trump posted on true Social and I want to read it to you before we get to our guests. Avive Reddy Gore, Iranian patriots now all in cap, keep protesting, take over your institutions. Three exclamation points. Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price. I've canceled all meetings with the reading officials until the senseless

Thank you you good to be here. And also just the Free Press. I'm also with the Free Press as a Middle East aily.

I've always got to say that Times Visual the Free Press, and then we need to tell people. You're also on Patreon, which I is the only Patreon I belong to because it's the only one I get real value. I subscribe to the Free Press, but I get real value from your Patreon. How do people find that? Just Patreon and Aviv Retti.

Gore yeah, or ask Aviv anything on Patreon. Thanks so much for the plug. I really appreciate it.

Well, it's only five bucks a month and it's really very much worth it. Like Dan Senor's special edition as well, I've gone into funnels silos from my news to go deep. Have you before I go any further? What do you make of what I think is a hinge moment in Iran, especially in light of what President Trump posted this morning.

At this very moment, there are reports that phone lines can now call out of Iran again. Some of the digital blackouts appears to be lifting or was broken, or maybe hackers did it. We don't quite know. There was a news from CBS News that they got initial reports that the report's about twelve thousand dead in the last just two three days that Iran International ran. It might be much higher than that. People in Iran are talking about something very big, very dramatic. These are, you know,

So Aviv I had done an entire outline because we schedule this six weeks two months in advance to get ahold of the vvs in demand everywhere in the world, and so I'm happy to talk to him every month or so. And we scheduled this weeks ago, and I have a whole long list of questions are going to get pushed to the back about the Hari Dam and the legal legal reform and the elections. That's the next time. This just came up. Not long ago. You had Barry

They were quite good friends. They were I don't want to exaggerate it. They weren't, you know, Bosom buddies, but they had a real relationship and alliance. They shared enemies. Shared enemies is a very powerful incentive in the Middle East to be close. And more than that, the Iran of the Shah, okay, the Shah had a repressive regime. It was a deeply problematic regime.

It killed people. It was you know, it was.

Nothing compared to what the Ayatolas would go on and build after the revolution to topple the Shah. But nevertheless, the Shaw was not a democrat. But the Iran of the Shah was a modern country. It was a country where women walked around in you know, with their hair out and universities were ill universities and one of the tragedies of the last forty seven years of Aetola's rule, and there are many tragedies. Iran is a gutted country.

There's nothing preventing.

That from happening, except that the Islamist section of Iranian society took over the country and ruined it. Israel saw a friend. Israel saw a modern nation, and Israel saw basically just the modern commercial world that everybody wants to live in. You know, there's a world that's not taken over by crazy ideologues demolishing their own country just to retain power. So Iran was that it was a friend. It was what the Middle East should always have been.

When you say it could have been a mix of Turkey and Saudi Arabia, I think it could have been another Israel, because they had the wealth, and they had the university and an tremendous base in nineteen seventy nine of an educated elite who could have been at the vanguard of the technology revolution in the last fifty years. Instead, they went backwards. And you're probably not old enough to

I can't speak for every analyst, and uh, you know, it's a big country with a lot of people who have very strong views and not necessarily a lot of knowledge, So, you know, speaking as a media pundit, right, No, Fraserelis was a disaster, and it was very clearly a disaster. And in fact, Kamenei made a point of building his coalition with the communists and building his coalition with the third world as we might call them today, with all of these anti Western powers that were secular, that were

So this was AA. I gotta take a break and go off air, and I'll be right back after the break. You're listening to the Hugh Hewitt Show on the Salem Radio Network, watching it on the Salem News Channel, and this will be part of the podcast today as well. Don't go anywhere, Stay tuned. Have Viv ready. Gore can be followed on x at Aviv retted Gore. He is with the Free Press, he is with senior analysts at the Times of Israel. His patreon asked Aviv Anything, Stay

This is an extraordinary nation and it has faced really a gutting kind of brain drain.

Probably hundreds of.

Thousands, I mean hundreds of thousands of scholars and scientists and mathematicians and are contributing to every country in the world except Iran because they can't do their work and.

You're on under this region.

It is an extraordinary civilization, It is ancient. It has one of the one of the cynical element regime is that every time there's a protest, every time there's one of these, you know, we're uprisings against the regime, and it feels a little threatened. It starts to talk about Persian history, about the Persian civilization, about the great ancient

For it except this regime.

And by the way, go ahead, go ahead of you. You're gonna say, by.

The way, Malay in that sense where you had one of the wealthiest countries of South America, a successful democratic and then a bad ideology takes over and a third of the country turns into refugees and people can't eat. And that's the story. That's the story of this regime. People should look up the literal water shortages that have gutted Iranian agriculture. They should look up, you know, the

What is that great important thing?

Preparing the destruction of Zionism. Never mind if that's a good or bad thing. I happen to like my people in my country and my nation and my children. But even if you don't like my people, forty seven years of preparation, and Israel cleaned their clock in twelve days, and Irani in general used to be able to walk around the streets of Tehran and command some respect. And Irani in general, who walks the streets of Tehran today didn't bother.

Killing is the only reason he's alive.

If you're in the IRGC, so's there's just why again, leave the morality aside, just look at the competence.

This reason you also mentioned in your first in the first segment we talked about, you mentioned the fact that they have been brutalized by their currency collapse. I think one of the reasons that this is a hinge moment is the real is worthless. So everybody's life savings, including those of the besiege, those of the IRGC, everyone except the very top elite who managed to turn it into gold or jewels, they've been wiped out in the last six months or since operation of Midnight Hammer and the

Absolutely, We've already had revolutions of protests, uprisings of the students of the liberal activists. We've seen that and they were easily crushed. Didn't help the President Obama wouldn't support them.

And then we saw the Woman Life I.

Forget freedom exactly, Women Freedom Life.

The Life movement, which was a whole new thing because it was specifically about the religious restrictions and about the religious regime and ever since that, by the way, it was crushed, and it was crushed brutally. Twenty thousand people were arrested and thrown in prison. But the regime has started to get a little more lax in enforcing the hijab rules, for example, and so we know that they

They didn't join this uprising.

Are this uprising?

Everybody else?

The students, the farmers, everybody joined them. So we suddenly have a cross section of Iranian society of people who have never protested, wouldn't have protested, but they can't live anymore. This regime has gutted everything. And one of the points that I made before about the currency that we all collapsed if you're not.

Close to the regime. If you are close to the regime, the.

Government actually enforces a separate currency exchange rate for you, so you can afford to you know, live feed your family, buy iPhones. Everyone else in the country can't afford water and electricity. And so this regime has driven more and more sections of Iranian society to rise up against it. And this might be that Tippic it might not, but it might.

Be that it reminds me of Poland in eighty five, and then the East Block in eighty seven to eighty nine, and then the Soviet Union in eighty nine to ninety one. They're all gone. Now. I'll be right back with Aviv Rhttig Gore. Followhim on ax at Haviv Retty Gore, Ask Aviv anything is on any podcast network and a Patreon, Stay tuned on t quit. Welcome back to America. I'm

Yeah, let me just say Iranians have suffered a lot more than Israelis.

My own government didn't do.

It to me, and I don't live in an oppressive state, and I you know, the ordinary run ninety two million people in iran don't have a vote and don't decide the most fundamental things and have been essentially forced to live in poverty for the regimes revolution, and so this regime massacring people is a whole it's a whole different story. You know, if the United States government, because of some cultural or Vietnam protests, eat somebody, then all of America

Yeah, that's what I thought.

We're willing to kill hundreds of thousands to that's the bar for protecting this revolution. He's threatening to kill in the six figures. And that's the thing that everybody has to watch out for right now. Now this regime suddenly ups the ante. You don't shut off the entire country's internet if you're not trying to hide something.

Now, if he summons up the Iraq Iran War. I read a book by a fellow by name Ashan Ostovar called Vanguard of the Imam, and he said that their strength, the regime strength, was rooted in the veterans of that war, the Iraq Iran War, which ran for ten years, and about which I think Donald RUMs felt famously said, can't they both lose? But the question that's that generation of veterans, they're dead or they're very old men. Now do they still have a grip on the imagination of the country.

They have nothing. They have nothing, They have no grip. There's that again. There's a twenty percent of Iran's population. You hear this from academics in the West, from Iranians. You hear this from Israeli intelligence, which, as we learned back in June, have a pretty good sense of what's happening in Iran. There is twenty percent of the Iranian population that is utterly totally committed to this regime. Ideologically, it's having the same economic troubles everybody else is having.

It's just a mafia.

There's no They don't even believe in the things that they say. You know, the regime generals their families. More and more of their families live abroad, live in the United States, live in Britain, live in places where they don't have to suffer with the people that their own family members in the IRGC are forcing to suffer. And so there is this deep disconnect this stuff makes its way through Iranian social media. Everybody knows that they're a

So I would encourage everyone to go over to the Commentary podcast because Eli Lake was the guest on Commentary Podcast today and he made the point Aviv just avered to, which is that a lot of the Iranian elite are abroad, their children are abroad, and that one of the things the United States and England and other people ought to consider is sending them home, is saying, you've got to go live with the disaster that is the country that your parents have made, and they've sent you to school.

It's extraordinary, It's an extraordinary thing in Sunni Islam. I any Muslims listening to us will know this, or if they don't, they should look it up because they should know this, and anyone else please fact check it. In Sunni Islam, the most widespread tradition is that alaksa on the which translates to the thing at the edge in Hebrew Kotse the place Muhammad goes to at the end of his life and sends to Heaven.

That place is Jerusalem.

That is a widespread sunny tradition, not the only sunny tradition, but nonetheless wise in Shia Islam, Alaksa is not in Jerusalem.

It is simply not. There is no Shia tradition of that. It is in Iraq.

And the whole idea that this regime has created has has sort of latched onto this sunny vision. It's an attempt to create a political argument for Iranian leadership of the Muslim world. And Iran's leadership also saw its its own attempt to destroy Israel and building out these proxies with tens of billions of dollars over forty years that

You know what?

You cannot like France too? Who cares like not? Why don't you like Israel? Why are you invested to the point of gutting your own economy with this obsession of the destruction of a country you have no border with and no interests in.

What is that?

And you very quickly discover it isn't actually Shia Islam. It is Islam. It's an Islamic veneer on an imperialist project that's meant to force the Sunnis to rally behind the Iranians.

That's it.

It's a regional control. There's someone that developed back in the seventies and sixties.

Oh that makes you just gave me at least a narrative to understand, because I can go find a Sunni extremists imm preaching on the internet the destruction of Israel in about ten minutes, and it's whether it's Isis or whether it is Al Qaido, whether it's any of their offshoot groups around the world, But I can't find Shia im Mom's. They're supposed to be almost as peaceful as another branch of Islam, the third branch which is eluding me right now, the one that's very, very peaceful. When

Sheia have in the Muslim world a long tradition of being oppressed by the Sunnis, and so the Shia have developed a much less It's weird for me to, like, you know, fly the flag of the Shia right now. I mean, the greatest force trying to annihilate my people at this moment is a Shia political force. But nevertheless, the Shia have been less aggressive, less conquering, belligerent, you know,

A Sunny project and doesn't really make sense.

And she is at until really Kromieni and Romiani who found it, this Iranian version of Sheism, this political Sheism. So just in general, if you go to the Shia of Lebanon, until they were radicalized by vast Iranian money through chrisbela Iranian shea excuse me, Lebanese Shia were a quiet group. They were not on the warpath. They did not conduct you know, conquest and massacres. It's similar for the Alo whites of Syria who are sort.

Of thinking of the Sufis. I couldn't. I couldn't come up with the name of the Sufis. They're the very pacifist branch of Islam. If I am remembering my Lewis correctly, But Shia was not was not Wahabist.

Yeah, Shia have never been Wahabists.

All the Wahabism, all of the Muslim Brotherhood stuff, all the stuff you get out of you know, the al Qaeda stuff, the the Saib and all of that stuff all happened in Sunnism. All this radicalizing of Islam in the modern age happened in Sundism, and the Shia were very late to the game. And Komeni basically brought in a lot of these ideas and a lot of these ways of thinking and talking and gave it as Shia vanir and she of vocabulary. But he basically did that as a power play to take over Iran.

That was the idea.

It's it's hard to understand this regime in Iran as a religious movement just because it refuses to act as one. It really is just about oppression and power. And when you actually go to meet the Shia and talk to Shia in Iraq, for example, you get a very ambiguous kind of relationship with this Sheism of Iran as this thing that isn't what Sheism always was. Even by the way, if Iran will support them in their great internal sectarian wars in Iraq against the Sunnis and the brutality of

I'm going to talk to Aviv a little bit off air. I'll add it to the podcast today, but please don't go anywhere, stay on the radio station or on the television station.

But I'll add the last.

Bit of the lea to the podcast right back on the podcast Down with Aviv, Reddy Gore and Avivan Commentary Today, John pod Hoortz Exit question was on a scale after President Trump put up his post this morning, on a scale of one to ten, what do you think the United States will do? With one being nothing and ten being anything necessary to Maduro Hamini go in and grab him and kill the him and get them and four out of five people set a six with some fireworks

This regime has done nothing for forty seven years. The demolished other power center in Iran with the Communists, and after the Iran Iraq War, it massacred the communists. It has has systematically gone through Iranian society and degraded and demolished anyone who could replace them, so that even if a revolution does come, there's nobody to lead it and there's no power center, single power center, that can actually see it through. That's what makes this moment so dangerous

It's still not.

Clear who actually makes the decision steps in. This regime has a lot of bodies it's willing to go through. I mean in the hundreds of thousands, as we said, before it falls. So I would say two things. One, it looks like Iranians don't think anything will ever get better. It looks like the regime has managed to convince most Iranians of that, and that it's very dangerous for the regime because people have to have a reason, they have to have something to lose. It doesn't look like they

So I think.

America is in the right place, basically positioned to help without being the leadership of this thing. The Iranian people will bleed a lot more before this regime dies. If this is suppressed, they'll be a bigger and worse one because there's nothing in this regime that's capable of turning Iran around and setting it on a better path.

So very last question, we saw what the IDF and Mosad can do. Now, I'm not one of those Americans that think Masad is thirty stories tall, but I was pretty impressed by the Beeper operation and by the takeout of the people in Cutter and the people in Tehran. Obviously, Israel has got operatives on the ground in Iran, but there aren't enough Israelis. Even if they do to actually take them out. Do you think they will follow the

If Iroan forces, you know, revisiting of the Twelve Day War, I don't think Israel will be able to contain. I think I think this will be the end. I think, first of all, Ron will Be will need there to be a serious war with Israel as a distraction, as an excuse to crack down more viciously internally, as a stabilizing force, and I think the Israelis will have to deny them both those things.

They'll have to have.

A war where the regime really is destabilized. I'd be very surprised if he many survives or if his son, who is sort of being groomed to replace some survives. This will be something that really does does cause terrible damage to the Iranian regime. But the Israelis would be why is to respond in a way that looks visibly like it's trying to avoid hurting the people of Iran, And so you know, it's quite likely that Ronald drag

Well said, as always, Aviv, I thank you for the extra time today Again, find ask Aviv anything wherever podcasts are, support them on Patreon, read them in the free press, razors senior analysts, and occasionally at the times of Israel. Aviv, thank you taught to you in a few weeks or months. I appreciate the time.

Thank you.

Welcome back to America. I'm Hugh Hewett. As you heard me say at the beginning of the show, the biggest story in the world is what's going on in Iran and I know we are all have our favorite interesting stories, and I cover the news as it breaks, but the biggest story in the world is in Iran. For forty seven years that tyranny has been in place, and for almost as long, the Foundation for the Defensive Democracy has been working to bring it down and free the people

Well, Hugh, thanks so much for having me on. Look here, it's extraordinary.

I mean, as you said, I've been working on Iran for twenty two years, working with lots of administrations, including the Trump administration, both both Trump administrations on maximum pressure on the regime but also encouraging maximum support for the Iranian people and the Radiom people have been out on the streets since two thousand and nine, repeatedly calling for death to the dictator and the Islamic Republic establish relations with America, with Israel, and now in the past two

So it is a pivotal moment for the United States, for Iran, for the region.

So I've stressed in my audience they can't trust what they see on X unless they know that the person on X is someone they can trust. They can trust you and trust Cliff may Kareem Sawd you pour at Carnegie, You've got a lot of colleagues at FDD. I'm pushing out, how do you tell if you're just you know, nubie to the Iran issue, who to trust on this about what's going on there? Since the regime's severed outside world contact with the people of Tehran and across all of Iran.

Yeah, I mean here, listen, it's difficult to know what's going on the ground because, as you said, they've shut down the internet.

They're interfering with starlink access.

Videos are still coming in and we're certainly seeing what's happening on the ground.

What do I trust?

Look, I don't trust anybody defending the regime number one. Number two, I don't trust anybody saying that US intervention is going to lead to some kind of rally around the flag. The notion that millions of Iranians are on the streets and they're getting mowed down by the security forces, but somehow, with President Trump intervenes and goes against the regime, these Iranians are going to defend the regime, I think is nonsense. So anybody's saying that should not be trusted.

I mean, he's all over.

Social media, the crown Prince, the son of the former Shaw. He is been very articulate, and I certainly would trust many of the things that he's saying.

Okay, now let's talk about what the president can do. He was my guest last Thursday, and he said, very bluntly, will hit him very very hard if they kill people. But he also gave him a little bit of an out he said some of these deaths were because of stampede. Later that night, he didn't use that out with Sean Hannity as much, and it's been totally abandoned by Sunday night. The president now knows there are thousands of people dead.

So I think there are number of things he can do.

I mean, first of all is to target the security forces that are actually engaged in this brutal repression.

Go after the repression apparatus.

And you could do that through offensive cyber and or military strikes against the IOGC is on a Revolutionary Guard corps, the besiege, the police.

These are the people that are engaged in this brutal repression.

Number two is ready to reach out to Elon musk Is to try to restore or improve the starlink connection. So these videos are coming out Iranians right now, being murdered in the dark. They need to be brought to light, and that's very important. I think the presidents and Elon

The Israelis are gonna go take it out. I think better the United States takes it out.

Because of the United States takes out the missile program, Kamine, the Supreme Leader Baran is gonna be quite reluctant to respond because he knows that if he attacks the United States.

That's the end of his regime.

If Israelis take it out, it's going to lead to another round around the fire, hundreds of not thousands of ballistic missiles at Israel, and we're going to be in a major war in the United States. And President Trump's gonna have to deal with that. And Trump, if he has the opportunity, take out those dangerous ballistic missiles. Support the people, unlock the communications, go after the regime apparatus.

Mark, This is a difficult question for anyone to answer, but you'll know if anybody knows. I heard Kareem today in a podcast with Dan Senor say that the IRGC is one hundred and fifty thousand strong. All right, i'rn ninety million people ten percent, nine million people, one percent of nine hundred thousand people. So one hundred and fifty thousand IERGC members. That's a third of one percent. How hard is it to overthrow one hundred and fifty thousand thugs.

Well, there's one hundred and fifty thousand IERGC.

There's probably two to three million members of the Basiege, which is their militia. Those are the thugs that drive around in motorcycles and beat up and and torture and kill Iranians. So you've got a couple of million there, and they're also importing thoughts from Iraq. This is the Iraqi Hazbala and the Schiait militias that they're bringing in, bringing in Arabs to kill Persians because in some cases the security forces throwing to turn their guns on their

So I think that's that's certainly a potential.

So, Mark, you're not old enough to remember the actual revolution. I watched it in real time with Ray Price and Richard Nixon and San Clementy my second job out of college. People marched in the daytime. Then do you expect anti regime marches to occur in the daytime? Yeah, they are.

They're occurring in the daytime, they occurring in the nighttime. I mean, what I'm.

Worried about you is that if there's no US intervention, that these protests are going to die off because of the brutal repression. And whether it's day or night, the guns are being turned on Iranians, thousands are being slaughtered. At some point, they're just going to have to They're going to stay home. And if they stay home, the regime is going to come out of this. Yes, a wounded animal, but a bitter one, a lethal one, a much more dangerous one.

And I'd be worried that Orion's would never go back.

On the streets.

Follow Mark on exit, M Dubovitch. Follow everyone at FDD. At FDD, Mark is coming back next hour. So other than my drivetime audience in the inside the Beltway, here's them for six minutes to repeat a lot of this. So make sure you listen to those segments of my interview with Mark Dubovitch and follow him. Welcome back in America. Coming up after the break. Sebastian lie son of Jimmy Lai,

Yeah, you absolutely. I mean this is a typical regime trick. They're back is against the walls. So they offer negotiations and try to trap American negotiators. And the only place where they tend to win against America is at the negotiating table. They won against Biden, they won against Obama,

No way Kamine is going to give into that.

And if not, he's just going to play for time, try to divide America, try to divide the White House, try to divide the US from Europe. And he's going to ultimately try to embarrass the President. And I don't think the President is going to be embarrassed and is prepared to be embarrassed, So he needs to enforce the red line that he laid out.

Now, Mark, the Israelis could have killed Hamione, and no doubt we can kill Hamione, but there are arguments on both sides. We to leave him alive or we do if we have the ability to have him shot killed.

Well, I do think we need to decapitate the leadership of Iran, and that includes Kamene, but also includes senior IRGC commanders, those who are in control of the command and control system of Iran, and that includes the repression apparatus. So yeah, if you decapitate the leadership, then this possibility of other stepping into their place. I mean, that's what President Trump did in Venezuela with Maduro. I think there's

All right, Now, Mark, what are the How many IRGC bases are there? How many besiege bases? The final Israeli wave was going to hit them. President Trump waved it off in order to bring that conflict to an end last June. How many target sites are we talking about?

So there are, I mean there are dozens and dozens of RGC and besiege bases all around the country, obviously headquarters in places like Teylan, but certainly it's a target rich environment. I mean, the Israelis and the Americans have detailed intelligence on all of these bases, maneuvers, apparatus. This has been studied for years here, I mean particular by the Israelis, I mean MOSAD and military intelligence in Israel have a very, very large and expansive target set, and

If President Trump brings down this regime, I think he goes to the top of American presidents, at least since FDR. He's going to actually surpass Reagan. The Soviet Union, of course, dissolved under George H. W. Bush. How would you rank that achievement. I think Iran is a lynchpin, and I've got Nixon on the brain. Nixon used to say, it's everything, It's one of the two pillars of the Middle East. And so how big of a moment is this for Donald Trump?

Yeah, I've said publicly here you know that that if he brings down the Islamic Republic of Iran, he will be one of the greatest foreign policy presidents in modern history, if not the greatest. I mean, the Islamic Republic of Iran, first of all, has killed and named thousands of Americans. It has created massive bloodshed and chaos in the Middle East and continue to drag us into these endless wars

I mean, it has been such a.

Force for murder, chaos, and violence that to get rid of it and to replace it with something better and more stable, more peaceful, and more prosperous would be a game changer for American national security.

And by the way, it would also allow us.

To do what we need to do, which is to focus our resources in the coming years on the multi generational threat from the communist Chinese Party.

Now I read him here quote and he laughed, he said, haven't I already done that? He's done pretty well. I've got to admit ruining the Iranian nuclear to turn is a big deal. But do you think we could count on a post harmonious Harmonius regime being stable and at least not evil?

Yeah, I mean Trump also did say that, he said I accept that. I accept that, and he's an a view with you, right.

You know.

I think he appreciates how important taking down Islamic Republic is, and I think he has for most of his adult life. I think we have got I don't think we can count on anything in the Middle East, and we certainly can't count on anything in geopolitics, but there's no doubt in my mind that whatever comes next will be much better.

So everyone in your car go to FDD Foundation for the Defensive Democracies. Follow it at FDD, follow Mark at m Dubavitch, and there are lots of other people as well. But make sure they're reliable. Don't believe the regime propaganda. Don't believe the regime mythologists, don't believe people who supported the JCPOA, believe people like part Thank Morning or at Eating Grace America. I'm Hugh Hewittt on this Monday. As I've said throughout the show today, I think we're on

To worry?

Great? To be with you here? Yes, pretty close?

Great, We got time. So I want to do a deep dive for the benefit of the audience where We've got lots of cameras in Minnesota and appropriately so, but not enough people are following with great specificity what is transpired in the aftermath of a massacre that is really without precedent in post war World War two. Do you agree with me on that it's bigger than Tianamen Square.

Yes.

Unfortunately, the reported estimates we keep getting keep growing. Now, thirty to thirty six thousand is a reported estimate. Yes, in terms of confirmed people, places, names, faces, it's about five to six thousand, depending on the human rights organization you choose. But those human rights organizations are steadily and busily looking from seventeen to nineteen thousand other cases right now. So if you again you take a bottom of the

And I'm going to come back and establish why people should listen very closely to you after I get the quick update our executions underway despite Donald Trump's red line.

If you look at what's going on in Persian language social media, yes, indeed, And yet you don't have to take it for me. You can take it from Iranian officials, including someone from the judiciary who mocked actually President Trump for believing. Yet someone who also similarly mocked President Trump for believing that there was a stay of execution, or a pause of executions, or even just a kind of an about face on the repression altogether, was a former

Given well, this is why I want the audience to understand. The reason I think as strike as imminent is because the Iranian officials have been taunting President Trump. Half of them have been, including the Atolahameni and his sort of thugs, and then the other half of the Iranian regime tries to talk nice to us through mister Whitcoff. And we'll talk with Benham about that in a moment, but let's start by establishing who you are. It's the first time on the show, so I've got to ask you. Was

First time caller, longtime listener. I'm a big fan of Nixon history at Paraphernalia, so I do believe he was.

Yes, And have you read the Looming Tower?

I have. Actually, this is a controversial point in the office. I have actually only skimmed the Looming Tower and stayed away from the documentaries because with some of other colleagues there's a line I'm infamous for given that I focused on Iran and the acts of resistance in the office, which is sometimes I find Sunni terrorism not as interesting as Shia terrorism.

Well that was actually I understand it completely.

For you, but a nine to eleven hits home very hard.

I'm gonna I actually am very glad you made the key distinction. Al Qaeda is Sunni Wahabbist extremism Islamist fanaticism, and what's going on in Iran is the Shia fanaticism. And so tell us your background on Iran about him so the audience can understand you are not talking out of your hat.

Well, I try not to anyway. But I'm a first generation in Iranian American born and raised in the United States to two immigrant parents. On my mother's side, her father was a political prisoner at the heyday of the revolution. He was a reporter under the previous government, taken to Eving Prison. Thankfully he got out, but after he got out,

So I only try and bring on people who are serious, mister Ostovar. Richard Goldberg is on tomorrow your calleing. Mark Tibowitz has been on this program, Clifford, May I try and bring on people but that know what they're speaking about. I got to ask you, know, I've been listening to the book King of Kings by Scott Anderson. How do you write it as a history of nineteen seventy eight seventy nine and the immediate thereafter.

Well, I eagerly bought it because, you know, history is kind of what animates us in the policy space. If we don't know history, we're not going to know what we're talking about today. I recommend buying the book. I have some major qualms with the way the book goes through the lives of certain individuals, particularly some folks at the State Department at the time. It kind of uses their personal story to tell a story of the Iranian Revolution. I don't think that's always the best prism to tell

All Right, what do you make of Vanguard of Them Mom by mister Rostovar.

I've actually done a book review of Vanguard of the mom. It's actually the nicest, best synthesis of the IRGC, which is the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps out there from the academic world and in terms of the policy world. You know, there are some people that I know and respect and work with that have talked about the Guard core, this kind of tip of the revolutionary sphere of the Islamic Republic as being able to create a military dictatorship overnight.

Now, I have been following a few people very closely. Kareem Saidyrpoor, who I'm honored to know. I'm sure you respect his work, and he's at Karnage absolutely. Am I right that you respect Koreas? And I've been following you and Mark Dubowitz and other people. I don't know what to trust when people say here's Persian language media, and I'm translating it for you because you can't believe everything. Have you seen a lot of misinformation on the web the in the recent weeks, Well.

It depends a great deal what you're looking at. There is a lot of narrative based misinformation. You know, Iran's octagenarian Supreme Leader, so called Supreme Leader, as President Trump likes to say, believes that sometimes more important than the kinetic war is winning the narrative war. You know, these are people who actually believe what they're talking about, and they're trying to make you believe what they're talking about

So, benam, have you at the foundation or a group of people put forward for journalists like me who want to follow credible experts, a comprehensive list of people that they I try and do it occasionally. I'm always mentioning you and Mark and Kareem and Richard and Yashar, who I disagree with, but I think he does a good job reporting on Iran. We have one minute. Have I missed somebody other than I clif heard? May of course, But have I missed anyone I should be following? Absolutely?

I think you know, you hit some of the greats. It's an honor to be included among them. I personally don't believe it's my view as a think tanker in Washington to you know, name some and not name others. But I think you know folks who are in the media space like you, who have found credible and reliable voices. When you amplify it a we're grateful and be the American people are grateful. So you know, kudos to you for doing that.

When we come back from break, I'm going to ask bet Him to walk us through the situation as he understands it. Monday mid day drive time inside the Beltway, a snowed in belt Way, but from all this sort of so as I see inside the United States and from Israel, which I trust on this file people like a Meet Segal and not Aveyal and others will get his take on where we are on this Monday. Stay tuned at the qq AT shot. Welcome back to America.

We're at a critical juncture, not just in the long battle, the forty seven year battle between the street and the state inside Iran, but we're also at a critical juncture in US Iran relations. Never has military force been threatened so overtly and credibly, I might add in this way.

So there are a lot of options on the table. I've heard a lot of people talk about impediments in the Israeli media. They mentioned that Turkey has reinstalled radar in Damascus, which may be an impediment to the IDF working with us. That might not matter to our stealth fighters coming off the Lincoln or from the air bases. What is your assessment of the Israeli American coordination level and whether or not an American strike would be joint or prior to Israeli strike.

It's actually an excellent question because if past this prologue, the coordination that exists not just at the military level, but at the political and intelligence level between Israel and the United States, and in particular between the Trump administration and the net Yahoo government in Israel is quite extensive.

Benam, I've asked everyone about this. There are only three export oil exporting terminals in Iran. One is on carg Island, there are two other ones adjacent. That is the lifeblood of the IRGC. That is the currency upon which their terror network operates, and they pay their people even it's hard currency through shadow companies. Why don't we hit them if we go in?

So? I think thus far the US has been a bit reticent to escalate and Moss against energy. One reason has been energy prices. The other reason has been the Iranians might go full force against GCC energy infrastructure, which again, if passes prologue, the regime would try to do that.

That would be the Golf Coordinating Council. You now five dollars in the tip jar, then i'd be a rule of the heug here would show that former congress from Mike Allagher would break no acronyms without expert Okay, the Golf Coordinating coordinated Yeah.

Yes, so if America's Arab partners on the other side of the Persian golf places where we have a lot of bases. But you remember in twenty nineteen there was a drone and cruise missile attack by the regime against Saudi oil facilities. It's assumed that it could engage in

I don't want to be overcomfident, but I was in the Reagan administration when Operation praying manage happen, and President Reagan or ordered half or two thirds of the Iranian navy sunk and it was. And they didn't put a glove on us. I don't recall that they did. Maybe they did have one destroyer strike. I'm not really worried if we go all in about their ability other than for Israel. I mean, they could fuse all lot Israel with every launcher they've got left and try and overwhelm

Precisely, going after a higherg island and Assalujah would basically be a death blow to the regime's economy, and there would be expediting the taking time bomb that is already the poor economy of the Islamic Republic. That being said,

When we come back from break, I will ask Benham whether or not in his assessment, the IRGC poses a threat to the Lincoln or any of its strike group escorts or other American naval assets, and what kind of threat it poses to our airmen and cutter and our other facilities among the Gulf allies that we have. And to MBZ, who has been our stauncher's strongest ally other than Israel for many many years in the Middle East, and MBS who is the up and coming dominant power

Well, the first thing I would say is, never underestimate the ability of the United States to spend money. There have been times we've had two carriers in the Persian Gulf. Obviously it was a very different regional threat environment in the Sencom aoar, in the Sencom area of responsibility, I should say, sorry, another five dollars in the tip shar.

Worry about attempting to take out Ayatolahameini is that it's pretty easy to hide one person. It can't hide an oil terminal or their navy or ier GC basis. But in order to increase the deterrent that the President has painstakingly rebuilt since the collapse in Afghanistan, or President Biden to increase that deterrent, He's got to do something visible, I mean something dramatic. That's my opinion, and that I think he will dent the deterrence he's rebuilt if he

I agree wholeheartedly. You know this needs to not just be seen, to be credible and have an escalating and resonating deterrent effect and credibility multiplier for America's or other authoritarian adversaries, not just in the region but elsewhere, but most importantly needs to be felt and seen by the

Okay, So I'm coming back for one more segment with Ben Tallablue, and when we do, we've got to find out it about the threat to the Lincoln, other adjacent chips, Israel, and whether or not Iran's terror proxies are inside the United States, because indeed, if we hit them hard enough, they'll do everything they can to hurt us. And I want people to be very wide eyed and awake about those risks. Madam's going to tell us about that after

It's a lot of questions, But I'll do my best answer. Certainly they can strike US bases on the opposite side of the Persian Gulf. At the end of the Twelve Day War, we saw the regime fire ballistic missiles at a actual raydome facility at the Alludaide base and Qatar,

I think in the United States, let.

Me just say this, because the changing face of Iranian terrorism in the US has to be taken seriously. I think for far too long we've had a politicized border debate when this should be a non partisan debate. The fact that you have had not just Iranians, but a whole host of different nationalities be able to for many years coming through the southern border and be undocumented could pose one threat vector, but it's not the only threat vector.

All right, So everyone, you've got to realize there are real risks to Americans and to Israelis and to our allies and the golf, especially UIE and Saudi Arabia. Let me close by asking you in terms of that Turkish radar in Syria that's news to me this weekend. Is that a real problem? I mean, do the Turks get upset if we blow up their radar for Syria?

The question is do we even need to blow it up? Is it something that the Israelis might do or is it something that they be able to work around. You know, Turkey is no doubt trying to fast replace the Islamic Republic as the other Islamist leaning power in Syria. I think this is a real challenge for the US to be able to deconflict between admittedly a NATO member not in good standing, which is Erdowan's Turkey and our major partner in the region, Israel, and to make sure that

All Right, My last question, I am not an optimist about regime change. I think this is forty seven years of malignancy and you can't cut that tumor out absent, but you can certainly stunt its growth and send it backwards. Are you an optimist about the regime collapsing?

Believe it or not, I'm a long term optimist because there is no way output through for Uncle Sam and the desert. There's no path out of a desert that does not include flipping the script on the Iatolahs in Tehran. There is no way to pivot to China. There's no way to lock down the Western hemisphere. There's no way to generate the credibility to deal with Putin or really anybody else if you come up short against the Iyatolas we have with the exception of Israel right now an

Thank you so much for joining me. Follow him on x at the real b eh nam Ben and it will pop up and you ought to follow him and the people that he follows, you ought to follow. I hope you'll come back as we are on the edge of in momentous events in the Middle East. Thank you, and I'm stn't Foundation for Defensive Democracies FVD dot org. Go and find more there. I'll be right now morning

Well, look, the President has done a great job of, you know, bringing together his offensive cost and position capabilities. That's the not just the aircraft carrier and its air wing, but the three destroyers and their Tommac missiles. I mean, I don't know this for a fact, but I'm going to bet some money that there's a high class SSG and you know got you know, Tomahawk equipped submarine with lots of Dalmaks on it somewhere close enough in the

Now, Admiral the National security advisor equivalent in Iran has said any attack on anything in Iran will bring a response directed at the United States, but also at Israel. Do you think Israel can stand up to a fusilade like June again.

Yeah, So let's be clear. If it's the US alone striking them, the absolute last thing I would do if I was an Iranian planner is attack Israel because I just invited an equivalent or larger size of F thirty five fifteen fleet to come visit me the next day and the day after and the day after and the day after, because with US refueling, it's unlimited, and you know, until the United States and Israel say, you know, and we've had enough. You know, so again, if they do that,

Do is our carrier at risk or destroyers at risk? And where do you put on the risk level? The basin cutter and throughout the region.

So the carrier and the destroyers have a high quality air defense systems, both point defense for the carrier and the destroyers and an area air defense for the destroyers which would encapsolute the carrier. And of course the air wing provides air defense against drones and against cruise missiles, probably not against ballistic missiles. So all of that together makes them say it makes them relatively secure. You never want to be arrogant enough to say nothing can hit me,

And how many different would you guess how many different strikes can be executed within the initiation first wave? How many targets can we expect to disable or destroy in a first strike?

I mean, there's so many. There's a lot that goes into that. So I'll just say, you know a lot of targets take multiple aim points. How many B twos do you want to involve? Do you want to really stretch your B two you know, to use everything that's not involved in your nuclears set aside. You know, some of the B twos are reserved for twenty four to seven nuclear missions, you know that kind of stuff. So, because the B twos can do a lot of striking. But what I would do is I do a deliberate

Now, Bro, you were the executive director of the cyber Slarium when it was in play. Do the Iranians an offensive cyber capability that can be directed at the homeland?

Yes, But so the yes is they could do something, but this is not China or Russia. They can do denial of service operations, minor things. I don't think they could do major power system disruptions, and they've tried hard against Israel and done again minor things but not major. In things I think they would struggle against US to do a major disruption. The countries that can do that are you know, the US, Israel, China, Russia. I don't

Now, I've had a lot of your colleagues on from the Foundation for the Defensive Democracies in the last few weeks. They have never not been in the nation and terrorism business. Have you ever founded in your ris to study what potential they might have either directly or indirectly through their proxies in the United States?

Well, certainly, I mean both Department of Defense friends of mine, but also people here at FDD you are under threat from Iran. Iran absolutely practices overseas assassinations against their own people, their own you know, uh, overseas activists, protesters, dissidents, but also against Americans they hold at risk. So the president is one they the President's on an Iranian allegedly on

Yeah. No, you were in uniform when the war against Libya was undertaken, and that war brought down Libya. I don't know that you were in the service when the war against Serbia was undertaken. That war brought it down ken An air campaign exclusively caused the regime to collapse, in your opinion in Iran because I don't think so, but I don't know enough.

So I participated in both of those, and i'd say the answers.

No.

I mean, I just think the IRGC is one hundred and one hundred and twenty five hundred fifty thousand strong. They're not going to go down. I mean, most of those guys understand that if the opposition takes over, their life expectancy is going to shorten dramatically, So they're going to fight, stand and fight. So that would be a lot of a lot of costant position from the air against target mobile ground targets. That's going to be very hard.

Now, Admeral, I don't know if you can stand on the segment. If you can tell Duyne and we'll go this. But would you answer for me. Uh Karj Island has never been on a target list. Why is that?

I don't let's separate. Has it been our target list for us as Have we actually executed a strike? In other words, do I think it's targeted?

Yes?

Do I think that it's been struck? No, I'm not certain why. I've never been in a political discussion we're told not to strike it. I just feel that, like when we're doing our cost and position back in nineteen eighty eight, we did cost a position after the Iraq you know, the oil the oil ships being sung. We went after their naval ships to punish them for their illegal behaviors.

Operation Praying Man. I got to go to break on the Saale News channel. I will find out if Fadmal Montgomery can stay with us. Continue watching Town news channel, stay tuned to this radio station if being in a car, If you can, you'll come back after the break. I'll ask him more questions like those I've been asking. Am stay tuned, Welcome back America, per I. Mark Montgomery, retarding States Navy has stayed with me a senior fellow at

So I think that means he's eventually going to strike, I know, and not three months from now, but within the next thirty days, because I look, I hope it isn't at twenty three hours fifty nine minutes we hit him. I mean, and he did get that one twenty four hour one and then the Israeli struck within it, but that was Israeli forces. You know that what kind of

So talk me through the best case scenario and the worst case scenario from your perspective, Admiral Montgomery.

So, I think the best case scenario is a well thought out, deliberate ten to twelve days strike along with Israel. Israel might as well be in it with us, because as you as we alluded to in the previous segment, it's you know, in it or not. They're probably going to be the receiver of, you know, a lot of ballistic missiles, so might as well be in it from

Would you, if you were advising them, advise him to destroy the oil export industry because it seems to me the IRGC has no other source of hard currency with which to pay the people who depend upon them to be paid.

I wouldn't, but that's because I say, grab the illegal ships, you know, the shadow fleet ships delivering the fossil fuel. I would go at it that way. I think hitting something that you then have to rebuild as your recon stituting a country, you know, that's that's that's an expensive endeavor.

Okay, what is the worst case scenario so that people are fully aware. I'm aware of threats to sailors, soldiers, deirmen, and marines. I want the audience to hear you talk about that.

Well, look, I mean they will be they will fire at some point. This is an existential threat to the regime there, and they will fire everything they have and they have chemical weapons. You know, they have used chemical weapons in the past. So our forces will need to be ready for everything. And so you know, I'm from the school, you know, you have to assume something could get through, So you have to have maximum defenses up. You have to you have to establish defensive positions after

I remind people that when they targeted Alasad Air Base in the aftermath of the killing of soul Money, they hit it. They actually hit it. So their missiles are not the junk that Saddam as saying had in nineteen ninety one. How many of those do they have?

Well, that's an interesting thing. So Israel did some damage to that and they fired a ton you know. By all reports, I think that forty to fifty percent were either expended or destroyed in the last attacks. And we have done a pretty good job and is raised in a good job trying to prevent the reconstruct, you know, the replenishment of that. But you know, the Chinese have been a little duplicitous in this, illegally shipping some moting, some of the other chemicals and fuel necessary for some

Lot can the drums delivered chemical weapons?

I have not seen that, even in Russia or elsewhere that doesn't But that's the answer is could they I'm almost sure they could have they I have not seen that.

Is there any scenario in the front of your mind, not some science fiction novel, but anything in the front of your mind that would lead to President Trump deploying troops in Iran?

Not in the front of my mind. Look, you asked worst case. I mean, we could get into some kind of campaign where damage is inflicted on us that the President finds to be unacceptable, and then we get ourselves into a punitive campaign that includes ground ups. I don't foresee that. I just think that, you know, if we've learned anything since, you know, in the last twenty four years, is to avoid that kind of ground campaign.

Okay, very last question, Admiral. Do they have the capacity to shoot down our stealthy aircraft other than by a lucky shot?

No, now we say today the capability to do it? No, that, but again, there could be a ballistic shot. There could be a weapon that goes off nearby that you know, it's something else, and a piece of frag you know, fragment gets into an engine. We do have some single engine planes.

You know there in the United States. I mean we have Yeah, it happens here, so it could happen there in a war zone. What do we do if that happens, We go get him.

We will have a team standing by. I think geography, you know, location, location, location, Downtown Tehran might be a toughie, but we'll have uh, we would have teams search and rescue, combat search and rescue teams standing by in different locations to service different geographies. But there are limitations to that.

Okay. So in your life as a warrior, how many times have you had this feeling about imminent conflict?

Probably six or seven, And it's.

Different about this one.

And it's happened five or six. So no, Look, what's unusual is this president's just so forward leaning on the rhetoric, you know, which is he does it for effect. I mean it's not this is not shirtlish, right, this is this is how he seeks leverage. And so it's very on predictable. For those of us who haven't dealt you, who were not New York real estate people for thirty years, we're not used to this. So you know, my take is that when a president uses this kind of language, go time is coming.

Eedmiral Mark Montgomery, retired, Amerald, thank you for joining me today. We'll stay in touch. I hope you'll be available throughout the weeks ahead, as this thing is getting hotter by the moment. Welcome back in America. I'm hu here att President Trump said yesterday in Iowa. Secretary Rubio said today before the Senate Foreign Relations Panel, and Armada is headed and is already on station in part to the near shore of Iran. What are you going to do with it?

So, we've got a carrier battle group that is in the region that is close enough to position to strike Iran. We've got some additional assets that the President has moved into other countries in the region, including Jordan. There are some more things on the way that may provide additional military options to the president. I think right now what we're looking at is a go no go decision.

Okay, Now, what is going to happen and what you want to have happened maybe different. Tell me first what you think is going to happen, and then tell me what you hope happens.

Look, you know, Hugh, I know that the President made a go decision and that he was choked out of it by the Israelis who felt they were not prepared for what the Iranians were threatening, which is ballistic missile strikes. The Iranians have spent the last eight months since the Summer War rebuilding their ballistic missile capabilities, and they could

Danny Pike, we've watched him now for five years, including the most recent year. He'll say A and not A, he'll say B and not B, and then he'll do X now, So I mean he is very good at the art of deception, not unlike other wartime leaders in recent memory. I'm not sure I have any hope that anything the United States can do will end this regime.

So this is unknowable, right.

We are notoriously bad at predicting revolutions. All I can say is that what we were seeing until the Iranians clamps down very hard over the last couple of weeks, what we were seeing was genuine concern inside the regime that they had lost control of the country. You know, all of the previous revolutions that we've seen in Iran, maksa Emini in twenty twenty two, twenty nineteen, the two thousand and nine Green Revolution, they were what you could

Years, Danny. I have spent the last two weeks talking to everyone, beginning with the President, who knows anybody iron and is in the public and has an ability to deliver commentary and not give away state secrets. And all of them have different target sets, and I ask them all, why don't we blow up carg Island Because the regime has no other money that doesn't come out of carg Island or the other two oil terminals, and they're worried about China. Some of them want to blow it up.

So it's really funny you say that, Mark Tison and I on our podcast, as you've nicely noted what the hell is going on, had my colleague Michael Rubin on, and Michael Rubin said, you want to hit them hard, you want to hit them once you hit them at kaj and that will be That is a single point

More with the folks who said to you, that is a good target.

All right.

Let me conclude by I said I don't know how to pronounce harge island and I don't care, but I don't know much about it the geography of of Iran. I do care about their being able to hit all these bases. I played Secretary of Rubio testimony today. There are forty thousand Americans within range of Iran. If President Trump pulls the trigger, should it be overwhelming force on everything that moves that can hurt American troops?

Well, I don't think that. From everything I understand so far, I don't think that that is the President's inclination. Notwithstanding his I do think that the I do think that one thing they will have focused on very intensely is Iran's ability to strike US troops US allies. And that doesn't just mean Israel. That also means Saudi Arabia, it means the United Arab Emirates, it means unfortunately, it also

Danny Plikatt always good to talk to. You're on the other side of the world, and I appreciate your making time for us from the other side of the world on this most important conflext Danny Pliitchett, thank you her podcast with Martis and is what the Hell's going on? Don't miss it. Stay tuned to the Welcome Back America. I'm Hugh Hewitt, joined now by Michael Worn, former ambassador

We look is the first time in two and a half years here that I'm not wearing the yellow ribbon pin and I don't know if folks ever going to take it off of my lapel, but he just came off today, several hours ago.

And I must say our feelings are divided.

Part of us are sharing the sorrow of the Gavilli family whose son was killed performing heroically on twenty three In cover seven twenty twenty three E we shared the relief of the family receiving his remains.

For proper burial in the state of Israel.

And we are are filled with hope for the future now that all those hostages have been returned a living and deceased, and we can begin to rebuild and take on.

The next chapter.

And as you see that next chapter is coming very very rapidly, it seems.

Yeah, well, let's turn to that. I'm going to benham Ben Talib Blue for the last hour of today's program talking about Iran. I think we are on the brink of the United States initiating kinetic activity, because it would be a dent in deterrence if we don't. How do you see this situation? Does the United States go alone, does it go with Israel? Does it follow Israel like it did in June of last year.

Well, it's like that answer on the SATs. It's d all of the above.

Okay, one of three things going to happen in the United States goes it alone. And I can't imagine that the President has moved so many massive assets to the Middle East region and it's not going to use them.

You take out a pistol and don't use it.

It projects weakness and not strength, and you become basically a Barack Obama not enforcing a red line. God forbid. Secondly, does does Israel join? And from my sources in Israel tell me that thisel very much wants to join, wants to be part of this, and we can bring to bear immense military power with our air force and other assets we have in the region. And then thirdly, the third option is that maybe there is a coup within the Iranian leadership, that they ditch the Supreme leader and

And they will stop.

Supporting terrorists around the world and cease steep, cease seeking our destruction, and that would be a gaming change. It wouldn't be the best outcome for the people every round, I must say, but it would be certainly better for the people of the Middle East generally.

Now you have founded the Israel Advocacy Group, and the Israel Advocacy Group studies things from the perspective of the Jewish state. Do you expect if the United States initiates a strike as punishment, just punishment for the slaughter of thirty thousand of their own citizens and the ongoing incarceration, probably torture and murder of others, that whether or not you want to get involved, Iran will hit Israel. So you have to get in a first punch.

Well, I don't know if we'll preempt it, but I would say we certainly have a cause of belly. Iran has been trying to destroy Israel now since its inception, since theception of this long Republican nineteen seventy nine, is responsible for the deaths of countless thousands of Israelis and Jews around the world, not just as really blowing up synagogues and Jewish community centers in South America, example in Argentina. That's just one example precipitating wars. Iran was behind October seventh.

Do is you know Harry Derry.

Harry used to say, and I know you know what I mean, go ahead, pull the trigger at making my day, and all we need is one missile fired and we'll take it down and we'll respond.

And we have to prepare that.

We have to prepare for the fact that it won't be just Iran firing ballistic missiles at us.

We assume that.

They have about one thousand, five hundred of these very large ballistic missiles. They carry between two hundred and fifty pounds of TNT. It knocks down just not just a building, but a neighborhood. And we're going to have to get to those rocket launchers as soon as possible. But we'll also be targeted by the hoodies once again, maybe by his Bullah, certainly by the Syrian and Iraqi pro Iranian militias in Iraq and Syrias. So we have to be

Blow doctor on. And I heard over the weekend that Turkey has supplied Siria's new regime with air defenses that were not there in June of last year. Does Israel still have a clear sky all the way to Iran if it needs it? Oh?

Yes, I do it?

Does it does?

Listen, the Russians were there, We had a clear sky, and the Russians had seemingly the or purportedly the most advanced anti aircraft systems in the world, the S three hundred, because they know if they fire our planes.

We're going to fire back.

If it destroyed those systems and then go try to sell them to people around the world. So I don't think Turkey's going to risk that, even if they have moved those anti aircraft systems into Syria, they're not going.

To fire at our planes.

And is there a preparation that if this goes off? I think it has to happen or President Trump will have dented deterrency rebuilt if it does go off. And I expected it well at some point before the middle of March. What's the high end. I mean, those are a lot of missiles with a lot of TNT on them. Do people have any idea what's coming at Israel?

Yeah, they do certainly because we had it.

We had not a dry run, we had we had it. We had a dress rehearsal in June last year, and I was under fire from those rockets.

It's unpleasant, you know.

We have we have bomb shelters in our houses that can with stand a hit by his bubble rocket or a Hamas rocket. But the rockets that iman fire us were killing people in those safe rooms, very very powerful explosives. So we have to brace ourselves for that and and listen to people of Israel, as you know, we're indomitable, we're strong, and we will do this.

This is an opportunity that comes about.

I can say, maybe I want to say a century, but I almost want to say a millennium, to free the Jewish state from a from an enemy that seeks our destruction, not our defeat.

You know, it's extremely rare.

In history for one side in a conflict to seek to destroy entirely other side. You know, our parents fought against Germany and Japan. They didn't want to destroy Germany advantaces change their government. It's extremely rare and this is our chance to be free of it.

Ambassador Michael Orn, founder of the Israel Advocatesy Group, thank you for joining me. Ballaman, actually Dr Michael Lauran, Doctor Michael aren't glad to kick it off with former United States Senator Jim Talent. He represented the state of Missouri. He's now a senior Fellow at the Reagan Institute for the Study of Peace through Its Strength. Senator Talent, we're talking off there about Admiral Montgomery yesterday, who was fabulous. But you're you've been in the defense business as long

Well, I wouldn't call him.

I mean all war is violent. I think I think we're we're on the cusp of a campaign that will be a much more campaign, sustained campaign than we had to do to take out their nuclear arsenal. I heard Mark say ten to twelve days, which to me seems about right, because you there's two objectives here. The first is to is to enforce our red line and thereby enhance our credibility in the Middle East and around the world. President's going to do that be on a shadow of

What do you think the preference of the president is. I think he would prefer that they not, but I don't think he's going to hold him back if one missile is shot at.

Them, right. Look you well, with regard to the Israelis, yeah, it's a complicated question. I mean because Israel has moved from a containment in the region to a preemption policy in the region, and net yeah, who has been very, very decisive about doing that, and I think he's got the Israeli people behind him, so the Israelis can send the message here too. I mean, in the past they've tried to do hands off on this sort of thing

You know, I was with a client back in my law practice days in Nevada, big swinger, Jewish man, big sport of Israel, when Israel did not respond to Saddam's scuds, and he couldn't believe it. I was in his office. He could not believe that they were not responding. But of course Secretary Baker and George H. W. Bush asked them not to respond. I don't think Donald Trump's in the business of asking people not to respond if they want to.

And I think President Trump adjusts better to changes in a strategic in strategic positioning, in other words, in the past Israel has acted sometimes like they can't act, they can't be a normal do what a normal nation would do in a normal situation, okay, which is to take advantage of this to attack and degrade their chief aggressor. I think the Israelis are done with that, and I think Trump is fine with it. Trump is not burdened by thirty or forty years of assumptions about the Middle East.

Would you expect any of the Golf Coordinating Council countries to join in?

No, accepted defensively. When the Iranians respond, and you, I would reassure people, we're very good at this kind of mission when we have time to build up, to plan, and when the environment is basically noncompetitive. I mean, this is not the South China Sea right where there are thousands and thousands and thousands of anti ship crews and ballistic missiles along the coast of China. This is a basically uncompetitive environment. We're good at this, and so I'm

Jim, you and I are the same, Ahure. I think you can remember they build up to the nineteen ninety one war, which kicked off I think on March one or thereabouts nineteen ninety one, and the injections of the dead on our team on our side was going to be in the five digits and people were horrified at that, but it was going to be five digits. Men lost their lives, but it was in the hundreds. It might

Well, we had a couple of wars after that, you were unfortunately, you know, we took a lot of casualties, so relatively speaking, compared to those other engagements, we took a lot of casualties. So no, I think people are worried. I think Donald Trump is uniquely reluctant to use American military power in a sustained combat type situation. Now, I don't know that we'd call ten, twelve, fourteen days all that sustained. So this is a president I think who

The podcast that center Talon is referring to a Twain's World on which you appear every week when Dwayne gets together with the Senator, and it's great national security stuff. What do you expect follows a sustained campaign? Bit of its two weeks more Molas, more IRGC or perhaps a different military general, and the way that CC took power back from the most of brotherhood in Egypt.

Well, I heard one of I think it was Dan sen Or's interviewees. You know, he has so many good ones. I can't remember exactly which one, but he said, the next leader of Iran is not going to be wearing a turbine. He's going to be wearing a military cap. And I would really expect that when it happens. I don't think we should necessarily expect that to happen as a result of this campaign, though, because I don't think

Do you think that they are in touch with reality enough to know what happens where they do inflec serious casualties on American troops And I mean, you've got to hit on a destroyer. I think Donald Trump would go through the roof.

Oh yeah, no, I don't think so. You. I think this is the collapse and they're going to be very This is kind of like Hitler and the Bunkers what I think. I mean, this is the collapse of all their ideological and eschatological pretensions. I think they'll be desperate to do anything to prevent it. And the question is which the Israelis may know I don't know, is are there regime factions that are drawing back from that kind of a scorched earth policy who will act if necessary.

I'm watching his son. His son is a master that fortune of many, many hundreds of millions of dollars outside of the country. And that's not the action of a confident next in lines fame leader, is it.

No?

And I've got to believe that there are people close to him who aren't quite as willing to die as he may be. I mean, there's a limit to how much you know the top leader is one thing, or the people immediately around him. But I've never thought that when you broad it out the RGC generals and the rest of it, that they're as willing, you know, to meet their maker as the supreme leader is. So if it happens soon, if regime collapses, collapse happens soon, that'll be what will cause it.

We will look for that, and we will look for center talent to be back next week. He's also a frequent guest on Dwayne's World. I don't know how often Dwayne are doing that. He's thinking about rekindling the After Show. Be careful, Jim, He'll cut the end of that on a daily basis, Morning Glory and evening Grace Americas. I

Thank you so much so Richard.

Since President Trump appeared on the program, you know, two weeks and two days ago and said he's going to hit Iran harder than he's ever been hit before. They have ever been hit before. If they keep killing people. Well, I've had on Mark Davitz, your colleague. I've had on Michael Durand from Hudson. I've had on Ben ben Tellerblue, your colleague. I've had on I will have on Kareem Sadjapoor.

I do think something is going to happen. I think the President is a president of determination commitment. I think he likely has his mind already set on some sort of outcome here and has asked his senior advisors to make sure his options are set and the force posture matches the options that are most aligned with what he

Iran, and in so doing, if that happens, having cut off the People's Republic of China from Venezuela and oil, he may succeed in cutting off Iran from setting hot oil to China, thought have to buy their oil in the world market. It's not that they won't get oil, it's just that they will pay a lot more for it. Richard, does that not serve our strategic interests as well?

I mean, I think if you, for some reason don't care at all about thirty five thousand people being mass murdered in forty eight hours and executions going on, you just say, not our issue, not our national interests. And for some reason you didn't even care about the fact that Iran, as the leading state sponsor of terrorism in the world, continues to plot war against the United States, has tried to assassinate the President of the United States

So, Richard Goldberg, I believe that if the President fails to strike it Iran, it will dent the deterrence that he is so masterfully rebuilt in the first year following the disastrous years of the Locust under Joe Biden. However, I also don't believe that's going to happen. I think what he was doing with me, and then he followed with Sean Hannity, and he followed with Tony Dakoppel and he did it on true social was trying to prevent violence. It did not work ever since then, since the massacre.

I think that picture is increasing, and the flow of information is obviously accelerating. I do actually think that it's possible he did not have a good flow of information that first weekend when the massacres were taking place, most mainstream media were downplaying the reports that I and others were hearing from inside of Iran. The leading opposition news source, Iran International, was reporting throughout the weekend five thousand and

Don't go anywhere. I'm coming right back with Richard Goldberg, Senior director at the Foundation for the Defense of DEMOCRACIESFDD dot org, and you can follow him at Richard Goldberg on AX. I'll make sure I get the right. Is there a middle initial in there, Richard or is it just Richard Goldberg?

Just at rich Underscore Goldberg. The underscore touches people some.

At rich Underscore Goldberg. It's one of the people I tell you you should follow routinely online because there are a whole bunch of people with opinions about Iran, but there aren't that many with actual firsthand knowledge of having worked the portfolio at the NFC. Richard has don't go anywhere. I'll be right bats with rich Goldberg from the FDD. After these messages, State tuned to the hen Heal It

Oh?

He saved it several times. I mean two thousand and nine, the last time we remember, well, the first time I remember a mass uprising starting in Iran after what people understood to be a stolen election. They don't have elections in Iran, they have selections in Iran, and you had this sort of mass uprising into Ihran suburb taking place it was an upper middle class revolt, and they put

Yeah, Richard, it's not very irrelevant, but I want you follow Has anything been heard from the Metternik of MS now, you know Ben Rowe says President Obama said, anything about the massacre of tens of thousands of people. Have the people who kept the eye tolls in power, have they had the decency to come forward and condemn the regime that they parlayed with.

No, because they're out there working to media right now to say it's over. Too late, can't do anything, too dangerous to act. Don't know what would come next, could be worse if the Supreme Leader were to go. That's who's behind a lot of those news stories and headlines that you see out there.

It's Team Obama.

Ben Rhoades out there still trying to hope for a day where they get back to appeasement as the policy with this regime. However, I will say that for many people who are let's call them normal, more mainstream, clearly don't agree with them on a lot of policy issues, but they went along with that because they're Democrats. They believe they this is what we have to do. This is Barack Obama's foreign policy. So I'll get on the train.

The videos.

Those types of people on the left and in the center cannot justify the jcpoaim or cannot justify an appeasement policy anymore. Are looking at this idea of having a negotiation with this regime with everything going on right now, saying, are you kidding me? This regime has to end up in the ash heap of history, the sooner the better. So, yes, there are idealogues out there, and we remember some of them who served in the Biden administration too, like Rob Malley,

So, Richard, there are lots of different definitions of what we're aiming for. Some people want regime negotiations and if we are to believe one of those includes Special Envoy Witkoff, but he's been involved in some headfakes of extraordinary proportions. There's regime coercion, which is what's going on in Venezuela. There's regime evolution, which is what we hope goes on long term in Venezuela, to free and fair elections and

Yeah, I am at the very least regime punishment, but I would like to see the facilitation of regime collapse in transition. That does not mean boots on the ground. It does not mean an occupation, does not mean the United States literally going to Tehran to do things. Though, if somehow the President and General Kine and Director Ratcliffe can pull a rabbit out of the hat and there's some incredible operation like nobody imagined in Caracas that just

But who knows.

This president and this team around him have proven everybody else. We can't really expect the unexpected with their planning at the moment. However, given the normal set of facts in front of us, the parameters that we would imagine what we would be willing to do with this president should be willing to do, and what he should not be

To say it, Richard, does the American people and the rest of the world have to see what it is that the United States does as a reaction to the massacre, because if it doesn't, I don't know that the red line isn't erat anyway. I think they have to see.

It well, of course they have to see it. You mean you mean, could there just be a cyber event and then you say that's the No, there's no way, there's no way that that is sufficient at this point, based on what the president has has promised, what he has suggested, and what you know, if you're shigen Peing, if you're Vladimir Putin and you're expecting if you were to default now, moving a carrier strike group there, moving all these squadrons, building up a forced posture, and then

I'll be right back with Richard Goldberg of the Foundation for the Defensive Democracy that we're going to tell about risk to American personnel in the region, and then we're going to talk about target list. In our last two segments on Today Iran in Focus Hours, they tuned. I'm hughe Hewing. Welcome back America. I'm Hugh Hewitt. The biggest story in the world remains Iran and whether or not the United States strikes and if Israel joins in with it.

This is the number one source of revenue for the regime. If you stop the flow of oil, then you are on an egg timer for how long the regime can survive. I will add that I also think we underestimate the importance of border trade just in its very near circle of influence and neighbors. If you actually stop some of that daily trade and the currency transfers and the cash access, you will also accelerate liquidity crises inside the banking system.

From times Richard you're a student of history. We spent a lot of World War Two trying to hit Hitler's capacity to produce oil and to deny him the ability to get to the oil fields and the Soviet Union. Why don't we just blow up the refineries. They can be rebuilt under a new regime.

We have that option set. The truth is is that if you go back to the Twelve Day War, like this option set wasn't on the table. And by the way, that target set was on the table for the Israelis as well during twelve days of their own air strikes and with the exception of a couple of fuel depots in an inner near Tehran, they avoided hitting energy infrastructure.

Why is that?

Why is it that we hesitate to do that? Well, in the end, if you are a military planner, if you're advising the president, you say, well, mister President, if we hit their energy, then they will have a proportional response, which will be to hit other energy, whether that be to mine the strait of horror moves and deny Saudi oil for moving out to the market, or hit Saudi oil infrastructure itself and try to create a massive catastrophic disruption event for the market. A couple of responses to

Yeah, Richard, thank you. I've been through a lot of experts and they all say we got to worry about our Golf Cooperation Council allies, and we do. And msz NBC is our best ally and NBS is a rising ally and we got to worry about world roil markets. But Canada's coming online with a lot of heavy crude, and we got a lot of heavy crude, and Venezuela has got a lot of everything that Iran's got. I just don't understand why it's not at the top of

They can deaf not only target US bases in the region through their ballistic missiles, they also have a cruise missile capacity as well. We saw that utilized against the Saudi oil infrastructure back in twenty nineteen, along with drones. So long as we keep our naval forces far away with our standoff capabilities, whether that be Tomahawk strikes or fighter jets off the boat, we should be outside of

If remember the Argentinian has hit that British I can't remember the name of the ship that they that they sunk in the fall.

You can't have a total prediction here. You have to there there. There can always be something that goes wrong. There can always be something like you can't believe that happened. But by and large, you do have to be prepared for their missile threat. We have missile defenses available, We have the s M three's on the destroyers, we have some land based patriots and other at our bases in the region. So yes, we would be on force protection

What do you want me to do? And do you really think my red line would be a race if I don't do anything? What do you want me to do? And would it really be a red line erased? What do you say to one?

Mister president? Everyone's watching. You gave your word, you decided that you were going to set a red line, which was totally appropriate, and that lead line has been obliterated because in the end, these are crazy, maniacal radicals who have tried to kill you, and we'll try to kill you again when you leave office. But you already know that killed a lot of Americans, and they will keep

So Baby says the same thing. Do you want that? Do you want me to have Israel come along or you want them to stay home?

Oh?

I think that if you have the aircraft carrier of the State of Israel at our disposal, that means we have two carrier strike groups at our disposal. Actually, the entire Israeli Air Force and their clandestine and cyber capabilities inside of Iran. We don't know what they're what they could be capable of doing. If I was the President United States, I would say, what are our unique capabilities against specific targets that these Raelis can't touch, that they

And then he finishes Richard this way, you know, I like air to one air. No one called me. He doesn't want me to do this. They just put in a strike, he put in radar in Damascus. What do we do about Turkey?

Tell him that I hope he really loves what we've done to bring the Iraq Turkey pipeline back online and the revenue that's creating for his regime and for his country, that there's a lot more business to be done, and hopefully he understands that the Islamic Republic of Iran at war with the United States all these decades. People who have tried to kill me personally meet the President United States and have killed many, many, many Americans really shouldn't

Right, very last question. I don't think the red lines obliterated yet, because there's a rationale for what he did when he did and what he said when he said, and I think it was very strategic. But it will go away by a date certain. I'm saying Saint Patrick's day. How long does he have to act, Richard before the damage Obama like damage to his credibility is done.

I don't like setting a timetable on that. If he is intending to act, and he is continuing to move forces into position to be able to fulfill his objectives, he should use this time to squeeze, destabilize, and disorient that can be done in the economic realm, that can be done in the cyber realm, and then follow on with the kinetic action. So long as that's all sequenced, it's all coming together, it's all part of a strategy. You know, the time is on his side. He should

Goldberg from the Foundation for the Defensive Democracies. Thank you. Follow rich on X at Rich Underscore Goldberg at Rich Underscore Goldberg, and visit Foundation for Defensive Democracy that's at fdd on X as well all of their They've got the strongest Iran department inside the Beltway because they've got people who have actually done it, including Rich Goldberg, who's been mister sanctions for a long long time. Thank you, Rich.

It's a really good question. I don't think anybody kind of put it like that, and I think that's exactly how we should think about it.

But that.

This is the end of the Obama delusion. I have not heard from European capitals that there is a sense or an expectation that there will be new negotiations with Iran over you know, whatever remains of its nuclear program, and eventually we will knit Iran into the global order by investing in that country as long as that regime

They did not invite. They ended up disinviting the Foreign Ministry, which was a good move, but they have not designated the IRGC as a terrorist organization at the EU, which is a bad move. The most important question in the world right now, and I think by a lot, I've been on a Canada rant already today because the Mark Carney disgusting address or so cowardly in two faced, But the most important question remains, should Donald Trump hit Iran hard? And Willie? What do you think, Elila?

I think he absolutely should. I don't see how I mean listen, nobody can bring to what's going on with Donald Trump. His messaging has been pretty consistent, and I think he tried to kind of create his own way out by saying that they had they had canceled the execution of I think he has a very specific number eight hundred and thirty seven people in the hangings which

My worry is though, that I would have liked to.

Have seen something, and I understand military assets have to be in place. I also understand that, according to a lot of reports, and I've heard this too in my reporting, that Trump really does want a comprehensive military option and

Some kind of deal. I don't think that's going to happen, but that's my Let me go all Sophocles on you. You cannot know how good the day has been until the night has come. And with Donald Trump, the whole Greenland thing, he's an actor. The whole Greenland thing might have been a way to divert attention away from this.

There's a lot of reasons maybe why you don't hit carg Island. You could also cause an oil shock that would do terrible things to the price of energy, which has been relatively stable and low, and that would have an effect in terms of inflation. So Trump's got to

The reason I like carg Island is all that money goes to the IERGC. Yeah, Canada is ramping up its export of oil. It's at sixty dollars a barrel, seventy dollars a barrel is not that big of a deal, and it can be we can overproduce. We are just about to hit full American production. But Eli, before I go, I got to ask you the Carnie speech and many of the other Europeans seem to take for granted that the United States will always protect them no matter what

I would say this, it's empty rhetoric. Canada and Europe do not have the military, do not have the means to protect themselves. That is by our design, and there are good reasons for that. So I wanted to say, I don't want to give Trump a total path. I think that some of the things that he said were outrageous, and the way that he went about the Greenland thing. I think can have but it's not the end of the world, because there is no alternative right now to

But they're going to sell a lot of oil to China, which is fine because we have freedom of the sea's guaranteed by the United States Navy, and if that ends, they can only sell it to us, and they only. They don't even spend two percent of their GDP on defense. Eli he talked about his submarines. They got four submarines, the most recent one which was built in twenty fifteen.

Listen, I agree, and that some of this is a exposing things. I mean, listen, some of what Trump is saying is I disagree with a lot of it is true. When we were fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yes, it's true when they say the British did fight, especially on the Special operation side, absolutely valiantly.

That's and the Canadians lost one hundred and fifty eight people.

And also true, but I'm just saying the Italians and the Germans, we couldn't trust them to secure areas they they were they they didn't they There are cultural issues there that are really deep. It's not just about spending more of your GDP. There's it's that there. There's not the kind of military culture that we have in America right now. So those are deep things that our generations are going to be playing out over a generation. But like,

That, no matter how many times ago to Davos, I'm in the killed Davos Forever club. What do you think? Eli? Thirty seconds? I agree with Davos.

Is is a is a debating society of the plutocratic class.

It's a pleasuring of the banking class. And I'm sick of it. Thank you, Eli Lake. Follow him on X at Eli Lake. I'll be right back in America. Stay tuned, Hi, it's you, Hewett. You've heard me talk a lot about consumer cellular how you can switch your carrier and save money without sacrifice. That's because Consumer Cellular uses the same towers as the major carrier. You'll save money every month on your bill without having to sacrifice the quality of coverage.

Well, this is very I'm very glad you've asked me this because I often, Actually, Hugh, I think of you because in the run up to Operation Midnight Hammer, to that strike that Trump ordered, I was on your show and you asked me then if I thought it was going to happen, and.

I was quite skeptical.

I didn't think it was going to happen, and you were much more certain than I was, and you were correct. And I have now kept your voice in my head in thinking.

About these things.

And you also have to remember that during Trump's first term, he called up a strike at the last second as well a strike, a strike on Iran because he calculated that the death toll would be too great in response to the Iranians having knocked down unmanned us drowne but that did not stop him from six months later taking out costum soul of money.

So I'm I think it's more like leave him not.

How about that?

Okay? I agree with you, And my reasoning is this. He's a very visual person. He learns by seeing. And John Ratcliffe, who doesn't make any news at all, we never see him every day. I think he's bringing in new pictures of what they did, and I don't think we have quite mentally got our arms around. Channel twenty four in Israel is now reporting upwards of eighty thousand

You know Eleana Johnson, who is the editor of the Washington Free Beacon and who was on the commentary podcast Daily, She made a good point.

I think it was today, might have been yesterday.

Trump has I mean, it's very natural, good aversion, but has a profound aversion to dead bodies and unnecessary, and I think that he is. And I've also heard that in other contexts from in having to do with with with other international situations, so I think you're onto something. I would also add that if the eighty thousand number

Needlessness, simplicity of the media in this double standard. They have also made zero complaints that I have seen that the regime won't let them in. That was like a daily refrain about the net and Yahoo government was, Oh, they won't let us into Gaza. What are they hiding? What are they hiding? They won't let us into Iran? And I mean anybody, zero, nobody, And there isn't a Gaza news service. There isn't an Iranian news service because they haven't got an internet. Can you imagine even a

Yeah, well they look in the internet is death to that, you know, to the regime.

They they've got to they've got to go dark to do what to take out their people.

And in some sense it worked because it put a temporary cloak over what the regime was up to. Only now we're getting some sense of the full extent of the brutality.

Now I got one one big question, I asked Ben Dominis this. I just want to say, the only one of the Obama era people who I've seen say anything with Tommy Veeder was chirping at me that Taco Trump and I can't that the lack of self awareness. They misjudged this regime so badly. If the regime was willing to do this to our own people, imagine what they

Obama is I mean, this all sort of comes from Obama.

I mean, I I don't know the Biden ever would have gotten this idea.

Had Barack Obama not first been president and Biden up been his vice president. Obama's whole approach to Iran was that the US was somehow talking down to it unwarrantedly, and that what we needed to do was offer the open hand, if you recall, and sort of welcome it back into the community of responsible nations and understand its point of view. This was complete, toxic.

Malign garbage, I mean.

And when Obama didn't act in two thousand and nine after the regime took violent action against those the Iranians who protested that rigged election, the excuse was, well, the protesters don't want the Americans on their side, it will make them look bad.

Nonsense.

As we see now, the Iranians are, to the extent that they can reach out, are asking for American help here.

So does the left in America not know and doesn't want to learn, or do they know and don't care about the nature of this regime China? They kind of care about Russia for reasons I'm not quite sure, but they don't care about China and the leagers in Hong Kong and Jimmy Lai. They don't care about this regime. They care about themselves.

I think liberals generally don't particularly know.

Or don't care that much. It's not it's not big on their radar.

I think if you're on the left, the honest to goodness left in this country, you don't want to say word against Iron. You've been You've been protesting on their side for two plus years. You've been supporting their terrorist proxies, chanting their terrorist proxies, slogans of extermination. You you believe essentially in their cause.

And now you are embarrassed because they are revealed in the full light of day, even though it's a completely dark society. When those lights turn on, a whole lot of video are going to come our way. Y'allsh allend that on that comment online and it's been taunting me ever since. We're going to be up to our next awful video, Hey Greenwald. Follow on at Abe Greenwald. Listen to the commentary podcast every day morning Glaury and even Grace America. I asked promised. I'm joined by Kareem Sajafor

It is indeed a very busy time, and I appreciate you inviting me back.

To well, welcome back. Can we start by alerting the audience telling me your background. You went to the University of Michigan. We're going to overlook that here at Ohioseate headquarters. But tell your background and how you came to specialize in all things Heran.

Sure, so, I was born in the United States, but my parents were originally from Iran.

They immigrated to the United States.

Most Iranian families in the United States came here nineteen seventy nine or shortly thereafter when they were nineteen seventy nine revolution happened, But my parents had immigrated to the United States a decade prior to that, and so my father was a neurologist. We grew up mostly in Michigan. I went to University of Michigan and Arbor. I played soccer. The first person I met in freshman orientation was Tom Brady, a friendship kich. In hindsight, I should have cultivated and you know, I lived.

I grew up.

Speaking Persian in our kitchen, I call it kitchen Persian. I wasn't formally schooled in it, but I grew up with English in Persian. And then I spent several years living abroad in college and even in high school. I spent a year living in Mexico. I lived in college in Italy. I wasn't really interested in the Middle East until I felt that things started to change in Iran politically.

So a Gareham, I've told my audience many times I watched the Iranian revolution unfold on a couch in the Western White House with exiled Richard Nixon and Ray Price. We were the writers the former president was doing the book The Real War, and we'd watch every afternoon because the news would come on three hours earlier, and we saw the revolution unfold in real time. Where were you when the revolution unfolded?

So I was a young boy.

I was born late nineteen seventy, so I was just about two years old when the revolution was happening in the state of Michigan. And you know, it obviously impacted our lives in different ways. So much of our extended family had to flee Iran, all of them at ben and Iran, and our home in Michigan was kind of the safe.

Harbor for many of them.

So they fled Iran and they would come to stay with us and Michigan prepared until they were able to kind of resettle elsewhere. And I think in my parents said they probably thought maybe the one day they would go back to Iran. But then when the revolution happened,

I've only had one other diaspora member on that hadn't been Talablue from FDD. I neglected to ask him. How varied is the Iranian diaspora. Does the regime have any supporters within it, and has it become increasingly militant about making a change in Iran?

The regime has virtually no support among the certainly the diaspora in the United States. When polling is done, I think you probably see less than one percent support because if you're a supporter of the regime, you know you want you live in Iran, you don't want to be in the United States.

And I think for many years there's been not really a diversity.

Of opinion when it comes to people's desired endgame in your among the dads for Ionians, even outside the United States, I would say vast, vast majority of your Oroonians want to see some form of secular democracy.

I think the debates have been about.

The means to get there, and whether, for example, economic sanctions is a viable or useful tool to try to reach that end of secular democracy, whether military action is a means that people would accept to get to that endgame. And obviously the last month the events in Iran, I

And so I think both within Iran, among.

The protesters, and in the diaspora, I would say there's probably a majority consensus, a majority support for some type of US action.

Kareem were you shocked by the level of barbarity that the regime employed in the last three weeks. I was one of the eight occasions where the president said help is on the way, keep marching, take over. He was very adamant that we were going to help. So I think we are going to help. But were you shocked

Unfortunately here, I wasn't terribly shocked by the brutality of the regime because at the end of the day, this is a regime which has no friends in the world. They have no great plan b So, in contrast to the Shaw, who didn't want to use a lot of violence against people to stay in power, and both the SHAW and all of its political and military elites, many of them were educated in the United States and Europe. They spoke foreign languages and so they could remake their

Or they're out.

They have partnerships with countries like China and Russia, but those are not secure partnerships, and so for that reason, they have a killer be killed mentality. And unfortunately, I wasn't terribly surprised that they were willing to employ that kind of brutality to stay in power because you know, what I say about this regime, and I tol a harmony in particular, is that they're homicidal, but they're not suicidal.

Now a minute and a half to break correct, what are the spectrum of collapses underway for the people who are actually just living there. They're not part of the regime, they're Persian, they're Runnia, just trying to get along. What are they confronted with right now one minute.

So this is a regime which is politically, economically, and socially authoritarian. Every aspects of people's lives are disrupted because they're living under a totalitarian dictatorship that polices their personal lives. There's routine power outages, water shortages, and I think people

I will be right back with Karim sad Japur of the Carnegie Endowment right after these messages, Police State, welcome back to America. I'm Hugh Hewett. Kareem zad Japur is the equal of any Iranian analyst in the United States. He is, of course, very very much in demand right now, and I thank him for making time for the program today on the Sale News Channel and the Salem Radio Network.

Know, anything is possible with these dictatorships. Here, there's an old line that all dictatorships look good until the last five minutes, and many of these authoritarian regimes that looked so strong before, you know, collapse fairly abruptly. So it's my view that even if the United States doesn't take military action, this is a regime which is this current status quo in Iran is not tenable.

So there's one hundred and fifty thousand members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard cores tens of thousands more in the besiege. They're paramilitary, para police thugs. What about the Iranian military, it's ordinary military. Is it radicalized as well? Or is it a military military like the American military?

So the military is a conscript military, so it reflec ex Iranian society. I have one one kind of personal anecdote about that. Years ago, when I was living in Tehran, I went with a group of friends to the Caspian Sea and I saw there was some military folks from the regular army, conscript army who were just kind of walking down walking along the shore of the Caspian Sea.

Now they've always been loyal. But the body of that.

Military are reflective of Iranian society at large, and I would suspect for the most part, deeply unsatisfied with the status quo, deeply unsatisfied with their lives.

So that takes me to my question about if there is military action, what should the United States target and what shouldn't they target? And I'll follow naturally, should they leave the regular Iranian military alone?

Listen, I don't want to pretend to like I'm a military expert, and I obviously haven't. What we've learned from so many of US military action over the last two decades in the Middle East, including the Iraq and Afghanistan. So much of it is the execution, and to our credit, to our military's credit, they've done an exceptionally good job,

Would you want if the United States strikes, what would you like them to strike in what order? I know you're not a military expert, but everybody is talking about this. Adaal Montgomery gave me a very long target list yesterday. But you're the fellow who studies the country. What do you think might bring regime collapse closer?

So let me say a couple of things to you.

One is that one of the things I would have liked to have seen happened already in fact early days, and the protests would have been to lift this iron digital iron curtain that the regime has subjected people to. They've cut off intnet, satellite connections, they've cut out cellular connections, and activity of the country has been about one percent,

Then we start to get into much.

More sensitive questions, and obviously the most sensitive one, arguably, I think that the current the Trump administration is probably debating as we speak, is whether to target the Supreme Leader. And you know, I've spoken to folks who served and the first Trump administration who are still close to this one, who believed that if military action is sick and they are likely to target the Supreme Leader eighty six year

So Kareem sajafor do you where do you place their probability now of a military strike by the United States on Iran? And do you have any year that Iran will take a first preemptive strike on, for example, Israel and the Gulf oil fields in the GCC countries.

No, I'm skeptical that they will try to take preemptive action because, as I said, this is a regime which is homicidal, not suicidal.

And right now, the.

United States has convened some of the most elite facets of the American military, whether that's warships or fighter jets, and I'm skeptical that they will want to test President Trump. Given President Trump's history with Iran. You have to remember, Hugh, and you remember it better than anyone. Twenty eighteen, Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal. Twenty twenty assassinated Blossom Sulimani, Iran, some military commander. Last summer, he dropped bunker busters on

I'll be right back with Kareem Sajupor don't go anywhere. America very rare you get an expert like this, so listen very closely to what he has to say. Stay tuned to The Hugh Hewitt Show. Welcome back to America. I'm Hugh Hewitt spending this hour with Kareem Masajapour. He's the first generation of America and his parents emigrated from Iran ten years before the revolution, and he knows the diaspora,

My sense here is, and the President has alluded to this that the kind of template or strategy they have in mind is similar to the Venezuela playbook, which was essentially economic stranglehold, and you know, going after oil exports, going after these ghost fleets of oil ships. And my sense is that that is a more likely outcome than going after bombing Iranian oil installations or refiners, which you know,

To a homedy.

We know from you know, FBI statements that Iran has been trying to assassinate President Trump during the ten year of President Biden. And so you know, my sense is that you will see more likely this kind of major economic stranglehold and the hopes that that will lead to either Iran capitulating or some kind of action to force political change in Europe.

Now, kareem, after thirty to forty thousand people have been mowed down in the streets and besieged, and revolutionary guard going to the hospitals and shooting people and the bodies are left on the sidewalk with little video we have is horrific. That's gotten out what you can. Is it even fair to expect the Iranian straight to rise up a second time after that kind of a devastating blow from the regime.

It's not likely in the immediate term because people are in retreat, you know, they're just in shock, and as I mentioned from the outset, their communication ability is very limited given how the regime has throttled the Internet and satellite television and cellular communication, and so I think they're in retreat. But as I point out to people here, the nineteen seventy nine revolution was a thirteen month process.

Krim, how are they even eating that commerce in and out of the country is down to nothing, The real is worth nothing. I don't know what the farmers are doing. Why are the reports you're able to get on the quality of life for the average lower to low class individual in terms of income, It must be horrific.

It is horrific because the middle class has been totally decimated, the currency has been totally decimated, and it's there's no rock bottom. It keeps sinking. I'm sure others have pointed out, and you show that the Runian currency visa VI the US dollar has depreciated something like ninety nine point nine percent from nineteen seventy nine to the present. So people are scraping to get by. And what we oftentimes see

Last question before this break, and then one more question to the people. Believe any of the theology that the Iatolas put forward Kareem or have they just view it as words?

You know, I think it's very similar to late eighties Soviet Union, in which not only within the society but within the regime you have very few true believers left in the system. In fact, a friend of mine who was a professor in Tarhron said, at the beginning of the revolution, the regime was eighty percent idiologues and twenty percent Charlatan's and now it's the reverse, only perhaps even within the regime only twenty percent true believers, So in society I would say it's even less than that.

I'll be back with one more segment with Kareem Sadjapor. You can follow them on actually a k sajipor and you can read them in the Atlantic. You've got a great competion in the current Atlantic as well at the Karnegie Endowment. Stay tuned, Welcome back America. I'm huge Hewett. I wanted to save the most delicate issue for the last career, which is the role of Israel in anycoming

Well, Israel obviously showed over the last couple of years that militarily they're far superior to Iran, even though Iran is seventy five times larger as a nation state.

And so it was Israel which paved.

The way for the United States to take action because they took out Iran's air defenses. And going back to what I said earlier about restoring connectivity in Iran, Israel, which has a very phisicated cyber capability, Israel was able to help restore connectivity within Iran. I think it's something that would be greatly appreciated. But they have because they're within missile range of Iran and it's a much smaller country,

So kareem to wrap this. Everybody in DC talks to you about this. So I'm just curious, off the record, what did the other countries in the region not named Israel in the United States, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Memorirates got her? What do they want to see happen? Do they want this regime to stay there? It seems like it's an endless source of woes for a region that ought to be booming.

I think the only country, major country in the world which benefits from keeping the Lower Republic iround is Russia, because as long as Iran is isolated, it can't exploit its vast natural gas and oil reserves. It doesn't compete with Russia as it should in global energy markets. It's a thorn in the society of the United States. It can't compete with Russia and its historic sphere of influence Central Asia. Obviously, you know, smaller countries like North Korea

And is there any worry on your part that Iran is play sleeper sales In the United States, they sent people to assassinate people here before. They've tried to kill President Trump. We know that, But what about a widespread has the law or related network. Have you got concerns there?

I'm not too worried about that in the United States. In Europe they have carried out operations and usually here it's not Iranian nationals that are doing that. They pay European Russian criminal gangs or or Pakistani radicals to carry out these activities. So that is, you know, certainly a possibility.

Yeah, very last question. What is the ceiling? We know it's hit rock bottom and they keep digging a hole into which they can fall off the floor. What's the ceiling for Iran if they were run by even a minimally competent nationalist government.

That's a wonderful question, and it is something which I think is obviously in the US national interests. Kissinger once said, their few nations in the world with whom the United States and the United States has more common interest and less reason to world than Iran. And it's my view that given Iran's enormous human capital, it's enormous natural resources, it's very rich history, this should be a G twenty nation. It should be you know, Saudi Arabia, Turkey r G

The coming years.

And I have bonus question, does the United Nations contribute anything to Iran? Are they protecting World historic sites? Are they doing any kind of relief. Have they been any help at all in Iran?

Not terribly.

When it comes to the politics, you know, you're only used to have a large Afghan refugee presence, and so United Nations UNHCR was helpful there. And I do want to give a shout out to the new head of UNHCR, the former president of Iraq, Badramsali, was a brilliant and

I hope you are right. Kareem Sadupor. Thank you for joining me for this extended period of time. I'll continue to read and follow you on axt You can do that, by the way, America at k Sajipor you cannot miss it. And his new article in the Atlantic is not to be missed as well. One of those experts that you can really trust on everything having to do with Iran. Thank you, Kareem. I want to remind everyone if if you miss part of this interview, we will post it