Should Donald Trump 'Make Iran Great Again'?

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These are the blood curdling sounds from the streets of Tehran and the heavy gunfire is not Gunfire going into the sky. It's aimed at the protesters. And the death toll is incredible. The Iranian authorities are admitting to two thousand dead, the numbers are probably way higher than that. President Trump is said to be weighing the prospect of military action.

To try and destabilize further the regime and aid the protesters. But will that achieve the desired effect? Or is there a risk that that is exactly what the regime wants? Welcome to the news agents. The news agents. It's John. It's Lewis. And you keep thinking it cannot get any worse than what you heard from the day before. And yet the numbers now being spoken about who may have died and the opposition are saying twelve thousand people.

have been killed by the security services in the past three or four days. That is unbelievable. Iranians firing on Iranians They want Khamani to go and they want to see a change in how they are ruled so that they can have a better economic future. And the brutality, the savage. by Khamenei's men is just something that is actually quite hard To fathom

Yeah, and even if that number is wrong and even if it is at the number that the regime itself has put out, which is two thousand, which they say includes security service personnel, one way or another it's a massacre. It's a massacre that's be taking place across Iran, across this enormous

country sprawling across West Asia. It is a huge political story for the whole world. We are gonna get into some of the causes of that. We're gonna be speaking to an Iranian who knows the country really well for his insights on it and sort of weighing up exactly what

Trump might do or he might not do in terms of military action. But before we do that, we are aware that Iran, for many listeners, for many viewers, Iran is a country. which is quite unknowable and quite impenetrable. And we're aware that you might not be completely aware of the history and that's completely understandable, not least because part of this story is the fact that Iran has literally been impenetrable and non knowable, for a very long time, closed off

from much of the rest of the world for very, very deliberately, which is a huge part of this story. And actually part of the story of the protests as well, which is that Iran actually historically was a country which was more liberal, very interconnected with its region and the wider world, with a very big middle class population, which is on the contradictions because you've got this Islamic Republic. So he thought that it

might be helpful to just give a a brief sort of history of the last fifty years of Iran just to sort of get you up to speed on it'cause it is important. So modern Iran basically begins really in nineteen seventy nine. That is when the Shah King basically, who was a a US backed, Western back secular autocrat, he is overthrown by a revolution in the country. And what replaced him

was completely unique really. It wasn't a monarchy. It wasn't a conventional dictatorship either. It was an Islamic republic. And we're gonna hear that term a lot in terms of the coverage on this. It is a hybrid system Iran has. with elections and a parliament, but where ultimate power basically sits with an unelected supreme leader, and that is the Ayatollah, currently the Ayatollah

Ali Khamani as John was saying. Now almost immediately that country, Iran, the new Iran, the Islamic Republic defined itself really against the United States, having been a close ally of the West under the Shah. They seized famously the US Embassy, there was a four hundred and forty four day hostage crisis, and the state was basically almost hardwired to have hostility to the

To the West into the system. Relations with Israel collapsed almost immediately too. And Iran basically started, as we've seen for the last 50 years, the process. Of backing proxy groups across the Middle East like Hezbollah, Hamas, as part of a permanent confrontation with Israel and with the West.

And what makes Iran really unusual today, as we we've just been talking about, is you've got that tension between the state, which is so conservative, ultra conservative, very controlling, very religious, and its population, which is young urban, middle class, often more liberal by temperament. That's not to say the regime doesn't have support because it really does, but it is got a highly educated population globally

connected. And that is what we're seeing play out now. We've seen it play out over the years when there've been other protests as well, though these seem bigger. And that just very briefly I think is why Iran matters so much, why this story matters so much is that if it were to fall, if and it's a huge if, if it were to fall, it would redraw the geopolitical map of the Middle East, it would reshape

Yeah. There is one name that you keep hearing. in all of this, who he stands on the outside, who could become the next ruler of Iran or interim ruler, and that is Reza Pahlavi, who is the son of the Shah of Iran. Now Iran in the sixties and seventies was was liberal, progressive, outward going, cool, trendy. Although the regime under the Shah had lots of problems. Oh yes, and the regime uh had a brutal secret police who were kind of relentless.

in dealing with opponents, it became more and more autocratic. And the Shah in the end became almost an absolute monarch, you know, divine right to rule. And so that is why there was the revolution in seventy nine, with Ayatollah Commani, who has been in Paris in exile, kind of returns as a hero in seventy nine. But now, as you say, it is repressive. It is anti liberal. Women have to wear a hijab.

homosexuality is not tolerated. It is a very brutal place and the economy has been going downhill. And part of that is to do with sanctions, but also part of it is to do with corruption within the government. where people have not been managing the economy well and that all this oil wealth has been squandered. And so you've now got a situation where people are saying Death to the dictator. That has been said before.

But they are calling as well for a return of Reza Pallavi, who's been in exile in America, to come back. to rule Iran maybe on an interim basis while perhaps there are elections. That is still to be worked out. And that is the cocktail that is bringing so many people out onto the streets now and leading to this. Bloodbath that is taking place before Western eyes and with Donald Trump weighing, is now the time for me to bomb or not? Would it help? Would it be counterproductive?

Well we're joined now in the studio by Ali Hamadani, who is a British Iranian journalist and the director of Persian Mix Radio. I think you left Iran in two thousand and nine and we'll come to this. You also spent time in prison there. I know you've been speaking to a lot of people who've

just recently got out of Tehran and have managed to contact some people who are still there. The situation sounds utterly horrific. Yes, I mean the stories that I'm hearing, especially remember that there is no internet. since four days ago, five days ago. No international calls. Nothing. You cannot call to Iran.

it is only today that some people started calling from inside Iran to abroad. But no international call, no internet. I mean the regime started jamming Starling signals, which is quite rare. Everybody's like, what exactly happened? How are they doing it? But apparently they are jam jamming the GPS system. So the Starling devices cannot find the satellite.

So no no internet at all. And remember, owning a Starlink is banned. You could get executed for it. But some people own Starlink devices and they were s sharing loads of videos and stories and I was talking to them. Since Sunday when they started Sunday evening s when they started jamming Starling signals, there was no video at all. Nothing at all. No news at all.

So the only way to talk to people who were in Iran on Sunday onward was actually meeting them or talking to those people who are leaving the country, who just left the country. So I managed to talk to a couple of them. These people who traveled out of Iran from Tehran. We're sharing the Sunday night. Sunday the the reason that I'm that I'm mentioning Sunday, because the the p the crown prince, Reza Parlavie.

who actually started putting statements out a calling for people to start protesting against the regime, not leaving streets. That this new call to action was released for Saturday and Sunday. And Sunday was critical because many people were like, Okay, so this is going to be four nights in a row that people are in streets and they do not want to leave.

So that's the moment that everybody was like, Okay, so we were asking, we were measuring and trying to basically foresee in the future, are they going to stay? And then all of a sudden all all communications went went off. So just take us through what these people that you've managed to speak to have been telling you. So the first question that I have for them and I have my mobile phone because I asked them a couple of questions and I have their answers here.

Were there any protests on Sunday? Are you still on the streets? Are people still protesting against the regime? And the answer was yes, we didn't know. Genuinely we did not know because we didn't hear anything from them. So he said People are still there, but the number of security forces suddenly doubled. Even before any crowd had formed, they began firing into the air and creating chaos.

that is their new method. Despite these protesters gathered from small streets and they managed to get to the central a downtown Tehran. When neighbors heard the chants, many shouted slogans from their windows or came down to join. Demonstrations on Sunday evening continued until two in the morning on Monday, The most striking things was the courage of the teenagers. This is the guy who spoke to me. I'm forty-three and have lived in several countries.

But I've never seen anything like it. Seventeen and eighteen year olds were saying, At worst I'll be killed, but at least the next generation won't have to live like this. Their demands go beyond freedom. They are showing their love for Iran and for their identity. Drones circled overhead. Once they moved away, security forces attacked. and started firing. Yet the young protesters didn't move.

Everyone was filming. But there is one deep fear. With the internet caught, their voice wasn't reached other cities or the outside world and people will think the protests are over. So this is the conversation that I had with the guy and he just left Iran and he was crying and other people that I spoke to who left Iran, they are in in a state of shock. They cannot believe the brutality.

They saw. There have been other protests over the years, other large scale demonstrations. How do you rank What we're seeing now by comparison to those and how scared would you say the regime is?'Cause again they are, you know, clearly they're despotic regime, it's appalling regime in all sorts of ways, but they're very well entrenched, have been for a long time. How scared do you think they are?

So there is a difference between this one and the previous ones, including the women life freedom movement in tw twenty twenty two. We kept hearing death to the dictator, death to Islamic Republic. It was clear that many people, protesters, didn't want this regime. What was not clear was okay, what do they want now? And d this round is the first round that you keep hearing a replacement. You keep hear the slogan Javid Shah, long live the king, the Shah.

So bring back the Shah? Well well he saw or what they are saying to me is basically the Shah is a symbol of Iran which was wealthy, which had a good reputation around the world.

which was connected to the world, which was modern. But isn't that the problem with the protests at the moment and why people think that the brutality of the regime might prevail is that He's not a unifying figure that everyone in Iran can get behind and there is no it's not like there is an opposition that is ready to take over. Tomorrow. Or do you think Reza Pallavia?

It's not about what I think and aha. I think we need to be quite cautious here because I think there's no other names. You keep hearing his name on the streets and no one else's name. So that is fact, right? You keep hearing his name, death to dictator, death to Islamic Republic. death to homini and his name. And his father's name, more more more than him, his father's name. The Pahlavi dynasty. So I think Javichok, yes, it is about the crown prince. It is more about what the Pahlavis

representing the formula. And that's and and that's interesting, Alex, because presumably a lot of the people on the streets are young. They will have no memory whatsoever of the Shah and and his government and the monarchy because it was deposed in nineteen seventy nine, long before they were born. And yet They are saying that. So presumably that's because in their own heads at least, and maybe this is new, the shah and what came before has come to denote or mean something.

Okay, so this is a missing concept. in Western media. Let me tell you, I was born in nineteen eighty five. after the Islamic Revolution. I grew up under Iran and Iraq war, right? So television was full of revolutionary content, showing Khomeini, showing the revolutionary guards, showing the war. But my parents didn't want us to grow up consuming that propaganda. We had secret VHS tapes from before Islamic Revolution television. We were watching Norman, Jerry Lewis.

all of these international movies dubbed in Persian from Iranian television before the Islamic Revolution. All of those pop music m musicians, all of those content. So that is how I grew up. That is how I got to know about Tahlavie. Because that was how my parents my my degeneration's parents tried to counter the regime's propaganda. When we move forward, during the internet era, satellite television's era, loads and loads and loads and loads and loads of content.

were broadcast to Iran about how it was. It was not a democratic country. Nobody's saying that. It had a lot of problems. But people now are comparing Iran half a century ago with today's Saud ว่าทุกว่า ทุกว่า ทุกว่า ทุกว่า Comparing to the wealth and of those countries. And also the ability to be part of the world. Iranians could travel with on on their Iranian passport to the UK with no visa. Fifty thousands of Iranian students were in the US on exchange programme.

No one claims that it was a democratic country at at the time, but at least it was connected to the world. People are were not suffering from poverty. So Ali, I mean for someone like yourself

Could you go back to Iran? No. No way. No. I when I left in two thousand and nine because I was a gay man talking about gay men, did you know there was a gay wedding before Islamic revolution in Iran? No it didn't. And the court, the queen, former queen, she's still alive, sent somebody to represent her there.

As a gay man I was arrested. I was working as a freelancer for the BBC World Service at the time, so I was an MI6 gay spy trying to spread the bad virus of homosexuality. And when did this happen? 2008. And you how long were you in prison for? On and off. Um so basically the interrogation started at the time the Iranian regime was trying to force the BBC Persian service not to launch a Persian television.

And because I was working as a journalist in Iran doing loads of radio, they arrested me. And I enough five months. And tortured, muck executed and sexually assaulted. And I was not put I was not into politics at all. Do you know what I was doing? Reporting from underground music scene. Reporting about underground gay parties. And what's the level of social repression that exists under the regime? Still. Still. So when you see protests as there were on the street in support

of the Islamic Republic, which w there's yesterday. Are these people hired? Is there still a genuine support? Is it a very different thing? in the urban areas in Tehran to the rural areas where there is still maybe strong support for them. I don't say they do not have supporters. It's a fact. They they have a core of supporters. That's n that's for a fact. But

All of these rallies I always say I always compare them to North Korea. All of those North Korean rallies where students and families gather and go and do different things. It is like that. If you're a student in school, they just come and grab you and take you there. They grab many people, especially from poorer areas, poorer cities, sub suburb Tehran. They put them in bus, they offer them food, they offer them these these are facts.

they offered them something, they offered them a bag of rice and they come. And if you don't go as a government employee, it's either it is believed that it is not going to be good for you in future, or you are going to be punished. So basically you live in some sort of paranoid way, paranoid world where you don't know are y am I going to get punished because I did not go to that rally.

Or you get may get punished. So if you had to just for us outsiders trying to understand the psychology of Iran now and what's going on now and why now, why at this moment. Tell me if I'm wrong here, but is it what you're saying that the reason this is

taking place now in the way that it is now is a sort of confluence between there's the economic factors which have been widely discussed, the inflationary problems that there are. There's a sort of technological thing that you're talking about, the kind of memory of the Shah, the content era, the comparison to other parts of of West Asia.

But also as well, perhaps something slightly wider that's going on, which is obviously the geopolitics, which is that Trump in particular has made the regime more frail. Politically. Do you remember his do you remember his speech in Saudi? When he started comparing Iran now and Iran in the past

when he was signing all of those deals with Saudis, everybody inside Iran was talking about it because he mentioned the name Iran and Iran was great. Iran doesn't have water, Iran doesn't have electricity. Should you give some Trump some credit for this? Okay, this this is this is interesting, right? I do not want to say that I give I give the credit to Iranian people. Yes, of course. I give the credit to Iranian people. I give the credit to these young people who are saying

that they want to have a normal life and that's all. Normal life. That doesn't mean that they they want to become overnight they want to become like a U UK democratic style. They want to have a normal life. But has Trump has Trump helped to contribute towards the conditions. This okay, I have a picture for you and I want you to read it out loud. Okay, this is works better on the YouTube version than the podcast, but that's all right. Please, this is this is two nights ago in Tehran.

So I'm there's a picture you've just handed me your phone and there's a picture of um protester in a mask he's holding one placard that says Trump underscored and the second one that says help. So it says Trump help.

So obviously this is a live discussion that's going on in Washington right now at all that the you know that the president is having these uh asking for briefings about what the options might be. Do you think he should bomb the regime? Do you think it would be helpful or might it be counterproductive? I think I'm not in the position to answer that question. Because if I say yes, then I would undermine the fact that maybe some ordinary people could get killed. If I say no

I'm not in a position to undermine what's going on on Iranian streets. That guy clearly wants streets. People are getting killed on Iranian streets. I think I understand why they want help from outside the world. I think I now know why the war between Israel and Islamic Republic end that by Trump intervention.

Everybody was annoyed. Many people were annoyed in inside Iran because they were like, Oh I wish you could finish the job. BB. Ali, just help me understand this. You talked about the number of people who've been killed. Even the official channels in Iran are saying two thousand. in three or four days of protest. Let's assume it's probably a multiple of that if they're admitting to two thousand.

That is a massacre. That is widespread slaughter. What I find I suppose struggle to understand is how Iranian people, Iranian who've grown up, who've joined the security services, can turn guns on their own brothers and sisters. And have wholesale slaughter of people who are on the street. They must have a firm grip

on these people that they're prepared to do that. There was a video on social media in a very small town. Remember in Tehran maybe you don't get to know who is shooting at you. But in small towns and villages maybe that is a family member of you. And the video was showing a discussion that the two guy were having. One was protester, the other one was a security soldier.

They went I know you, you're my relative, why are you doing it? And he was trying to encourage him to join the protesters and then other security forces basically stopped him. I think I keep asking these questions since many I remember that I had this with my own torturer. I couldn't see him. I couldn't see him. I was blindfolded. But I said, how could you do this to me?

I'm like you. I'm Iranian. I'm young. I don't know how old are you. I'm twenty three at the time. I don't know how I can y how you can do it to me. I remember that conversation. I and I still don't have any answer. A final question, do you think that the y you think of the protests that were taking place weekly over some of the ghastly stuff that the Israeli government was doing in Gaza, the Israeli Defence Forces?

The rate of death seems to be even higher of what's happening from what we can understand in Iran. The protests have they been there in the same way? Are people protesting in the same way? That is my question as well. Where are they? Where are they? I mean we've seen a couple of protests here in London, right? But I keep asking this question from many people. Iranians are getting killed. They are very vulnerable. They coped with this regime for five decades.

A war happened in Iran Iran and Iraq war. They went on a war. then reformists came, okay, let's give the regime this chance to reform. Okay, you're going to talk to the United States. Okay, Britain is going to have the first ambassador of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Okay, let's go and talk. Let's do JCPOA. Fine, JCPA didn't work because Trump jumped out of it.

And here we are. Here we are. People are getting killed and still we it's hard to get allies. It's hard to find allies. I don't understand those people who were of course it is horrible. To see people getting getting killed anywhere in the world, whether it is Sudan or Gaza or the West Bank. But why don't they see Iranians? Why don't they see Iranians? I don't get it. I just don't understand it. And I don't dare to ask them this question. I don't dare to go to them and say, hey

I'm Iranian. My people are getting killed in Iran. I do understand that you're on the streets. But do you know what what we see as Iranians? We see Iranian regime paid loads and loads and loads of different Palestinian groups. Lebanese groups to fight with Israel. That was our money. And that's why we are starving. And that's why we are on streets chanting. You don't support us? Ali Hamadani, thank you very much for the first time. Thanks for having me.

So we heard from Ali there the sort of remarkable sort of human story which is taking place in a sense all across Iran and those sort of personal dilemmas. There is obviously a huge

strategic military dilemma that Trump is weighing up, which is whether or not, as we were discussing there with Ali, whether he should respond to the calls from some in Iran, from many of the protesters, to intervene militarily. And of course this would come off the bat Of not so long ago Trump making that huge decision to send, you'll remember everyone talking about it at the time, the famous bunker busting bombs.

To try and disarm, to try and damage and weaken Iran's nuclear capabilities insofar as they exist. Now, Trump, of course, claims that. They've been completely destroyed. Analysts, I think, have a slightly more nuanced view about that. But one way or another, not so long ago, with Israel's support, of course.

Trump took, you know, significant military action against Iran. This would be very different. This would clearly be and Trump has set up the warning and sent the warning to the regime that if they continue to use violence against

their own people. Might think it's a little bit ironic in the wake of what happened in Minnesota last week, but nonetheless, if they continue to use violence against their own people, excessive violence, then he would retaliate. It is obviously he's also fresh off the back of a very successful or he feels very successful military operation in Venezuela. This is fraught with so much more risk though, because there is

first of all the question of exactly where you bomb and who you bomb and whether you can do that without actually ending up killing civilians that you wanna on paper wanna try and protect. But also whether in the end what they're able to do if you end up bombing the regime that that is counterproductive and you end up strengthening the regime because when this has happened in in the past

what the Iranian government have sought to do is link the protesters with the Americans and with the West and say that they are stooges of the West and they're acting on behalf of the West and they're trying to undermine the country. And when Iran was bombed last time with the nuclear physicists there was, according to independent

experts some evidence of a rallying around the flag phenomenon with obviously people not liking the regime but disliking American military intervention even more. And also Donald Trump doesn't want to get himself into the sort of Iraq two thousand and three position. where you topple the ruler

And end up with total bloody chaos. And you know, kind of the old pottery barn mantra, that shop in America where if you break it you own it. And if Trump is seen to be the force that has broken the Iranian regime and then you get civil war erupting. In Iran, does Donald Trump want to be seen as George W. Bush was later seen as having had a plan to get rid of something, but no plan of what to put

in its place. And so I think there'll be an awful lot of attention on whether Reza Pallavi can be this sort of interim figure that can take control. There's one other aspect of it as well, militarily, that I think that they will be weighing, which is

What are the assets, military assets that they have in the region right now? It's quite limited. Huge amount of focus, huge amount of the military hardware has been off the Caribbean coast of Venezuela. And so you would normally have a carrier group in the eastern Mediterranean. To act as a sort of shield because if Iran starts firing ballistic missiles towards Israel, American fleet. in the eastern Mediterranean played a pretty critical role, as well as Israel's own iron dough.

to protect the country from ballistic missile attack and Iran has said it will retaliate against American assets in the region and you can be sure that part of that would be to launch missiles at Israel. So there's a hugely complicated picture of weighing up what the pros and cons are of this as he sits in the situation room and decides whether he's gonna give the order to go. Yeah, and as you say, I mean you met the uh Iraq comparison John, I mean Iraq is a complicated country. Iran

It's an even more complicated. I mean it's a country of ninety two million people. You know, it's a massive geographically sprawling, as you say, difficult geographically to access. by comparison for for military hardware, by comparison to certainly Venezuela or other even other parts of of the region. So it's it's and and the Iranians have been clear that if they are attacked, then they will respond in kind against American, Western and Israeli military assets across the region. Uh now.

how what their capability of is of doing that. They of course did that in retaliation to the um the bunker busting strike last time and they weren't able to do very much. But as you say, I think quite a thing few things m uh have moved around militarily for the US since then, so perhaps they're not in the position that they were. It's it's clear there are many I think the one thing you can say is is that Trump

I think undoubtedly feels that on the international stage he is on a roll. He tends towards action. He sometimes is is bluff and sometimes sort of, you know, talks good game. You know, he's talked about bombing Hamas back to the Stone Age how many times, often never really goes anywhere, but

You know, you sort of get the feeling and it's just a hunch, but you get the feeling that he is in expansive mood and that he if he was split about something, he would err on the side right now of rolling the dice. And he will be encouraged to roll the dice. Yeah by the Israelis, by the UAE. The Gulf states absolutely hate the power that Iran has in the region. They are dying to see it brought down to size. And you have the Shia Sunni split as part of the Sunday.

In that as well. And so uh you know, it's perfectly possible that you've got in Saudi, in Qatar, in the UAE and in Jerusalem them saying, Go on, do it. Unusual alliances.

So we thought we'd just bring you this small update after that, which is a tweet or rather a truth on Truth Social from President Trump with regards to the Iran situation. Trump has said, Iranian patriots. Keep protesting, capital letters. Take over your institutions! Save the names of the killers and abusers. They will pay a big price. I have cancelled all meetings with Iranian officials until the senseless killing of protesters stop. Help is on its way.

MEGA MI G A presumably make Iran great again. President Donald J. Trump. So the president says to Iranians that help is on the way. Remains to be seen. What form that help will take? We'll be back just after this. LBC app. Leading Britain's conversation.

The news agents. Well before we go, we thought we might just bring you news of a obviously, you know, we've got we're on five days a week, so we we we take up a lot of your listening time. But in the event, which I'm sure you do have. of some extra space in your ears. We thought we would bring you news of a great new podcast. which has been made by uh Global, it's called Explosive Lies. You might remember last year

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you're kind of relying on the reputation and the good name of the person that's gone before. So the person that's endorsed it or has used it is this kind of snowball effect. It's like, well, if that security agency says it's okay, if that country's using it at their checkpoints, And also it's it's like Google reviews. Right, exactly. Don't trust them really. It's a bad idea. And at its heart, the kind of human part of this is of course that potentially thousands and thousands

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And what happens at the end or can't you tell us that? Come on now, John, do you really want me to tell you that? No. Well I w I do, but I d I I know that I know that I can't because that would be a spirit. Betrayal and friendship and trust. One day they'll make one of these narrative podcasts about you, me and Emily John. One day.

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