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[SPEAKER_01]: Well, what an interesting week.
[SPEAKER_01]: Huh.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anything going on in a special way looked caught in my attention yesterday.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's Tulsi Gabbert, the always interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tulsi Gabbert's saying Senator and this hearing before the Senate and tell us his committee, Senator, the only person who can determine what is and is not an imminent threat is the president.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the fiscal 2025 intelligence budget is 101.6 billion dollars and that is the primary responsibility of the intelligence agency to warn the president of an imminent threat.
[SPEAKER_01]: So take it away.
[SPEAKER_03]: Um, look, tells you, Gabbard is a source of endless, um, you know, a gift who keeps on giving with all her mishaps, but a couple things.
[SPEAKER_03]: First of all, she was grilled about a subject we have talked quite a bit about and written quite a bit about, which is her, uh,
[SPEAKER_03]: bizarre appearance at the Fulton County courthouse for an FBI raid on Fulton County ballots to try to prove that there was some sort of manipulation with the 2020 vote and Donald Trump actually won.
[SPEAKER_03]: She repeated that she said yesterday that Trump had asked her to do that.
[SPEAKER_03]: The follow-up question is, when did he ask you and she said the day of the
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's January 29th.
[SPEAKER_03]: So she hops on a plane, I mean, that morning to get down there.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just seemed very busy.
[SPEAKER_01]: But she has nothing else to do.
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
[SPEAKER_03]: But look, we should talk about her former chief of staff, the
[SPEAKER_03]: Now former Chief of National Counterterrorism, Mr. Kent, who resigned in an extraordinary letter saying that there was no imminent threat from Iran.
[SPEAKER_03]: By the way, I think this is the second high-ranking official in the United States government.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm going back many years here to resign over Iran.
[SPEAKER_01]: I see.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yep, Cyrus Mann, Secretary of State, back during the Carter administration.
[SPEAKER_03]: But look, as accurate as he might have been on that, on his opening sentence in that letter, his reasons for his resignation.
[SPEAKER_03]: Everything he said after what was
[SPEAKER_03]: you know filled with anti-Semitic tropes and the suggestion that his wife died because of a war manufactured by Israel manufactured.
[SPEAKER_03]: That was the word he used.
[SPEAKER_03]: His wife died in Syria fighting ISIS.
[SPEAKER_03]: He wore a little, you know, Obama and Donald Trump and his first term had uh uh
[SPEAKER_03]: viewed as very much in the national interest because of what ISIS had become.
[SPEAKER_03]: But look, you bash Israel, and you know, you immediately go on Tucker Carlson, which he did, and you know, he's going to be speaking with Candice Owens and an event in Washington.
[SPEAKER_03]: on Friday, he is feeding what I think is really, you know, militia's conspiracy theory.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, he pals around with a proud boys and whites of the nation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, he was an election tonight.
[SPEAKER_01]: He should never have been the head of national coverage.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, and let's remember something we reported on a few months ago, which is remember the whole Trent de Oragua, the Bakul in which the National Intelligence Council did a report saying that this Venezuelan gang was not being controlled by the Venezuelan government and Tulsi Gabbard immediately disputes that and then
[SPEAKER_03]: it emerges that Kent had actually called the head of the National Intelligence Council in my Collins and said, hey, can you change this so you can be online in line with the administration?
[SPEAKER_03]: So that doesn't sound like speaking truth to power to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: And of course, Collins later got fired.
[SPEAKER_03]: So anybody wants to make a hero.
[SPEAKER_03]: Kent has a lot to explain.
[SPEAKER_05]: I want to get back to what Jeff started with when he brought up the story, which was the president decides what's imminent.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, this is one more example of saying the quiet part out loud, that is how the reality is right now.
[SPEAKER_05]: The president decides as opposed to
[SPEAKER_05]: the profession of sort of, you know, getting recommendations to the table, diving it to what they actually mean, and then coming up with some kind of, you know, reasoned, concerted, knowledgeable, dare I say, wise, decision.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, you look also in her testimony.
[SPEAKER_05]: She didn't use the word that they are obliterated, right, in her written testimony.
[SPEAKER_05]: She changed her testimony from the room.
[SPEAKER_05]: to the oral, again, with the idea of fielding, with the idea of, I'm gonna show my allegiance.
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, of all the people in the government, well, we can talk about the Justice Department and another one, but to show your allegiance when your job is to oversee and coordinate intelligence and intelligence briefings and how it gets to the president, how it gets to the National Security Council.
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, it's, it's, it's really not nothing.
[SPEAKER_05]: It's not just about words.
[SPEAKER_05]: These word differences matter.
[SPEAKER_05]: And I do think that, um, that this idea that the president is our chief intelligence officer or however you want to, you know, play it out.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, but, but, but Karen, the president does.
[SPEAKER_01]: begin to decide on the action, but not with the intelligence.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's different than saying is there an imminent threat or not.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's different than saying what the then feeding, what the intelligence is making the decision about it is a different thing than the way this has played itself out.
[SPEAKER_05]: That's all.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I say what you will about the foreign policy establishment, the intelligence
[SPEAKER_01]: The rules until Trump were that the intelligence community offers its best judgment and the president weighs that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But he seems to have gotten in them.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, we, you know, we've talked a lot about, you know, the eerie parallels with the Iraq war to what are we.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, fashion, it's a pressure by the life president.
[SPEAKER_03]: But fashion, it's intelligence to meet what the White House wanted.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that is traditionally how things have gone.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not aware of an ODNI director or a CIA director for that matter.
[SPEAKER_03]: Who has ever stood up to a president and said, Mr. President, you're wrong.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, you can't do what you're planning to do.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, that just doesn't happen in the United States government.
[SPEAKER_03]: So as wacky as Gabbard is, I might give her a small pass on that one explanation.
[SPEAKER_03]: But can we just talk about what I think is point taken?
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, big news this week, you know, the reports among what other among many, all right, they're a place today that the White House is going to ask for 200 billion dollars Congress to fight this war.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the rubber hits the road.
[SPEAKER_03]: We already have spiraling gas prices.
[SPEAKER_03]: You add a price tag like that on top of it.
[SPEAKER_03]: it's really hard to see how Trump can sustain public.
[SPEAKER_05]: And they didn't say for how long or what they thought that would cover, you know, it was just like this massive amount without any kind of fear.
[SPEAKER_03]: And even through, when asked about it was like a quivicle, well, we'll have to see how they're going to spend that.
[SPEAKER_05]: So it's a, it's a sign that also came up in the report when they were reporting that 188 billion had been spent of ours on Ukraine over, you know, the over the course of this war, which also I hadn't quite seen that number before just to put this one in context.
[SPEAKER_05]: this request and context.
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, we're going to talk a lot more about Iran because we have this terrific guest today, whom I'm much who is an Iranian-born American journalist author and political commentator who has focused, of course, on Iran.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there's a very interesting background.
[SPEAKER_01]: You go up as a son of Iranian diplomats under the shot.
[SPEAKER_01]: was educated in England in the United States, including graduated from GW here in Washington.
[SPEAKER_01]: These published three influential books about Iran, one was called The Iotoha Begs to Differ.
[SPEAKER_01]: Another one called The Iotoha's Democracy in Iranian Challenge.
[SPEAKER_01]: And another one, the Ministry of Guidance invites you to not stay in American family and Iran.
[SPEAKER_01]: He recently wrote a piece for the Los Angeles Review of Books called This Is My War, the experience of home and a conflict that is doubly mine, which he talks about or writes about how conflicted he is about the US attacks on Iran.
[SPEAKER_01]: who don't much welcome to spy talk.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's really a pleasure to have you here because you have really unique experience having been born of a rainy and diplomat's back during the days of the shot of Ron, but you were educated mostly abroad in England in the United States including graduating from George Washington University right here in Washington DC.
[SPEAKER_01]: uh... but you've also served as an interpreter translator for raining presidents visiting while they were visiting a new york at the united nations so this is really some unique insight now i'm i was thinking the story of the uh...
[SPEAKER_01]: I was remembering a joke from the hundred so-called hundred-hour war back in 1991-1991 and a joke went around that after we swept the Iraqis out of Kuwait, the joke went around that there was a big banner around the Pentagon saying, we do deserts, not jungles.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you know, this is, we're really good at places where there's no jungles like Vietnam, where we can kick ass across the Middle East.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well,
[SPEAKER_01]: we look to be in a stalemate of sorts.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no question about the Israeli and the US military superiority against the Iranians, but here we are stuck in a political quagmar.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is that the way you see it?
[SPEAKER_01]: And which what way do you think the Iranians will get out of it?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I'm not sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: First of all, thank you for having me.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not sure the Iranians want to get out of it at this point.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think stalemate might be somewhat a little
[SPEAKER_02]: to early to say it's a stalemate.
[SPEAKER_02]: It might actually be more like Iran's got the upper hand.
[SPEAKER_02]: Might be too generous to say it's a stalemate at this point.
[SPEAKER_02]: And when I say that, I don't mean that Iran is beating the United States militarily.
[SPEAKER_02]: Of course not.
[SPEAKER_02]: Our beating is real militarily.
[SPEAKER_02]: Of course not.
[SPEAKER_02]: Missiles are landing in Tel Aviv.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, we know that there's a railies are dying.
[SPEAKER_02]: Iranians are dying in grip much greater numbers.
[SPEAKER_02]: We know all that.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the Iranian military has been
[SPEAKER_02]: pummeled, and many of its assets have been destroyed.
[SPEAKER_02]: That said, when I say upper hand, is because it appears, at least now, and has appeared for the last few days, that the Trump administration really didn't figure out what was going to happen when they decided to strike a rock.
[SPEAKER_02]: Israel is a different story.
[SPEAKER_02]: Israel, these may have well-known what was going to happen, and their goals in this war are probably quite different from what
[SPEAKER_02]: But apparently, they didn't expect Iran to attack regional countries even though Iran had said for months after the first Gulf War that their attack began.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's no more Mr. Nice guy.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to blow up everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: They said none of this was a secret.
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of it was a secret.
[SPEAKER_01]: There are claims that they didn't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, Trump said an absolutely no one knew, which is actually correct.
[SPEAKER_02]: All the media knew because they
[SPEAKER_02]: And certainly the Persian Gulf Arab states knew because they were coming in besieging.
[SPEAKER_02]: Trump, please don't attack Iran if you do, they're going to come back and hit us, yeah, which is exactly what happened.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then the claims that they didn't know that Iran would close the straight-up force.
[SPEAKER_02]: The straight-of-harm woes isn't actually closed, and you're on a figured out that they don't need to close it.
[SPEAKER_02]: All they need to do is hurt a couple of ships that are passing through and other ships just aren't their risk.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's it.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's the end of story.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that they can continue to do for very long time.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the choice is the United States has.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you see this on social media.
[SPEAKER_02]: You've read it in the papers every day.
[SPEAKER_02]: You've seen on television.
[SPEAKER_02]: What are we going to do?
[SPEAKER_02]: How do we solve this?
[SPEAKER_02]: What do we want to Trump is begging other countries to send their ships and mine sweepers?
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, mine's aren't really the problem.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, you know, to escort some of these tankers, all kind of, you know, how do we do this China and Russia?
[SPEAKER_02]: You got to help me here.
[SPEAKER_02]: Everyone's got to help.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, you didn't ask for help when you started the war, but now you need help.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that clearly is an indication that there's a little bit of, you know, uncertainty in the administration, even though the propaganda says, oh, we're doing great.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're destroying the military, we destroyed everything in Iran.
[SPEAKER_02]: The reality is the way to,
[SPEAKER_02]: stop Iran from ever being able to threaten those ships in the Persian Gulf in the straight up or most is to land troops on Iran on the Iranian soil.
[SPEAKER_02]: One way to do it is to land troops just on the coastline where Iran controls the soil for most.
[SPEAKER_01]: Just just jump, you know, he goes back and forth.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like a ping-pong ball on his opinions about the war.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's now saying that he's not going to send troops.
[SPEAKER_02]: he said that but they've also not ruled it out and what's happening with the 2,500 Marines where are they going to go?
[SPEAKER_02]: Are they going to take carguerland?
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, as I said, there is a way there are two ways to end this war for Trump, because I had to land troops and go for a full-on regime change.
[SPEAKER_02]: I love, you know, Salam Hussein and Iraq.
[SPEAKER_02]: or to just, you know, basically occupy parts of Iran.
[SPEAKER_02]: And occupying the southern parts of Iran, the coastline will result in American deaths.
[SPEAKER_02]: It will result in an insurgency.
[SPEAKER_02]: There is no question about that the Iranians aren't just going to sit there and let the U.S. control their coastline.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not going to happen.
[SPEAKER_02]: So.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, when I say upper hand, I mean, you know, Iran, Iran's goal here has been to cause so much pain for both the United States and the regional countries that when they do sit down with the United States, they will actually extract more concessions than they could have on February 26th when they were sitting with Whitkoff and Jared offering what in their own minds,
[SPEAKER_03]: So the key question everybody's asking or one key questions, what's going on inside the regime?
[SPEAKER_03]: And I don't know if you had a chance to catch Trump's bizarre press conference with the Japanese Prime Minister for a carbon conference here.
[SPEAKER_03]: It brings up for a harbor.
[SPEAKER_03]: But he was also asked about defection.
[SPEAKER_03]: from within the regime and he tossed it to Scott Bessant, the Treasury Secretary, who said, yes, we are seeing defections and also money movements of people of Iranian officials trying to get their money out of the country.
[SPEAKER_03]: have you seen any evidence of such defections do we have any idea who he's talking about?
[SPEAKER_03]: How many we're talking about what do we know?
[SPEAKER_02]: There's no evidence whatsoever.
[SPEAKER_02]: It would be any defection would immediately be
[SPEAKER_02]: paraded all over the media, including by people like this Shah's son who has talked about having 50,000 members of the security forces ready to defect on his orders, ready to leave their post.
[SPEAKER_02]: And money, money going out of your own, how is money leaving your own, how to scum?
[SPEAKER_02]: best to know that Monday's leaving Iran is not part of Swift.
[SPEAKER_02]: Iran, his bank has banking restrictions.
[SPEAKER_02]: The only way to lead the send money out of Iran is through the Huala, the Islamic system of you deposit X number of dollars here, somebody deposits X number of dollars and it account for you and takes reals in Iran because they need it to pay their employees.
[SPEAKER_02]: Or whatever, it's that barterist Western Union for it.
[SPEAKER_02]: is very unlikely that the U.S. Treasury Department, they could probably catch a few of those by looking at Turkish banks, what a Turkish banks doing, whatever, Roddy Banks doing right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: But there, I mean, you know, so there's no truth to worry about.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if there's no truth.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, no, no, we don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't know.
[SPEAKER_03]: I take your point that if there was any significant defense, it would be the
[SPEAKER_02]: And give us the names, give us the names, because if there's significant people, give us the names.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, you're basically, you know, in the States, or actually, in this case, Israel's basically killing all the significant people, and I've told them.
[SPEAKER_02]: And with all that death, despite all that death and destruction, we don't see any serious senior members of the leadership in Iran defecting.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, I should make a point here.
[SPEAKER_02]: There have been some reports and we can't confirm them that some members lower level members of the security services.
[SPEAKER_02]: The ones who patrol the streets, the ones who might have to put down any insurrection by whomever is uprising or protest, that some of those people aren't showing up to work.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that is possible.
[SPEAKER_02]: If you don't really want to go out and club your fellow Iranians on the head or shoot them, you might say, I'm calling sick, you know, whatever.
[SPEAKER_02]: So those reports are believable on some level, but given the video that we do see, and there's a lot of cell phone bidet footage that is coming out of Iran, of the security services on the streets, they don't look scared, they don't look like they're about to
[SPEAKER_02]: It's Persian New Year tomorrow.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's been a lot of shopping on the streets.
[SPEAKER_02]: We've seen a lot of videos of people who've been able to get videos out of, you know, crowds in the markets buying food stuff for the Persian New Year.
[SPEAKER_03]: Do they shoot fireworks on New Year's day?
[SPEAKER_02]: No, they don't.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, not really.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not a fireworks kind of day.
[SPEAKER_02]: No.
[SPEAKER_02]: We get a little confusing for people.
[SPEAKER_02]: Very confusing.
[SPEAKER_02]: With the fireworks we saw today is, you know, sadly for US military, an F-35 jet was hit.
[SPEAKER_02]: CNN has confirmed that an F-35 jet was hit over the skies of Iran.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I don't know how it made an emergency landing, and then they said the pilot's been injured.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, so.
[SPEAKER_02]: don't know what the injury is.
[SPEAKER_02]: But this is a kind of thing that will, I assume, continue.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, they'll get, they'll get some hits.
[SPEAKER_02]: They're on will get some hits.
[SPEAKER_02]: Unfortunately for for the Americans who service men and women who will either get injured or killed.
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, I'm just following up on that just a little bit, you know, there's so much talk about what Trump and his cohorts didn't expect, whether they didn't expect it, whether they were warned about it or not, I'm wondering if there's been any talk among experts about what else Iran might do if they wanted to escalate this war.
[SPEAKER_05]: And the kinds of things that America and Israel and others might be anticipating that we haven't heard about is there is there something that they're I hope they don't go this far what would that be what would that look like.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think as of today, they're probably saying I hope they don't go this far because I mean, the Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi just threatened the next time you hit one of our gas fields.
[SPEAKER_02]: The depose and oil pipelines and stuff in the region so that yeah, I could get much bigger Iran has the ability to do that and so far I mean Saudi Arabia Qatar and UAE, I'm they've put out statements, but they're really I mean
[SPEAKER_02]: there's not much they can do because not much they can do and that would I mean Qatar has already admitted that they're they're they've lost that can't remember what it was 17% or something of their their ability to produce gap yeah it's it starts to become bigger and bigger the next hit and the next hit so I have to assume that at the White House in the situation room the CIA at the Pentagon and in Israel everyone is like thinking okay
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, should we hit another Iranian side?
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, is that escalation worth it?
[SPEAKER_02]: Or if we hit another Iranian oil producing side, do we then have to think about how to protect these other sites?
[SPEAKER_05]: One of the other things that's come up a lot in the American press is the different trying to make a distinction between US goals and Israeli goals.
[SPEAKER_05]: And so who knows how wide that conversation will be in terms of who wants what, but I'm wondering if from the point of view of Iran and its allies.
[SPEAKER_05]: They have a sense of how to split the difference there, how to make them more divergent have you heard anything on that in that regard.
[SPEAKER_02]: Not not specific to that, but I think he, well, definitely from the Iranian officials who have been on television and certainly with what's said in the Iranian press and in the Iranian media that they speak to.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I mean they Iran has never thought the US is real hard.
[SPEAKER_02]: same page.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean Iran absolutely believes that Israel brought America to this war, convinced Trump to to attack Iran.
[SPEAKER_02]: They've always seen Trump for what he is.
[SPEAKER_02]: He's a deal maker, wants to make a deal for whatever reason he
[SPEAKER_02]: was pushed into this war, was pushed into the war in the 12-day war in June of last year and bomb the Iranian nuclear sites.
[SPEAKER_02]: They do know he's unpredictable, but they see Israel is really goals to be to defang Iran to the point where it can never threaten.
[SPEAKER_02]: Israel, so what you're seeing in Lebanon now and what you're seeing with Iran and what you saw in Syria is Israeli domination over the Middle East basically and or domination and or they taunt with the Arab states you know deal with Saudi Arabia deal with the UAE deal with Bahrain and Iran is the obstacle for all that to be
[SPEAKER_02]: always be possible for Israel.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so the Iranians say, yeah, we're always going to be against Israel's Germany.
[SPEAKER_02]: And Israel's saying, well, if we can weaken you to the point, ballistic missiles being the prime example, because that's, you know, the nuclear is just an excuse now.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, we want the nuclear missile, they're sorry, the ballistic missiles gone, the ability to put a nuclear warhead on a ballistic missile gone, because that way, we will not be able to be the head of Hedgehog.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I have to say I was listening to another podcast that had Matt Dawson was Bernie Sanders for a policy advisor on and he talked about he had recently been to Israel and met with Israeli officials and they were very clear about what they're
[SPEAKER_03]: goal was and that was the ballistic missile, which was, which appears to have been quite real that the Iranians were expanding their ballistic missile sites and expanding their depth and they could easily reach, coming to the part where they could easily reach Israel.
[SPEAKER_03]: And if that does,
[SPEAKER_03]: But it's a very specific goal that they had.
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, is it conceivable to you that they could say that we could say in the next week or so, hey, they've so we've so decimated the ballistic missile program and its capabilities, that
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
[SPEAKER_02]: Now I declare victory and call a stop.
[SPEAKER_02]: That would be very Trumpian to do, but Netanyahu is not Trump.
[SPEAKER_02]: And he recognizes that even if every single missile, every single one down to the last missile has been destroyed and every launcher has been destroyed.
[SPEAKER_02]: the regime, if the regime is standing, he can rebuild, um, and so what are you going to do?
[SPEAKER_02]: Mode along every, mode the grass every six months, every eight months, what they do is that's what they've done with Gaza over the years.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's what they've done with Gaza, but yeah, but it's, it's, it's much more expensive, much more complicated to do it with Iran.
[SPEAKER_03]: So just one, one more beat on that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's say Trump does where a lot of people think,
[SPEAKER_03]: he ultimately will do, which is just declaratory.
[SPEAKER_03]: We've won.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: The straits are still closed.
[SPEAKER_03]: What do the Iranians do then?
[SPEAKER_03]: Do they open the straits?
[SPEAKER_03]: If the bombing stops or do they keep it shut?
[SPEAKER_02]: I think they keep it, they keep it effectively closed until they extract some concessions from from the US.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, for Trump to just leave and not offer anything and
[SPEAKER_02]: the war.
[SPEAKER_02]: We stopped the war.
[SPEAKER_02]: And even if he puts pressure on Israel to also stop the war.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, Iran has been pummeled.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's been lost a few thousand probably of its citizens at that point.
[SPEAKER_02]: And doesn't have any sanctions relief has no money.
[SPEAKER_02]: The economies in the toilet.
[SPEAKER_02]: What are they going to do?
[SPEAKER_02]: So, also stop the war.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, they're going to go to put pressure on the United States to get back to the table, but under circumstances where Iran can extract more.
[SPEAKER_03]: What's an even conceivable concession that the United States could give around at that point?
[SPEAKER_02]: There's two of them.
[SPEAKER_02]: One is sanctions relief, which is the biggest concession.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let them sell their oil, remove some of the banking sanctions.
[SPEAKER_02]: They've got $50 billion of their own money outside in banks, which are frozen.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let them access some of that so that the economy can improve.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that they don't have to face a public, which then rises up again, like they did in January, which started, those protests started because of the economy and the inflation.
[SPEAKER_02]: So those are concessions that Iran wants.
[SPEAKER_02]: The other concessions that it wants is like next time we sit down,
[SPEAKER_02]: on the nuclear issue, you have to recognize the right that we have the right to enrich your aim.
[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't mean they're going to enrich your aim, and recognize the right.
[SPEAKER_02]: Apparently that was on the table in these last route, and that Iran was willing to suspend enrichment for
[SPEAKER_02]: X number of years, you could argue that Iran would be happily ascending enrichment for 10, 15, even 20 years in negotiations, of course, if they were getting some relief that was going to kind of protect the regime.
[SPEAKER_02]: So really, what all this boils down to is, is there going to be a regime change or not?
[SPEAKER_02]: Because the only way you can get both Israel and the United States can guarantee
[SPEAKER_02]: that this issue of the right nuclear crisis and the ballistic crisis goes away is if a regime is opposed on Iran, a new regime, because there is no groundswell inside Iran for a different regime.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a, there's not, yeah, I do want to pursue this question of regime change with you, but we have to take a short break for our recent response, we'll be back in a second.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, we're back home on, let's talk more about regime change.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is the regime now?
[SPEAKER_01]: Who's running things?
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, it's basically mostly the IRGC that are running things with the revolutionary guards, the powerful military force inside Iran.
[SPEAKER_02]: They are basically, well, they're running the war for sure, which is the priority for Iran.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they're running and they're keeping security on the streets of Iran.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's why they shut the internet down is because they believe that their spies inside Iran
[SPEAKER_02]: all kinds of both spies from Mossad and the CIA, but also internal, you know, dissidents who may want to take advantage of the war and the situation.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's the reason they argue, they've shut down the internet basically, essentially shut down the internet.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they're in charge of that in terms of the economy in terms of, you know, providing basic services and everything.
[SPEAKER_02]: The president's still there and the administration is there.
[SPEAKER_02]: So far Israel has not assassinated or tried to kill any of the Iranian cabinet members except one.
[SPEAKER_01]: uh... minister of intelligence uh... so who would step forward if there were to be negotiations with the United States of both their that's the way wars and it's through negotiations so who who we're merged to talk to the United States
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, emerging right now, the person who was talking to United States, the only person who was talking to United States was, I don't, I don't cheat far, I mean, it's not actually who had direct contact with Steve Woodcoff, initially and then with with Coff and Kushner.
[SPEAKER_02]: It was, they both admitted that they had each other's cell phone numbers and they were communicating chatting on what's at some point.
[SPEAKER_02]: So,
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, he does speak English.
[SPEAKER_02]: He is the Foreign Minister.
[SPEAKER_02]: He, in all probability, will be the person to put, who will be put forward.
[SPEAKER_02]: He will be reporting to both the IRGC, the new Supreme Leader, the president positioned beyond.
[SPEAKER_02]: There will be this sort group of people, the new national security advisor who hasn't been appointed yet to replace Larry Johnny, who was assassinated this week.
[SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, I mean, the regime is there.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's working, if you, again, as I said, if you look at scenes of Iran today, it does not appear that the place is chaotic.
[SPEAKER_02]: Markets are open, it is Persian New Year, as I said, and so people are shopping, people are out on the streets, men and women, women without hijab, women with hijab, no one's bothering anybody right now as we speak.
[SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, when I talk about regime change, it's not that there aren't people inside who want regime change.
[SPEAKER_02]: Those protests in January turned into protest against the regime.
[SPEAKER_02]: People did shout for regime change.
[SPEAKER_02]: They did bring up the Shah's son's name as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: People did chant his name.
[SPEAKER_02]: But the reality is that was just...
[SPEAKER_02]: kind of cry for help in a way because when you say regime change or when Donald Trump says or Netanyahu says, you know, where people should go of and take over the government, but yeah, people can rush the, you know, national broadcasting headquarters and take over the TV station.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, who's going to actually run it?
[SPEAKER_02]: Who's going to, who's going to be the leader?
[SPEAKER_02]: Who's going to create a government?
[SPEAKER_02]: And so far, there's no answer for that.
[SPEAKER_02]: There is an answer from the
[SPEAKER_01]: Trump has dismissed the shots son as being not someone who should be we don't see any evidence of the US is supplying guns no or nobody say the Kurds no that was a room to step back from that
[SPEAKER_02]: They seem to, yes, because that we, you know, that could end up in a civil war in Iran and basically we do not want a situation.
[SPEAKER_02]: And Iranians don't want a situation that is similar to Syria.
[SPEAKER_02]: And certainly the Turks don't want the Kurds.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure Turkey's been talking to Trump or to Iran, because if the Kurds start, if they're already armed, they are armed, but if they start attacking forces inside Iran, what does Turkey do about what are the Turkish Kurds do?
[SPEAKER_02]: And the Iraqi Kurds do.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a very complex issue, and then the other separate groups, there's the blue cheese in the south, there's the Arabs in the southwest, and so yeah, and the Azaris in the north, who could potentially, there are people who are, you know, into taking advantage of the chaos that could come from the regime, a complete collapse of the regime.
[SPEAKER_05]: But what are you saying are you I just want to get something clear are you saying that there's in some ways not what's to come but in some ways more cohesion within Iran then there was in the run up to this I know we've heard sort of conflicting reports of that or is it just that people are just because you say people are out on the streets they're shopping they're living their lives is there a sense of more defending the regime whatever it is whoever it is I think it's different.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I think it's defending the country really more than defending the regime.
[SPEAKER_02]: And when we've seen some of those reports, I mean, the financial times has a reporter on the ground, Najmib Wozorg mayor was a great reporter.
[SPEAKER_02]: She lives in most of her half the time and they were on half the time and London.
[SPEAKER_02]: She did a whole report, P. Tugafari and other financial times were put in a report.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I'm sure you guys saw it.
[SPEAKER_02]: The people are people who may have welcomed surgical strikes against the regime, because they were so fed up with the regime, they could see that
[SPEAKER_02]: are no longer welcoming circuit site when they see 168 school children killed.
[SPEAKER_02]: When they see, you know, people on the streets in Tehran, you know, to kill, for example, to kill the intelligence minister, not a nice guy, fair enough, but to kill him, they had to blow up a street in his neighborhood, basically.
[SPEAKER_02]: blew up his building, but it also destroyed apartment buildings next door, the killing people and people are under rubble.
[SPEAKER_02]: So the sense that, you know, Iranians are going to welcome, it's this back to the same old story, the idea that if we went into Iraq, we'd be welcome, our soldiers were you welcome with flowers, the same, it's the same as liberators, liberators, and, and, and here's go deliberation.
[SPEAKER_02]: You start to see more and more of that from inside Iran, I've started to see more and more from inside Iran and from even the diaspora, which in some of the diaspora who were like, well, yeah, it'd be okay if they killed common A for example, and they killed some of those brutal people who put down these protests and killed thousands of Iranians in January and maybe the regime will change if that happens, maybe it would be a
[SPEAKER_02]: it provides an opening for someone else to take over.
[SPEAKER_02]: But now that they're seeing this kind of destruction and death or as PX says, death and destruction from the air, you start, you know, you start not particularly liking it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, one of the reasons, one of the main reasons that we wanted to have you on again on the podcast is because you as well as anybody understands the thinking of the Iranian leadership.
[SPEAKER_03]: You were a translator for regime of the show, including Akminajah, former Holocaust denying president of
[SPEAKER_03]: around give us a sense of their thinking to what extent is it, you know, a theological with visions of apocalypse around the corner, which is, you know, standard, Shiite, preaching.
[SPEAKER_03]: And to what extent is there a pragmatic side?
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, you
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to get inside their head.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would argue that Ahmad Disha was the first to bring up the apocalyptic she, you know, end of times and the missing Imam is going to arrive with Jesus by his side and which is a part of Shiite.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was the first one, but he was actually, he was scolded by the, by the Ayatollahs in Rome.
[SPEAKER_02]: They said, just not your place to say things like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not our place to say things like that.
[SPEAKER_02]: Obviously, he was a lay person.
[SPEAKER_02]: He was not a cleric.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it wasn't popular and when he did start say that at the beginning of his term He was golden people did react negatively to it other eye until there's like this is not okay But no I today I would argue the regime is much more pragmatic at least the people at the top
[SPEAKER_02]: Nationalistic, I would say, especially in a time of war.
[SPEAKER_02]: And they don't really see this as a religious war.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, we see some American saying it's a religious war.
[SPEAKER_02]: Lindsey Graham said it was a religious war.
[SPEAKER_03]: But Iranians have this warning.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because, yes, the continues to say it's a religious war, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Jesus Christ, while dropping the bombs.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, yes.
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_02]: But no, I think it's the way, you know, all the Iranians in the leadership that I've met, they come across when you meet them in person and if they're not up again dising, you meet them in person, they're, you know, they may not be, you know, they're, they may not be.
[SPEAKER_02]: the kind of people that you and I want to hang out with or think are great people, great leaders, but they're pragmatic and they're practical.
[SPEAKER_03]: But I have seen reporting that the IRGC training manuals were all its people who they enlist.
[SPEAKER_03]: Very much tracks the Shiite End of Time's
[SPEAKER_02]: They do, there is some in the leadership, but let's remember also, there are a lot of conscripts in the IRGC in the troops.
[SPEAKER_02]: When you get called up at 18 years old to do your national service, you go to either the IRGC or the regular army.
[SPEAKER_02]: And so it doesn't mean that if you're in the IRGC, you're automatically going to believe all that.
[SPEAKER_02]: But, you know, listen to the Shiai,
[SPEAKER_02]: really to the Shiite version of Islam includes, you know, chest beating, includes all that stuff, you know, at the time of, you know, mourning for the Imam Hussein and Karbalah, the Battle of Karbalah, there's all this stuff which is very, very, you know, Opus Day almost, like, you know, on the Catholic Church, it's like, um, wait,
[SPEAKER_02]: But that doesn't mean that people, it's there in their minds, in the back of their minds.
[SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't mean they're going to act on it, or, first of all, many idols have said, it's not up to humans to bring about the end of times.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not the place of humans to cause an event or events to bring about the emoms return with Jesus.
[SPEAKER_02]: That has to happen.
[SPEAKER_02]: The Messiah has to come on his own.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me ask you about this blending of religion with tactics and the assumption of power by the IRGC, if not only by elimination, we have reports that drones were flying over a base just outside of or Fort McNair here in the district where Pete Heggseth and Rubio, Rubio live.
[SPEAKER_01]: They move there for security reasons and now the report of drones can you see hardliners and the IRGC activating
[SPEAKER_01]: this is a two-part question.
[SPEAKER_01]: Does Iran have assets in the United States and it could mobilize to attack American targets.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, too, do you think there are hardliners in the IRG?
[SPEAKER_01]: She doesn't ask them for a wild guess.
[SPEAKER_01]: IRGC leaders who would say, let's go for it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's really shake them through their boots with an attack in Washington, D.C., kind of a
[SPEAKER_01]: a 9-11 maybe not on the scale 9-11 more on the scale of the Ziacon attack are the U.S. embassy.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not so cool.
[SPEAKER_02]: Anything is possible.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would argue that there are people inside the RGC who may
[SPEAKER_02]: If you want to call them rogue agents, who would want to do something spectacular to show that their ideological and powerful, I believe that most of the alleged assassination plots by the IRTC, even the ones where people were arrested and tried and convicted, inside the United States, we're probably set up not at the highest levels in Iraq.
[SPEAKER_02]: But that said, yes, I mean, you know, does Iran have assets in the U.S. Sure Iran has when I say they have assets, I'm not sure it's like, you know, that they're running agents inside Iran, the way that Mossad is running agents or CIAs, running agents inside Tehran.
[SPEAKER_02]: But they have supporters.
[SPEAKER_02]: They have a lot of supporters.
[SPEAKER_02]: And you could have, you know, loan wolf attacks.
[SPEAKER_02]: Right now, you've got people inside the United States, Muslims who are either shea, Muslims,
[SPEAKER_02]: particularly if they're she a Muslim, particularly Lebanese, she Muslims who are seeing people getting killed in Beirut and their homes demolished, who decide that they're loyal to Iran and that they should attack American interests for having start.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you put any numbers on that, the number of shea Iranians living in
[SPEAKER_01]: big percentage of who might be motivated to do this.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, there's a couple of, let's put it this way.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a couple of million, two million or so, Iranian Americans in the United States, 99% are Shia, but probably only 10% are actually practicing Shia.
[SPEAKER_02]: So many Iranians are secular who live here.
[SPEAKER_02]: Plenty of secular Iranians inside here, but no one's here, I certainly a lot more secular.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I wouldn't even think it's the only text of you.
[SPEAKER_02]: it only takes a few.
[SPEAKER_02]: Lebanese, it's a big, you know, a different set of people, and the Lebanese are shea Sonya and Christians, so you've got all three Iranians are some Armenians, some Jewish Iranians, so you could discount those necessarily, but not necessarily, it depends.
[SPEAKER_02]: Somebody could be paid and decide to do it for money.
[SPEAKER_02]: But no, it's hard to say, would there be, is there a danger?
[SPEAKER_02]: I
[SPEAKER_02]: on at the homeland.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think Iran has any ability to do much damage to the homeland, but, you know, lone wolves, one or two assets that may exist.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the other thing I was going to say is that, you know, Iran views this battle as existential.
[SPEAKER_02]: Unlike, you know, the Shah, who had the ability to get on a plane of leave and get political asylum, well, he hoped be able to live his life outside the country.
[SPEAKER_02]: People including my own family, who my father was an ambassador, he could leave and go to London
[SPEAKER_02]: where are these people going to go?
[SPEAKER_02]: The only place that they could have conceibably have gone if there was regime change or they were going to flee was Syria and that's out of the question now.
[SPEAKER_02]: Bay route is out of the question now.
[SPEAKER_02]: Moscow, they don't want to go to Moscow.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's like that's nice.
[SPEAKER_02]: Asad is apparently happening.
[SPEAKER_02]: Asad is having a good time, but the Iranians are not interested in going to Russia.
[SPEAKER_02]: And it's not even clear if the Russians would even have them.
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's existential for them.
[SPEAKER_02]: This battle is existential.
[SPEAKER_02]: They will fight to the last man.
[SPEAKER_02]: They believe that a regime change mainly because the people in the diaspora and the
[SPEAKER_02]: M.E.K.
[SPEAKER_02]: for example, other opposition group, other than Pavlovie, have said that when we come there, you guys are all going to stand try all the top leadership anyway, and anybody who has blood on his hands, you know, vengeful talk among the diaspora, so they're like, okay, they're going to kill us anyway, so we're going to fight to the death here, you know, so we're going to fight to the death against whatever America and Israel, but
[SPEAKER_02]: put on that?
[SPEAKER_05]: Is there any sense of an ally that we might not know of or think about in terms of Iran and who they might reach out to, who might help them?
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, is there any sense of that all or are they really as this sense of isolation that we're feeling and sort of the RGC, et cetera, you know, being able to help in other places?
[SPEAKER_05]: Is there any?
[SPEAKER_01]: For example, North Korean.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, North Korea potentially, but I don't think Korean North Korea really has a big interest in Iran.
[SPEAKER_02]: They shared some nuclear secrets, but they didn't really, I mean, the one thing North Korea Iran would love to have is North Korea Give them a couple of nuclear missiles at this point, I'm sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: But how that would happen, I don't know how that could happen, you know, without being detected.
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I mean, the, you know, Hezbollah has already, they fart, you know, 200 missiles into his room.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we know what Hezbollah did.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, the hooties haven't really been activated or active, but potentially not yet.
[SPEAKER_02]: I say potentially that's one ally.
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a couple of other,
[SPEAKER_02]: countries that have very decent really are like cordial relations with Iran.
[SPEAKER_02]: Tajikistan is one for example and they share border.
[SPEAKER_02]: Tajikistan has been always pro Iran.
[SPEAKER_02]: Could Tajikistan potentially send them arms ammunition or something?
[SPEAKER_02]: The Russians, yeah, the Russians are low, they'll play a game.
[SPEAKER_02]: The Russians always play a game with their allies.
[SPEAKER_02]: Look how what they did with Syria.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, the Russians act in Russian interests, and that's it.
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't act in anybody else's interests.
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't care about anybody else except the Russians.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's been Iran's experience with the Russians going back to the 18th century.
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I don't think there are under any illusion.
[SPEAKER_02]: The Russians might give them, as we've seen all the reports, intelligence, they might love to see Americans get a bloody nose in Iran.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure Putin is sitting there thinking this is so great.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is so great.
[SPEAKER_02]: The Trump is stuck here.
[SPEAKER_02]: Three weeks into the almost into four weeks into a war that he started.
[SPEAKER_02]: And with no end in sight, I'm sure Putin is thinking this is so great.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I guess I had a wrap-up question for Human if Trump called you up this afternoon and said, what should I do?
[SPEAKER_03]: What would you tell him?
[SPEAKER_02]: I would say get on the phone with the Iranians and see how what they want and what you can do to stop this war because it's not going to do us any good in America.
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not going to do the Iranians any good.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I actually don't even believe it's doing the Israelis much good right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: What the Iranians should want to give Trump, and the both sides, give each other is a non-aggression pact.
[SPEAKER_02]: Do they sign a non-aggression pact?
[SPEAKER_02]: It covers Israel as well.
[SPEAKER_02]: Israel gets the same.
[SPEAKER_03]: Israel is never signed that.
[SPEAKER_02]: So they don't have to sign it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because if it no, they don't have to sign it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because if the Iran signs a pact with the U.S. saying that they would not start any kind of aggression against the U.S. or its allies, that would bring in the Israel.
[SPEAKER_02]: Or its allies would bring in Israel.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I must say that, as much as that would make sense, I don't see Trump doing that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't see it either.
[SPEAKER_01]: He wants the war to end, but as the current cliche goes around as a vote on when the war ends.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, it does, but it's, and to make such a deal with the Iranians even if it were possible, it's still leads to fact that there's no regime change.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Iranians are still fighting the straight of our moves as close to often.
[SPEAKER_01]: The Iranians can open and shut that door any day if they want to.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is a humiliation for Donald Trump.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think he, I think he would be
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I couldn't possibly give him advice to, you know, put ground troops and go for regime change.
[SPEAKER_02]: Because that's a good idea.
[SPEAKER_02]: Would be a disaster.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I don't know what other option he has.
[SPEAKER_02]: He has to extricate himself from this.
[SPEAKER_02]: The Iranians won the war to end.
[SPEAKER_02]: Obviously, they don't want it to go on forever.
[SPEAKER_02]: So what can he offer them and still claim a victory of sorts?
[SPEAKER_02]: I see he can still claim a victory of sorts.
[SPEAKER_02]: We know he keeps saying, they don't have a Navy.
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't have this.
[SPEAKER_02]: They don't have that.
[SPEAKER_02]: If Iran were to take that 400 kilograms of enriched uranium and downgraded to 1% in rich or send it out of the country or whatever.
[SPEAKER_02]: If they did that, he could claim victory there.
[SPEAKER_02]: He could claim he got a better deal than Obama if he makes a deal with Iran.
[SPEAKER_02]: That's, at the end of the day, better deal than Obama is what he really wants to be able to say, he did, and we can dare on, and got an on aggression packs that they're on, wouldn't attack, they're on, um, basis American bases are interests in the region, wouldn't attack Israel, wouldn't attack at Saudi Arabia.
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, to me, you could make an argument that that's a win, and that he wouldn't have gotten that without going to war.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's wicked art.
[SPEAKER_01]: We can dream.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's the way it is, March 19, 2016.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for coming on, Huma.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you've been really a terrific guest.
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
[SPEAKER_02]: My pleasure.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for having me.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks, Karen.
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for coming on.
[SPEAKER_02]: Good to see you guys all.
[SPEAKER_02]: Take care.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's it for this week's Pytalk.
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[SPEAKER_01]: This edition of the Spy Talk podcast was smoothly produced, as always, by can I, and expertly edited by Molly Hawkey for MSW Media.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's it.
[SPEAKER_01]: See you around.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm Jeff Stein.
[SPEAKER_01]: Am I going to go to the golf?
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm Karen Greenberg.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for listening.