Iran, Beyond the Headlines with Maziar Bahari

[MUSIC] >> Hello, everybody. Welcome once again to the weekly show podcast. My name is John Stewart and we are currently not at war. It's been hours, I think, it means Wednesday. It's Wednesday June 25th, this will probably come out. Thursday, right now we are not at war in Iran, doesn't have a nuclear rub. By tomorrow, maybe the nuclear weapon, and we're at bag of war. And we either completely obliterated their nuclear program or set it back 36 hours. Boy, this has just been, everything that is so difficult about this administration just on display in the moment. Just the even actions that it might take that can be successful are fraught with his fragility at all times. We obliterated their nuclear program. Well, the early intelligence says, but that's scumbags reported that and people that hate the pilots, and you just think, hey man, if it's real. And all the things that you said you had accomplished had been accomplished. Then it shouldn't be that hard to not be so defensive and angry all the time. And just it is such an amazing moment. And you see a guy who's the commander in chief of the United States and the president of the United States in a situation room. Would like a Trump was right about everything, yeah, like how many, how many of history's great leaders had their own merch were having in the moment of triumph in the moment. You know, it's Roosevelt at Yalta with Churchill and Stalin, you know, wearing a nice no fear fear itself, he had fear itself. On the t-shirt available on Roosevelt's website. And just the shallowness sometimes of their, you know, JD Vance people are saying, you know, we're concerned about intervention in the Middle East and how these things can have unforeseen consequences and instability throughout. And JD Vance says, yes, no, we understand that that's something the American people are afraid of, but, you know, the American people have never had. A smart person before now we have a smart person. A smart person and because we have a smart person, you will not have unforeseen consequences. A smart person that thinks anybody that might possibly look into whether or not it was actually obliterated is a scumbag. Press Secretary Carolyn Levin comes out and she, they asked her, was it obliterated? And she says, everybody knows what happens when you drop Bunk everybody knows is what she said, everybody knows what happens when you have a precision strike with these kinds of weapons, these weapons have never been used before in the history of the planet. But everybody knows what happens. It's just beyond the silliness. And if anybody pushes back, they demand 100% fealty and anything beyond that sets off anger and frustration because of the fragility. And speaking of which, my favorite comment from the news has been, has this attack? What is the future for Ali Hamine for the Ayatollah? What is the future? Does this put his future in doubt? And you're like, he's 86. And he ain't jacked Elaine, like he's not the healthiest dude in the world, like, I don't know what's more dangerous right now to the Ayatollah, the American and Israeli attacks or stairs. Like, this is, fuck man. But I am, you know, in these moments, years ago, a friend of mine, Maseer Bahari was a journalist and was imprisoned in Iran. And he wrote a book about his time in solitary confinement. He was imprisoned for reporting on the green revolution in 2008, 2009 during that election. And wrote a book about it called, and then they came for me. And then he and I did a movie about it called Rosewater. And now he does, still a journalist and does something called a Ronwire.com, which allows voices within Iran to have an outlet where information, because it's a difficult country to get information out of, can come out. And he is such an interesting and has such an encyclopedic and brilliant knowledge of all that has happened in that country and the things that are currently happening. And the first thing I thought as I saw this was boy, I just want to talk to Maseer and just see how he's feeling, what he's thinking about this. And so very luckily, we're going to get a chance to do that today. Ladies and gentlemen, oh, what a what a treat today. We're very excited. Our guest today, oh my god, a writer, journalist, filmmaker, Bon Vivant, traveler of international renowned author, Maseer Bahari, and also the publisher of Iranwire.com. And my dear old friend, Maseer, what are you doing, man? Well, you know, you called me a Bon Vivant, but Vivant is not bon, it's, you're not, you're not bonnig at all. No, yes, no, I can see, I recognize that. Yeah, it's, no, it's a very, very sad and tragic moment for many Iranians, including myself all around the world. But for me personally, because many of our colleagues in Iran and citizen journalists and also the families of our colleagues outside of Iran have been harassed and they've been interrogated by different intelligence agents. And this is something that the Iranian government does when it loses a war, a fight. Right. Iran has been defeated by Israel. Iran has been embarrassed. And we are worried that what they're going to do, they executed three people this morning because of espionage and you know, because of an assassination that happened two years ago. They've been forcing people to confess against themselves. So Iranians really, really, they're stuck between this thuggish hostage taking corrupt governments and Israelis who think that by bombing, they can solve everything that by bombing, they can bring democracy to Iran. And people are thinking that, OK, if with bombing, you could bring democracy to a country, Gaza would be a Scandinavian democracy by now. Gaza would be like Norway. Absolutely. It is so Iranians are just, they have these mixed feelings. And as people outside of Iran who are in touch with Iran all the time, we just feel helpless. And this is just so depressing. So it's just I want to I want to step back for for the audience right now, just to give a sense of where Maazir is coming from. So Maazir, for many of you don't remember wrote a book called and then they came for me, you were covering the green revolution. This was the 2008 election. I think it was 2009, 2009. Ahmadinejad against was it Mosavi? Mosavi? Yeah. So Maazir was covering it, filming at the the Basis stations where there was a lot of violence that's sort of their kind of secret police that would come out on these motorcycles and harass and hurt people. A passage arms depot. Yes, in the middle of a residential neighborhoods for people to forget that. And people were going up to that end and being shot and killed and Maazir was arrested interrogated and then held in solitary confinement at Evan prison for months until a campaign spearheaded by his wife, Thala and many other international human rights groups. Got him released got him out. So your experience in Iran is is of this moment that you're talking about the Iranian government cracking down on what they think are the dissidents and the people that are undermining whatever their security is Iran wire, which is the site you started is an incredible outlet for these citizen journalists that are in Iran. So just to give kind of that, you know, kind of a basic run there of where it is that that you're coming from that you've experienced this cycle personally. And now you think that's going to play out on the streets. Have you have your sources there been able to still reach out or is it kind of a or radio silence right now, what are you saying? - It's been very difficult. - Yeah, yeah, it's been very difficult because sometimes they narrow the bandwidths of the internet, sometimes they shut down the internet. So it's been very difficult to get in touch with us and you know, both citizen journalists and officials as well since last year when former president Ricey died in a helicopter crash, many Iranian officials have been in touch with us and leaking information. Because they think that they're on a sinking ship and they don't know what's going to happen. And because of that, they are informing us about different things and one thing that they're talking about is corruption. So I always like to say that the Islamic Republic is not either an Islamic or Republic. You remember that episode of SignFell that, you know, remember that episode of SignFell that George told Jerry that, you know, it's my artistic integrity that I'm worried about and Jerry goes, what the fuck you're talking about? You're not part of this state and you don't have any integrity. - That is the Islamic Republic. So Masjid al-Bahari by the way, what are the only Iran experts who will quote SignFell fluently? - Exactly. - What are the only ones? And days of our lives, yeah. - And days of our lives. So what are they saying now? Is it that the corruption may be the thing that finally kind of undermines their authority? - So let me go through my spiel. So the Islamic Republic right now, Islamic Republic of Iran is not the Islamic Republic of Iran. It's Islamic Republic of corruption. It's Islamic Republic of persecution and Islamic Republic of masturbation. We get to the masturbation in a few minutes. - Wait, what? - I tell you. - All right. - So this is a government that's corrupt to the core. Why do you think that Israelis managed to know how many revolutionary guards commanders live in what places and they managed to kill 12 of them on the first night? Because of the fact that Israel has so many spies around Iran and because of the fact that they know the coming and going of these revolutionary guards commanders, they know exactly where the bases are. They know everything. And how? Because of the spies, because this economy is so bad that they can hire a spy for $5,000. And you know, according to our sources, some of these spies that people see even in prisons, they're not getting like $100,000 or $200 dollars, you know, like Russian spies during the Cold War. They're getting like $5,000 for a bit of information that which commander lives where. And then Israelis, they juxtapose all that information together and they have this hold, which they has helped them to do that. And that corruption is existing every aspect of this government and society. It's an Islamic Republic of persecution. All it knows, you know, in the absence of any real governing of the country, in the absence of providing people with electricity, in the absence of providing people with employment, all they can do is that imprison people, torture people, you know, arresting people because of their hijab, et cetera. So they're not really interested. They have given up governing the country maybe since 2019, since the protest in 2019. And persecution is what they're doing. - Those who are after the death of Masa Meene, is that the ones in 2019? Before the death of Masa Meene, 2019 was before that. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, before the death of Masa Meene, when we had three days of total internet shutdown and they killed almost 2,000 people. And then of course, during the time of Masa Meene, there were others. And then it's Islamic Republic of masturbation. Why? Because all they do is that they're just keeping themselves happy with propaganda. All they do is that through these forced confessions, through this propaganda. Like right now, they have these rallies in Tehran for the victory of Iran in this war. You know what victory you should be embarrassed about? So it's really like, you know, when you think about these Islamic Republic's leaders, I would be embarrassed if I were them because they're not even good at being evil. (laughing) - In confident at being evil. - In confidence at being evil. (upbeat music) - Hey everybody, I know y'all are sweating out our latest 110 degree heat wave. But you know what doesn't belong in your summer plans? Getting burned by your old wireless bill. Your wireless bill. You plan beach ships, barbecues, three day weekends. 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Limited time, new customer offer for first three months. Only speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on the unlimited plan. Taxes in fees extra. See MintMobile for details. [MUSIC] And on the other hand, you have these ratings. Who know exactly what they're doing? Who have managed to destroy. Hezbollah to a certain extent. Hamas to a certain extent. Iran's deflites and the airplanes are, and they come and go as much as they want. In 2012, let me tell you a story. It would be interesting in this story. In 2012, five Iranian terrorists they went to Bangkok, Thailand to kill a Hood Barak who was a minister at the time and was going to visit Thailand. Minister of Israel, right? He was not prime minister. He was minister, I think, for any affairs at the time. Right. So he went to Bangkok. Iranians, they sent five agents to kill a Hood Barak. Three of them hang out with hookers the night before. There's a picture of them in Pataya, which is a beach south of Bangkok. On the day of bombing, the bomb that they were supposed to have for a Hood Barak, it blew up in the apartment building that they were. They were, which was a few blocks from Iran's cultural center in Bangkok. The guys came out, people called the police. They held the taxi, the taxi didn't stop. They threw a hand grenade. And the hand grenade bounced back. And one of them lost his leg. This is the type of inefficiency of evil you're talking about. You know, like, I don't want to talk about the banality of people. This is like the inefficiency and inefficiency and incompetence. But let me ask you, Mouser. So you talked about the difficulty of getting information now out of Iran and into these other things. What about information getting into Iran and when the supreme leader and whoever else it is in the Ministry of Propaganda, who are putting out the idea that this is a great victory. I think they put out that they had completely destroyed the American base and cutter. The people obviously are quite skeptical of all that. But is there an ability for them? Look, it's hard enough for us to get the information. We don't know what happened to those nuclear sites. We don't know what our bombs did. It's hard enough for so-called open information societies to understand the realities on the ground. Within Iran, how much is their propaganda dismissed and with skepticism, how effective is it? I mean, and when we talk about that too, we'll roll back. Iran is not a monolith by any stretch. It's similar to many countries. You sort of look at it as red and blue. There's this divide there. But what is the information that they're getting? So Iranians, when the internet works normally, like when there's a connection between the Iranians and international worldwide web, they can get their information, their many sites that are blocked, including irongware.com. But people use VPNs and people use filter busters. And funnily enough, Iranian government uses Chinese firewalls in order to stop the internet. And Iranians use Chinese filter busters developed by Chinese, some of them. So they use VPNs. They get the information. There are satellite channels that-- or beamed into Iran, that people look at. And also because the Iranian government cannot, at the moment, because of that inefficiency that we talked about, they cannot shut down the internet. Totally, there are times that people can get the information. So we are using WhatsApp, for example, we have a channel on WhatsApp on telegram. So people can get the information as much as they want. But yesterday, the Iranian government sent an SMS text to many Iranians, millions of Iranians around the country saying that you should not like or post on any Zionist or Zionist friendly sites or platforms. That's going to be all of them. That's open for interpretation, because anyone can be a Zionist. And for more, even most of the Iranian government officials that I've met, they don't know what the Zionism means. They all think that Zion was a person, and these people like Marxists, they support Zion. Who is designed that they're talking about? This is something that I heard from a senior government official that damn that Zion who started Zionism, you know, this is a level up. But at the same time, you have this society that is educated. They are, you know, they want, you know, they're secular mostly. They hate this government. But unfortunately, there is no alternative. So when I hear about regime change in Iran, like from different senators, congresspeople, different, you know, like even Netanyahu, Netanyahu, talked about regime change. It's got to happen. regime change to what? You know, the Iranian opposition has been its own worst enemy for the past few years. When was it? Three, almost three years ago after the Massa. I mean, it's death and during the woman life freedom movement. A few of these opposition figures, they got together in Georgetown University and they had this manifesto and this and people were really looking forward to something happening. I mean, there were actors and actresses and football players, you know, soccer players. And, you know, people thought that they might be able to do something. They could not even hold that group together for more than a month or so. It's there. So, so the Iranian opposition really does not exist. So imagine if the regime collapses tomorrow, there is no, you know, Mandela or Vaslav Havel who's going to take care of the country. You know, people compare Iran to this situation in South Africa that, you know, bring it to the end of the apartheid. But Mandela was not himself. You know, there are some interesting figures in the Iranian opposition, but they don't have a real political party behind them. Mandela had people like Oliver Tombow, Chris Haney in Beke, the current president, Sir Ramaphosa, who managed to, you know, negotiations, the transition and all that. And also on top of that, ANC, the African National Congress that came to power after apartheid was a political party with decades of history. Many of these opposition figures outside of Iran, they have not managed to bring even a small group of people together in an organized way to be able to talk to different governments. They don't talk about, they don't have any plans for transition. People say that, yes, we will be in charge of the transition, but they have no idea about transition, transitional justice. And that means that for the majority of Iranians who are secular, who hate this government, and they want change to look at the neighborhood around them, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and those are great role models to emulate. So because of that, we are in a situation where we are that we have this millions of Iranians who are sophisticated, educated, open minded, they're taken hostage by this group of thugs who are organized, who have power, who have money, et cetera. So when I heard the president yesterday saying, you know, these are the two countries that don't know what the fuck they're doing. That was, I think that was the exact emotion that millions of Iranians and most probably millions of Israelis are could express as well. Right. I want to tell you, there's quite a few Americans who feel that way right now about what we're doing. So it's kind of a universal statement. I think it's why it's become such a meme. But I think also for people to understand, you know, Iran is really split. The power base for this current, you know, the Iatola is more the rural areas, more religious, more extreme. There is that dichotomy of the more educated people in the cities and they have a more liberal. But, you know, relate this to, when you and I were in Jordan, it was in the middle of sort of that Arab spring, that feeling of there was a real sense of hope and possibility of what a more democratic ideal might be, generally one that we were kind of projecting onto them. And I think Egypt presents a really interesting example because that was a ground-up revolution. First there was Mubarak, who was sort of the authoritarian dictator who had been there for, you know, for all those many years. The people on the street during the Arab Spring rose up and overthrew Mubarak. And they were going to institute a democratic election. And what everybody began to realize is, oh, the only people that are organized enough, because civic institutions had degraded for so long over that time, was Muslim Brotherhood. They were the only ones that had any so morsey through Muslim Brotherhood becomes the leader of Egypt. They become dissatisfied with morseys rule. The streets rise up again. This is, it takes a year. And who takes over CC, another autocrat, basically, Mubarak again. And now he's very popular. I think the point that you made is really interesting. Without, if you have an authoritarian regime over a period of time, it degrades your civic institutions. So when you talk about who's next, it's maybe another Ayatollah. Maybe it's somebody from Kud's force. Maybe it's somebody from Revolutionary Guard. But it is not probably going to be some democratically minded leader who's going to empower the people. Would that be fair to say? Well, let's go back to the premise that, you know, that the country is divided between rural and urban area and educated and not. I think that was maybe the old paradigm at the moment. We can say that Iran right now is very similar to Soviet Union in the 1980s. So you have many people who support the regime as they did in Soviet Union. You have millions of people who are getting paid by the intelligence services like you had in Soviet Union. And they are supporting an ideology. But at the same time, they are getting paid by the system. So they have material interest in the existence of the system. Right. So the government is supporting a lot of them. A lot of them. So into the like 1985, if you ask a KGB agent, do you support the Soviet Union because of the communist ideals and Marxist ideals or just because you're getting paid, you know, he was probably would say yes, because of the ideals. But he was supporting because he was getting paid. And because he had seen seven years of corruption and dictatorship in his country. And you know that communism did not work. So at the moment, many people who support the government, I would say most people who support the government, they have some material interest. It can be because they are getting paid by among Romania's charity foundation that is supporting up to 10 million people, maybe because they are getting paid by different foundations because of the revolutionary guards. And also, as you know, revolutionary guards is not only an army, the revolutionary guards is one of the biggest industrial, but is in Iran, it has universities, it has hospitals, so many people are getting paid by the revolutionary guards and supported. Going back to the other question that you have in terms of the organized opposition. So there is no organized opposition outside of the government. At the moment, I would say that the government is fractured into different parts. Some of them are hardcore supporters of itola Hamine because they either believe in him as this island of purity in this of corruption and dirt, and someone who, as they say, is basically the backbone of the revolution. I would say there are, there are many of them, there would be maybe four or five million of them, who vote for the most hardline candidates, even the presidential elections usually. But there are many other people who do not believe in the government. They believe in, they, but they work, they still work for the government. And many of them are good bureaucrats, who would be good bureaucrats for a good government? Yes, for a good government, like, you know, Iran's deep state. Some diplomats, exactly. Some diplomats that we have, some accountants, bookkeepers, etc. So they don't have any kind of ideological belonging to the system. So the best case scenario would be to have a leader who would realize that Iran is stability. And most people really don't care about many of the dictatorial aspects of the regime. They, they, they want stability is in life. And when Trump says, you know, they don't know what the fact they're doing, I can understand his frustration because as a businessman, he looks at Iran and he says, you guys have gas. You have oil. You have an amazing country. I hang out with these Iranian property owners in New York. And I know how brilliant they are. Why do you keep on, you know, chanting these ideological slogans and just don't make money? Just, you know, be quiet and make money like the rest of the Middle East, like people in UAE, people in Saudi Arabia, people in many other countries. And because of that, I think the best case scenario would be to have a leader who is nationalist, who can bring different groups together, who can give people social freedom, who can tolerate some level of democracy and elections in Iran. And then Iranians would rally around him and someone who has a plan because Iranians, they're smart enough to know that if someone doesn't have a plan, they're not going to support that person. Right. Someone like Mohammed Mosadiq that we overthrew in 1953. Well, maybe somebody like that. Yeah. Mohammed Mosadiq, right. Someone like him. Yeah. Because he basically came through the system as well. And you know, here, let's make an open apprentices because we put them allowed because we thought he was a communist. So that, no, exactly. But the thing about Mosadiq, as well, is that people say here that, you know, not here, like in the US, I've seen a lot of my leftist friends and liberals say that he was democratically elected. Mosadiq was not democratically elected. Mosadiq was became prime minister, like many other prime ministers before him and after him, the Shah introduced him to the parliament and he and, you know, the parliament voted for him as the prime minister. Mosadiq's main mistake, and I think that many other Iranian politicians and many politicians in different places, main mistake was to make the Americans afraid of the Soviets so much that, you know, they couldn't trust him anymore. And they said that, you know, okay, we have to bring our own strong man because Mosadiq was saying that was saying that was telling a true man and then, you know, Churchill and athlete at the time that, you know, if you don't support me, the Soviets are going to take over. The communists are going to take over. And then, you know, the CIA was a young organization at that time. And, you know, when Eisenhower came to power with Alan Dallas and, you know, they said that, well, if you're so weak that you cannot withstand the Soviets, then we can have our own people. We can have the strong military. So that's why, you know, they could happen. And he also did, you know, British petroleum and the fact that they couldn't trust. Exactly. That Mosadiq would do what they wanted him to do for British petroleum. Yeah, so I think it's very important to understand, you know, understand the other people's narrative. I think once had this main problem was that he did not understand the American cold war narrative at the time. He did not understand the level of fear in the US. That that was viewed as an existential threat in the United States, right? Exactly. And the Americans at that time, they didn't care about the narrative in Iran. And they thought, you know, with the coup, they can bring, you know, stability and they could, you know, break it out. The Shah will be our guy. Exactly. And 25 years later, it backfired, then there was a revolutionary run. At the moment, I think that's happening as well. That, you know, people don't understand each other's narrative. And there's a lot of misunderstanding and miscommunication. So let's talk about narrative because that you bring up an excellent point because so much of this is about narrative. So, and I do have a couple of questions on that. One is, and I'm sorry for drinking so much water. It's so hot here that, you know, I have to hydrate myself. Mosadiq, first of all, it's very upsetting to me how good you look. I'm already upset about that because you too, man. You too. Over the years, eroded. My god, no, you look like a young George Clooney. That's very kind of you, sir. That, by the way, when we were making Rosewater, which is a film about Mosadiar's experiences in captivity in Iran, we had to get Gayel Garcia Bernal to do it because there was no one else handsome enough to play a young Mosadiar Bahari. It just wasn't. And unfortunately Peter Sellers was dead in the absence of Peter Sellers. We could have gone with someone handsome enough or witty enough. And we went with Gayel, who did a very good job. Who did a very good job, bridge the gap. Talking about narrative. So, and it's the two narratives. One, in Iran. So, the revolution, and people know that there's a distinction between Khomeini, who was the leader in absentia. And then when the Islamic revolution came to power, he took over. And then when he passed Hamine, why do they, if this nuclear program, is the sole reason that is preventing them from the kind of progress that you're seeing in some of these other nations? Why do they, do they feel like that's the key to holding on to their power? Is it still the idea of creating a kind of a more shia-dominated power source from Syria through Iran? Is it, I can't wrap my mind around why they do allow themselves to be so at a remove when they do have so much to offer, as you say, in terms of brain power, in terms of everything, they've kind of, you know, it seems like cut off their own nose despite their face in some regard. No, it's a very good question. And I think it goes back to the one of the main problems with this government that it has not managed to define itself. The fact that 40 years after the revolution, 46 years after the revolution, there is still calling themselves a revolutionary government. So, in 1979, the revolution happened because of mainly two reasons. Iranians, they wanted freedom, they wanted to defeat tyranny. The Shah was a brutal force in Iran. People might forget that. This, the Shah was brutal force. And also, the Iranians, they started their movement for freedom in 1906, one year after the original Russian Revolution, and they had the constitutional revolution. And Iran had the first parliament in Asia. So, people started to fight for freedom in 1906. Then, you know, that movement was defeated. The Shah's father came to power. And there were many movement in the 1940s. And as you said, the coup happened in the early 1950s. So, many Iranians, they thought that they could use Homanie in order to defeat the Shah. And then he would just go home and then they could come to power. And at the same time, the Shia clerics, they had a lot of power. In 1962, the Shah had the white revolution. And, you know, that undermined the power of the clergy in Iran. So, the clergy, they really developed the. What was the white revolution? Go back to that, is that? I'm not familiar. So, yeah. So, the white revolution had two main tenets. One was that the big lands had to be taken away from landowners and divided into farmers, because the Shah, that fieldal system that existed in Iran at the time, was the main obstacle to the progress of Iran. And he was inspired by Kennedy, actually. He had. He was, you know, that time Kennedy was in power. So, there was a lot of conversation between the Kennedy administration and Iran. And the second tenet was the giving women the right to vote. So, when Homanie started his movement in 1935. 62 he wrote a letter to the Shah saying that you know your royal majesty he's he used the word royal majesty. Jeeping women the vote is going to drive them to prostitution you know like you know okay we make a vote and then they go to a brothel immediate you know this like that it's going to all right this this this like this letter is available online you know and then so the white revolution so after the white revolution how many of course had his original uprising he was sent into exile many of his supporters were killed and put in jail including this the current Supreme Leader Aitolo Hamine who was I think around 23 24 at the time he's born in 1939 so the clergy they wanted to take power and so in 1979 these two forces the nationalist forces and Islamic forces they managed to topple the Shah but again as you said about Egypt the nationalist the Islamic forces they were more organized. Many had a network of people in mosque around the country he was a very good communicator he could he knew how to use the cassette tapes he was sending his messages to Iran in cassette tapes he was using photocopies of his messages so that was distributed from all around Iran so when the revolution happened in February 1979 Khomeini managed to get rid of all the other groups one by one put people in jail execute them and then be the absolute ruler of Iran. 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of the defining foundation then that holds the nation together yeah so i remember that i didn't answer your question about the nuclear right so i'm gonna ask the whole stuff all right we got so much yeah i know i asked her both of them at the same time okay so again like what we are talking about the opposition right now when homani came to power he had an ideal of creating a islamic utopia exporting their revolution and he inspired millions of people around the world you know there's a guy who lives in Iran right now who came from Washington and you know he killed someone on behalf of the Iranian government and he's been living in Iran for the past four to six years he inspired millions of people around the world and as you remember in the 1970s and the 60s revolutions were invoked so homani was really a good revolutionary leader but that utopia was you know what's the more realistic idea it was a mirage islamic republic as we said that you know it's like you know George with artistic integrity that you know that does not exist so in the absence of being able to create this islamic utopia what homani did and what his successor Ali hominay did since he's been in power since 1988 since 1989 sorry and he's been they've been a they've been insisting on that revolutionary aspect of the Iranian government right of the islamic republic and what do you need for a revolution you need an enemy so you have to have enemies and homani said it himself that Saddam Hussein's invasion of Iran in 1980 was a gift to the islamic republic because when Saddam Hussein invaded Iran and it started the Iran Iraq war for eight years that brought everyone together and they supported homani and as a result people you know he managed to mobilize people then homani died in 1989 Ali hominay came to power and he's been his catchphrase is a douxman the enemy and you know he's been talking about douxman and you know talking about douxman is like really for him is it's give him this you know it's his character it's like you know barrigade finding his successful you know it's just like that you know it's like when you think about barrigade before you know see this is the fun of hanging out with mazia no no but seriously like you know Saturday night fever before and after sure it's like you know it's like with homani talks about once they found that signature sound man douxman exactly douxman was the staying alive you know because apparently a homani smokes opium and you know people who've known him they said that every now and then he likes to smoke a little bit of opium he tells he doesn't say douxman he says douxman which is a very much you know like an opium in fact affected some so yeah so he has to define a new douxman a new enemy for himself every time so it was sat down with saying which was a blessing and then of course america the great Satan Israel the little Satan and then you know the then I think around nineteen ninety three ninety four he talked about the cultural invasion because of the western cultural invasion because of all the velvet revolutions that were happening in eastern europe right he talked about that so he keeps on talking about that and how can you defeat a douxman an enemy you know through military power and what is the most potent military device that you can have to defeat and you know defeat the enemies that's the nuclear program and they've been trying to do that since wow as far as we know since the late nineteen eighties when the former revolutionary guards commander the letter is available as come any after many defeats during the Iran Iraq war that we have to start developing a nuclear program wasn't even the Shah pursuing that I think towards the end well Shah was not pursuing the Shah was not pursuing a nuclear weapon he was a weapon we don't know yet we don't know the funny thing about the Shah is that the Americans they helped the Shah during the time of Eisenhower around the nineteen fifty six fifty five fifty six to develop the program atoms for peace and many countries they had that and the Shah had a very smart idea actually the Shah was saying that oil is a finite resource so we cannot use oil only for heat and you know we have to have alternatives alternative sources of power and keep oil for other use it so the Shah was developing nuclear energy and early around the diversified yeah around late nineteen seventies there are some documents that some Israelis they were saying that the Shah should develop nuclear weapon in order to [BLANK_AUDIO] able to defeat the Arab enemies, the same way, or at least frightened the Arab enemies. And at that time, the Americans did not want to-- the shot, to have that, and prevented that. And when this government came to power, it basically got rid of all the nuclear programs in the beginning. And then they started again in the late '80s. So when you go to the Israeli archives, that part of the archives is still not available to the public. But when you talk to the people in the Israeli army in the old times, the military attache, the Mossad people in Iran at the top, they're telling you that that's what happened. That we wanted to have Iran, the nuclear program. And the other thing is that between Iran and Israel is that there is no real beef between Iran and Israel. Iran needs Israel. By the way, I think more Jews in Iran than any other country around there after Israel and the United States. Maybe after Turkey, I'm not 100% sure, but maybe Turkey. There's a sizable Jewish community in Iran. And it's one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world. And you know that they are not Ashkenazi and they are not Sephardic. There are Iranian and Jews, Persian Jews. Persian Jews, right? And there are many of them as they are very close to where you live. You know, they're in Long Island. Wait, what? Like, yeah, yeah, I thought it was Los Angeles. No, no, no, no, great snake, great snake in Long Island. It has the biggest Persian Jewish community. They know, you know, they don't-- where it's just like these are like beautiful areas. They have very, very-- You got to go by waterfront, you know, that Jews-- Yeah, exactly. So yeah, so there's no beef between Iran and Israel. But it is, Iran's been very clear. They would like to destroy Israel. And Israel's been very clear. They would like to destroy at least this regime. Yeah. Well, Iran has to say that again because harmony and the regime as a whole, they need an enemy. But-- Doshman, that's the Doshman. They need a Doshman. Yeah, or Doshman if you want to emulate Doshman. Doshman, right. So yeah, in the Shastime, there was no defector relationship between Iran and Israel. But Israelis had up to 10,000 people working in Iran in different industries. Advisors, there was a direct flight between Tehran and Tel Aviv. Really? Yeah, to ordinary Iranians, there are no animosity between Iran and Israel. You know, yes, of course, very people. Do they not-- is the Palestinian question not as important to the Iranians? No, the thing is that the Palestinian-- the Palestinian question is as important to Iranians as the situation of Rohingya is important to the Israelis. They are excited about it. Yes, of course, when they see destroyed houses, their children, et cetera, they are excited about it. But it's not their issue. The same thing for the Israelis. The Israelis, when they look at the Rohingya in Burma, they're excited about it. But this is not something that has to do with them. So many Iranians, they just don't understand why they are stuck between a corrupt, violent government, a regime, and a government in Israel that thinks that they can just bomb everything-- and the solution to everything is bombing, including bringing democracy. And the icing on the cake was a few days ago when the Israelis, they bombed even prison in a symbolic gesture that we want to-- We are free to Iran. And what happened? Many buildings were destroyed. Many windows were shattered. And many prisoners were hurt seriously, were injured seriously. And those are the people who hate the Iranian government. And those are the people who are the future of Iran. And the Israelis are hurting them because they want to bring democracy around to Iran. Right. This is such a repeat of so many of the ill-founded efforts that we have had in that region for these past 100 years of that idea of, oh, we're going to bring democracy. How does the Saudi block, and Qatar, UAE, how do they play into this? Because I'm always surprised, given the brutality of this campaign in Gaza, given this, you know, there's a lot of rhetoric from Turkey, the Saudis, Qatar. Nobody seems to do anything. Nobody seems to want to get involved on behalf of the Palestinian. It's like, they'll, every now and again, they'll put out a kind of statement about a peace plan that they were going to do. But nobody will put skin in the game. And I'm wondering now, you know, as they're bombing Iran, the passivity of all the other countries, is that tacit approval of these actions? I wouldn't say that it's tacit approval. Some of them, you know, because Iran has been trying to have its proxies in different countries, including Saudi Arabia. And it has cells in, Bahrain, and UAE, and Kuwait. Well, certainly Hezbollah and Hamas are the most well-known. Yes, but also-- And maybe the militias have smaller groups. Yeah, smaller groups they have in Saudi Arabia, in Bahrain, and other places, and, you know, Iran. And Saudi Arabia, they haven't had the very, you know, brotherly relationships since 1979, even before that. But so on one hand, many people in among the Arab countries around the Persian Gulf, they are kind of happy that, you know, Iran and Israel are fighting, and the fact that Iran is being weakened by Israel and the United States. But at the same time, because the security and stability of the region, especially the Strait of Hormuz, where, you know, to 20% of the oil produced in the world they go. It goes through Strait of Hormuz every day. They are worried about the stability of that region. So maybe in their heart, they're happy that Iran is being weakened. But when they think about it, the instability and insecurity of the region is not something that can be helping even the Persian Gulf Arab countries. And for all that time, you know, again, people always talk about the off-ramps. I think what's so helpful about this Maziar is, you giving us the kind of context and background about how Iran developed and how they got here that gives us sort of an idea into the psychology of it. You know, you and I still live in the 1979 world, to some extent. I would imagine that the majority of people now in Iran and in that region do not, in any way, remember, 1979, don't have any real ties to that, you know, the enemies and foes and friends of that time. It does present an opportunity to redefine what that region can be. It seems insane to me that this region has been so fraught. What are the real dangers? Well, you know, in Iran, the situation is not as described because in Iran, they celebrate 1979 revolution every day. People see pictures of-- They still live in that moment. Oh, yeah. People see pictures of Khomeini, Ayatollah, Ruhullah, Khomeini, the founder of the Revolution every day. And people collectively remember of the collective fuckup that they had in 1979 who came to the streets and chanted when the devil goes out, the angel comes in, meaning that when the shark goes out, the angel, Ruhullah, Khomeini would come in. And I think, yeah, I mean, the whole nation, even the young people who don't remember 1979 and the majority of Iranians, maybe 85% have been born out after 1979, they still regret that historical mistake that they made in 1979. To have a revolution without knowing, without having a plan for the future. And that includes many people in the government now. People who were revolutionaries at the time, when you talk to them privately, and sometimes even publicly, when you talk to them, they say, we made the mistake. We should have given the Shah the opportunity to reform the country. The Shah was afraid of the Soviets, of the Communists, and then maybe after the collapse of the Soviet Union, there would be more opening. In any case, the situation would not be as bad as it is now. And that is according to many people within the Iranian government. Are there resentments more internal, or are there resentments that look, we've imposed. really devastating sanctions on that country, you know, I would imagine it's very easy for them to point to as they did with you, yeah, that you are an agent of the West sent to weak in them. That's been their game plan. You've been the Dogemon, the West has been the Dogemon for so long, yeah, that how reflective are they? And even within Iran, for those who resent, you know, what would you say is the is the regime's actual sort of support level, you know, given everything that's happened. Yeah, I would say based on the last election that we had, and the majority of people voted for the person who was not hominist first choice for president, and people, you know, about five to six million people, or maybe a little bit more seven million people, maybe they voted for Jalili, who was hominist chosen candidate during the presidential election last year, I would say that is the higher level of support that you would have in the country. And that includes people who are getting funding by the government, the intelligence agents, et cetera. But this question of sanctions is very important, because I think it's it's multilayer, the problem is multilayer, in order to impose targeted sanctions against the nuclear program, against the human rights violators in terms of certain sectors within the Iranian economy, you need the bureaucracy to back it up, you need the people in the treasury, in the state department, other places, in order to be able to liaize with the banks, saying that, okay, this pharmaceutical company that wants to bring, you know, to wants to import medicine from the US, or, you know, medical equipment from the US, they can be exempted, they can have this all-fact license that, you know, treasury issues for the exceptions. But that bureaucracy has not existed in the US government since the beginning, when since 1979, when Carter's administration imports the sanction, and you know, neither Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Obama, Bush, senior, Bush, junior, none of them had that, and it doesn't exist at the moment. And at the same time, the revolutionary guards is not only a military force in Iran, it is the biggest industrialist in Iran, and it has many companies. It has shares in some private companies. So when the Revolutionary Guards Corps, IRGC, is prescribed, is subjected to sanctions, that means that the pharmaceutical companies that are owned by the Revolutionary Guards, the pharmaceutical companies that bring medical equipment to Iran, they are subjected to sanctions as well. That somehow resembles hiding amongst civilians for the Revolutionary Guards, because it is like an octopus, it has its tentacles everywhere, in every aspect of Iran in society. And sometimes, you know, you are a bookkeeper, or you're an accountant, working for a company, for a pharmaceutical company, and then the Revolutionary Guards take over. You're immediately become subjected to sanctions by the American government, and many other governments. So I think this is a question about sanctions. It's very, very complicated. Folks, you know, this company, it meant mobile. I don't want to give you a keeping suspense in any of the things. They got themselves, maybe the ad spokesman of the century, Ryan Reynolds. But apparently, they need a little extra push, and they're bringing in, I guess, you know, it's like anything, you got to, you got to sub in, one guy can't do all of it. So you bring in a couple of scrubs, see if they can push a few more over the finish line, and that's what this is. That's me for for men mobile. But the pitch basically essentially stays the same. You got over-priced phone bills, and you can lose them by switching to men mobile. You know, the fucking things, 15 bucks a month. What are you looking for better? What are you thinking you're going to grab one for nine? It's 15 bucks a month. High speed data unlimited talking text, largest 5G network in the nation. To get your new wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month, go to mintmobile.com/tws. Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com/tws. That's it. There's no catch. Upfront payments of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for 12 months, plan required, $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only, greater than 50 gigabytes may slow a network is busy. Includes up to 20 gigabyte hotspot, capable device required. Availability, speed and coverage varies. See mintmobile.com. I really hope they speed that up. But I think the main reason for the sanctions is the behavior of the Iranian government. In 1979, when the sanctions started, they started because a group of students inspired and supported by itola Rahul al-Khamenei took over the American embassy in Tehran, meaning the part of the American land. And I think that resentment is still exists among many American diplomats. And actually, among many older Americans who are voting for different elections, yes. Absolutely. That's what I meant by, like, in for the younger Americans, I don't think they have any foreknowledge of that, but for older people who still remember the pain of that time. That's why I'm saying this seems like a moment where we can finally break free from this kind of historic self-defeating pattern that has isolated education. Well, it's funny. You always think the way to point out. Yeah. The one thing Maziar was always really clear with me. So we always talked about this when we're sort of working on the film was the difference between incompetence and evil. And, you know, you were always really clear that so much of, and we tried to sort of insinuate that with the interrogator that used to that kimbadni who played your interrogator that would come in. This idea that they weren't evil as much as ignorant and incompetent. And that chasm seems like it's only grown, and it is the revolutionary guard, the only organization within Iran now that kind of functions as holding that whole thing together. No, I think the civil society in Iran is still very strong. Iranians are educated. And since the woman life freedom movement, Iranian society has changed a lot. You see strong civil society groups and these civil society groups, they're not maybe politically active and they want to topple the government. They are environmentalist. They are, you know, they are involved in providing employment to different people. They are targeting poverty in different parts of the group. So society as a whole is really progressing and it's really advancing, regardless of what the government is doing. Right. Almost nature finds your way. Exactly. And, you know, some of many Iranians in the absence of any viable opposition to this government, they are implicitly and explicitly asking the government just leave us alone. Just leave us the fuck alone. We want to do, you know, we want to provide job. We want to clean the environment. This is the air that we all are breathing. You know, let us clean the air. That's wrong with that, but the revolutionary guards on the other hand, they are very organized. And but again, the revolutionary guards is not to monitor it. There are different factions within the, within the revolutionary guards who are fighting against each other. A voice file, a voice file came out about five, six years ago. It was about the, the clash between gas and Soleimani, the head of the former head of the court's force and the commander of the revolutionary guards and the, because of the fact that Soleimani was involved in some money laundering, et cetera. So that guy was criticizing. So revolutionary guards is not to monitor that as well. And also you have to remember that, and I hope that the American administration remembered that as well, that many people, they are drafted into revolutionary guards. So when a young person is graduating from high school or baby dot drafting and joins the army, they have a few choices. They can go to the army, the navy, or they can be drafted into revolutionary guards and they have no ideological belonging to the Revolutionary Guard. They don't ideologically support, but they just prefer to the Revolutionary Guard. So the Revolutionary Guard is really not to model it as well. And yeah, so in the absence of any viable, viable opposition, in the absence of any viable alternative, the majority of Iranians, they want security, they want peace, they want, they want to be able to provide the basics for the family, whether under discovery or not. And have a sense of a future. I mean, it's and they want to have a sense of future. And I think, yeah, I think that's very important. You know, when the Israelis, they are targeting Tehran, and they're targeting civilian areas, or they're targeting, uh, oil refineries. And when people remember what the Israelis have done in Gaza, that doesn't give them the confidence that the Israelis, they want to, they have the best interest in the future, exactly that they want to work with them in the future. But see, this is what's so heartbreaking about this region. And this is something that I think I learned from working with you and from being over there. I don't know of a region of the world where there is a larger gap between the nature of the people and the nature of their leadership. The extremities of people's leadership in these areas versus, I mean, I can remember when we sent Jason Jones, when we originally interviewed you during that time of the Ahmadinejad election, a warmer group of people, better educated, a more artistic, you will not find when you go into often these regions that are being torn apart by, uh, extremist violence, you know, the people in Palestine, a more hospitable, like, lovely, with nothing, who I remember we would go into those refugee camps, uh, in, in Jordan, people with nothing, who wanted only to invite us in and feed us. And I was so struck by the gap between the beauty of the hearts of those people and the hardness of the hearts of the leadership. And I feel like that is where we're caught right now. Yeah. And you know, when you travel to countries like Malaysia or Thailand or any other South Asian countries, but I'm giving Malaysia as an example, because it's a Muslim country. And they don't have any relations with Israel, the majority of people don't like Israel because of what it's doing to the Palestinians, but the Malaysian government does not build the weapon and right in Hebrew and it deaths to Israel. You know, they don't invest so much money into denying the Holocaust into anti-Semitic propaganda. No, they don't have relations with Israel, but you know, they're doing their job. They have good relations with the US. But it's not their reason for existing is to destroy them. Exactly. It's not the reasons for this and they don't do anything about Israel. They just don't like it. They don't deal with them. That's all. Maybe they deal with them with that. But it's not something that the Malaysians they wake up in the morning and see death to Israel all the time. And you know, if you think about it, like when you're if you're in Israeli, and I've been to Israel a few times in the past 10 years or so, when you're in Israeli, and you have this government that chance deaths to Israel all the time. As I said, and the example I gave is a real example that they build bombs and they wrote on in Hebrew and it deaths to Israel. And at the same time, you see that they are funding groups that are acting against you. That doesn't give you the confidence as an Israeli that, you know, you can deal with this government. And you think about doing something. Then you also though have politicians in the Knesset saying we should nuke Gaza. I mean, that's exactly. I can't imagine that's getting much confidence. Of course, I mean, there are some rabbis in Israel who are saying that we have to emulate Iran. And we have it all. Jewish Jewish kingdom in Israel. But I mean, we're not talking about like the extremes. We're talking about normal people for normal Israelis. That's what I mean. I think it would, yeah, I think it would be interesting. But the problem is that there is the narrative exactly that the ordinary Israelis, they do not understand the narrative of ordinary Iranians and vice versa. Yeah. If I want to blow our own heart, is that what we're doing in Iran where we're trying to somehow translate these narratives for the Iranian utterances, but what the rest of the world are saying and for the rest of the world, but what the Iranian are saying. And it kind of takes us around sort of full circle to what we're talking about earlier. And you know, we're talking to Maasiyar Bahari who had been imprisoned in Evan and has certainly, you know, his family had been arrested by the Shah. I mean, that's the other thing I want to make clear is, you know, Maasiyar's experience, his experience was with Khamenei and being in solitary confinement. His father's experience was with similar repression, but under the Shah. Yes. And so you've, you've seen, you know, the US aligned government and the non US aligned government acting in in the same fashion, you know, as they say, meet the new boss. But similar fashion, similar fashion, meet the new boss. Same as the old boss, is there some way? And this is probably a question beyond all of it, where a country born in revolution, and let's say the birthday is 79 or in Israel, born in Zionism or whatever it was that created it through that they mature past this existential tightrope that they seem to always feel like they're walking. And, and, and get past whatever they believe is the fear or humiliation of, of actions. And take this chance of, of maturing past that moment, and giving their good people an opportunity to rejoin the family of other nations and, and, and, and still obviously have issues. And, and act fucking normal, like that, fucking normal, that's it, act fucking normal, normal, like, you know, the government of Malaysia, for example, it's not the best government in the world, but it doesn't wake up and say death America. Right. You know, you took you about two or three minutes to ask that question. I think that process. It was a long question. Nobody, you know, but you said, no, no, no, but it's no, but it's important for the right question to be asked, you need to take your time, you need to think about it, and you need to articulate it. For this change that you're asking about, people have to think about it, people have to introspect, and people have to come up with solutions. The Iranian society, the majority of Iranians are doing that. What you're asking about is not going to happen as a result of a bombing. It's not going to happen as a result of sudden change. As I said, after the woman life freedom, Iranian society was changing, it has been changing. This set of bombing this 12-day war, I'm not sure whether it's going to be an obstacle to that, or it may have weakened the regime to a certain extent that they may listen to people. If they're wise enough, they would be listening to people and don't worry about a job and things like that. And they would just try to have people underside and survive, but survive in a more normal way. But there's also the fear, the danger, that they go atullah Humane's way, that after 1988, after defeat from Iraq, the military defeat, they can close the society. But one way or another, I am very hopeful about long-term future of Iran, because the people I talk to, the young women, and men I talk to, especially young women, I think the Iranian women, they're just, it's just, it's really the, the future is theirs. And when you think about the sacrifices that they've made, the amount of shit they have to go through since 1979 and even before then, and their resilience and their brilliance, you can see that the future of Iran can be in the hands of this women. And I'm very hopeful about the long-term future of Iran. But in the short term, especially in the next few months, after such a humiliating defeat by Israelis and Americans, I'm not sure, there might be some tragedies happening in the next few days, weeks, months. And I can remember you and I would talk about, you know, these movements in the green movement and, and when they would sort of dissipates. the people would come out in the street, the besiege or the revolutionary guard or, you know, would put it down violently. And you said something to me once that really struck with me, which was the people of Iran decided they like life more than they like freedom. Exactly. And that they were tired of for their freedom having to put themselves in such harm's way. And boy, that was such a powerful life. They just want to have a normal life. Right. The most famous song that came out of the woman life freedom, it's called Barayya 4. And the main line in that song is for a normal life. And that is something that people have been fighting for just the normal life. I want to go out, I want to buy a piece of bread, I want to just, you know, hand out with my friends, I want to drink coffee. Right. And that is not, that is not allowed in a normal life. Right. And that is not against God. And that is not something that guys on motorcycles with fucking sticks should drive through us and start beating us as, as we're doing it. And the sad thing is that they are shooting themselves in the foot and they are undermining their own authority by alienating people, by alienating people who may have rallied around them at the time of war, at the time that foreign country has invaded the land. But unfortunately, I'm sure that they're not going to learn from this and they're going to continue with these morality police and things like that. Right. Well, Mazer, this has been for me just wonderful to see you, wonderful to catch up with you. I love it to see you too. It's so nice to see you still just passionately doing the work, you know. And I hope the listeners can tell for Mazer, you know, I've always said like, you're a renaissance man. Like the amount of knowledge that Mazer has and you heard it on display, but man, get him going on film and music and it gets even even deeper and more specific. So, you know, you can always find good analogies with BG's and Seinfeld. So, you know, if you know a few BG's and Seinfeld analogies, I think you're set for life, yeah. He can can pull him in very few people of custodians of history have that same knowledge of the disco era. Well, thank you very much. It's great to see you too. Yeah, it's wonderful and and Iran wire is just this incredible platform that allows people in Iran to still have a voice outside of Iran and get their stories out and Mazer has been doing that work for now. It's got to be what 10, 10, 12 years, 12 years now. Yeah. And it's also available in English. So, people can go to Iranwire.com and read the articles in English or we are also on substacks. I read Oh, look at you. Look at, look at modern Mazer. Very nice. Exactly. All right. Well, it's it's just lovely to see it. Mazer Bihar. Yeah, it's everybody. Thank you. How much you love Mazer Bihar? So funny. He's so great. And he is a dead ringer for Peter Sellers when he said that it really clicked for me. And Peter Sellers, he never let race get in the way of a good part. No, no. And by the way, then that's why we had Gael, a Mexican national playing in Iranian national. And I remember saying to Mazer when we were first, you know, going to do the movie. I said, Mazer, I have this idea, you know, all Iranian cast and maybe even we do it in Farsi like and this is going to be the most naturalistic portrayal. And he was like, don't you want people to see the movie? He's like, my first rule is he has to be handsome. That actually was his first rule. He thought he thought Gael was was close to handsome. So he was he was good there. But it's so great to hear him. And very few people have again, his knowledge of history, but also culture and are so agile. He's so agile in the way that he weaves it all together. But you can tell he's worried and I think he has so many friends and and family members and people that I think he's really concerned about. And I think he, you know, the uncertainty of the moment I could see is weighing on him. Absolutely. It was so good though to get those first person accounts through him of what young people are saying on the ground. And it's just because that's so often lost in this conversation. This is what the Iranian people want for the future of their country. Just the the breath of what I don't know about Iran. What I assume most Americans don't know about Iran. What I feel confident saying our leaders don't know about Iran at least had crews sagging. Right. Well, I can even remember when we did Rosewater, you know, I, you know, we talked a lot about it. And the idea was like, if you're an American, this was the most nuanced view of, you know, inside Iran you'd ever seen. But if you were Iranian, it probably felt like an utter farce, two-dimensional sledgehammer. You know what I mean? Like that's that's the gap between our understandings of the separate countries. And you can see how those gaps lead to such devastating outcomes. And I think Maazir said at BuzzFeed said it's not a monolith. There are those that really support and are really locked into that revolutionary mindset. And there are those that are just like, we just want to fucking live our lives. Yeah. And who can't relate to that totally. I was thinking about something you all were saying, which is, you know, the generosity of the people on the ground not matching what the leadership has to say. And it is also by design, keeping information from people and framing things a certain way. And we saw that with the attack on the base in Qatar, where the internet is cut off from Iran. And they just declared victory. And so I think it destroyed the base. Yeah. We need to like take a moment and think about what information is actually reaching people before we just assume that we disagree with them. And this will be, you know, retracted battle forever. And he, I think he very smartly said, you know, and there are a lot of people there that are grabbing VPNs or, you know, it's, it's a ways of bypassing. But that is always going to be a narrower swath of the people. And so we don't know the story that they're being told. And by the way, before we get to kind of high on ourselves, we're not sure where the story we're being told. Oh, of course. And, and, you know, it's been obliterate. They're done. It's over. We had to do it. They were within days. They were, who the fuck knows anymore? Now we are, we're, we're off next week, right? Yes, we are. Little, little celebration of the America's birthday there. Or a big beautiful bill if that happens. Oh, Christ. It's another one where watching them all have to say that reminds me of like whenever you call Disney and they have to end every conversation with and have a beautiful Disney dare whatever they have a magical day or have a magical day. And it when they say big beautiful bill, it feels like a hostage video at almost every turn. Just ridiculous. But Brittany, what let's answer the listeners before we get going and then we'll we'll head off into the sunset. Sure thing. First up, we've got John. Do you think Donald Trump should get the Nobel Peace Prize? Sure. Kissinger got it. Why not? Whoever's got the bombs, giving the prize. What the fuck does it even matter? The idea that winning that is somehow means anything at this point. There's a big cash prize. I think that's why he's into it. Why does they just make his own? He does his own meme coin, make his own. Do the Trump Peace Prize, award it to yourself and then have it for the rest of the time. You'd rather have it that anyway. That's such a solid prediction. He's going to. Right. The Trump prize will be given to whoever it was that did the most towards world peace and it turns out it's me. Oh my god. I win, guys. And they'll and they'll hold the reception at the Kennedy Center where he runs it. It'll be perfect. And remember, he said he was going to be a world class. I don't remember what he said, violinist, floutist, whatever it was that he said he was talking to somebody saying he could have been world class and an instrument and he can play the music. He's a one man band. What do we need anything else for? He plays the flute. Oh, why? He said something in an interview like I could have been. Oh, I my brain just broke. Sorry. New Trump lore just dropped. Yeah. Yeah. He said he was in an interview and he was saying to somebody he could have been a world class musician. Could have been whatever else. Yeah. He just decided. Same. Oh, oh, oh, how the world could have been different. What else we got? Next step we've got if you were stranded on the island Colbert or Carol. Oh, that's easy. A boat. I would. Why would I have? Why would I have one of those two knuckleheads who neither of us, by the way, that's that's not even a choice on an island like there's no there's not a survival skill amongst the three of us. It wouldn't matter who you had on there. We'd all be gone within three days. So I did none of us a boat. I'd want to vote. There we go. For God's sakes. But this is great. I hope you guys have a great week off. Boy, you guys have been fantastic and give yourselves a good time to decompress. Brittany, how do they keep in touch with us? Twitter, we are Weekly ShowPod, Instagram Threads, TikTok Blue Sky. We are Weekly ShowPodcast and you can like, subscribe and comment on our YouTube channel, the Weekly Show with John Stewart. Boom, roasted. Lead producer, Lauren Walker, producer, producer, Brittany Memevedevic, video editor, and engineer, Robert Toll, audio editor, and engineer, Nicole Boyz, researcher, and associate producer, Jillian Spear, and our executive producers, Chris McShane, Katie Gray. Guys have a wonderful week off. We will see you all the week after. The week after early July. Thanks so much and see you next time. Bye-bye. The Weekly Show with John Stewart is a Comedy Central podcast is produced by Paramount Audio and Busboy Productions.