Why Iran’s Reform Movement Failed

Hank joined BJ's wholesale club the day he became a father of 30. "I coach football." Now, Coach Hank saves up to 25% off gross restore prices, 30 pounds of pasta, three cases of protein bars, 75 sports drinks, and that's just pregame. He knows teamwork, and BJ's knows savings. This is your home coach, home of the save. Join for just $20 at BJ's.com/maskeet and save 10 cents per gallon for six months. Open soon, limited time offer, new members only. BJ's home of the save. Welcome back, breaking history listeners. Today, we have a great guest for these sort of interim episodes, as we work on our season. He is a Yale historian and lecturer, Arash Azizi, an Iranian national. Somebody who has both participated in and chronicled the Iranian democracy movement. So, we are really fortunate to have him. Thank you so much for coming on, Arash. Of course, thank you for having me. Absolutely, so let me just start. Why don't you tell me your story? Where were you born in Iran? When did you come to the United States, and sort of your connection to the Iranian democracy movement? So, I'm from Tehran. I was born in Tehran in 1988, and I last left Iran in 2008. So, I was 20 years old when I left Iran, and I lived in Canada, I lived in Europe, and I came to United States in 2017, and I've been there since about nine years. I was an activist against the regime from a very young age. I was kind of a socialist activist and pro-democracy activist since a very young age. I think I was 15 years old, really, when I joined my first political organization. And I have ever been ever seen first in Tehran until I was 20, and in the years after I was outside Iran, I've been active in that space. It's been some advances sometimes, but as a whole, of course, kind of frustrating. It's the reality that the regime has not only remained in power, but it's today more repressive than it's ever been, but our fight has never stopped. More than 20 years ago, 30 years ago, most we saw the election of Muhammad Khatami, who was a reformer. He believed that the Islamic Republic could open up, and there were other reformers as well before thinking of Ayatollah Mosari and others who were counseling for a more democracy within the system. So I want to start with Khatami, which was a kind of hopeful moment all over the world, really. And then, of course, well, why don't you tell me the story of Khatami's presidency and how it ended? For sure. When you say hopeful moment all around the world, it might be impossible to imagine that today. But when Khatami was elected, in Israel, David Levy was firing minister at the time, driving firing minister to welcome that publicly and said, you know, we welcome this new choice, but Iran, we hope it leads to peace. Muhammad Khatami, the moderate former culture minister, has turned this into a genuine race. His campaign has uncovered a desire for more social freedom, and his themes of personal liberty, democracy, and rule of law have inspired those who want to see the current regime soften. Khatami, who remains today, by the way, the figurehead of the reform movement in some ways, and we can talk about him, what really happened with Khatami was that, you know, in the '90s, Ayatollah Khomeini had died in 1989. The original generation of Islamic Republic sort of revolutionaries had abandoned some of his zealotry, and it started, but not in the direction of democracy. Rather, people like Ayatollah Raft Sanjani, who was president through the '90s, their model was China. They saw China as having suppressed the Tiananmen Square protest and not stopping democracy, but at the same time, opening up economically. So Iran opened up economically in the '90s. It's more a state-owned system of the '80s was replaced by profusations in the '90s, and the idea was that they needed to, at some point, integrate themselves into the Western system perhaps, or the global system, you know, drop some of the empties to the West. But by the late '90s, some people had also started developing the idea that maybe power could be democratized a little bit, Iran could liberalize and democratize. And Khatami ran in 1997 to represent some of those ideas, but there was very few people taught here at any chance of winning. The idea was that, of course, the regime's favorite was Nater Nuri, this conservative guy, and he would win. But against all odds, millions of people, Iranians showed up to the vote to the voting booth, and they voted for Khatami, they elected in prison in 1997. And he used the power of presidency, which was limited compared to the Supreme Leader to Lakhamani, nevertheless, it had some powers. He used it to open up to political space a little bit. The Ministry of Culture, for example, would allow more books to be published. Tons of reformist newspapers came to be. So really, really what you had was a birth of a grand democratizing movement that wanted to fight off the Supreme Leader and open up Iran democratically. And what happened to it is that it ultimately lost the battle. It lost the battle to entrenched conservatives in the system, to Lakhamani, the Supreme Leader, the judiciary, whose head he appointed, and other bodies like that were able to effectively defeat Khatami. So he was elected again in 2001, but two events that would happen that Marxist defeat is that, first of all, the parliamentary elections in 2004, the end of Khatami's term were effectively limited. So all reformists were not allowed to run. And because the body in Iran that determines who could run to the elections is also directly or indirectly appointed by the Supreme Leader. It's a body called the Guardian Council. So they stopped the parliament from having any semblance of plurality. And they also, the couple of bills that the previous parliament had passed that would expand the power of President Khatami and ensure freedom of speech in Iran. These were vetoed by the Guardian Council. The Guardian Council is a body of 12 people, all of whom are directly or indirectly appointed by the Supreme Leader, who gets to decide about all legislation and also on who could run in the election. So by 2005, effectively the reform movement was defeated. But reformist candidate was allowed to run in the 2005 presidential elections, but people had given up all hope that this could go anywhere, so they didn't vote for him. And instead, a populist conservative by the name of Mahmoudah, Medina Joud, who was a young mayor of Tehran at the time, was elected. And the reform movement was experienced hugely. Well, I wanted to, I mean, there was one thing I also wanted to touch on in this period. And that's the chain murders. And that how the chain murders were then covered, and then the newspaper that broke them was shut down, which led to the 1999, and the chamber on university and other universities joined, organizing. Talk a little bit about that. What were the chain murders? Why were they important? Very important, very important event that really one of the key ones in history that really shows something tells us something about this era. So in 1999, around sort of between 1980, 1998, 1999, what happened was that a newspaper revealed a series of murderers of intellectuals that had happened. They all knew that they had happened, but it linked them together. And it shows that elements of the Ministry of Intelligence, the rear guard, the real defense state in this way, were lashing out and trying to kill the opponents or critics of the regime, who were outside the fold of, you know, the reformists, the still got sort of devolved supporters of the regime who had become proponents of reform. But most of these people were, you know, intellectuals of the left secular folks, folks like that. So for example, Doryush Furuhar, who he's actually not of the left touch, who I used to be the leader of Iran's, you know, panheronist party. He came from that tradition. He was a major political figure. He had been minister of labor in the first post-1979 government under Khomeini actually. But inside the side, since then, he had his wife, Parvane, Furuhar, who killed brutally, you know, with knife, it dozens of blows of the knife. Said this Yogyani, there was Mokhtari and Puyan, the two well-known support and writers. They were all murdered. And these news reports revealed it, and Khatami was pushed on to act and go after the minister of intelligence. The minister of intelligence, I believe, resigned as a result. And they found a culprit, a guy called Sayyidem Amami, who killed himself in prison, allegedly killed himself. Either he was killed or he killed himself, obviously, but he was a suspicious suicide. But what Khatami really failed to do, and this is really a symbol of Khatami's failure, was to use his popular mandate to go after this entrenched sort of regime elements and crush them effectively and win power back and, you know, democratize Iran. His reluctance to really take decisive action on the on the chain murders became symbolic of him. Four years later, in every press conference, they will ask him, you know, what about the chain murders? And he used to say it's under investigation, which became almost a byword of his inaction and his sort of inabilities. And the scandal, the horrific scandal led to major protests, which I would say is the spark of what we would say, I mean, disagree if you will, but that was the spark of the democracy movement, you know, since then. That was the first candle. It was brutally suppressed at the time. Yes, it was a closure of Salam newspaper. In 1999, they closed down Salam newspaper because of something they had written on this regard. And it led to this student protest. I was 11 years old, but I'm old enough to remember it. And, you know, we remember talking about it, and remember, you know, remember. People going onto the streets, I remember my father and sort of going to the streets. My sister, when she was younger than me, going to the streets and sort of driving around and seeing this sort of protest. And I remember watching at home trying to get far in satellite, like your news at a time, to get the latest news. So it was a incredibly hopeful moment. I'd been a student protest in 1989. A few students were killed. But it was really the first major political, you could say the one that stretches against the regime since the 1980s, since the early 1980s. So, you know, almost first. There had been, in the early 1990s, there were economic-based sort of bread riots of source in North East and Iran, others. But this was a major political, and I think you were right. You could say it was really the launching of a new path of a democratic movement around that has continued to this day. They called the picture of Ahmed Bhattabi, a younger student who took a bloody picture. It was on the economist's cover. And he's now lives in DC. So it really was an iconic moment. - Okay, fast forward. You have the Ahmadinejad years. Now, we in the West understood Ahmadinejad as this vile Holocaust denier. And, you know, like a kind of return to the, you know, the era that when America's reintroduced to Iran in this hostage crisis almost. And I want to sort of linger a little bit on Ahmadinejad because he's a fascinating figure right now. He runs for a second term. Most Iranians believe that Masawi wins, and his coalition wins that election in 2009. And yet, Ahmadinejad takes what is considered to be a stolen election. And then we have massive protests in the first year of Obama. Can you talk a little bit about that? - So Ahmadinejad was elected in 2005 on a very much economic populist program. Something that is misunderstood by people is that, you know, he didn't really run as an Islamist hardliner. The reformists didn't show up to the vote. The reformists didn't show up to the vote in 2005. 2005, even though their candidate was allowed to run, you know, Mustafa Boyin, he ran a very radical reformist program, even more radical than Khaten. But they didn't show up to vote because they believed, well, this doesn't work. Well, you know, why would we go on vote again? Because, you know, we were at once, I didn't work, right? But Ahmadinejad was able to really mobilize people on economic demands. People who, you know, he said he was gonna challenge their elites. He basically talked, mobilized people who taught democracy, was just talk and he based, you know, a better economic condition is what really mattered. And what he did is that he was able to take over the regime and really helped the revolution in regards. His militia that Khomeini had empowered a little bit, but who during the eight years of Khatami were effectively like an opposition party who worried that the democratization movement would take over the privileges. I heard that you did the opposite. He effectively gave them the state. But Ahmadinejad also did something else Eli, that's very interesting, and that really makes him a fascinating character. So I'm talking about the guy who was a hard miner, who ran an economic populist program, who gave the state to the revolutionary guards. But he entered the disputes of the Islamic Republic in a, it took off the gloves, in a way that had been impossible, in his fight against different factions of the regime. So not only he went after Khatami and them, but he went after everybody, he went after the larijani brothers, he went after, you know, Braf Sanjani, the president of the 90s. And he really took the gloves off. He would use his internal intelligence to like show up the cases of corruption. He really took the temperature up. You know, inside the regime, there had been sort of a gentleman's game almost, despite all the brutality, they were knew that the factional balance was, you know, they knew how to speak against each other. Ahmadinejad threw it all out the window. And he really, in a way, it started this heightening of factional infighting, which meant that people could also be bigger critiques of the whole thing. - So then there's a movement to try to support what is called, I guess, the green coalition, right? - So what happened in 2009 then, what happened in 2009 is that, so Ahmadinejad had done all of these, people were sick of it, but 2009. They, basically, a lot of people tau, you know, president party included it in a way, "Oh, okay, we were wrong to not vote in 2005." We were wrong to not participate in that Ahmadinejad. I mean, now we have to elect really defeat him. Let's see, who is allowed to run against him and we'll defeat him. And against him, Ryan, to 2005, Rafsanjani had also been a candidate, right, who had lost him. In 2009, there was a movement to draft Khatami to run for Khatami to return. And Khatami did run initially, but then another person came that Khatami resigned in his favor, and that's Mir Jose Musavi, who was prime minister of Iran in the 1980s. And for a very long time, I don't know what's the, it's almost like the democratic equivalent of Michel Obama, in a sense, by which I mean, he was seen as this biggest dark candidate that if he runs like everything changes, and you know, but he nobody told he would run, 'cause Musavi, after 1980s, had resigned effectively out of his, been out of the public eye. You know, he was running an art show, sort of, you know, he ran an art institution. So he was a big deal that he came back, this prime minister of the 80s, and he was really liked in the 80s because he had been effectively running a left-wing economy during the war. So he was seen as a distributionist in this way. He was seen as very honest. He was seen as very sort of committed. Yeah, so Musavi, you know, he was very, very liked in the 80s because he had been a wartime prime minister. He was seen as not corrupt. He also was seen as from a more, when 1980s was a very brutal time for the Islam Republic, where he had killed thousands of prisoners and all that. But it was also a less corrupt time paradoxically perhaps, right? A lot of like, in the 90s, different sorts of corruption that developed. So he was seen as a less corrupt era. So he, 2009, he was a massive movement behind him. And his supporters believe he won the presidential elections. Of course, the results are announced very quickly. Ahmadinejad was declared a winner. And the green movement, similar to other sort of velvet revolutions in Eastern Europe and other parts who have been quite a little bit of color. And a lot of them contested what was considered a stolen presidential election. In Iran, where President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has declared victory, he's actually speaking again right now as we speak. Opposition supporters have been rioting in the streets and this morning, the government has been cracking down on the opposition and on foreign journalists. In fact, they will not allow our senior foreign correspondent, Jim Shuto, to talk with us live right now. But Jim was able to file this report a short time ago. In the capital, Tehran, the protest lit up the city through the night. Fire is sent by demonstrators, sent up a black cloud of smoke over the skyline. So a green movement began. The color of green has been the color of Mousavi electorally is also the color of Islam. So it was seen as a respectable color for these reasons and green movement, became a massive movement in which people started with the slogan, "Where is my vote?" Protesting what they considered a stolen election that very quickly developed to something beyond. So from where is my vote in a few months, we get to death to dictator, which with this slogan of Khamenei, Moscow, the dictator, and yeah, and you could see this was also the last grasp of the green movement. So the last grasp of their reform was, the reformer had come back by 2009, it had a new lease on life on their Mousavi, but it also went beyond Mousavi very quickly. Mousavi was put on the house arrest in 2011, even beyond Mousavi, because he wanted democratization and was something beyond what Mousavi had to offer. And the regime crushed it, they banned all the reformist parties, they put tons of people in prison, they killed dozens of people on the streets. Yeah, and you can see a new area in Mousavi, or under house arrest. And Mousavi is still under house arrest to this day. Carol was released a few months ago, but Mousavi is still under house arrest to this day from 2011. Okay, now. So at this point, the, I think what we can safely say is that the hopes of the reform movement to elect a president who will change the system from within by the end of the green movement, it's now very much of a kind of proto-revolutionary movement. Was that fair to say is that it wants. - 100%, yes, 100%. I mean, they used this for the dictator. They very much believed. And Mousavi refused to play along. Right, this is a very important. Mousavi had been, from the 80s, when Khatami had been president and Mousavi had been prime minister. But he refused to play along. He says, he from the very beginning says, I will not submit to this dangerous game. - Okay. - To this dangerous theater is exactly what he was saying. - Meaning, so that's why you know. - He refused to submit to the election that he allegedly lost. - Exactly. - He would not accept the results of the election. - Exactly. - The declared result of the election. So he all how many wanted from him is to go and say, okay, the Guardian Council looked, you know, I acknowledge the final results, but he wouldn't do that. And because of that, he remained, you know, in a house arrest until today. From Mousavi, a few years ago, about 2022, I think the first time that he called for an end to the Islamic Republic and Democratic elections for a new constitution assembly. So he definitely became a full on. [BLANK_AUDIO] anti-regime figure in 2022. But in all these years, also he refused to submit to harmony, which is an inspiring example. Two is credit. Okay, so then what happens? I mean, at this point, you could say the embers of the revolutionary movement were crushed after 2009. When did they re-emerge? It's right. Well, so the 2009, I remember, still, the December 2009, it's the last past. The closest we came to over trying to regime during the Ashura, which is a traditional Shia procession day, which had also been in 1979. Ashura had led 178. Ashura had helped overthrow the Shah's regime. So, you know, you could say in parts of Iran, the state was in a full control, I mean, December 2009. But the movement was crushed. It took a while for us to realize that, oh, it's not coming back because we're hoping the protest will re-emerge again, maybe in a few months. It took a while for us to consider that's not happening. What happened next is very interesting, because in 2013, people again had a choice at the ballot box. You know, there was a presidential elections again. And so Mousavi, obviously, wasn't taking part. The reformists were out. There was no idea. The reformists had, I remind you, the reformist parties had been banned. The reformists had been sent to short trials. People like Aptahi, who was like Vice President or Chief of Staff on the Khatami, were into the Stalinist short trials, and they had to admit to all sorts of things. And all the reformist parties were banned. So, you would think the reformism was really and truly dead. But something else happened, which is a regime insider, guy called Rohani, Hassan Rohani, who had been national security advisor, who had been a protégé of Raph Sanjani, this guy who Raph Sanjani was President of the 90s. Raph Sanjani was very much a better nuach of the reform movement. They hated him, was seen as the establishment figure who represented the Islamic Republic. Even though, as I explained, he had been a capitalist rotor through the Chinese term, right? He had been opening up the system economically. So Rohani, which continued his policies, in 2013 Rohani ran with one slogan. And that had to do with Iran's nuclear crisis. As you know, since 2003, Iran had been in a nuclear crisis. Its nuclear program had been unveiled, basically, a secret nuclear program, and the West had put a lot of sanctions on Iran, and there was whole confrontation around this. Rohani gave, he made a very simple electoral statement. He said that the centrifuges should turn, which is a nuclear device, and people's lives should also turn, by which it's evokes a person. It basically meant, we'll keep the nuclear program about the negotiate with the West with the United States to come to a deal. And of course, in the United States, Barack Obama was president, who was seen as a very hopeful, you know, figure by many in Iran that, you know, he had extended his hand to Iran. He wanted to do a deal with Iran. There was a diplomatic opening in the shape of a woman administration. So Rohani, in 2013, was elected with the support of the reformists and support of many Iranians who voted. This time Iranians were voting not for democracy, but just for a deal with the West. The idea of those of us who supported them, to lift the sanctions with the hope that you would have reinvestment in the economy. Exactly. And maybe you wouldn't have democracy, but you would have something like China. Exactly. And the idea was, I have to say, those of us who were democratic and supported Rohani, the idea was, you will open up the economy, and this will have done a stream of effects. Like, civil society will have, because Rohani also promised citizenship rights, for example. The economy will be opening. Iran would have, in New York, the system will have an embassy in Iran. So civil society will have a space to breathe and, you know, down the road, we could revitalize democratic movements and all that. So that was sort of the idea. And people supported Rohani, people supported, you know, Javad Zaryf, his foreign minister became a, you know, very popular celebrity in Iran effectively because he was negotiating with Americans and because he was attacked with revolutionary guards and sort of the real guard in Iran. So there was this moment very running as well. The OGs never liked Javad Zaryf, I should say, but sure. Well, Zaryf is, I talked about the OGs of the democracy movement, like, you know, the real, the real heads though, for sure. Yeah. For sure. And Zaryf is also Rohani. Yeah, I mean, there was a, there was a, but, but you're right that there were a lot of the people who were part of the green movement who now said, maybe this strategy will get us something better and create the conditions. So later on, we can challenge the supreme leader and, you know, everything else. Yeah. And, you know, let's be clear. Rohani had supported the suppression of 2009 movement. You know, he was very much a security insider. And Zaryf was a favorite abatullah harmony. I mean, Zaryf had, you know, been actually, he knew harmony since he was a translator at the UN in New York in the 80s when Zaryf studied, you know, in, you know, he was in the, he will vote for the UN permanent, Iran's permanent office to UN. So the point is that, um, uh, yeah, so, you know, very much insider figures, but because of this engagement with the US, they had this, uh, degree of popularity. And they, um, yeah, so they, you know, you, uh, well, I guess not all your resistance are old enough to remember that some might be younger, but, um, you know, this was a very big global news. The Iranian, uh, Iranian-American nuclear negotiations, which led to the 2015 deal with Rohani, which also led to Rohani's, uh, re-election in 2017, uh, you know, very popular re-election in 2017. Do you ever gaze longingly at your old NPR tote bag and wish you could call up the Car Talk guys and ask them how to fix the meeting crisis? Do you get AFAB confused with ACAB, but are too embarrassed to admit it? Do you long for a social life that was a little more nuanced? Sounds like you might need the unspeak easy. The unspeak easy offers intimate, off-the-record gatherings with incredible guest speakers, amazing food, and life-changing conversations. This October 19th through 21st will be in New York's Hudson Valley, with John McWhorter, Jungian Analyst, Lisa Marciano, and Rising Theatre star PJ Adzema. Spaces are very limited and going fast, so go to theunspeakeasy.com to learn more. If you're listening to this podcast, use promo code free press at checkout. That's one word, free press, and get $100 off your retreat fee. That's the unspeak easy home of the original free speech vacation. I coach football. Now, coach Hank saves up to 25% off gross restore prices, 30 pounds of pasta, three cases of protein bars, 75 sports drinks, and that's just pregame. Join for just $20 at BJ's.com/maskete and save 10 cents per gallon for six months, open soon, limited time offer, new members only. Now we should say, because then we kind of get into this very interesting point. In that period, you can argue that the suppression of rights got worse under Rouhani, under the Zaryf. I mean, talk a little bit about that. There were more executions under Rouhani than there were previously under Palestinian shot, right? I wouldn't say there were more executions, that's true. The more executions a lot of them are Kurdish political prisoners, a lot of them a lot of them are non-political executions, but the rights to think of force that are not made in a shot. I mean, the things were relaxed a little bit, the culture of ministerial, and relaxed things a little bit. But it was very clear that the expectations were peered down. So if under Khatami there was really hope for democratization, for opening up for massive sort of hopes of a different Iran, the expectations were very much peered down now. Rouhani launched what he was called a citizenship charter, citizenship rights charter, but he was, let me just give you one anecdote that will tell you everything. I remember a cabinet minister in the Rouhani government asking me and I was a young journalist at the time asking me, do you know where is this person who's been arrested in Iran? A cabinet minister didn't know who was someone arrested in Iran, which meant that the security services, you know, the revolutionary guards, who Rouhani, two country revolutionary guards and attacked them, called them corrupt. But judiciary, the revolutionary guards and others controlled huge parts of the system and they didn't give an inch. So there was very little next to zero political opening, the elections did not become really any freer. So it wasn't Rouhani's design, it was rather that there was no fix to the system and the real power in the system were the unaccountable, the revolutionary to the other. Rouhani tried opening up so the things that he controlled like the culture ministry, you know, I'm a writer and I publish things in Iran at the time. So culture ministry definitely a huge opening up compared to Ahmadinejad, you know, he could publish books again and all that. But this was very a small potato compared to the, you know, system as a whole, the repression continued, unavated. Right, and this is also the period we should say in this period is when, as you have Rouhani and Zarif, who are, you know, making deals with Obama and the West, you have the rise of Qasim Soleimani and his strategy to spread the revolution intensely, not just to something Lebanon and Gaza, but also Iraq, Yemen, Syria, etc. And one of the, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but when we're going to get in, once we start seeing more national protests, one of the lines we hear is, you know, for Iran, not for Gaza, not for Lebanon, right? I mean, this is a theme. Iranian start to notice. Yeah. We were supposed to get a lot of money because sanctions were were lifted, but we're not seeing it because you're spending it all on, you know, your militias and your, you know, fanatic groups abroad. Yeah, so Iran, so the revolutionary guards since the beginning of the revolution has supported different militias, but since 2003, particularly, it's awesome, Soleimani who had been the head of the courts force, which is the external operations wings of the RGC. He had been organizing his groups in Iraq, he had been organizing, you know, his groups in the region, you know, and then in the aftermath of 2003, the fall of Saddam Hussein, he really, you know, helped take over Iraq almost, right? His militias had a point of rolling around Iraq. In the aftermath of Arab Spring in 2011, which Iran called Islamic awakening, they really used this new, opened up political space in the Arab world to pursue a sectarian agenda and helped the Iranian groups go forward. So it's true that a lot of these groups, obviously, they get funding from Iran and Iranians have anti-interventionists take against them. So in 2009, for example, the slogan that you refer to neither Gaza nor Lebanon, I give my life only for Iran, becomes a very popular slogan. Iranians don't share the anti-Israeli animus and it's support for these militias that the government has. And Soleimani and Zariif are very interesting together. They meet regularly, but they're also sometimes works and cross-curses. Zariif comes to complain about him. Zariif is the head of foreign ministry, but he does not appoint any ambassadors in the region, for example. The ambassador in Libya, in Syria, in Iraq, they're all appointed by Soleimani, their guardsmen, they're not really diplomats. And that's a symbol, if you will. And at some point, Zariif actually resigns because Bashar Assad, President of Syria, comes to Iran and he meets with Soleimani, Zariif is not even invited and Zariif resigns, but he takes back his resignation. And of course, this is important to remember. This is the era in which Soleimani helps. I'm going to call him about that one. Yes. Fake resign, and I was like, you can't even get that right. Anyway, I'm not a fan of Zariif, but I hear you. Okay. Exactly. Exactly. And so let me just say that in this period, Soleimani helps murder Soleimani and Iran help murder hundreds of thousands of Syrians, you know, together with Assad regime as their suppressor revolution in Syria. So it's very important part of this history, in part of to remember. They have gallons of blood on their hands. Yeah, exactly. gallons of blood on their hands. Now we start seeing a sort of increase. Every couple years, there are more protests. Just walk us through, because I mean, people know women life freedom, maybe from 2022, but there were more before that. And as we saw, obviously, there were more after. So just walk us through that. Yeah. So, so, you know, Rohani comes to power, again, you know, 2017, 2013, 2017, and there's some hope. Of course, Donald Trump's election in 2016 had already changed things. It was clear he was going to leave the Iran deal. He finally leaves the Iran deal in 2018. So Rohani is in this onion and vehicle position. He cannot deliver on the grand promises he's given. The sanctions are not lifted. So he's in this really unenviable position. But he's also not able to make any significant cultural political changes inside Iran is clear that he's losing the factional battle to the revolutionary guards and harmony. And Trump's leaving all the deal only helps that. So in 2019, in 2017 already in 2017, late 2017, you have really the first wave of a really new type of protest, Eli. This protest in 2017, where all over Iran, a lot of them in various small towns, they often had economic demands. And there were people who were sick and tired. People had voted in elections. They had voted in, you know, reformists. But then they had voted in for not just reformists, but someone like Rohani who could have just improved things. And they were not getting anything. So they come out, you know, in this really sort of desperate lashing out the system in 2017. And then in 2019, in 2019, they're really put down in their hundreds. It's bloody put down of demonstrations in a way that the regime hasn't done since the 1980s really. And one of the slow guns they have is reformists, conservatives, the game is over. No reformists, no conservatives, the game is over. So in many ways, you know, you and I have been talking about, you know, different factors. There's some public, but people are really rejecting this in the 2017 and 2019 protests. They want the regime gone as a whole. And this is really a new phase and a new era. And the new era finds new meaning in 2021, because in 2022, we have a really terrible handling of the coronavirus crisis. You know, I mean, it's terribly many countries, but Iran was one of the first countries. It was after China perhaps the second country that it was hit, it majorly we did. What was the China vaccine, right? It was it was they used the Chinese vaccine, which was not very good or the Russian one, I forget which one, but many countries use the Chinese vaccine, but how many banned the American vaccines? You know, he banned the American vaccines, which led to thousands of lives in Iran being lost. And in 2021, harmony does something very special, which is that he closes presidential elections enough. So for the first time since the 1990s, no serious reformist contender can run, reformist or even centuries candidate. There is a candidate who runs, I don't know, sir, had my feet, who was central bank owner on the Rouhani, and you know, he's the reformist candidate, some support him. But because he's such a big candidate, no one seriously supports him. And it's very clear. 2021 presidential elections for the first time in, in a, you know, in more than two decades, the results are known preordered, effectively. Abraham Raissi, who is this insider cleric, gets elected as president. He's very much seen as being groomed to be the next Supreme Leader. He's an unimaginative, unimpressive hanging man. His job is spent entire life in Iranian judiciary, Raissi. He basically executed people all his life. He was ahead of the judiciary. So he's really the worst of the Islamic Republic. And now he is president in 2021 and being groomed to be the next Supreme Leader. So this is the conditions that gets us to 2022. 40 years of anger against the Islamic Republic of Iran expressed through the fist of teenage girls. High school students, daring to remove their headscarves and chant down with a dictator in front of their school. Something unimaginable just two weeks ago. Women have taken into the street and they say enough is enough. They chant women live freedom. We should also mention that they used a kind of chemical weapon in girls' schools. At one point, it's later on, but it's disgusting the extent to which they were basically going after a movement comprised of largely adolescent girls in high school and college. This was the base of the women life freedom. That's right. So what happens in reaction to Massa, I mean, is killing in custody, death in custody of this young Kurdish woman who had been caught in proper her job. The massive movement rises up all over the country. This is the most extensive challenge perhaps to the Islamic Republic. It uses a slogan that came out of the Kurdish woman life freedom. And yes, a lot of it's like movement shakers are adolescent young women who take off their hijab. They burn their hijab. They're a certain campaign of mass civil disobedience, but not very in their job, which becomes the most lasting sign of the movement. To this day, a woman don't burn the mandatory hijab anymore in Iran. And yes, the movement is suppressed very brutally, hundreds are killed all over the country. At some point, there are reports of girls' schools where people are getting sick in tons of girls' schools. There's this idea that extremely experiments in the regime have started poisoning young girls to take revenge on this woman. But the killing in all of this is that the Iranians, so in four massive waves of protests have come out of three until now and then we have another wave in 2025, 2026. But what is awaiting them in all this is that they're not able to put together a political sort of coalition that is able to present a sort of an organized alternative to the regime. And inside the country, this is very difficult because the regime always, for example, during the woman life freedom movement, it arrested on 18,000 people. Why these people? These are anybody who could have potentially been a local leader. So if you're a filmmaker who is a bit well-known, they arrest you. You know, if you're a trade unionist, they arrest you. So they know how to arrest all people who have the organizing potential. And in this way, they prevent the formation of any alternative to the regime. Well, yes, agreed that this is their strategy. Okay, so when we should talk about what happens at the end of 2025, this is a very different kind of protest. These are the bizarries. These are the merchant class. These are people who had been reluctant to join national uprisings before. These are kind of a pillar of the stability for the regime for the most part there, there to make money. But the real is driven to nothing almost. The fiscal calamity that is facing Iran, there are failing banks, people are losing their pensions. And so then you start to see the strikes in the bazaars and that becomes the next protest movement. Trump gets involved, Reza Pallavi gets involved, he was the son of the last Shah, and then what happens in the middle of January? So in the middle of January, early days of the January, actually, there are mass protests. These protests had started in the bazaar, as you said, and they really spread quickly. What is very notable is that Reza Pallavi, who had emerged as more popular figure in 2022, had been part of a failed coalition effort to come together, bring together different leaders, unfortunately, that collapses, but nevertheless, Pallavi has built his profile by then. He really becomes a leader of a significant section of the Iranian public opinion. He promises a return to the monarchy, he's also seen as, I could say, if you want to divide in a position, now there is a right-wing and a more left-winging and right-winging section, he's the leader of the right-winging section, he's but also not just that, he really becomes a front-runner in a position politics, and he calls on people to come out, because with mass demonstrations in January 8 and 9, and people to respond to is calling millions. They come out in very huge numbers, and the regime massacres them in huge numbers, unprecedented numbers. Between 7 to 20,000 people are killed when the regime puts them down in these demonstrations. So, you don't buy the 30,000 number that we heard from others, and then President Trump recently said it was 45,000, why do you say 7 to 20,000? I go, you know, history will show, number one, even if it's the lowest number that I say, 7, that's still the worst massacre regime has done in his history, basically, so it doesn't -- Yeah, because it's two days -- Exactly, and in two days, you know, and protesters on the street, I mean, have executed people for, but murdering them on the street. The reason I go for 7 to 20,000 is that I use the verified numbers of human rights organizations like the Hirona, which is based in D.C., human rights activists, the news agency. I think the numbers are more verified, but, you know, the real numbers will be -- history will be -- they will be known later, obviously, it always takes time to confirm these things, but that's why I go with a more conservative estimate. Anyway, yeah, I mean, we don't have to linger on it. We have enough reports literally going -- you know, sending goons into hospitals to kill the wounded, arresting the doctors who treated the wounded, charging families for the corpses. It's disgusting, horrific behavior that only I think will deepen the enmity that most Iranians feel towards this regime. So, now I want to kind of get personal with you, a number of Iranian opposition figures like Shireen Abadi welcomed this latest war. Did you -- did you support the war in late February? How did you -- I mean, she took it back already. You know, she basically said that she supported the beginning, but not after, which is -- look, no, I never supported the war, not for one minute. And the reason for that is simple. It's not because I'm a pacifist, because I'm not, you know, I'm not someone who just believes war is always bad. War is sometimes -- you're a morphing. I am a morphing system, indeed, and that means I'm definitely not a pacifist, and I believe wars are sometimes necessary, there are righteous wars or just wars. You know, I believe in theories of just wars. But this war, from the very beginning, I knew that I didn't support it, because the reason was simple, because the war goals of the United States were not going to help democratization in Iran in any way. It was clear to me that it was about limiting the abilities of the regime in a way, but that it would also be fought very irresponsibly, that it would lead -- the best scenario, it would lead to what I called many unintended consequences, which means, you know, it was not something I would support. It's also clear to me that if we wanted democratic outcome in Iran, the honest is on us to organize a democratic coalition, to organize politically. Unfortunately, many Iranians started looking for a shortcut, thinking that -- but if the Israelis and Americans come and take out the bad guy and put out someone else and bring us democracy, why not? You know, we'll welcome it. But it's just not in the cards. It was never possible. All you would get is a heightened war like this that would securitize the atmosphere, that would give more power to people with guns, which are different factions of the regime, which is effectively what has happened. So I never supported the war for this reason. You would do acknowledge, though, that, you know, there are a number of people who, even on the Iranian laugh, who did support it. A hundred percent. I wrote about it. There were many people in the Iranian left. And many people inside Iran, I mean, many people inside Iran supported it. I think they were short-sighted, as I said. I think because they -- they did not see the unintended consequences that could happen. They mistook the resilience of the regime. I think they thought maybe the regime would crumble after a few attacks, but I never thought so. Unfortunately, it's clear to me that the regime is organized enough. That's why even at the height of the January protest, you know, I was on the Harats podcast for Harats. And I remember people attacked me because I said, look, I don't think this will lead to, you know, quick overturning of the regime or the revolution, and people were upset. But it was very clear to me that unfortunately, this was the case, because of the people, the Democrats, the people who wanted democracy, and they're not organized, they're not organized. They're not organized. They don't have the kind of power that could out-organize and out-win against the entrenched security forces, Dr. Russian regards, and the final attacks won't change that. I mean, some people, again, tell us the final attacks will change that. I never believed that they would change that. So that's why I didn't support that. Okay. So I disagree with you. I have an honest disagree with you, which is to say, I do think that there is an opportunity. I wouldn't say it's guaranteed, but I think there's an opportunity if you have a hobbled security forces, and if you look at the targeting of the Israelis more so a few weeks ago, but still, they have made sure to target not just sort of missile launchers and, you know, drone factories, but also, you know, the BCG and IRGC and MOIS headquarters and things that are in regional headquarters, so they are attacking the instruments of regime repression. And that strikes me as a deliberate thing, which is that at least the Israeli theory of the war. But walk me through it. Walk me through it. How is that going to add to the overturning of the regime? Well, let me, let me, I think what it potentially could do is that there will be, you will see after the combat operations stop, the remnants of the regime will look around. They will realize that they will have a number of crises for their own survival. They will have a hard time paying salaries. They will have a hard time mobilizing their forces. They will have far less weaponry, and they have become even more isolated regionally. And they've certainly lost, I think, prestige and stature among the two great power allies Russia and China. And they will also have, well, we're going to get to this because I think we could lose it very soon. That may prevent a window to begin to organize among the Iranian people. And then there is a potential, I think, for the Israelis have shown they have a capability with armed drones. They certainly have a network to perhaps more seriously assist the opposition movement. And what I mean by that is they can assist through communications. They can assist by simply taking out checkpoints and places where they would do that. They can assist by providing on the ground intelligence to demonstrators. But you're right. The ultimate work will have to be organizing that kind of coalition, trying, I think, there needs to be a kind of external component because there's so much talent, a Iranian talent that can help. But I would just say it gives a window. And I don't think it's a couple days. I think it could be months of a kind of window as the regime tries to reconstitute itself. And realizes that it has been severely weakened. That's not saying a guarantee that it's going to happen. But I do think that it gives a kind of chance or an opportunity. You disagree. So you know, so the thing is, you know, well, it's not that I disagree in a sense that I do believe that the day after the war, the regime will face that, you know, it might face master votes again. It certainly will face, you know, a lot of difficulties, you will have to see the society without having, you know, it would not have, it would have a huge economic crisis on its hands. I think day after the war will be very scary for the regime. It might as well face in a new apprisings. But what I'm saying is that because we don't have, you know, the organized movement in order for it to get help from anywhere, it needs to be organized and have some degree of strategy and cohesion, just that that just doesn't exist unfortunately. I agree with you. Right now it doesn't exist. So I just think that there will be an opportunity. Yeah, but this is not a sort of thing that comes into being so quickly. I mean, it's not the thing that can just come together, you know, so we'll see. Sure, but I hope so. I hope so. I hope so too. I hope so too. And there's a lot we don't know, even, I mean, I think you have great contacts inside the country. I don't think, I think we're not there. We can't know. Um, I mean, I could see a scenario where you would see sure. Yeah, let's see officers in the Artech who are less connected to the regime. Maybe say to themselves, I'd like a better future. The Arteches we both know as an institution that predates the Islamic Revolution. Um, so maybe I'm not, but again, uh, there are even figures in the Revolutionary Guards who would say that. There are even figures in the Revolutionary Guards who would say that. But even them, they would be all, well, it would be unlikely that the democratized though, but they will do is they'll take power and they change some of the core policies. I think that's very likely to happen. By the way, if they take power and they're more, um, and they're more accommodating, if they take power and they're less aggressive, then that might be the kind of thing that we would need to then get to the next phase. So I mean, I'm not, if it doesn't happen, it'll happen by the, you know, I agree with you there. Okay. Okay. So I just want to point out, but they're, they're, they're a potential. I agree with you there, but I think that would have happened even without the war. Maybe, maybe, um, now I want, well, let's, the, the war had, you know, kind of over determined, but let's, now let's talk about something where I think we definitely do agree. And that is we are now hours away from this deadline from Donald Trump that he says he will, um, start bombing civilian power plants. I make a distinction by the way between power plants and bridges bridges that you could blow up for military reasons. And to me, that it's not a war crime, depending on the bridge, it's hard for me to imagine that unless it was a power plant that was just for an IRGC military base, which there, that exists. If he only did that, um, you know, I don't care. I believe the regime is the enemy. But if he starts destroying the power plants that are important for to breeze and mashad and Tehran, cities with millions and millions of people, that is an unspeakable war crime and a horrible cruelty. And it will be something that will further emiserate Iranians that have already have to deal with life under these corrupt and fanatic lunatics. So, um, we are definitely in agreement that, um, don't punish the Iranian people. They are ultimately the allies in my view of this war effort. Um, can you sort of talk a little bit about that? Like this latest threat. And by the way, it contradicts what Trump himself said two months ago or three months ago, right? I mean, first of all, you know, the latest Trump threat when we are, it's insane to even normalize this kind of language, you know, from, from word leaders. It would have corrosive effects. Look, this Trump presence is going to have corrosive effects globally for many. Frankly, he sounds like, he sounds like, uh, he sounds like, uh, North Korea or Iran. He sounds like a rogue state. Yes. Exactly. Exactly. And that's, you know, that's really terrible. And that has, you know, it makes the permission a structure for others to also say that. But yeah, it's, it's, it's quite clear. It's quite clear. There is, look, it goes to something beyond that delay. There are two, there are two opinions as to what to do with Islam, probably. One is to replace that change the government of Iran so that the government is less of a problem for the West and Israel. It serves, it's people better and all that. And other is to make Iran into a failed state into a broken state and so that it won't be a threat anymore. And unfortunately, some in the Israeli security state and some in the United States do support the latter. Um, I don't, I don't, I don't, I hope they, I hope that is not the case with Israel, at least the rhetoric of Netanyahu tells of me that that is not what he thinks. I'm not denying that there are people in the Israeli security state who have the idea. It is stupid and cruel. I just want to put that out there that a failed state will cause even more problems. So let's, let's not. Exactly. And I hope more and more. Exactly. And I hope more and more, you know, more and more people agree with that and sort of understand that because ultimately, look, there, there is a way Iran has been a terrible actor, but there is, there are ways, um, even very short of the monetization to, you know, to end this belligerence of Iran with Israel and the United States and breaking Iran and making Iran a failed state is not the way to go as you said it will lead to all sorts of troubles after. All right, well, with that, Arraja, I want to thank you so much. I wanted to make sure I got your voice in there. Thank you so much, you lie. Tammy regularly hauled stuff to her kids at college. That's why she shops at BJ's wholesale club, saving up to 25% off grocery store prices. Beef jerky, microwave meals, laundry pods, even they can't screw up. Have you met my kid? And with BJ's gas, she gets there for less. They call me the road warrior. This is your home road warrior mom, home of the save. Join for just $20 at BJ's dot com slash mosquito and save 10 cents per gallon for six months. Open soon limited time offer new members only. BJ's home of the save.