This is not a nice Islamic fatherly regime, clear sons of fascism, clear sons of the state
control and pay any price to stay in power.
So even violence.
Extreme violence.
The following is a conversation with Abbas Aminat, a historian at Yale University specializing
in the modern history of Iran.
My love and my heart goes out to the Iranian people in their current struggle for freedom.
I hope that this conversation helps folks who listen understand the nature and the importance
of this struggle.
This is the Lex Friedman podcast.
To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description.
And now, dear friends, here's Abbas Aminat.
Let's start with the current situation in Iran.
On September 16th, protests broke out in Tehran and quickly spread over the death of a 22-year-old
Makhsa Amini.
Eyewitnesses saw her beaten to death by the morality police.
This is a heavy topic, but it's a really important topic.
Can you explain what happened?
The protests are now in their sixth week.
The death of that young woman, a Kurd who was visiting Tehran as a tourist, sparked something
very deep that particularly concerned the younger generations.
That is what you would call the equivalent of the Z generation in this country.
They call themselves the Heyeh Hashdadi in Persian because Iran follows the solar calendar
of its own.
It's an ancient solar calendar.
And the time that they were born, they were in the 1380s.
That's what they call themselves, Hashdadi, 80s, Hashdadi for the 80s.
And well, the circumstances that surrounds the unfortunate death of this young, beautiful
Kurdish woman is really tragic.
She was arrested by what is referred to as the morality police, morality patrol called
the Gaste Ershad, a guidance police, that is.
Presumably there were two women fully clad that is officers serving on that force and
two men.
And nobody exactly knows what had happened.
She had been beaten up.
And apparently there was no sign of any wrongdoing on her side.
She was fully covered.
It seems that there was some altercation in the process.
And the outcome was that she was unconscious.
Not necessarily when she was arrested, but in the course of the detention, when they
take them to a center, presumably to reeducate them.
And she apparently collapsed, and maybe my sense is that she must have had some kind
of a problem because of the skull being broken or something had happened.
And she died in the hospital the next day.
And that through the social media was widely spread throughout Iran.
And almost the next day, surprisingly, you could see this outburst of sympathy for her.
People are in the streets weeping because she was seen as such an innocent young woman,
22 years old.
And the family, the mother and the father, also mourning for her.
And being a court visiting Tehran, this all added up to really turn her into some kind
of a martyr of this cause.
And that's what it is.
And her picture, graphics that were artistically produced based on her portrait has now dominates
basically as the symbol of this protest movement.
And the protest movement goes on, everybody was thinking, or at least the authorities
were thinking, that is going to die out in a matter of a few days.
But it became more intense, first in the streets of Tehran by young women, mostly probably
between, I would say, 17, 18 teenagers to 22, 23, or there about, and then to university
campuses all around the country.
And then even to high schools.
And that also made it a very remarkable protest movement because, first of all, it involves
the youth and not necessarily the older generations.
You see them around, but not as many.
Also you see men and women together, young girls and boys.
And they are adamant.
They are desperate in the sense of the tone of their protest, and they are extremely courageous
because they stand against the security forces that were immediately sent off to the streets.
So in full gear, that is.
So what are the currents of pain, emotion?
What is this turmoil that rose to the surface that resulted in these big protests?
What are the different feelings, ideas that came to the surface here that resulted in
such quick scaling of this protest?
Well, if you listen to the main slogan, which is the message of this movement, it's called
Women, Life, Freedom, Zan, Zendagi, Azadi, which is a translation of actually the Kurdish
equivalent, which is close to Persian being in the European language.
And it's apparently initiated first in the Syrian Kurdistan, where they were fighting
against the Islamic Daesh forces, because they were attacking the Yazidis there and
the women being enslaved.
But the message as it moved, historians are interested in these kinds of trends.
So it's just moved to Kurdistan and from Kurdistan, now being the message of this movement, reflects
pretty much sums up what this movement is all about.
Women in the forefront, because of all the, one might say, discriminations, the treatment,
the humiliation that this younger generation feels, well, not only the younger generations,
but most of the Iranian secular middle classes since 1979, basically, for the past 43 years.
And they would think that these all basically symbolized or represented by the wearing,
the mandatory wearing of the hijab, which is at the core of this protest.
You see the young women, if you look at many of these clips that come through in the past
six weeks, women in streets take off their mandatory scarves, which is a young shawl or
some kind of a head covering, that's all.
And they throw it into the bonfire in the middle of the street and they dance around
it and slogans.
So there is a sense of complete rejection of what this regime for 43 years, 43 years,
have been imposing on women.
It's not as it sometimes been portrayed, a movement against hijab through and through.
But it basically says, there has to be a choice for those who want to wear hijab and
those who want to remain without hijab.
Yeah, the hijab is a symbol of something much deeper.
Much deeper.
And actually, before we get into that, it's interesting to note that in many of these
demonstrations we see in the university campuses or in the streets, you see women with hijab,
young women with hijab, are next to those have to remove their hijab and they're together
basically protesting.
That's the most interesting feature of these demonstrations and then men and women together
against the segregation that the regime has imposed upon them all these years.
Now in terms of what it represents, as I pointed out, one is the question of the whole series
of one might say civil and legal discriminations against women.
You are considered as a kind of a second class citizen, you depend on your men, as a kind
of a patriarchy that has been institutionalized in the Islamic Republic in a very profound
fashion.
And that means that probably in matters of divorce, marriage and divorce, in matters of
custody of your children, in matter of inheritance, in matter of freedom of movement, you depend
on your husband, your father, your brother, a male member of your family, your child,
your son could be the case.
And because of that, obviously, a younger generation who is so well-informed through
social media knows about the world as much as an American does, American kid does, probably
sometimes more.
They're very, very curious.
It's from what I hear or sometimes that I met a few of them outside Iran.
You'll see that how this new generation is completely different from what the Islamic
Republic wanted to create in its social engineering.
It's basically the failure of 43 years of the Islamic Republic's acts of imposition
of a certain so-called Islamic values on women.
Then it's a matter of education.
You would see that there is segregation in the schools.
One of the issues that now, right now, is at the heart of this demonstration is that self-services
in many of the campuses of Iranian universities are segregated, male and female, to different
rooms, to different homes.
Now they're breaking through the walls, virtually everywhere, and sit together in order to basically
resist the authorities who wants to impose segregation.
In matters of appearance in the public, of course, it may seem to us as kind of trivial
and secondary, but appearance is important.
Clothing is important.
How you would imagine yourself is important.
They don't want to be seen in the way that the authorities would like to impose upon
them as this kind of an idea of a chaste Islamic woman who is fully covered and is fully protected,
the idea of a male member of the family protects the female.
That is what you would see at the heart of this rebellion.
And of course, that goes with everything else.
The second part of this message, the idea of life, basically means if you like to use
the American equivalent of this pursuit of the happiness, that's what they want.
They want fun.
They want music.
They want dancing.
They want to be free in the street.
They want to have girlfriends and live freely and don't be constantly looked by the big
brother to tell them what to do and not to do or not to do.
So that they share virtually with the entire Iranian society as of all, although the older
generations, that's a big puzzle, but you would see that the older generation don't,
so far at least, don't take part as extensively as one might imagine.
And this is a variety of reasons, perhaps you can get to that later on if you like.
But as far as this younger generation, they don't care.
They don't listen even as much to their parents as the older generations did.
Or one might say, even the nature of the relationship between the parents and the youth has changed.
It's not the concept of, again, a patriarchy that a father or even a mother would tell
the daughter or son what to do.
That's basically they have to negotiate.
It's fundamentally a rejection of the power of authority, parents, government.
Yes.
It's that every person can decide their own fate and there's no lessening of value of
the wisdom of old age and old institutions.
Precisely that's what it is.
And they are surprisingly aware that where they are as a generation, so it's a sense
of pride as we are different from the older generation.
From your parents who compromised and lived with the restrictions that the Islamic regime
put on you, your grandfather, their grandparents was the generation that actually involved
in the revolution of 79, the parents which were the middle generation.
And these are the third generation after the revolution of 1979.
And therefore they differentiate themselves in terms of their identity from the older
generation.
So that's the life part of it and we can go more and more, they want to access.
And they see on social media what happens in the rest of the world, they're well aware.
They're much better digitally skilled than my generation, for instance.
And they know about all the personalities, they know about all the celebrities, they
know about all the trends that goes out outside Iran.
So that's a second part of this message.
And then of course, the third part is the word Azadi, meaning freedom or liberty, which
is this long standing demand of the Iranians, I would say for the whole century, ever since
the constitutional revolution of 1906, Iran has witnessed this problem of authorities
that usually emerged at the end of a revolution to basically impose its own image on the population
on the youth and create authoritarian regimes of which over the course of time, I would
say that the Islamic Republic is the worst, the sense that its intrusion is not only in
the political sense, for instance, banning the freedom of speech, meddling with the elections,
banning political parties, all kinds of that things, which are the political or civil freedoms,
but it's intrusion into the personal life of the individual, which is the worst kind,
in a sense, as you would see that there is always that authority that basically dominates
your life or monitors your life.
So they do it in a kind of a very consistent fashion, which makes this idea of freedom so
important as part of the message of this new movement.
You would see that in today's Iran, there are no independent political parties, there
is very little, probably freedom of the press, I wouldn't say that it's entirely gone, but
it's fairly limited, there's enormous amount of propaganda machine, which dominates the
entire radio and TV system in Iran, it's completely in the hands of the government.
And of course, you would see this variety of other tools for trying to indoctrinate Iranian
population across the board.
So that's another sign of this kind of a sense of being totally left out.
You're not belonging to what's going on in terms of empowerment and disempowerment.
So that's the situation as far as the idea of a freedomist concept.
And these three somewhat miraculously, and perhaps unintentionally, the three parts of
this message complement each other, because perhaps for the first time, we see that women
are in the forefront of a movement, I hesitate to say revolution, because I'm not particularly
happy with revolutions worldwide in Iran have always been so miserable in terms of their
outcome that we have to be careful not to use the word revolution.
So that's where it stands now.
And the regime was thinking that, well, these are kids, they're going to go away.
And then of course, they're completely conspiratorial in their thinking.
They constantly think that these are all the instigations and provocations of foreign
powers.
These are the great Satan in the United States, this is Israel, or these are actually the
supreme data sets in so many words.
His only response so far that he had in the past six weeks with regard to these demonstrations
is that these are the children of the Sabaq, Sabaq being the security forces of the Shah
style.
43 years later, he claims that the children, 16, 17 years, 20 years old, kids in the street
are the grandchildren or children of some imaginary survival of the Shah security forces.
So the idea is that these protests are internal and external saboteurs, so people trying to
sabotage the government.
And they are misled, as far as they can go.
And then there's the great Satan in the United States and other places are controlling either
controlling the narrative, feeding propaganda, or literally sending people to instigate.
I don't think even they have that kind of imagination precise to say what you have said,
that they would say that they're controlling the narrative.
They basically say, no, these are agents of the foreign powers.
And their families are all sold out and they are basically lost their loyalties to the
great Islamic Republic.
And therefore, they can be treated so brutally, they can be suppressed so brutally, which
I haven't actually said what they are doing, because I thought perhaps first we should
talk about who these kids are in the streets before we move on about the response of the
government.
But one major factor which seems to add to the anxiety of, well, the regime is extremely
anxious now, because they're in a position, this shows that they don't have the lack of
confidence, in a sense, that they would see them reacting in a very forceful way, because
basically they don't seem to have that kind of a confidence to allow this message or the
movement to be aired.
But the one element which corresponds to that is that there is an expatriate population
of Iranians worldwide.
There are probably now, according to some estimates, close to 4 million, even more Iranians abroad
and they're all over the world from Australia and New Zealand, Japan, Western Europe, Turkey
and United States and Canada.
So just to give you one example, last Saturday, there was a mass demonstrations in Berlin
by the Iranians from Germany and all over Europe, Western Europe.
And it was at least, I think probably the conservative estimate was about 100,000.
So 100,000 Iranians showed up in Berlin demonstrating against the treatment of the women in Iran
or the movement in Iran.
The government thinks, obviously, this must have been some instigation by foreign powers
and they want to destroy the Islamic Republic.
And not only that, but their propaganda is kind of ridiculous because I listened actually
to how they portrayed it in the newspapers.
I listened to the Iranian news that is officially controlled, government-controlled news.
And in the papers, much of the papers that are in the control of the government, one
of them or actually the major news program, portrayed the demonstrations that 10,000 people
showed up in Berlin and protested against the rising prices, rising rates for gas and
oil in Germany.
So that's how they mislead.
In a very rather stupid fashion, because probably 95% if not 100% of the Iranians are listening
to Persian-speaking media outside Iran.
So it's a BBC Persian, there is Iran international, there are at least five or six of them.
That's probably really important to highlight that Iran is a very modern and tech-savvy nation.
Not just the young people.
Probably more than I feel sometimes when I compare myself to what they are doing.
It's 1979, the earlier years, for a decade or two, they tried in a very crude fashion
to restrict access to media outside Iran, because it's all through dishes.
And satellite dishes are everywhere.
If you look at the buildings, small towns and villages in Iran, there's always a dish.
And they watch all kinds of things through this.
And particularly because of what's happening now, they listen to all the news broadcasts
from all this media and they're extremely active.
There are probably some of them, even 24 hours or close, very extensive coverage of every
clip that comes through.
So what the government is doing now, the Islamic Republic, is that they restrict the entire
internet.
They shut down the internet.
They shut down the internet, but they cannot afford shutting down the internet, because
much of the business, much of the everyday life, much of the government, at first, depends
on the internet, like everywhere else.
And Iran is extremely, if I hear from many of the colleagues and friends, it's like,
in certain respects, it's like Sweden, where you go there, there's no more currency.
And for a very good reason, because there's so much inflation, that the banknotes are
worthless in a sense.
So everything is true, sweeping your card.
And that entire system is in standstill, because people cannot buy food.
You go to the supermarket, that's how you would do it.
You order food to come to your house, which Iranians do, at least the middle classes,
more prosperous middle classes doing all the time.
So they deliver everything, and because of the COVID, it became even more.
And they have to pay all through this system.
So what happens is that now they're estimating that every day, $50 million, the Iranian government
or the Iranian economy is losing because of slowing the internet.
Plus the frustration is growing, because you can't order food, among other things.
I mean, they are in touch with, I mean, WhatsApp, every Iranian, virtually every Iranian, that
has education, and education in the sense that has gone through the high schools and
universities, knows how to use the WhatsApp.
So there's a big middle class, like you said, secular middle class in Iran, and there there's
a lot of at least capacity for, if not revolution, then political, ideological turmoil.
And a huge amount of hatred.
So the hatred has gone?
Yes, hatred of the policies of the regime, of isolation, that's a huge point that you
hear a great deal about, that we don't want to be isolated, we don't want to be humiliated.
Iran is not about this miserable regime that is ruling over us.
We have a great culture.
So there's a sense of a pride in their own culture, some of it, you know, Islamic, some
of it pre-Islamic.
So there's a huge sense of a pride in that.
And they see that they cannot communicate with the outside world.
They want to travel abroad, which they do.
I mean, for one thing, the Iranian regime never actually, for majority of the population,
never put restrictions, it's not like Soviet Union, where you have to have a, you used
to have a permission to move from one place to another.
And then of course, the Islamic regime since 1979 basically chased away or destroyed the
old middle class, as my generation basically, or my parents, these are the secular middle
class of the Pahlavi era, in the hope that they can do this social engineering and create
this Islamic society of their own.
The bad news for them was that that didn't happen and that memory persisted and the middle
class that was created since past 40 years is much larger in size than what it was because
there was, of course, the demographic revolution, that's, there's a very, there's a very foundation
of it, it's the demographic revolution.
Population in Iran, I've written an article about it actually, population in Iran since
the turn of the century, last century, the 20th century.
Population of Iran was about 9 million or so, is now 83 million.
And that is, since 1979, the population was 35 million.
Between the past 40 years, it's basically doubled.
So it's 83 million, although one of the great successes, I don't want to bore you with the
details about the demography, but it's important in this.
Demographics is not boring.
Well, you can see that the birth rate was very high, otherwise you wouldn't have doubled
your population in a matter of four decades.
But Iranians, because of the urban shift to an urban population, because of the growth
of the middle class, because of the education, they basically, the pattern of the growth
population growth changed.
Iran used to be 2.8 or 3% birth rate in around 1980s, I would say, 1970s, 1980s.
Now it is 1.1.
And it's probably the most successful country in the Middle East in terms of the population
control, despite the government consistent attempt to try to encourage people to have
more kids.
The middle class refuses to do that.
And this is the middle class, not only anymore in the capital, but this is the very smaller
towns and cities, places that used to be villages.
Now you look at them, they have a decent population, 50,000, 100,000.
And they live an urban life, and they don't want to be subjected to that old pattern of
an agrarian society when you had 10 children or eight children.
And of course, it's much more advanced in terms of health and medicine.
So you don't at least lose children as they used to.
There are antibiotics, there's all ways of kids to survive.
And therefore, if you have 10 kids, you stick with 10 kids.
You don't end up with four, as it used to be in the past.
Six of them would have died up to the age of five, actually.
But now, because of that, you see that this urban population in the cities have completely
different demands.
And of course, the education is important.
That's another area of how the social engineering of the Islamic Republic went away, because
they were thinking that the growth of the population, the growth of the educated, higher
educated middle classes, their benefit.
Or they could not even control it, in a sense.
Now Iran, in my time, probably had, in the 1970s, probably by the time of the revolution,
had 10, 12 universities.
Now it has 56 universities all across the country.
And there is something you refer to as the Free University, Azad, which has campuses
all over the country.
It has 321 campuses all around Iran.
What does that mean?
In many respects, this youth that are brought up in these families, even in small towns,
in very traditional families, in families that belong to that kind of a more religious,
loyal to the clergy or to the clerical classes, their children can now move on, particularly
women.
Because in my times, it would have been unheard of that you would have a young woman of 18
or 17, 18, 19, from a traditional city, such as, for instance, Yazd or in South-East
Iran, to move on elsewhere for education, as you do in this country.
Now it's completely accepted that a woman wears her job, because she's forced to wear
her job, to go to a university completely on the other side of the country.
And this movement of the population, not only because of the universities, but in general,
if you now visit Iran, you hear accents, local accents, provincial accents all over the country.
That is a Azerbaijani-Turkish accent from the northwest of the country.
You can hear it in the first province in the south, and vice versa.
So Kurdish, for instance, or even more marginalized regions, such as Sistan province in the southeast
of Iran, which has been the subject of this recent massacre, when they actually attacked
the population, when demonstrating and killed a fair number of at least 60 people.
So this movement of the population, this creation of a larger middle class, the better educated
middle class, much better educated.
Iran has 86% literacy, which I think probably, I haven't checked that, but probably is better
than Turkey, even, is probably better than anywhere else in the Middle East.
And it sounds like that's quickly increasing, because of the movement, because of the growth
of the education system, that's...
Precisely.
Iran has one million school teachers, which may not seem as much if you're in the United
States, but it's a fairly big number, actually.
Can you linger on the massacre?
What happened there?
Well, the Sistan province is a Baluch ethnicity, of Baluch ethnicity.
Baluch is a particular ethnic group in southern Iran, which is so nearer than she, majority.
And we should say that most of Iran is she, and that's a branch of Islam.
She is, then.
Yes.
Let's maybe just briefly linger, Shiaism and Sunni, let's not get into it.
Yeah.
Let's do a one-setting summary, and that maybe, which is what most of Iran is.
Parties of the population of the Muslim world are Sunnis, these are mainstream, if you like,
to call it.
Actually, Sunnah means that kind of a mainstream.
Can you actually linger on the Sunni Sunnah?
Shia means a party, means those that belongs to a party of Ali, which goes back to the
early Islamic history of 7th century.
I mean, I'm almost lingering to the silly notion of pronunciation and stuff like that.
So, ah, ah means part, like, what is the extra ah at the end, too?
Shii means belonging to the Shii community, Shia means a person of a Shia.
That belongs to that community.
If you say, are you a Shia?
Yes, I'm a Shia.
Yeah.
And Shii is the community.
It's a community.
And in English, when it was Anglicized, it becomes Shiaite.
So if you say Shiaite in today, it's perfectly acceptable.
And of course, I, myself, in my writings, I always, ah, switch between one and the other.
One of my books is always Shiaite, the other book is always Shii.
And that hasn't been settled.
But the Shii population is the smaller compared to the Sunni population in the world.
In the world.
In the world.
But in Iran, it's the opposite.
The Iran and Iraq, and possibly not Lebanon, are the three countries who barely, Iraq and
Lebanon have barely majority Shii population, whereas Iran is a large Shii population due
to its history of conversion to Shii, and that by itself is another story.
But in the sense that the way that historically it evolved, the center became more Shii, and
the peripheries remained Sunni.
So you have communities of the Baluch in the Southeast, you have the Kurds, a large portion
of the Kurds are Sunnis, they have Shii as well, and they have the indigenous religion
of their own ideal, it's called Ahl Haq, which is the religion of indigenous to Kurdistan.
There are Turkey Amans in the northeast of Iran, who are also Sunnis, there are other
communities in the Khorasan region, in the peripheries of Afghanistan, they are also
Sunnis.
And you have some Arab population, Arab speaking population in the Khoosistan province, in
the southwest of Iran, which is also across the Persian Gulf.
Is there a lot of conflict between these regions?
And also, like if I blindfolded you and dropped you off in one of the regions, would you quickly
recognize the region, like by the food, by the music, by the accents, by so on?
Yeah, the answer to your lovely question, which I think I hope it would have happened
to me, is that yes, you would see different cultures, but different food, most important
different accents, or different languages, since they have dialects, the Baluch is a
different language altogether, or so for that matter, Kurdish, which is closer to Persian
because they are all Indo-European languages, but Turkish, Azeri Turkish, which is probably
closer to the Turkish of Turkey, Republic of Turkey, or to the Republic of Azerbaijan
in the north.
They are the same, basically.
Actually if you would have looked, that's a fascinating picture, if you have looked
at the, let's say even 19th century, early 20th century, linguistic map of Iran, it would
have been amazed in the number of dialects, in the number of languages that have survived.
This is an ancient country, is an ancient land, and it's a lot of mountains all around it,
or big deserts, so there's a sense of isolation.
So you would say here and there you see a different community that speaks differently.
All ancient traditions and languages.
And because of the great number of invasions that Iran witnessed over more than two and
a half millennia, of course all kinds of cultures were introduced into Iran, the old ethnicities
were introduced to Iran, mostly coming from the north east of Iran, from the low lands
of Central Asia and beyond, and continued into Iran proper.
So but now what has happened, that's my point that I wanted to make, a century of modernity
or modernization has produced a national culture of great strength in a sense, I would say.
I ended my book, the book on Iran, Iran and Modern History, basically saying that despite
everything else that has created so much trouble for today's Iran, there is a sense of a cultural
identity that is very strong.
And I think I can say with some confidence that despite this regional identities that
are still there and they are great and they should be celebrated, today if you go to Kurdistan
or if you go to Sistan, they all can speak Persian, they all have an education in Persian,
so they all basically are becoming part of whether they like it, whether they like their
regime in power or not, they have a sense of belonging to a culture and an identity with
the center.
And of course the idea of a center versus periphery in Iran is very old, it goes back
to ancient times, because even the name of the country was the guarded domains of Iran.
This is the official name, Mamallike Mahmusei Iran, namely that it was recognized that this
is not just one entity, but it's a collection of entities like the United States of America.
Exactly.
Exactly.
The United States of America, in a sense you can say that it was a very successful, well
it remains to be seen how successful, to be continued, to be, that was basically invented,
created that you would have this sense of it.
In the case of an old nation, which has been on the map of the world for 3,000 years, 2,500
years, this is not an exaggeration, I am not a nationalist per se.
But I mean, if you look Persia and the map of the world, the ancient times is still there
as it is today.
Very few countries in the world are like that, that they would have that kind of a continuity
over a course of time.
And that's not without a reason, because there was this sense of a center versus periphery
that had found some, there is a huge amount of tension, but there is also a sense of belonging
to something and state is very much at the center of it.
I mean, that's why the concept of a state matters for the creation, for the shaping
of this culture.
What happened is therefore, you can see that today in answer to your point about traveling
a blindfolded, is that you would be surprised to see how much people share.
And in terms of, I just give you one anecdote, in 1968, I believe, must have been, I traveled
to Azerbaijan.
I used to travel and actually photograph.
Not blindfolded?
No.
Mostly.
Sometimes.
Not blindfolded.
So I went to a bazaar in the city of Khoi, which is in the northwestern Iran, on the
border with what is today the Republic of Turkey.
And I went to the bazaar and I was interested in the kind of leatherwork that they produce.
So I tried to buy some stuff and I was surprised to see that how few people knew Persia.
So they could not communicate in Persian with you.
Either they have to ask somebody from some other store to come and translate for you.
This is 1968.
So even though it's the official language of the country, they're still, what are they
teaching in school?
So it doesn't matter.
That was Persian.
But this guy.
He doesn't go to school.
He hasn't been to the school or he was not fully exposed to it and bazaars usually are
very conservative places.
So it stuck in my mind.
Now in recently in 2004, I was traveling to the same area, not to the same city, but to
the same area.
And I was amazed to see how the youth, as soon as they would know that you're coming from
somewhere else, opening conversation with you, talking about the latest movies that
was produced in the West.
And it's not only Hollywood.
Of course, there's a huge amount of fascination with Hollywood and Western cinema.
Cinema is a major thing.
Filmmaking is a major thing.
So this kid in the city of Ahar, we're asking me, we're having lunch, asking me, okay, what
do you think about this producer, not producer, this director or that actor?
American.
American, European as well, but mostly American.
Were they speaking Persian?
It's a complete Persian that I would converse with them.
Do they speak English too?
Interesting.
Yes.
Actually, you would be surprised to see what percentage of the Iranian youth, at least
in big cities, are fascinated with learning language and for a reason.
Because they think that's the way to get access either on social media or eventually leave
Iran, unfortunately.
And because they don't see a future for themselves in the country, either you have to be part
of this regime or if you hate them and you don't like the way of their life, you look
up outside.
I was having drivers to drive me around the country in the cities around Iran and the
guy was a young, extremely well-educated, well-dressed, and we would have looked at
him, we could have found him in any street in any country in the Western world.
And his major concern, knowing that I'm from outside, major concern is tell me which would
be a better place for me to go, what's wrong with the place that you are in right now.
You are in your own country, you speak your own language, this is no good.
I have to have a better future, this is no future for me.
Well, it's really interesting because the thing I feel about the protests right now
is there's a large number of people that instead of giving into cynicism about, you know, this
government is no good.
They're actually getting this energy, this desire for revolution in the sort of non-violence
in the democratic sense of that.
Let's actually find the ideas, let's build a great nation here.
This is a great nation.
This is my nation.
Let's build something great here.
Well, that's what I'm hoping for.
I share your aspiration, but I'm fearing that I hope it's not a wishful thinking.
Certainly that's what they want.
Certainly that's what they want to create.
But the historian always tells you from where they start to where they finish, there's going
to be a huge kind of a change.
And in this particular case, I wouldn't be, I would very much hope that it's not going
to be a revolution like the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
And I have my hopes in that.
For one thing, this is a revolution that doesn't have a leader, okay?
And it seems that they're comfortable with that, at least so far because we are the sixth
week of this movement and they hope it's not going to be actually a revolution, as I pointed
out before.
I hope it's going to be more of a sense of trying to come to some compromise and gradually
move toward change rather than collapse of this regime and replacement with what?
So the anxiety of the regime, you hope will turn into a kind of realization that you have
to modernize.
You have to make progress.
You actually have to make certain compromises or constitutional changes, all those kind
of stuff.
So the basic process of government and lawmaking.
The problem is that they say, we have it all, we have our parliament, we have our constitution,
we have our elections, which has all been, of course, fake.
But they claim they have all of that.
But the problem for them is that they try to superimpose a certain ideology, like all
other ideological autocracies or autarchies, as in this case, that tend to dominate all
these institution buildings that they have, that they constantly claim, we have this,
we have that.
And of course, there's a generational thing.
The upper echelons of this regime are mostly older people, terbent, they are the clergy,
that are afraid of the fact that they may lose their control over their whole system,
that it was sophisticated, huge system of government.
And they rely on certain tools of control, which is the revolutionary guards and other
institutions that are loyal to the state.
And they spend enormous amount of funds that is available to them at least before the sanctions.
But even during the sanctions, they still have enough funds to do so.
And in order to remain in power, and they are extremely ruthless in that regard.
This is not a nice Islamic fatherly regime.
This is a regime that I would see easily in it, clear signs of fascism, clear signs of
the state's control and pay any price to stay in power.
So even violence.
Extreme violence.
To return to the massacre, what were the uses of violence to suppress protests?
Well, yes, it was actually quite remarkable to see that from the first or the second day
of the protests, you see out in the streets this riot police, which comes out in large
numbers, fully geared up.
Their appearance are rather terrifying, like any other riot police, probably more than
any other riot police, they are violent.
They stand in the streets when the students are demonstrating, even in smaller number.
Because before I go to that, I should point this point, this out to you as well.
That these demonstrations are not large ones in one place.
You don't see 100,000 people in one place.
But you see in every neighborhood, a couple of thousands of kids are demonstrating.
All over Iran.
All over Iran.
Now all over the world in different parts.
Yes.
Yes.
Actually, during the demonstrations three weeks ago, they, as I said, they had people
in Sydney, Australia, New Zealand, Tokyo, all over the world, all protesting high gas
prices.
It's funny.
Everywhere.
Everywhere.
To the extent that they could be ignored, nothing, but if they could not be ignored.
And it's actually quite remarkable that this is very embarrassing to them.
But somehow they think that this propaganda machine of them is working.
Also, you think they don't have a good, even sense, I mean, so there's an incompetence
within the propaganda machine.
Yes, it is.
There's an incompetence across the board.
I mean, despite all of this massive government administration or whatever you would call
it, all these various components of it, there is a sense of inefficiency and incompetence
that is associated within every action that you see, even in their suppression of this
street movement.
But in answer to that question, you would see that there, this riot police, very, it's
quite obvious that they were trained for the purpose.
So there's their appearance, everything.
These are not just regular army forces or soldiers as conscripts.
They are professional forces.
And they come not only on foot number, but they come on motorbikes.
So there are, you would see in any of these demonstrations, there are 10, 12, 15, 20 motorbikes
with two passengers, one in front riding, the one in the back, fully equipped with the
baton, with paint guns, with pellet guns, and with bullets.
So they are very fully equipped and they are terrifying.
They go through the demonstrations and hit and beat people.
And then the arrests.
And then you see behind the first line of these riot police, you would see all these
latest models of these special armored trucks for moving to the demonstrations and arresting
people, throwing them into this.
And then behind that, water, water cannons, you see.
And I was looking at that, okay, this is Tehran, probably, they have this.
But then you look at the smaller cities, they still have the same thing.
So all over the country, one thing that they had managed to produce extensively, irrespective
of the fact that whether they are effective or not, but we see them everywhere.
So this shows that how afraid this regime is.
But that also shows that there's an infrastructure that can implement violence at scale.
Yes.
Very much so, and it's probably part and parcel of this regime.
From day one, the number of prisons that they have, according to perhaps an exaggerated
version, they said that about 12,000 or so arrested, that are in jails today, since past
six weeks.
They were 230 or 40 people were killed, including children, under 18.
They are the top women in the street, which is extremely, actually, disturbing when you
see these scenes.
So there's a lot of this is on video too, right?
Everything is on video.
Everybody has a camera, and everybody sends two major news outlets outside Iran.
And they immediately show every night, if you look at BBC Persia or Iran International
or a few, I think there's six of them, actually.
All over the, in England, they are in Deutsche Welle in Germany, which has a particular interest
in the Iranian.
BBC World Service and so forth in London.
And Voice of America Persia here in this country, there is another one, Radio Fado, which is
also funded by the American government, also fully covers all of these events.
So there is no way that these people can, that Iran can miss what's going on in the streets
of these demonstrations and the scenes of beating up women, which in Iranian culture,
as I presume in most cultures in the world, there is a certain sanctity that you don't
attack women.
But they do.
And this is an Islamic regime that supposedly have to have a certain sense of concern and
protection.
A protection, like a deep respect for women grounded in a tradition of protecting them.
But instead, this kind of idea that was instilled in law has turned into a deep disrespect of
women.
Exactly.
Or fear that these women are not any longer the girls that we thought we are bringing up
in this society.
The source of you losing your power will be these women.
Yes.
That's the fear.
Yeah.
And you see, of course, this government do have a support base.
I mean, it would be totally wrong to think that the Islamic Republic has not created
its own power base.
It does.
But it's probably if there's no way there are no statistics that we can, or I'm not
aware of any statistics that I can give you in numbers, what's the percentage of support
for the regime in Iran?
But quite frankly, I don't think it's more than probably 10% of the population.
I would be surprised if it's that low.
I would say so if my understanding, because I've been very deeply paying attention to
the war in Ukraine and to Ukraine, to Russia, and to support in Russia for Putin.
I think without knowing the details, without even considering the effects of propaganda
and stuff like that, is there's probably a large number of people in Iran that don't
see this as a battle of human rights, but see it as a battle of conservatism, like tradition
versus modernization, and they value tradition.
What they fear from the throwing away of the hijab is not the loss of power and the women
getting human rights.
What they fear is the same stuff you fear when you're sitting on a porch and saying kids
these days have no respect.
Basically there's a large number of Iranians that probably value tradition and the beauty
of the culture, and they fear that kids with their internet and their videos and their
revolution will throw away everything that made this country hold together for millennia.
Yes, I agree with you in the sense that probably like everywhere else in the world, this is
the generational thing.
Every generation thinks differently about the younger generation, no doubt, and in Iran
is the same, but there is another factor here is involved.
Those that we would consider as traditional no longer seem to have their loyalties to
this regime.
That's powerful, meaning that they consider as a brutal regime that is prepared to kill
children in the streets and does a lot of things wrong.
Of course, it tries to take care of its own power base.
There's a very strong sense, if we start here, there's a very strong sense in this regime
that there are people that is theirs and there are others which are not theirs.
There's a word for it, if you've any impression.
They call it Khodi, one of us.
So that's very fascistic, it's like that.
Yes, yes, for that matter, I suppose Soviet Union, if you were a member of the party and
your children would have received a special kind of treatment yourself as well.
This sense of us versus them for a while worked because the younger people coming from the
countryside to the cities, certain fact, certain sector of them would have found protection
and support from the government.
They wanted to belong to something and the mosques and the mourning associations in
the neighborhoods and so forth would have given them.
There's actually a term for it, it's called Basigi, those have been recruited by the state.
This is the youth kind of vigilante, if you like, that you can see them also in this demonstrations.
Sometimes thugs, they're called the civil cloth, so the people that comes to this demonstrations
that start beating up this young people and they are not in security police uniforms,
but they are just regular cloth.
These people, yes, they still support and they still benefit because they get jobs,
they get privileges, and these are very important for a state that basically monopolizes most
of the resources, you see, even during the sanction, let alone before the sanction, the
oil revenue of Iran, which is the major source of the state government, was the monopoly
of the state.
It was monopoly of the state during the Pahlavi era, from the start basically.
So what does that mean?
That means that the regime in power is no longer particularly accountable to the majority
population because it extracts wealth from underground and it uses it for its own purposes
in order to make it more powerful, in order to make it more repressive, that's what it
is the regime today.
So it feeds a small, or I wouldn't say, but a fair number of its own supporters.
I mean, the revolutionary guards in Iran is probably about 350,000 or something like that.
It's a very big force.
And this is not the regular army, the revolutionary guards are independent from the army.
Revolutionary guard is armed forces controlled by the state.
Yes, the same as the army, but these are more ideologically tied up with the state.
And they're also in-facing, internal facing.
What's their purpose?
What's their stated, what's the stated purpose of the revolution?
Well, from day one, when the revolution succeeded, the regime in power, the Islamic regime in
power was vulnerable to all kinds of forces of opposition within Iran itself.
Prevent further revolution.
Yeah, that's the revolutionary guards.
And the job was to try to make sure that the regime stays in power.
And of course, over the course of 40 years, they became more powerful, more organized,
better funded, better trained.
Well, at least we think they're better trained, but we don't know because the level of incompetence
perhaps can be seen through the rank and file as well.
But they developed their own military industry, I mean, those drones that you see now Putin's
regime are throwing on Ukrainians, poor Ukrainians, those are all built by the revolutionary guards,
by the military industry under the control of the revolutionary guards.
And like similar regimes in the Middle East, at least, these are military industrial complexes.
You can find them in Egypt, of course, which is very powerful, very traditionally, has
been in power and still is in power.
You can find them in Pakistan, which is extremely powerful.
And they can change the prime ministers as they did in the case of the last one.
You can find them probably in Myanmar is the same phenomenon.
And if you look around, you can find quite a number of them.
And the revolutionary guards is equivalent of that.
This is a powerful establishment force, which militarily is powerful, industrially is powerful.
And since the start of the revolution, they have been given projects.
So you want to build dams, which they did a major disaster, environmental disaster.
They built 100 and something dams all across the country.
This is the revolutionary guard who does it.
So they have all kinds of tentacles all around the country, controlling various things.
And because it's their job and they have power, their prestige, there's a huge incentive
to join them into states.
So like they, you know, when they're having dinner at home with their families, there's
not an incentive to join the protests sort of.
Well, that is the point.
I think I'm revolutionary guys, maybe an extreme, but many of the people who depend on this
state for their support.
Now the younger generation is telling their parents, you are wrong.
You don't provide for us this society.
This state does not provide what we want.
So there is a descent within the family.
It seems to me, I hope it's not a wishful thinking.
You know, there is a kind of a joke going around.
You see this, a turban guys, the clergy bearded and traditional clerical appearance.
When you see them talking about women, they are very, of course, politically incorrect.
They are very looking down towards women, as I said, you know, they have to be inside,
they have to be protected, they have not to be seen and so forth.
But if they have a young person, a young daughter in their family, you see that their
discourse changes, they no longer seem to be referring to women as second class.
So that's very important.
That's precisely that point that when you have this younger generation, no matter how
privileged they are, and many of them are privileged, you know, and there is also the
regime has created its own privileged class that are not necessarily directly paid by
the regime, but they benefit from contractors, certain professions that benefit from what
the state provides for them.
And Iran is a, I mean, the past 40 years, you can see Iran has developed in terms of
material culture.
Remarkably, Iran has good communication, has roads all over the place.
It's not like, it's more like, I don't know whether you have ever visited Turkey, for
instance, in certain respects, even more advanced than Turkey, but it's closer to that rather
than if you travel, I don't want to bring particular names in North Africa, or parts
of the Middle East, or other parts of the Islamic world, it's much, much different.
So in this respect, you would see certain contrast or paradoxes here.
On the certain respect, there is the growth, there is urbanization, there is modern economy.
On the other hand, you see this superimposed, ideological, doctrinal aspect that has driven
the regime over all these years, and they cannot get rid of it.
They cannot, in this respect, they cannot modernize themselves.
They think that they are already perfect in ideological sense, this is the best solution
for the world, not only for Iran, but for the Muslim world and for the world as a whole.
We are anti-imperialists.
We have managed to survive either on their sanctions.
This is all parts of the rhetoric, but of course, at the huge expense, the huge expense
for their own population.
And the point that we have raised is the fact that we now witness there is not only a generation
gap between the youth and their parents, but there is a break, in a sense, from the older
generations, and they are very distinctly the youth that has a different view of the world
and does not want to compromise, whether they would be able to succeed or not remains to
be seen, whether this regime is going to suppress it, maybe, but it actually brought
to surface many of aspects of the weaknesses of this regime in power.
Well, I hear from a lot of people that are in these protests now, and so my love goes
to them and stays strong, because it's inspiring to see people fighting for those things, the
women life and freedom, especially freedom, because that can only lead to a good thing
in the long term at least.
And if possible, to avoid a violent revolution, of course, that is something that we all want
to see.
Before we return to the present, let's jump around, let's go to the past.
We mentioned 1979.
What happened in 1979 in Iran?
Well, in 1979, there was a revolution that eventually came to be known as the Islamic
Revolution, and even up to this day, many of the observers or those who have strong
views that would not like to refer to it as an Islamic Revolution or even a revolution.
Because the nature of it in the earlier stages of it started really probably around 1977,
it took two years.
Was much more all embracing.
It was not Islamic in a particular fashion or at all, in a sense.
It started with a kind of a very liberal, Democrat agenda, which required, which demanded
mostly by people who were the veterans of the older generations of Iranian liberal nationalists
that were left out in the Pahlavi period, is a period of the Shah, became increasingly
authoritarian, increasingly suppressive, and therefore basically leaving no space or no
political space open for any kind of a give and take.
Any kind of a conversation or participation that was in the 70s, 70s, particularly in
the 70s.
Can we actually even like just do a world wind review from 1906 to 1979?
Okay, sure.
In 1906, there was a period actually, as you might know, the first decade or so of the
20th century, witnessed numerous what refer to as constitutional revolutions, including
Russia in 1905, the first revolution, including the Chinese Revolution in 19, Constitutional
Revolution in 1910, the Young Tax Revolution in 1908, and the Iranian Revolution in 1906.
Do you understand why the synchronicity of all of it, why in so many different places,
very different cultures, very different government?
Very different cultures, but all of them, in a sense, were coming out of regimes that
became progressively powerful without having any kind of a legal system that would protect
the individual visa with the state.
So the idea of law and the Constitution, according to which there should be a certain
protection, a certain civil society, became very common.
Yeah, but I wonder where that, because that's been that way for a very, very long time.
And so I wonder, you know, it's funny, certain ideas, just their time comes.
Exactly.
It's like 1848, when you would see that there's a whole range of revolutions across Europe.
Or you would see, for instance, the Arab Spring, you see all these revolutions in the Arab
world, which unfortunately, nearly all of them failed.
So yes, these are very contagious ideas that moves across frontiers from one culture to
another.
And I presume we can add to that there are two elements, which one can say there is,
was a greater communication, there is a greater sense of a world economy.
And the third of the century witnessed the first decade of the century, witnessed a period
of volatility, particularly in currency.
So many of the countries of the world, particularly non-West, suffered in, and particularly the
businesses suffered.
And not surprisingly, the business class were in the forefront of many of these constitutional
movements, requiring the state to give the kind of a created the right kind of institutions
to listen to their voices, to their concerns, and the creation of a democratic system, parliamentary
and system in which there would be representation, popular representation, proper elections and
so forth, and constitutions.
And this very much is a kind of a French idea of the constitution, going back all the way
perhaps to 1789 revolution, Montesquieu, all these kind of philosophes were greatly appreciated,
particularly the French system.
So what were the ideas in the 1906 Iranian constitution?
They precisely the same, they were demanding a creation of a legal system with division
of power between the three executive, legislative and the judiciary, not unlike the American
system.
And they requested basically a certain public space to be created between the two sources
of power, the state, which had this kind of a control over the, if you like, the secular
aspect of life in the society, and the religious establishment that had a full control over
the religious aspects.
And both of them from the perspective of the constitution of this considered as repressive,
and therefore there has to be a new space open between these two.
And that was the idea of a constitutional revolution.
But it's very nature, it was an idea of modernity.
They wanted a modern society, they wanted a better material life, they wanted a more
representation and so forth.
The constitution revolution, as I always would say, is much more of a innocent revolution.
Is a revolution that did not particularly have much violence in it, contrary to many
other revolutions.
It did not have a centralized leadership per se.
That's why actually I'm getting, I mean besides the practices, I'm getting a lot of requests
for interviews to compare what's happening now with the revolution of 1906, 1909.
Are there any echoes?
Yes, yes, there are, there are.
Because that was a movement that started without a centralized leadership.
But actually various voices that emerged in various, among the merchants, or the businessmen
in the economic community, among the representatives who came to the first parliament, the press,
the new generation of the privileged aristocracy, who were educated and believed in the constitutional
values.
All of these voices emerged at the same time and somehow they managed to coexist in the
first and the second parliaments that were created between 1906 and 1910 or 1911.
But they all faced huge problems in the sense that Iran was in a dire economic situation.
This is before the days of the discovery of oil, which actually coincides in the discovery.
There are two important coincidences.
One is that the oil was discovered in the south in 1909, during the course of the constitutional
revolution.
The second is that in 1907, the two great powers of the time, the Russian Empire and the British
Empire, who always honored Iran as being a buffer state between them, because they didn't
want to get too close to one another, basically came to an agreement facing the fear of the
rise of the German Empire.
So this is the period of Entente, as you might know in European history, whereby the French,
the British, and the Russians all create an alliance that ultimately leads to the First
World War against Germany.
And at the same time, the discovery of oil, that the oil industry being a very powerful
defining factor of the 20th century for Iran, a source of a lot of money.
Lot of money, but not all of it in the hands of the Iranians, only one-fifth of it by way
of royalties came to Iran, much of it went to the Anglo-Persian oil company, which they
actually discovered the oil in the province, which is some province in the southwest of
Iran, where the major oil industry is today right now.
And this is an extremely profitable enterprise for that company and for the British government.
It's actually purchased by the British government, Churchill purchased Anglo-Iranian oil company
for the British government.
So it was not anymore a private company.
It was a British interest, as a matter of fact.
And in the course of the 20th century, although it helped the modernization in Iran, but it
also helped the creation of a more authoritarian, more strong state, if you like to call it,
that 19th century Iran never had that kind of a power, never had that kind of resources.
Is it 20th century, even that one-fifth of the income that reached the Iranian state
gave it a greater power?
That's another coincidence.
So yes, yes, you could say the oil was one of the catalysts for absolute power.
The 20th century saw quite a few countries have dictators with power unlike anything
else in human history.
That's weird too.
Precisely.
And you can name them from the beginning of the century with people like Lenin, Stalin,
of course, Hitler, even Mao, of course.
You can name them.
And probably, as I would say, the last of them is Khomeini in that century, that you
would see these strong men with a sense of artificial or real or a sense of so-called
charisma and with this total power over the regime that they create.
In some of them, Nasser, he didn't have much of an oil resources in Egypt, but he was also
one of these strong men in the 20th century, loved by some, hated by others.
So it necessarily does not tie up to economic resources on the ground.
But in the Iranian case, unfortunately, it did.
And it created more than one issue for Iran.
It created the strong state, which is the Pahlavi state, from 1921 onward.
Because in 1921, at the end of the First World War, Iran was in almost a state of total bankruptcy.
And the British had a desire to try to bring Iran to the system that they created in the
Middle East in the post-war era, the mandate system, Palestine, Iraq.
And then, of course, French mandate of Lebanon and Syria, all of this.
And Iran was separate because Iran was an independent country.
It wasn't part of the Ottoman Empire that collapsed.
So they had to somehow handle it.
And what they tried to do didn't work.
As a result, partly domestic, partly international issues, wrote about a regime which is headed
by the founder of the Pahlavi dynasty, Reza Shah.
First, a military officer called Reza Khan, actually a military officer of the Cossack
forces.
And the Cossack forces was the force that was created in the 19th century model of the
Russian Cossacks when the ruler in the 19th century visited Russia in a royal tour.
And the desire showed the great Cossack forces that I like this.
And he created one for himself with Russian officers, actually.
So Russian officers served in Iran from around 1880s up to the Revolution of 1917, the collapse
of the Cossack regime.
So many revolutions.
So many revolutions.
And Reza Shah was an officer in that, Reza Khan was an officer in that force.
And he created a new monarchy for reasons that we need not to go to, and it's called
the Pahlavi regime.
Pahlavi regime was a modernizing regime that in effect fulfilled many of the aspirations
of the constitutional revolution, better communication, better secular education, centralized army,
better contact with the outside world, greater urbanization.
That's what a modern state is all about.
And in that regard, in a sense, for the first 20 years up to the Second World War, was successful
despite, and more significant of all, it managed to keep the European powers, which was always
interfering in the local affairs of Iran, in an arm length.
So they were there in an arm length.
But they were also respecting the power of the state, power of the Pahlavi state.
During the Second World War, the same phenomenon as earlier interference led to the occupation
of Iran by the Allied forces, the British from the south, the Russians from the north,
the Red Army.
They took over Iran.
And of course, they said, yes, from 1941 up to 1945.
And of course, when the Red Army refused to withdraw from Iranian Azerbaijan, and with
some thought of possible annexation of that province, there was a big issue in the post-war
Iran.
So after 1945.
Yes.
1945 to 1946, there was a big.
Pahlavi unit getting greedy.
Yes.
But eventually they agreed.
Eventually Stalin agreed to leave the Azerbaijan province in the hope that it would get some
concessions from Iran, which in the oil of the Caspian era, area, which didn't work,
and it's a different story altogether.
But what happened is that in the post-war era, between 1944, 45, and 1953 is a period
of greater democratization, was that Reza Shah's dictatorship basically disappeared.
And this is where you see political parties, free press, a lot of chaotic, really, as democracies
often are.
So something like, was it officially a democracy?
Yes.
It was a democracy.
Was there elections?
There were elections.
Yes, of course.
Yes, of course.
And there were very diverse political tendencies came to the picture, including the two, the
party of Iran, which is communist party of Iran, this communist party of Iran is probably
the biggest communist party of the whole of the Middle East, and one of the biggest in
the world, actually, at that time.
Did the Soviet Union have a significant influence on the?
Of course.
They were basically following orders from the Soviets, although they deny it, but in reality
that's the case.
But what happened, they were seen by the Americans during the Cold War as a threat.
And Iran was going through a period of demanding nationalization of its oil resources.
That's a very important episode with Musa Adiq, whom you might have heard about his
name.
Dr. Mohammad Musa Adiq was the prime minister and the national charismatic leader from 1951
to 1953, prior to that, he was a famous parliamentarian.
But this period was the prime minister of Iran, and he nationalized the Iranian oil
industry and the British didn't like it at all.
And eventually resulted in a famous coup, which at least partly was supported by the
funding and by the moral support of the British and the Americans, particularly by the American
Americans.
It was always seen as one of the earliest and the most successful CIA operations during
the Cold War.
So CIA had something to do with it?
Yes, of course.
That's one of the earliest operations of the CIA.
Wait a minute.
What was, yes, of course.
What was the CIA doing?
CIA, this is the time at the post-war era.
In the 50s.
In the 50s, 40s and the 50s.
The British Empire, which was really the major superpower of the region after the collapse
of the Tzajist Empire, gradually took the second seat to the Americans who were the newcomers
and the great power and the victors of the Second World War.
And the Americans viewed Iran as an important country since it has the largest common borders
with the Soviet Union.
And it was, I did the South, was the Persian Gulf, which at the time was the greatest supplier
of oil to the outside world.
And therefore the Americans had a particular interest in Iran.
And in the earlier stages, their interest was in the interest of the Iranian government
because they wanted to get rid of both the Soviet Union, which made the return in the
post-war era and, of course, the British that were gradually withdrawing from Iran.
But they had a full control over the Anglo-Iranian oil company.
They changed the name to Anglo-Iranian oil company.
When the name of the country officially changed from Persia to Iran in the West, the name
of the company changed.
And they got into a huge dispute with the Mossadegh government that eventually led
to the coup of 1953, which eventually created a very, very distressed memory in the minds
of many of the Iranian nationalists, that this was the betrayal of the great powers,
the British and Americans.
Yes, CIA played a part because CIA feared, contrary to the British, that they were afraid
of their own oil in Iran.
The CIA was afraid of the Soviet penetration in the South, and particularly because there
was a very powerful communist party in the two-day party of Iran.
So they gradually shifted between the Truman administration and Eisenhower administration.
These are early days of the CIA.
And then they actually did participate to send their agents.
There's a long story to that.
And it eventually resulted in a successful coup that removed Mossadegh from power.
What's the United States' interest here?
Why are they using CIA?
Are they trying to make sure there's not too much centralization of power in this region?
They were afraid of the fact of the Soviet Union and during the Cold War.
That was their concern, the only concern.
They actually almost want to protect Iran and its own sovereign processes from influence
of the Soviets.
Yes.
Because they were afraid of the fact if Iran, or at least this is part of the, I'm simplifying
a very complex picture, but the Americans basically were thinking that if Iran is going
to be lost to Soviet influence, then eventually basically all the oil resources in the Persian
Gulf are going to be threatened.
And this would basically is the national security of the United States and all of the Western
allies, European allies.
So in a sense, this was the long arm of the CIA to try to make sure that that's not going
to happen.
And then, of course, they were persuaded by the British, because British were the old
hand, which were in Iran since the beginning of the 19th century.
They always had relations with Iran and so forth.
So they gradually replaced.
And of course, I don't want to give them this kind of a satanic view that Americans was a
bad influence because they had also some very good influences in Iran.
But this particular episode somehow shed a dark light on the American presence and was
used that abused time and again, particularly the Revolution of 1979, which was this great
Satan idea that Khomeini created, basically was based on the fact is 1953, you were responsible
for the downfall of a national government in Iran, which as a matter of fact, he had
no respect for it.
Khomeini had no respect for the national secular national liberals, including Muhammad
Musaadia, but he was using it as a as a rhetorical tool for his own purposes.
But what happened is that after 1953, we see again the rise of authoritarian Muhammad
Reza Shah's power in that he's that's the Shah, that we know as Shah, the son of Reza
Shah.
And technically, what is Shah, is that the Shah is an old term in Persian that comes
from a pre-Islamic Persian of ancient times in the context of democracy should it be seen
as like a supreme leader, king is the head of the executive power, according to the Constitution
of 1906.
Oh, that's in the Constitution.
The actual term has a place in the Constitution, but the actual term sure.
Okay, interesting.
But the show is an very old term as a yeah, it's almost like a monarchic term, like like
a king.
Yeah, it is actually is a term peculiar to Iran.
I've written about it somewhere.
But because the term that the Western world in the ancient times has been Rex for royalty
and the king in the Eastern world in India is Raj is the same origin, the same route.
Iran never shared that they had the idea of because Rex and Raj, I don't want to get
into the too much of a etymology, but this is an interesting one.
Yeah.
Rex and Raj both means the one that opens the road for basically enforcer of religion.
Okay.
In enforcer of the right religion, because Rex and Raj both have the of the etymological
origin of right, you see, and right means the right religion, basically.
By the way, there's so much beautiful language here.
I'm just looking at the Persian constitution in 1906, and it says it's the constitution
of the sublime state of Persia, Kajar, Iran.
I mean, just the extra adjectives on top of this stuff is beautiful.
Yeah.
Because that was actually the change that came about.
I don't want to go too much into it, but it was called as I pointed out before the guarded
domains of Iran.
Yes.
It means that to the sublime state of Iran during the constitutional revolution, because
they wanted to give a greater sense of centrality of the state, and sublime was a term with
music.
But also, what permeates all of this is a poetic, I mean, there is a history of poetry
of course, very strong culture.
It's just fascinating.
So, I mean, it's, of course, I don't speak the language, but even in Russian, there's
also a music to the soul of the people that represents itself, that presents itself in
the form of poetry and literature in the way that it doesn't in the English-speaking world.
I don't know what that is.
There's a...
Yes, there's a romantic side to it, almost.
Romantic side.
That's right.
Yeah.
I agree with you.
In Iran, of course, there's a time of the constitutional revolution, there's a time of great poetry,
this kind of a patriotic sentiments that comes through poetry, which plays a very important
part.
Yeah.
Of course, these days, poetry has kind of declined, and instead, you see the visual image
that it's at the center, that's why cinema is so important.
Kids these days with their TikTok.
Yeah.
Let me finish this about the period of Mahmoud Reza Shah.
He built up, because he received a greater income from the oil revenue, and he built
up a very strong state with a strong security force, a strong security apparatus, which
is this SAVAG, which is an acronym for the security force in the security organization.
He, of course, unfortunately, in the 1960s and 70s, particularly in the 1970s, basically
suppressed the voices or possibility of any kind of mass participation in the political
process.
It became very much an authoritarian regime with its own technocrats, very much a modernist
vision of Iran's future, and almost kind of messianic, that he was hoping that Iran,
in a decade, would become the fifth most powerful state in the world, and the riches, as he
would have said, the gates of the great civilization, very much in the mind, had this image of ancient
Iran of the Achaemenid Empire, and we want to go back to that greatness of the Achaemenid
Empire, somewhat rather naive and very nationalistic in a crude fashion.
And what happened is that, as a result, there was built up some kind of a resistance from
the intellectuals, from the left, eventually resulting in a kind of a protest movement,
as I said, by 1977, 1978.
Of course, the question that comes to mind, and you would like to know about, is the fact
that white becomes religious, white becomes Islamic, if it's the popular nationalist liberal
tendency of opening up the political space, and allowing greater participation, going
back to the constitution of 1906, 1907, why it's all of a sudden, it becomes Khomeini,
where does he come from?
The reason for that, at least in a concise fashion, is the fact that one area that after
the greater suppression of all the other voices remained open was religion, mosques, the mullahs
on the pulpit, and the message that gradually shifted from the old traditional message of
the Sharia of Islam, I mean all the rules and regulations of how one has to live, into
something very political, and not only political, but also radical political.
So in the whole period from the constitutional revolution to the revolution of 1979, basically
the religious establishment gradually was pushed to the opposition.
They were not originally very conservative, supported us of state, as the Catholic Church,
for instance, was supported of majority of the authoritarian governments around the world.
But the politicization was the result of isolation, because they were left out of the system.
And while in isolation, they did not, they were not successful in trying to reform themselves,
to try to become, to try to find answers to many of the questions of modern times.
What happens to women?
What happens to civil rights?
What happens to a civil society?
How modern law and individual freedoms have to be defined in Islamic terms?
How to separate religion and state?
Or how to separate the religion and state?
These issues were never addressed.
What happened is that there was this bypass through political Islam and revolutionary
Islam, as it gradually they learned, you know, that this is the bypass, bypass to power basically,
to become again a voice in the society, and eventually a prominent voice, and eventually
a monolithic voice in the society.
That's the process that led into the revolution of 1979, basically this period, greater attention
was paid to religion, even among the secular middle classes, who were alienated for a very
long time because of this extensive modernization of the Pahlavi period, they had, they didn't
have a sense of that old Mullahs with their turbans.
But they became, they had quite a aura in this period.
Yes, they are those who remained not corrupted.
They are the people who basically went against the suppression of the Pahlavi regime.
And Khomeini became a leader, a symbol of that.
Nobody ever thought in the earlier stages, among this very excited multitudes that came
to the streets of the Iranian cities in 1979, or 1978 actually, thought that this old Mullah
in its 70s, that all of a sudden has appeared from the Najaf through Paris to Tehran, is
going to take over and create an autocracy, a religious autocracy.
We have to back up for just a second, who is Khomeini, you just mentioned a few disparate
facts about the man, he was the person that took power in 1979, supreme leader of Iran,
you mentioned something about Paris, something about being in the 70s, what should we know
about the guy?
Ayatollah Khomeini, who eventually was known as Imam Khomeini, he was kind of promoted
to an even more sublime position.
Can we, I'm just a million tangents, Ayatollah Imam, what do these terms mean?
Well Ayatollah means the sign of God in the course of the 19th century or early 20th century,
as the religious establishment gradually lost its greater presence in the society and its
prominent places in society, they had some kind of inflation in titles.
So they gave themselves more grand titles, more adjectives, more grand titles such as
Ayatollah, that became a kind of a highest rank of the religious hierarchy, which incidentally
was unofficial hierarchy.
It's not like the Catholic church that you have bishops and Federer, it was very unofficial
model.
And he was an Ayatollah, he was eventually recognized as an Ayatollah.
He wasn't the first Ayatollah?
No, no, no, not at all, the Ayatollahs were before him ever since the beginning of the
century.
But he was eventually recognized as an Ayatollah.
And if I want to start it this way, Ayatollah Khomeini was born in 1900.
And in a sense, all this tremendous change that Iran witnessed in the course of the 20th
century was in a sense materializing this person.
He become a Mullah of a lower rank, went to the traditional madrasas, to the traditional
centers for the education of the seminarians, never had a secular education, had a very
complex Islamic education on this one hand jurisprudence, on the other hand, probably
a little bit of Islamic philosophy and mysticism, which is unusual for the jurists, for the
faqi, as they call them, this religious scholars or legal scholars of Islam.
And then he, in the 1960s, when he was residing in Tehran and gradually becoming more important,
he became a voice of opposition against the Shah.
And the reason for opposition in the early 1960s was the fact that the Shah carried through
a series of extensive modernization policies of which the most important was the land reform.
So in effect, the land distribution that took place in the early 60s removed or weakened
greatly that class of landowners from the 19th century.
And he Khomeini saw himself as a voice of that old class that felt that actually declared
that this land distribution is un-Islamic according to the Islamic law, property is,
property is honored, and you cannot just, no matter how much and how large are these
estates that the landowning class has, the government has no right to redistribute it,
and among the peasants, among the people who are tilling the land.
So that was a major issue.
Shah also gave the right of vote to women.
And that also he objected, is that women should not have a right.
Can we just linger on the Islamic law, how firm and clear is the Islamic law that he
was representing and embodying?
Is this codified?
Yes, it's a good term.
That's another issue.
Not only the hierarchy was unofficial and informal, but also Islamic law, particularly
Shi'i law, did not have any codified system, because these religious authorities always
resisted becoming under an umbrella of a more codified system of Islamic law, because they
were outside the state in essence.
Still, civil law was in the hand of the religious establishment, they had their own courts independent
of the state, but other matters of legal matters was in the hand of the government.
There was a kind of in de facto division between these two institutions, state versus
the religious establishment.
Therefore it was not codified.
So he could declare that this is unofficial, or sorry, illegal, according to the Islamic
law, that you would distribute land to the peasants.
And another mustahed or another religious authority would say, no, no, it is perfectly
fine because he would have a different reading of the law.
So that being in mind, that adds to the complexity of the picture.
He in the 1963, there was a period of uprising of the supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini.
That was a turning point, in a sense, to try to politicize the religious supporters of
Ayatollah, who were loyal to Ayatollah Khomeini.
And in a sense, all the community of more religiously orientated against the secular
policies of the Shah, and against, of course, the dictatorship of the Shah.
So that's where the religious movement became a political party.
And in 1963 is the first moment, it's a huge uprising, and the government suppressed it.
But then suppression would start to build.
Of course.
And he was sent to exile.
He went to Najaf, which is this great center in southern.
So he became a martyr on top of this.
At the martyr, he was probably even forgotten to some extent.
But not, it was forgotten for the secular middle class, but not to those supporters
of his who were paying him their dues, because in Islam, you would pay dues to religious
leaders.
You know, there's religious dues and arms that you would pay to the clerical authorities.
And they redistribute them among their own students and so forth.
So they built actually a network of loyalty based on these donations.
And these donations that's received by Atollah Khomeini was very effectively through his
network was distributed, even if he was in exile at Adira.
So in 1977, 1978, when the situation changed and there was a little bit of opening in the
political climate, then you saw that Atollah Khomeini starts sending cassette messages.
That was his mean of communication was sending cassettes and cassettes were sent through
the country by his network.
So all declarations and saying first that we would like to see a greater democratization
and the Shah has to abide by the constitution of 1907.
This is a constitution, this is a democratic system and so forth.
Was he charismatic?
Well, it depends who would call what you call charismatic in the long beard, it was kind
of a man in turban and the gown, which was a very unusual leadership for people who were
much more accustomed to the civilian clothing or to the equipments of the Shah's military
uniforms that he used to wear.
But I also mean like he is a man that was able to take power to become popular, sufficiently
popular.
So I would like, is it the ideas?
Is it an accident or is it the man himself, the charisma or something about the man that
led to this particular person basically changing the tide of history in this part of the world
in a way that was unexpected?
All the above that you mentioned?
Or was it just the beard?
No, I think no, it's beyond the appearance.
The appearance greatly helps as you know.
In the 20th century, appearance is helpful, pictures from propaganda, from messaging.
That's an important factor and he was a kind of a adamant and very severe in his own positions.
He could appear very uncompromising and he had a sense of confidence, self-confidence
that virtually everybody else lacked and he was a man of opportunity.
As soon as he would see that a chance in opportunity would open up, he would jump on it.
And that's what he did basically.
As more the political space opened, the weaknesses of the Shah's government became more evident,
his indecision became more evident, his lack of confidence became more evident, Khomeini
managed to move further into the center of the movement because he was the only authority
that had this network of support through the mosques, through the people who paid homage
to him, who followed him because there's a sense of following of the religious leader
in Shiza.
You are a follower of this authority, you're a follower of that authority.
And he's basically created an environment in which people looked upon him as a kind of
a messianic figure that came to save Iran from what they considered at the time the
problems of dictatorship under the Shah.
So there's not a suspicion about Islamic law being the primary law of the land.
Not at all.
People had very little sense that what Islamic law is all about because the secular education
has left that into the old religious schools.
This is not something that ordinary educated Iranian who goes to the universities is going
to learn.
Therefore, there is a sense of idealization that there is something great there.
And there were quite a number of intellectuals who also view this kind of an idea of they
would refer to as West intoxication, that is this civilization of the West that has
brought with it all the modernity that we see around ourselves has enormous sinister
features into it.
And it has taken away from us our authenticity.
That was the thing, that there is something authentic that should be protected.
And therefore, a man in that kind of a garb and appearance seemed as a source for return
to this originality of their own culture, authenticity of their own culture.
And he perfectly took advantage of that, that is Khomeini, took advantage of it and
the circle around it, at the expense of everybody else, which he managed in the course of 1979
to 1989, which he died in the 10 years during this period, managed to basically transform
the Iranian society to create institutions of the Islamic Republic and to acquire himself
the position of the guardian jurists.
That was something completely new, it didn't ever exist before.
As a matter of fact, as you might know, the model of government that a religious establishment
takes over the states is unprecedented throughout the course of Iranian history, throughout
the course of the Islamic history, I would say.
This is the first example and probably the only example of a regime that religious establishment
that has always, in the course of Iranian history, ever since I would say probably at
this 16th century, if not earlier, has been always separate from the state and always
kind of collaborating with the state with a certain tensions in between the two of them.
They were two, basically, as they would call themselves, the two pillars of stability in
the society.
That situation changed for the first time, the religious establishment took over the
power of the state and that's at the core of what we see today as a major issue for
Iranian society, because these are basically that old balance between the religion and
the state, which was kind of a de facto separation of the authorities of the two, has been violated
and now you have in power a theocracy in effect, which of course only in its appearances, theocracy
deep down, it's a, in my opinion, it's a brutal fascist regime that stays in power, but it
has the appearance of religion into it.
So this is really the story of the revolution and as a result of that, the Iranian middle
classes greatly suffered.
It's not without a reason that you see four million Iranians abroad, because basically
the emergence of this new power gradually isolated or marginalized the secular middle
class, who could not survive under that regime and gradually moved out in the course of perhaps
30, 40 years up to now, Iran has the largest, I think I'm right to say so, has the largest
brain drain in any country in the world, so into its population.
So fascinating that how much of a weird quirk of history is it that, that religion would
take hold in a country, like, is it have to do with the individual?
It seems like if we ran the 20th century 1000 times, we would get the 79 revolution resulting
in Islamic law, like, less than, you know, 1% of the time, it feels like, or no, what,
which percentage would you put?
Well, I think it has something to do with the very complex nature of how Iran evolved
over a long period of time, since the 16th century, that's why, if I would for a moment
talk about what I have written, I've written a book that's called Iran and Modern History,
and it does not start in the 20th century, it starts in the 16th century, because that's
what I've argued that this complex process, that at the end of the day resulted in what
we see around us today, is something that was in making for a very long time.
And religion was a big part of it, she and the Messiah complex, the longing for this
great vision of a great nation that somehow is the sublime nation, that can only be fully
sublime through religion.
Or at the time, it was thought that is truly religion, ever since then, it's disillusionment
with that image, or at least a process of disillusionment, the outcome of it is what
we see today, basically, that process of 40 years is a process of adjusting to the realities
of the world, that that great moment of romantic success of a revolution, like most revolutions,
of course, that is going to change Iran and bring this kind of a moment of greatness,
led into this great disappointment, so it's a movement of the great disappointment in
a sense.
Like most messianic movements, by the way, messianic movements as a general are always
leading into great disappointment.
But what I have here that perhaps should be added to it, that yes, it was a peculiarity
of Iran as a society that had to experience this eventual encounter between religion and
state.
I think that's something to do with the nature of Shizam, that's just one point that should
be pointed out.
Most of Sunni Islam don't have that kind of, I say most because there is something there,
but Sunni Islam in general does not have that kind of an aspiration for the coming of a
messianic leader, Shizam does.
Shizam in its very shaping, particularly the way that it was set up in Iran, was a religion
that has always this element of expectation to it for the coming of this messianic leader.
Of course, I mean, between practices, all societies look for messianic leaders and just
look around us.
But some societies more than others, there's certain culture it might have to do with the
romantic poetry that we mentioned up there.
I mean, surely, not to draw to me in parallels, but with the Soviet Union, there is romanticism
too.
I mean, I don't know, it does maybe idealism.
A sense of a savior who would bring you out of the misery that you're in and always looking
for a third party to solve your issues.
That's why probably this movement has a particular significance because it probably doesn't look
for a messiah, although I was talking to my brother who is a historian also, and he was
saying, perhaps the messiah of this movement is that Masa Amini, the 22-year-old girl that
was killed, a martyred messiah who is now leading a movement which no longer has that
charismatic leadership with it.
But yes, I would say that Iran has been the birthplace, if I might say that, of messianic
aspirations.
Going back to ancient Zoroastrianism, which is really the whole system that you see in
major religions, at least so-called Western religions, so Abrahamic religions, is parallel
or perhaps influenced by Zoroastrianism, in which there is an idea of this world and the
other world, there is a hereafter.
There is an idea of a judgment at the end of the time, and there is a concept that there
is a moment of justice that is going to come with the rise of a religious or a charismatic
fear.
So it's a very old phenomenon in Iran, very old.
And it's time and again repeated itself in the course of its history, but never as powerfully
as it happened in 1979, and never in the form of authority from within the religious establishment.
It was always the dissent movements that were kind of antinomy, and they were against the
authority of the religious establishment.
That changed in the 20th century.
But the revolution in 1979, that change is still with us today.
Can we just linger on, are there some practical games of power that occurred in the way that
Stalin took power and held power in the early days?
Is there something like this in terms of the establishment of the Revolutionary Guard
and all those kinds of stuff?
Yes.
So the messianic figure has some support from the people, but does he have to crush his
enemies in competition?
It certainly did, probably not, certainly not as brutal in terms of the victims, as you
would see in Soviet Union under Stalin, who the bloodshed or the destruction of the population
was far greater than what you would find in Iran of the Islamic Republic, it's uncomfortable.
Perhaps I would find a greater parallel with Mao Zedong, particularly because China has
a very strong messianic tradition since the ancient times.
So they have something, and Mao appeared as a kind of a messianic figure.
There I can see there is a parallel, but also you can see with any other authoritarian regime
with the messianic figure at the head of it, that it destroys all the other forces.
So during the course of the first 10 years of the Islamic Revolution, it destroyed the
liberal nationalist secular, it destroyed the guerrilla movements, some of them Islamic,
some of them Marxists, who turned into political parties or tendencies in the course of the
post-revolution 1979, they were completely destroyed and in a very brutal fashion.
And their opposition even within the religious establishment, because it wasn't a uniform,
there were many different tendencies, those that were opposed to the authority of Ayatollah
Khomeini or Imam Khomeini, meaning almost a sacred religious figure above the level
of a religious authority.
He's a saint kind of a figure, he says she has this idea of imams, there were 11 of them,
the 12th is hidden and would come back at the end of the time, this is a messianic figure.
So the title that was always used for them only in Shiza, never used for any other person.
He is the first person in the revolution of 1979, first referred to as deputy of Imam,
but the term deputy gradually disappeared and he became Imam Khomeini, that's his official
title.
I love human beings so much, it's so beautiful.
These titles that we give each other, it's marvelous to observe.
You love it because you haven't been under that system.
No, I love it in a very dark, humorous kind of way.
It caricatures itself, it's almost funny in its absurdity, if not for the evil that it
has led to in human history.
But also the fact that it's a man, it's in fact fulfillment in a kind of completely
unintended fashion, it's a fulfillment of that idea of a messiah that they've been
fading for.
This Imam which is in Ahida for a thousand years is here and not here and therefore Khomeini
would have in effect fulfilled those anticipations.
But beyond that, I just give you one example, I know that you may have other concepts.
But when I say elimination at the end of the Iran-Iraq war by the direct order of Ayatollah
Khomeini, a fatwa that he wrote, a group of prisoners who belong to a variety of political
parties, the left, religious left, majority of them, the left and the, the Marxist left
and the religious left.
In a matter of a few weeks or perhaps a few months, I'm not actually quite sure about
the time span, in a series of, these were people who have already been tried and they
were given sentences.
They were brought back before the summary trials of three judges or more, three, four
of them.
One of them is now the new president of the Islamic Republic, Raisi, and they were given
a quick summary sentences which meant execution.
So something between probably six to eight thousand were executed in a matter of a month
or two months, something like that, mostly in Tehran but also in provinces.
And that remained an extraordinary trauma for the families, for those who had these
kids in, they're all young, all young.
So this remains very much a kind of original sin of the Islamic Republic that cannot get
rid of and it's in people's memories, they didn't allow them even the families to go
and mourn their dead in an official symmetry which they created for them.
Now the latest thing is that they put a huge concrete wall around it so nobody would be
able to get into it.
So these are all part of this extraordinary level of atrocity, brutality that you see
that the regime claimed that it comes with the morality of religion and Islam to bring
back the justice and be more in a sense kind to people, ended up with what it is in the
memory of many of the people in Iran.
So developing these fascistic tendencies.
Very much so.
Destroying minorities, Baha'i is one of them, hundreds of Baha'is without any reason, without
any involvement, were picked up and executed, the properties were taken over, the rights
were taken away from them, even up to this day.
This is the largest, by the way, religious minority in Iran.
So you would see that in many areas this acts very much as a beyond authoritarian, it's
a kind of really a fascistic regime.
So Hemeni held power for 10 years and then took power, the next supreme leader, who is
still the leader today for over 30 years, who is he?
Well, he was one of the, this is Ali Khamenei, Ayatollah, Ali Khamenei, Imam one day perhaps?
No, well they hesitated to use the term Imam for him.
But in any other respect, he was given all of that adulation that they did to Hemeni.
He is the guardian jurist, that's what's important.
Because the guardian jurist in the constitution of the Islamic Republic is an authority that
is above the state.
He is not elected quote unquote, because this is a divine authority, although he's been
designated by the group of deterrent Mullahs like himself.
And he has the full power over all institutions of the state, the army, the media, the economy,
every aspect of it.
He acts like a Shah.
He acts like this authoritarian authority.
Did that gradually develop or was that very early on?
Well, that's part of the constitution of the Islamic Republic.
The first constitution, the first draft of the constitution did not have the authority
of the guardian jurist.
But then it was added by Khomeini anti supporters.
Are there actually in the constitution any limits to his power?
Yes, there is a council of the experts, so to say, that would remove him from power,
I think theoretically.
But there's so much restrictions to that that I don't think it would have ever happened
in reality in this case at least.
But in terms of executive to make decisions and all that kind of stuff, does he need to
check with anybody?
No.
Oh, boy.
He does check with his own advisors, but he doesn't have any constitutional obligation
to check on the decisions that he's making.
So that's the supreme leader, but there's been presidents.
Yes.
And what's the role of the president?
The president, in a sense, is the executive power under the Islamic Republic.
There are three heads of powers.
There is the president that presumably has the executive power.
There is the head of the judiciary, and there is the head of the speaker of the parliament,
Majlis, Islamic Majlis, which is the legislative.
So there's a legislative, judiciary, and executive.
Raisi, who is now the president, is the head of the executive.
Above them is the supreme leader or the guardian jurist.
Can you give me some insight?
Because I especially, I'm not exactly sure why, but the president, Ahmadinejad, is somebody
I'm, as an American, really familiar with, why is that exactly?
But why was, why was the president the public-facing person to the world versus the supreme leader?
Is that just an accident of a particular human's involved, or is this by design?
No, because the supreme leader tries to keep himself out of issues of everyday politics
supposedly.
Yeah.
But therefore, he is not coming to the United Nations to give a speech during the session.
But Mr. Ahmadinejad, who at the time was the president, would come and make outrageous
statements.
That's why you probably know something about him.
So all of them make public statements, but he had a proclivity for outrageous statements.
He does all kinds of things, he makes all kinds of statements, but he is somewhat above
the everyday politics in theory.
But of course, he's pulling all the strings without doubt in every respect.
And it seems that you were asking, I thought you were going to ask me this question, almost
without an exception, since the inception of the Islamic Republic in 1979, up to the last
of the presidents of the Islamic Republic, Ruhani, before the guy that is last year or
a year and a half ago, was in a four-year lecture, got into the position of the president.
All of them, as a long list, all of them eventually fell out with the regime.
So there is no president, except perhaps to some extent Ruhani, but we'll wait and see
what's going to happen to him.
But prior to him, all of them, including Ahmadinejad, fell out with the regime, with the current
regime in Iraq.
Who's Ruhani?
He was officially president for eight years.
Yeah, prior to Raisi.
Ibrahim Raisi, the 221, what you're saying is a phony election.
Yes, it's a phony election.
What happened?
What's interesting?
What happened?
Because the process of actually candidacy for presidency is completely controlled by
a council that is under the control of the Supreme Leader.
So they have to approve who is going to be the candidate.
So not everybody can enter and say, I would like to be a candidate.
So did Ruhani fall out of favor?
You're saying there's some...
Well, he is kind of out of favor now because he was more moderate than this most recent
regime.
But the point is that if you look, this is something almost constitutional to the regime.
This is a regime that rejects all of the executive powers because the division between the supreme
authority as a place of a supreme authority versus the presidency has problematic.
It is as if there would be a supreme leader in the United States above all the sources
of power.
That's the kind of view that you can see in today's Iran.
And of course, he is at the focus of all the criticism that he receives from the demonstrators
in today's Iran.
So on top of all this, recently and throughout the last several years, US and Iran are in
the midst of nuclear deal negotiations.
This is another part of the story of Iran is the development of nuclear weapons, the
nuclear program.
They're looking to restore the nuclear deal known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of
Action, JCPOA.
What is the history, the present and the future of these negotiations over nuclear weapons?
What is interesting to you in this full context from the 16th century of the messianic journey?
What's interesting to you here?
You can argue that for a long time, even under the Shah, but much more expressively and decisively
under the Islamic Republic, there was a determination to have a nuclear power or nuclear weapon,
in a sense.
I think the bottom line of all the negotiations, everything else, is that Iran of the Islamic
Republic had the tendency of having its own nuclear weapon.
The reason for that is that Iran was subject of nearly nine years, eight and a half years
of Iran-Iraq war, when not only Iran faced an aggressor Iraq that actually attacked Iran
at a very critical time at the very beginning of the Iranian Revolution, but the fact that
Iran felt kind of helpless in the course of this war and has to make great sacrifices
actually, which supported the Islamic regime and consolidated the Islamic regime because
of this war.
Most of the time, the support of the United States was behind Iraq vis-a-vis Iran, and
Iran felt that it's been isolated and has to protect itself.
So there is some argument for having a nuclear capabilities.
But in reality, this has resulted in a completely mindless, crazy, wasteful attempt on the side
of the Iranian regime to try to develop a nuclear power.
And therefore, the rest of the world, particularly in this region, but very worried that if Iran
would get access to a nuclear weapon, then the entire region of the Persian Gulf might
particularly Saudi Arabia, possibly Turkey, possibly Egypt, all of them may require, may
demand to have also nuclear weapon, given the fact that Pakistan and India has already
have it.
So there was a determined attempt, as you might know, on the side of the Western communities
or now gradually world communities to try to, as much as possible, to control Iran from
getting access to a nuclear capability or actually limit Iran's nuclear capabilities to what
was defined usually in a euphemism as a peaceful fashion.
That being said, there was also Israel, which viewed the Islamic Republic as an arch enemy.
And some of it might be due to the Israeli's own exaggeration of Iran's threat.
And some of it is because Iran has developed a fairly strong military, as we see today.
And as such, this attempt to try to prevent Iran from ever getting access to nuclear weapon,
which resulted, as you might know, in this massive sanctions that were imposed upon Iran
ever since the beginning of the Revolution in 1979, and of course, more intensively since
2015, 2016, even prior to that, probably a little bit earlier.
This agreement, the nuclear agreement, was supposed to control or monitor Iranian nuclear
industry or nuclear setup in exchange for removing the sanctions.
But this never worked, in a matter of fact, in a very successful, satisfactory way for
the Iranians or for the Americans, particularly under Trump administration, which I think
foolishly decided to scrap the agreement that was reached under President Obama.
Like many other policies that was implemented under Trump administration, this created a
major problem.
That is how to under Biden, how to try to come up with a new nuclear agreement with Iran.
In this process, since 2016, where the United States withdrew from the agreement, Iran felt
comfortable to try to go and do whatever they want without any kind of monitor, being monitored
by the international community.
And that's the situation now.
We don't know whether Iran is really sincere under the present regime to negotiate a deal.
We don't know that the United States is willing to do so.
And it seems that now what is happening in terms of the protests in the Iranian streets
makes it even harder in a public eye to try to negotiate a deal with Iran.
Because that means, in the minds of many, and with some justification, that if the nuclear
agreement would result in the removal of many of these sanctions, millions, billions as
the result of the removal of the sanctions and Iran's ability to sell it, it's oil in
the international market without any restrictions, means that the Iranian government is going
to become even more powerful, more financially secure.
In order to suppress its own people.
So that's the agreement that goes against coming to terms with Iran.
But the problem is that there is no clear alternative, even I'm not particularly personally
favorable for this agreement to be ratified.
But the alternative is very difficult.
There's no way to try to see what can be done.
Geopolitics where every alternative is terrible.
Let me ask you about one of the most complex geopolitical situations in history.
One aspect of it is the Cold War between Iran and Israel.
The bigger picture of it is sometimes referred to as Israel-Palestine conflict.
What are all the parties, nations involved?
What are the interests that are involved?
What's the rhetoric?
Can you understand, make the case for each side of this conflict?
You're opening a new can of worms that takes another three hours of conversation.
Just three hours?
At least.
What I can tell you is this, Iran prior to 1979 viewed itself under the Shah as a kind
of, if not supporter of Israel, was in very good terms with Israel.
They had an embassy in Iran or unofficial embassy in Iran.
They had certain projects that's helping with the agriculture and so forth in Iran.
But since 1979, that completely reversed.
Part of it is that the issue of the Palestinian plight remained very much at the heart of
the revolutionary Iranians.
You would see that part of the United States is to support, part of the United States guilt
sin is to support Israel vis-a-vis, it's very suppressive, very oppressive treatment of
the Palestinians, completely illegal taking over of the territories which is not theirs
since 1967.
And therefore it is upon the Iranian regime, Iranian Islamic Republic to support the cause
of the Palestinians.
This came about at the time when the rest of the support for the Palestinians including
Arab nationalism basically reached a stage of bankruptcy.
I mean much of the regimes of the Arab world either are now coming to terms with Israel
or in one way or another because of their own contingencies, because of their own concerns
and interests are really nearly accepting Israel in the region.
Now that old task of rhetorically supporting the Palestinians falls upon the Islamic Republic
that sees itself as the champion of the Palestinians now.
Without as a matter of fact having either the support of the Iranian people behind him,
if you ask if tomorrow there would be a poll or a referendum, I would doubt that 80 percent
of the Iranian people would approve of the policies of the Islamic Republic vis-a-vis
the issue of Palestine, nor the Palestinians themselves because the Islamic Republic is
only supporting those factions within the Palestinian movement which are Islamic, quote
unquote, and even within that there is problems with Hamas for instance.
But nevertheless it's for the Islamic Republic some kind of a propaganda tool to be able
to use it for its own sake and claim that we are the champions of the Palestinian people.
Whether they have a solution, if you look at the rhetoric, if you listen to the rhetoric,
it's the destruction of the state of Israel and that, it seems to me, creates a certain
anxiety in the minds of the Israelis, Israeli population, and Israeli government, particularly
those who are now in power, Netanyahu, the Likud, and more kind of a right-wing politics
of today's Israel.
That being said, I think also the Israelis try to get an extra mileage out of the threat
of Iran, quote unquote, in order to present themselves rightful for terms of security
and whatever else, the way that they're treating the Palestinians, which I think is extremely
unjust.
I think it's extremely unwise for Israel to carry on with these policies as they did
since 1967 at least, and not to try to come to terms with it.
Of course there's a huge amount of, I'm not denying that at all, there's a huge amount
of failures, mistakes, and stupidity on the side of the Palestinian leadership in various
stages, not to try to make a deal or try to come to terms in some fashion.
But it's a very complex picture and it's rather unfair to the Palestinians to accuse
them for not coming to terms with Israel under a very uneven circumstances when they are
not in a position to try to make a fair deal in terms of the territories or in terms of
their security in future vis-a-vis Israel.
So I think there is, as you probably know, quite a lot of people that would have a different
perspective than you just stated, in terms of taking the perspective of Israel and characterizing
the situation, can you still man their side, can you still man Israel's side that they're
trying to be a sovereign nation, trying to protect themselves against threats, ultimately
wanting to create a place of safety, a place where people can pursue all the things that
you want to pursue in life, including for most happiness.
I tend to agree with you and I have all the respect for the fact that Israel would like
to create security and happiness for its own people.
But there are two arguments.
One is a moral argument, to my mind as a historian, Jews across around the world for all through
their history suffered and this is a history of suffering, it's a history of memory of
suffering and I find it enormously difficult to believe that a nation that's the product
of so much sacrifice, suffering, loss of life and variety of Holocaust above all would find
itself in a position not to give the proper justice to a people who could be their neighbors
and that is a moral argument which I cannot believe under any circumstances can be accepted.
Second in real terms, what do you want to, you want to commit a genocide, do you have
a population there that you have to come to terms with it and you cannot just postpone
as they did, since 67 they are postponing and hoping that it goes away somehow.
I don't think it's going to go away and it's going to get worse rather than better.
It's a long nuanced discussion and I look forward to having it so we'll just leave it
there for the moment but it is a stressful place in the world where the rhetoric is existential
where Iran makes claims that it wants to wipe a country off the face of the earth, it's
just the level of intensity of rhetoric is unlike anywhere else in the world.
And extremely dangerous in both directions.
So one, the real danger of the rhetoric actually being acted upon and then the extreme political
parties using the rhetoric to justify even a greater escalation.
So if Iran is saying that they want to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, that justifies
any response.
On the other side.
On the other side.
Of course, I tend to agree with you fully and unfortunately this is a very critical
situation that this region is facing Iran in particular.
I would say that I hope that in the minds of the people of Israel, there is enough or
common sense to realize that probably escalation on the Israeli side is not in the favor of
anybody and try to let the Iranians to go on with their empty rhetoric as they do so far.
But at the same time, I cannot deny the fact that, you know, there is a danger on the side
of this regime and what it says, it cannot be denied, nobody can justify that particularly
because the Iranian population is not behind this regime, certainly in the case of the
Palestinians.
Or for that matter, it's not Palestine, it's the Islamic Republic's involvement in Lebanon
with Hezbollah, it's the Islamic Republic's involvement in Syria with Bashar Assad, it's
involvement in other parts of the world, perhaps even Yemen, that all of them creates extra
territorial responsibilities or interventions, unnecessary interventions that ultimately
is not in favor of best interests of the Iranian people or Iran as a country.
Iran has never been involved in this kind of politics before of the Islamic Republic.
So in a sense, the Iranian regime, it seems to me, by going to the extreme, try to create
for itself a space that it did not have or did not deserve to have within the politics
of the region.
In other words, that has become part of the tool, kind of an instrument for, if you like
to call it, some kind of an expansionism of the regime.
In parts of the world where it can see there is a possibility for its presence, for its
expansion.
Of course, historically speaking, Iran ever since 15th century, I think that's the earliest
example I can see, in early modern times, has always a tendency of moving in the direction
of not only what is today the state of Iraq, but further into the eastern coast of Mediterranean.
So that's a long-term ambition that has been in the cards as far as Iran as a strategic
unit is concerned.
But by no means justified and by no means could be a reasonable, could be a sane policy
of a nation state as today's Iran.
But the second point is that also regimes are always victims of their own rhetoric.
So once you keep repeating something, then you become more and more committed to it.
And it cannot remain any more in the level of a rhetoric, you have to do something about
it.
There is some compelling pressure to try to materialize what you've been saying in your
rhetoric.
And that is even extremely more dangerous as far as Iran is concerned.
And it brings it to some unholy alliances that today we are witnessing Iran is getting involved.
Even more dangerous than this rhetoric in terms of the vis-a-vis Israel is its involvement
with Russia and to some extent with China, which we can talk about.
Well, what do you think about the meeting between Harmony and Vladimir Putin in July?
What's that alliance?
What's that partnership?
Is it surface-level geopolitics?
Or is there a deep growing connection?
I cannot see the difference between geopolitics and these deep connections.
I see this one and the same.
Why?
Because I think the experience of 40 years of distancing from the West in terms of the
Islamic Republic.
And the fact that there is a shelf life to imperial presence for any empire anywhere
in the world.
So after the terrible experience of the United States in Iraq and in Afghanistan, pretty
much like the British Empire that after the Suez experience in 1956 decided to withdraw
from East of Suez, maybe there is a moment here that we are witnessing or it may come
that a great power like the United States sees in its benefit not to get too much involved
into nitty-gritty things in other parts of the world, that it's not its immediate concern.
And I think that is part of the reason, not the entire reason.
Part of the reason why we see the emergence of a new geopolitical environment in this
part of the world of which China, Russia, possibly Iran, possibly Turkey, possibly both
of them are going to be part.
Perhaps Saudis also, but I doubt that the Saudis under the presidency circumstances,
although we've witnessed some remarkable issue in the course of the past few weeks, where
the Saudis giving assurances to American administration and then shifting and getting
along with Putin in terms of the oil production, I think it's more than that even.
And it's not only them, but also the Emirates are doing the same thing.
So what does that tell us?
And that's another many hour conversation about the world industry in Iran and the whole
region.
And emerging this kind of a world, which was perhaps even 10 years ago unimaginable, that
you see now a great power, China, that it's going to remain from what we see around us
as a great power, and Russia adventurous, foolish, but nevertheless would remain criminal,
I would say, as far as its behavior in Ukraine.
But actually, it's a rogue nation that attracts another rogue nation.
So Iran finds itself now in a greater place of security in alliance with Russia in the
hope that this would give Iran a greater security in this part of the world.
Whether this is realistic or illusion, I think remains to be seen.
I think Iran-China relation makes more sense.
Although if you ask ordinary Iranians, they don't like it.
They would tell why should we be tied up with China as the only trade party with America
because of the foolish isolations that you have created for us, because of all the sanctions
that you have created for us, the Islamic Republic.
So in a sense, it's a very difficult question to answer.
The Iranians also like to be more on the other camp, but what happens is that in real term,
what surprises me most is not this alliance with China, but it's kind of becoming a lackey
or subservient to Putin's regime in Russia.
Since if you look at it, Iran ever since at least the 19th century, not going further
back, the beginning of the 19th century, always viewed Russia as the greatest threat strategically
because it was sitting right at the top of Iran.
It was infinitely more powerful than Iran has ever been.
And Iran fought two rounds of war at the beginning of the century, lost the entire Caucasus to
Russia, and led its lesson that you have to be mindful of Russia and you have to keep
it as an arms leg.
And that's what was the Iran's policies throughout the course of the 20th century, 19th and 20th
century, up to what we see now around us, which is a very strange situation.
Whether the balance has changed in terms of if Russia is purchasing weapons from Iran,
which was unheard of, and means that there is a new balance is emerging, a new relationship
is emerging, perhaps remains to be seen.
But if you look at the historical precedence, it would have been enormously unwise to be
an ally of Russia, given its long history of aggression in Iran.
Russians, part of the reason why it's actually Iran allied itself with British Empire was
the fact that it was so much afraid of the Russian expansion.
And as such, I don't know what's going to be the future of this relationship.
There is a big disconnect between governments and the people.
And I think ultimately I have faith that there's a love across the different cultures, across
the different religions amongst the people.
And the governments are the source of the division and the conflict and the wars and
all the geopolitics that is in part grounded in the battle for resources and all that kind
of stuff.
Nevertheless, this is the world we live in.
So you looked at the modern history of Iran the past few centuries.
If you look into the future of this region, now you kind of implied that historian has
a bit of a cynical view of protests and things like this that are fueled at least in the
minds of young people with hope.
If you were to just for a while have a bit of hope in your heart and your mind, what
is a hopeful future for the next 10, 20, 30 years of Iran?
I'm not cynical.
I'm trying to be realistic.
And I actually may be critical, but I have great hopes in Iran's future for a variety
of reasons.
I actually did write an article only if the last version of it is going to go out today
in which the title of it is the time of fear and women of hope, which in a sense is this
whole coverage about what this movement means that we see today being made fizzle in a few
weeks time, or it may just go on and create a new dynamics in Iranian society that would
hopefully result in a peaceful process of greater accommodation and the greater tolerance
within the Iranian society and with the outside world.
And I think majority of the Iranian people don't want tension, don't want confrontation,
don't want crisis.
They if 40 years they have suffered from a regime that have dictated an ideology that
it's regressive and impractical, they want to go back to a life in which they don't
really create trouble for their neighbors or for the world.
And therefore, I would see a better future for Iran, that's for one reason, strategically
or geopolitically, maybe in Iran's advantage in a peaceful fashion to negotiate as it's
the fate of all the nations rather than commit itself or sworn to a particular course of
policy.
So this give and take as the nature of politics is art of possible, as it been said.
So probably Iran is going to be hopefully move in that direction.
I think there is a generational thing, that's the third reason.
No matter how much the Islamic Republic tried to Islamicize the Iranian society in its own
image of kind of radical ideological indoctrination, it has failed.
It has failed up to what we see today in the Iranian streets.
And the Iranian population said no to it.
And I think if there would have been and there very much hope there will be a possibility
for a more open environment, more open space where they would be able to speak them, their
views out, Iranians are not on the side of moving in the extreme directions.
They are in the side of greater accommodation and the greater interest in the outside world.
And if you look at every aspect of today's, beside the government, every aspect of life
in today's Iran, we can see that from the way that people dress to the way that they
try to live their lives, to the way that they're educating themselves or educated in the institutions,
that you see a desire and intention to move forward, and I'm optimistic.
Well, in that struggle for freedom, like I told you offline, one of my close childhood
friends is Iranian, just a beautiful person and his family is a wonderful family and on
a personal level is one of the deeper windows into the Iranian spirit and soul that I've
got and chance to witness, so I really appreciate it.
But in the recent times, I've gotten to hear from a lot of people that are currently living
in Iran that are currently have that burning hope for the future of the country, and so
my love goes out to them in the struggle for freedom.
That's so nice of you to say so, and they very much hope so.
There are moments of despair and there are moments that you would think that there is
no hope, but then again something triggers and you see 100,000 people in the streets
of Berlin that are hoping for a better future for Iran, and I very much hope it eventually
emerges even I'm hoping at the same time that it's not going to be a very strong leadership
as it was the case in the past.
We started with hope, we ended with hope.
This was a real honor, this is an incredible conversation.
Thank you for giving such a deep and wide story of this great nation, one of the great
nations in history.
Well, that's what you kind of used to say, so.
And thank you for sitting down today, this was amazing.
Well, a history that as I've said in the start of my book, I say it's the history of a nation
which has learned a huge amount from the outside world by force of its geography, it was always
located somewhere that people would invade or come for trade or something happened to
it that this diffused culture continued to, and they were not afraid of learning or adopting
as they do right now today, this is a very different society.
We're a boring moment in its history as you write about.
Thank you so much.
This was awesome.
Thank you.
Thanks for listening to this conversation with Abba Salmanat.
To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description.
And now let me leave you with a few words from Martin Luther King, Jr.
From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
Thank you for listening and hope to see you next time.