**Originally released October 21, 2021**
Could a spark of liberation emerge in a world of oppressive leaders? Join me, your host, and Alex Vatanka, the founding director of the Iran program at the Middle East Institute, as we examine the recent upheaval in Iran triggered by the tragic death of a 22-year-old woman arrested for a 'bad hijab'. Together, we peel back the layers of this rapidly unfolding crisis, shining a light on the violent reaction of the Iranian regime, the organic expansion of the protests, and the role of Iran's Supreme Leader.
This episode is a journey back in time to 1979, revisiting the birth of the Islamic Republic and the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution. It's a closer look at the intricate dance between Iran and the US, the simmering anger in Iran’s younger generation, and the ripple effects leading to a significant Iranian diaspora. We don't shy away from the tough topics, tackling the Supreme Leader's hardline ideology and the escalating economic despair of Iran's citizens. We also venture into the nuances of the ongoing protests, exploring the symbolic power of the anti-hijab movement and the internal fight between theocracy and secularism.
We wrap up with a thought-provoking discussion on the potential repercussions of this current unrest. Is this the tipping point for Iranians to reclaim their future? What will leadership after Ayatollah Khamenei have to contend with? We explore these questions and more, as we grapple with the complexities of a nation on the brink of change. Here's an episode that offers an enlightening perspective on the internal dynamics of a highly charged geopolitical hotspot - as viewed through the lens of a seasoned expert. So, are you ready to step into the heart of the storm?
-------------------------
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Email: deepdivewithshawn@gmail.com
**Artwork: Dovi Design
**Music: Joystock
**Originally released October 21, 2021**
Could a spark of liberation emerge in a world of oppressive leaders? Join me, your host, and Alex Vatanka, the founding director of the Iran program at the Middle East Institute, as we examine the recent upheaval in Iran triggered by the tragic death of a 22-year-old woman arrested for a 'bad hijab'. Together, we peel back the layers of this rapidly unfolding crisis, shining a light on the violent reaction of the Iranian regime, the organic expansion of the protests, and the role of Iran's Supreme Leader.
This episode is a journey back in time to 1979, revisiting the birth of the Islamic Republic and the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution. It's a closer look at the intricate dance between Iran and the US, the simmering anger in Iran’s younger generation, and the ripple effects leading to a significant Iranian diaspora. We don't shy away from the tough topics, tackling the Supreme Leader's hardline ideology and the escalating economic despair of Iran's citizens. We also venture into the nuances of the ongoing protests, exploring the symbolic power of the anti-hijab movement and the internal fight between theocracy and secularism.
We wrap up with a thought-provoking discussion on the potential repercussions of this current unrest. Is this the tipping point for Iranians to reclaim their future? What will leadership after Ayatollah Khamenei have to contend with? We explore these questions and more, as we grapple with the complexities of a nation on the brink of change. Here's an episode that offers an enlightening perspective on the internal dynamics of a highly charged geopolitical hotspot - as viewed through the lens of a seasoned expert. So, are you ready to step into the heart of the storm?
-------------------------
Follow Deep Dive:
Instagram
Post.news
YouTube
Email: deepdivewithshawn@gmail.com
**Artwork: Dovi Design
**Music: Joystock
Some of these Iranian diaspora media platforms get foreign government money. No doubt about it, you can't deny it. Does that mean that foreign intelligence services are therefore the ones who own this protest movement? That's where I disagree. Yes, there are players in it, but they're not really running the show. Are foreign governments vested in the outcome of the protest? Of course they are. Of course they are, but, as I said, the anger could not have been created by one intelligence agency or another. This is the doing of Hamadi himself, and he knows it.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Deep Dive with me, sean C Fedin. You know, I have to say, the past few years have been unsettling, throwing me off balance, and I think partly because I, and maybe we all, have been lulled into a sense of complacency in the United States due to the relative stability of our government and even our politics, and this is clouded, maybe, our ability to really understand and appreciate the challenges that people in less stable countries struggle with on a daily basis. And I've been thinking more and more lately, as some of our more stable governments shudder under constant attack from homegrown right-wing extremists intent on burning down the house, how this all means that we might not be prepared to even process, much less survive, what's coming. I've been particularly struck by the level of government sanctioned, if not committed, violence against their own citizens that seems to be sweeping the globe. While it's true that governments have always existed that cause harm and violence to their people, it does seem that this behavior has seeped into countries that have appeared to be relatively immune, countries like Brazil, india and the United States. Bad actor Jair Bolsonaro, narendra Modi and Donald Trump have encouraged violence and norm-breaking that has shaken our democracies to their foundations, and I'm not one to argue that countries shouldn't engage in introspection and make profound adjustments when necessary, but people like Bolsonaro, modi and Donald Trump are actively targeting vulnerable people, encouraging violence, and it's led to the deaths of citizens of their respective countries. As freedom contracts and political violence sanctioned, sometimes encouraged by governments and political parties in these seemingly stable countries, proliferates and spreads, there are glimmers, concurrently, of hope in places we might not expect, like Iran.
Speaker 2:On September 16th of this year, masa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman, died in Tehran after being arrested by the guidance patrol effectively the morality police for bad hijab, which means that she wasn't wearing the hijab or veil correctly. The official government line is that Masa suffered a heart attack in custody and subsequently died. However, eyewitnesses to the arrest, coupled with official autopsy findings, suggest otherwise that Masa was beaten to death. This story, as horrific as it is, is not unique. These things happen in Iran regularly, as the Ayatollah and his theocracy has absolute control over social, political and cultural life in Iran, and their interpretation of Islam is oppressive, violent and inelastic. So the mass protests that have materialized and swept the country following Amini's death aren't necessarily reflective of anger at this one situation, but it is an inflection point for a movement, particularly among young people, that's grown legs of its own and has paralyzed Iran and threatened the existing regime, exposing a vulnerability that has maybe not existed since the toppling of the Shah and the Iranian Revolution in 1979. And so the government's response, under the direction of Ayatollah Hameine, is not surprising, but it has been devastating. Law enforcement has responded with extreme force, arresting people, beating people and shooting to kill, often indiscriminately, and it's not being limited to the protests or the protesters. Law enforcement has stormed children's schools and fired on places of worship, attacking citizens while they are at their most vulnerable. The most recent estimates by human rights organizations put citizen deaths at the hands of Iranian authorities in response to the protests at 233, 32 of which were children. The Iranian regime has also employed other well-worn, familiar strongman tactics to quell the protests limiting internet access fully, disconnecting the internet for long periods of time each day, disappearing people from the streets and their homes, and committing protesters to psychiatric institutions. But what happens when the arsenal runs dry and eventually fails and the people you cut down are replaced by another front line, more angry and more determined, when nothing works to silence, placate and subordinate a people, wielding the only weapon that cannot be exhausted, a collective and communal voice agitating and demanding liberty, dignity and freedom. And so, a month later, in the face of a belligerent and violent response, the protesters keep coming and the protests keep growing.
Speaker 2:Today I'm talking to Alexander Vitanka, the founding director of the Iran program at the Middle East Institute and senior fellow at Frontier Europe Initiatives. He's also the author of the book the Battle of the Ayatollahs in Iran. I've asked Alex to deep dive, to talk not just about the protests, but also to put this all into some historical context to help us understand how Iran got here and where Iran might be going. If you like this episode, or any episode, please feel free to give it a like on your favorite podcast platform and or subscribe to the podcast on YouTube. And, as always, if you have any thoughts, questions or comments, please email deepdivewithSeanatgmailcom. Okay, let's do a deep dive. Alex Votanke, thanks for being here. How are you?
Speaker 1:I'm good. Thanks, Sean, for having me.
Speaker 2:So I want to talk about what's happening in Iran right now. I mean kind of as we speak. You know the protests that were sparked by the death, probable murder, of Masa Amini and you know what it might or maybe might not mean for the future of Iranian domestic politics. But I think that to really grasp the moment we need some context, and you outlined this really eloquently in your book, the Battle of the Isletoes in Iran. So I'm hoping maybe you can help us get there. So for people born before me, iran was a different place than I grew up knowing it to be, and I think you know we're all, at least in the United States, or should be familiar with the hostage situation in 1979, the toppling of the Shah and his regime, the birth of the Islamic Republic. But can you help us understand what's happened in Iran since the late 70s and what's changed as a result?
Speaker 1:Right. So, sean, let me just before I turn to 1979, because that's a pivotal moment but before I turn to that, let me just say a few words about where we are right now. Sure, so in October 2022, look, I don't know, and I've been an Iran watcher professionally pretty much all my entire career, some quarter of a century. I make myself feel old here, but and I was born there, so I know the culture, I know the language, I know I can read between the lines and I can tell you what we're seeing today is a reflection of bottle-up anger that we've known. This anger has been there since 1979, but it's now becoming so radical in various ways as being expressed by this younger generation, that folks are starting to talk about whether this is the beginning of another revolution in Iran. Now, I don't know if it is, and I can get into whether that's a good thing or a bad thing, but what is true is the anger has always been there. What is all equally true is that there's a younger generation of Iranians who don't feel like they have anything to answer for in terms of what happened in 1979. They look at their parents' generation, or even, in many cases, get grandparents' generation, and they basically say to them look, let's just say you had good intentions back in 1979 when you rebelled and got rid of the Shah, the monarch, back then. But 43 years later, our generation, we don't understand why you did that. We don't know where you got out of it.
Speaker 1:The country is in a worse place than it was on political level, on economic level, on cultural level you name it Iran's becoming more and more isolated. Contrast that to before 79, where Iran was a hip country. It was the place people visited from Europe, from the United States. You could get on a flight from New York and fly directly to Tehran. It was a very different place. The younger generation they feel like that outcome of that revolution when they ended up with a theocracy, with clerics, militant clerics taken over. That is something that was a historic injustice, needs to be undone, and that's what they're trying to do. What if they succeed or not this time around? I don't know. What I can almost guarantee you is this anger is not going to go anywhere. And the big question is can the regime, can these dinosaurs that have been running around for the last few decades, actually listen for a second, listen to the wrong people and say you know what. They don't want us, they don't like us. And if there's one opportunity we might have is to change course. And if you listen to the Iranian Supreme Leader, ali Khamenei, he's not accepting blame. He's not accepting this anger. He likes to call it all a foreign plot. But back to your question about what happened in 1979.
Speaker 1:Look from 1941 to 1979, iran is America's best friend in the Middle East. Iran is the country where 50,000 Americans live. There are plenty of commercial ties between the two countries. For example, the United States has deep economic and military and political interests. The Shah is a fervent anti-communist. Successive American presidents, from Truman all the way up to Jimmy Carter, love the fact that he's a bastion against Soviet communism. He's the guy who's going to make sure Middle East doesn't fall into the hands of the Soviet Union, and so forth. So the relations from 41 to 79 are wonderful.
Speaker 1:I think Colin Powell, former Secretary of Defense, called it or Secretary of State, I should say called it a beautiful marriage that ended up in a very nasty divorce in 1979, obviously and everyone that was born roughly in the early 80s and so forth or even earlier remembers the pivotal moment was the hostage crisis, where those 52 American diplomats were taken hostage and kept for 444 days. He kind of left a very bad taste in the mouths of a majority of Americans for a very long time. And yet, if you do ask Americans with slight interest in the Middle East and Iran, they'll tell you the problem isn't the Iranian nation, the Iranian people, which happened to be pro-American, it's the regime's anti-American ideology. That's the problem. So how do you deal with that? Anyway, let me stop here, sean, and love to hear your thoughts of what you just said.
Speaker 2:I think it's worth mentioning and this is something you articulate in the Battle of the Ayatollahs is that the revolution in 1979 was not a cohesive movement with a common goal, like some theocracy with an all-powerful religious head. In fact, the shared objective was maybe the overthrow of the Shah in his regime, but then full stop. In reality, there were different factions in pursuit of different goals that didn't necessarily align, so it's not that the vast majority of the public wanted what Khomeini ultimately gave them.
Speaker 1:Right, and the question you have to ask is how did that large Iranian population fall in line? It wasn't because they were persuaded by the theocracy that Khomeini basically created, and this is the first modern day theocracy. I mean you have to wait until the mid-1990s and the arrival to power of the Taliban in Afghanistan. We have an equal sort of a competitor to this idea of running a theocracy In Iran in 1979, you have two and a half thousand years of continuous monarchy being uprooted and replaced by this whole new concept called Islamic Republic. At the top of it, an unelected cleric who claims the title of a supreme leader. That was not the bargain of, as you rightly point out, sean, you got a rainbow coalition that wants the Shah gone for various reasons, and people should remember this is the Cold War context. The Soviet Union, the Chinese, are investing heavily in Iran to get the Americans out of there, so they're supporting various leftists and in that type of political entities. All of them have this kind of key objective they want to get rid of the Shah, but very few actually know what's going to happen the day after, and that's the problem. The day after, you end up basically with Iran almost moving in the direction of entering civil war because once the Shah was gone, the various groups in opposition turned their guns against each other. So in the early 1980s, iran is starting going the direction of civil war becoming a distinct possibility. And in that situation, the most ruthless elements, the guys with the guns, willing to kill and believing God was on their side, turned out to be the Islamists, led by Khomeini, and that's how they captured the revolution. They were not a biggest part of the revolution, the left. The left was arguably bigger than Islamists, but the left is marginalized over time. What the left had going for it for a long time was the support of the Soviet Union. But, as I said, khomeini and Islamists come in. They even take that anti-American flag from the left and claim it as their own, which is why we end up with the hostage crisis. Why did Khomeini sanction the seizing of the US embassy? Because he wanted to sort of marginalize the left and by being more anti-American than the leftist, he thought that would be a political win for him, which in a tactical term, in short term, might have worked out for him. But obviously this enmity that the hostage crisis started in 79 has been something that has cost Iran dearly ever since. But back to the core point you mentioned absolutely. This was a revolution that was hijacked.
Speaker 1:Very few percentage of Iranians had heard of the idea of a supreme leader, an unelected cleric who would come in and tell people how to live, how to raise their children, basic things that nobody had even thought about. They wanted democracy, they wanted political representation, like in Europe or in North America, and they end up with something that no one in the world had heard of before, which we know today as the Islamic Republic, a system that is unique, has never existed before 79 anywhere in the world and doesn't exist anywhere in the world, I mean today, except in Iran. It's the only place where you have this thing. And, by the way, the idea of a supreme leader is entirely manufactured by Khomeini and his people in the early 80s, late 70s, early 80s. There's no reference to something called a supreme leader in any of the Islamic scholarship, including in the Quran.
Speaker 1:So they came in, they put this thing on, imposed it on the people and if you didn't like it? Basically what they would do was to intimidate you and if you still didn't like it, you will end up in jail or, worst cases, dead. The option of emigrating was always there and that's why you have a large Iranian diaspora today, 43 years after the Islamic Republic was born. So people left in large numbers, but the idea that 79 became at the moment Iran moved in the direction of a freer society, a more politically representative society. That was never true. That never happened. That's the biggest letdown, disappointment of that generation who were involved in that revolution at the time.
Speaker 2:You know, conventional wisdom tells us that regimes are most vulnerable at times of transition, and so it seems that in the 80s there was an opportunity for Iranian people that were disillusioned by the Ayatollah and its theocratic system to reclaim not just the narrative but maybe also to overthrow the government altogether. And I think I see their direct experience with history, the fact that they could remember a time pre-Homani, pre-theocracy that could motivate them because they had experienced something different, less oppressive. But these kids in the streets today in Iran were all born after the revolution and have no direct memory or experience with anything else. So I wonder what their motivation is and what their model is to replace the existing system.
Speaker 1:The most important point in the context of the state of the revolution and the evolution of this revolution, because revolutions are living organisms, they move, they evolve. And what is true in the case of the Islamic Republic is the tent of the revolution has been shrinking since day one. So for 43 years this regime tent has gradually been getting smaller and smaller and kicking more members out. So the opposition has been growing. So you have a regime tent that is shrinking and shrinking to a point right now where we question whether this regime can survive. Because the question of can sheer use of force keep you in power? That is something that Iranian analysts are wrestling with as we speak, because it's just not enough, because the numbers in the streets have never been greater than today. And that raises its own issues. Because how can you go out there and tell your security forces that you have indoctrinated, trained and paid with the promise that they'll be fighting foreign enemies? All these years you've told them enemies outside. It's out there somewhere, that's what we're going to fight. And then suddenly you turn around and say actually no, the enemy's here. It could be your neighbor, it could be your brother, it could be your sister, your family members, those are the ones we want to go suppress or even kill. It is a very risky proposition. The regime cannot bank on the security forces being obedient and doing the killing for them. So if you don't want to risk that, because you don't know if the security forces are willing to in large numbers to do the killing that requires to keep this population of 85 million people suppressed, what is their alternative?
Speaker 1:Well, obvious alternative is you start listening to that public that's angry, the young generation that are protesting today. Most of the ones who've been arrested not necessarily most of the ones who are in the streets, but most of the ones who've been arrested are in the age group of 15 to 25. They were born decades after the revolution of 1979. Now, their parents, the generation before them, they were also equally disheartened by life in the Islamic Republic, but they put up with it or, as I mentioned earlier, oftentimes they emigrated. This younger generation seems, for whatever reason, maybe they don't have the means to emigrate, or maybe they've just politically become so much more emboldened that they command the streets and they speak up. They are willing to take risks. They're willing to risk going to jail or, in some case, getting killed. I mean about 150 or so people, by most reports, have already been killed in the last few weeks of ongoing protests.
Speaker 1:So that's what we are right now. That's what the regime is dealing with Moving on suppression as its way out of this crisis, or accepting the inevitable, which is that people don't like us, meaning the regime. We ought to change course. But you try and change the mind of an 83-year-old cream leader who's been in power single-handedly, running the show since June of 1989, one of the longest running heads of state, certainly alive today 33 years. This man has gone around and espoused this idea that he's doing God's bidding on earth. You try and tell him that he's been wrong, that he needs to change course, otherwise this uprising could turn into a revolution. I mean, that's what we're at.
Speaker 1:I think the Iranian Supreme Leader, ali Khamenei, is not a stupid man. He would not have been in power for three decades plus. Yet we do know he's an extremely stubborn individual, and I just don't know right now if he would be willing to make the necessary concessions to reduce the anger out there in Iranian society, because there's a lot of anger, and it's not just about the hijab. The veil is just one important aspect of it because it's in your face. They're trying to engineer culture.
Speaker 1:85, 90% of Iranian society, when asked about mandatory hijab or veil, they're opposed to it. They don't like it, they don't want to have it on their heads for whatever reason, they're opposed to it. And here you have a regime that forces it on them and is willing to use power, including, with the tragic case of Mahsa Amini, kill people in order to enforce this law, which is not really a bad hijab. It's about exercising their power. It's to intimidate their way to continue to stay in power.
Speaker 1:So today's hijab, tomorrow could be something else, but, end of the day, this is a regime that has had plenty and plenty of opportunities to change course, because these latest protests are just the latest way. We've seen lots of these protests over the last few years. They won't go away and the regime so far has failed to accept the need to change, which is why we need to at least keep in mind the possibility that this could go in the direction of a revolution. Essentially, if you have defections from within the ranks of the regime, prominent figures, if you have security forces that refuse to kill their own fellow citizens, if you have a general strike in key industries, like the oil industry, in the automotive industry, which is the second largest employer, then you can say well, this is different, these protests are different, this could have a different outcome.
Speaker 2:It strikes me that and, as you said, khomeini is not a stupid man, and I almost feel as if he must know that he is stuck between a rock and a hard place, in that, if you look back historically and he must be doing this where have you ever seen an authoritarian regime effectively liberalize without a complete toppling of the existing regime? So this is an existential threat for the supreme leader, in that his only option is to quell the protest, or there is some type of revolutionary movement, or he tries to liberalize, but history tells us that in doing so, his position is absolutely threatened and perhaps his life as a result. Right, right.
Speaker 1:Right. Look, I mean in terms of the contract between the ruling class and the people. A authoritarian or totalitarian regime that comes to mind that decided to make adjustments for its own survival is Communist Party of China, which in the late seventies decided to open up the economy. They didn't liberalize on the political front, but they created plenty of opportunities for China to prosper, become what it is today.
Speaker 1:In Iran's case, the regime has not, for various reasons, wanted to liberalize politically or economically, and I'll tell you why. For example, it can't do so economically because harmony is foreign policy, which is this sort of militant Islamism of standing up to what he calls the imperialist powers, the United States and so on Basically makes it impossible for Iran to be a mainstream player on the global stage when it comes to economic integration with other nations. So he's kind of because of his ideology, he's made that impossible. So Iran really could be a top 20 economy in the world if it was playing the role that it can play. But harmony and the regime by and large and I would say before, even harmony in 89, his predecessor Khomeini, these are not figures who ever prioritize the economy. So you couldn't have liberalization on the economic front, which, if it had happened, it could have created jobs. People might have been saying to themselves look, I can't live freely or vote freely, but at least I have a car, I have a house, I have the material well-being that I want. That is not happening in Iran. Opposite is happening.
Speaker 1:Because of the sanctions, the people are getting hit in the pocket more and more every day, and on the political liberalization front, khomeini has done none of it. In fact, he's done the opposite. I mean, the best example of that was the so-called presidential elections of last year, where Iranian elections are micromanaged. They basically Khomeini single-handedly decides who can run for what office, and in the past, sometimes he might be willing to accept a couple of characters who spoke the language of reform, and they would come in People like Muhammad Khatami or even Hassan Rouhani, the last president, and that was a way of sort of acknowledging that people want change In 2021, he disqualified anybody who might be a reformist, even in words, and he engineered for this fellow by the name of Ibrahim Raisidou become president. This was the biggest insult. And what does Raisidou do when he becomes president? In an economy where people are just about desperate to survive because of the impact of the sanctions, he starts increasing funding for security forces to go out there and harass people for bad hijab or the veil.
Speaker 1:Can you see the disconnect? I mean it's amazing how you think you can get away with it. So he, in many ways Khomeini, is exactly the individual you need to point the finger at for the protest, and everything's really gone wrong in Iran in the last certainly 33 years. As I said, he took over as supreme leader from Khomeini in June of 1989. And he has had 33 years of opportunity to listen to his own people and change course, and yet he has avoided that. So, you know, will he do it now, at this point in his life, 83? Is he worried about his own life?
Speaker 1:I mean, if you look around the Middle East the last 10 years or so with other countries, from Gaddafi in Libya to Yemen, to what Bashar al-Assad had to do to survive, yes, the region Iran is not unique in that you have angry public. But I don't know. I don't know what his next move would be. I suspect he's going to try and write this one out, maybe make some minor concessions, maybe, but overwhelming, reliant suppression, and in the hope also that his you know supposed friends in China and Russia will come to his aid if necessary, because he does see this as a Western plot against him and you know. The hope then I guess in his mind is he can write this one out, as he has been writing all these other previous protests, that. But, as I said, that's a gamble to angry populations not going to go anywhere, because what they want is fundamental change.
Speaker 2:So we're kind of deep down this road, but I do think it's relatively important to understand. So you mentioned this kind of manufactured position of the Supreme Leader, which is unique to the world. But I think to outsiders, particularly the Western world and the democratic world, it's not really clear what the distinction is between a Supreme Leader and a president, and I think an easy explanation would be you know that the president in Iran is essentially a figurehead, but I think that's not entirely true. I don't think that really captures it. So can you explain the distinction between these two institutions?
Speaker 1:Right. So basically it's a compromise that they reached back in 1979. So they go from two and a half three, two and a half thousand years of continuous monarchy. With the shogun they bring an end to the monarchy. And then you got different components in this revolutionary movement, anti-shah movement. A big part of it is Republican. They want a Republican model. And then you got the clerics, the Islamist clerics, who basically, as soon as the Shah is gone, their biggest enemy are the so-called Republicans. So how do you compromise with them? They've been in this fight with you against the Shah, but there are tomorrow's rivals and the compromise they make is this unique constitution, which is basically a lot of European ideas.
Speaker 1:French and Belgium constitutions play a big role in the Iranian constitution of 1979. So you have a president well, you don't have a president in 79, that comes in in 89, but, to simplify it, you have an executive office and you have a legislative office in the shape of a parliament, and then, on the top of it, they create this thing which is entirely a new concept office of the Supreme Leader. And the office of the Supreme Leader is not something that people vote for. This is a position I believe in, the Catholic Church as the Council of Cardinals. They choose the Pope. So other clerics in this assembly, called the Assembly of Experts, made up of 86 clerics. Whenever necessary, they come in and vote for a Supreme Leader. This happened only once. He takes over the original position, in 79, and then when he dies, in 89, this assembly votes and Khomani gets the position, and we don't know what's going to happen. Today Khomani dies, whether they're going to have another vote or something else going to happen.
Speaker 1:But the point I'm trying to get to is this is a novice idea, didn't exist before, doesn't exist anywhere else in the world. It's not even very clear how it sort of functions when it needs to. So, for example, we don't know right now how the regime as a whole will choose Khomani's successor. There are no sort of short lists as such. We all sit here and speculate, we play with names, but it's very opaque and it's deliberately designed to be opaque because they want to keep everybody out there internally and the foreign audiences to second guess what will come next. But Sushant, you got a Supreme Leader who is supposed to, on paper, be the religious guide, be the religious guide provide, be the captain of the overall direction of the regime. But what has happened in reality is this captain is not just sitting there and looking at the overall direction of the regime change ship, but it's actually micromanaging to the smallest details. So, for example, let me give you one very relevant case Nobody, nobody, including the president or the parliament in Tehran, can touch on the issue of US-Iran relations except the Supreme Leader, who's not elected by the people, but he's the only one who can really make a decision in terms of what to do on issues like Iran's position on Israel, on the nuclear issue, sensitive issues, on the hijab.
Speaker 1:Tomorrow the Iranian parliament can vote. There are 290 members in that parliament. They can vote tomorrow and say get rid of mandatory hijab. Within 10 minutes a phone call comes in from the office of the Supreme Leader who says well, that vote doesn't matter, just to give you a sense of how this place works.
Speaker 1:So for the longest of time, people were willing to accept the possibility that the regime could maybe reform itself, that the balance could, with time, go towards the Republican side of the Constitution and less power for the unelected clerics.
Speaker 1:The opposite has happened. The parliament is a joke, is a showcase to tell the world that they're a democracy when, in fact, certainly the Iranian youth today know exactly who's calling the shots. They don't show up for elections. They say why are you insulting us? Why do you ask us to show up in elections that we know are meaningless? Why don't you just run the show? Why don't you just stop wasting money on holding elections when we know is the Supreme Leader and his foot soldiers in the Revolutionary Guards Corps that are running Iran today? So that's the pact that is totally fallen apart. It was always in trouble from day one in 79. But today, the way Khomeini has managed the political system and has been a micromanager, he's really totally discredited the Islamic Republic as a political model, because it's essentially a dictatorship but it likes to call itself Islamic democracy and nobody takes the democracy part seriously anymore.
Speaker 2:So let's talk about Masa Amini and her death, and I think you mentioned earlier that this particular incident was about the hijab, but that this movement in and of itself is not entirely about that. And it makes me wonder, because you're seeing people in solidarity cutting their hair in other countries, and I wonder if this is missing a point, if this is performative and missing what's actually happening. So I guess I'm wondering if you could maybe explain a little bit about Masa Amini's death, what precipitated those events, what happened as a result and what this is really about.
Speaker 1:You know, masa Amini's death, as tragic as it is, was not unique. You've had a number of cases of young people dying at the hands of the security forces and each time that happened, you had a reaction in public. People were angry, thinking this could be their loved ones next. This time around it, just for whatever reason, it became a movement very quickly. But we've seen nationwide protests in recent memory. I mean, the last one before this was in early 2020, when the Iranian Revolutionary Guards shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane. It was by mistake, but nonetheless, and that created a lot of anger. What are the most of the passengers on that plane? Were Iranians who live in places like Canada, sweden or going back to their respective homes, and they were killed, and that created a lot of anger. You could go on. In terms of the various points where people came out. We see, in terms of a trend, it used to be that most of these protests 20 years ago would be centered on the capital, tehran, particularly the sort of more middle-class part of town. They were more or less about the demand for political rights and representation and freedom. Mostly, they were in the context of coexisting with the regime not toppling the regime, but coexisting with the regime. That's not the case today. Today, people use the most vulgar language and anger and hate targeted at the Supreme Leader. This idea that you can coexist with Islamic Republic is not something that you're average protestor today in Iran believes. No longer is it limited to Tehran or middle class. This is nationwide. This is impacting the smallest of communities to biggest of cities. This is not limited to one ethnic group or another. Everybody's involved, from the Southeast on the border with Pakistan, to the Northwest on the border with Turkey and everything in between. This is a nationwide phenomenon. Everybody's angry. Everybody's had enough of a regime that just doesn't want to listen. They've taken the country through hell the last 20 years because of this nuclear program. Sanction after sanction. The country's GDP has declined by about two-thirds. There are not enough jobs. Hopelessness can be measured in so many ways Fewer marriages, fewer children, higher divorce rates, depression rates are through the roof, and I can go on and on and on, not to mention brain drain. You know that's what we have here. Masa Amini, as tragic as it was, wasn't unique. People talk about her being Kurdish. This is an ethnic issue. I think people are missing the point. This could have been of any ethnic background. I had nothing to do with ethnicity.
Speaker 1:The fact that a regime feels that they can come and treat a citizen that way that they can use force and get away with it or try and get away with it. They've done it so many times each time they're stopped by the public Let me say this, sean, because people need to know this. Iran is in some banana republic. This is a place that had a constitutional revolution in 1906. Over a century ago, they forced a king back then to give him a parliament.
Speaker 1:This is a country with a massive civil society that's dynamic, that's resourceful. Hundreds and hundreds of organizations are doing all sorts of things, from grassroots up. Some of them are involved in politics, others are chasing women's rights issues, environmental issues, religious minority issues, you name it. This is an educated society. 60% of all graduate students are female, so you can't suppress women here. They're graduating in larger numbers than men and yet their unemployment rates are higher. So I can go on and on here. Telling you so much of the anger isn't just about one issue, one time. This year. This is 43 years of a track record of gradually moving away from what your own people want to see you do and instead going out there in the region, going to Syria, going to Yemen, going to Iraq, focusing on the ideological mission to destroy Israel, things that average Iranians have no time for, have no interest in. So you see, the wrong priorities is at the root cause of what this protest movement is about.
Speaker 2:I think something interesting is happening at the global stage, and so the backdrop to what I'm thinking is it's striking to me that Hemen is blaming Western influence or outside foreign influence for agitating domestic politics in Iran, because I think that that has been true in past.
Speaker 2:I think a relatively benign example would be like the Orange Revolution. So what happened in Egypt and Tunisia? The United States was actively in support of these protest movements in these countries and it did not work out the way I think democratic or the Western world expected it to in almost all of those countries. And I think in those countries those protest movements did look to the Western world maybe primarily the United States as being potential supporters, that they could rely on the United States if they actually managed to overthrow a repressive regime. And I feel, like this time around in Iran, that this is much more organic. I don't get the sense that this movement, that there is any leadership in this movement that is thinking the Western world again, particularly the United States, has our back here. It almost gives me a certain sense of I don't know if hope is the word but that a movement that is much more organic and really rooted in self-determination feels more real or has more potential than relying on something like hopefully the United States will step in right.
Speaker 1:Look as mighty as the United States is, there are limits to what it can do within individual countries. One has to be humble. Americans need to be humble. Just because the US has the greatest military might doesn't mean you can go out there and engineer nation states or outcomes in terms of politics of nation states the way you wish. I mean you're talking about Orange Revolution.
Speaker 1:Let's look at Egypt 2011. I mean, the United States really wasn't ready to say goodbye to Hussein Mubarak. Would been a partner for so long. But the United States looked at the anger in Egyptian society and decided who do you want to bank on here? This individual who's been a friend of ours but clearly he's not loved by his own people? Or should we side with the Egyptian people? Now? A lot of Arab governments were upset by the US decision, but the US made a call at the time that we can't stop this revolution. So why anger the Egyptian revolutionaries? Why not at least try and sort of be neutral in this? And the same happened, by the way, in Iran in 79. The Shah was a very good friend of United States, and yet the US looked at the realities on the ground, decided he couldn't be saved. So that's why Jimmy Carter decided to. The best approach was see if you can work a deal with the new people who are taken over power in Iran. So I mean I can also answer the question, sean, in the following way Are Western intelligence services of powers involved interested in the outcome of these protests in Iran?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Anybody who says otherwise is simply too naive. Of course they're involved. Iran is probably one of the most penetrated countries in terms of how foreign intelligence operations are carried out right. So because of its nuclear program, because of all sorts of other things, the place is running with foreign intelligence folks who obviously have a desire to see the Islamic Republic come to an end.
Speaker 1:That's not my argument. My argument is I don't believe for a second that the intelligence community of the West, even combined, could have created the anger that we see in the street. That's not manufactured by single or collective intelligence services. That's the making of Ayatollah Khamenei. That's the making of 43 years of being tone deaf to the demands of your own people, trying to run the country as if it's something else. Iran is a country that has always been and always will be a place that wants to be integrated with the rest of the world. You can't isolate these people, you cannot put them away and turn the place into North Korea, which is what Khamenei has tried to do. So that's why I say yes, of course.
Speaker 1:Give you another example Iranian or Persian language television channels from London and from Washington elsewhere are an important platform for providing information in terms of what's going on in Iran today. Some of these Iranian diaspora media platforms get foreign government money, no doubt about it. You can't deny it. Does that mean that foreign intelligence services are therefore the ones who own this protest movement? That's where I disagree. Yes, there are players in it, but they're not really running the show. Are foreign governments vested in the outcome of the protest? Of course they are. Of course they are, but, as I said, the anger could not have been created by one intelligence agency or another. This is the doing of Khamenei himself, and he knows it.
Speaker 2:I want to shift gears just a little bit to talk about the liberal democratic response to authoritarian regimes, because I think if we were to dice up the world into this dichotomy between liberal democracy and authoritarianism writ large I suppose, and a lot of different forms of each fall into those categories. But at any rate one has to be a response to the other in order for them to be distinct. If authoritarians rule by fiat, then liberal democracy's response is that it's better to have rule by consensus or general vote, etc. Compared to things like the hijab in Western countries.
Speaker 2:I think there's this narrative that strict religious dress codes in theocratic nations are oppressive and maybe even represent human rights violations. Then the response that you see in the Western world is an example is what happened in France, where Muslim head coverings were banned. But I think there's this other perspective that women practicing Islam may actually be doing so willingly and see it as a true representation of their faith and don't necessarily in certain circumstances feel oppressed. I think in many cases aren't oppressed. The difference here is between coercion and choice. My thought is that the Western world struggles, and maybe gets it wrong often, on how to respect individual religious expression but also balance individual autonomy and liberty. I'm just wondering what are your thoughts here? Is there a better way that the West or liberal democracy itself could better support expression like this without outright demonizing or outlawing a religion?
Speaker 1:Right? No, I mean, it's a really big topic. If I could just simplify it. I think you see what you just mentioned being reflected in the responses we've seen in the United States to the anti-hijab protests in Iran. Many on the right have seen this as a condemnation or reason to condemn the religion of Islam. The root causes of it is the religion of Islam. It's a totalitarian ideology, essentially, and not a religion. On the left, you've seen, frankly, not enough response in support of these protesters. Perhaps maybe they're fearing that if they come too forcefully on the side of the protesters, they might come through regretted because some of these protesters, if you're looking at it from a left perspective, might turn out to be right-wing activists, which I think is the wrong reading of.
Speaker 1:I think what you're seeing in Iran when they're burning that, as we've seen, we're burning the veil is symbolic. They're not burning the veil as a choice that some religious Muslim women might want to make and, by the way, not just Muslim women. You also have Christian and Jewish women who oftentimes put on the veil because it's in the Old Testament and the New Testament as well. So what I'm saying is you have really, essentially, a fight here. As you put it, it's about being forced to do something or choose to do something. I, as someone who watched these protests in Iran, I haven't seen although there have been cases of some Quran being burned by some of the protesters, but there have been few examples of that. The majority of the protesters are asking for being able to choose how they dress and be left alone, because I think that's a personal choice issue. So it is a fight about human dignity at its core being able to choose versus being compelled forcefully so, and that's what the fight is about.
Speaker 1:I can see why, if you're sitting in some of these other open-minded Muslim majority countries, that what you're seeing in Iran will be viewed as tarnishing the image of Islam, and I get that. But you also have to understand the frustration of this younger generation of Iranians that they need to find ways to keep their movement alive, to fuel it, to fuel one another. They've been at it now for a month now. It's incredible that they have stayed in the streets for over a month without a single leader. There's no leadership here. So I think we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that the hijab is not about the hijab per se. It's about the ideology of Islamic Republic. That is essentially, in a nutshell, their way or the highway. And now they're feeling the response from a younger generation that doesn't want to put up with that anymore. They don't want to just live the way these clerics at the top tell them to. They have their own ideas.
Speaker 2:Would it be unfair to characterize this movement as being a battle between theocracy and secularism?
Speaker 1:Look, it is a culture war, but I think it's more than that. I would say about 85% of the Iranians in this country of 85 million people are believers in a different political future. They don't want the Islamic Republic. So you got 15% of this country, but this 15% are the ones who have access to power, money and the guns. So that's why you have a culture war, because the majority that wants a different way of life on all levels have to overcome this minority that happens to be well-funded, well-armed and ready to go out there and crack that and has done it so many times over the years. They've practiced this for so long. But it is. It is, john. It is a country that isn't. If it ever was and I'm not sure if there was a case, if, but if it was a country that signed up freely to live the sort of theocratic system today is not the case anymore. This generation doesn't want to live in a theocracy.
Speaker 1:When the old man at the top, harmony, dies and we all do is eventually leave. When he dies, the ones who, if he survives that long, the ones who come after him and again, if there is another leader after him, they have a choice to make. They have a choice to make, because it's very obvious and, by the way, don't take my word for it. I mean listeners who speak Persian. They can watch Iranian state-run TV. They have debates every single day of the week among Iranian sociologists, psychologists, you name it, who sit there and say things like you're saying. You're hearing me say that the regime has disconnected from the people, that they've lost the youth. They don't know how to deal with the youth. They don't know if for salon is the way forward. So these are some serious issues that certainly the leadership after Harmony has to wrestle with.
Speaker 2:It doesn't feel to me and you can correct me if you think I'm wrong but it doesn't feel to me, like the choices here between two moderate options, that it could go either way. What it feels like. There are two very extreme potential outcomes to what's happening in Iran right now, and one is revolution, outright revolution, and maybe the overthrowing or replacement of the Ayatollah system in the Islamic Republic. The other is and this is something you've written about Iran is investing in developing a surveillance state that mirrors China's, and these are two very polar opposite outcomes for Iran, and so I guess I'm asking you to prognosticate a bit. Where do you think Iran goes from here?
Speaker 1:Again, I'll look back at the history of the place. So my biggest hope is always this sort of very rich Iranian civil society. The Shah of Iran when he was toppled, I believe he had the fourth or the fifth largest armed forces in the world and he couldn't stay in power. And I don't think it doesn't matter how many guns Khamin-e has put together If he doesn't find a way to somehow regain some legitimacy. And I think he's pretty much lost everything with a majority of Iranian people and I frankly don't think he can recover. So I don't think we should expect Khamin-e to do any compromising, nothing serious. There might be some adjustments here and there in order to sort of reduce tensions, but at the end of the day, it's the post-Khamin-e leadership that has the real decision to make. They can remain on the path they've been on confronting the region, the United States, confronting their own people, pursuing policies that very few Iranians have any time for. As Iranian joke drag us to heaven at any cost. Policy has to come to an end. If people don't want to go to heaven, let them be. So, in other words, if you have a regime that and it requires a major adjustment, it basically would be a whole new chapter in the life of the Islamic Republic Nation building at home far less focus on Islam, religion and cultural engineering and focusing on basic things that people want economic opportunities and being left alone to live a life the way they choose to live. If we got there, this regime could prolong the stay in power. If not, then it's very difficult to see how they can continue being on this path.
Speaker 1:But I mean I also have to say this one has to be humble. We've seen protests before. It's easy to say this is a revolution. We shouldn't forget this is a system that has had decades to practice suppressing its own people. It's a system that has some pretty big foreign friends in Russia and China who do not want to see Iran fall and become what it used to be a friend of the United States. They like to keep you, you as an Iran, as enemies. That works for China and Russia. So there are lots of other factors here, sean, but you look into the day. This is a country that has no time for its leadership and the challenge for the leadership is just if they can find a way back into the hearts of their own people. I doubt they can, and then time will show what will happen.
Speaker 2:Okay, alex. One final question what's something interesting you've been reading, watching, listening to or doing lately, and it doesn't have to be related to this topic?
Speaker 1:Oh, you got me. I am going to come out as a real geek here, because all I do is read Iranian, state-run Persian language sources, which is almost guaranteed no use to any of your listeners, but that's what I do. So my kind of day job and, essentially these days, my hobby, are one. So there you have it.
Speaker 2:Alex, thanks for this conversation. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:My pleasure, sean. Thanks very much, I enjoyed it, thanks.
Speaker 2:I found myself hedging on the future here. I've lived long enough to see movements fizzle out, tangible gains erased in time and strong men entrench themselves, scorching the earth and ruining their people. I mean, it's happening today Syria, egypt, tunisia, russia, china, the Philippines. So it remains to be seen what might happen in Iran and who can say what might fill the void of a deposed Ayatollah and his regime, but it's clear that there is mass anger in Iran. And where does that go? It doesn't seem like it fits back into a bottle. So maybe this is the moment that Iranians can recapture their destiny. And wouldn't it be nice, in a world dominated by people like Donald Trump, jair Bolsonaro, xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, single-mindedly determined to disrupt a peaceful world order and, in doing so, rain down fury and destruction on their own people? Wouldn't it be nice, amidst all that, that the spark of something hopeful and liberating would come from Iran, of all places? Ok, check back next Friday, and every Friday, for a new episode of Deep Dive Chat. Soon, folks.