Revolution

Welcome to Shield of the Republic. A podcast sponsored by The Bulwark and the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia and dedicated to the proposition articulated by Walter Littman during World War two that a strong and coherent foreign policy is the shield of our Democratic Republic. I’m Eric Edelman, counselor at the center for strategic and budgetary assessments. And a nonresident fellow at the Miller Center and a contributor to the Bulwark. And I’m joined as always by my colleague, Elliot Cohen, the Osgood professor of Strategy at the school advanced international studies of Johns Hopkins University and the Arleigh Burke Chair of Strategy at CSIS.

Elliott, how are you? I’m doing just fine. I’m coming into the

last five weeks of my teaching career, which is I’m a special sort of moment. Before we get launched, Eric, I thought something I’ve been meaning to do for Wiles to give a shout out to the the team that works in the backroom of the shield of the Republic. To sheikatiri and to Robert Edelman who make the two of us sound a lot better than we really are. Don’t you think

Absolutely. And I’m I’m hopeful that Shay may interrupt us at time from time to time because our subject today is one he actually has lived through as a political refugee from Iran. We’re gonna be doing something new and different for children. Republic, we’ve spent you and I a lot of time and we are talking about out Ukraine and and Russia for a good and sufficient reason over the last nine months or so. But there are some pretty serious developments going on In Iran, we’re now in the 53rd day of protests since the murder by the religious police of the morality police in Iran.

Of a young Kurdish woman, twenty two year old, which has sparked enormous unrest, probably the greatest unrest in Iran since the formation of the Islamic Republic since the seventy eight seventy nine revolution. And We have as our guest today, Ray Take, who is the Sabahoe at the center They counsel and foreign relations, I should say. Ray is a first class Euronist. He’s been my co author, he’s been your co author, the three of us have written together. Ray has written a number of books.

I won’t bore our audience with how many on Iran. Heals a PhD from Oxford and has written one thing I do want to draw attention to our audience that he has written a very good book, The Last Shaw, about the US Iranian relationship under the policy regime in the fall of the shots. Now in paper back, a Yale University press paper back, so easily accessible to listeners at Amazon. He’s also written a couple of columns about what’s happened recently, including one recently in the Wall Street Journal with Rural Direct, but also, on his own, a terrific article in this month’s commentary called a Second Iranian Revolution And he’s also the co author with me of a little known book called After The Revolution about the Search for an Iranian policy in recent years. So welcome Ray.

Thank thanks very much for having me. This is certainly an illustrious group to be part of. And after doing a lot of podcast, I’m finally ready for the NBA. Right?

It’s it’s great to have you have you with us, shame on us for not getting you here earlier. I was wondering if I could put a question actually to you and also to Eric who’s been following this very closely. You know, I think most of us who were following foreign policy very closely have been fixated on the Russia Ukraine war. Of course, there’s our own turbulent politics that we pay lots of attention to. But I wonder if you could just help us, remind us of you know, what’s the scale of the violence of the repression?

And in general, just what’s the status of this? Because it is It is clearly a tremendous set of events. And, you know, you’ve written about it, putting in the context of seventy eight, seventy nine, but I think would be helpful for us just to know where where do we stand right now?

So Over to you, Greg. Thanks. First of all, on September sixteen, miss I mean, he was killed by morality police and this sparked nationwide protest. But if you look at the summer in Iran, It was actually a very turbulent summer. I remember early in the summer calling actually Royal Garek saying there’s something deeply corrosive and problematic about the summer in Iran.

Everybody was protesting. The farmers were protesting about lack of water, the retirees, the teachers, the the merchant class, the women were protesting because for various reasons, the regime decided that this was a time where they were going to rigorously enforce religious attire at the time in summertime when it was a heat wave. So there was something a spark waiting to happen. And this I mean, is that September actually led to massive protests and essentially bought all these individual sectors that were protesting together in some sort of a cohesive nationwide movement. Since then, we have seen protests throughout the country The Islamic Republic unlike the Charles regime is actually quiet at depth at dealing with popular protests because it’s dealt with them since nineteen seventy nine.

In various forms that has to deal with popular protests industries. The shoulder regime really had not dealt with street protests since nineteen sixty four. So when they took place, it was flat footed. The Islamic Republic has had us as as mentioned much experience. And they have a kind of a well developed strategy for dealing with this.

Number one, sort of a quick use of violence as a means of deterrence. Then cutting off the demonstrations from one another by disabling social media connections, and then waiting for entrepreneur. That playbook as implemented did not work, has not worked, and that has the regime rather unsettled, so they essentially trying to figure out how to deal with this. Some human rights group have suggested as much as three hundred people have died, been killed. So the regime is using incremental violence.

That’s enough to create mortars, but not necessarily to create or establish some sort of a deterrent system. And finally, what we seeing in regime today, when you get arrested, you get rapidly released in most cases because they don’t want a scene in the prison like they had and they don’t want demonstrations outside the prison because the average age of protesters is between sixteen twenty five and so you are seeing a seventeen year old female adolescent, you Iran, and that creates a problematic situation for you. I will say two things that we have noticed in these protests. Number one, the various social classes have come together a single banner. They’re not protesting for individual or for pay or for benefits, but for dignity and autonomy.

And they seem to have lost a sense of fear that all autocratic regimes require in order to maintain discipline. So there’s obstacles in the way of the opposition. There’s obstacles in the way of the regime as they both try to navigate the situation. Which is quite unpredictable at this point. I do believe and I think I have said this in the in maybe in the commentary piece that we’re in some kind of a revolutionary stage where we are in that revolutionary trajectory honestly will be best understood in retrospect when you kind of look back and you realize what the inflection points were and not.

So that’s essentially where we are as this event continues to unfold. There

are two things that you kind of talk about in your article. One is, which I think would be very interesting for people to hear about in more detail. First, you talk about the similarity between the situation today in the seventies, which is to stay we’re in a period of high global inflation international energy crisis, a crisis brought about by Russian expansion as we had in the late. 70s with Afghanistan, etcetera. I’d I’d really be interested in hearing you talk about what’s the same and what’s different today from then.

And then the other thing you talk about is the difficulty that Shaw’s regime had in the late seventies and getting people in the military to actually kill their fellow Iranians. And that became really as you describe it and as both in this and in your terrific book. As the Achilles heel, really, of the regime. It’s inability despite the fearsome reputation of the Iranian military and the Iraq police, its inability to actually really bring force to bear on people because the shaw wouldn’t do

it. And,

you know, what’s what’s happening with this regime? Because up till now, they’ve been willing to kill people and, you know, really reasonably high numbers if necessary to try and as you put it, get people to back off, get protesters to back off.

But

How is that? Could I just how is it? Yeah. I could’ve been Elliott, please. No.

I I just

wanna pile onto that because, you know, I remember watching with Hara in two thousand nine. As, you know, you saw these, on the one hand, these very promising large scale demonstrations. And then, you know, just clear that the regime was very, very talented at repression, and they had the technology and they had the technique down. And so they were eventually able to crush it. But this does seem different.

And I was just wondering why. Howard Bauchner:

Well, the similarities between now and late seventies are kind of pronounced, really. In both cases, by the way, Erica had aging leaders dying of cancer. Shaw got cancer in nineteen seventy four, and Ali Harmony has suffering from cancer as well. In both cases, you have very provocative class cleavages. In both cases, you had high degree of corruption.

In both cases, you had almost severance of relationship between state and society in a sense that the state had a narrative for world’s happening and the society had another one. In both cases, you had economic decline, but cyclical economic decline, I think, can be exaggerated as a source for rubber agitation

because all

countries have cyclical economic decline. In late nineteen seventy Turkey had a greater degree of economic decline than Iran did. What

was

similar what is similar between the two cases is in the late nineteen seventies. And today, the economic decline, it is accompanied by certain psychological neuroses,

namely

that the Iranian people in both cases are saying, the good times are over forever and I didn’t get mine. And the only people that got ahead were those with connections to the regime and the corruption. I think corruption is more gully and glaring when it’s by a government of God, a government of God that insists on on on sacrifice and discipline.

In

both cases, you had leaders Dishaw and Harmony embarking on a certain legacy project. Dishaw was worried about his son taking over and therefore tried to expedite the opening of the system without understanding what that means. And Ali Harmony has embarked on his own exercise legacy exercise by trying to refashion the economy in order to make it more resilient to sanctions, international pressure, and also purging the elite. Only the most reliable elements have stayed. So in this case, Iran actually has something in common with president Putin’s Russia and president Xi.

They both have urged their elite and therefore, it becomes more insular and less less capable of dealing with this. Now, what is different between use of code. Here, use of violence. Here, we get into some area of controversy because it has been my contention that the Islamic Republic actually doesn’t like to use violence against his people.

Even

though it has done so, it tends to, in my view, review as security services with some degree of skepticism and hesitancy. Because after all, this is a conscript force. Even the revolutionary guards, which are one hundred and twenty five thousand people. I think about ten to fifteen percent of them are officer corps and the remaining one hundred thousand or so, about sixty thousand are cost scripts and the other forty thousand are volunteers. Now they volunteer for a variety of reasons.

Benefits access to universities, and in some cases just they believe in the system.

And hundred

twenty five thousand people, by the way, is not enough to deal with the national protest movement if it’s disciplined. And and continuous. And if you’re looking at Iran today, they actually have been hesitant to use the revolutionary guards they’ve been using the various police forces and and so on and so forth. What another aspect that makes violence in this particular case more difficult is because you have to shoot

women. And you have

to shoot adolescent females in some respects. Women six it’s hard for a conscript to shoot a sixty year old. And it’s a situation they have to deal with every day when a sixteen year old comes and cuts her hair and says death to Harmony. And this is a situation you encounter every day. And one of the things that the Charles regime was most concerned regarding his military And one of the things that his generals were most concerned was as you deployed the military to the street day after day, the psychological battering.

That they would take the demoralization and the difficult task of repressed in civilian populations day in and day out. The the the psychological pressure was huge in terms of the conception of controlling the society. I do believe now as I said, this is the point of some degree of contention and controversy. There are those who believe that the Islamic Republic is ruthless and can’t actually enforces mandate through the use of force. I tend to be more skeptical of that.

If you look at how they have dealt with ethnic enclaves, they’ve been more ruthless than they are in the rest of the country. To some extent that maybe resonates with the experience of the Shaw’s generals and the Shaw himself who were reluctant to use force because they were not entirely certain of the reliability of their security forces. And as this thing evolves and matures, if it mature is, by the way, then the regime is gonna have a very difficult security challenge in front of it and has to deal with the same psychological backlash and prospects of demoralization that the Charles machine dealt with. I mean, you Eric and Elliott, do you know military is better than I do? I it is my opinion that military is national armies don’t like to shoot their own people.

That’s a difficult task for them to discharge. And particularly given the fact that this is a useful protest movement, although it features other classes as well as it enlarges. That’s a difficult task to do it. I think it was difficult for the Chinese to do it in TMS Square. So this is a heavy burden on the security services in my opinion.

Now there are others who believe that you can call upon the military and actually repress these demonstrations should should choose to do so. My question is why they haven’t done

so? They

they don’t want this to go

on. This

is and it keeps going on. There’s a lot of protests. There’s a lot of members of the elite who are beginning to defect suddenly. I think Elle and I wrote about that. So as this mature, the regime’s elite cohesion attenuates the regime’s security forces become battered and you begin to see fishers within their ruling body, if not the political society.

So they don’t want this to continue. Yet it continues and they haven’t been able to stop it. To the use of force and the determination that is often attributed to them. But I I fully am aware of the fact that there are different points

of view on this issue. Is it continuing at the same level? Right? That is, you know, you you said that the regime’s strategy depends on the idea that you

know,

after a few months, these things peter out. Is that happening?

Well,

it’s it’s it’s exhaustive because the demonstrations may not be large, but they’re persistent. So you still have to essentially use your security forces to disperse them because if not, they continue and continue. This is not to suggest that the opposition’s path to power is easy or effortless or without obstacles. The the social protest movements usually don’t succeed. It’s very rare actually that they do.

The challenges before the opposition are actually quite significant. Number one, it really has to develop some kind of a leadership Every revolution requires revolutionaries. It has to be more persistent in a sense that it has to enlarge and encompass more other social classes. And it has to be willing to confront the regime all the time. I mean, you know, all revolutions ebb and flow, and this will also ebb in two weeks there’s soccer and everybody in the country gonna be in the house.

So I do think the most formidable challenge that the movement has is to develop some kind of a leadership, some kind of a platform. Without that, it’s hard for me to see how they would succeed. So the obstacles in in front of the in front of this protest movement are not insignificant in any way. And they they have embarked on a journey who, honestly, whose conclusions are uncertain? I wanna bring

Shay and Rey in a second because I think he may have a somewhat contrary view to to what you just articulated. But before we bring Shayenne, you make a fascinating point in the commentary article. About the rec cinema —

Yep.

— prior in the summer of, I think, it was August seventy eight. And — Yeah. You make the point by the way, which I think is important that that fire in the end turned out to have been started actually by by Islamist Yeah. But that Romania used it very effectively to depict the shah as, you know, ineffective uncaring and The point you make that I think is relevant here is that it became an inflection point because a lot of people who were sitting on the fence about the regime and it’s future decided at that point that the regime was doomed and that they would throw in there a lot with the revolution at large, which at the time was not just home any and Islamist, but also Liberals and and bourgeoisie and the Bazaar and a bunch of other factors as well. So

are we at

that kind of inflection point here? I mean, is this is this a point where people are gonna kind of basically make their ultimate judgment about whether they want this regime to continue or not? Or are we somewhere, you know, short of that?

The rec cinema was a movie theater in Abadon. And it was shown a film. I think, dear, it was an experimental version of film that had finally managed to get by a sense and about four hundred seventy people I think were killed in that act of arson. It was the the most egregious act of arson in history of Iran up to that time. And one of the things that Harmony and Opposition has managed to do is to suggest that Ghosn was responsible for that.

And that essentially undermined this Sean’s ability to negotiate with the opposition because he was viewed as unreliable, and anybody who can set his own people on fire cannot be reliable internal auditor in in in sort of expansion of the the representation. Yes. What I suggested and by the way, Eric, if you go back to August seventy eight, and one of the things that the Islamic Republic has done is release a lot of the shah’s government’s records, including the records of the secret police. Which I have right here and back if you can see them. And if

you if

you look at the sum up files from August nineteen seventy eight, there’s no indication that anybody thought that was inflection point.

If you look

at the US State Department and CIA traffic at that time, there was no indication that anybody thought this was an inflection point.

When I’m

trying to say inflection points become inflection points in retrospect, when you kind of see it, I said, okay, that was the time when demonstrations went from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands. That was the time when the Iranian people in large measure believed that the monarchy was irredeemable. But in a lot of ways, that’s a retrospective judgment. Now, I tend to, in the commentary, if he speculated that miss Amy’s debt, had a similarly galvanizing effect for the following reason. Because it was the first time that the Iranians were not protesting for their own benefit For instance, the farmers are in today press protesting because they lack water, because they regime diverse water resources for industrial purposes.

They’re all under the same slogan, women autonomy, liberty, and so on. So everybody has kind of come together under the same slogan. We have gone from parochial class protests to a citizenry. We’re all against this regime so they have subsumed their individual grievances under the same banner of opposition to regime an extinction of the regime. Not reform, not dialogue, not anything, but the Islamic Republic must go rued a branch.

And you didn’t see that. Before. You didn’t see that in two thousand and nine where it was about franchise, and it was about voting, and and that that the protest didn’t mature. You didn’t see that in two thousand nineteen, which before this, the regime has had to identify as the most serious protests it faced because it was a vote of the poor. And the Islamic Republic, like the communist party, don’t like revolt of the labor class.

Because, you know, Hubble and playwrights are one thing, but solidarity is a whole different thing. Charter seventy seven is one thing, but solidarity is different. So but today, all the so all the protesting classes have come together under the same banner and for the same purpose. That doesn’t mean they succeed, but that hadn’t happened before.

And this is

what to Elliott’s point makes this different from previous round of protests as significant as they were. Because in the previous round of protest, the Islamic Republic systematically shed constituencies. In ninety nine and thousand nineteen, two thousand seventeen, two thousand nineteen, but now everybody has come together into the same banner. To me, that’s novel, new, and dangerous for the regime. Now she would like to have say something a disagreement with me, but it was my understanding that that is not permissible.

My contract sit, that’s not permissible. I don’t know.

I mean, you know. Shay, you have a view, an alternate view?

Yes.

So if you

don’t I mind I mind very much, Rob. I just said it. No. I’m just good. No.

I was talking about

Eric, if he doesn’t mind. I I want to draw another parallel between nineteen seventies and today, which is

In the

nineteen sixties, we pretty much we, the United States, forced certain land reform policies on the Shaw. That results in massive unemployment, peasants come to the city and see a tension of values between the elites. And the regime, which is very secular, and the peasants who are very religious. We are seeing the same tension tension between values, again today, between their regime now that is very religious and a nation that is very secular. So That’s another piece of the puzzle to add.

But the difference between the nineteen seventies and today is that There was almost a millennium ago, a an Iranian political theorist, Anizamo Moll, who wrote a book called Story Of Politics. And he writes that the right way to govern and how Iran has traditionally been governed is to have parallel institutions to rival against each other, so non plot against you. And if one does, the other one comes to your rescue. And that was not how the shotgun, which allowed for and it was very unified. And Iran doesn’t does have that autosomal mode theory of parallel security forces.

Today, you have two I mean, two intelligence agencies. You have two military, you have to put police forces essentially. And within them, they are also faction wise. I like to say that Iran is a Macedonian autocracy, actually. And if you go back to nineteen eighty, I believe, there was an attempted crude boy artist, their regular military.

And after that, it’s the Nujik who after that, the head of the IRGC is replaced and Mohan Raziel who’s still a senior person in the regime. Becomes the head of the IRGC completely repurposes it, and it becomes the monster that it has become today to become a rival of Arthesh because the regime realized Arthesh cannot be relied on

The Arthesh being the the regular army.

Yes. Yes. The regular military. And you have the IRGC to be a rival, and you have, again, the factions within the IRGC. And I I just I wonder Ray to in your analysis, is there any possibility that all levers of the IRGC would give up.

And then on top of that, they must add that you have the Mosaic defense doctor and that they implemented it. To pretty much defend against us to have an insurgency in case of a US invasion. But that mosaic defense could be used against revolutionaries too? First of all,

you you you began by suggesting correctly that the population was secular about the regime’s religion. But the regime is religious in an extraordinary

hypocritical way.

In a sense that it’s religious in terms of presentation, but it’s profoundly corrupt. And that, as I said, doesn’t sit well with the population or anybody given the massive level of corruption, which actually impedes economic

growth. What

I would say about the security forces as such, and this is very difficult because we don’t know a whole lot about them and how they structured and so forth.

But if

you look at the regime’s conduct since these demonstrations began, the latest demonstrations, and the regime’s rhetoric suggest that these are manufactured from abroad, the United States, Israel, Saudi Arabia, and so forth. That narrative is contested within the Islamic Republic self. It’s actually denied across the board, and some of the most trenching criticism of the regime’s narrative comes from the Iranian press has a Rouhani’s own webpage and so on. But the regime’s rhetoric is maximalist, but this conduct has actually been more permissive. And they tend to arrest people and release them.

And even the way they’re beginning to talk about the protests, Alicomini did so I think on Friday when he met with students. They’re suggesting that these are foreign inspired but you who are protesting are still our

children. So you

aren’t, and we want we want to we want to essentially bring you back to the fold and bring you in the gap between rhetoric and conduct is called the credibility gap. And this is what undid the short to some extent is, you know, his conduct and rhetoric did not sit together and and and that actually emboldened the

opposition. So

if you’re looking at what the regime is doing, if you’re an average citizen in any country, in any repressive state,

The hardest

thing for you to do is decide when to become a resident,

and

potentially an oppositionist. The journey from a disgruntled

citizen to

a dissident to an opposition It’s a very difficult journey to make. It’s a profoundly difficult choices for people to abandon their allegiances. And this speed by which the Iranians have made that is actually quite extraordinary. If you look at the seventy eight seventy nine revolution,

the

call for end of the monarchy doesn’t really come until fall of nineteen seventy

eight. Before

that, there’s Romini is a maximalist, but almost everybody else was willing to negotiate with the shop. So in that particular sense, I think the regime seems to lack confidence in the security services. Because otherwise, they wouldn’t suddenly change narratives from these are foreign inspired, the head of the revolutionary guard general Islami said, everybody go home no more protests to, oh, our Aaron children, let’s talk about this. This

kind of

a tentativeness I think only emboldens people toward joining the opposition as opposed to not. So in that sense, the regime’s conduct is some way similar to the show in the sense that it it it is unsure about how to deal with the protesters And in my opinion, it is unsure about this capability to repress. And this is why suddenly you’ve seen change in the rhetoric, which actually paradoxically will embolden the opposition, in my opinion, as

opposed to tranquilize it. I very much take your point, Ray, about, you know, you you don’t know the inflection point until you look at it with hindsight. But having said that, I don’t wanna let you off the hook. And I was wondering if you’d be willing to just speculate a bit on what are the ways which this could unfold in such a way that the regime ends up, you know, even either being ejected or somehow so transformed that we’re we’re effectively dealing with very different Iranian state than the one we’ve been dealing with, you know, for the last forty odd years. Yeah.

I hate shaking speakers. I don’t believe the Islamic Republic can transform.

I don’t believe

it

can reform. So I don’t think anybody in Iran thinks it can reform self. Nobody’s asking for reform. Nobody’s asking for, you know, elections and referendums and publicized SMEs of expansion of the political space. That was a nineteen nineties argument that is largely exhausted.

So there’s no reforming of the system. As far as his constituents are concerned, Now there

are

kind of there are kind of two ways of looking at these up pricings. And as I said, we’re in middle of it. And beginning of it or somewhere in it, so it’s difficult. Is the new Iranian revolution, a twentieth century revolution, or a twenty first century revolution? How would I mean by that?

In twentieth century revolutions, you had, whether it’s the Russian, the Chinese, the Iranian, the Cubans, or whatever. You had actually small percentage of the population participating. I think in nineteen eighty nine, it was one percent. I think in case of Iran, in nineteen seventy eight seventy nine, it was three four percent. And you had a social protest movement and revolutionists with European ideas, whether there were masks, and sort of mastering the historical forces or is the redemptive politics of Islamism or anti colonialism, algeria and sort of a re return to tradition.

And so, I mean, those revolutions succeeded. It was a wooden branch because a new vision came in, new institutions, and new elites. The twenty first century revolutions to the extent that we have an example would be the Arab spring. An action, if you look at Arab spring, the popular participation was far greater than twentieth century revolutions. And Tunisia was sixteen percent.

In Egypt, it was eight percent. But these were young people connected to social media without overarching organization and they were not there for Rouda branch or Rouda branch revolution. So first of all, is which is this? Are we looking at a twenty first century movement or a twentieth century movement. To understand inflection points, you have to kind of try to anchor

it. I

tend to anchor it in Iran’s onyx experience. I tend to look at this sort of prism of nineteen seventy seventy nine, which by the way may not be the right prism.

But that’s

how I look at it within a national context. Now, so once you kind of figure out what kind of a revolution this is, then you can respond to the question of how does this end? What comes afterwards? If they manage to succeed, then I think we have a very different event. I think within Iran itself, there are ingredients for participatory politics.

There is civil society. The Persians are forever organizing themselves in groups. Trade unions, lawyer gills, doctor’s gills, even forty diplomats signed a letter opposing the Ukraine policy of the regime. So there are not to be polyanish about this, but there are ingredients within the Iranian society in terms of literacy in terms of political participation of past forty years and some degree of political maturity so they can create institutions of some measure of participation. If you look at the Iranian history, in twentieth century and into twenty first century, this sort of a mega theory of history in my opinion.

It’s a struggle between the population seeking accountable government and regimes that don’t wish for that to seat. That’s attention in Iranian history. And in most cases, the national governments win. They didn’t win nineteen seventy nine, but they ultimately win. So that historical journey is what is I I I attached this revolutionary movement to that historical aspiration.

Accountable government. Now what representative modality would take? I don’t know whether it be very different than the current Islamic regime. So I don’t think it will reform. If it collapses, I think it’s root and branch.

But so much of this at this point is speculation. That is almost difficult to answer that question with any degree of precision. And I realize that’s very frustrating. It’s frustrating for your listeners. It’s frustrating for everybody else.

To say, well, we’re in the middle of a movement whose conclusion is uncertain, but we’re hopeful that it will succeed. Ray, let me

I I

I guess,

you know, I tend to be optimistic about the future. Yeah.

But let me ask you

this, though. The generally optimistic picture you paint. Of, you know, robots like Iranian civil society, which is something we wrote about in the article you and I wrote for foreign affairs two years ago, which advocated regime change as an affirmative US policy objective for Iran. Well, Eric,

it advocated not regime change is supporting the Iranian people in their quest to change their regime. Correct. Yeah. But there

is

a Eric, there’s a subtle difference there. There is a subtle

difference, although it’s been endorsed by the president of the United States now who said the Iranians are gonna change their regime and we’re all for it. Even though his staff minions like everything else he says have tried to walk it back, So so my question though to you is this, you

said in

your comments that we have to sort of figure out, is this a kind of twentieth century revolution or twenty first century. If you compare the outcome you’ve described,

that’s very different from what we’ve

seen in the Arab spring, where I think most people would say what’s happened, you know, after a decade of political turmoil in the Arab countries is in the end of the day not much change, you know. Right? Right. Exactly. Exactly.

If you if you look at Tunisia or Egypt or certainly Syria but other places. It has not been much change. So this is kind of different, and is that difference because of their persians, not Arabs? Or what what’s the difference? Well, if

you look at what the Egyptian protest movement was calling for. They were calling for change of personnel. And when president Mobaric resigned, the committee of coordination, whatever it was called said, okay, everybody go home because the military agreed to civilian transition, and then the military aborted that civilian transition.

So you

take Egypt, they were not actually calling for dismantling of the state’s institution. They were calling for a change of personnel. And, you know, other other other grievances as well, like corruption and and so forth and so on. That’s not the demand

of

the street in Iran today.

They’re calling for

the extinction and end of their machine. So right there, Eric, the demands of the two protest movements are different.

There are

similarities.

The similarities at this point, both were driven by young people. Had the sympathy support of other classes. The but the Egyptian and Tunisian revolution had support of the poor, the women they agree that everybody else. But they’re similar in a sense that at this point, the engine that moving this forward are the

young people. They are

similar in a sense that the point of connection is social media, and they

are similar in a

sense that they don’t have identifiable

leaders. They’re

different in terms of the national

experience

that has led to the rise of this movement. I don’t say that Iranian protest moon began in September two thousand twenty two. I say it

begins much

late, the Islamic Republic has persistently shed constituencies. And now all those constituencies have amalgamated under a single umbrella. So in

the national

context that has produced these protests movements,

are different

than those of Tunisia and Egypt, but there are also similarities. This is not, as I said, there is no reason at this point to suggest that the collapse of the Islamic Republic is immediate. There is reason to suggest that the durability of the

regime that

was taken for granted in Western and Electrical Circle up to two

weeks ago. It

can’t be a question. As you mentioned, it was a question by the president of the United States. And others. So that’s the change. But but yeah, I mean I mean, there are similarities and there are differences.

And as I said, when I was trying to think whether they’re twentieth century for twenty first century revolution, you can take different points of view, pick one or the other at this point. But certainly, I I I think there are resonances between the two the Arab Spring and the Iranian protest movement as well. And that that that’s a negative situation.

Yeah. Can I add on more point of pessimism? The Am I all the revolutionary here?

You’re welcome. You you you stumbled into a den of pessimists. I’m afraid. Right? That’s it’s one of the common themes.

I’m afraid of shielded Republic at least for the last year. The

other point I want to add is a difference between the the current situation for regime elites and the Shaw. And his elite. Also, the Tunisian elite, let’s say, or the Egyptian elite, which is the revolutionaries are quite bloodthirsty against stealies of the regime, they have made it very clear that they will suffer quite severe consequences for their participation in a pressing people, and that’s a poll, but that’s a point well taken by the leaders in the Islamic Republic. And unlike the shah, who’s elite who remained in Iran suffered severe consequences by the people who are in charge right now and remember what happened. They don’t have anywhere to go, unlike Ben Ali who, I think, went to UAE, I think.

She also, like, sheites have very limited options to go. They cannot go to Los Angeles. And I’m not talking about the IRGC. I’m mostly talking about someone like the SD. Who is a clerk.

Autodocus you guys have few places to go. They cannot go to Iraq or Lebanon. Those countries are unstable and will become more hostile to Shiites after the Islamic Republic collapses. And they cannot go to Venezuela.

Okay. Russia. Why why can’t they go to Moscow? St. Petersburg.

No. They could go to Russia.

Okay. They

could replace some of the people that have left Russia because of the mobilization. But

but

here’s the question. One, you’re an orthodox chiites. There’s nochiite population. The second thing is that would you trust the stability of the putin regime right now? You

know, actually, you’ve you’ve actually gotten a Shea to a place. I wanted to go with Rae anyway. So let’s maybe explore that, which is the Russia Iran connection. I mean, Iran has emerged along with North Korea as one of the major military suppliers of Russia in the wake of the depletion of Russian stocks of precision guided munitions, the difficulty Russia is having replacing them because of sanctions and in particular of export controls, which has made it very difficult for them to get their hands on. Semiconductors, mean, the Iranians have a very highly developed system of sanctions evasion.

I think

in one of the articles you wrote with with your wife, Suzanne Maloney, who’s also a very important Iran expert, I think years ago in international affairs, you wrote that Iran is the most sanctioned country in the world. So they’ve had a long long time to develop kind of tools of sanctions evasion. They’ve developed these capable systems, the, you know, the Shahid one thirty six, the Muajir six, these drones, some with multiple warheads. I mean, these are very sophisticated systems, and they’re now talking about transferring actual medium range ballistic missile systems, Fanta one tens and and others to Russia. What is can you explain what drives that?

Is that Aback for the role Russia played in Syria in coordination. We’ve got some Soleimani or is it as Robin Wright recently suggested in New Yorker, or is it something thing something else going on here. Is this an access of authoritarians that’s emerging? What what exactly is going on?

The relationship with Russia is is important and contentious. As I mentioned, four d format diplomats signed a letter saying, why are we doing this? If you look at what the Iranians have done, you you cited it, they actually have send munitions and personnel into a a battle for arena outside the Middle East. Now that’s that talk about inflection points. That’s one of them in terms of their international orientation.

They are essentially aiding the Russian government’s aggression in Ukraine, and implicitly, they’re at more of a NATO. In in some implicit way. So why are they

doing this? I

don’t think you can look at this as merely a point in Russian, Iranian relationship.

Because if you look

at memoir literature and she tries to get me as many memoirs as he can, is that the Russians throughout the nuclear negotiation had always told the Iranians don’t count almost the security council. Do not count almost. And there

were a

lot of grievances about that. The Russians from the Iranian perspective and doesn’t rule on his mail This is on the

nuclear issue that you’re talking about in this Yeah. They

didn’t really did the relationship deepen at military, military level in the Syrian civil war, and now it has actually transcended beyond the Middle East. But here’s in my opinion, if you look at the some total of commentary coming out of Iran, Alibaba and others, they essentially are viewing the new partnership emerging between the new axis of evil, Iran, Russia, and China. That this is essentially a basis of new alliance. This alliance will have its own privileged trading zone. It will have its own banking

system. It will have its

own military relationship, and it will have its own animal cities, namely, toward the west. The purpose of this alliance would be to immunize all three countries from pressure from the west in terms of economic penetration and sanctions. So in this sense,

in the Iranian

conception, their involvement in Russia, it presages a new international system or a a soft system within the existing order. And in Harmony, after he said in his Friday speech that America is a declining power, and in new rising we see new rising powers. And all three leaderships, presidents Xi and Putin, and Ali Harmony tend to explain their predicament to the prism of conspiracies. And Ali Harmony has this crack about economic theory called economy of resistance which essentially empowers Iran in order for it to become self determined and autonomous. Amazingly enough, that seems to be president Xi’s economic policy.

So

you usually don’t wanna

emulate Abe Harmony’s economic system. Now I do think, Eric, that the Iranians are exaggerating this. I think they would benefit from this alignment more so than the rush and certainly the Chinese. But this idea of, as Shay said, eastern orientation, which actually began to evolve in two thousand five six a paradoxe enough by Alibaba Johnny, who’s not basically exiled. The idea of reorienting Iran to the eastern block And this actually creates more divisions between state and society because as the

state seeks

to

reorient its trading partners as strategic relationships to the east, the public is still very much western oriented. So

this actually

further redowns in my opinion to the disadvantage of the regime. Nobody in Iran can understand why the Islamic Republic is involving the Soviet Ukraine. And there’s very trenching commentary against that. Including in of Dorban news, which is Ali, which is Hassan Rouhani’s website. So this is something that you have to understand a certain conception evolving, which I do think, I don’t know, of your opinion.

So I do think the arrhenians are exaggerating the the birth of this new order and this new alignment. But I think I’m I’m situating the Russia move in that context, Eric, as opposed to

sort of a sort of intensification of cooperation in Syria. So if I could run with that for a bit, I mean, it seems to me, you know, that that given that that’s actually sort of a pipe dream. I mean — Right. — given what the Iranian economy is. Frankly, given what the Russian economy is, given deep historical and sympathies and so on and so forth.

You know, I look at this and I say, wow, this is really in America’s interest. To have that regime go down. And uncharacteristically, as an outsider who knows very little, I’m somewhat more optimistic because what you’ve been painting is a picture of a regime that is has only gotten more unpopular than is only found it more and more difficult to contain insurrectionary violence, which doesn’t fully trust its own security service and, you know, which has a society that is if anything more resolutely western looking than it was, before. So the first conclusion I draw from all this is that I have no idea what the CIA is doing to, you know, help further the revolution on, whatever it is, they ought to quintuple it, and get the Israelis to help out too. But I wonder if we might talk a little bit about What would the world like look like if the regime does go down?

You know, accepting that

that might be a

very bloody and chaotic event. And, you know, I guess, my you know, my feeling would be, from the point of view, the Iranian people, this would be a lot better ultimately. But but also, you know, for the point of view of what the world looks like, you know, and I’ve thrown, I guess, over to you, Eric, It seems to me there are all kinds of good things that flow from this. And I don’t just mean for the Middle East and the Persian Gulf, but the you know, the the broader relationship between the United States, Russia, and China, you know, if if that kind of butting alliances broken. If you don’t have the Iranians making mischief all over the world, if instead they become, you know, a partner that you can work with in in some measure, It just seems to me, it really has a potentially transformative effect on world orders.

So actually, let

me throw that at you, Eric, if I might. I know I I agree with that. And, I mean, I’m on other things, and this is a point that our former colleague at Sykes, Frank Fukuyama, has made about the Russia Ukraine conflict, which is the defeat of Russia in Ukraine. And therefore, by extension now because as Rae has just told us, Iran has gotten into

this fight on

the side of Russia and Ukraine. The, you know, support for the

Iranian people

to change the regime in a more democratic way. That changes the whole kind of a balance of forces in the in the autocracy democracy kind of side of of this, which I think is in world order terms, extremely important because we’ve been through, you know, a decade of what people have called the Democratic recession. This would be the first signs that democracy was really more on the offense rather than on the defense. And and this was a rate this was a a wave, the so called third wave of democratization in the late seventies and early eighties that Ronald Reagan rode as part of his foreign policy. So I think it’s got huge, you know, global order elements to it.

And and so, Ray, I mean, to Elliot’s point, What should the Biden administration be doing? Am I the only one who thinks that given what’s happening in the street of over two hundred cities in Iran. Given what Iran is doing that you’ve just described in conjunction with Russia and Ukraine, that it still makes sense to be pursuing a arms control arrangement in Vienna that was already formed. That that never And where does that that makes sense of the policy. I mean, the the good

answer is you’re not

alone, Eric.

Well, first of

all, Eric never made sense. Second of all, when people ask me, what should Biden administration do? I say in May, June two thousand and twenty, we wrote the article in which it went into all that, Eric, if you recall. What steps do you not

think you should

take? I did. So there is a blueprint. I I would say the following. First of all, there has been first of all, the rhetoric is important.

I do think the amplification of this speaking out about this and not not just just the president. I I think we tend to be too exclusive to just looking at the presidency. But, you know, every congressman, every senator, every every civil society activist, actors, musicians, I kind of like to think that the external support for the opposition in Iran ideally should look at the anti apartheid movements.

Which actually,

as you recall, Eric, pressured the government and even I even let the United States Senate to override president Reagan’s veto in nineteen eighty six on the anti apartheid measure, I believe. It’s one of the

one of the examples that people always use when they say sanctions actually can work and have a policy of, you know, effect.

So I think,

first of all, it is an obligation of all of us to be supportive. The president obviously matters more than I do. But it is not an obligation exclusive to the executive branch. It’s Congress, a state legislature, a civil society leader, this is university professors. It is all of us.

And if we come together, and that’s sort of a solidarity, I think that actually creates certain political realities, not to to deal with your question. This attempts to mobilize social media connectivity within the opposition. But let me just say one thing. As Shay knows, the security services also use social

media. They use WhatsApp

or WhatsApp, the clubhouse, whatever these things are. So as we expedite the ability of the opposition to stay connected, we should attempt to retard the ability of the security services to stay connected. So in that sense, finally, I will say I say two more things actually. Number one, as if some kind of a organization evolves, and by the way, Eric, it may have evolved already. And just not be obvious to me.

There may be some sort of an organizational network that’s driving this. Somebody came up with that slogan. You mean inside your own. That’s right. So as we wrote in the piece, we should try to essentially make connections

to that.

Finally, good to your arms control issue. This is not an arms control affair today. It never was. There is no arms control that we could or should accept I think the worst thing that the United States can do at this point is to enter the negotiations and prospectively some kind of an agreement. And here’s what I would say, there’s one thing that the Iranian regime is doing that’s very clever.

It is

doing two things

on the nuclear front. First of all, they’re expanding the nuclear activities. Advanced centrifuges and so on. At the same time, at least four times publicly, they have asked for negotiations. Publicly.

The EU representative, Iran’s ambassador to EU submitted a request to the European Union for negotiations, the head of the atomic agency on two occasions called for resumption of negotiations, and the spokesperson for foreign ministry has done so at least on two occasions. This is what they’re saying publicly. And as you know, Eric, there’s a lot of private chatter that goes through, you know, intermediaries that come through and and with their own proposals. So I think what the Iranian government is going to confront the Biden administration and the west, the Europeans, is to increase the nuclear danger, while at the same time, offer to have a negotiations. The purpose of this negotiation.

I just a minute, Shay, I’ll get you I I apologize for being long winded. I think the look, if the Iranian regime believes that these protests are provoked by the foreigners. So if you wanna subside them, you talk to foreigners.

That’s who

you talk to. The show thought that CIA was overthrowing him. So he wanted to talk to science. He wanted to talk to Warren Christopher. Those were interrogatories that he thought mattered.

And one of the things that the Iranian regime has done is try to entice the United States into some sort of a diplomacy while

at the

same time threatening the

Saudis. Because they

also believe the Saudi’s and the Saudi networks and so on are activating these opposition movements. All revolutionary movements ebb and flow, there’ll be a period of time when Iran will appear stable and the incentive for resumption of negotiations at that time. I think will be irresistible to the Biden administration, but that’s just my view. I hope that’s all true. Shay, go ahead.

Let me

add

a very quick point also on sanctions that if you see at what the protesters are anti on the street. There has been no anti US, no anti sanction. Not even really an economic chance. All you hear are political anti regime channels. And the second point I want to add is that there was a survey.

There’s a survey center out of Hego, I believe, it’s it’s run by two Iranian political scientists called German. And one one thing they ask Iranian was what do you blame to be the key factor in your economic conditions and ninety percent responded internal economic structure and I think six percent said sanctions, something like that. So Ring is the blame sanctions for the economic problems they have, but what it is happening is that they are, to some extent, empowering the Iranian population, but what they are doing is also encouraging. The Islamic Republic, so they cannot hire security forces to crack down on protesters inside. And what they’re doing right now is bringing in hashtag shabby forces from Iraq.

They have brought in Fortimune brigade for Africans in the past. His blah. I in two thousand nine, I’m quite sure that I witnessed personally. Arab operators, people who were speaking Arabic. Because they don’t have money to hire security purposes.

That’s another that’s another sign of a strong regime, by the way. No,

it’s not. And that that’s that’s another problem that the regime has, which is you can you cannot crack down on your own people because you’re security forces hate you politically and you cannot pay them. What’s that? But but one of the things,

the level of I wanna highlight this if I can very briefly. The level of criticism that the regime is getting inside is actually quite staggering. Well, it’s a known it’s a known press. I don’t know if you saw this shit. Last week, the sort of a a moderate newspaper, FMR published the opinion poll about what Iranians think.

And it said sixty five percent agree with the protesters. Ten percent agree with the rioters.

I I don’t

know if that poll was actually scientifically commissioned anyway. They just made it up. But what did they say that about seventy percent of the Iranian population agree with the protesters. What are the protesters asking for? What are they asking

for extinction

of Islamic Republic? That’s not in in in in that’s that’s not in Wall Street Journal editorial page. That’s in Iranian newspaper, front page. The level of criticism that the regime is getting is extraordinary, which leads me to believe they have lost the ability to conc conc concup the convincing narrative or control countervailing narratives. And the sharp first loss is narrative, then loss is bearing.

Well,

let’s hope that’s what happens.

We’ve, I think, reached the end of our time, Ray. This has been really terrific. It’s been Great to have you join us. We’re on day fifty three of this. I I suspect that this story is gonna continue.

So we hope we can have you back down the road. We might wanna try and find there are a few expat Iranian women in the United States. And since as you pointed out, this is revolution driven by youth and by women. We’ve got the youth represented in in our own produced shake and cheese. It’s not me.

For for timing in today. By the way, Shay’s substack on Russia and Iran is is well worth your attention if if you’re interested in the issues we’ve been talking about today. Ray’s book, the last shot as something everybody interested in this subject, should read. I won’t bother flagging our Hoover book. It’s now overtaken by events.

But I I I really want to thank you and and shape you as well for helping to old codgers like me and Elliott and improve our knowledge of what’s going on in Iran. Elliott, any any last words of wisdom you wanna import?

No. I just

wanna say it’s this isn’t an education because the truth is, I mean, even those those who have been dismayed by the Twist and turns of American nuclear diplomacy on Iran, I think it was sort of lost sight of the the larger question, what’s going on underneath the surface? And the question of the, you know, the essential fragility of the regime. And, you know, thank you both for giving us a real education. But

this could be a good new story depending on how it ends. So let’s let’s keep the, you know, optimism keep people alive as some American politician once said. And, hopefully, you’ll be back and our listeners will rejoin us for Shield of the Republic. If you’ve enjoyed this episode or earlier episodes of Shield of the Republic, please give us a review on online wherever you get your podcasts. And if you have questions, please send them to us at shield of the Republic at gmail dot com.

We read all the emails and thank people for putting these questions to us. We do try to get to answers to some of them as we go through our Our podcast, we can’t obviously answer each individual request. But with that, thanks for joining us today. Thanks very much

for having me.