Episode 703: What’s Next for Iran?

Published May 31, 2024, 10:29 PM

Newt talks with Trita Parsi, Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, about the recent helicopter crash that killed Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian. Parsi discusses the potential implications of this event on Iran's future and its impact on the Middle East. They also discuss the complex political landscape of Iran, including the role of the Supreme Leader and the country's nuclear program. The conversation also touches on Iran's relationships with other countries and organizations, such as Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Hamas.

On this episode of Each World. On Sunday, May nineteenth, a helicopter crashed and killed Iran's president, Ibrahim Raisi and foreign minister was Saint Amir Abdulian. They were traveling from Iran's border with Azerbaijan after inaugurating a dam project when their helicopter went down the mountainous area near the city of Yofa. The US State Department, in a press briefing said, quote, we have been quite clear that Abraham Rahisi was a brutal participant in the repression of the Iranian people for nearly four decades. Some of the world's worst human rights abuses occurred during his tenure as president, especially the human rights abuses against the women and girls of Iran. So what is next for Iran and what impact will Iran's future have on the Middle East. I'm really pleased to welcome my guest, Trita Pars, Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute for Responsible state Craft. Treda, welcome and thank you for joining me.

On this world my pleasure.

Let me start by just asking about your own background. How did you end up studying all this?

So? I was born in Iran in the mid nineteen seventies. My father was a university professor who ended up jailed twice during the time of the Shaw simply for having expressed some criticism against the Shaw and then later on reforded revolution. My family fled to Sweden. No one knew exactly what was going to happen in the country. My father had an opportunity to be a guest scholar at the University of Sala in Sweden, so he took that opportunity after coming out of jail the second time. While we're there, the revolution happens. It takes an Islamic turn, and my dad's name is actually put on the list of folks that would be executed on the spot if he returned, accusing him of having been a collaborator with the Shaw Secret Service, which was not true. He had been tortured by them. My dad does go back, however, to clear his name in order to avoid the revolutionaries executing a family member instead, which unfortunately was a common thing at the time, and he ends up being jailed again a third time, but this time in the Iatola's jail, but does manage to get out of that thanks to the fact that the people running the jail were actually twenty year olds, many of them his former students, and knew of his criticism of the Shaw he got out. He's never been back since I grew up in Sweden. That was four four and a half when this happened, So it was quite a bit of a trauma, and I think it shaped my interest in politics and what was happening around the world, but particularly of course in Iran. And then I studied it at Johns Hopkins Sis. And I wrote my dissertation on Israeli Iranian relations on the Francis Fukuyama, which.

Is in itself could be an entire topic. I mean, the complexity of that dance is kind of remarkable. Let's go back to the immediate event that sort of attracted attention. What do we think that we know about the helicopter crash itself.

Well, we do know that there were three helicopters that left pretty much at the same time. That the weather was pretty okay at the time of them leaving, but then it got really bad. Two of the helicopters made it, the one with the President and the fore Minister, and a few others did not. It crashed on the very bad weather conditions, and the rescue workers could not even locate for almost a day. By the time they got there, there were no survivors. I think at this point it's not entirely clear whether everyone died as a result of the crash or whether they died during the freezing night in the storm. At least one person seems to have survived the crash initially but died later on. Whether that was also true for the president or the foreign Minister is not entirely clear. The government insists that there was no foul play, that there was not an assassination but rather an accident. I think a lot of evidence points in that direction. But we should also be clear on the fact that the government actually has an interest in downplaying any rumors or speculation that it may have been foul play, because particularly if it would lead to or point a finger towards Israel, which otherwise the running government would be happy to blame under the current circumstances, after they had an exchange of fire just a month ago in which the Iranians assert that they restore the de terrence against Israel if it turns out that the Israelis actually were behind this attack, which again there's no evidence for that would mean that the Iran's effort to restore the terrence was an utter failure. Because the Israelis then escalated by taking out the president and the foreign minister. This would be deeply embarrassing for the government. It would also put the government in a position in which they would have to do something about it, which they clearly do not want to do. So. I think while there is no evidence at this point, at least convincing evidence that there was any foul play, we should also be clear that this time around the government has an interest in playing down any speculation about foul play rather than playing it up, which is perhaps the reverse case under normal circumstances.

But of course, if I understand it correctly, this is a forty five year old helicopter.

It was It was an American helicopter bought by the Iranians towards the end of the Shaw's reign. Most of Iran's fleet are old American helicopters and airplanes, and because of US sanctions, they have not been able to service them. This is part of the reason why the Iranians have probably the highest rate of plane crashes. As part of the Iran nuclear deal. Boeing was actually supposed to service those planes. But Boeing, as I understand, and made a trip to Iran in the midst of those talks, looked at the planes that decided that it refused to do so because if it serviced those planes, it would be liable for whether they would crash, and it was not willing to take that risk because the planes were in such a bad shape.

So they're flying the number two guy in the country around and a forty five year old plane with bad spare parts.

They're flying everyone around with those circumstances. Is not just the number two guy.

Now, I think it's helpful because it's complicated for Americans. The president's actually not the top person. The top person is the supreme leader, who is always I guess an iatola by definition because it's a religious theocracy. But can you walk through a little bit of that.

Given the fact that his title is supreme, perhaps he shouldn't be that difficult for us to understand that he is the top guy. But they have a system in which they do have a president, and at times, I think in Washington we have tried to downplay the role of the president as if he has no influence at all, I think that is an exaggeration. I think you're absolutely correct. The president is not the top person. The Supreme Leader clearly is. But the presidents have actually at times been very decisive. If you take a look at Mahmatkotemi, the reformist president, who constantly clashed with the Supreme Leader, but with the same ferocity, for instance, that Ahmadinejad did later on, and then you had Rohani coming afterwards, who tried to work with the Supreme Leader. But it was very much thanks to Rohani that Vanians really went in the direction of nuclear negotiations with the United States. So take the presidents out of the picture and you would actually see that they actually did have an impact, but they don't have the decisive impact or the ultimate impact as the Supreme Leader does, because at the end of the day, at most the number two. In the case of Raisi, however, I think we have to be clear that he had very little impact by design. He was the pick of the Supreme Leader because the Supreme Leader did not want to have another president with the will of his own, with an agenda of his own, with a mind of his own. He wanted a pliant conservative, and that's what he got in Raisi. That's why it's really difficult to pinpoint any particular policy as of in which he was the driving force of it, and that without him, those policies would not have been pursued. For instance, if you put a hypothetical in front of us and say that what if Rohani, the previous president, had died in a helicopter crash, I think that would very likely have ended the nuclear negotiations because it was a critical force behind that. But there is no policy you can point to in which you can say, because Racy is now out of the picture, that policy will no longer continue.

Is the Ayatola cominy committed to getting nuclear weapons and therefore opposed to negotiations? What was the tension between the two.

The tension is not necessarily whether Kamene wants to get nuclear weapons from Wuhani didn't. In fact, this will probably be quite surprising to American ears, but a lot of people in Iran right now view Khamene as being the main obstacle for them weaponizing their nuclear program. There's a very strong, growing group of people there who believe that with Trump walking out of the nuclear deal, Biden failing to go back in it, and Yran still having all of those sanctions on it, and given a new geopolitical situation in which the United States is tied up in Gaza, tied up in Ukraine, tied up in Taiwan, Iran actually should weaponize. But the person that is the biggest obstacle to that in this assessment is actually Kamene himself, who strongly opposes weaponization. I think the Irani has really pursued a nuclear program as a bargaining chip with the United States. They need the energy aspect of it, and that program was already started under the time of the shop the weaponization. As a comparison, the Pakistanis went from nothing to a nuclear weapon in nine and a half years. The Iranians have had a nuclear program since nineteen sixty eight, much thanks to the United States Atoms for Peace program and the efforts by Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld in the nineteen seventies to sell Yvonne Westinghouse reactors, if the Yranians really wanted, really really were committed to a nuclear weapon in the same way as the Pakistanis were, in which they said we rather eat grasp but we will have a nuclear weapon. One has to explain how come they've managed to have a nuclear program since nineteen sixty eight and still not weaponized it. So I think their calculations are more complex. It doesn't mean that there aren't people there that don't want it. It doesn't mean that there aren't factors that may not push them towards getting it in a very bad scenario on my view. But it's more complex than thinking that they're dead set on getting it and that the only thing that could stop them is just making sure that they don't have access to uranium et cetera, et cetera for.

The purpose of a limited program. They have more than enough access, don't they.

At this point following Trump leaving the Iran nuclear Deal. During the nuclear deal, the Iranias never had above three hundred kilos of lower rich uranium on their own soil. That was part of the deal. In fact, they kept themselves below two fifty. They need twelve hundred kilos of low and rich uranium that they need to re enrich several times, all the way above ninety percent to be able to have enough material for one bomb. And that's assuming that everything goes well. Which at the first round it probably won't. Now they have several thousands not only of lower richeranium, they have twenty percent in richeranium, and they have also now a small but very crucial stockpile of sixty percent in rich uranium. So they're much much closer to having the material for a weapon than they were during the JCPOA. During the JCPA, they would never be closer than a full year away from having the material for a nuclear weapon with a combination of several different factors. Currently, the assessment of the US intelligence, at least what is out publicly known, is that there are about eight days away. If they make a decision to have the material for a bomb, the ready material for the bomb, they'll have it in eight.

Days wow, which is virtually nothing.

Virtually nothing. Now. Of course, having the material and having a bomb is two different things. They would probably still be a year to two years away from having a bomb once they have the material, which is only eight days away. But it is nevertheless a very very concerning situation, and one frankly, and you and I may disagree on it, but we would not be in this situation if the JCPA was in place.

I don't know enough to be authority, But I gather that you believe that they would have deliberately followed a very limited program man would have been willing to be held accountable.

Well. For the two and a half years or so that the US was in the deal, they lived up to the agreement fully. For another eleven or so months after Trump left, they still stuck to the deal, and after that they started to violate key provisions of the deal, such as the stockpile, the level of enrichment, etc. But there were fourteen reports by the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is essentially the referee on this fourteen consecutive reports that stated that the Iranians are living up to all of the provisions of the deal. Twice did even the Trump administration certified. The Trump administration State Department certified that the Iranians were sticking to the dealer. We will never know, of course, whether they would have done so indefinitely, but the track record in the beginning was actually a very promising one, and perhaps surprise a lot of people in Washington who thought that they would never live up to it if they had violated it without the US having first left. Given the level of inspections we would have found out within twenty four hours, and we would have had the majority, vast majority, probably including the P five on our side in terms of repercussions for the Iranians if they violated the deal. That was a key reason as to why I think they lived up to the deal as well.

Given their hesitation and given the almost sixty year track record and not quite getting there, how do you think their own thinking is evolving in terms of if it's not a bargaining chip, what does it become.

That's a great question, because that is kind of the situation they're in right now. I think they really, I mean they need a nuclear program. I mean, put yourself in their shoes. They have all of this gas, and they have all of this oil, but they're running out of oil because of sanctions. Also, they cannot sell all to a lot of different places. We have been telling a lot of other countries you've got to think about your future once the oil runs out, and you need to make sure that you have an economy that can stand. This is what the Shaw started in nineteen sixty eight. He wanted to make sure that he would sell the oil and the gas externally and then use nuclear energy internally makes a lot of financial and energy security sense. So just as much as we don't want to be dependent on oil, the Iranians, if they are in a position to be able to avoid that, it is logical for them to avoid that. Now, on top of that, because of the fact that they did experiment with things that are much closer to weaponization and they lost the confidence of the international community, they did not live up to all of the aspects of the NPT, they were put on their sanctions, and then the JCPA negotiation was essentially a negotiated period in which they would have to prove their positive non desire to go in the military direction before all sanctions could be fully lifted. They ended up using the nuclear escalation as a counter Tos's sanctions escalation. Just as much as we view the sanctions as our leverage in that negotiation, they view the number of centrifuges the stockpile as part of their leverage in the negotiation. But what's the value of that if there isn't a negotiation. What's the value of that? If you are in the current position they're in, in which they believe, rightly or wrongly, that the US is incapable of providing sustained sanctions relief to you because of domestic political reasons here in the United States. Even if a president signs a deal, the next one will tear it up and as a result, the US cannot provide sustain That means that suddenly a deal with the US is no longer particularly attractive, and then you're sitting on all this leverage that you cannot use. And that's part of the reason why I think for the last year you're seeing that the growth in their program has kind of started to taper off, because what's the point of getting that close to a bomb if you're not going to weaponize and you're not going to be able to use it as a leverage. In fact, if you get too close to a bomb, you actually undermine your own leverage if there is a future negotiation, because the United States is likely not going to negotiate with you if you have that much leverage. It's a calibration that is very imprecise. It depends not just on how much they do, but also what the thinking and calculations and political outlook is here in the United States with future presidents. So in some ways they're stuck with a nuclear program, it's larger than it should be, larger what they needed to be, not large enough for them to actually have a bomb. And again we can go into why there actually would be a lot of nets for them to have a bomb, but also perhaps too large to be able to be used as that leverage as they initially thought. Because take a look at one thing that I think is really fascinating. Back in the Obama days, the Iranians were approaching fifteen hundred kilos of LU and the media here was talking about it as if they were reaching some sort of point of no return, as if they were about to get a nuclear wipeout. They have tens of thousands of kilos of it now of higher enrich uranium, not tens of thousands of the higher ridge, but they have so much enriched uranium now that they're much much closer and we're almost not talking about it at all. So suddenly, if they were using it as a scarecrow to get negotiations and have leverage in the negotiation, it is not particularly effective right.

Now, given all this sort of tension about what they're going to do, how they're going to do it. How does the death of President Raizia affect all that and what will the circumstances be in which they pick a successor.

So on the first part of your question. Because Racy was not decisive on this file, it does not have an impact on that file directly. This is not affecting Iran's nuclear policy. However, because of what his death may mean for the future broader trajectory of Iran internally and externally, it may end up having an effect on the nuclear program depending on who comes next. Much indicates that Commenee wanted Racy to be the next Supreme Leader and that there was a lot of conservative backing for that. There were other contenders as well. Now that is not going to happen. Now they also have to pick a new president. The population by and large have stopped participating in the elections because they have lost faith that change can come through the ballot box. This loss of faith is directly related to the fact that the Conservatives have increasingly This allowed non conservatives to even run in the last election when Raisi was running, it was just a few Conservatives and one token reformers that was allowed to run, and election participation dropped to forty seven percent, whereas in previous elections. The Iranians had participation rate in the presidential elections between seventy five and eighty percent, as a dramatic loss because people lost faith in that. In the parliamentary elections that were held just a few weeks ago, participation was forty two percent nationwide, seven percent in Tehran seven percent. And it tells you something about you know, people don't think it matters any longer, and they've given up on that, and that's again because they were not offered real choices. Now there's some pressure from conservatives and as well as from others of course, that they have to allow a much more broader set of candidates to participate. I personally don't think that is likely to happen. I think what you may end up seeing is that it will be broader in the sense that there will be viable moderate conservatives and viable hardline conservatives. But that is the spectrum. In the last election, it was just hardline conservatives, not even moderate conservatives, which I don't know if that will be enough to generate any enthusiasm in the public to think that they actually have a real choice. It may even in twenty thirteen, by the way, there was almost no energy in the presidential campaign until the last seven to ten days. Then suddenly something changed and Rohani, who most people didn't think that much of, suddenly managed to get a tremendous amount of support just in the last couple of days. Something similar could potentially happen, but we simply don't know. But if that happened, let's say that you actually do have a bit of a shakeup and you get at least some moderate conservatives in it could have an impact because right now Iran has gone deep into the direction of allying itself with Russia and China, and while there is strong support for that amongst conservatives, there are also others who believe that closing the door entirely on the West may not be the smartest thing to do. Back when you were in Congress, mister speaker, I remember the debate that was held in the United States about the sanctions that the Clinton administration imposed on Iran, you know, the Executive Orders ninety four ninety five. Some of the arguments in the debate then not much of a debate, but a couple of editorials that were written about it warned that if we went down that path of just sanctioning Iran. Eventually we would push Iran into the arms of Russia and China. That may not at the time have been a very effective argument, because Russia and China were not at all what they are today. But I think roughly thirty years later we can see that that argument actually proved to be entirely true.

You do now have sort of a de facto alliance.

Well the facto is the key word there, because there is no treaty alliance between them, but they are acting as allies, and they're acting as allies largely because of an opposition to the United States or a US led order. For instance. I do not personally believe that the Iranians would be so deeply supporting Russia in Ukraine if the JCPA was still alive, because they would actually have had something to lose at this point. They at least their calculation is that they don't have much to lose. There's no trade with the US, there's no trade with Europe. The Europeans stopped buying Iranian oil, gas, nothing, even when the JCPA was still technically in place. But Trump was there and they stopped those sales. So the only purchases of Irani know at this point is essentially China and the Ukraine War gave the Irani's opportunities to strengthen their ties with Russia. So as much as this is a regime that has a tremendous amount of ideological facades, and you know, I'm not dismissing that their ideology is important, it is also very reality politique oriented, and real politique, given the circumstances that they have right now, has pushed them in this direction, a direction I don't think necessarily would have been their choice.

Explain the real politique of their support for the Huthis and the Hesibala and Homa, and their continuous support for faring missiles at American bases in American ships. I mean, at one level, that's pretty.

Aggressive, certainly, so we do need to differentiate all between these different organizations. Hespola is of course the closest partner Iran has. The Irani has played a key role in creating Hezbola in nineteen eighty two. This was primarily born out of the fact that when the Iranians had their revolution in nineteen seventy nine and the revolutionary government took over, like many other revolutionary governments. Their number one agenda point was to spread their revolution. So Iran in the nineteen eighties was this regime change oriented country. It wanted to overthrow, particularly the monarchies in the region, and it had next to zero success. Of course, the only area, and we'd had some success was countries with law Shia minorities or majorities. Lebanon of course is one of them. And the Iranian relationship with Hesbola or with Lebanon, of course goes back centuries because of the Shia ties, and Yvan invested in that. They did the same thing in Bahrain, but utterly unsuccessful. They did the same thing in Iraq, and that was unsuccessful until the United States overthrew Saddam Hussein, and it turned out that the very Shia politicians and movements that Yvon had invested in for decades became the winners of that war. But with Hezbola, it's a very very tight relationship, and it started off with their desire to spread their revolution, which ultimately, of course was unsuccessful, but ended up becoming a strong partner with Iran. Relationship with Huti's is much much newer. It's no more than ten fifteen years old. And it became partly as a result of Ivan's rivalry with Saudi Arabia, in which the Saudis have been supporting Baluchi separatists in Ivan's Baluchistan region, including al Qaeda relay organizations there, and the Irani has invested in the Hutis. What's very different between them and the Jutis, and I think this is between Hutis and Hezbola. Hez Bola would never act in two areas without clear coordination with Iran, any major attack escalation on Israel and any major attack on the United States. The Hutis, however, do their own thing. They publicly criticize Iran. They claim that yvon is not being tough enough against Israel, and US intelligence has picked up several times that Vanians are telling the Huties to do X or not do X, and the Hutis do it anyways. So they're a very independent organization. And again it goes back to the fact that this is a much newer relationship. It's not at all with the same depth as you have with as well. I frankly don't think even if Ivani has really really wanted to press the Huties to stop the tax against ships, in the Red Sea that the Hoodies would actually listen to Iran on that front as well as a different story. Hamas is also a different story. Iran and Hamas's relationship was actually very negative from the outset. Hamas comes out of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, a very strong Sunni fundamentalist organization that had a very negative view of Shia and of Shia Iran. Moreover, Hamas supported Saddam Hussein in Saddam Hussein's war with Iran in the nineteen eighties. The only thing that actually brought Hamas in Iran closer together was the peace process, the Oslo process, in which both Hamas As a rejectionist organization in Iran, would be left out, and they saw it as a threat to their own power. That brought them together, but it's been a tense relationship and they had many fallouts. One of the major fallouts that they had or the war in Syria, in which Iran was supporting Asad and Hamas was supporting the opposition, because the core of the opposition in Syria was coming from the Brotherhood as well from the Muslim Brotherhood as well. They only made up a couple of years ago I think it was in twenty seventeen. In twenty eighteen. What Yran has done with these organizations, however, is that they have armed and trained them. Part of the reason why they're much much more effective firing forces and much more technologically advanced with the major missiles and other forms of weaponry is thanks to the support that the Iranians have provided at very very low cost compared to many other types of operations that could have taken place. What is binding them all together ultimately is that they don't want to see a Middle East that is dominated by the United States or Israel. So this is why they're calling themselves the resistance from the resisting US domination in the region, Israel's occupation of Palestine. And what's also fascinating in all of this is increasingly in Washington, there's also been this thinking that, hold on, what is the value of US dominating the Middle East? Anyways? If, for instance, many in Washington believe that China is the real challenge, why are we continuing to waste a lot of energy trying to dominate the Middle East. There's an interesting dynamic in which at times I find actually the US side being far more confused about what it actual strategic objectives are than the Resistant. From the Resist has a very clear idea what their strategic objectives are.

I think that is a very mild critique of the level of confusion which Washington currently has to suggest an orderly dialogue that doesn't currently exist. One of the questions I've always tried to ask people who know a great deal more than I do about Iran. When the Iranian parliament chant death to Israel and death to America, how are we supposed to interpret that?

On the one hand, it is a clear declaration of hostile intent, and we should not be little that or take it lightly. On the other hand, we should also not pursue a foreign policy based on what slogans others use. We should follow up foreign policy that is based on our interest and make sure that we're maximizing our interests and not let the other side decide what we do by deciding to do the opposite of what they want. And I think oftentimes we have ended up in the latter category. We're reacting someone doesn't like us in the Middle East, so we're opposing them without actually questioning should we be there? Do we have an interest here? Are we sacrificing the American life for something that actually is of particular value to us? Is this a vital interest? Those are the core questions that I think are rarely being asked in Washington. Instead, we're being very reactive, and it's easy to be reactive. You know, the huties chance death to America as well. But what is reality? Reality is that before the Saudi invasion of attack on Yemen, guests who are the fact that partners were in Yemen against al Qaeda? It was the Hooties, the Houties was the strongest force against al Qaeda. And reality is this The Houties had never attacked the United States. Now, they may have it shot at some ships at this point, but back then they never attacked the United States. They were focused on very interest in Yemen, and they wanted to get al Qaeda out. Al Qaeda killed three thousand Americans on nine to eleven. Al Qaeda attacked our embassies in Africa. We ended up siding with the Saudist beating up the Hooties and setting aside the ones that actually, beyond slogans, actually killed Americans. That's why I think your question is a good one, because we have to get into the space in which we're not basing our foreign policy on the slogans of others.

You have a very subtle and sophisticated knowledge of the region, and I'd like to invite you to think about maybe doing a podcast sometime were we sort of just put up a mental map of the region and go through all the different people who hate and try to kill each other for reasons that have nothing to do with the United States or the West. Some of them are eight hundred or thousand year old inheritance, others are personality, others are geographic. And you know, in a place like Iraq or Syria, the number of threads of hostility and of self identity and of self interest that are so astonishingly complex, and we try to summarize them all for three minutes on the evening TV.

You're absolutely right, that would be an interesting exercise. Just let me know when you want to do it. But I think the final outcome of that, if we were to just cut to the chase, is to conclude that we really have committed a major mistake by entangling ourselves in conflicts that have nothing to do with us, that do not touch our interests, doesn't matter to us who is in control in this or that government. We don't need to have that level of influence or control over region that whose strategic significance has significantly dropped in the last forty years, because the importance of oil is not at all what it was forty years ago. The United States is self reliant, self sufficient on all at this point. Doesn't mean that oil isn't important. It certainly will be in the future as well, but not to the point in which we need to entangle ourselves and everyone else's conflict and make their conflicts our conflicts. And that's the part that I think, at a minimum we have to stop trying.

As you know, the supremely riot Eli Commune is now eighty five the longest serving head of the state in the Middle East, and at least by some reports and declining health, what do you think happens in terms of his successor.

So the secession in Iran is going to be probably the most important event in the Islamic Republic's history. The first one was, of course, after Komeni died in nineteen eighty nine. That was obviously extremely challenging for them, given that Komeni essentially an interview had reached the status of a mom essentially a prophet. But the second secession in some ways may be trickier because the type of uniting all authoritative person that Komiani was for that system hominy hasn't failed to be so the system is much more divided, much more at its own throat than it was in nineteen eighty nine. So this is going to be the biggest challenge. This is part of the reason and why I think Kameny himself had settled for Aisi because he was an uncontroversial figure and it would be easier for most factions to probably find something acceptable with him, and they wanted everything to be under control. That's part of the reason why I personally am skeptical that at least the leading faction in Yvon had anything to do with his death, because this has been a big blow to them the next person. Of course, another reason as to why it's so important. He's likely going to live another thirty forty years, which is kind of similar to the situation you have with Saudi Arabia. This is part of the reason why MBS. You know, there's a lot of stake with MBS, because he's going to be king for forty years. All of the other kings that have come in Saudi Arabia for the last twenty years were very old when they became king, and as a result, no one expected him to last more than five to ten years. With NBS, he's going to last forty years, if not more, unless, of course he gets killed by someone. The same is true for the next Supreme Leader of Iran. So you can really set the direction of Iran in a very very decisive way, much more important than these presidential elections. This, of course, all assumes that the regime survives, that there isn't an overthrow of it, which of course absolutely can happen given how tremendously unpopular the government is the regime as a whole.

Is when you said only seven percent of Tehran had voted, if I were in power, that would strike me as a very ominous indication of unhappiness.

Particularly mindful of the fact that the government or the regime as a whole often pointed to very high participation rates in the elections as a sign of their legitimacy, and now they have the opposite. I think the reason why they impose it right now is because they want to get through the secession and then try to rebuild whatever idea of legitimacy they have, but the secession is so crucial for them actually want the people to be out of the equation.

Fascinating, But I want to thank you for joining me. This turned out to you very interesting conversation and I want to mention to our listeners that they can find more details on your website for the Quincy Institute for Responsible state Craft at Quincyinstitute dot org. That's QUINCYI inst dot org. And I really appreciate Treaty You're taking this time to be.

With me my pleasure. Thank you so much anytime.

Thank you to my guest, Treta Parsi. You can learn more about Iran and their upcoming elections on our show page at newsworld dot com. Newsworld is produced by Gingward three sixty and iHeartMedia. Our executive producer is Guarnsey Sloan and our researcher is Rachel Peterson. The artwork for the show Who's created by Steve Penley. Special thanks to the team at Gingward three sixty. If you've been enjoying Newsworld, hope you'll go to Apple Podcast and both rate us with five stars and give us a review so others can learn what it's all about. Right now, listeners of Newtworld consign up for my three free weekly columns at gingristhree sixty dot com slash newsletter. I'm Newt Gingrich. This is Newtworld

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