Breaking History - Why Iran’s Reform Movement Failed

Episode Date: April 9, 2026

Arash Azizi lived through the democracy movement in Iran before he wrote about it. Now a historian at Yale, he joins Eli Lake to trace the arc from former president Mohammad Khatami’s unlikely rise to the crushed hopes of the Green Movement—and what it tells us about whether reform from within the Islamic Republic was ever really possible. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome back, Breaking History listeners. Today, we have a great guest for these sort of interim episodes as we work on our season. He is a Yale historian and lecturer, Arash Azizi, an Iranian national, somebody who has both participated in and chronicled the Iranian democracy movement. So we are really fortunate to have him. Thank you so much for coming on, Arash. Of course, thank you for having me, nice. Good to be with you.

Absolutely. So let me just start. Let me sort of tell me your story. where were you born in Iran? When did you come to the United States and sort of your connection to the Iranian democracy movement? So I'm from Tehran.

I was born in Tehran in 1988, and I last left Iran in 2008. So I was 20 years old when I left Iran. And I lived in Canada, I lived in Europe, and I came to United States in 2017. And I've been there since about nine years. I was an activist against the regime from a very young age,

was kind of a socialist activist and pro-democracy activist, since I think I was 15 years old, really, when I joined my first organization. And I have ever been, you know, ever since first inside Iran until I was 20 and then years after outside Iran, been active in that space. It's been, you know, some advances sometimes,

but as a whole, of course, kind of frustrating. It's the reality that, you know, the regime has not only remained in power, but it's today more repressive than it's ever been, but our fight has never stopped. More than 20 years ago, 30 years ago almost, we saw the election of Muhammad Khatami, who was a reformer. He believed that the Islamic Republic could open up. And there were other reformers as well before thinking of Ayatollah Mottisari and others who were counseling

for more democracy within the system. So I want to start with Khatami, which was was a kind of hopeful moment all over the world, really. And then, of course, well, why don't you tell me the story of Khatami's presidency and how it ended? For sure, you know, when it's a hopeful moment all around the world, it might be impossible to imagine that today. But when Khatang was elected, in Israel, David Levy, was foreign minister at the time, arrived in the foreign minister to welcome it publicly and said, you know, we welcome this new choice by Iran, we hope it leads to peace.

Mohammed Hatami, the moderate former culture minister, has taken. turn this into a genuine race. His campaign has uncovered a desire for more social freedom, and his themes of personal liberty, democracy, and rule of law have inspired those who want to see the current regime soften.

Khatami, who remains today, by the way, the figurehead of reform movement in some ways, and we can talk about him. What really happened with Khatami was that, you know, in the 90s, Ayatollah Khomeini had died in 1989. The original generation of Islamic Republic, sort of revolutionaries had abandoned some of his zealotry, and it started, but not in the

direction of democracy. Rather, people like Ayatollah, Afsanjani, who was president through the 90s, their model was China. They saw China as having suppressed the Tehranmen Square, protests and not stopping democracy, but at the same time opening up economically. So Iran opened up economically in the 90s. It's more a state-owned system of the 80s was replaced by privatizations than 90s. And the idea was that they needed to, at some, integrate themselves into the Western system, perhaps, to the global system, you know, drop some of the amity to the West. But by the late 90s, some people had also started developing the idea that maybe power

could be democratized a little bit. Iran could liberalize and democratize. And Khatami ran in 1997 to represent some of those ideas. But there was very few people taught he had any chance of winning. The idea was that, of course, the regime's favorite was not ignorant. is conservative guy and he would win. But against all odds, millions of people, Iranians showed up to the voting booth,

and they voted for Khatami. They elected in president in 1997. And he used the power of presidency, which was limited compared to the Supreme Leader to La Khomeini. Nevertheless, it had some powers. He used it to open up to political space a little bit. The Ministry of Culture, for example,

would allow more books to be published. Tons of reformist newspapers came to be. So really what you had was, a birth of a grand democratizing movement that wanted to fight of the Supreme Leader and open up Iran democratically. And what happened to it is that it ultimately lost the battle. It lost the battle to entrenched conservatives in the system. I told a Khomeini, the Supreme Leader, the judiciary whose head he appointed and other bodies like that were able to effectively defeat Khatami. So he was elected again in 2001, but two events that would happen

that Marx's defeat is that, first of all, the parliamentary elections in 2004, the end of Khatami's term, were effectively limited. So all reformists were not allowed to run. Because the body in Iran that determines who could run to the elections is also directly or indirectly appointed by the Supreme Leader. It's a body called the Guardian Council.

So they stopped the parliament from having any semblance of plurality. and they also, a couple of bills that the previous parliament had passed that would expand the power of President Khatami and ensure freedom of speech in Iran, these were vetoed by the Guardian Council. The Guardian Council is the body of 12 people, all of whom are directly or indirectly appointed by the Supreme Leader, who gets to decide about all legislation and also on who could run in the election. So by 2005, effectively the reform movement was defeated. A reformist candidate was allowed to run in the 2005 presidential elections, but people had done. given up all hope that this could go anywhere, so they didn't vote for him, and instead a populist conservative by the name of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who was a young mayor of Tehran at the time,

was elected, and the reform movement experienced a huge defeat. Well, I want to, I mean, there was one thing I also wanted to touch on in this period, and that's the chain murders, and that how the chain murders were then covered, and then the newspaper that broke them was shut down, which led to the 1999, chain Iran University and other universities joined uprising. Talk a little bit about that. What were the chain murders? Why were they important?

Very important, very important event that's really one of the key ones in Iranian history that really shows something, tells us something about this era. So in 1999, around sort of between 1988, 1988, 1998, 1999, what happened was that a newspaper revealed a series of murders of intellectuals that had happened. He all knew that they had happened, but it linked them together. and it shows that elements of the Minister of Intelligence, the rear guard, the real deepest state in this way, were lashing out and trying to kill the opponents or critics of the regime

who were outside the fold of, you know, the reformists, still were sort of devout supporters of the regime who had become proponents of reform. But most of these people were, you know, intellectuals of the left, secular folks, folks like that. So, for example, Darius Furuhar, who is actually not of the left, who is actually not of the left, Saarish Fuhrer used to be the leader of Iran's pan-ironist party.

He came from that tradition. He was a major political figure. He had been minister of labor in the first post-1979 government under Khomeini, actually. But I mean, sidelines since then, he had his wife, Parvaneh. Furrower were killed brutally, you know, with knife, with dozens of blows of the knife. Saidi Sirjani, there was Mokhtari and Puyand. The two well-known, so poets and writers. They were all murdered.

and these newsweepers revealed it and Khatami was pushed on to act and go after the Minister of Intelligence. The Minister of Intelligence, I believe, resigned as a result. And they found a culprit, a guy called Saeed Amami, who killed himself in prison, allegedly killed himself, like either he was killed or he killed himself,

obviously, whether he was suspicious suicide. But what Khatami really failed to do, and this is really a symbol of Khatami's failure, was to use his popular mandate to go after this entrenched sort of regime elements and crush them effectively and win power back and, you know, democratize Iran. His reluctance to really take decisive action on the chain murders became symbolic of him. For years later, in every press conference, they would ask him, you know, what about the chain murders? And he used to say, it's under investigation, which became almost a byword of his inaction.

and his sort of inability. And the scandal, the horrific scandal, led to major protests, which I would say is the spark of what we would say, I mean, disagree if you will, but that was the spark of the democracy movement since then. That was the first candle. It was brutally suppressed the time.

Yes, it was the closure of Salam newspaper. In 1999, they closed down Salam newspaper because of some people. something they had written on this regard. And it led to the student protests. I was 11 years old, but I'm old enough to remember it. And, you know, remember talking about it and remember, you know, remember people going out to the streets.

And remember my father and sort of going to the streets. And my sister, when she was younger than me, going to the streets and sort of driving around and seeing the student protests. And I remember watching at home trying to get far in satellite, like Euro News at the time, to get the latest. So it was an incredibly hopeful moment. There had been a student protest in 1999. A few students were killed, but it was really the first major political, you could say,

demonstrations against the regime since the 1980s, since the early 1980s. So, you know, almost serious. There had been in early 1990s, there were economic-based sort of bread riots of source in northeast and Iran and others. But this was a major political, and I think you were right. You could say it was really the launching of a new path. of a democratic movement in Iran that has continued to this day. The picture of Ahmed Bathebi, the youngest student, who took a bloody picture. It was on the economist's cover.

And he now lives in D.C. So it really was an iconic moment. Okay. Fast forward. You have the Ahmadinejad years. Now, we in the West understood Ahmadinejad as this vile Holocaust denier. And, you know, like, it kind of returned to... the era that when America's reintroduced to Iran in this hostage crisis almost.

And I want to sort of linger a little bit on Ahmadinejad, because he's a fascinating figure right now. He runs for a second term. Most Iranians believe that Masawi wins, and his coalition wins that election in 2009. And yet, Ahmadinejad takes what is considered to be a stolen election. And then we have massive protests in the first year of Obama. Can you talk a little bit about that? So Ahmadinejad was elected in 2005 on a very much economic populist program. Something that is misunderstood by people is that, you know, he didn't really run as an Islamist hardliner.

The reformists didn't show up to the vote. The reformers didn't show up to the vote. This is in 2005. 2005. Even though their candidate was allowed to run, you know, Mustafa Moin, he ran a very radical reformist program even more radical than Khatem. But they didn't show up to vote because they believed, well, this doesn't work. Why would we

go and vote again? Because, you know, we voted once and it didn't work, right? But Ahmadinejad was able to really mobilize people on economic demands. People who, you know, he said he was going to challenge the elites. He basically mobilized people who taught democracy was just talk anyways.

You know, a better economic condition is what really mattered. up. And what he did is that he was able to take over the regime and really helped the revolutionary guards, this militia that Khomeini had empowered a little bit, but who, during the eight years of Khatami, were effectively like an opposition party, worried that a democratization movement will take over the privileges. Ahridajah did the opposite. He effectively gave them the state. But Ahmadinejad also did something else, Eli. That's very interesting, and that really makes him a

passing character. So I'm talking about the guy who's a hard manner. who ran an economic populist program, who gave the state to the Roeuxian Guard. But he entered the disputes of the Islamic Republic in a new, he took off the gloves in a way that had been impossible. In his fight against different factions of the regime, so not only he went after Khatami and them, but he went after everybody.

He went after the Lari-Jani brothers. He went after, you know, Rafsanjani, the president in the 90s. And he really took the gloves off. He would use his internal intelligence to, like, show up the cases of corruption. He really took the temperature up. You know, inside the regime, there had been sort of a gentleman's game almost. Despite all the brutality, they were new. The factional balance was, you know, they knew how to speak against each other.

I managed to threw it all out the window. And he really, in a way, started this heightening of factional infighting, which meant that people could also be bigger critiques of the whole thing. So then there's a movement to try to support what is called, I guess, the Green Coalition. Right. So what happened in 2009 then, what happened in 2009 is that, so Amitya Jad had done all of these, and people were sick of it by 2009. They, basically, a lot of people thought, you know, President Party included in a way,

we thought, oh, okay, we were wrong to not vote in 2005. We were wrong to not participate in Let Ahmadinejad win. now we have to electorally defeat him. Let's see who is allowed to run against him and will defeat him. And against him ran to 2005 Rafsanjani had also been a candidate, right, who had lost. In 2009, there was a movement to draft Khatami to run for Khatami to return. And Khatami did run initially, but then another person came that Khatami resigned in whose favor. And that's Mir Hussain Musabi, who was prime minister of Iran in the 1980s.

And for a very long time, I don't know what's the, it's almost like the democratic equivalent of Michelle Obama in essence, by which I mean, he was seen as this biggest star candidate that if he runs, like, everything changes and, you know, but nobody thought he would run. Because Musa, after 1980s, had resigned effectively out of his, been out of the public eye. You know, he was running a art show, sort of, you know, he ran an art institution. So it was a big deal that he came back, his prime minister of the 80s, and he was really liked in the 80s because he had been effectively running a left-ing economy during the war. So he was seen as a distributionist in this way.

He was seen as very honest. He was seen as very sort of committed. Yeah, so Musad, he was very, very liked in the 80s because he had been a wartime per menaceary. It was seen as not corrupt. He also was seen as from a more, in 1980s was a very brutal time for the Islam Republic where he had killed thousands of prisoners and all that. But it was also a less corrupt time paradoxically perhaps, right? A lot of like in the 90s different sorts of corruptions have developed.

So he was seen as a less corrupt, from a less corrupt. era. So he, 2009, he was a massive movement behind him, and his supporters believed he won the presidential elections. Of course, the results were announced very quickly. Adhnejad was declared a winner. And the green movement, similar to other sort of velvet revolutions in Eastern Europe and other parts who have been either way with the color. And a lot of them contested what was considered a stolen presidential election. In Iran, where President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has declared victory. He's actually speaking again right now as we speak. Opposition supporters have been rioting in the streets, and this morning the government has been cracking down on the opposition and on foreign journalists.

In fact, they will not allow our senior foreign correspondent Jim Shuto to talk with us live right now, but Jim was able to file this report a short time ago. In the capital Tehran, the protest lit up the city through the night. Fires set by demonstrators sent up a black cloud of smoke over the skyline. So a green movement began. The color of green has been the color of Mosevi. electorally is also the color of, it's sort of color of Islam, so it was seen as a respectable color for these reasons.

And Green Movement became a massive movement in which people started with the slogan, where is my vote, protesting what they consider the stolen election, but very quickly developed to something beyond. So from where is my vote in a few months, we get to death to dictator, which, you know, with the slogan of Chaminéh,

Moscow, the FTA dictator, and yeah, you could see this was also the last grasp of the Green movement. So, last grasp of the reform movement. So reformment had come back by 2009. It had a new lease on life under Mousavi. But it also went beyond Mousavi very quickly. Mousavi was put under house arrest in 2011. It went beyond Moussaib because he wanted democratization. It was something beyond what Mosevi had to offer. And the regime crushed it. They banned all the reformist parties. They put tons of people in prison. They killed dozens of people on the streets. Yeah.

You could say a new era. Qadabi and Musavi are under house arrest. Yes, Musabi is still under house arrest to this day. Carriway was released a few months ago, but Musavi is still under house arrest to this day from 2011. Okay. So at this point, I think what we can safely say is that the hopes of the reform movement to elect a president who will change the system from within

by the end of the green movement, it's now very much of a kind of proto-revolutionary movement. Was that fair to say? 100%. Yes, 100%. I mean, they use a Stokane Debtor. They very much believed. And Musabee refused to play along. Right.

This is a very important. Musabi and Khomeini had beat from the 80s, and Khatami had been president and Musabia had been prime minister. But he refused to play along. He says, from the very beginning, says, I will not submit to this dangerous game. To this dangerous theater is exactly what to use. Meaning, he refused to submit to the election that he allegedly lost.

Exactly. So he would not accept the results of the election. Exactly. To the declared result of the election. So all Khomeini wanted from him is to. to go and say, okay, the guardian concert looked. I acknowledge the final results, but he wouldn't do that. And because of that, he remained in a host of arrest until today.

Musavi, a few years ago, about 2022, I think the first time that he did that, he called for an end to the Islam Republic and Democratic elections for a new constitution assembly. So he definitely became a full-on, you know, anti-regime figure in 2022. But in all these years, also he refused to submit to Harmony, which is an inspiring example. To his credit. Okay. So then what happens? I mean, at this point, you could say the embers of the revolutionary movement were crushed after 2009. When did they reemerge?

Well, so the 2009, I remember still the December 2009, it's the last, the closest we came to overturn the regime, you know, during the Ashura, which is a tradition. a Shia procession day, which had also been, you know, in 1979, Ashura had led in 78, Ashura had helped, you know, overthrow the Shah's regime. So, you know, it was, you could say in parts of Iran, the state wasn't in full control on December 2009. But the movement was crushed. It took a while for us to realize that, oh, it's not coming back because we're hoping the protests will reemerge again, you know, maybe in a few months. You know, it took a while for us to consider that's not happening. What happened next is very interesting. Because, Because in 2013, people again had a choice at the ballot box.

You know, there was presidential elections again. And so Musavi obviously wasn't taking part. Reformists were out. There was no, the reformists had, I remind you, reformist parties had been banned. The reformists had been sent to show trials. People like Abtahi, who was like vice president or chief of staff on the Khatami, were into Stalinist show trials in which they had to admit to all sorts of things. And all the reformist parties were banned.

So you would think reformism was really and truly. dead. But something else happened, which is a regime insider, guy called Rouhani, Hassan Rouhani, who had been national security advisor, who had been a protege of Rafsanjani, this guy who Rafsanjani, who was president in the 90s, Raphson Johnny was very much a bettenuag of the reform movement. They hated it. It was seen as the establishment figure who represented the Islamic Republic, even though, as I explained, he had been a capitalist roder to use a Chinese term, right? He had been opening up the system economically. So Rohani, which called him, continued his policies. In 2013, Rouhani ran with one slogan. And that had to do with Iran's

nuclear crisis. As you know, since 2003, Iran had been in a nuclear crisis. Its nuclear program had been unveiled, basically, a secret nuclear program, and the West had put a lot of sanctions on Iran, and there was a whole confrontation around this. Rouhani gave, he made a very simple electoral system. He said that the suns refuges should turn, which is a, nuclear device, but people's life should also turn, by which it evokes a Persian. It basically meant, we'll keep the nuclear program, but we negotiated with the West with the United States to come to a deal. And of course, in the United States, Barack Obama was president, who was seen as a very hopeful, you know, figure by many in Iran that, you know, he had

extended his hand to Iran, he wanted to do a deal with Iran. There was a diplomatic opening in the shape of Obama administration. So Rouhani in 2013 was elected with the support of the reformists and support of many Iranians who voted. This time, Iranians were voting not for democracy but just for deal with the West. The idea of those of us to support the market...

To lift the sanctions with the hope that you would have reinvestment in the economy. Exactly. And maybe you wouldn't have democracy, but you would have something like China. Exactly. And the idea was, I have to say, those of us who were democratic and supported Rouhani.

The idea was you will open up the economy and this will have down-estream effects. Like civil society will have, because Rouhani also promised citizenship rights, for example. The economy will be opening. Iran would have, in New York, the States, will have an embassy in Iran. So civil society will have a space to breathe

and, you know, down the road, we could revitalize democratic movements and all that. So that was sort of idea. And people supported Rouhani, people supported, you know, Javad Zarif, his foreign minister became a, you know, very popular celebrity in Iran effectively because he was negotiating with Americans and because he was attacked with the revolutionary guards and sort of the rearguard in Iran. So there was this moment for Iranians. The OGs never liked Chalad Zarif, I should say, but sure. Sure. Fair enough.

Well, Zarif is. I'm talking about the OGs of the democracy movement. You know, the real, the real heads, though. For sure. For sure. Yeah. For sure. And Zaref.

Also, Rouhani. Yeah, I mean, there was a, there was a, but, but you're right. that there were a lot of people who were part of the Green Movement who now said, maybe this strategy will get us something better and create the conditions so later on we can challenge the Supreme Leader and, you know, everything else. Yeah, and you know, let's be clear. Rohani had supported the suppression of the 2009 movement.

You know, he was very much a security insider. And Zarif was a favorite about Khomeini. I mean, Zarif had, you know, been, actually he knew Khomeini since he was his translator at the UN in New York in the 80s. when Zarifah studied, you know, he was in the, he will vote for the UN permanent, Iran's permanent office at the UN. So the point is that, yeah, so, you know, very much insider figures, but because of this engagement with the US, they had this degree of popularity. And they, yeah, so that, you know, well, I guess not all your residents are old enough to remember that some might be younger. But, you know, this was a very big global news, the Iranian American nuclear negotiations, which

led to the 2015 deal with Rohani, which also led to Rouhani's re-election in 2017, you know, very popular re-election in 2017. Now we should say, because then we kind of get into this very interesting point, in that period, you could argue that the suppression of rights got worse under Rouhani, under the Zerif. I mean, talk a little bit about that. There were more executions under Rouhani than there were previously under Ahmadineashad, right? I wouldn't say there were more executions. That's true.

More executions, a lot of them are Kurdish political prisoners. You know, a lot of them are, a lot of them were non-political executions. But the rights didn't get worse than Ahmadinejad. I mean, the things were relaxed a little bit, the culture of ministry and relaxed things a little bit. But it was very clear that the expectations were pered down. So if under Khatami, there was really hope for democratization, for opening up for, you know, massive sort of hopes of a different Iran, The expectations are very much pared down now. Rohani launched what it was called a citizenship charter, citizenship rights charter.

But he was, let me just give you one anecdote that will tell you everything. I remember a cabinet minister in the Rouhani government asking me, and I was a young journalist at the time, asking me, do you know, where is this person who's been arrested in Iran? A cabinet minister didn't know who was someone arrested in Iran, which meant that the security services, you know, the revolutionary guards, The Rouhani two con revolutionary guards and attacked them, called them corrupt. But the judiciary, Levoisional Guards and others controlled huge parts of the system, and they didn't give an inch. So there was very little, next to zero political opening. The elections did not become really any freer. So you're saying it wasn't Rouhani's design.

It was rather that there was no fix to the system and the real power in the system where the unaccountable. the revolutionary good thing. Rani tried opening up. So the things that he controlled, like the culture ministry, I'm a writer and I publish things in Iran at the time. So culture ministry, definitely a huge opening up compared to Ahmadinejad.

You could publish books again and all that. But this was very small potato compared to the system as a whole where repression continued unabated. Right. And this is also the period that we should say in this period is when as you have Rohanian and Zarif,

who are, you know, making deals with Obama in the West, you have the rise of Qasem Soleimani. And his strategy to spread the revolution intensely, not just to southern Lebanon and Gaza, but also Iraq, Yemen, Syria, etc. And one of the, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but when we're going to get it, once we start seeing more national protests, one of the lines you hear is, you know, for Iran, not for Gaza, not for Lebanon, right? I mean, this is a theme.

Iranians start to notice. Yeah. We were supposed to get a lot of money because sanctions were lifted, but we're not seeing it because you're spending it all on, you know, your militias and your, you know, fanatic groups abroad. Yeah, so Iran, so the Revolutionary Guard since the beginning of the revolution has supported different militias, But since 2003, particularly Gassim Soleimani, who had been the head of the Quds Force, which is the external operations wings of the RGC. He had been organizing his groups in Iraq.

He had been organizing his groups in the region. And then in the aftermath of 2003, the fall of Saddam Hussein, he really helped take over Iraq almost, right? His militias had a point role in running Iraq. In the aftermath of Arab Spring in 2011, which Iran called his last. Islamic awakening, they really use this new opened-up political space in the Arab world to pursue a sectarian agenda and help these Iranian groups go forward. So it's true that a lot of these groups, obviously they get funding from Iran, and Iranians have an anti-interventionist take against them.

So in 2009, for example, the slogan did you refer to, neither Gaza or Lebanon, I give my life only for Iran, becomes a very popular slogan. Iranians don't share the anti-Israeli animus and its support for these militias that the government has. And Soleimani and Zarif are very interesting together. They meet regularly, but they also sometimes works and cross-purposes. Zarif comes to complain about him. Zarif is the head of foreign ministry, but he does not appoint any ambassadors in the region, for example. The ambassador in Libya, in Syria, in Iraq, they're all appointed by Soleimani.

They're guardsmen. They're not really diplomats. and that's a symbol, if you will. And at the top point, Zaryf actually resigns, because Bashar Assad, president of Syria, comes to Iran, and he meets with Soleimani, Zaref is not even invited, and Zarif resigns, but he takes back his resignation. And of course, this is important to remember.

This is the era in which Soleimani helps. I wrote a column about that when he was fake resigned, and I was like, you can't even get that right. Anyway, I'm not a fan of Zareef, but I hear you. Okay. Exactly, exactly. And then, so let me just say that in this period, Soleimani helps murder, Soleimani and Iran help murder hundreds of thousands of Syrians, you know,

together with Assad regime as they're suppressed the revolution in Syria. So it's very important part of this history, important to remember. They have gallons of blood on their hands. Exactly. Gallons of blood on their hands. No doubt about it. That's right. Now we start seeing a sort of increase.

Every couple years, there are more protests. Just walk us through because, I mean, people know women life freedom maybe from 2020, but there were more before that. And as we saw, obviously, they were more after. So just walk us through that. Yeah, so, so, you know, Rouhani comes to power again, you know, 2013, 2017, and there's some hope. Of course, Donald Trump's election in 2016

had already changed things. It was clear he was going to leave the Iran deal. He finally leaves the Iran deal in 2018. So Rohani is in this enviable position. He cannot deliver on the grand promises he's given. The sanctions are not lifted. So he's in this really on-enviable position. But he's also not able to make any significant cultural political changes inside Iran.

It's clear that he's losing the factional battle to the Revolutionary Guards and Hominy. And Trump's leaving of the deal only helps that. So in 2017, in 2017, late 2017, you have really the first wave of a really new type of protests, Eli. This protest in 2017 were all over Iran, a lot of them in various small towns. They often had economic demands. And there were people who were sick and tired. People had voted in elections. They had voted in, you know, reformists.

But then they had voted in for not just reformers, but someone like Rohani, who could have just improved things. And they were not getting anything. So they come out, you know, in this really sort of desperate lashing out at the system in 2017. And then in 2019, they're really put down in their hundreds. It's bloody. put down on the demonstrations in a way that the regime hasn't done since the 1980s

really. And one of the slogans they have is reformists, conservatives, the game is over. No reformers, no conservatives, the game is over. So in many ways, you know, you and I have been talking about, you know, different factions of the Islamic Republic, but people are really rejecting this in the, in the 2017

and 2019 protests. They want the regime gone as a whole. And this is really a new phase and a new era. And the new era finds new meaning in 2021. Because in 2022, we have a really terrible handling of the coronavirus crisis. I mean, it's terrible in many countries. But Iran was one of the first countries. It was after China, perhaps the second country that it was majorly limited.

It was the China vaccine, right? It was they used the Chinese vaccine, which was not very good, or the Russian one. I forget which one. Many countries use the Chinese vaccine, but Khomey banned the American vaccines. You know, he banned American vaccines, which led to thousands of lives in Iran being lost.

And in 2021, Khomey does something very special, which is that he closes presidential elections enough. So for the first time since the 1990s, no serious reformist contender can run, reformist or even centuries candidate. There is a candidate who runs Abdonasar Haem-Mathie, who was centralist. central bank governor under Rouhani, and he's the reformist candidate. Some support him.

But because he's such a B candidate, no one seriously supports him. And it's very clear, 2021 presidential elections for the first time in more than two decades, the results are known preordinated effectively. Abraham Raezy, who is this insider cleric, gets elected as president. He's very much seen as being groomed to be the next Supreme Leader. He's an unimaginative, unimpressive hanging man. His job, he's spent entire life in Iranian judiciary, racy. He basically executed people all his life.

He was the head of the judiciary. So he's really the force of the Islamic Republic. And now he's president in 2021 and being groomed to be the next supreme leader. So this is the conditions that gets us to 2022. 40 years of anger against the Islamic Republic of Iran

expressed through the fist of teenage girls. High school students daring to remove their headscarves and chant down with a dictator in front of their school. Something unimaginable just two weeks ago. Women have taken into the street and they say enough is enough. They chant women, life, freedom. We should also mention that

they used a kind of chemical weapon in girls' schools. At one point, it's later on, but it's disgusting the extent to which they were basically going after a movement comprised of largely adolescent girls in high school and college, right? I mean, this was the base of the women life freedom, right? That's right. So what happens in reaction to Massa, I mean,

is killing in custody, death in custody of this young Kurdish woman who had been caught with improper a job. a massive movement rises up all over the country. This is the most extensive challenge perhaps to the Islamic Republic. It uses a slogan that came out of the coalition of women and women like freedom. And yes, a lot of it's like movements and shakers are adolescent young women who take off their hijab. They burn their hijab. They start a campaign of mass civil disobedience, but not varying the hijab, which becomes the most lasting sign of the movement.

To this day, women don't burn the mandatory hijab anymore in Iran. And yes, the movement is suppressed very brutally. hundreds are killed all over the country. And at some point, there are reports of, you know, girls' schools where people are, like, getting sick in tons of girls' schools. And there's this idea that extremist elements in the regime have started, like, poisoning young girls to take revenge on this move. But, you know, the key thing, Eli is, the kidding in all of this is that, you know, the Iranians,

So in four massive waves of protests have come out, the three until now, and then we have another wave in 2025, 2026. But what is evading them in all this is that they're not able to put together a political sort of coalition that is able to present a sort of an organist alternative to the regime. And inside the country, this is very difficult because the regime always, for example, during the Women's Life Freedom Movement,

it arrested around 18,000 people. Who are these people? These are anybody who could have potentially been a local leader. So if you are a filmmaker who is a bit, well-known, they arrest you. If you're a trade unionist, they arrest you. So they know how to arrest all people who have the organizing potential. And in this way, they prevent the formation of any alternative to the regime. Well, yes, agreed that this is their strategy. Okay, so when we should talk about what happens at the end of 2025, this is a very different kind of protest.

These are the bizaries. These are the merchant class. These are people who had been reluctant joined national uprisings before. These are kind of a pillar of the stability for the regime, for the most part. They're there to make money. But the Rial is driven to nothing, almost. The fiscal calamity that is facing Iran, there are failing

banks, people are losing their pensions. And so then you start to see the strikes in the bazaars, and that becomes the next protest movement. Trump gets involved. Reza Pahlavi gets involved, who is the son of the last Shah. And then what happens in the middle of January? Yeah, so in the middle of January, early days of January, actually,

there are mass protests. This protests had started in the bazaar, as you said, and they really spread quickly. But it's very notable is that Reza Pahlavi, who had emerged as more popular figure in 2022, two, he had been part of a failed coalition effort to come together, bring together different leaders. Unfortunately, that collapses.

But nevertheless, Palabia has built his profile by then. He really becomes a leader of a significant section of Iranian public opinion. He promises a return to the monarchy. He's also seen as, I could say, if you want to divide Iran in a position, now there is a right wing and a more left-inning and right-leaning section. He's the leader of the right-leaning section. He's, but also not just that. He really becomes a front-runnery.

aren't in opposition politics. And he calls on people to come out because of mass demonstrations in January 8 and 9. And people respond to his call in millions. They come out in very huge numbers and the regime massacres them in huge numbers. Unprecedented numbers.

Between 7 to 20,000 people are killed when the regime puts them down in these demonstrations. So you don't buy the 30,000 number that we heard from And then President Trump recently said it was $45,000. Why do you say $7,000 to $20,000? I go, you know, history will show, number one,

even if it's the lowest number that I say like seven, that's still the worst massacre regime has done in his history, basically. So it doesn't. Yeah, because it's two days. Exactly. And in two days, yeah. You know, and protesters on the street. I mean, have executed people before, but murdering them on the street.

The reason I go for $7,000 to $20,000 is that I use the verified number. of human rights organizations like the Heronah, which is based in DC, human rights, human rights actors, activists, the news agency. I think the numbers are more verified, but the real numbers will be, you know, history will be, they will be known later. Obviously, it always takes time to confirm these things,

but that's why I go with the more conservative estimate. Anyway, yeah, I mean, we don't have to linger on it. We have enough reports literally going to, literally going in, you know, sending goons into hospitals to kill the wounded, arresting the doctors who treated the wounded, charging families for the corpses. It's disgusting, horrific behavior that only, I think, will deepen the enmity that most Iranians feel towards this regime.

So now I want to kind of get personal with you. A number of Iranian opposition figures, like Shereyna Badi welcomed this latest war. Did you support the war in late February? How did you... She took it back already. She basically said that she supported at the beginning, but not after, which is...

Look, no, I never supported the war, not for one minute. And the reason for that is simple. It's not because I'm a pacifist, because I'm not. I'm not someone who just believes war is always bad. Var is sometimes, this is... You're a Marxist. I am a Marxist, indeed, and that means I'm definitely not a pacifist,

and I believe vars are sometimes necessary. There are Russia's wars or just wars. You know, I believe in theories of just wars. But this war, from the very beginning, I knew that I didn't support it because... The reason was simple, because the war goals of the United States were not going to help democratization in Iran in any way. It was clear to me that it was about limiting the abilities of the regime. in a way, but that it would also be fought very irresponsibly, that it would lead, the best scenario, it would lead to what I call many unintended consequences, which means, you know,

it was not something I would support. It's also clear to me that if we want a democratic outcome in Iran, the honest is on us to organize a democratic coalition, to organize politically. Unfortunately, many Iranians started looking for a shortcut, thinking that, well, if the Israelis, and Americans could come and take out the bad guy and put out someone else and bring us democracy, not, you know, we'll welcome it. But it's just not in the cart. It was never possible. All you would get is a heightened war like this that would securitize the atmosphere, that would give more power to people with guns, which are different factions of the regime, which is effectively what has happened. So I never supported the war for this reason. You do acknowledge, though, that, you know, there are a number

of people who, even on the Iranian left, who did support it. 100% I wrote about it. There were many people in the Iranian left to support of it. And many people inside Iran. I mean, many people inside Iran support of it. I think they were short-sighted, as I said. I think because they did not see the unintended consequences that could happen. They mistook the resilience of the regime.

I think they thought maybe the regime will crumble after a few attacks. But I never thought so. Unfortunately, it's clear to me that the regime is organized enough. That's why even at the height of the January protests, I was on the Harretz podcast for Harz. And I remember people attacked me because I said, look, I don't think this will lead to a quick overturning of the regime or revolution and people were upset.

But it was very clear to me that, unfortunately, this was the case. Because we, the people, the Democrats, the people who want a democracy in on, they're not organized. They're not organized. They're not organized. They don't have the kind of power that could out-organize and out-winning against the entrenched security forces in the revolution regards. and the fine attacks won't change that.

I mean, some people, again, thought the fine attacks will change that. I never believed that they would change that. So that's why it was a supporter. Okay, so I disagree with you. I have an honest disagree with you, which is to say I do think that there is an opportunity. I wouldn't say it's guaranteed, but I think there's an opportunity if you have a hobbled security forces. And if you look at the targeting of the Israelis, more so if you're a few, weeks ago, but still, they have made sure to target not just sort of missile launchers and,

you know, drone factories, but also, you know, the Bessigi and IRGC and M.OIS headquarters and things that in regional headquarters are, they are attacking the instruments of regime oppression. And that strikes me as a deliberate thing, which is that at least the Israeli theory of the war. But walk me through it, walk me through it. How is that, how is that guy going to lend to the overturning of the regime? Well, let me, let me, I think what it potentially could do is that there will be, you will see after the, after the combat operations stop, the remnants of the regime will look around.

They will realize that they will have a number of crises for their own survival. They will have a hard time paying salaries. They will have a hard time mobilizing their forces. They will have far less weaponry. and they have become even more isolated regionally, and they've certainly lost, I think, prestige and stature among the two great power allies, Russia and China. And they will also have, well, we're going to get to this

because I think we could lose it very soon. That may prevent a window to begin to organize among the Iranian people, and then there is a potential, I think, for the Israelis, have shown they have, shown they have a capability with armed drones, they certainly have a network, to perhaps more seriously assist the opposition movement. And what I mean by that is they can assist through communications, they can assist by simply taking out checkpoints and places where

they would do that. They can assist by providing on-the-ground intelligence to demonstrators. But you're right, the ultimate work will have to be organizing that kind of coalition, trying, I think there needs to be a kind of external component because there's so much talent, Iranian talent, that can help. But I would just say it gives a window. And I don't think it's a couple days. I think it could be months of a kind of window as the regime tries to reconstitute itself

and realizes that it has been severely weakened. That's not saying a guarantee that it's going to happen, but I do think that it gives a kind of chance or an opportunity. You disagree. So, you know, so the thing is, no, no, well, it's not that I disagree in a sense that I do believe that the day after the war, the regime will face it, you know, it might face mass revolts again.

It certainly will face, you know, a lot of difficulties. You will have to see the society without, you know, it would not have, it would have a huge economic crisis on its hands. I think day after the war will be very scared for the regime. It might as well face, you know, new operational. But what I'm saying is that because we don't have, you know, the organized movement, in order for it to get help from anywhere, it needs to be organized and have some degree of strategy and cohesion.

It just doesn't exist, unfortunately. I agree with you. Right now it doesn't exist. I just think that there will be an opportunity. This is not a sort of thing that comes into being so quickly. I mean, it's not a sort of thing that can just come together, you know. We'll see. There are structures that exist on the outside.

I hope so. I hope so, too. And there's a lot we don't know. Even, I mean, I think you have great context inside the country. I don't think, I think we're not there. We can't know. I mean, I could see a scenario where you would see. Sure, yeah, let's see.

Officers in the Artesche, who are less connected to the regime, maybe say to themselves, I'd like a better future. The Artesch, as we both know, as an institution that predates the Islamic Revolution. So maybe I'm not, but again... There are even figures in the Revolutionary Guards who would say that. There are even figures in the Revolution in regards who would say that.

But even them, they would be unlikely that they democratized, though. What they will do is they'll take power and they change some of the core policies. I think that's very likely to happen. By the way, if they take power and they're more accommodating, if they take power and they're less aggressive, then that might be the kind of thing that we would need to then get to the next phase. So, I mean, if it doesn't happen, it'll happen by the Iran. I agree with you there.

Okay, so I just want to point out, but there are potential. I agree with you there, but I think that would have happened even without the war. Maybe. Maybe. Now I want, well, let's, the war had, you know, kind of overdetermined, but let's, now let's talk about something where I think we definitely do agree. And that is, we are now hours away from this deadline from Donald Trump that he says he will start bombing civilian power plants. I make a distinction, by the way, between power plants and bridges. Bridges, you could blow up for military reasons. And to me, that is not a war crime, depending on the bridge. it's hard for me to imagine that unless it was a power plant that was just for an IRGC military base,

which that exists, if he only did that, you know, I don't care. I believe the regime is the enemy. But if he starts destroying the power plants that are important for Tabriz and Mashad and Tehran, cities with millions and millions of people, that is an unspeakable war crime, a horrible cruelty, and it will be something that will further emiserate Iranians that already have to deal with life under these corrupt and fanatic lunatics. So we are definitely in agreement that don't punish the Iranian people. They are ultimately the allies, in my view, of this war effort. Can you sort of talk a little bit about that, like this latest threat?

And by the way, it contradicts what Trump himself said two months ago, three months ago, right? I mean, first of all, you know, the latest Trump threat when we're... It's insane to even normalize this kind of language, you know, from world leaders. It would have corrosive effects. Look, this Trump president is going to have corrosive effects globally for many years ago. Frankly, he sounds like he sounds like he sounds like he sounds like he sounds like, North Korea or Iran. He sounds like a rogue state.

Yes. Exactly. Exactly. And that's really terrible and that makes a permission structure for others to also say that. But yeah, it's quite clear. It's quite clear.

Look, it goes to something beyond that delight. There are two opinions as to what to do with the Islamic Republic. One is to replace it, change the government of Iran so that the government is less of a problem for the Western Israel. It serves its people better and all

Another is to make Iran into a failed estate into a broken state so that it won't be a threat anymore. And unfortunately, some in the Israeli security state and some in the United States do support the latter. I don't. I hope that is not the case with Israel, at least the rhetoric of Netanyahu tells me that that is not what he thinks. I'm not denying that there are people in the Israeli security state who have that idea. It is stupid and cruel. I just want to put that out there that a failed state, will cause even more problems. So let's not believe ourselves here. Exactly. And I hope more and more,

you know, more and more people agree with that and sort of understand that. Because ultimately, look, there is a way. Iran has been a terrible actor, but there are ways, even ways short of democratization to, you know, to end this belligerence of Iran with Israel and the United States. And breaking Iran and making Iran to fill the state is not the way to go. As you said, it will lead to all sorts of troubles after. Well, with that, Arash, I want to thank you so much. I wanted to make sure I got your voice in there. Thank you so much, July.