Guerrilla History - The History and Impact of Sanctions on Iran w/ Muhammad Sahimi [REMASTERED]

Episode Date: June 13, 2025

This remastered episode of Guerrilla History was a continuation of our Sanctions As War miniseries.  In this fascinating episode, we had a discussion with Professor Muhammad Sahimi on the history and the impacts of sanctions on Iran, which is both an immensely enlightening and heartbreaking conversation.  This episode is particularly timely given the current situation in Iran.  Be sure to also stay turned for our analysis on the situation in Iran, coming soon! Muhammad Sahimi is a Professor at the University of Southern California, where he analyses Iran’s political development, its nuclear program, and its foreign policy. From 2008 to 2012 he was the lead political analyst at Frontline/Tehran Bureau website. Help support the show by signing up to our patreon, where you also will get bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/guerrillahistory  We also have a (free!) newsletter you can sign up for, and please note that Guerrilla History now is uploading on YouTube as well, so do us a favor, subscribe to the show and share some links from there so we can get helped out in the algorithms!! *As mentioned in the intro, you will be able to find Tsars and Commissars: From Rus to Modern Russia soon on YouTube.

Hello, guerrilla history listeners, this is co-host Henry. I know that last week at the beginning of the episode, I announced that this week we would be releasing the first two episodes of Tsars and Commissars from Rushtamaran Russia, the new show that I am co-hosting, on a history of Russia from pre-state foundation all the way to the present in 25 parts this week. However, as a result of the Zionist entity, attacking Iran this moment, morning. Adnan and I decided that we should be really focusing on understanding what is happening in Iran at the present moment. This is not a news program, so we are not going to be

bringing you instant analysis of the breaking news. Instead, we are going to analyze what is happening over the course of the next week and bring you new material when we feel we have things that are analytically strong and worth saying. With that being said, I have a lot of decided that we should push back the release of some Tsars and Commissars episodes to allow us to have space to re-release a previous episode related to Iran on this channel. This episode is a part of our Sanctions as War series. It's titled The History and Impact of Sanctions on Iran with Mohamed Sahimi. It was a great conversation as were all of our conversations in the Sanctions as War series. This episode came out about three years ago.

ago, two and a half years ago, in any case, at this point. So I am well aware that many of you new listeners will not have heard this episode. In any case, we do have a very important conversation here. And understanding the history and impact of sanctions on Iran will help us understand not only those sanctions and the impacts of those sanctions, but also will help us understand the current political and historical conjuncture that Iran is in. By having this base of understanding, when we go and are able to analyze what the present events that are taking place and are certainly going to be developing by the time you hear this episode, which will be coming out in about an hour or two after I record this introduction,

things are going to be developing rapidly, and that's why we want to take time to analyze and really have a well-rounded analysis that we can share with you when we do release it. But having this basis of understanding on the history and impacts of sanctions and on the present state of affairs in Iran, more generally, you will find that discussion that is related to the present events to be much more fruitful and much more understandable. So with that being said, I will make a note that this episode will be coming out on both our podcast feed as well as our YouTube channel.

If you haven't already subscribed to our YouTube channel, I highly recommend that you do. It's a relatively new channel, and so we have very few subscribers relative to the number of listeners that we have on our podcast feed. If you can, subscribe to the channel, like a few of the videos, and especially share some of the links with people that you think would prefer to listen to this material

on YouTube over podcast feeds. We're trying to make it so that we can have more people find our episodes on YouTube as at the moment. We're very, very low in the YouTube algorithms. And for those of you who are looking forward to Tsars and Commissars, I will have a link to that YouTube web channel for Tsars and Commissars in the show notes of this episode. There will not be material there yet as I want to release the first episode at the same time that we put it as a bonus episode on Gorilla History.

So be aware that the page will be blank if you are clicking it on the day of the release of this episode. But if you subscribe and particularly if you sign up for notifications, you will know the moment that the beginning of that 25-part series on Russian history begins. So without further ado, I'm now going to turn it over to our episode, The History and Impact of Sanctions on Iran with Muhammad Sahimi. I hope you enjoy. And look forward to new material related to what is going. on in Iran at the moment.

You remember Din Van Booh? No! The same thing happened in Algeria, in Africa. They didn't have anything but a rank. The French had all these highly mechanized instruments of warfare.

But they put some guerrilla action on. Hello and welcome to guerrilla history, the podcast that acts as a reconnaissance report of global proletarian history, and aims to use the lessons of history to analyze the present. I'm one of your co-hosts, Henry Huckmacki, as usual, joined by my two co-hosts, Professor Adnan Hussein, historian director of the School of Religion at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada. Hello, Adnan. How are you doing today? I'm doing very well, and it's a great pleasure to be with you, as always, Henry. Absolutely. Always a pleasure to see you as well. We're unfortunately not joined by our other usual co-host, Brett O'Shea, who had a very positive development in his life recently. And so we're giving him a little bit of time off. I won't get more specific than that because, you know, personal things. But just as everybody will probably know, we're very, very happy for Brett and you should be as well. So today we have an excellent guest and we're going to be recording on a really excellent topic. We're joined by Professor Mohamed Sahimi, a professor at University of Southern California who analyzes Iran's political development, its nuclear program, and its foreign policy, and has

been writing on these topics for about 30 years. This episode is going to be a continuation of our ongoing sanctions as war series, which, if you haven't listened to the previous installments of our sanctions as war series, including the introductory episode with Professor's Emmanuel Ness and Stuart Davis, as well as the case study on Yugoslavia that we put out and the episode on Sanctions as siege warfare, which came out just one or two weeks ago at the time that this episode comes out. You should really go check out those episodes too, because these episodes really do work well together as a cohesive whole that we can understand theoretically as well as these case studies. So Professor

Sahimi wrote the chapter of this book, Sanctions is War titled A Century of Economic Blackmail Sanctions and War Against Iran. And of course, it's timely that we're talking about Iran right now, but it also is basically always timely to be talking about Iran in the context of sanctions. So, Professor, I'm going to just turn this over to you right now. Would you mind giving a brief sketch? I know in the beginning of the chapter, basically the first half of the chapter, you give a brief history of how relations between, let's just say, the West and Iran unfolded and kind of set up the future sanctions regimes that were then placed on Iran. Could you briefly sketch out that historical relation between Iran and the

West? Sure. During the first part of the 20th century, the rival between the British Empire and the Russian Empire, over influence in Iran, contributed to Iran being basically a bargaining cheap or one and two between the two. Both wanted to have influence. the British Empire was worried about its colonies, Indian subcontinent, Afghanistan, and so on. At the same time, they were worried about the Russians on the north. The Russians, on the other hand, have always wanted to have access to warm water. And the closest access to Russia at that time was through Iran to reach the Persian Gulf. And therefore, there was always tension between the British Empire and Russian Empire or influence in Europe.

When constitutional revolution in Iran occurred in 1906 and the absolute monarchy was transformed into a constitutional monarchy, the British supported the revolutionaries, whereas the Russians supported the supporters of the old regime, absolute monarchy and therefore when in 1907 Muhammad Ali Shah who was the king of Iran at that time cited the country of each change and wanted to take the system back to all days the Russians supported it with the health of the Russian Cossack and Brigade that was operating Iran and all of its commanders there are also Russians. So what they did was they bombard the Iranian partner at the time. And for a

period of time, the old absolute monarchy came back. At the same time, Germany was on the lives. And the British and Russians, they're also worried about the rise of Germany, which eventually led to World War I. So in their negotiations in 2007, they decided basically to recognize each other's influence in Iran. Russia

scale of influence was recognized as being a northern part of Iran, whereas the British scale of influence was supposed to be certain part of Iran on the shores of Perlingal and Sea of Omaha.

So that was basically what happened, transforming their rivalry into some sort of cooperation in order to control Iran and so that they can stand up to their rising Germans at that time. Then when World War I fought, they wanted to help Russia, and therefore the British Empire wanted to use Iran. Russian forces occupied northern part of Iran, the British interior to the southern art. And because of the fact that they had been using all means of transportation, the roads at that time, and because of the fact that they were buying large amounts of foolish stuff,

among other factors that contributed to a big famine in Iran in Iran. in that era and anybody became 2 million to 9 million lions lost their lives because of the famine and the enormous population at that time was something like 20 to 25 million so that basically contributed greatly to that famine and a very large number of Ivanians lost their lives just to jump in for one second i want to just to drive that point home for the listeners what the professor just said is that this famine that was taking place killed anywhere between 10 and 45% of the population of Iran within this period of time.

It's worth dwelling on those numbers for just a little bit because you hear 2 million people to 8 million people, it really does put it into perspective to think of it as a percentage of the population. We're talking 10 to 45% of the entire country's population dying within this couple of year period. I apologize for the interruption, Professor. No, your point is excellent, actually.

when we look at this in terms of percentage, then we can compare, for example, let's say that you have a famine in the United States that gives 10% of the population. That's equivalent to 3,3 million people losing their lives here because of famine. So that puts it in perspective. So at the same time, you have to remember that in 2001, William Knox-Garcy had okay and all you can see. from the Shah, Iran-Muzafarian Shah, that gave it the right to explore for oil everywhere in Iran except in northern part of it.

And that concession was supposed to last for 60 years from 1901 to 19601. And after many years of exploration, oil finally started to flow. to flow in 1908 in the tower massachusetts, so they know, in the second part of Iran. And that added to Iran's strategic importance because not only now, Iran was a breach between Asia and Europe and also on the southern border of Russia and Persian Gulf and Sea of Oman, but it also emerged that Iran has very significant oil assistance. And therefore, that very very, very, very, very,

added to Iran's strategic importance. Then towards the end of World War I, we had the Russian Revolution, the October Revolution on 1917, where the Communist government came to power, and that changed again for British Empire because they were not worried about, you know, the leftist or communists influenced in Iran. And Iran was imposed by chaos because of World War I.

They have to remember that at the beginning of World War I, Iran had to defend its neutrality. But that neutrality wasn't respected. And as I said, Russian and Haitish forces injured in Iran and contributed the great famine that we had at that time. So the British decided that in order to have a, you know, to have a secure Iran, they have to be their own man into power. So in 1921, they staged a coup and they brought to power. And Iranian brigadier general, who was known as there is a Han Salad Kupi. He was part of the Cossack Brigade.

And to the coup in 3 years ago, in 1921, he and another Iranian, who is reputed to be a British Asian. His name was Setsia Tawa Tawa Yi. They said a coup over to remove from all of the primaries at that time and took over the government. After three months, Sizia Tadavatawi, who was supposedly the leader of the coup, was removed and,

the result on the brigadier general first became a minister of defense and eventually became prime minister and then in uh in 1926 he forced the parliament the union parliament to abolish the last monarchy dynasty the ajar dynasty and declare himself the new shahabu and that began dark period in 2025, a dark period between 2025 to 1941 where

although Reza who was now known as Reza Shah put some order into Iran and unified the country and modernize the government and so. But in terms of political developments and Iran's progress towards

a democratic government everything well completed the president of his opponents through many of them in jail forced many of them into exile and forced many of other ones into complete silence he was an absolute dictator

so because of British Empire Man Union all the achievements of the constitutional revolution that we had in 1906 were basically destroyed. But at the same time, Iran has been not happy about the oil concessions that William Nostarcy had obtained from Iran because now Iran was producing a very significant amount of oil, but Iran was receiving very little from, you know, extraction and sales of oil.

Iran was only received a company of 16% of the profit. But even then, the very day was a very day counting as profit was completely a stretch because they had formed the Anglo-Persian oil company and the Anglo-Persian company, which is basically what is known as British Victoria had operation all over the world. So although it had operation all over the world, they are not counting profits outside Iran as profit. At the same time, since they are selling Iran its own oil at a discount, they were also counting back discount as some sort of operating expenses. So that made it cut into further into what Iran was in Syria. So negotiations began again in 1930 and there was a lot of dissidents in Iran regarding the concession. But what happened was

after intense evocation and after a result shot, even saying that the concession to William Knox Darcy was canceled, there finally some sort of agreement whereby Elon would see a better deal for it. But the duration of the constitution was extended from 1961 to 1991.

So it was extended for another 30 years. So that added to the anger that Iranian people, and particularly the intelligency are Iranian political activists. And then when Resort Schaub started developing sympathies towards the Nazi Germany that have cooperated in Germany. And in fact, for example, the Nazis helped Resort Schott to build a railroad from Saudi. even to mortal Iran, the British got warred. That railroad that Germans failed for Iran was actually something that benefited the British Empire, not Iranian people.

Because for Iran, the most strategic world is not from south to north or north to south, but because it is breached between Asia and Europe, most strategic roads should be between the eastern part of the country and western part, whereby, you know, it connects Asia to Europe. But that railroad was built because the British were worried about Russian communists. And at that time, Christian Science Monit wrote the American newspaper when the British invaded in 1941.

And the report said that the honest railroad goes from nowhere to nowhere. In other words, he wasn't passing through any city, any green economy, the significant area. And it was just spelled for the benefits of the British employee. So after a result, I developed sympathy for Germany, in particular, Edda of Hitler. And the allies were, of course, worried about demands. So they evaded Iran in September of 1941, remove Rezaa Shah from polar, and put his son, Mohamed Reza Shah, in power.

That started a period of relative political freedom in Iran, which in 1941 and 1953, because the young Shah was weak. Iran had been under great repression by Reza Shah. And after it was removed, there was a lot of relief that Iranian people felt as a lot of hate being removed from power. And we had a period of relative democratic, democratic values, and legal expressions in Iran. But that freedom also led to the fact that Iranian nationals again began raising a voice regarding Iran's national resources and in particular own. Iranians wanted to basically take control of their own resources and in particular old, and the British Empire was not willing to give it up.

A lot of people say here in the West that the British Empire offered your great concessions, and if you don't have accepted, we would never have had the 1953 coup by the CIA and British Enron 6th. But the fact of the matter is, as Professor Yerevan, Abraham Meorn, demonstrated in his excellent book, the coup, the issue was not how much Iran was getting, although that was important. The issue was Iran's control on its oil national resources. The British were not willing to give it up, and Iranians wanted to take it back. And therefore, after a lot of confrontation between the nationals and the imperial court,

the Shah, who was always afraid of the British court, and the British government, Dr. Muhammad Moussabred, the Nationalist Iranian Prime Minister, who had been elected democratically and his allies, nationalized the Iranian oil industry in 1950. That began the process for staging a coup and overturned the government of Dr. Muhammad yourself. First, they imposed a lot of sanctions in the Iran. They prevented Iran from export to move forward. They prevented Iran from getting loans from outside. They threatened Iran militarily by sending their British forces to the Persian Gulf. And even after Iran won the case in front of their international tribal and then to United Nations, the British

didn't much. And that was when Harry Truman he was president who has sympathy towards the victim was replaced by President Dwight Eisenhower

and President Eisenhower was of course a very conservative guy and this administration was far right and in particular

the broadest the dollar's one of them was the director of CIA The other one was Secretary of Sake. They were strongly anti-Iran anti-Dr. Moussate and his government. And they were claiming that Dr. Moussandet is weak.

And if this continues, the Soviets would take over Iran to the Iranian Communist Party, which was known as the Tudor Party, to them is masses. And therefore, they need to overtone. So as I said, that began the process of applying for it. And eventually, I mean, August of 1953, after the Shah of Iran had fled the country, left the country. And Dr. Mossade and his allies had complete control over the war. They staged a coup and with the help of evidence of Iran military. And some of their agents began, and some of the clerics who were not acting with Dr. Mossade,

They overthrew him, jailed a lot of Iranian nationalists, and reestablish the power of the Shah. The Shah returned to Iran, and that started his dictatorship from 1953 all the way to fall of 1978 and reached out in 1979. But even during this time, the role of Americans and British states are very significant, even though their Adams is in power. For example, in 1957, the Americans helped the Shah to establish its internal security organization, which was named Sabah, which is a farce action for the organization. security and intelligence of Iran. The Stavov became basically an organization that would capture, imprison and torture

Iranian opposition leaders and hundreds of them that were killed by and so on. During 1960s and 1970s. In 1961, for example, President John Kennedy was worried about the fact that Iran may have some sort of rule or movement of the type that we have seen in Latin America.

He was worried that there would be forces, like, for example, what Peter Castle had in Cuba. And he thought that Iran should take agriculture reform and redistribute some lands between peasants so that that would prevent things that had happened in nothing in America and Iran. But the Shah was not being to do that, so he pressured him, and he basically imposed on him

his own peak for Iran's current minister, whose name was Ali and Minnie, and we had Minnie was an American-educated poor American politician. He was also related to the last died in the city of Georgia, like to see that the Shah and his father

had older to. So they took some sort of agri-report in order to prevent something like, you know, what had happened in Latin America, for example. But that also backed for you because when you distribute lands between peasants, you also need to leave there other things in order to not only survive, but try, you need water resources, you need good income, and so on. And the lands that they gave them were small pieces of land that was not really useful for, you know, a sustained production of agriculture, products, and also a sustained way of life. So what happened was a lot of those peasants that were supposed, you know, owners of the land couldn't really leave with what they

had. So they started migrating towards large cities. And in these large cities, they basically They stayed Iran on the periphery of these cities, and they couldn't get the job. And that added to complications that we don't have in addition to political repression, lack of media, and everything else. The Shah's economy was not able to address the poverty that was spreading. So eventually that led to the idea of revolution that we can discuss it separate. Yeah. This is a very important review of kind of modern history of Iran, which you do in your article, which is a little bit different, interestingly, from some of the other approaches that authors studying the sanctions regimes have taken by giving us this more detailed background, longer period of history. You know, one of the things that I see valuable in it is that although many times people, you know, understand that Iran was not colonized in the same fashion, for example, say Algeria, or there wasn't direct control under the mandate, like for, you know, Iraq and Syria in the interwar period, that nonetheless there has been a very long and sustained pattern of intervention by outside.

imperial powers that have tried to control and suppress Iran's economic and political sovereignty. So this review is very important in detailing those patterns. I guess what I would say, what I would ask you to perhaps analytically reflect on that very interesting account of all of these interventions and various ways of suppressing Iran's sovereignty is to ask how you see that connected analytically to the sanctions regime. People might think that, oh, sanctions are a separate process that, you know, appear in response to the 1978 and 79 revolutionary period. But your perspective puts it in continuity with this longer history. I'm wondering if you could tell us how you see that being connected with

telling the story and understanding the actual role or impact of sanctions. Why do we need that history? Well, I mean, we do need it because unlike what some people are telling, Steinchings imposed on Iran didn't start after the Iranian Revolution. It goes way back. As I said, during the time that Dr. Musafir, a national of its United World Company, Airdo-Persia oil company, a national Iranian world company. The British Empire, in order to prevent it and force Iran to give it up, impose economic sanctions. And in this, it was aided by the United States.

They prevented, you know, from setting their orders, they're basically so on the Iran on the South by a military force. They prevented, you know, from getting loans because Dr. Mossadden was trying to get loans so that he can run the country until the issue is resolved. Even before that, during the negotiations between Resort Shah and Anglo-Fersia and oil company, there was always a threat that, you know, your share would be cut off, your share would be held back. until you agree to the conditions that we want.

So this has a long history in Iran. And even, for example, in the 1960s, as I said, President John Kennedy was worried about what may happen in Iran because of the situation in rural area and forced the Shah to pitch his own plea, Ali and Meini as prime minister there. And in this, it basically threatened the shot that unless you do this, there will be some consequences. So that was also sort of economic blackening, that they were at least threatening to impose it.

So it, and since from this, from the point of view of Americans, these sanctions have always been effective. the only thing they have done is hurry the lives of ordinary Iranians without actually resulted in what they actually wanted so there has always been a continuity of either sanctions or the track of sanctions against Iran at least since 1940s and 1930s So when the Islamic Revolution or the United Revolution, the Papal Bresha, in February of 1979, and then we had a hostage crisis. Then President Carter, they have imposed economic sanctions. The U.S. are inverted to its own troops, imposing economic sanctions.

After Iran and the United States reached the Algeria's agreement, by revert. which you are released the hostages. And the United States agreed to hand its economic sanction. The agreement stipulated that the United States is not imposed sanctions when we run again. And it would also not intervene in enormous internal effects. But almost either after the end of hostage crisis, everything started again. So this has always continued. Then we got to Iran-Iraq war.

There were sanctions against Iran buying weapons to defend itself, even though the Shah between 1973 and 1978 had purchased a $193,000,000,000,000,000 worth of modern weapons from the United States, the U.S. refused to provide Iran with their spare parts for the weapons. that you don't have purchased and have paid. And in fact, part of the weapons, they're never delivered. Not only they were not delivered, the United States encouraged you to invade Iran. And Europe would not have invaded Iran if it had but been called encouragement and what you see from the United States.

So when it invaded the Yon in September of 1980, You all have full support of the West, even though the United States became its neutrality, but it wasn't actually neutral because he was giving all sorts of intelligence to Iraqi forces to become aware of a movement of Iranian troops. And as we all know, and Donald Bronson went to Iraq as a special envoy for President of Iran of Vietnam, to let Saddam Hussein know that although U.S. was officially neutral, but it was turkey towards Iraq, didn't give off. And so that began, and France sold a lot of weapons to Iraq. Greta sold a lot of records to Iraq.

The Arab nations of the Persian Gulf that are allies of the United States provided Iraq with $50 billion in financial help in order to sustain the war we give on. And in the meantime, Iran was basically deprived of any event. defense of weapons because there was a sanction and there was the United States which refused to deliver to what you are or impaid for not only that Western power including Germany and the United States helped Iraq to develop chemical weapons and those chemical reference were used not only against Iranian troops but also against Iraqis own Kurdish citizens that killed thousands of people and the

CIA and the Western Power knew, but they never condemned it until many years after, after they went to war with Saddam Hussein himself. So, as you can see, there has always been this continuity of either sanctions of some sort or another against, you know, or treat it on. You either do this that we tell you, or there will be consequences. And the consequences have always been sanctions. in the first place. But there has

that always been also wars such as invasion of Iran by Europe, encouraged by Lewis to recall

that for the end of war in 1987 and 1988 and 1988 or 1980 basically

the entire legal took side with you because there was a tank of war between Iran and Iran whereby the Iraqis

were attacking Iranian oil installation, and in return, Iranians were attacking the tankers that was selling oil for Iran in order to prevent it deprived of income. And therefore, Maito sent its neighbor forces to Persian Gulf, and the United States attacked Iranian oil installation in the Persian Gulf. It destroyed half of the Union Navy. And then, on top of it, in July 1988, they shot one. Iranian passenger airline

that killed 290 people, including 63 Chile, over the Persian Gulf and their excuse was that it was a human mistake because they called that this was an Iranian fighter jet

or a lot of passenger jets, whereas we know that there is no way that any modern radar can confuse the team. So that, again, that continued. And then President Clinton came to power and imposed talk of sanctions and so on and so forth, we can discuss them one by one, case like case.

So, as you said, this has always continued, and unlike what they claim in this part of war, sanctions didn't start with Ilanian Revolution, sanction didn't start with hostage characteristics, sanction didn't start with evaluation, sanction didn't start with evaluation. It goes way back and has always been used as a veteran against Iranian people and the Iranian nation. I think that this is a good time to go through the sanctions one by one. But just in preface to that, you mentioned the Algiers Accords. I think that this, of course, is also worth bringing up that the audience has this in their minds. The Alger's Accords were signed on January 19, 1981.

one. And as you said, they essentially prohibited the United States from meddling in internal affairs in Iran and also prohibited them from imposing economic sanctions and also they had to lift the existing economic sanctions on Iran that were in place at that point. And so basically every sanctions package and, you know, the overall sanctions regime that has been in place on Iran since then has been in direct contradiction to the Alger's Accords. Like, you know, this is what the United States does. The United States makes pact, makes accords, and then violates them willy-nilly. We've seen this time and time again. And this, in the case of Iran, it goes farther back than the Alger's Accords, but we still see this, you know, countervening of the spirit and the

letter of the law of the Algers Accords ever since 1981. So it's worth keeping that in mind, listeners, that all of these sanctions that the professor is now going to go through with us, these are all in direct contradiction to what the United States said it was going to do. So please keep that in your mind. Now, Professor, why don't you just take it away with all of these sanctions packages that were put in place on Iran since that period of time and the impacts of them? Because as you lay out in your article, the chapter of this book, each of these sanctions has had an absolutely devastating impact on Iran and on totally ordinary people.

The intended target in many ways, I will add, you know, the implicit target is regime change, but another implicit target is that that's via harming ordinary people, and that's something that we've talked about throughout the sanctions as worst series. So, Professor, go ahead. Well, first of all, we have to remember that President Reagan and his successor, President George Derry Bush, never actually lifted all the sanctions that have been imposed by President O'Cock. Some sanctions were removed, but some other sanctions stayed,

and the legal framework for this legal, from view of the Americans, also stayed in place. So the sanctions were never completed in it. Then, after the war, the Iraq ended. And there was a new Iranian president, Akva Koshimba, San Joanie, who was one of the leaders of the revolution. was elected president, he wanted to actually improve the relations between Iran and the United States. He talked that to rebuild the country, Iran needs investment by the West,

and Iran needs to at least lower attention with the investors. So in 1995, Iran had, you know, call for vets to deliver an offshore oil trees in the Perching Gulf. Several Europeans and American companies participated. There was no oil sanction at this time. And even though a European fair won the betting, the administration of President of San Johnny decided to award a contract to the American oil company, Conoco. Conoco was supposed to go in and develop the old field and share some profits and

then handed over to Iran. But President Clinton, who wanted the support of the Israeli lobby to get re-elected in 1996, not only prevented Conocoqq to carry out its, its, projects in Iran, but imposed total economic sanctions, which meant no trade between Iran and the United States, no investment in Iran's oil industry or other industry within Iran, and also sanctions and punishment for any third party, let's say, any European company that was willing to invest in it. So that began the quote and quote modern era of sanctions against it was really clear to who did this. Then in two years after that, Mohanah Otari, the reformist president, was elected in Landis slide. He began a series of

reforms and more of his key goals was again to improve the relations with the United States. He came to the United Nations and let's talk about dialogue of civilization. He said that the people of the United States and begin exchanging culture, sports teams, and so on, and gradually include their relationship. The Black resolve was that Birchlin and his Secretary of State, Madden Albright, didn't watch. The only thing they did was in the spring of

year 2000, after the Iranian reformers had warned violence of the elections for Iranian parliament. They, Arbright made a speech in which she expressed regrets over the 1953 codes. She actually didn't not let us. She just expressed regret and tried to justify it by saying that the Israel administration was worried about a strategic implication of Iran's nationalism of board and also of the influence of leftist and communist in Iran and so on.

So that basically left all the sanctions in place. And when George W. Bush became president or elected president and historicist presidency in 2001, we had, of course, September 11th, terrible surpassed on the United States. The United States decided to invade Afghanistan, but it is invasion. And Iran actually provided very significant help to the U.S. forces in order to overthrow the talent. Because Iran had been in Afghanistan. Historically, Afghanistan had all been part of Iran that had been separated by force. Why did British in 1865 and established the state of Afghanistan basically at the bumpers of between Iran and Indian subcontinent?

And, of course, a significant portion of Afghani people, which is basically pure Persians. So, you know, and have always had deep influence in Afghanistan. And after Taliban took forward in 1996, Iranians helped the opposition in 2000. So where the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in the fall of 2001, Iran provided great help to it. open airspace so that U.S. aircraft can fly over beyond Japanistan.

Instead of going to Vietnamian waters of flying over the ocean and go to Pakistan, it committed itself to help if any, for example, any U.S. aircraft had to land in emergency situation in Iran. And most importantly, Yard had armed and trained the Norton Alliance, led by Ahnod Shah Masu, who was the leader of the opposition, Afghanistan. And it was a few days before the terrorist attack on the United States on September 11th, Ahmad Shah soon had been assassinated. So after the terrorist attack, the war in invasion of Afghanistan,

Northern Alliance forces that have been trained by Iran were actually the first force that either Kabul and over to the Taliban. It wasn't the U.S. forces that beat. It was a northern Iranist forces that needed. So there was hope at that time that relation between Iran and the United States are really improved. More than that, in December of 2001, there was a conference in Bonn, West Germany, for Germany of that time, including all Afghan factions.

They have gotten together, plus neighbors of Afghanistan, including Iran, and the United States that, you know, both there militarily and Russia and so on, to agree on some sort of national unity government for Afghans. And these factions were not able to reach any agreement until Iran actually intervened. He also presented to that conference for us, Mohammed Jai Wadsen-Ree, who later became Iran foreign minister and negotiated the JCPOA agreement, the nuclear agreement. And it was through the intervention of Zaid that akken factions actually agreed on the form of the national unity government. And in fact, U.S. representative to that negotiation, James Dobbins,

later testified in U.S. Senate, praising Zahid, saying, that belongs to Zareef's self and Iran's self, this would never happen. But what did the Iraqis do? Less than two months later, George Bush, a spoke to the Congress and declared Iran a charter member

of access of Edo. He put Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, you know, in the same level, and declared access of, declared its access of EO, and began its hostility He imposed further sanctions

and he projected any sort of negotiations between Iran and the United States. Then when the U.S. invaded the rock on Argentina in 2003 about two months later

after that invasion, the Hottami administration submitted a comprehensive proposal in the Bush administration were resolving all the issues between Iran and the United States. This was very significant because Iran, for example, had offered in that proposal that it would disarm the Lebanese Shia and would transform it into a purely political and social organization so that the U.S. concerned would be at least. It also proposed that Iran would recognize any agreement between Palestinian and Israel regarding the issue between Palestinian and Israel, it will end its support for other Palestinian faction.

It would put Iran nuclear program, which was getting developed at that point under a strict controlled by international atomic energy agency and also by linking other other concerns. You are sent this proposal to Swiss Embassy in Tehran. Swiss Embassy in Tehran takes care of U.S. interests in Iran, and Swiss ambassador to Iran forwarded to the White House. But Dick Cheney and Joe W. Bush rejected the proposal. And Big Cheney has said that we don't negotiate with terrorists. So that added to the tension.

Then Iran started negotiating the three European problems, Germany, France and Britain and Britain over Iran's nuclear four. And in the spave of 2005, the region agreed what they should do and so on. But the George Tullary Bush administration rejected the argument. Jack Estra, who was born in Secretary of Reason at that time, said later on that it was only because of the opposition by George Derry Bush that Virginia Rich Agreemented and therefore what happened was Iran began developing this nuclear program. And as a result of continuous pressure by the United States

on Iran at least one of the factors that contributed was the rise of hard liners in New York, because whatever the Iranians did, whatever the Nican's administration of President of

Alkan U.S. was conquered by hostile action by the United States. The hardiners had always said that we cannot trust the United States. Just as as you said, the United States signs a pact, sounds an agreement,

But while they said NATO on, when it suits in interest to violate it. So it cannot really be trusted. So Mahouy Ahmadinejewa changed in power in 2004, and he began to develop the UNICEFLEA program. As a result, Iran's own doses sent to the United Nations Security Council. And a new route of science began. and the United States now use resolution by U.S. Security Council as sort of a legal basis that, yes, since U.S. Secretary of the Council has agreed on a separate sanctions against V.R. Therefore, we can also follow that resolution. We can also impose our own sanctions. There we reached the Ovanos era when President of Ovanos began his presidency in January 2000.

Supposedly, he came to power to make peace between the Iraqi States and the Islam report. Remember that he gave this speech in Cairo and referred to the confrontation between the West and the Islam on board, and he said that he wants to seek peace. and he was even awarded a little advice. But what he did regarding him was not only really all those sanctions against Iran that had been imposed by Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, he also did a new type of sanctions

that was totally unprecedented. Even the Clinton era and George W. Bush era, the U.S. had sanctions imposed on Iran, But Iran was still free to have commercial relationships with the Ukrainian countries, with Asian countries, and so on. But what Obama did was it cut off Iran from a world financial institution, and in particular, the serious system, that allows transfer of cars to the money between various countries. So that meant that all Iranian banks were sanctions, all Iranian financial institutions,

for sanctions, and therefore, anything that Iran would stay outside was not able to receive the proceeds from it, and they would be frozen in the countries where they had to see Iranian progress and oil and so on. So that was the most severe type of sanctions. And in fact, an analysis of those sanctions that O'Amon imposed on Iran shows that those, Those sanctions were harsher than anything that the United States imposed on the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War. So Iran has been under those sanctions since Olamo. These were really harsh. For example, the United States officially didn't sanction state of critical medication,

medications, drugs, and so on into Iran. But because Iran's financial institution were cut up from the rest of the world, there was no way to buy those drugs and pay for it and pay for it, because when you are cut out, are going to pay for it. And in addition, the concern that these companies had was that if they sell Iran these medication, drugs, and so on, and they will be fun somehow later on, they will come after them about why they sold these drugs. to you know. So as a result of those sanctions and shoot thousands of people lost their lives

because some critical medicine, Iran makes 90% of his own medicine, but 10% of critical medicine for things of cancer and so on have to be imported. And Iran was not able to import those. So a lot of people lost their lives because of lack of addiction. Yes, a job a question. Just to add in very briefly that, as you mentioned, many individuals in Iran lost their lives due to a lack of these critical medications. My friend Kavan Shafi's father died as a result, I believe, of a lack of a specific heart medication that he was reliant on. And as a result of the sanctions that specific medication was no longer allowed to be imported into Iran. And as a result, he ended up dying from it. For listeners that are interested,

that I did interview Kvon about the sanctions and his personal connection to them on the David Feldman show a long time ago, probably two and a half years ago at this point. I'll try to find the link for that and share it once this episode comes out. But yeah, I just wanted to mention that that episode does exist. And as you mentioned, there's a lot of individuals that lost their lives as a direct result of a lack of critical medicines being allowed into Iran. I mean, can you really imagine something more important? humane than having people suffer and die due to a lack of medication.

I mean, it's really, really obscene. Anyway, I just wanted to jump in with that quick. And I didn't mention that I actually have first-hand experience in this because two of my brother-in-laws are actually finuses. They're living in Iran and they have privacy. And they told me that a lot of medications that people cannot be found because they cannot be imported and people are losing their life. I had a first covenant.

She had multiple eschosis, and she needed critical medication, medicine, so that they can at least control it. And she never received it and passed away because of lack of those medications. So I personally have personal experience. So as I said, I would like to emphasize that the sanctions, that prolamo imposed on him and then later on donald's drawing where he imposed him in in 2018 are the harshest sanctions that any country has imposed on any other country there are harsh here than during sanctions that the united faces has imposed on cuba for example

or on the soviet union at the height of uh co-war so because of all these sanctions then Yes, do you have a question? Well, I know, I'm just going to say one quick thing, Adnan, and then I'll let you follow up, because I know that what I'm going to say is going to lead into what you're saying. So you mentioned multiple sclerosis professor. This is a disease that my mother suffers from as well. And Adnan, here comes a meatball for you. Get ready.

So I'm just imagining that my mother, she's on this medication that slows down the progression of her illness. And for the listeners who don't know, I love my mother as much. as anyone in the world. I mean, absolutely the dearest person to me. Now, if there was somebody that was preventing my mother from having a critical medication that I know would prolong her life and dramatically, dramatically improve the quality of her life for, you know, the duration of it, if somebody was preventing that from happening, they were preventing them from getting that critical medication, if I say what I would do to the person that was preventing that, this show would be shut down in a moment.

So I will not say it. But listeners, I am not joking when I say this, if I knew somebody, you know, or an institution or a state that was directly preventing, and I know my mom is going to hear this, this is you know, also why I'm not saying what I would be doing. But if somebody was directly preventing my mother from having this critical. medication that I know would both prolong her life and make her suffering significantly less. You do not want to know what I would do. There is no end to what I would do in order to seek, you know, whatever word you want to use, retribution, vengeance, whatever. So Adnan, I feel like

that'll lead you into your... Well, it's just, no, it's just so important to have this, not only the detailed analysis in the abstract of what has been imposed, but then to hear and understand these personal connections to the impacts that on real people this whole sanction regime has had. But Professor Sahemi, when, you know, what one thing that I've gathered also from your discussion in the article and just now about the new character of the Obama, era of sanctions suggests to me that this is very much, especially the long history you've told us, that there has been a prolonged historical campaign of attempting to control Iran in various

ways such that the difference between U.S. administrations is one of minor degree in terms of the consequences and impacts on Iran. So, of course, everybody has heard of, you know, you know, Donald Trump tearing up the JCPOA and supposedly, you know, ushering in some new era of maximum pressure, which of course has had its devastating consequences. But in total, you're describing a bipartisan commitment to the suffocation of Iran economically and politically, such that it makes me wonder if you would analyze the whole in a question of the Iran nuclear program as merely a mode of maintaining and expanding a sanctions regime rather than any kind of genuine concern about Iran's nuclear program that I think, you know, it's acknowledged in many documents that Iran has no weapons program of any kind. And so it seems that it's being used as a way to extend and expand and maintain a pre-existing sanctions regime and not ever have to face the situation of, you know, rationalizing it when, you know, there's been so many attempts to try and negotiate out of it.

So I guess that's my question is, you know, is this just instrumental? And secondly, really connected to that is, how is Iran coping? You've talked about some of these devastating consequences. What has been the ways of resisting or adjusting to the sanctions and whether or not the changing geopolitical situation because of all these, you know, very strict third party, you know, dimensions of it that companies can't do business, even though, not U.S. companies, the U.S. will sanction those companies and prevent them and scare them off from actually doing any business with Iran. But are there changes taking place in the contemporary environment with the emergence of, you know, Chinese firms or a kind of policy, you might say, geopolitically of countries like Iran as not the only one under sanctions, of sort of

cooperating together to try and evade this system globally of U.S. sanctions? Absolutely. The first, 11th, repeat what you actually said with which I told Tonyakry. Iran's with people is just an excuse to continue the effort to control Iran and to overthrow the regime of terror. regardless of how I feel about the Iranian regime, God knows that I totally slug the Iranian regime because my own family has been heard by President Iranian regime.

I had a brother that was executed at the age of 23. I had a cousin that was also executed by Iranian. But the issues that you're talking about are far larger personal level. And Erasmussen program, in my view, is just an excuse to continue the scientific and the eventual goal is to alter the government in terror. In 2005, when the Ottoman administration was neborshying with European countries, the three European countries, as I mentioned, it offered to put Erasmus the program, which at that time was post-European countries, the three European countries, As I mentioned, it offered to put Iran to the program, which at that time was totally limited under a strict control and inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency. And let me also mention that even the officials of International Atomic Energy Agents,

from Mohamed Albaradi at that time to Verafaray DeWC at present, have acknowledged so many times that the inspection regime, regime for Iran who's reprobra. It's the most strict inspection regime in the history of international funding energy. And yet, they always claim about Iran trying to make nuclear bomb. We know in November of 2006, 17 intelligence agency of the United States released their national estimate saying that if Iran had a nuclear program, it stopped it. in 2003. Now, the significance of 2003 should not be and no estimate. If you had such a

program and it stopped in 2003, we should ask or say, why in 2002? Is that true that in 2003 U.S. forces where you are, 165,000 of the million you are? So if you don't have any program, and if it was because he wanted to confront the West or Israel or U.S. allies, one would think that with tens of thousands of U.S. troops in border Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran and neither would accelerate their effort to make a nuclear war rather than put a stop to the nuclear program. The fact of the matter is Saddam Hussein had a nuclear weapon program. which was discovered in 1991. Before that, it had chemical and biological background

that the West had helped it to develop. I used against Iranian troops, Iranian people, and even its other citizens. So Iranian leaders were concerned about the threat to Iran national security by Saddam Hussein regime. After Saddam Hussein regime was overturned, there was no reason to continue that program.

and therefore they stopped it. Now, the national estimate of 2006 said that Iran doesn't have any people, a nuclear weapon program. This was confirmed in 2010, 2011 and 2012. Just a month ago, two months ago, Bill Burns, Director of CIA said we have no evidence that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons. So these are all excuses, you know, blowing our other proportions, a program that is, at least so far, has remained totally peaceful. Why? Because they want, as you said, they want to keep the framework to continue

sanction in Iran. Here after the JCPOA was signed by Iran in July of 2015, and the President of Obama and his administration promised that they would lift all sanctions, from July 2015, to January of 2017, when President Obama left office, the U.S. had not lived all of its sanctions against Iran. There was great resistance within U.S. bureaucracy in order to do that. Iran was supposed to receive about $55 billion of its assets frozen in Ukraine and Asian back.

As John Kerry said, towards the end of Obama acquisition, Iran had received only a few billion. So even on that part, even when Iran signed that agreement and delivered its obligation, everybody knows that Iran had delivered on its part. It calls the nuclear facility at home in photo. It basically removed the heavy water vacuum in Iraq. It put in storage a lot of centrifuges that the Iran have built and reduced. the number from something of 19,000 to 50,300, and all the things.

And it voluntarily agreed to the inspector regime as stipulated by additional protocol of nuclear non-proliferation agreed. Because Ivor had signed to carry out additional protocol, but the issue of signing of it had not being ratified by the Iranian partner. So legally, Iran didn't have your obligation according to the international standards and rules to actually

carry it up. But you are on a volunteer basis, I didn't carry it up and that helped the agency to go into Iran on short notice and inspect anything they want. So that, as you said, is

only an excuse to to continue sanctions in Europe. Now, let me mention this, that it is all of these, it is sanctions, all of these. Israel has played a very important group.

It is Israel lobby and Israel propaganda that has prepared the environment for continuing scientists. Both Republican and Democrats do whatever Israeli lobby wants to do. I regard it in

And therefore, they go along with anything they want, okay? There is no, there is no way of expressing it otherwise. The ultimate goal of Israel and now Saudi Arabia or U.S. allies are not just to overture the regime in terror, but to actually disintegrate into a bunch of rich, smaller countries. because they perceived Iran as a threat to their security. I contend that if we wake up tomorrow morning and Iran has a completely democratic government, elected by people,

and stopped anything that they find objection to. But yes, follow its own independent national path, they would still pick in Iran because they just cannot see an independent Iran that follows its own national interests to develop its country. They just want Iran to be under Western control because Iran's strategic position, natural resources, large population, rich in June and dynamic and vegetative. It's just too big to devout.

And as long as there's an independent-minded government in law, regardless of it is democratic or undemocratic, and the present government is, of course, not democratic, as long as they are in power and they follow their own national interests, they are going to threaten Iran, they are going to enforce sanctions on Iran, they are going to try to reduce or cut off alarms Congress with outside relations, and outside countries, and so on and so. Now, the second question that you asked, of course, is very significant.

As a result of these sanctions, as a result of U.S. violating its own obligation, and let us not forget that the U.S. exigued from nuclear agreement with Iran by Donald Trump administration is violation of international law because the JCPOA was supported by regulatory. Revolution in 2021-32 of United Nations Security Council. That evolution was five and approved under Chapter 7 of United Nations Charter. Chapter 7 of United Nations Charter is for peace and security of the war. And any resolution approved under that chapter is execution is mandatory for all members of the United Nations. in particular, the permanent members of United Nations Security Council. So by exiting JCPOA, a nuclear agreement, the U.S. is actually violating the mandatory UN resolution. So at this from perspective of international law and UN revolution, what the U.S.

is totally illegal. I start from any other aspects, any other illegal aspects. And let me also remember, at the height of the pandemic that we have, a year and a half ago, the U.S. is still going to leave any sanctions. Iran had asked World Bank for a law. The U.S. prevented. The U.S. did not allow any medication to go to Iran. It didn't allow, okay?

So this is the most inhumane way of treating a cripple of Iraq. country simply because you want to pursue your agenda of pressure in the Iranian government. Now, regarding your second question, of course, there has been backlash in Iran against the Iran establishment has moved towards closing relationships with China and Luchner. They have been saying that the rest has proven that it cannot be struck. The West has always violates its promises, and even though we deliver our obligation, they never do it. So what they have done is the country has moved towards Istanbul. ER was just accepted as a food member by the Shanghai Security Agreement, which is China and Russia and other countries.

Iran has signed a 25-year strategic agreement with China for a lot of cooperation economically and otherwise. You are as close relations with Russia. And in fact, Iran and the Iranian government has said Russia with its war in Ukraine. So these are all consequences of what the West and in particular the United States has not been against you. No, they always say that we want Iran to have fairly relation with the West and espelt peace and that. But every action that they have taken has actually against whenever Iranian modern rates or reformers try to do something positive. They did something

negative to Chile. They never responded to Akroni's proposal for conclusive discussions without all the issue. They never responded to his proposal for dialogue of signalization. They never getting were completely under obligation after the JCPOA was agreed. And they

impose even larger sanctions than that allow during the Trump and Mike Pamkel, I would say Mike Pompeo at this region because he was the one who was making all the decisions regarding Europe. So yes, that has had

strategic consequences because Iran is now moving for us, the eastern block and Pakistan block, China and Russia. This doesn't mean that in Iran, everybody agrees with it, but we have to take that into consideration

that the most important reason that this is happening is what the United States and the allies have done against. So they are pushing Iran for eastern blocks closer analysis to China, Russia, and countries in that region.

And that's all the result of sanctions and hostility that they are demonstrated against you. So I know my co-host, Adnan, has to leave right now. He has another meeting to go to. So, Adnan, we have one question left, which I will ask. But Adnan, can you first tell the listeners how they can find you on Twitter and your other podcast? And then I'll ask the final question to the professor as we close. Sure. And apologies. It's such an important and amazing conversation to hear your erudite understanding and analysis of this very important topic. People who want to follow me can follow me on Twitter at Adnan A. Hussein, H-U-S-A-I-N, and also listen to my other podcast, The M-J-L-I-S, where we talk about the Middle East Islamic World.

Muslim diasporic experience in, you know, Europe and North America and topics like that. And in fact, actually, perhaps we should have Professor Sahimi on at some point on the muddilis to talk about his many interesting research interests. But so thank you very much. And we'll talk again. Thank you very much. And I really enjoyed it. And I appreciate you having me this very important book.

Absolutely. And Adnan, I do hope that you bring the professor on the module. less. So I'll see you soon, Adnan. And Professor, I do have one final question for you, something that we talk about before we hit play and given the current situation that we're seeing right now, and I should mention, we are recording this on the 6th of October 2020, for those of you who are listening later. We're going to rush this episode out to people. Usually there's a little bit bigger gap in between when we record and when it comes out. In this case, it'll only be about a week because of the timeliness of. the episode, as well as the fact that October is Islamic History Month, and this is part of our Islamic History Month celebration. The final question that we have is that right now, we have large-scale protests going on in Iran, which I am sure that people are seeing a lot of, and probably more than they would if it was in a country that the United States was friendly with.

It's always worth thinking about how much protests in various countries are portrayed within the media of the West, depending on the relation of that country to the United States. Protests happen in countries all around the world, but we only ever tend to see the protests that are happening in countries that are strategic, you know, enemies, not allies in any case, of the United States, and then we see those endlessly in Western media. We're thinking about that, but that's not where the question is going. We have these protests that are going on, so perhaps very briefly you can just let the listeners know what these protests are in case they have not seen any Western media lately

and try to connect these to the sanctions because I do think that there is a very strong connection to the sanctions regime that has been in place on Iran and the current protests that are taking place, even if that connection may not be very blatantly obvious on the surface level, even if the media in the West and the government of the United States would deny that there is any correlation between the sanctions regime that's in place on Iran and the protests that are taking place, I think it's fairly obvious that there is a pretty strong connection here. So if you could tease that out, that'll be our final question for this episode. Of course. First of all, let me say that the protests in Iran, at least the cause

of it, are totally rich people have legitimate. demands people of legitimate concern, and the sad death of a young woman, Mahasan Amini, just gave her an excuse to come out and protest. But the deeper root of protest is in Iran's economic and political conditions. The economic conditions in Iran has been caused. caused by three factors. And I've mentioned it's many, many times in my audience. One is mismanagement of the economy.

The second one is deep corruption, economic corruption, and the third in my being the most important factor are the sanctions. Even consider any country in this world that there is no mismanagement and there is no corruption. But tell that world that you cannot have normal commerce with the rest of the world. You cannot export what you produce and you cannot import what you need. And that's even if that country can actually survive or can actually manage its economy. It is impossible. So the sanctions have played a very important role in deteriorating economic plight of Iranian people,

particularly the middle class, who has lost a lot of his buying power because of the sanctions. And I emphasize, sanction is not the only factor, but it is the most important factor. So these demonstrations that started after death of Massa, I mean, the young 20-22-year-old woman, has its roots in economic condition and therefore in the sanctions. But the scientists are playing an important role here, a very important role. If Donald Trump had not exceeded JCPOA in 2018, and if these sanctions had not been reimposed on Iran, Iran would have been in a completely different situation, at least economically. The first couple of years after starting JCPOA, Iran witnessed,

an economic growth of close to seven or eight percent. Economy was growing. The young people were getting hopeful that they can do better in an environment where there is no sanction. A lot of startups started in Iran, and things were looking very hopeful for Iranian people, particularly the young people. But the sanctions were imposed. all those jobs that have been created as a result of lifting some of the sanctin were destroyed,

and hopes were lost. When you couple that with mismanagement and deep corruption within the Iranian state, then you can see why Iranian people are so unhappy. And of course, they always are political and social restrictions and repression, such as, for example, this morality. chief police that arrested the young Mahasahmini and she died in writing detention. So when you add all of these, then you can see where, you know, people come from and where and how these protests are leashed with Sanjian.

The other thing is the following that we have to remember. In Iran, the engine for profits and reformed. whether economic or political, has always been the middle class. The middle class, anyone, is under huge stress, and the middle class is only thinking about its right. If the middle class can feel relatively secure about its economic life, then they can start raising their voice for political freedom, social freedom, and so on.

So by imposing sanctions on Iran and hurting deeply the middle class in Iran and of course poor people in Iran, the West is actually preventing democratization of people. Because without the middle class and its allies with the lower class, the poor people, there would never be an movement for democracy. democracy and democratization. Therefore, by lifting the sanctions and helping Iranian middle class and improving Iran economy, Iran will actually have a better chance of reaching a democratic political system that Iran and people deserve.

Iran meets all the prerequisites for having a democratic state. But foreign threats, experiment tricks, and economic sanctions, coupled with the type of regime that we argue as prevented. So, yes, these two are closed links and we can already separate the legitimate demonstrations and concerns of Iranian people from the issue of sanctions that has been imposed on Iran all these years. tremendous. So again, listeners, our guest was Professor Mohamed Sahimi, Professor at USC, Analyst of Iran, an author of the chapter in Sanctions and War that we were discussing today, a century of economic blackmail sanctions and war against Iran. I have to thank you profusely, Professor. I really enjoyed the conversation. Learned a lot, both from your chapter as well as the conversation that we just had. So I deeply am grateful for you coming on the show and sharing your knowledge with both us. Adnan and myself, as well as the listeners of the show.

So thank you very much. Is there anything that you want to direct the listeners to keep up with you or your work, anything other than this chapter that you want them to look into? Support Iranian people, but oppose sanctions and threat of military action against Iran. In the absence of sanctions and military threats for military intervention Iran, Iranian people are perfectly capable of addressing the only question. getting read of the present system and setting up a democratic state. Leave Iranian alone, and they will take care of their own affair.

But as long as there is sanctions and military threat in law, not only Iran will not move in that unit, but also there will be even more backlash against Western power, the United States, and hostility between two people. Tremendous. Listeners, I highly recommend checking out this chapter as well as all of sanctions this war. You can follow, Adnan told you how you can follow him on Twitter and find his other podcast. I'll briefly tell you that everybody should check out Brett's work, our other co-host who is not here today, Brett O'Shea, host of Revolutionary Left Radio and co-host of the Red Menace podcast. You can find everything he does by going to Revolutionaryleftradio.com.

Again, highly recommended, really fabulous materials for political education. As for me, you can find me on Twitter at Huck 1995, H-U-C-K-1-995. You can follow Gorilla History on Twitter at Gorilla underscore Pod, G-U-E-R-R-R-I-L-A-U-Pod. You can help support the show monetarily, keep us up and running because there are platform fees and things like that, which are very annoying. But the more money that we take in, the more that we can expand what we're doing and help bring more political education to the public by going. to patreon.com forward slash guerrilla history, G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A history.

And you do get some bonus goodies if you're able to donate monetarily to the show. And the last note is that we have a newsletter where we round up the latest work that each of us have been doing, as well as give reading and listening recommendations from the hosts and former guests of the show for you to check out, again,

for political education purposes. That's completely free. And you can find it at Substack. I think GorillaHistory. dot com, G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A-Histry.substack.com. Subscribe. You can get the newsletter right in your email inbox. So on that note, then, listeners, solidarity.

Thank you.