It Could Happen Here - What Next for the People of Iran?

Episode Date: April 16, 2026

James brings listeners up to date with the US and Israel’s bombing campaign in Iran and recent peace negotiations. Sources: https://fpa.org/netanyahus-speech-and-the-question-of-an-iran-deal/  https://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/  https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1996/shock-n-awe_ch5.html  https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yqqyly9n0o  https://www.airandspaceforces.com/article/1103shock/  https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/trump-says-us-forces-are-clearing-strait-hormuz-2026-04-11/  https://acleddata.com/iran-crisis-live  https://x.com/DoWCTO/status/2043720881256448348?s=20  https://www.rudaw.net/english/middleeast/iran/22022026  https://x.com/drpezeshkian/status/2041443063655248199  https://hengaw.net/en/reports-and-statistics-1/2026/04/article-3  https://hengaw.net/en/news/2026/04/article-31  https://hengaw.net/en/execution  https://x.com/PDKIenglish  https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116363336033995961  https://x.com/ScharoBajalan/status/2041190217470693733?s=20  https://www.whitehouse.gov/releases/2025/06/irans-nuclear-facilities-have-been-obliterated-and-suggestions-otherwise-are-fake-news/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. It's Financial Literacy Month, and the podcast, Eating While Broke, is bringing real conversations about money, growth, and building your future.

This month, hear from top streamer, Zoe Spencer, and venture capitalist Lakeisha Landrum-Pierre, as they share their journeys from starting out to leveling up. There's an economic component

to communities thriving. If there's not enough money and entrepreneurship happening in communities, they fail. Listen to Eating While Broke from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hi, I'm Bob Pittman, chairman and CEO of IHeart Media, and I'm kicking off a brand new season of my podcast, Math and Magic, stories from the frontiers of marketing. Math and Magic takes you behind the scenes of the biggest businesses and industries while sharing insights from the smartest minds in marketing. Coming up this seasonal Math and Magic, CEO of Liquid Death Mike Sessario.

People think that creative ideas are... like these light bulb moments that happen when you're in the shower. It's really like a stone sculpture. You're constantly just chipping away and refining. Take to Interactive CEO, Strauss Selnick, and our own chief business officer, Lisa Coffey. Listen to Math and Magic on the

Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. If you're watching the latest season of the Real Housewives of Atlanta, you already know there's a lot to break down. Gorsha accusing Kelly of sleeping with a merry man. They hold and Kay Michelle back from

fighting Drew. Pinky has financial issues. On the podcast, Reality with the King, I Carlos King, recap the biggest moments from your favorite reality shows including the Real House Wise franchise, the drama, the alliances, and the T, everybody's

talking about. To hear this and more, listen to Reality with the King on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. You know the famous author Roald Dahl. He thought up Willie Wonka and the BFG. But Did you know he was a spy?

Neither did I. You can hear all about his wildlife story in the podcast, The Secret World of Roll Doll. All episodes are out now. Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been. What? Okay, I don't think that's true. I'm telling you, because I was a spy.

Binge all 10 episodes of The Secret World of Rolled Doll. Now on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. All Zone Media. It's been more than a month since the U.S. and Israel began raining down bomb. on Iran. We've covered the weekly developments every week on executive disorder, but I decided it was high time and made a full episode to get people up to speed with the USA's latest aggression, and the IDF opening up another front at its multi-front war against the people of the Middle East. Normally, one would expect a major war with a major power like this, which has fundamentally

destabilized the region, a grand world trade to a halt, cause massive inflation to have some kind of very clearly defined set of goals. That is not the case here. We have seen various justifications, but the most common one seems to be that Iran is just weeks from creating a nuclear bomb. This is a claim that specifically Benjamin Netanyahu has been making for almost the entire time I have been alive. Here he is saying something similar a decade ago. The foremost sponsor of global terrorism could be weeks away from having enough enriched uranium for an entire arsenal of nuclear weapons. His claim was fanciful then, and it remains even more so now, after 2025's Operation Midnight Hammer, saw the USA and Israel attempt to bomb nuclear facilities. Indeed, the White House itself published a statement on the 25th of June following Operation Midnight Hammer,

in which they quoted the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, saying, quote, We assess that the American strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities, combined with the Israeli strikes on other elements of Iran's military nuclear program, has set back Iran's ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years. The achievement can continue indefinitely if Iran does not get access to nuclear material. It also included a quotation from Pete Hegsef, a secretary of defense, saying, quote, based on everything we have seen, and I've seen it all, our bombing campaign obliterated Iran's ability to create nuclear weapons. That was less than a year ago.

It seems unlikely that they destroyed much or any, or any of the uranium that was stockpiled, but they certainly would have delayed plans to enrich that uranium or to build into a bomb. Nonetheless, on the 28th of February this year, a massive campaign of airstrikes, high marsbaraches and ballistic missile attacks on Iran began under the codename Operation Epic Fury. The acronym OEF will be familiar to many as the same one used by the USA for more than a decade of war in Afghanistan and other parts of the world during what it called the global war on terror. On the day I'm writing this, it's exactly 23 years since United States Marines tore down

the statue of Saddam Hussein that stood outside the 17th of Ramadan Mosque in Ferdos Square in Baghdad, removed his regime from power. Since then, for my entire adult life and much of my childhood, the USA has been dropping bombs on the Middle East. This month, the tempo and ferocity of the aerial bombardment took a step up, to a tempo we haven't seen since perhaps the peace. of the coalition war against the Islamic State, or perhaps even the shock and all bombing campaign of March 2003. And I want to go back to that campaign to explain exactly how we got to this one.

The shock and all campaign was based on a doctrine called rapid dominance that sought to establish a post-Cold War military ethos to United States. The theorist behind it named Alman and Wade explicitly outlined that to work, the shock and all bombing campaign had to achieve a level of national shock like that of the dropping of the atomic bombs on Japan, and that power and other civilian infrastructure might well be targeted. In an interview in February 2003, Olin said, quote, What we want to do is creating the mind of the Iraqi leadership and their soldiers

this shock and awe, so they are intimidated, made to feel so impotent, so helpless, that they have no choice but to do what we want them to do. So the smartest thing to say is, this is hopeless, we quit. The US attempted to pummel the adversary so hard in 2003 that it would demoralize troops and lead to a rapid victory through the use and display of overwhelming force. In Iraq, 23 years ago, it sort of worked. The regime crumbled in less than a month. The USA got its quote-unquote victory, and by the 1st of May of that year, George W. Bush had landed on the USS Abraham

Lincoln off San Diego and given a speech in front of a large banner that read, mission accomplished. 23 years later, the Lincoln is in the Middle East and bombs are once again raining down on Iran and Iraq, while one-way drones and missiles from Iran slam into targets all over the region. In Iraq, 23 years later, the United States Embassy is once again being attacked. A US journalist was kidnapped, and the State Department is telling citizens to avoid the region. The US bombing campaign in Iran this year dwarfs the 2003 shock and all campaign,

with the first day of Operation Epic Fury being almost twice the scale of the 2003 bombardment. However, they do have several things in common. Just like the bombardment of Iraq, even 23 years later, the US and Israeli air war showed us that there is no such thing as a precision bombing campaign on this scale. On the very first day of the war, the 28th of February, 2026, A missile slammed into a girls' elementary school in Minab, then another, and then another. When the dust settled, more than 175 people have been killed, mostly schoolgirls, between the age of 7 and 12 years old. The school was located near an Iranian Revolutionary Guard base, but the school building itself had not been part of a military facility for a decade.

And yet, despite targeting technology, that allowed three missiles to scream across a continent, hit a relatively small target in quick succession, apparently the US military had not been able to ascertain or perhaps did not care to ascertain that the result of their strike was the death of as many as 100 schoolchildren. The fact that I am reporting this 40-odd days into the war suggests that despite an even larger scale campaign

than the USA deployed in 2003, despite the killing of little girls, the Iranian state has not said, this is hopeless we quit, as all one hoped they might. Iran-Supreme leader. Ali Hameini was assassinated in initial attacks. The power has since passed on to his son. Iran remains very much in the fight,

despite the massive display of force by the US and Israel. Instead of quitting and giving up, they have been sending ballistic missiles and one-way drones into targets throughout the Gulf states, Israel, and southern Kurdistan. This is in part because the United States and Israel had no clear shared plan for this war. In 2003, the US aimed to remove Saddam Hussein, and it did that. It made a massive cock-up of everything it did after that. But this time we have two belligerent nations with very distinct goals

who share a common interest in bombing the people of Iran. Israel, which by some accounts hit more targets than the USA early on in the war, is fighting to totally cripple the Iranian state in a no-holds barred, no laws of war-respected campaign that has seen it bomb factories, oil infrastructure, most horrifically of all desalination plants. The goal for Israel is to make it impossible for Iran to recover. it seems, to leave the region mired in poverty and resource constraint and make sure that no Iranian

state, be it this one or a different one, can ever be a threat to Israel again. It has assassinated many of the figures who have the ability to negotiate for peace, and the recent ceasefire seems to been something that Israel does not feel itself to be beholden to. For the US, the goal seems to be to use something similar to shock and awe to force Iran into conceding its position, and allowing the USA some access to its significant petrochemical resources. Perhaps emboldened by its success in Venezuela, the US might be expecting a similar client-state relationship here. However, this has not been the outcome. Over the weekend of the 11th and 12th of April, J.D. Vance, Jared Kushner and Steve Wittkoff flew to Pakistan, as part of a Pakistani broker ceasefire to engage in peace talks with Iran. Before these peace talks,

we saw both the US and Iran circulating very different bases for negotiation, with Iran demanding tolls for ships passing near its coastline, an end to sanctions, and the removal of U.S. forces from the region. The U.S. demanded an end to the nuclear program in Iran, and at one point the president proposed a joint U.S. Iranian toll on ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz. Strait of Hormuz is one of the areas where there has been significant disagreement, and so I want to explain a little bit about what the Strait of Hormuz is for listeners who are not familiar. Geographically, the strait connects the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Vermont, and thus the

open ocean. It's just about 39 kilometres wide across its narrowest point, with about a quarter of the world's liquefied natural gas and seaborne oil passing through the strait, because of its geographical location, Asia and Europe are especially reliant on these energy products. Many of the Gulf states will have no maritime export routes without transiting the street. In response to the United States and Israel's bombing campaign, Iran effectively closed the strait through a combination of missile threats, claimed mining, very high-frequency radio broadcast warning ships of the two previously mentioned threats, and uncrewed surface vessel attacks that blew up and damaged vessels, including oil tankers in the Persian Gulf. At the time of writing, Iran is threatening ships transiting the street,

and the US is attempting to blockade all ships that aim to go to Iran. Iran has previously allowed some ships a right to pass safely if they pay a toll, payable in cryptocurrency or Chinese one. Some ships appear to have certainly cransit industry, but many more have not. And this presents a serious issue for global trade. Luckily, the problems with global trade have not affected our advertisers. So here are some goods and services that will probably cost more than they did a few weeks ago. Canadian women are looking for more.

More to themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are out of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart. And I'm Catherine Clark. And in this podcast, we interview Canada's most inspiring women. Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes, politicians, and newsmakers, all at different stages of their journey. So if you're looking to connect, then we hope you'll join us.

Listen to the Honest Talk podcast on I Heart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts. I went and sat on the little ottoman in front of him. I said, hi, Dad. And just when I said that, my mom comes out of the kitchen. She says, I have some cookies and milk. This is badass convict. Right. Just finished five years.

I'm going to have cookies and milk them all. Yeah. On the Ceno Show podcast, each episode invites you into a raw, unfiltered conversations about recovery, resilience, and redemption. On a recent episode, I sit down with actor, cultural icon, Danny Trail, talk about addiction, transformation, and the power of second chances. The entire season two is now available to bench, featuring powerful conversations.

with the guests like Tiffany Addish, Johnny Knoxville, and more. I'm an alcoholic. And without this truth, I'm going to die. Open your free I-Heart radio app. Search the Cito Show. And listen now. I feel like it was a little bit unbelievable until I really start making money. It's Financial Literacy Month, and the podcast, Eating While Broke,

is bringing real conversations about money, growth, and building your future. This month, hear from top streamer, Zoe Spencer, and venture capitalist Lakeisha Landrum Pierre, as they share their journeys from starting out to leveling up. If I'm outside with my parents and they're seeing all these people come up to me for pictures, it's like, what? Today now, obviously, it's like 100%. They believe everything.

But at first, it was just like, you got to go get a real job. There's an economic component to communities thriving. If there's not enough money and entrepreneurship happening in communities, they fail. And what I mean by, They don't have money to pay for food. They cannot feed their kids. They do not have homes. Communities don't work unless there's money flowing through them.

Listen to Eating While Broke from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hi, I'm Bob Pittman, chairman and CEO of IHeart Media, and I'm kicking off a brand new season of my podcast, Math and Magic, Stories from the Frontiers of Marketing. Math and Magic takes you behind the scenes of the biggest businesses and industries while sharing insights from the smartest minds in marketing. I'm talking to leaders from the entertainment industry to finance and everywhere in between. This seasonal math and magic, I'm talking to CEO of Liquid Death Mike Sessario, financier and public health advocate Mike Milken, take two interactive CEO Strauss Elning.

If you're unable to take meaningful creative risk and therefore run the risk of making horrible creative mistakes, then you can't play in this business. Sesame Street CEO Sherry Weston and our own chief business officer, Lisa Coffey. Making consumers see the value of the human voice and to have that guaranteed human promise behind it really makes it rise to the top. Listen to math and magic, stories from the frontiers of marketing on the Iheart radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. The United States has a lack of capacity when it comes to mine sweeping. Many of the ships it does have, which can do that, are not currently very close to the straightforward moves. On the 12th of April it did send two destroyers into the Strait, normally to begin mine clearing operations. But these aren't really a sort of ships that would do that so much as they would work alongside the ships that do that to provide them with security. There is currently a safe lane through the Strait that Iran seems to be sending ships through. But it's a little unclear to what extent of at all the Strait is mined, and what kind of mines were used.

Naval mines can vary. They can be pretty simple contact-fuse mines like the ones you might have seen in the mine. sweeper computer game, or bottom might, triggered by a number of mechanisms. Clearing a body of water this large would take a significant amount of time. Stopping transit through the street was not Iran's only response to the attacks. They have launched a massive fuselade of one-way drones and missiles at targets across the region. Their Shahid drones are one of the most significant military innovations of the last decade. They're cheap, one-way drones that can do tremendous damage at a very low cost.

If you've ever heard of Shahid drone, you won't forget what they sound like. It's like a Lord Moire flying over you. These drones have been so successful that the US has cloned and captured drones to make its own one-way drones, which it calls Lucas drones. And Iran has licensed production to Russia, which uses them in massive numbers against Ukraine. These drones have provided a cheap and relatively easy to launch a platform for Iran strike, which is focused on US allies, Israel and Bashur Kurdistan. Bashur, meaning southern or Iraqi-Karish, Kurdistan has taken a particularly heavy toll. Much of this has been due to reporting in the early days of the conflict, which began with notorious fact-check of Ada Barack Ravid. Much as this reporting,

heavily implied or outright said that Kurdish ground forces were repairing an assault into Iran. Ravid's peace, which reported that Trump had spoken to two major Kurdish leaders, was particularly shocking because it erroneously conflated Iraqi Kurds with Iranian Kurds, those from Eastern Kurdistan and Rojolat. It's true that the majority of anti-regime Kurdish armed groups from Iran retain bases in Iraq. But it's extremely unlikely that the KDP in the P-UK, the major actors in Iraqi Kurdistan, will be storming the border into Rogulat any time in the near future. However, I have spoken to several of the Rogelati armed groups

who are part of the Alliance of Political Forces of Iranian Kurdistan, the groups involved in the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan or the PDKI, the Free Life Party of Kurdistan, PGA, the Kurdistan Freedom Party, PAK, two of the Kamala parties, and the Habbat or the organisation of the Iranian Kurdistan struggle. The alliance predates the United States and Israeli campaign. It came around earlier this year. Arash Saleh, I spoke to him for the PDKI, told me, quote, At this point, the whole coalition is built upon some type of self-rule inside Iranian Kurdistan

as the main demand for all of them, and that as a main demand, for all the Kurdish people in Iranian Kurdistan. This unity of groups is a positive step, and it represents a real opportunity for liberation of the people of Roger. But none of these parties are willing to be the spearhead of an American and Israeli offensive without guarantees that they will receive support for their own goals, which are very different to those of the USA and Israel. In more recent weeks, President Trump has insinuated,

and Fox News has claimed that he said this, but I haven't seen any recording of it, that the United States sent weapons to Iranian protesters through Kurdish groups, but that the Kurdish groups kept them instead of giving them to the protesters. Here's the clip of Trump implying this, and you'll have to forgive me for the g-ringly awkward light jazz background music here. They don't have guns.

You know, we sent some guns, but the group that was supposed to give, which I said what happened to my people, I said it, I called it exactly. We sent guns. A lot of guns. They were supposed to go to the people so they could fight back against these thugs.

You know what happened? The people that they sent them to kept them. because they say, what a beautiful gun, I think I'll keep it. So I'm very upset with a certain group of people, and they're going to pay a big price for that. But the Iranian people will fight back as soon as they know they're not going to be shot, and as soon as they can get weapons. The Kurdish groups I've spoken to have denied this, and it's not really logistically feasible. Hamno Knox Bandi, a member of the general command of the Kurdistan National Army,

which is the Peshmerger associated with the Kurdistan Freedom Party or P.A.K. said that, quote, Donald Trump's message is unclear to us. What is there is that we as our army have in no way received weapons from the US or any other country, not even a single bullet. And the P.K confirmed that statement to me this morning, at the time you're hearing this, that will be yesterday morning, I checked in with them then. Transiting the mountains of that part of Kurdistan and then smuggling weapons all the way to Tehran is not what they do and it will be very hard for them to do it.

Also, at the time of the large anti-regime protest in Iran in January, we saw groups, notably the P.A.K., the Kurdistan Freedom Party, using weapons that really don't appear to be US-supplied, like pump-action shotguns. Nonetheless, this rumor, combined with the fact that Trump really did call Iraqi Kurdish leaders at the start of the conflict, presumably to ask for support, has led to Iraq's Kurdistan region, been targeted a great deal. These drone and rocket strikes have not just hit military targets, but also the refugee camps where the families displaced from Rojolat live and many other civilian targets in major Kurdish cities. To quote, a PDKI statement, quote, since the beginning of the war with the United States and Israel, the Islamic Republic of Iran has so far targeted the family camps, medical centers and educational facilities of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan, with more than 110 missiles and drones. These attacks have continued even during the ceasefire between Iran and the United States. But it's not just Iraqi Kurdistan being bombed. In fact, Iraq has a distinction of being the only country bombed by both sides in the conflict. This is in part because it's popular mobilization forces,

sometimes referred to by the Arabic name Hashd al-Shabi, in Iraq, have strong ties to Iran. The popular mobilization forces, or PMF, if you're not familiar, were formed in 2014 and fought against the Islamic State. in Iraq. But some factions within the PMF are also now listed as terrorist groups themselves by the United States. I want to resist doing the rather purel, Sunni, Shia, Kurd analysis here, because I don't think it explains the whole situation and is far too often seized upon by commentators seeking to oversimplify things. Many Kurds are Sunni, for example, but some are Shia. Some Kurds are Christian or Jewish or have no religious belief. There are other groups in the region who are not Muslim or Christian. I think it's unnecessarily reductionist, but nonetheless

it is worth noting that the PMF are mostly Shia, as is the regime in Iran. The PMF have been using drones, rockets and mortars to attack both U.S. bases and those of the Kurdish-Pesh-Murga, who they see as tied to the U.S. On the telegram channels, PMF groups have shown successful attacks of what used to be camp victory near the Baghdad airport and against the U.S. embassy facilities. While we can talk to Rogelati groups and see PMF statements on telegram, getting information on the conflict from inside Iran that's not regime propaganda is very hard. An internet blackout by the Iranian government has lasted more than a month. The information that we see coming out of Iran is either state sanctioned

or from people going to the border with Iraq to get cell phone signal or from people using satellite internet devices like Starlings. Iran has been actively hunting people using Starlings and further militarizing the Kurdistan region near the Iraq. border where people might get cell phone signal. Zani Abazizi and Siavan Amini, a Kurdish couple, were arrested on the 7th of March this year, and they have been detained ever since for the crime of using a Starlink. This repressive capability is not unusual or unique to Iranian Kurdistan.

Canadian women are looking for more. More to themselves, their businesses, their elected leaders, and the world are out of them. And that's why we're thrilled to introduce the Honest Talk podcast. I'm Jennifer Stewart And I'm Catherine Clark And in this podcast We interview Canada's most inspiring women Entrepreneurs, artists, athletes,

politicians and newsmakers All at different stages of their journey So if you're looking to connect Then we hope you'll join us Listen to the Honest Talk podcast OniHeart Radio or wherever you listen to your podcasts I went and sat on the little ottoman in front of him And I said that

My mom Comes out of the kitchen And she says, I have some cookies and milk. This is a badass convict. Right. Just finished five years. I'm going to have cookies and milk at them all. Yeah.

On the senior show podcast, each episode invites you into a raw, unfiltered conversations about recovery, resilience, and redemption. On a recent episode, I sit down with actor, cultural icon, Danny Trail, talk about addiction, transformation, and the power of second chances. The entire season two is now event. to binge featuring powerful conversation with the guests like Tiffany Addish, Johnny Knoxville, and more. I'm an alcoholic. And without this trouble, I'm going to die.

Open your free I-Heart radio app. Search the Cito Show. And listen now. I feel like it was a little bit unbelievable until I really start making money. It's Financial Literacy Month, and the podcast, Eating While Broke, is bringing real conversations about money, growth, and building your future. This month, hear from top streamer, Zoe Spencer, and venture capitalist Lakeisha Landrum Pierre, as they share their journeys from starting out to leveling up.

If I'm outside with my parents and then see all these people come up to me for pictures, it's like, what? Today now, obviously, it's like 100%. They believe everything, but at first it was just like, you gotta go get a real job. There's an economic component to community striving. If there's not enough money and entrepreneurship happening in communities, they fail. And what I mean by fell is they don't have money to pay for food. They cannot feed their kids.

They do not have homes. Communities don't work unless there's money flowing through them. Listen to Eating While Broke from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hi, I'm Bob Pittman, chairman and CEO of IHeart Media. And I'm kicking off a brand new season of my podcast, Math and Magic, stories from the Frontiers of Marketing. Math and Magic takes you behind the scenes of the biggest businesses and industries while

sharing insights from the smartest minds and marketing. I'm talking to leaders from the entertainment industry to finance and everywhere in between. This seasonal math and magic, I'm talking to CEO of Liquid Death Mike Cesario, financier and public health advocate Mike Milken, take two interactive CEO Strauss Elnick. If you're unable to take meaningful creative risk and therefore run the risk of making horrible creative mistakes, then you can't play in this business. Sesame Street CEO Sherry Weston and her own chief business, Officer Lisa Coffey.

Making consumers see the value of the human voice and to have that guaranteed human promise behind it really makes it rise to the top. Listen to math and magic, stories from the frontiers of marketing on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I think we need to understand the structure of the Iranian state to understand why it will be very hard for the United States

to achieve regime change simply with an air campaign. Iran has a conventional army known as the Artesh. It also has the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, better known by the initials IRGC, which has a specific remit of protecting the Islamic Republic. Within the IRGC, people may have heard of the Quds Force. The Quds Force sort of acts like Iran's CIA and Green Berets combined by assisting other actors, mainly non-state actors in the region like Hezbollah, for example. Then there's also Zabas siege, which is an element of the IRGC,

but is a paramilitary auxiliary force, with as many as half a million members available for immediate call-up, and many more in reserve. The besie, you're in theory directly loyal to the Supreme Leader, and they have participated in significant oppression of the population. Combined, these forces represent a massive apparatus for state violence that is dispersed among the civilian population. Recent reports say they are even garrisoning schools and other civilian buildings.

While the United States may, for example, have destroyed Iran's conventional navy, its big grey boats with the Iranian flag on them. It has not and cannot destroy all the small civilian craft that these groups could easily use to harass shipping, or even plant seamines, nor can destroy the many one-way surface drones Iran has along its coastline. If you're not familiar with these, think of a remote-controlled boat that explodes when it hits its target. Israel has killed many IRGC figures, but many more IRGC units and besieges remain untouched and willing to turn their weapons on any potential uprising in the country. With this in mind, let's talk a little bit more about those peace negotiations that happened last weekend in Pakistan.

And particularly, let's talk about the composition of Iran's delegation. Amongst Iran's negotiators was Mohamed Jafiri Saharad, who participated in the murder of Dr. Abdul Rahman Gassamlu during negotiations between the PDKI and Iran in 1989. Dr. Gassamlu had been a notable Kurdish leader for some time, was sentenced to death by the Iranian regime, and then killed when he came to the negotiating table. In a statement sent to me, the P.A.K. said,

quote, the composition of the Iranian delegation, largely made up of military insecurity figures, clearly indicates that the primary objective was not to advance a genuine diplomatic process, but rather to manage a situation in line with strategic goals. Iran seems to have chiefly seen negotiations as a way to buy time. It has been able to dig out many of its missiles which were buried but not destroyed by its strikes, and in this pause it can shore up its posture against domestic dissenters as well. It does not seem, in short, to be acting in the way the shock and or doctrine might suggest and hope that it would.

Indeed, in recent weeks it's been able to mobilize civilians to go to power plants and hope that their presence will prevent bombing of those facilities. Despite this and despite it being a violation of various international treaties, some of which Israel is not signed up to, Israel has continued to hit power plants, oil infrastructure and bridges, despite the civilian costs. It certainly seems that after a weekend of negotiating face-to-face in Pakistan, the United States was not able to get what it wanted out of negotiations.

They have chosen not to accept our terms, Vice President J.D. Vand said. Here's him talking about negotiations at a press conference on Sunday morning local time. But the simple fact is that we need to see an affirmative commitment that they will not seek a nuclear weapon, and they will not seek the tools that would enable them to quickly achieve a nuclear weapon. That is the core goal of the President of the United States, and that's what we've tried to achieve through these negotiations. again, their nuclear programs, such as it is, the enrichment facilities that they've, that they had before, they've been destroyed. But the simple question is, do we see a fundamental commitment of will for the Iranians not to develop a nuclear weapon, not just now, not just two years from now, but for the long term? We haven't seen that yet. We hope that we will.

Trump, however, has been talking about a more diverse range of goals than Varns lists here, talking about ending, quote, 47 years of experience. extortion, corruption, and death in one truth. This suggests regime change, which Trump then went on to falsely claim he has already achieved, saying in a truth, quote, however, now that we have complete and total regime change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen. Who knows? This was, incidentally, in the very same truth in which Trump said,

quote, a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be born, bought back again. I don't want that to happen, but it probably will. This was part of a threat which he hoped would result in Iran reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Trump also posted on Easter Sunday, quote, open the fucking straight, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in hell. Obviously, this statement seems at odds with any idea of liberating the Iranian people and when it comes from the guy with the nuclear asshole, it sounds like a threat of genocide. While Trump has not launched any nuclear weapons at Iran. This does not mean that the death toll has not been heavy. According to a report by Human Rights Organization, Hengor, at least 7,650 people have been killed

during the US and Israeli bombing, including 130 civilians. Iran has also continued attacking its own population, despite the massive scale of the killing. Iran has not ceased, for example, executing political prisoners. Hengor estimates that at least 160 political prisoners have been killed in the first quarter of this year. United States troops have been killed as well, 13 of them, according to the military times. Hundreds more have been wounded. Survivors of one deadly drone attack on a US facility in Kuwait have disputed official accounts of the attack, saying their facility did have vertical blast barriers, but no overhead protection against the kind of drones that killed six of their colleagues and the kind of drones they could recently expect to be attacked by,

given that Iran has been using these very same drones for a long time in Syria and other parts of the Middle East. To quote CBS, who interviewed one of them on condition of anonymity, quote, painting a picture that one squeaked through is a falsehood. I want people to know the unit, and then there's an ellipsies here where they've removed part of the quotation, was unprepared to provide any defence for itself. It was not a fortified position.

So where are we now? While the US government continues to edit supercuts of bombs hitting buildings and vehicles to music like does not have permission to use, families in the United States and Iran are both burying their loved ones. Despite the ceasefire, the US and Iran are theoretically held to. There has been no ceasefire for the Kurds who are still being bombed, no ceasefire for Lebanon, where Israel is still carrying out a massive bombing campaign. And on day two of the USA's blockade of Iranian ports, traffic through the strait of Hormuz remains in a single-digit of, numbers of ships. We have not achieved, and it seems that we likely will not achieve,

liberation for the people of Iran. In fact, it may be the case that the regime moves closer to the IRGC, becomes more hardline, more repressive, more violent. Just like in Caracas, the only thing the US seems interested in liberating is oil. Iran's nuclear threat remains like Schrodinger's cat, a once terrible and non-existent, destroyed last year and the justification for thousands of deaths this year. As always, our solidarity should be with people and not with states. We can perfectly coherently hold that the people of Iran do not deserve to be killed by the U.S. or their own government, and that what we want for them should be what we want for ourselves. Peace, freedom, and a beautiful life. It could happen here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from

Coolzone Media, visit our website, Coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. It's Financial Literacy Month, and the podcast, Eating While Broke, is bringing real conversations about money, growth, and building your future. This month, hear from top streamer, Zoe Spencer, and venture capitalist Lakeisha Landrum-Pierre, as they share their journeys from starting out to leveling up.

There's an economic component to communities thriving. If there's not enough money and entrepreneurship happening in communities, they failed. Listen to Eating While Broke from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hi, I'm Bob Pittman, chairman and CEO of IHeart Media, and I'm kicking off a brand new season of my podcast, Math and Magic, stories from the Frontiers of Marketing. Math and Magic takes you behind the scenes of the biggest businesses and industries while sharing insights from the smartest minds in marketing. Coming up this seasonal math and magic, CEO of Liquid Death Mike Cessario. People think that creative ideas are like these light bulb moments that happen when you're in the shower. Or it's really like a stone sculpture.

You're constantly just chipping away and refining. Take to Interactive CEO, Strauss-Selny, and our own chief business officer, Lisa Coffey. Listen to Math and Magic on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. If you're watching the latest season of the Real Housewives of Atlanta, you already know, there's a lot to break down. Portia accusing Kelly of sleeping with a married man. They holding Kay Michelle back from fighting Drew.

Pinky has financial issues. On the podcast, Reality With the King, I, Carlos King, recap the biggest moments from your favorite reality shows, including the Real House Wise franchise, the drama, the alliances, M&T, everybody's talking about.

To hear this and more, listen to Reality with the King on the IHard radio app, Apple Podcast, wherever you get your podcast. You know the famous author, Roald Dahl. He thought up Willie Wonka and the BFG. But did you know he was a spy? Neither did I.

You can hear all about his wildlife story in the podcast, The Secret World of Roald Dahl. All episodes are out now. Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been. What? Okay, I don't think that's true. I'm telling you.

I was a spy. Binge all 10 episodes of The Secret World of Roll Dahl. Now on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast. or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.