MTracey podcast - Why is the US at war with Iran right now? With journalist Hooman Majd

Episode Date: March 23, 2026

Hooman Majd is a journalist and commentator with some unique insights on Iran, by way of his personal background, so I thought I would ask him the question I posed to myself last week, and which will presumably go down in historical infamy: “Why did Trump go to war with Iran on February 28, 2026?” We also got into various other dimensions of the war — the nature of Trump’s second-term ideology, the structure of his administration, the purported “negotiations” led by Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, issues around US and Iranian public opinion, Iranian diaspora dynamics, and so forth.Here is Hooman Majd’s recent article in the Guardian, and here is Hooman Majd on X. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.mtracey.net/subscribe

All right, hello viewers out there. I am joined today by Huma and Majd. Did I butcher the pronunciation? No, really good job. Okay. I have not studied Persian. I'll have to a bit or farcey. But I did take a very abortive couple of courses on Arabic in college,

which has not resulted in me really retaining virtually any of it. And I don't even know if you could cross it over at all with Persian. Unfortunately not. It's a very different. Although Persian does, has over the 1400 years of the Arab invasion adopted some Arabic words, the pronunciation and even the, you know, context of those words has changed dramatically. And so an Arab speaker, Arabic speaker, landing in Tehran wouldn't understand, even though they would hear these Arabic words in the middle.

Sure, sure. which happens with almost every language i mean english i mean you just in common speech you're bound to use a couple of french origin words italian origin german yeah exactly exactly anyway um so i wanted to speak to you because you obviously have a more in-depth background in iran affairs than most people partly by dint of your heritage and how that has guided i guess I guess your professional or journalistic interests. And but also just because I think, you know, you're somebody who has, at least in my recollection, has kind of a rational perspective on these things in general.

Thank you for saying that. Yeah, I mean, I remember becoming aware of you. It's probably through Bob Wright that I first became. Oh, okay. Prised of your existence like 15 years ago or something. Right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, so I thought we might start out just by sort of level setting to use this sort of cliche.

And just toying with the question that I've been asking, mostly as a rhetorical question at this point, but also not quite rhetorical in that I do think it's important to answer the question as best one can. why did the United States go to war with Iran on February 28th, 2006? Because this is the question that is going to be poured over and pondered and debated ad nauseum throughout history, right? This is, people still don't have a good answer to that question vis-a-vis why, you know, Putin invaded Ukraine on February 24th, 2022, why George W. Bush invaded Iraq on March 19th, 2003, even why Hitler invaded Poland on September 1st. 1939. These are dates that get seared into one's memory, or at least mine,

in terms of historically decisive dates, potentially. I mean, we don't know, obviously, if the magnitude of this war is going to rival some of those past ones, but it could well may. So I wrote a piece on this that has to do with some of my own more peculiar interest around how the Epstein story is taken center stage, bizarrely enough, and informed a lot of people's perceptions as to why this war was launched. But I'm curious as of today, March 23rd, how would you answer that question? Do you think it's even answerable? What's your best approximation of a way to address that? I'm not sure it's answerable. It's interesting. New York Magazine has a piece today saying, you know, nobody knows why the war started and makes an argument for why nobody knows,

including the president himself. It's, I don't know, hubris. You know, know, being high on the Venezuela war, not war, sorry, Venezuela kidnapping of the president and that regime adjustment, I call it a regime adjustment, not regime change, hoping for the same Iran to just be the president after 47 years of complaining about why, you know, why hasn't the U.S. done this or done that, and having that militaristic kind of view of what America should do in conflicts, you know, is that the reason? I mean, how am I going to really know that? I mean, I don't, I actually agree with you. I think the Epstein is a distraction. I mean, Trump undoubtedly was friends with Epstein for a while, undoubtedly hung out with

them, undoubtedly, you know, knew that Epstein liked young girls. He said so much. I mean that's all evidence. It doesn't mean Trump was, you know, trafficking young girls or, you know, was sleeping with 14-year-olds. It doesn't mean any of that. And, you know, Would Trump prefer that the Epstein story go away? Yeah. Anybody who has been associated except for Zalo Paolo, Paolo Zambole, his friend, who said that, you know, yeah, it's great to be in the Epstein files because if you're not, you're a loser.

You know, only... I think that was late. Wasn't that Lady Victoria Hervey who said that? Or did this Paolo fellow also say that? Paolo said that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm in there because I'm, yeah, I'm in there because, yeah, you'd be a loser if you're in New York and... Anybody who's anybody who's anybody who's in there.

Is in the Epstein files. 30 million pages or whatever they have of those files. But yeah, so I mean, I don't think, I think it's impossible to say. What I can say is I do think there's a fundamental lack of interest on Trump's part in terms of understanding what the Iranians were going to do and an absolute lack of understanding by Steve Whitkoff and Jared Kushner, who seemed to almost take this as a, oh, in the morning we'll meet with the Iranians for a couple hours with this mediator. Then we're going to rush over and meet with the Russians and the Ukrainians and try to figure that out and then fly back. In the meantime, you know, with Jared, let me see.

Is there anybody here in Geneva who can give me a billion dollars for my hedge fund? It just seemed like a very amateurish way to deal with this. And, you know, based on all the reports, and I'm not obviously not in the room, based on all the reports we read, and based on Wittkoff's own talking points after the war started, it doesn't seem that he really understood what was being offered. And Trump understood that he actually was on the verge of getting a much better deal than Obama ever was able to get and giving him the opportunity to say,

I solved this problem in the Middle East, I solved this nuclear issue, I got a better deal than Obama. Unless the intent all along, despite the pretext of negotiations, was to war with Iran or impose change, et cetera. Yeah, and the Iranians hold both those views. Some in Iran believe that this was always a farce, that this was not

ever meant to be real. This is like the way to keep them off, you know, off balance, as it were, with these negotiations and saying, oh, yeah, they went well, it's fine. And it happened twice, once in June of 2025, and again in February this year. But there's also people who believe, inside Iran, believe that it was a big mistake to agree to negotiate with two real estate guys with no other experts in the room, just the two real estate guys, basically. Yeah, I took part in a public debate in May of 2025, and the topic was Trump 2.0 so far, so as of May of 2025. And one of my points, I was taking the anti-Trump line, you know, which is sort of ironic for me, because I used to be accused of being anti-anty-Trump.

because I didn't care for the Russiagate narrative. So it always kind of fluctuates back and forth in terms of what my depiction is. But then I was taking the more antagonistic line toward the Trump record as of 2025, in the second term anyway. And I was pointing to at that time an abundance of evidence that did strongly indicate

that those nominal negotiations ahead of the 12-day war, as it's now called. Were, in fact, pretextual. Because the first of all, of all, Trump, shortly after assuming office, declared a time-limited ultimatum, I think it was 60 days at that point. Yes. For Iran to essentially capitulate. Right.

To give over to what Netanyahu had clarified, and he was working in conjunction with Trump at this point, and still is, was the imposition of the Libyan model on Iran. Right. Meaning permitting the United States, perhaps with Israel or even just the U.S. alone, to come in and, oversee the destruction of Iran's state nuclear capacities, which it's inconceivable that even the most quote unquote

doveish political actors in Iran would ever agree to that. Because it would be like the self-infliction of like a national humiliation at the direction of this imperial power from the other side of the world, right? Yeah. So they were setting up a debate framework whereby the only tolerable resolution

from Trump's perspective would be this, totally untenable outcome. Yeah, yeah. And yet, you know, they can still do this song and dance of negotiations to claim once military action is launched that they tried to negotiate, right? They tried to take a diplomatic route and Iran was so obstinate that they had no other choice. That's almost exactly verbatim what Trump and Netanyahu ended up doing in June of 2025. And that's carried over to today.

So my view is that the evidence shows almost unassailable that these negotiations were in fact pretext rule. So that leads one to then surmise that it's an ideological conviction on Trump's part, to the extent one can discern any ideological convictions that he possesses, that some sort of military confrontation with Iran was desirable, and that's what he was going to pursue. But, you know, one of the difficulties in actually trying to identify any, coherent motive as to why the war was launched on February 28th, is that unlike, say, the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the impetus for the war is really all about whatever is bouncing around inside Trump's adult brain on any given day. Like, there's no structured policy process as far as anybody can tell, especially in the second term, that you can divine, like, kind of fragments of evidence from.

Whereas in 2003, right, there was a pretty lengthy lead-up to that war that involved a much more conventional policymaking process with, you know, the State Department, the National Security Council, the Pentagon. There ought had been, you know, testimony given to Congress in anticipation of a war. There had been at least attempts or, you know, ostensible attempts by the Bush administration to get a, to get the UN backing. Yeah, absolutely. We're going to the Security Council. They had gotten an authorization for use of force in Iraq a few months prior in October of 2002. So there was a lot more information to potentially base an assessment on if we're trying to understand why it is that Bush ultimately did decide to go to war on March 19, 2003. But even then, it's still debated to this day, like what the reason was that the war was involved in that particular day.

But now it's even more opaque. It's even more sort of indecipherable because it all comes down to like Trump's own. personal proclivities, his own personal sort of impulses. Yeah, I agree with you, Michael, that I mean, the evidence is pretty much on the side of what you were just saying that this was pretty, I mean, he was going to go to war because once you say you've got to capitulate and give up everything, I mean, complete and utter surrender is what I think he actually, his words at one point. Iran, you know, it has to, unconditional surrender.

Unconditional surrender. Although he did declare that during the 12-day war, and that didn't result in the unconditional surrender. It didn't, but, but then he also claimed that it's been completely obliterated, so it doesn't, doesn't matter. Unconditional surrender doesn't matter. That's the rhetorical style that Trump gave you, that Trump theorized in the art of a deal, which is actually worth reading if we need, if we're trying to get an understanding

of what his governing philosophy is, unfortunately, but. Yeah, except, except that was written a long time ago by someone by a ghost writer who was interviewing him, and today his brain is probably at a third of the capacity that it was back then. You can hear clips of him speaking today with clips of him speaking in the first term? Yeah. It's like Biden Redux. I mean, it's not maybe quite as extreme as Biden, like losing his train of thought constantly and muttering. But, you know, it is noticeable.

I agree. It's noticeable, absolutely. And if you go even further back than the first term in the first campaign before he was in office, it was, it's radically different the way he speaks. I mean, he could hold the thought. Yeah. But, yeah, I think, so I think, I mean, But he has to have been persuaded, I believe, anyway, that the success of the complete

obliteration of the nuclear, with a couple of bombs and a ceasefire right away and Iran being weak was one thing. The second thing that gave him probably some, you know, some kind of thought process that Could I do this in Iran? Could I do Venezuela in Iran? I mean, the success of Venezuela really seems to have gone to his head, you know, between what he talks about Cuba. He almost talks about Cuba as if I can do it. Success of Venezuela.

I'm not sold on that being a success in any meaningful. I would agree. I'm just in his mind, in his mind and in the mind of his administration, it was a success. And he seems to think he can do it again in Cuba. I can put whoever I want in power in Cuba, basically. He's been saying that. You know, in so many words. I can do that.

And wanting to do the same in Iran, sure, he would have done exactly what you're saying. Keep the negotiations going. So, well, I tried that. I tried that. But these guys are, you know, they're obstinate. They don't come through in negotiations. So we just have to do this thinking that this is going to be relatively easy. Now, you know, in his first term, he did have some advisors who, I wouldn't say stood up to him,

but really were kind of somewhat more forceful than the ones he has now. he has people now who are... He built in the room, like, Mattis, McMaster. Yeah. Yeah. Tillerson is first who said, Lixon, this nuclear deals are working. I don't know what you want to do.

I was reminded of this today. I had forgotten, but Mattis, while he was still serving as then Defense Secretary, they changed as to war secretary now, although it's not a statutory change, so it's not formal. But that maybe gives you a little bit of insight into, like, what the XF run Pentagon is like if they made this whole, you know,

show of wanting to change their name of the war secretary or war department. But I had forgotten that Mattis gave testimony to Congress in fall of 2017, where he also reaffirmed his view that the United States should remain in the Iran. In the deal, yeah. I mean, the thing, I mean,

and some of those people accepted that the sunset provisions in that deal were troublesome, and if that's something that was bothering Trump, that that should be addressed, not just tear up the deal. But as past history, but yeah, I mean, I think, you know, it's, I mean, going back to the original question, why February 28th, why 2026? I don't know that we're ever going to really have a proper answer for it, except that

Trump is Trump. Right now, the bigger question for me, because like you say, historians will argue that and debate it for, you know, generations. all these dates in history, including I'll add October 7th. Why did Hamas do what it did in the way that it did do it? What has that caused? I mean, forget about just the numbers of dead, but let's forget about Israel's position in the world and how it's going to be perceived in the long-term future.

We can go to December 7, 1945. There you go. One after another. But I think now the bigger question is how does Trump... Sorry, 1941. I'm talking about pro-Hartre. Yeah, pro-Hartre. How does Trump get himself out of this thing that he's gotten himself into?

Does he want to get out of it? Does he, it appears that he does, or does he want to get the stock market to go up this week while he tries to think about what to do? You know, again, talking about the adults in the room, he has, in the second term, as we know, surrounded himself by people who are terrified of him, will never say no to him. And if they do know that they'll be, I call it nomified,

Christenomified, you know, you're out. One, one, I mean, I'm waiting for Tulsi to get nomified because. Well, please, don't hold your breath. So, I mean, I think one way, I mean, we'll get to a more forward-looking assessment of the current state of things. Yeah. But just not, just to kind of dwell for a moment on the origins of the war, I think one way of looking at it might be to take ourselves back to the 2024 election. right so Trump wins he wins more decisively than he had won in 2016 yeah there's no question about

popular vote versus electoral college right um he did win all the quote swing states as he still likes to remind us yes um and you know he also won in areas that you know trended almost drastically republican in a way that would have been difficult to fathom so just one quick example pesate county new jersey not a major swing state right right he won this trending Latino county in new jersey and New Jersey and he had the best margin for a Republican in New Jersey since 1988 with George H.W. Bush. You know, just one little data point. So he's riding high in terms of his political capital. He's probably got more political capital after the 2024 election than he's ever added in his entire career as a nationally prominent political figure, meaning he's unconstrained,

basically pretty much in terms of how he can set up his administration, who he can appoint, know they they did this whole maybe faint around Matt gates potentially becoming the attorney general yeah from that he gets everybody that he wants including people like rfk junior who you know would not have been conceived as somebody who could become the secretary of the health human scur so and then what does he decide to do he sets up he appoints as his secretary of state which i always regard is the most important appointment for any incoming presidents like one of the great offices of state dating back to the family. He empoints Marco Rubio as the person whom Trump sees as most compatible with enacting his

second term foreign policy plans. And Marco Rubio is, you know, one of the most tried and true hawks, quote unquote, or interventionist in the United States Senate, including on Iran and then, but also with regard to his preoccupations in the Western hemisphere. And now, lo and behold, they, Ruby occupies this hybrid role where he's still the national security advisor technically. They've abolished the national security council process where it's basically just Rubio kind of channeling things from Trump and also serving his secretary of state akin to what

Henry Kissinger did with Nixon and Ford. But Rubio, I would argue at this point probably is more influential that even Kissinger was in terms of his day-to-day president. Who does he name as his then, you know, defense secretary now they've rebranded it to war secretary, Pete Heggseth, and that seemed to come out of left field, right? Because he's a Fox and Friends weekend host. I'm sure he has a military background, but, you know, not necessarily the most obvious choice for the job. But, you know, at the time when that was announced,

I went back and looked at some of the stuff that was on the record from Hexeth. And he, when Trump first, when Trump did the drone strike assassination of Soleimani in the first term, Hegsteth was coming out on Fox, which, you know, Trump clearly watches, you know, almost obsessively, saying Trump should go all the way. you know, bomb Iran proper, because that took place in Iraq, technically, the destination of Soleimani. And, you know, should even threaten to bomb, you know, potentially mosques and schools in Iran. Like, basically, full-bore attack on Iran is what Henghisth was advocating. And, you know, he also, his initial national security advisor was Mike Waltz, which wasn't even subject to Senate confirmation.

So he literally could have appointed virtually anyone he wanted. wanted it. And Mike Walsh was one of the most hawkish, including on Iran, members of the House of Representatives at that point. At least Stefanik was his pick for, you know, an ambassador, which is now Waltz, after a shuffle. And so, you know, to me, that was a, those were pretty clear indications of where Trump's predilections lied in terms of what he was planning for a second term. Yeah, people maybe got a little bit, got a little bit sort of muddled when with picks like Tulsi Gabbard for Director of National Intelligence, which frankly isn't even that well-known of a position or its bureaucratic role is still sort of obscure. It was like an invention of the

Bush administration after 9-11, after like some bureaucratic reorganization. But in terms of the CIA director that Trump picked, you know, much a much more well-established position, John Ratcliffe, John Ratcliffe as a private citizen around the 2024 campaign was going out on Fox and elsewhere saying, look, we already have the rationale for an attack for a joint, US-Israeli attack on Iran just by virtue of Iran having allegedly attempted to assassinate Trump. Tell you. And also there was a thing about Iran allegedly hacking Trump, some Trump campaign emails. Like that was already sufficient for Rackcliffe to say that we were good to go in terms of attacking Iran.

And Trump himself called for, or basically endorsed the idea of Israel attacking Iran's nuclear facilities during the 2020. campaign. Yeah. Which would by necessity have to entail the U.S. playing an operational role alongside Israel. If you know the first thing about how Israel works militarily, especially for such an audacious operation as that would be, even J.D. Vance, okay, the so-called restrainer, the so-called non-interventionist caucus leader, go and rewatch the first, like, opening minutes of the vice presidential debate with Tim Walts. It was the day October 1st, I think, of 2024 when Iran had fired like the missile. Salvo into Israel that was, you know, kind of one of these tit for tata changes in 2024.

He's asked about this, J.D. Vance's and he says, look, we should just support anything that Israel wants to do in terms of going after Iran. So, I mean, so, which is all just to say a lot of people seem like bewildered or befuddled that this could come about. To me, and I wrote this after the, during the 12-day war, this is all hugely telegraphed. There's something that, like, Trump really does want to do. Like, it's not a huge mystery. So why did he launch the war on February 28th? Because that's what the record shows that he clearly was trying to engineer a pretext for doing.

And he has now, in fact, done. He's certainly been happy to do it. Obviously, even if you didn't believe it before the 12-day war, you saw that he's happy to use force the way he did. Does he want an extended war, though? Did he expect an extended war? That seems less likely. He's even talked about how Venezuela is like, you know, that's easy.

I can do that in Cuba. You know, we could do that in Iran. We had some guys we were looking at, but they're all killed. I mean, there's all this like, you know, but the Iranians back in 2020, in 2024, we're thinking, well, you know, we don't really know Kamala Harris. Biden experience hasn't been great for us because he had every opportunity. It promised to get back into the JCPOA. That was a big failure. They didn't, they just kind of dropped the ball as far as the Iranians are concerned.

It just sort of fizzled out. I mean, there were some tentative attempts. Yeah, and then, and then October 7th happened. And then the focus of the Biden administration was 100% on Israel, Gaza, not on Iran. And a military alliance with Saudi Arabia. Yeah, exactly. I mean, a treaty alliance. Treaty alliance.

I can't see what the U.S. has with Japan. That's what Biden was pursuing as a extension of. the so-called Abraham Accords. Abraham Accords, exactly. So then, you know, by the end of that, end of the 2024, the Iranians were going, well, you know, Trump is a dealmaker. He's a dealmaker. He's a dealmaker.

We can deal with dealmakers. We know how to deal, you know. He's not really ideological, right? He'll be transactional. He's practical. He sat with Kim Jong-un after all and called him. He said, we fell in love. I mean, can he fall in love with an Ayatollah?

They exchanged love letters. Love letters, yeah. So they got that, that. there wasn't that ideological kind of hatred. The Iranians didn't sense that, and they understood that he liked strong men. And so, you know, can we make a deal? So I don't think that, I mean, from everybody I talked to at the time,

that they were not like, oh, my God, Trump's coming in. He's going to, you know, he's going to go to war with us. And then the initial, like you say, the initial, the beginnings of these talks was like, okay, he's sending his absolute favorite guy, the guy who was on the golf course when there was an attempt to kill him as his negotiator. Obviously, this is a guy he really trusts. Whitkoff. I'm talking about, obviously, yeah.

And Jared gets sort of like grafted on later. Later on, yeah. But initially it was Whitkoff. So, you know, now we are basically talking directly to the president. Through not through the State Department, not through this, this is a guy who's just going to pick up the phone any time of day or night to the president's day. Old real estate buddy of Trumps from Manhattan and South Florida. Exactly.

So for the Iranians, you know, you could understand why they were. were like, okay, let's get into these negotiations. They felt burned by the 12-day war. They understood that it was, or they at least thought that the ones I spoke to, including regime insiders, that, you know, it was Israel that decided to do this, not Trump. That's what they thought. And then Trump closed it down and did the bombing and took credit for it, took credit for the ceasefire. I honestly don't think either, maybe they were just being stupid, the Iranians, but they really did not expect this to happen on February 2nd. I'm pretty confident they did not expect this to happen.

They had considered from the beginning, even when the Iranians were here for the UN in September, and I got invited to a couple of these meetings with journalists with the president of Iran and foreign minister to run. They always said after the 12-day war, we don't trust America, we don't trust Israel. There could be a war at any time, and they were preparing for that.

But whether they expected this on- On February 20 ways, I don't think they did expect it. They obviously had been prepared for it, had been prepared for decapitation of levels of their leadership. And as we see, we're in the fourth week of the war now. Yes. Well, it was right around that time during the UN General Assembly meeting in New York. I can't remember if it was just before or just after, but it was when basically the UN

snapback sanctions were. Yes. kind of officially reimposed at the urging of Rubio. Yes. Which, if people aren't aware, those are the snapback. They're so-called snapback sanctions, mean the UN authorized sanctions that had been held in abeyance through the Iran nuclear deal beginning in 2013. And, you know, it had been a long time sort of Republican almost campaign plank to get those re-instituted. The 12-day war was sort of a trigger for doing that, which meant that the European countries,

And also China and Russia were now back on board with these internationalized sanctions against Iran rather than the unilateral ones imposed by the U.S., which are technically not lawful under international law. Yeah. But, you know, who cares about that? But by the way, China and Russia were unable to stop. They abstained it, I think, or they... No, they, the snapback, the way the snapback was designed in the JCPOA and the UN 2231 was that no one could veto it if it was initiated. So they were unable to veto it, the Russians and the Chinese. I see.

Okay. So it just, that's why they called it snapback. It automatically snapped back. Right. Okay. Yes. That should have occurred to me. Maybe I should have read the, go back.

No, no, no. I'm just, I just, I, that's the reason the Iranians also and the Russians actually say it's not valid. The Russians and the Chinese and the Iranians, those three, those three parties say the snapback is not valid because they had no, because the U.S. is in violation of the deal, tore up the deal, and the Europeans are in. violation of the deal and haven't remedied their violations, therefore they have no right to impose a snapback. So this gets into a whole inside baseball on, yeah, the 15,000. You mentioned that the Iran's, as far as you could ascertain, sincerely, we're not expecting no. This kind of policy in the Trump administration. Not at all. Even like going to extend some modicum of benefit of the doubt after the 12-day war. Yeah.

Now, to me, that's ironic for this reason. Trump really does have a pretty well-defined ideology in the second term. Maybe not so much in the first term. Yeah. But, you know, he had four years of like an interregnum period to kind of brew over things. And while he was being prosecuted and indicted and, you know, like, you know, Letitia James was trying to bankrupt him over the Trump organization and, you know, all the mayhem that went on during that four-year period when he was out of office, January 6th, etc. So he had, he was stewing over things for quite a while and he seemed to come up with an actually well-defined ideology that he didn't quite preview during the 2024 campaign.

He's very clever because he's a clever politician had, you know, him and his surrogates would, you know, sound these vague notes of war aversion. Yes. Kind of platitudes that weren't really tied to any specific policy prescriptions, which put out, which was what I was always trying to look for. But, you know, a lot of people were content to just say, you know, here, oh, we're going to maybe not do World War III. three, blah, blah, blah, blah. And that would be kind of commingled with, like, Trump on the one hand saying, like, he's going to blow Ronda Smithereens if they try to assassinate him. Yeah.

And, you know, endorse the U.S. Israeli strikes in the nuclear facilities. But, like, you know, people aren't that discerning and how they process political information. And then sure enough, he barrels into office the second term. And, like, what's the consistent through line, as far as I can tell? It's like this global conquest mission. So, you know, he's wanting to seize Greenland. He's declaring, you know, didn't just do the Venezuela operation. he immediately thereafter declared himself the ultimate governing authority.

Yeah. Meaning he's got ultimate veto power over the governance of Venezuela as he sees it. Yeah. He declared himself the ruler of Gaza. Yeah. Meaning he has this Board of Peace thing. He's the chairman of what he says he makes it seem like he was sort of resistant to being named the Board of Peace chairman because he has so much else on his plate,

but he like accepted it because so many people were asking him to do it. So he's doing it. He's got the ultimate jurisdiction over the governance of Gaza. Yeah. You know, he was talking, you know, joking, quote, unquote, about taking over Canada, which, you know, it's not being funny after a while. He was talking about wanting to seize the Panama Canal. So I don't know what we were around that. And you late most recently he's wanting saying, yeah, we could just take Cuba and whether it's militarily, economically, or some combination.

So again, this is a pretty consistent through line for. Well, as of today, as of today, Michael, just today, he said that when we asked by reporters at the airport, at the air base, we're getting on Air Force One, they asked him, well, what about the straight of hormones? He has suddenly decided that we're going to control it. He said, well, we're going to. Yeah. That's what he said. I just saw that right before we started.

Yeah. He's got this new deal in the works. Yeah. Jared and his old pal, Steve, are once again in charge of. Yeah. As if their record on negotiations with Iran is totally. Perfect. But now, like, they're, you know, they're back in the saddle.

And according to Trump, like, he was just in the. at the Palm Beach Airport, so, you know, this morning. And yeah, he said, so somebody asked him, so like, what are you talking about in terms of a deal that you're claiming is on the verge of potentially coming to fruition here with Iran? Because he postponed him, he's going to bomb the power. Power plants, yeah. Yeah. And he said, okay, yeah, this deal, number one, it's going to include some very serious regime change,

he says. And number two, it could entail him personally, controlling the straight of Hormuz with some Ayatollah, he says. Yes, with some Ayatollah, yeah. I mean, the thing is, before this war, he hadn't even thought about the straight of hormones. That's very clear that he hadn't thought about it. But doesn't this tell you, or at least, here's what it tells me, that this Iran excursion, as he calls it, you'd be properly viewed through the prism of this more overarching ideology that he's unleashed for this second term.

Because, like, what, you think he's not going to want to, quote, take the oil in Iran? Of course he is. Of course he is. Or just like he's doing now with Venezuela and just like he bemoan, George W. Bush didn't do with Iraq. I mean, that's why he's talking about Kharg. I mean, Harg is oil. And by the way, I mean, you take Harg, you're talking about oil. That's what you're talking about.

There's nothing else. The militarily is not that important to Iran. Never was. It's an oil. Yeah, so Iran exports its oil from there. So now what? He's talking about taking their oil. That's what he's talking about.

It's not like I'm not going to pretend to have been an expert on Carg Island prior to the past six weeks. But you probably have been familiar with it more than I had. There is a city. Is there an inhabited, like small city? Small, very small. It's a very small. It's a rocky kind of small island, which has huge oil storage facilities. And that oil then gets loaded onto tankers to go away.

But that's not the only one in Iran. Is it only people, are the only people who live there more or less? People either in the military or in the oil industry. Yeah. Mostly. Mostly. Or families associated with that. Yeah.

I saw something that like recently, bizarrely enough, as of early 2006, there was an idea in the Iranian government that maybe they would open it up to some tourism or some science thing or something. Like, do you, is that? Not hard. That's Kish. Kish Island. I read that about Khar, but maybe I'm,

maybe they said, there's nothing particularly attractive about Kharg. Okay. It doesn't even have like great beaches. It wouldn't be like a summer destination for going to... No, no, Kish does. Oh, Kish is like an amazing island that has five-star hotels. It is duty-free, and a lot of the restrictions that exist in the Islamic Republic don't exist there.

That's where Robert Levinson just disappeared because you didn't need a visa to go there of all the Iranian. What it's worth. This is on Wikipedia and it's sourced to some publication that I'm not familiar with, so it could be totally wrong. But it says, according to the Iranians. in the Ministry of Tourism and Cultural Health Heritage from 2026, tourists could obtain a special permit from the government upon application, which would include detailed documentation of the intended visit, and tourists would need to be accompanied by an approved guide at all time.

So that is with respect to Carr. Yeah, yeah. But you know how many tourists are not going to be flocking to it now? Well, yeah, probably zero. Yeah, but no, no, going back to what you were saying, it's clear that Trump likes the idea of being this, you know, Napoleonic figure who's like without actually necessarily occupying these countries he's looked at as this kind of like strong man who can dictate to the rest of the world

because America's like the number one country in the world we're the greatest we're the most powerful and and he puts people who are with him on that people like you just said hexa it was like yeah yeah yeah let's change the name of the department war because i don't like being a defense guy i like to be a war guy yeah but like Apparently, that was like everybody thought that it was just like a purely cosmetic thing. Like I didn't speak to invent at all in terms of how they were going to maybe use the resources of the new, quote, war department. Yeah, exactly. And then-

To Ukraine, right, which is where one area where Trump has seemed to be more of a departure from maybe the preexisting sort of Biden consensus. Yeah. And it is true that Trump is not like a liberal internationalist. He wouldn't kind of recite the same sort of liberal nationalist nostrums as a Biden did. were also pretty vapid from my perspective. Yeah. Vis-a-vis Ukraine, but, you know, the status quo persists in Ukraine in terms of the weapons provision. Yeah.

It's Trump just set up this new mechanism that I still don't fully understand where he, we're now allegedly selling the weapons to Ukraine with like NATO countries as an intermediary, but also in terms of this extraction ideology that now is kind of take, you know, fully blossomed in the second term. Remember the so-called minerals deal? Yeah. Trump, you know, that was one of his first priority. for Ukraine. That was, you know, one of the first iterations of the deal, and I'm not sure what it's going on with it with any precision right now, but one of the first iterations of it was that

essentially the U.S. would become almost like a quasi-colonial possessor or Ukraine would become like a quasi-colonial possession of the United States because the United States would now be granted ownership of Ukrainian natural resources and also physical infrastructure like coal refineries and so You can even extend this ideology of like kind of conquest or extraction into Ukraine where it's maybe a little bit less clear cut. But these other examples around the world, you know, Cuba being the latest among them, I just don't, I'm, are, do you sympathize at all with my befudlement that nobody really seems inclined to see this Iran excursion through that lens at all? In part because like a lot of people are obsessed with saying, this is all about Israel, 100% unwaveringly. Or Trump was deceived or tricked manipulated by. Yeah, I think, I think Bibi saw in Trump someone that he could potentially have some influence over.

But no, I think Trump is perfectly happy to do this. Would he have done it without Israel knocking on the door? Not just with Trump, knocking on the door when Trump was in his first term as well. And all the time when he was out of office, B.B. would meet him and talk to him when he was out of office. Trump was out of office. So, I mean, no, he didn't, I don't think that Israel dragged him into a war. I agree with you that he was inclined to do this. He saw Iran. And also, look at all the people in the Senate. You know, you can argue that FD and Mark Dubowitz and those guys are doing Israel's bidding. But they're still Americans. They're sitting in Washington. And they've been promoting this,

to the Republican Party. They obviously couldn't promote it to the Democratic Party, which basically didn't listen to them. But they're promoting to the Republican Party that Iran is this threat, not just to Israel, our ally, but is a threat to the region, a threat to our hegemony. And our hegemony is what it's about. And other think tanks in D.C., which are ardently pro-Israel by, you know, constitutionally, I think, you know, they view the American national interests. And I've always disagreed with us. Yes. But they view it as interchangeable with the Israeli. Yes.

Because they view Israel as like an outpost. An outpost. An outpost of a demonic power of primacy. That's why it's not that complicated ultimately. No, it's not. And Israel has the reason the outpost is proof that they are the outposts is they have the most advanced weaponry that isn't sold to other countries and given to other countries that America gives to Israel. So it is an outpost, absolutely. And we'll continue to be.

That's not going away. Although still not a treaty ally technically, unlike other countries. Yeah, but almost because it doesn't need to be. Yeah, true. Almost because it doesn't need to be. Whereas, you know, with Saudi Arabia, it needs to be, you know. So, so I, yeah, but I think that it's befuddled. I'm not befuddled.

I think people just want to come up with an answer as to why, and there are easy answers. And the easy answer is either Epstein, Israel, getting food. Which go hand in hand. And also, you can see Epstein is like he was first and foremost in Israeli intelligence assets. An asset.

A Mossad asset. He was running a honeypot that ensnared everybody from Trump to Bill Clinton to Bill Gates to. Including Israeli prime minister. Yeah, yeah. Iraq. But no, I think it's just convenient and it's easy. And also if you want to think of Trump as a dufous,

kind of like an idiot, perhaps smart politically in some ways, but an idiot when it comes to foreign relations. Oh, yeah, he could be easily manipulated. I mean, Lindsay Graham saying that he went to Israel every couple of weeks to coach Bibi Netanyan how to persuade Trump. But I think...

Sure, but Lindsay Graham, Lindsay Graham was the first member of the U.S. Senate to endorse like two and a half years before the fact Trump's third election. Yeah, absolutely. So did Lindsay Graham do that because he felt that his foreign policy priorities were inconsistent with those of Donald Trump? Probably not.

No. That sounds because like I, maybe some people want to just believe that Trump is a total idiot, but I think more relevantly, especially in terms of the right-leaning commentary that were supportive of Trump on kind of like fallacious grounds, meaning that he was this anti-deep state crusader who was going to end all the war or something. I think mostly they want to almost preserve this image of Trump as this like perpetually manipulated little angel who, if allowed to go by his own devices, or to do his, you know, enact his own, like, pure-hearted instincts,

he would not be doing what he's now manipul what he's always perpetually being manipulated into doing. Into doing, yeah, yeah, I think that's. That's the Tucker Carlson interpretation or Megan Kelly or some of these other people. And actually, you know, Joe Kent, who resigned last week. Yeah. In his resignation letter, he also repeats this idea that he feels that Trump was deceived by Israel. By Israel, yeah, yeah. Because at what point is, like, Trump, again, I keep repeating this phrase that I think

I mean I coined, but I don't know. It doesn't even matter. You can have it if you want. Like the primary point is Trump, the primary agent of responsibility here. Apparently never. Yeah, according to a lot of people. Yeah. But I mean, I think there is, there is this element that, you know, Trump doesn't like to read. He doesn't like have long meetings and things. He wants like two or three sentence explanation. And I think that's what Wikoff was giving him, what that's what the Iranians think would want. So Wiccoff goes on television two days after it goes on Foxy's a couple of days after the war starts. Yeah, well, you know, it was an imminent threat.

You know, I sat across from Abbas Arakshi, the Iranian foreign minister, and he was boasting to me that they have enough enriched uranium for 12 nuclear weapons. So, of course, you know, Arachchi goes on NBC and says, that's not how it happened. I was explaining to Whitkov that everybody knows we have 440 kilograms of 60% enrichment. That's been, that's public knowledge. Because he read quite a bit on the subject of nuclear enrichment and all the other technicalities associated with like nuclear policy. But I don't know if he did that.

I don't know if did he produce a book report for his like glass. No, I think he was given a couple of sessions at the State Department to get brief him. But so she was saying, no, what I was explained to him is that we can take that, which could be made to 10 to 12 nuclear weapons if it was further enriched. but we are willing to take that and dilute it down to three and a half percent, which is what we can use for our nuclear power plant. And so he was arguing that Whitcott on television, this is the Iranian foreign minister. I'm not saying the Iran foreign minister is always telling the truth, but Whitkoff is always lying.

But there does seem to be some adagachia, yeah. There does seem to be some space between what the two believe they said or is heard in Geneva two days before the war. So if indeed Whitkoff comes back to Trump and says, yeah, yeah, that meeting did not go. The Amani foreign minister says, this is great. Iran has offered this, has offered that, it's offered to dilute the highly rich uranium, flies to go see J.D. Vance in Washington. In the meantime, Whitkoff is telling Trump, yeah, it didn't go so, well, they're kind of

threatening to build 12 nuclear weapons. I mean, if that's real, I mean, I'm speculating because I'm not in the room. obviously, but we certainly based on what they've been saying on television, which is always some propaganda evolved anyway. You know, Whitkoff doesn't want to be blamed for going to war,

obviously, is what to be like, I fucked up, I'm sorry. Excuse my language. No, feel free. Let loose. Yeah, I'm sorry. I really screwed this one up. I gave Trump really bad advice and he went to war, resulting in the deaths of 2,000 Iranians and 13 Americans.

by the way. Right. So far. One thing I wanted to ask you about in terms of the messaging coming out of Iran at this point. And believe I don't want to get too derailed into any kind of Epstein rabbit hole. Viewers might know that I have a bit of an idiosyncratic perspective on that issue. But it's in terms of what the Iranian government messaging has been that's been tailored to Western quote unquote audiences or English speaking audiences through various, it seems like professors

with the University of Tehran. Yeah, yeah. Marandi, Professor Maramdi, and there's another one whose name escapes me now. Yeah, primarily this professor Marandi.

Marandi is the most, yeah, because he's fluent in English. He's American. He was born. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but he's constantly on the sort of independent alt media circuit, but he goes on some,

also more mainstream media. Pierce Morgan, for example. Yeah, Prick Morgan. He was on Channel 4 in the UK. Yeah, yeah. Probably been on other stuff that I'm not, you know, immediately aware of. But he's everywhere, right?

He's like, that's his, he's constantly, he's, and I think, you know, he's gaining a lot of traction in terms of his profile. He's, you know, he's constantly being showered with praise by some of these more old media, you know, hosts that do have a lot of followers. And immediately when the war launched, and even like, you know, in the lead up, he started talking about how, you know, fundamentally this war should be understood as a confrontation between the, quote, axis of pedophilia. That's a direct quote. U.S. and Israel, I guess, and the axis of resistance. And he's saying this is the Epstein Coalition. It's the Epstein class.

Epstein class. The version of it. He'll say Epstein regime, Epstein Coalition. Yeah. You know, U.S. soldiers have died to protect pedophiles, essentially. Yep. So help me understand a little bit better where this, I mean, I think I know, I think I can kind of infer, but like, from your perspective, where does this talking point come

from. It's gaining a lot of currency, it seems like, among critics of the war in Western, in the U.S., not care of Europe, because they're sympathetic with Iran, which, you know, was the target of a war of aggression by, like, classically, you know, international law terms. And so they're kind of absorbing these talking points. And also, like, who is, like, how, how, who is Barandi exactly? I mean, I think I know, I know a bit, but like, how should, how should this place in the new water ecosystem be viewed? He is brought on television because he's fluent in English, obviously, and is articulate and knows his history. But he does not speak for the government.

He does not speak for the regime. Never has, really, except for that brief period when Ibrahim Reisi was the president in the Biden administration. And Biden was negotiating with Iran, and he became an advisor to the Iranian negotiating team and would be like their media advice. just like go on tell. His father's the doctor. Yeah, the reason he was born in the U.S. and grew up here until he was 15 years old. And why his English is so good is because his dad was doing his residency in America as a doctor. And first his education, then his residency. And then when the revolution happened, they went back to Iran. And he actually joined the army and when he was like 16 and fought in the Iran-Ira war. It was gassed by the Kurds, by the Saddam Hussein.

Anyway, his father became, ended up one of the Supreme Leader's doctors and close to the Supreme Leader, the now deceased Supreme Leader. So he has this sort of immunity in the regime. His father was a personal doctor. Personal doctor. Khamenei, yes, exactly. He just was assassinated. And throughout Khamene's life. So in all that period, Marendi has therefore been a protected individual.

under the Islamic Republic. And he has a very strong view of America, strong view of Western hegemony, strong view of imperialism. Epstein has been very convenient for him because, you know, pedophilia in Iran is considered, like, you know, you get sentenced to death for that. And traffic.

Rape in general, probably. And rape, too. Yeah, trafficking of women and all that stuff, prostitution. All that stuff is like, you know, a big thing for the Islamic Republic. And so he latches onto this, knowing the pedophilia in the West is also something, maybe not death penalty, but it's definitely something that, you know.

Not too far off. Not too far, yeah. And in order to kind of make the U.S. and Western nations, or particularly U.S. and Israel, at least, to kind of be, make them in the eye. of the Iranians, but also the people that you say who support people like Mirandi or bring him on the show to make them appear as if they are not good people. They're pro pedophilia, if they're not pedophiles themselves. It's why he keeps saying the Epstein class is because that's what that's what I think that's just him. I mean, you know, it's remarkable than no one else in Iran says that. Well, but you're not. I mean, you say he's not an official spokesperson for the Iranian government. And maybe that's true. But like, you know, you don't need to do. You know, you don't need to. be an official spokesperson. Yeah, yeah. No, I know.

Maybe it's more effective if you're not given that official. What I'm saying is the official ones don't say that. They don't call you. No, but Larjani. Largiani did. Largiani said, you know, hey, he directed a taunting tweet at Hegsef. Yeah. Saying while these American officials are commanding their war operations from Epstein's

Island, here are Osirani officials proudly striding around the streets of Tehran and, you know, greatly. Yeah, that was true. It has been used in some official communication. I think there are others even beyond Largiani. Probably, probably, but I don't know that that's policy or it's just that, look, we're at war with them. Let's use it. It's on press TV all the time, like the head of press TV, the CEO.

He's constantly pushing this line as well. That's state media. That is state media. Absolutely. So, I mean, I think it does go beyond just something that. Miranda says, yeah, no, it's true. I'm just trying to say, I don't know. know that I if this is propaganda more more than anything else propaganda to to to I'm sure it is

propaganda I mean it seems to be pretty effective propaganda actually well okay well it's probably but what I'm trying to get across is I don't think that it's necessarily the belief of the Iranian regime that it's the Epstein class that is at war with them you know that's what I'm that saying the Epstein regime yeah absolutely resonate with English speaking audiences abroad absolutely and with English speaking audiences are already disgusted by Epstein and disgusted by the files and disgusted by the things they've seen and the photographs and Trump, you know, hanging out with him and Melania hanging out. So, yeah, I mean, in that sense, I agree. Yeah, it's, it's propaganda and they will use it and they will use it.

But the ones who, like, you know, the Arakis and the foreign ministry, they're kind of a lot more, like, you know, we're serious. Yeah. Arrogati, I haven't. Yeah. Yeah. No. But now, you know, it's gotten to the point where as of a poll from earlier this month that was commissioned a little bit suspiciously by Ryan Grimm and Medita Assam. So maybe take you with a slight grain of salt. But they published a poll at, you know, Zateo and Dropside News saying, you know, purporting to find that a majority of Americans believe that the war was launched for something to do with Jeffrey Epstein. Yeah. Well, it's it's, it's the war. It's everything else that Trump does that somehow Epstein comes up. Oh, he didn't,

he did Venezuela to take attention away from Epstein. He did this to take attention away from Epstein. You know, is Epstein a drag on his administration? Is it a hassle to have to wake up every day, go to the old law? So what are they saying today about Epstein? I'm sure it is. I'm sure he doesn't like that. I'm sure Trump doesn't like that. Is he going to war because of it?

Or thinking, you know, planning, sitting there, you know, twiddling his thumbs at midnight, saying, what am I going to do tomorrow to get Epstein off the front page of the New York Times? That's a conspiracy theory I don't buy. I mean, it doesn't make sense. Look, I mean, I don't buy into the more conspiracies interpretations of Epstein either, even with respect to why the war was launched. But like, it could be incidentally the case that like he's maybe a little bit happier that. I'm sure he's more. I know what I thought I was trying to say, I agree 100%.

If he was going to go to war anyway and say, well, but this also conveniently gets Trump Epstein off the front pages, I'm not going to argue with that. You know, he's not here. Yeah. So you had a piece in the Guardian a few days ago. Yeah. I believe that the Iranian discord in, you know, mostly the United States. I hadn't known that they were so heavily concentrated in Los Angeles actually, but it kind of makes sense.

But they're pretty much everywhere, United States, Germany, Canada. And, you know, when I was covering the potential for Obama, actually, to intervene in Syria, was in 2013. Right. I remember. So Obama did something strange, like he said, I'm going to throw it to Congress, if you recall. Meaning his preference was to actually intervene against Assad,

but he said, I'm going to put it to Congress, and then we'll figure out where to go from there. So I went to these town hall meetings in different districts. And I remember one in Connecticut. It's actually a Democratic Congressman, John Lawson, who's still there, where, you know, the most outsized vocal, visible presence at that town hall were these Syrian diaspora,

Syrian diaspora groups who are in favor of the United States intervening in Syria. And, you know, on some of all, you could empathize with what they were advocating, but, you know, given my predisposition of very intense skepticism toward U.S. military intervention, I couldn't, like, quite get on board. But it, like, raised the conundrum in terms of how to sort of best contextualize that sentiment being expressed by those diaspora cohorts. in terms of, you know, how does it, can it be said to reflect Iranian popular opinion at large?

You know, how much connection does that have with popular opinion within the country itself? You know, this is obviously for Syria, but like it's a similar principle. So like how do you how do you distill? Yeah, the principle, yeah, no, the principle is essentially the same. You know, in any diaspora that has resulted out of war, regime change, any kind of civil war, like in Syria, but in Iran's case, revolution, going from something that was, a revolution that was like radical revolution,

from a monarchy, very pro-West, you know, people could wear bikinis, casinos, nightclubs, you know, everything, to suddenly... It was like Richard Nixon's best friend that one. Yeah, exactly, Richard Nixon's best friend, to all of a sudden being this, you know, I had told his death to America,

women in Chodor's bearded men screeching and taking Americans hostage. So in that kind of situation, the diaspora is going to be, you're going to find, as you did in Syria, as you do in any situation like that, the more economically successful of diaspora,

the ones who are not kind of, you know, scrubbing toilets to make a living in the West, they're going to be like, yeah, I wish you go in and, you know, please help us go in and take back this. Some of these people, I mean, correct, people I'm wrong, might have had their assets extrapolated. Oh, yeah, absolutely, absolutely,

including, you know, people I know. Not unlike the Cuban diaspora. You don't like the revolution from 1959 because their assets were procured. In many cases, the assets were taken. In many cases, they believed that they had a life and their children believed that their parents had a life that was going to be a very successful life as a businessman, as a professor, whatever.

That was ended by the revolution or at some point during the revolution. And then they have to now own a dry country. cleaners on Beverly Boulevard and in Los Angeles. You know, it's kind of like, oh, you know, I'm a working stiff now, you know, or you start working as a taxi driver and then build your way up into becoming a, you know, owner of a small business or open a kebab restaurant or something like that, the indignity of it all, if you're a middle or upper middle class. So those people are like, yeah, if you can go and get my property back for me, if I can,

if there's a war that overthrowes this regime, yeah, they're in favor. If the Shah's son, the former crown prince, Razapalavi, is saying, you know, I'm going to go back to basically what it was. And I'm going to have good relations with Israel. We're going to have good relations with the rest of the world. The economy is going to be great. We're going to be, you know, make Iran great again. I mean, Lizzie Graham made hats that said MIGA and he gave one to Trump. So, I mean, that idea resonates for some Iranians.

By the way, that's a quick note on Pavlov. Palavi. Pallavi. Yeah. So I attended the Munich Security Conference. conference in 20. Oh, you did. Oh, 23, okay.

A few years ago. Yeah. One thing that stood out to me was that that was the first year where the conference made your decision not to invite any sitting representatives of the Iranian existing Iranian government, but instead invited Pahlavi to give like a panel as the stand in for like, as like the rightful ruler, I guess, of Iran. Yeah. Yeah.

Does that, that seemed to be like an early indicator to me that there was some kind of consensus congealing even within Europe? Europe, like, across the transatlantic alliance, let's say. Yeah. Toward regime change in some fashion. Yeah. Yeah. No, and he was there this year as well.

So I think the Germans are out front on this issue. More so than the United States, Donald Trump has belittled the Palavian said. He doesn't think he's, you know, appropriate. He's not the right guy to the leader. Well, Whitkoff did meet with him. Whitkoff did meet with him, yes. But so far, Trump has not met with him and has not endorsed him. And he's attending CPAC later this month.

He is attending CPAC. So he does have a lot of supporters. I mean, you know, the thing about the opposition to the regime, both inside and outside Iran, is that he's a very visible name. He's the Shah's son, you know, and he's been in opposition to the regime for 47 years, not very active these 47 years. His real activity started in the Masaamini protest, the hijab protests, the hijab protests, women-life freedom protest in 2022 or 23.

That's when he really became this public figure. The other opposition group is the M.E.K. Which is often called a cult or... Cult, yes. Originally a Marxist cult of some kind? Islamic Marxists, yeah, Marxists. Which is a fascinating ideological. Ideological.

Yeah, and they were active in Iran before the revolution. They supported the revolution. Where you had all kinds of American political figures from like Rudy Giuliani to Bolton, to... Even some Democrats, remember Bill Richardson went. Oh, yeah, yeah. Others would go up to their annual conference in Paris, right? Yeah, yeah.

So those two, I mean, they have practically no support inside Iran. They have some agents in Iran. And they were prescribed by the United States government for it. Yeah, they were. Maybe 2012? I think it was, yeah. It was before, it was in Obama's term. I think Hillary Clinton was the one who actually before that delisted them as terrorists.

So they're not really a practical group to think of as reporting. placement for the regime. So Palavi is the only one, but he has an organization outside of Iran. He has no ground operation inside Iran. During the Revolution in 79, Khomeini had a real ground operation. He had every single mosque in every single town and every single village in Iran on his side. So he had a ground operation. Yes, they were mullahs, but there were mullahs at the mosques, but there were also people who were affiliated to the mosque or that was their temple, that was their, you know, place, whether they were a businessman or whether they were a religious bazaar merchant. So he had a real organization, and he had a group of exiles around him who were perfectly

capable of stepping in and being foreign minister, economy minister, et cetera, et cetera, which they all did as soon as they landed in Tehran within two weeks. Rezaa Pallavi has none of that. He has no ground operation inside Iran. And here, his supporters basically get into fights with anybody who disagreed. with them. It seems like there's constant infighting and with an organization he's running. He's running, yeah. So it's not

very practical. And in the article I wrote, it was just basically how Iranians are divided in terms of what they want for Iran, in the diaspora, specifically what they want for Iran. And they overwhelmingly want change, but they can't

really describe what that change is, whether they actually want him to be a king, whether they want him to just be a transitional figure, as he claims. he's going to be or whether they don't want him at all. They want a republic or whether, you know, there was a good way of putting all this. And this is something the regime really understands. The regime, I mean, his claim, right, is that he's the rightful inheritor of the throne at this point, right? Yes, yes. The monarchy still exists as he sees it. It's just an exile.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's how he sees it. Yes. And his supporters definitely do they say Javi Chal Long live the king every time they see him, but that's the chance. And they've got the lion flag. The lion flag, which was the Palavi flag, but it was also a flag before Palavi as well. It was the same flag when the Rajahars is, too. But there's this way that you can look at the Iranian opposition to the regime. The regime can count on between 10 and 20 percent, probably closer to 20 percent of the population being supported of the regime. They're either diehard, you know, faithful Shia Muslims who believe the Ayatollahs should have the right to tell us how to live. But anyway, let's say let's give it the generous number and say it's 20%.

Then there's 20% of the population probably who... Wait, just to stop you for a moment. Do you think that might have inched up a little bit more since the war started? Probably a little bit. Probably a little bit, yeah. But I'll tell you which side inched up more. Then there's 20% that are diehard anti-regime people who are actually willing to go out on the streets and protests.

And that's a big number in a country of 93 million people, right? 20% is it. And they're out on the streets and some of them are even willing to die. Not all, some are willing to die. And they just hate the regime and they absolutely want it gone. No matter how. And they might even support a war against the regime. Then there's 60% of the country that just want a better life. And if that better life, normies. Yeah. And whether that's because through a regime change or whether it's this regime giving them a better life, it's fine. Either one is fine, right? So the regime relies on that 60% and that 60% is probably growing anymore because that 60% is taking away some of the diehard anti-regime for that rally around the flag saying, look, you know, we didn't expect our oil depots to be bombed, our power plants to be bombed, our oil fields to be bombed, our schools to be bombed. Or the school children to be bombed.

Yeah, school children to be bombed. We didn't expect any of that. Our buildings last night, Israel actually went out and said we're bombing infrastructure in terror. I know for a fact because I talked to family. There were bombs all over Tehran last night, overnight, going off over. So it's like this is not what we expected, even if we thought, oh, maybe this will bring about the change in regime, you know, if Khomeini dies and Supreme Leader dies. And Trump has said things that seem to impugn like the entire country of Iran. Yes, exactly.

He doesn't even bother with this like nominal distinction between the quote regime. No, no, no, we're going to obliterate them. We're going to obliterate the country. Like they're all evil. Stuff like that. He said stuff like that. Yes. So when you have that situation in the population, that's inside Iran.

I'm not suggesting that's the diaspora. The diaspora doesn't have 60% or like just want a better life. They already are living here. So they already have their lives here. But Iran, they really do want a better life. And the economy is terrible. And people can't make. Part due to U.S. sanctions.

In large part, in large part. Yes, there's mismanagement. Yes, there's corruption, but in large part due to sanctions and the inability of the Iranian government to over time. As Tulsi Gabbard used to inform us. Yes. She would, I think, correctly always say. And, you know, I covered her very closely. I knew her well personally.

Yeah. And she would always point to the sanctions regiment as part and parcel with a larger regime-trained strategy that she was castigating Trump 1.0 for pursuing. So as we wrap up here, I don't want to keep taking. I appreciate it. Yeah. Just a final question. I'm always a little bit headison to do forward-looking projections or quote predictions because that's always like a parlor game.

But just I'll give you my broad perspective on like what we could maybe anticipate going forward here and tell me if it dies with yours. It seems like when Trump came out the first day and called for regime change, like that was the objective, right? that seems to be like the only real viable outcome here from the U.S. and Israeli perspective. So even if we get to a point perhaps where like some of the more intense bombing dies down a bit or even though there's like a temporary ceasefire, like Pandora's box was opened on February 28th. And I just don't see how this gets like wrapped up in any kind of neat way such that again, like even if like a week or two,

you know, there's a temporary cessation in the hostilities. how does that resolve the situation like you know we have you know apparently a new supreme leader although he hasn't been seen in public who is reputed to be more sort of hard-line than his father I don't know how true that is it's just like the popular notion but so I mean so I just see this like all signs point to a perpetual war of some kind to me or these are perpetual conflict even if there are like different phases in the in the activeness of the military hostilities is Is that important to some degree?

I mean, I think that it really depends on what the United States, I mean, Trump is still in office for three years. So however this war ends, I don't believe it's going to be in three years. I believe it's going to be sooner than that in terms of the actual hostilities, as you point out. Whether that ends up in regime change, I think it's very unlikely. I think the only way regime change is going to happen if we put serious boots on the ground. I mean, real boots, 40,000, 50,000 troops, which that's going to take a long time to even get that many troops there.

Combat-ready troops, I mean, to invade Iran and do an Iraq, basically, impose a new regime on Iran. How about if the Gulf states become more assertive in contributing to some kind of force deployment? I don't think that. I mean, look, Saudi Arabia tried to fight the Houthis for two years with all the American intelligence, all the American air power, and they were unable to dislodge the Houthis, not even couldn't even weaken them, let alone dislodged them. And they were reluctant to go and invade Yemen. I don't think those armies are fighting armies.

Those Arab-Arab-Gulf, Persian Gulf states are very much like, you know, the latest, you know, F-35s maybe, or F-15s, whatever airplanes they have. But basically, they rely on the United States for security, and their armies aren't going to invade Iran. I don't think that's a possibility. But, you know, I think that if the regime is able to adjust itself in the way to satisfy Trump's demand for change, you know, I don't think Trump particularly cares that the people of Iran don't have democracy anymore.

I think I don't think he was. I mean, there was amusingly a statement that was put out in January, like after the protest. Yeah. He imposed some new sanctions. I don't know what's left a sanction at this point. The Treasury Department came up with something, and they did make these appeals to some vague idea of democracy, which you couldn't really imagine coming out of Trump's mouth, like another faction of the administration. Yes, we're going to bring to, we're going to help the Iranians.

And telling the Iranian people to go rise up in the middle of a war, that's a preposterous notion. And also, as we were discussing before, rise up and take power and then who's going to lead them? I mean, we've already said, I mean, it's clear that Pai Lavi doesn't have, you know, a real plan to take over the government doesn't have the support even to do that. So people aren't rising up for the MEPK either. So they're not going to rise up. So the chances are this is going to end right now, the chances are this is going to end with the regime in place, in some form. And who that person is ends up being the leader.

And it could be common A son. He could be dead. He could be badly injured. He could be very weak. Do you know anything about his status, by the way? No, because he heard anything? No, all the statements that he's put out, including for Persian New Year, which is an important occasion, were all written, not voice, not even voiced, not even audio. So there's a lot of speculation.

I heard one where it was on some, I think it might have been, I think I might have heard this on Jazeera, where somebody else reading the purported. Yes, exactly. It was on state TV. The anchor of the news show is reading his statement. So it's, yeah, so we don't really know. Trump just speculated today that he might not be alive. Yeah, and he might not be alive. And inside Iran, people, some people don't think he's alive.

Or that he's so badly injured. They have already admitted, the state has admitted, that he was injured in that attack on the Supreme Leader's compound, where his wife died, his son died, his mom died, and his dad died. And it's possible. Apparently, he was not in the room, but he got injured. But injuries could be so bad that he can't speak, or his faces smashed up.

Or he's in a coma. Exactly. But there is a, you know, still, there is still a president alive. They're still ahead of the judiciary alive. They're still Kalibov, the parliament speaker who's alive. And these guys can, yeah, they can run the country. And the country does operate. And if they, one or more, one of them becomes like the de facto leader of Iran,

if indeed Khomeini is not alive, or if the IRGC takes over, kind of like in Egypt with Cece taking over and you have, you know, stability inside Iran and a deal with the United States, a deal with the West, that Israel somehow is kept from then attacking and bombing and killing those people. It's very telling that Trump today wouldn't say who he's dealing with in Iran because if he did, Israel would kill him. But so there is that possibility that that's going to be the end game, that there will be an Iran, an adjusted regime. By definition, it's going to be adjusted. order to provide for their people in order to not have the January protests which happened over economic issues to begin with economic issues for that to happen every six months.

CIA or Massab potential involvement at like. Oh, yeah. There was protests gone underway. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. That's the Iranian government narrative, which seems like it probably has a kernel of truth to me, which is that like they began as legitimate protest that the government was willing

to gain, you know, negotiations with. Well, they did for 10 days. And terrorists, implicated, they say. Yeah, 10 days definitely passed from the beginning of the protest till January 8th. And then suddenly there are these riots and the Malksoff cocktails and policemen being killed and stuff like that. And that's like way, it, you know, with Mossad itself. And right in the middle of it, Bibi and Trump met in Florida. Yeah, yeah.

But there's no question there was also, you know, incredible violence by the regime. I mean, we're putting this down. And people got killed and randomly got killed, innocent people got killed. There's no question. It was a bloodbath once that started. Was Larjani? I mean, so Israel killed Larjani, right? I mean, they do everything in conjunction with the U.S., okay? So I don't even buy this plausible diniability routine where like anything that Israel does is like somehow, you know, enigmatic to the U.S.

They killed Largiani. They killed, I think the intelligence minister, maybe like the interior minister. Yes. So those would have been the people as is claimed that would have like maybe presided over the response to the protest or is that not? quite right well you know absolutely i mean larijani was definitely yes and the intelligence minister yes they would have i mean i have to read his uh treatises on kant on kant yes yeah and and the fact that he met with kissinger one time when he was he was yeah yeah he met with kisnjani yeah he met with kissinger i can't remember what year it was but he met with him i think it made in november 23 yeah no it was

yeah it was before way way before that because larry john has been to new york a bunch of times for UN business and for a short time he was Ahmadinejad's nuclear negotiator in Ahmadinejohn's first term. So I met him here in New York when he came with Ahmadinejad and they invited some journalists. What were your impressions of you? Kind of like dour, not very, not particularly charming, but also, I mean, doesn't come across as evil necessary. It's not like. some fire breathing guy. I can be dower not particularly trying, so I can't be

but no, but he would have been partly responsible for it along with the IRGC and he was close to the Supreme Leader, but I think that they, you know, once January 8th happened and there was some, he's like, oh, we're going to have to put this to, we have to put a stop to this. And then they let loose the security and the IRGC and the Basij forces and said, you know,

shoot anybody that you think is, you think is going to be anti-regime or rioting or whatever. You have to put this down. This has to stop. And how much credence do you go? Sorry, we really will wrap up for the moment. But how much credence do you give these estimates that are given? None.

Because they all come from these diaspora organizations or human race NGO that's based in like Arlington, Virginia. Yeah. I mean, the Iranian government is admitted to 3,117, I think, deaths. Trump says 40,000. Trump says 40,000. Somebody else says 50,000. Another person says 35,000.

If you go on Twitter, you see all these numbers that are just thrown out. But the Iranian, I'm not supporting the Iranian government here, but the Iranian government gave those names and numbers and their social security numbers of the dead people that they say. It's arguably higher than that. And the human rights, the most, I guess, credible human rights organization, says 7,000, which is possible in a country the size of Iran, which is the size of Western Europe.

And let's not forget, these demonstrations were not. just in Tehran. They were everywhere in the country. And when the order was given to put an end to it, it was everywhere in the country. And there's Basij and IRGC everywhere in every town, every city. Mashad is like 3 million people. Tabriz is 2 million people. Isfhan is 3 million people. So to kill 7,000 people, and they're saying potentially more. But throwing out numbers, I don't know where they get those numbers from. There is no credibility to those numbers. They get them from these NGOs that are subsidized by some obscure faction of the U.S. Yeah, and then suddenly like, oh, yeah, 40 years.

How can you trust the government that kills 40,000 of its own people, in 24 hours? And people are imagining the streets of Tehran just flowing with blood. Well, again, this is not a defense of the Iranian government. It's not a defense of how they put it down because even 3,000 deaths by the Iranian president himself has said is a horrible thing. In fact, that 3,000 of my fellow Iranians have to die in these protests. Of course, as we know, the Iranian government blames a lot of it. in Mossad. And, you know, Mossad said we have people marching with you in the streets.

Yeah. In a very cryptic tweet that I still don't understand if that's even an official Mossad account or it was like Mossad's Farsi account. You lost me? Yeah. You're good? I can hear you now, but really low volume. Oh, okay.

Okay. You know what, now is a good time to wrap up anyway. So at least we had no technical problem in the past hour and 15 minutes. So if you can hear me. Thank you, Huma and Najd. I put a link to your guardian article and your other accounts in the description for this video. And maybe we'll do it again sometime. Definitely.

Thanks, Michael. Good time. All right. Take care. Take care. Bye-bye. Guess I can.