Today, Explained - The view from Iran

Episode Date: January 7, 2020

Iran analyst Dina Esfandiary explains why the killing of Qassem Soleimani was “the greatest gift the Trump administration could have given the Iranian government.” And an Iranian-American family disagrees on the meaning of Soleimani’s death. (Transcript here.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Visit connectsontario.ca. It's hard to imagine millions of Americans pouring into the streets after the killing of a U.S. general. But the Iranian version of that has been happening for days now. In fact, so many people were in the streets of General Soleimani's hometown in southeastern Iran today that there was a stampede. It was reported that over 50 people died and over 200 people were injured. Everyone rightly wants to know right now if the world is about to go to war over all of this. And unfortunately, we're going to have to wait and see. But in the meantime, what is it about this general that would bring out millions, compel people to risk their lives? I asked Dina Esfandieri.

She's a fellow at the Century Foundation in London, and she focuses on Iran. We started with how many people are actually out there. So it's really hard to come up with specific numbers because nobody's counted them, of course. But as the images have shown, there do seem to be quite a lot of people out in the streets. And they also seem to be spread throughout the country. So there was some in Qasem Soleimani's hometown. There were many, many in Tehran.

And the interesting thing is that aside from these demonstrations being spread across the country, they're also spread across the spectrum, which means that people who are either supporters of this government or even against this government, everybody has given up on those, or at least forgotten them for now and come out in support of Qasem Soleimani. And why? What is it about this guy that's led to this, you know, massive outpouring of support? The main reason for it, obviously, is that everybody is coming out to celebrate what they consider a national military leader and a hero of the nation who has spent the better part of his entire lifetime defending the Iranian nation.

Now, this doesn't mean that those who are out are necessarily supportive of the methods that Qasem Soleimani used throughout his career in order to defend the Iranian nation. In fact, he's still quite a controversial figure. But the fact that he is the defender of the Iranian nation commands the sense of nationalism amongst Iranians. And the fact that on top of that, it was a foreign country that ordered his assassination has really brought out the feeling of nationalism amongst Iranians. So there is no better way to unify Iranians than in the face of an external enemy. But I suspect that what the Trump administration did was that they were building on the protests that occurred in Iran a couple of months where again across the political spectrum people were

demonstrating against their government. Iranians have taken to the streets by thousands and what began as protests denouncing a hike in gasoline prices but the uprising quickly turned political with demands the top officials stepped down. The Iranian government responded with a five-day internet shutdown. These protests were shut down pretty aggressively by the Iranian government. And so I think the Trump administration would have extrapolated from that,

that hey, Iranians are anti their government, so there's no way that they're going to pay this much attention if we go ahead and take this very problematic figure out. What was the mood in Iran before Soleimani's death? So I think it's key to understand that Iranians are not very happy at the moment, given their economic, social and political situation. There's a real sense of exhaustion amongst the Iranian public, particularly exhaustion with regards to Iran's relations with other countries, Iran's relations with the U.S. On top of that, Iranians are a little bit taken aback by where

they are today. They don't really understand. From their perspective, their country made a certain number of concessions in 2015 when it joined the nuclear deal. Iran implemented the deal. And so they don't really understand why it is that today the Trump administration has spent the last year or two squeezing them as far as he possibly could economically. So there is a real sense of exhaustion, of discontent in Iran. But the assassination of Qasem Soleimani was the greatest gift that the Trump administration could have given the Iranian government.

Now, Iranians, despite their discontent, have basically put that unhappiness on hold in a show of unity to come together and show that they would rather deal with their own government, because it's a better-the-devil-you-know perspective, than deal with a foreign enemy. What does his death mean for Iran's military operations? Qasem Soleimani has left big shoes to fill. Here they are, members of the elite revolutionary guards on the front lines of Syria's civil war.

During the course of the civil war in Syria, around about the beginning, where tensions really escalated within Syria, the Iranian government, in coordination with the Revolutionary Guards, launched this PR campaign around General Qasem Soleimani to basically portray him as the face of Iranian efforts in the region, that was a bit of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it was very successful in elevating the importance of the Revolutionary Guards and making them very popular, particularly when ISIS came within 40 miles of the Iranian border.

And the Revolutionary Guards were involved in pushing them back in Iraq in particular. That made the group, but also General Soleimani, pretty popular in Iran. I think there were some polls taken that had him at over 70% popularity in 2016. But the other side of the flip side of that coin is that the fact that he was the face of Iran's influence in the region also meant that any time that something happened that was negative on the part of groups that were funded by Iran, in Iraq for example, then that would be directly associated with the Iranian government. It had been a day of tension culminating in this. The Iranian consulate on fire after being stormed by a group of protesters. Demonstrators venting their anger about Iran's alleged involvement

in Iraqi politics. He was the architect of Iran's regional activities. He had built relationships with groups on the ground in countries like Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. And he was really leading Iran's efforts in the region. But again, none of this was without controversy. He had very violent methods at times. And a lot of what Iran was doing in the region was stoking sectarian tensions. Having said that, he was the leader of the Quds Force, which is the external branch of Iran's Revolutionary Guards and the Revolutionary Guards are absolutely not

a one-man show which means there are others who will be able to continue what he has been doing in the region so he's left big shoes to fill but he's not irreplaceable on that subject who is his successor? So the Supreme Leader appointed his successor quite quickly after they announced that he had been assassinated. The successor's name is Brigadier General Ismail Ghani. He was the deputy in the Quds Force. So he's not as charismatic, he's not as popular, he's not as well-known as Qasem Soleimani was,

but he has been his right hand for a number of years, and so he really understands how the organization works. He has a very good feel for how the Revolutionary Guards themselves work. He knows exactly what they're doing in the region, and I believe he was involved in pushing back ISIS under Soleimani when the Revolutionary Guards were focused on that. The challenge that he's going to have moving forward is building the same personal relations that Qasem Soleimani built over the course of his entire career with different people and different groups on the ground. But I think it should be surmountable. Just getting back to the Iranian people right now,

how much harder did their lives just get if this conflict between Iran and the United States is only growing? I don't think that Hassan Soleimani's death is going to influence their lives directly. What it will do is it will put some of their economic and social concerns on the back burner for a little while as they come together and show themselves as a unified group in the face of an external enemy. This has bought the Iranian government a little bit of time, but this general feeling of exhaustion and economic difficulty isn't going to go anywhere anytime soon.

And that is a result of the tensions between Iran and the U.S. At the moment, there doesn't seem to be any off-ramp to de-escalate tensions and to finally get to a point where Iran can talk to the U.S. and potentially to Europeans in order to really improve its economic situation. After the break, I'll talk to two Iranian Americans, father and son, to find out how they feel about everything that's happened in the past week. I'm Sean Ramos-Firm. This is Today Explained. Support for Today Explained comes from Ramp. Ramp is the corporate card and spend management software designed to help you save time and put money back in your pocket.

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BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Over the weekend, something like 200 Iranians and Iranian Americans were detained at the U.S.-Canada border. They were held for additional questioning about their politics, their ideology, their allegiances.

These were people who live in the United States, who were mostly returning from work trips and holiday travel. We wanted to find out how Iranian Americans feel right now about the killing of Qasem Soleimani and all the fallout since. I'm Ramteen Arablui. Ramteen is one of the hosts of NPR's ThruLine podcast. He was just a baby when he came to the United States with his father in the 80s. My name is Nader Araplohi, and I moved to the United States as a political refugee. We started out with how they ended up here. It was just after the Iranian revolution when Ayatollah Khomeini took over. After revolution, I waited over there for

almost three years, and in the beginning, I was with revolution, but as soon as didn't pass more than one year, Khomeini, Khomeini showed his true face, and

we find out that he tricked us. When he was in French, he was talking about democracy, everybody will be free, every idea will be free, even communists will be free. And then when he came back and he got power, he did nothing about those promises. And in fact, he did nothing about those promises. And in fact he did reverse.

So that was the reason I left Iran. I couldn't live over there anymore. And I couldn't see any future for my children. I was so happy I moved over here and brought my children to grow here and have the freedom to live. But, you know, it's in these specific moments where tensions flare up, it is a little weird because I'm an American, right? I'm a citizen. I was raised here. I have that identity. and then I also have

the kind of Iranian cultural identity that I was raised with at home. And when there's that tension out in the world, you kind of feel it internally, because it's a weird feeling to see those two parts of your identity, at least in the political realm, duking it out. And as a journalist, now at least in my life, it's another whole identity laid on top of that, which is like I try to look at it objectively and as skeptically as possible, the tensions,

but then also it's just kind of scary to see it. The tensions kind of rise as they have. How did you guys find out about the death of Qasem Soleimani? So I was at home on Friday and I got like an alert on my phone saying that there was reports that this top general in Iran had been killed. And when I found out, it hadn't even been confirmed by any of the kind of major news outlets yet. And before even I saw the name, I knew who they were referring to because my dad and I have talked a bunch about who Qasem Soleimani is. And he's, I think, a lot of Iran's really fascinating mythical character because he is, in recent years, people become more and more aware of this guy who is like, you know, basically fighting Iran's proxy war with the U.S. and Saudi Arabia all over the Middle East. And so when I saw it, I knew right away.

And so that's, I immediately texted. I think the first people I texted were my dad and my brother. And knowing what you knew about him up to that point, what did you think of this person? What kind of impression had he left on you? I think, Baba, you should answer that first. Sure. When the Ram King told me that night,

texted me that he's dead, I was not really sorry for his death. I knew him for many years. He was in Iran-Iraq war, and he did a lot of brave things in that war. But after war, they came back and they took political power of Iran. All those generals, they came back from war. They almost thought that they owned Iran. So this guy, Soleimani, just I can tell you why I was not sorry. Last month, if you remember, Iranian uprising, he was responsible for killing 1,500 Iranian people. And I believe also his Hashtag Shabib, which he formed in Iraq, they are responsible for killing 500 Iraqi uprisings against the government.

So when I heard this news, I couldn't be sorry. I said, good, let him go. I had a different reaction. You know, I knew him really as this kind of intelligence operative, the equivalent of like something in the CIA or MI6, but for the Iranian government. And even more so, he organized like military forces in the Middle East. So I knew him as a kind of someone who stood kind of in the interest of the Shia kind of alliance in the region between Iraq and Iran and Lebanon and these kind of Shia powers. And so that's kind of how I knew him. And so when I heard about this, I had this complex reaction. Like on the one hand, I understand why so many people in Iran didn't like Soleimani because they attached him to the regime. And as we all know, there's a lot of

displeasure with the regime in Iran among the Iranian people. But then on the other side, my other reaction was like, why now? This guy has been there. People have known about him for, you know, at least two previous presidents had engaged, interacted with him, or at least their intelligence services had. And this, the timing seemed weird to me. So when my, you know, my father, my brother responded way more like happy. And that wasn't my initial response because I don't think, I didn't live in Iran under the regime very long. I was a kid, so I don't have any of those negative feelings towards the regime at that level that my father does. And now, Iran's threatening revenge, promising revenge, the president's threatening cultural sites, he's sending more troops to the Middle East. It certainly seems like this is a conflict that's only escalating.

Do you still have family in Iran? I do have family, yes. All my cousins, nephews, nieces, they are living in Iran. Are you worried about them? Of course, I am worried about them, of course. Yeah, they're mostly there. You know, we came, we didn't come as a part of a big family to the U.S. So, yeah, everyone's there and I'm worried for them because I think I'm worried for my family here.

I'm worried for people here because generally in these kinds of conflicts, it's regular everyday people who pay the cost of a very high level political game that's being played. Yeah, I just wonder, I guess, irrespective of your feelings about the regime or what Soleimani's death might mean for the future of Iran, do you think that the world is a safer place today than it was one week ago? I believe Islamic Republic is not going to do any harsh thing to USA because they don't have any military to compare with USA.

So, I believe they won't do that much thing. No, they, all this funeral things, they have been living 40 years with propaganda, not really helping people or making people happy. I can strongly say 85% of the Iranians, they hate them.

Friends, I am talking to them, they say, yeah, let them come bomb. Why not? They are not coming bombing Khamenei's compound. Why they are not bombing all other things? I don't think America is going to go bomb culture things like the Perth police or other things. No. Because Khamenei's compound, his grave, is a cultural. If they bomb there, all Iranian people will be happy. So I disagree on some of that because I don't think, for some Iranian people, that kind of delicate, messy, complicated balance is removed, like killing Soleimani, it usually doesn't mean things get more peaceful.

It usually results in, at least regionally, more violence. I think that some of those people that came out in the streets yesterday in support of Soleimani or to mourn him, I think some of those people may even not be fans of the regime, but there's a kind of nationalistic identity or mythology

that seems to be attached to Soleimani that I think is real, where he's seen as a figure that's like standing up to the West or whatever. That's, I think is real, where he's seen as a figure that's like standing up to the West or whatever. That's, I think, the regime has done. And also, in a weird way, the Western media has done a good job kind of creating that mythology around him. There's no predicting where this is going to go, but I'm afraid that this kind of sudden change in the region is not going to end up good

and I think mostly it'll probably be any kind of reaction or violence is probably going to affect the people in the Middle East, in the neighboring countries, and in Iran the most. Ramtin, Nader, I really appreciate your time. Thank you for listening.

Of course. Thank you for making the time. Thank you so much, John. I appreciate it. Thank you, sir. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Thank you.