TRIGGERnometry - Iranian Historian Breaks Down Iran Protests - Prof Ali Ansari

Episode Date: December 1, 2022

SPONSORED BY: Ridge Wallet. Get up to 40% off with our link https://www.ridge.com/TRIGGER from now until December 22nd! SPONSORED BY: Express VPN. Get 3 months extra free when you sign up for a 12 month contract at: https://www.expressvpn.com/ SPONSORED BY: easyDNS - domain name registrar provider and web host. Use special code: TRIGGERED for 50% off when you visit https://easydns.com/triggered/ Professor Ali Ansari FRSE (علی مسعود انصاری) is the Professor in Modern History with reference to the Middle East at the University of St Andrews in Scotland, where he is also the founding director of the Institute for Iranian Studies. Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Locals! https://triggernometry.locals.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: https://www.subscribestar.com/triggernometry https://www.patreon.com/triggerpod Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Music by: Xentric | [e-mail] | https://www.xentricapc.com/ | Channel ID: UCo_8zzSxKeL3arKWVuP8wdQ Buy Merch Here: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Join the Mailing List: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/sign-up/ Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media:  https://twitter.com/triggerpod​​​/ https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod/ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod/ About TRIGGERnometry:  Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. 00:00 Intro  05:00 The Journey to Present-Day Iran 12:52 Iran’s Response to US Restrictions 20:02 Does the West Underestimate Iran’s Significance? 27:50 Why are We Sanctioning Iran? 32:40 Iran’s Access to Nuclear Technology 37:24 Israel’s Role in the Iran Conflict 41:58 Likelihood of Iran Protestors’ Success 48:42 Possible Backlashes from Islam 51:59 Effect of the Internet on Iran’s Younger Generation 57:15 Can We Help without Forcing our Culture onto Others? 1:05:08 What's the One Thing We’re Not Talking About? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What you have is a Islamic system headed by what is known as a supreme leader who claims to be not only the Lord's anointed, but actually the Lord's representative on earth. And if you're in that sort of situation, it causes problems in terms of governance because nobody's really accountable. He claims to be accountable to God alone. The UN said that basically Iran has every possible asset for industrial growth or something. expansion, apart from good governance. And that's the big weakness. I mean, it basically had everything. It's like, you know, a revolution which, you know, gave it the revolution who's an Aladdin's cave,

and it's proceeded to just basically spend it all. The memory of the last revolution is now fading. A lot of people were horrified by what the consequences of the first revolution were and weren't in a hurry to have another one. Now the new younger generation obviously have no memory of the revolution in 1979 and therefore are less fearful. The distinctive thing this time round is that the protest is overtly political. It's led by the young and it's led by women. And certainly the protesters now are not thinking about reforming things. You know, it's not about tweaking aspects of the Islamic Republic. They just want it gone. I think people are basically coming to the conclusion that internal reform is impossible and that the only thing ahead of them is really for a complete transformation

of the state. I mean, in Iran, this is not the first time a woman has been brutalized. So, you know, people would say, well, you know, why would this trigger off? Well, it would trigger something because at this time, you know, there comes a time when people say enough. Are you tired of using bulky old wallets giving you a bulge where you don't want it to be? My old wallet was massive, so it brought all the ladies to the yard, which was a huge distraction and got in the way of my esteemed work on trigonometry. Ridge wallets have an incredible solution for you. This is mine, sleek, stylish and with an industrial look to it.

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to give you 10% off and free worldwide shipping and returns. To take advantage of this incredible offer, go to ridge.com forward slash trigger. That's ridge.com forward slash trigger and use our special code, which is of course trigger. Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kisson. And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations. with fascinating people. Our fantastic guest today is the perfect person to talk to about the subject we want to discuss. He's a British Iranian historian at St. Andrews University. Ali Ansari, welcome to Trigonometry.

Thank you for having me. It's a real pleasure to have you. Before we start talking about Iran, it's a subject that a lot of our audience have asked us to cover. Tell everybody who are you, how are you where you are, what has been your journey through life that leads you to be sitting here talking to us? Well, as you noted, I'm British-Iranian, so I came here during the revolution as a young lad being sent over to school here and basically stayed for fairly obvious reasons and pursued my education here and ended up becoming an academic, really an academic working on Iran. I thought I might as well do something where I had some linguistic ability. So that helped, I think. And I've been studying, researching, writing about Iran for, for, probably about 30 years, which is way too long, really. And I'm now, and I've been at the University of San Andreas, actually,

where I founded an Institute for Iranian Studies back in 2006. But I've been here at the university since 2004. Which is why, as I say, you're the perfect person to talk to about this. And, Ali, as you know on trigonometry, we like to explore the broader issue rather than just going to the news headlines that are out right now. So right now, I think a lot of people are in the position, where they were with Ukraine, where it's like, well, something's happening. No one knows what it is.

Most people couldn't find the country on the map. Don't know the history. And I'm certainly, in terms of Iran, very much in that place myself, I don't really know anything about it. Can you talk to us about the, you know, obviously there's a lot of history we could cover, and in an hour we're probably not going to get to all of it. But I suppose the big question is, how are we where we are today? How has this happened? and take us all the way through to, you know, over the last many decades.

Well, I mean, as a historian, I have to say, I mean, you've given me a bit of an open door there to talk at great length about the historical roots of this. I will limit myself, however, in order to get through in the time that we have to, you know, a couple of sort of major themes about the Islamic Revolution itself and the fact that obviously it was a contested revolution at the time in 1979. There were two very, very different ideas, as is, you know, not unusual in these things about where the revolution should go, summed up really in the title of the new state,

the Islamic Republic. So the Islamic Republic was basically composed of two wings of thought, one that thought actually the aims and ambitions of the revolution should be to establish a republic. And the other side, which eventually won out, that basically said no, the ambition really is to establish an Islamic state of sort, that the Republic was really a means to an end

and that the popular participation, votes and so on and so forth were, well, you know, not vital. So what we've ended up having really is that one wing of the revolution has triumphed over the other. And that wing is really an autocratic Islamist wing around the person of a supreme leader. And as you can imagine, that sort of autocratic tendency has tended to go against the grain of what most Iranians are actually interested in. The constitution of the Islamic Republic did enshrine a number of rights for people, not a huge amount, but certainly a limited amount that might have been seen as valuable by most Iranians, but most of these have been crushed.

And instead what you have is a Islamic system headed by what is known as a supreme leader, a guardian, the guardianship of the jurist is the term that they use in Persian, but it's basically the supreme leader, who claims to be, I mean, this is where it gets a little bit pre-modern, I have to say, who claims to be not only, you know, the Lord's anointed, but actually the Lord's representative on earth. And if you're in that sort of situation, it causes problems in terms of governance because nobody's really accountable. He claims to be accountable to God alone. And of course, this has led to huge frictions. It's led to fuse frictions in terms of the way in which the country is governed. It's led to huge corruption

and frictions in terms of the political economy of the country. And what we've seen over the last, I would say, decade to 15 years is a series of protests that have emerged against this autocracy, and they have been growing in intensity and frequency. So while a lot of people, as you quite rightly say, will probably look at this and say, you know, what the hell is happening? This is all taken us all of it by surprise. To those of us actually, you've been watching Iran, it hasn't really. I mean, it's something that most people anticipated because the situation was just getting worse.

the regime was entering what we might call a deteriorating cycle. And the last protest they had was in 2019. It was pretty violent, violently suppressed. And things have just got worse. The distinctive thing this time round is that the protest is overtly political. It's led by the young and it's led by women. And there is a deep, deep ideological divide and gulf now between the protesters and the authorities.

And neither side wants to compromise. And certainly the protesters now are not thinking about reforming things. You know, it's not about tweaking aspects of the Islamic Republic. They just want it gone. So, you know, things are much, much more serious this time round.

So it's an attempted revolution at this point. It sounds like what you're saying, right? I think people are basically coming to the conclusion that internal reform is impossible and that the only thing ahead of them is really for a complete transformation of the state

and therefore they just, you know, they view it as revolutionary. Now, of course, you know, when we look at things like revolutions, it's very difficult to, you know, predict the outcome of these things. It's very difficult to know whether it's revolutionary. My own view, by the way, as a student of Iran, is that Iran has been and has had revolutionary conditions for some time. The question is whether these could be, you know, operationalized in the way, whether, you know, that conjunction of events takes place to trigger these things off.

My assumption always was that the government would end up doing something pretty stupid and which would trigger something. So, you know, if you go back to the Arab Spring, you know, I mean, I always said to people, you know, the problem with these political upheavals is they're not predictable. You know, who knew that in Tunisia a local trader was going to self-immolate and trigger off a whole sort of series of protest? Well, I mean, in Iran, this is not the first time a woman has been brutalized.

So, you know, people would say, well, you know, why would this trigger off? Well, it would trigger something because at this time, you know, there comes a time when people say enough. And, Ali, has this got the, Has this got the popular groundswell of people behind this movement? Or is it very much kind of a young person thing, a university-educated people who are rising up against them? Because I've got Iranian friends and they say, actually, a lot of the poorer people are very much more conservative. They're very much more religious.

And there tends to be a lot more support for the government from these more poorer communities. I mean, I don't think that's true anymore, I have to say. That's always been the tendency that, you know, the poorer rural communities or some in the sort of more shanty town aspects will be conservative with the small sea or actually even conservative with the large sea and really support the government. The fact is that actually even if you look at 2019, a lot of the violence perpetrated against people in Iran was done against these very, you know, much poorer communities. a lot of the protests were protests that had economic reasons behind them, pretty, you know, brutal economic reasons, actually. I mean, the level of poverty is extraordinary. And the poor, you know, really have nothing to lose anymore.

What's happening this time around, I think you're quite right, is, of course, that a lot of this is also being led by, you know, while I don't like to use these sort of terms like lower and middle class and others, I think, you know, in Iran, the class system is very simple. There are the rulers and then there are the ruled. I mean, that's basically it. They have various different levels of. wealth, but those who are within that political fraternity are enormously wealthy. I mean,

I don't know if any of you see this sort of rich kids of tear on sort of Instagram accounts and stuff. It's extraordinary. I mean, it's pretty obscene, you know. But the vast majority of people struggle. Now, what you can say is there's sort of like a professional, educated class. That's true. And those who go to university and those, obviously, who are the manual laborers. But actually, I think the level of protest this time around basically crosses that divide. I mean, it's a whole broad range. And this is what's quite interesting, and particularly now what's been distinctive, actually,

is the level of support from what we could term the wider political and social hinterland. And what I mean by that, and you all have noticed, hopefully you may have noticed, if you were watching the Iran-England match, certainly, that among sporting, you know, artists, sporting celebrities and others, there is a lot of sympathy and support for this,

movement. So how I've described it really is that, yes, the individuals out on, you know, doing the sort of physical protesting might be as a proportion of the population relatively small. I mean, of course it is. It always is in these protests. There's a sort of a vanguard. But the hinterland, the supporting hinterland is vast. And this is what's problematic for the regime. You know, the regime knows that it's almost fighting a guerrilla warfare with a group of people who are very well supported by a sympathetic society that also is utterly fed up with what's been going on. And, Ali, how much of this has to do with US restrictions

against Iran and the embargoes that are happening? Is this partly to do with the fact that people are struggling so badly they can't eat, they can no longer function? So the death of this poor woman has just lit the flame to essentially a pile of grievances that have been building up for many a year? Well, I think there's a sort of a narrative, if I can put it that way, that tends to see everything that happens in Iran as a consequence of U.S. actions and U.S. sanctions in particular.

U.S. sanctions, I've always said, and sanctions in general, and this is the way I've described there, are salt rubbed into a very large self-inflicted wound. And that self-inflicted wound is political and economic mismanagement on a grotesque scale. And what's interesting is most Iranians in Iran understand that. So they're obviously not enamored with being sanctioned. I mean, I think they're the most sanctioned country in the world, right? I mean, they sort of mock the Russians for complaining that they're sanctioned. They say, you haven't seen anything yet.

On the other hand, you know, if you look at, you know, the views that are expressed among Iranians, almost all of them say that we know where the source of our problems are. You know, the source of our problems is a government that is inherently corrupt. And, you know, had they managed the country, resources better, then, you know, we wouldn't be in the situation we were in. And let me give you one example of what I mean by that, because, you know, there's a lot of talk about, you know, what Trump did, maximum pressure, so on and so forth. One of the great tragedies of modern Iran is the fact that they're running out of water. Okay. So any historian of Iran will tell you that

the Iranian plateau is not short of water, actually, in terms of its water resources, but the rainfall always falls in the wrong places. So what you need to do in order to irrigate, you need, you need to have good water management. What's happened in the last 40 years is not only is the population, I think, probably tripled, almost tripled, double, two and a half, basically. But they wanted to go even iron.

There's been a drawing down of those water resources, a huge use of, again, of water to supply agricultural development, you know, pistachios and stuff, take a huge amount of water. And the water table in Iran has basically depleted And in 2017 and 2019, in particular, you saw that large stretches of southern Iran just didn't have any running water. I mean, it's just, it's a catastrophe. I mean, it's an absolute catastrophe.

And I've talked to environmentalists in Iran who were just distressed by this. I mean, really badly distressed. This has nothing to do with Western sanctions or, you know, or this is basically to do with poor governance. I mean, it's as simple as that. And the trouble is, you know, if you look at it through and through, you'll see that, yes, there is impoverishment, but where does this impoverishment come from? It comes fundamentally from the corruption and political mismanagement that's at the heart of this regime. And one of the things that I think a lot of us find quite striking about this situation is you obviously came here during the revolution.

And I was born shortly after, but to think that certainly within your lifetime and almost within my life, You know, you see these photos of women walking around in Iran dressed like Western women. You know, you don't have a religious police in the way that you have now, all of this. It must be an extraordinary transformation for a country to go through. And I imagine the memory of the fact that things don't have to be the way that they currently are lives on for many people, even though it is the young people who are protesting. How has that played out in this whole scenario? So there are two things about that, which I think are quite important.

One is that the Islamic Republic always used to brag about the fact that while its economic record was not great, at least its political record was better than what happened in the last years of the Shah. So in the last year of the Shah, the economic record was pretty good, but it was politically, the political environment was quite suffocating. So people would always say that, you know, yes, politics isn't brilliant in the Islamic Republic. better. Now they don't really have that. I mean, they neither have the politics or the economics.

And everyone can look back in the 1970s and say, actually, economically, our international standing, our economic standing, whatever the problems they were politically, was actually vastly better. I mean, you know, and social life was also vastly. I mean, politics was constrained, but nobody interfered with your social life, basically. So people had that. Now, one of the aspects and the Iranian government, the Islamic Republic, gets very, very anxious about these satellite television channels that largely based in London, as it happened, that broadcast all these films into Iran. And there's always, you know, at the moment, they're obsessed with, you know, it's always BBC Persian, Iran International, these sort of things. And they all say these are foreign in interference.

Actually, what a number of these channels, including, and I should mention Mano-Tur. So Mano-Tur and Iran International have done two of the channels based in London, who, what they have actually done is they've pumped into the country, broadcasting the country, documentaries, historical documentaries about Iran in the 20th century, using huge number, I mean, an enormous amount of archival material. I don't have a clue how they managed to get hold of all this, I have to say, but they got it. And obviously, this archival material shows, you know, the Shah and the Empress and whatever and people, you know, wandering around the streets all, you know, wearing, you know, basically Western, you know, style clothes. But also a certain degree of sort of international standard.

the Shah also spoke very good English, he spoke very good French, you know, he could communicate with me. And people look at this. So it's not memory so much. It's almost like an implanted memory, if I can put it that way. Because obviously these young people have no memory of what goes on in 1970s. I have no idea. But what they get now is they get this sort of, they're almost reminded of something that they, you know, their parents will have said you had, you know. And it looks good. I mean, for them it looks good. I think this has had an enormous impact. And I said this years ago, I said, forget all these political programming and news programs.

Young people aren't probably watching a lot of this. But what they are probably watching are documentaries about, I don't know, you know, Reza Shah or Mohammed Reza Shah or the progress the country made. I mean, there was a great, great documentary, for instance, done a few years ago on the Iran-Iraq War. But basically, the vast majority of the documentary was the lead-up to the Iran-Iraq War. and it had the whole negotiations between the Shah and Sanam Hussein, lots of extraordinary footage. You know, it was a bit of an eye-opener for a lot of people when they saw this because they wouldn't have been familiar to it.

I mean, you have to remember this is a society in Iran that doesn't teach history in the way that we would understand it. They don't have that history. What they have is a very, very political history in the way that you might have seen in the Soviet Union. I did, I did. And that's one of the things I was going to ask. you, Ali, because I think we in the West also probably don't know the history of Iran very well.

Of course you do, but most of us have no idea. And I think, you know, forgive me, but to most people in the West, Iran is a small country far far away. It's insignificant, irrelevant. Yes. But actually, it's a descendant of a great empire in the Persian Empire, the center of Shia Islam in the world, and a hugely oil-rich country, which is very very, very important. powerful in the region and not just in the region. I mean, we see right now Russia buying Iranian weaponry in order to fight in Ukraine. So what is the significance of all of this more broadly? Because I think we might be right in saying that we massively underestimate

the significance of Iran in the West. I, you know, I have to say, I think in the popular conception, you're actually right, because Iran really since 1979 has faded. from, you know, the popular sort of stare or imagination, whichever you want to call it. I think prior to that, that wasn't the case. I mean, the Iranians had a fairly sort of positive image in the West, probably to the detriment of the Shah, it has to be said, but nevertheless, it did. And, you know, obviously since 1979, the image of Iran has taken a deep turn south. I mean, it's not done well at all. But there's a lot of sympathy, I have to say, among people in the West,

including the United States, by the way, for Iran or Persia. I mean, I often use Persia a lot in my discussion because it connects with people in a way that Iran doesn't. And, you know, I have to point out this is the same country. I mean, Persia is just the name that the Western countries used to call the country Iran until, you know, until the 20th century. But it makes that historical connectivity. And I think by rights, you know, Iran in the region should be the economic motor of the Middle East. I mean, by rights.

I mean, if it got his act together, there was a study done, I think, many years ago, I think by the UN, the UN said that basically Iran has every, you know, every possible asset for industrial growth or something, you know, expansion, apart from good governance. And that's the, that's the big weakness. I mean, it basically had everything. I had water, it had, you know, human capital, you know, resources, natural resources. It has huge amounts. And of course, you mention oil, but the great, you know, the great sort of unspoken thing is that it does have actually have the second largest reserves of natural gas in the world. And none of this has been touched. You know, so for instance, you'll see today that people say, Ghatal, you know, is doing very well because it has access to this gas reserves. Actually, that gas field it has shared with Iran. I mean, it's not, you know, so it's not, it's not, it's not as a gas field. But, of course, Rattah is exploiting it, obviously, and Iran isn't because nobody's interested in investing in Iran. So the hoody does anything in Iran. And it does have these, in enormous, it has an enormous capacity, as someone said, you know, to be the Japan of the Middle East, you know, to basically lead that economic growth. But it's, you know, it's a tragedy, really,

the last 40 years, it's really squandered that opportunity. So yes, you know, my view, and this is, again, an argument that I have is that the way the, what the Islamic Republic has done is it has inherited the architecture of the modern state from the Pahlavi's. So the Pahlavi dynasty ruling, you know, from the 1920s through to 1979, basically built the state. They built the modern state, imperfectly, but nonetheless, they built it. It was by 1979, pretty rich.

It was the largest producer in OPEC by the time, by the way, larger than Saudi Arabia. I mean, Iran basically lost its lead because of the revolution. And, you know, it was, you know, a big investor, actually, in the West as well. I mean, this is in it. I mean, the Shah had lots of money. I mean, the Shah was one of the people who was behind,

the Orr Price shock at 1973. People forget that, by the way, because they always see it as the Arab or, you know, embargo. But actually it was the Shah that really pushed it by the end of 73. And there was huge amounts of money. And Iran's standing was, you know, was pretty positive. Again, I'm not saying without problems. So what the Islamic Republic did is it inherited that. And it's basically gutted it.

Essentially, you know, so it's basically inherited this huge resource and spent it. It's like, you know, a revolution which, you know, gave it the revolutionaries in Aladdin's cave and it's preceded to just basically spend it all. What it hasn't done is reinvest. And that's the problem. I mean, that is the problem. And even if you look at Iran's oil wells, by the way, they lack investment. I mean, they lack investment.

They're running out. They need to be maintained in a proper way. And they just aren't because obviously of the sanctions, but also because of Iran's relations with the West. Most of the companies that would be able to do the work that Iran needs to have to have. have done are Western. Yes, the Chinese come in now and then, but the, you know, the Iranians are also also a bit sniffy about the Chinese, to be honest. I mean, they sort of think that the best equipment is Western. So, I mean, there's this wonderful, you know, schizophrenic attitude towards the West, of course. They want Western technology. They want Western expertise. But, you know,

the ideology loads the West. So it's, it's not, and I always say to them, I say, you know, they say, why are the Americans, you know, why is our, why are our relations? I mean, I'll tell you this anecdote. I remember a guy coming up to me and saying, you know, we've got to reduce tensions to the United States. And I said, well, this is back in 2007, by the. And I said, well, you know, it would help if you stop saying death to America every Friday. And they, and he looked at me. I mean, he looked at me in a sort of slightly, you know, slightly gormless way, I have to say, and said, but, you know, Dr. Ansari, it's part of our culture. And I said, well, if it's part of your culture, mate, you know, there's not much I can do about it. You know, I mean, this is, you know,

this is the absurdity of it. On the one hand, they want to. to be friends, but they don't seem to get it that if you just heap abuse on people every two minutes, it's not going to work. Hey, Francis, do you want to protect kids? I was a teacher for 12 years, so no. I will never forget what those little quits put me through. Francis, what did your therapist say about moving on with your life? They ruined me.

I was filled with joy and goodness until those little f***ing sheds, took my dreams and shredded them. Francis, remember what the lawyer said about not discussing the allegations in public? I was found not guilty on all charges. Not guilty is not the same as innocent. Anyway, going online without using ExpressVPN is not the same as innocent. Anyway, going online without using ExpressVPN.

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Well, this is what I was going to ask you, Ali, because I think we in the West were keen to be self-reflective. We're always keen to find our flaws and our fault. Yeah, yeah. So, again, super lame in question, but why are we sanctioning Iran? Where does that come from? Is it simply the revolution was seen as illegitimate or what are the reasons for? Because the story you're telling is actually a very sad story. It's a country of tremendous potential, great riches.

The people that I've met who are Iranian are extremely well-educated, very intelligent. It's a country with great potential that is handicapped by the fact that it's been taken over by these primitive, backward religious fundamentals, essentially. That's what you're saying. And we have these tensions with Iran at a time when, you know, if it was ruled by different people with whom we didn't have those tensions, you know, that gas, that oil, that influence in the region might have actually been very helpful to some of what. what we want. So why is there this tension between us and Iran? Well, I mean, the immediate,

I mean, there are two sort of reasons. We ought to mention the more historical, you know, aspects. But the immediate cause, of course, is the hostage crisis in 1979. So, you know, obviously they're taking the U.S. Embassy in November 1979 and they're keeping them, you know, the diplomats hostage for 444 days, had a fairly bad impact in the United States. But you've got to add to that, by the way, the Iran-Contra scandal in 1984 or so, you know, which all came So both Democrats and Republicans in America have bad experiences of Iran. The Iranians, of course, will claim that all this is down to 1953 in the coup that was launched by the British and the Americans against the then nationalist Prime Minister

Mossad. You know, they all like to sort of point to a point of origin, an original sin that causes all the problem. And I, you know, I don't think we're probably to have time to go into all the details of the historic. I mean, all I would say is a lot of these are politically genuine, I mean, a lot of these are genuine historical issues that need to be discussed and properly scrutinized. But in terms of the way they're used politically, these are political issues. You know, the Russians did far worse

things to Iran, to be honest, over the last 150 years. And yet, funnily enough, there's, you know, the official ideology is very pro-Russian. Okay, so it's not, you know, it's not an issue. But, you know, in a popular culture and certainly popular political culture in Iran today, in a 1953 looms very large, so they'll claim that that's the reason we have an enmity with the United States. That said, the sanctions. issue is really a product in 1979, the decline in relations, really, that emerged in the 1980s, although while sanctions were placed on Iran at the time, I mean, when I used to go to Iran in the 1990s in the early 90s, yes, Iran was a sanctioned country, but it wasn't heavily

sanctioned. Yeah, I mean, there were restrictions on U.S. business in Iran in particular. I think fairly misguided, to be honest, in those stages, but it was driven by that sort of the enmity that American politicians had for Iran, but for the reasons. that I've outlined. But you know, you could buy American goods in Iran. I mean, it wasn't, it wasn't difficult to do because they all got, came through to Dubai anyway and all this sort of thing. And it was possible. When the real tough sanctions really came out was the end of the 19, I suppose partly in the end of the mid-1990s end of the 90s, but the really, really tough sanctions came really with Obama when, and also, I beg your pardon, really prior to that with

the nuclear issue. When the nuclear issue, because, became very prominent in the early 2000s, sanctions begin to pile on. But again, the really tough ones coming around 2011, 2012. And that's under the Obama administration, where they use sanctions really to try and twist Iran's arm to get them to the negotiating table over their nuclear issue. And, I mean, that has also different, you know, there are different problems with that, because sanctions becomes almost an end in itself in terms of handling Iran. and the nuclear process becomes basically the synchon of Iran policy.

So everything is driven and focused by getting a nuclear resolution, a resolution to Iran's nuclear program, irrespective of what the collateral damage might be to wider Iranian society or what's going on in wider Iranian society. I mean, this is the problem. So there's a whole narrative that's built up in there that is also quite destructive, I think, to our understanding. I mean, one of the problems that people are surprised by the demonstrations that have happened now

is because almost all Western analytical energy has been devoted to a solution to the nuclear crisis, and everything else that's happened in Iran is secondary to that. And that's been a flaw, I think, in the way we've approached the country. But certainly, you know, the origins of the current situation is really the hostage crisis in 1979. I mean, that's basically it. Ali, I'm really glad that you've raised the issue of the nuclear crisis, because the stories are starting now to filter into the mainstream media, that Iran are actually quite close to being able to produce nuclear weapons.

Yeah. So how does that affect our relationship now with Iran? Do you think that we're just going to keep applying the pressure? And hopefully, by doing that, ease this regime out of power? Well, there's it, I mean, in policy terms, it's enormously difficult, you know, for reasons. So you have a country, basically an open revolt. You have another policy that seeks to get a resolution of nuclear crisis, which will then see the release of funds to the very regime that's shooting its own people, which obviously

the optics for that are not great in the capitals of Europe and Washington, right? So you face a very, very difficult problem. But then, of course, you know, this idea that are the Iranians ramping up enrichment, which they have been. Now, when you say, are they close to building a bomb? I mean, people say it's really a question of, have they got enough enriched uranium in order to pursue the construction of a bomb. I'm a little bit more skeptical about how close they are to building a bomb, I have to say. I mean, I think it will take time for them to actually develop that and then

obviously they need to test it. I mean, where they're going to test it? I don't know particularly, but anyway. So, of course, they've claimed that they never would go down that route. I mean, I'm going to be fairly cynical about these claims, but, you know, some people in the West have believed it. But nonetheless, I think at the moment, we're probably slightly, further away to Iran actually developing a workable device than people think. That's my view, although I should say, you know, if you happen to get a nuclear expert odd, he'll tell you otherwise, I will defer to them, but that's my reading of the situation. And of course, you know, the other pressures that the West can put on Iran at this time

will probably help to prolong that process, if I can put it that way. You know, they're not at ease. It's not like they, it's not like the JCP area has been implemented, where now the sunset clauses are coming in and they can pursue it, you know, basically in the full glaze of, you know, Western tolerance, if I can put it that way. I mean, obviously the West and the Israelis in particular are not going to look on this very, very favorably. Now, the other dimension of this, which I think is important, which people miss out on, really is the fact that Iran has also doubled down on its political, military and ideological relationship

with Putin, and is probably, as Constantine was saying earlier, you know, having supplied, you know, Russia, which is a very bizarre turn of events, I have to say. It doesn't, not a great look for Putin, but there you are. You know, he's taking his drones at the moment. I think he's past caring about here. I think it's, yeah, but it's, yeah, but it, you know, I have to say, you know, so this time last year, you know, my, my own view was always that, you know, Russia took the view and Putin took the view that he sort of mentored the Iranians, you know, you guys

are revolutionary and, and fairly rabid about it at times, but, hey, you know, I can have handle international politics, you know, I'll, you know, I'll use my Vita at the UN and so on and so and so forth. Actually, you know, judging by what's happened in the last six months, I have to say, you know, some of Putin's rhetoric could have been written for him in Tehran. I mean, it's really quite extraordinary stuff. I mean, it's very religious, very millinarium. And this is the striking thing, though. What it does, of course, is it means that the protests in Iran become part of a wider problem. And this is quite interesting for me. I haven't fully understood or fully sort of thought in mind what the implications of this are, but I think there are implications,

certainly in Western chanceries and others, where they look at this, they see the problem in Iran, not as a sort of a particular problem for Iran, but they see the problems in Iran and the fight in Iran as part of a wider struggle that's going on vis-a-vis Ukraine and Russia as well. And of course, Zelensky has made this point very, very clearly. I mean, he's also, you know, he's wonderful sort of PR person for the protesters in Iran in a sense. He's now saying, look, you know, our struggle is won, you know. So I think this has a much, much deeper implications and consequences. for Iran because the idea that, you know, the Western powers are going to sign up to a deal with Iran

has become even less likely given Iran's support for Putin. I mean, it just, you know, there might have been a possibility previously, you know, some sort of arrangement. I mean, it's been done before. The West has not always been, as to be terribly good at sticking to its ideals. But now it just becomes enormously difficult. And I should add, by the way, if, as we expect, Putin loses ultimately in Ukraine, it will have a tremendous knock-on effect in Iran itself. I mean, I think it will rebound in Iran. It will empower the protesters as well. And Ali, what role does Israel play in all of this? Because obviously, Iran has been incredibly antagonistic to Israel. Have the Israelis managed to apply a lot of pressure onto the United States because they're portraying the

Iranians, quite rightly, as aggressors towards them. And that meant that the embargoes, the sanctions have been harsher as a result. I think, you know, the Israelis, I mean, one of the interesting things about the recent protests is actually Iranian Aya and anger is really being directed towards Saudi Arabia rather than Israel, which is quite striking. Normally, they would always blame Israel for everything. I mean, it's all like, you know, knee-jerk reaction. And, you know, for the Iranians, certainly the Iranians, and this is the fascinating thing. I mean, for the Iranians in the regime, you know, Israel is an ideological problem. I mean, they always, they tried to describe it as a geopolitical problem. It isn't. It's an ideological problem. And they're constantly

talking about, you know, we're going to eliminate Israel, Israel will collapse. I mean, either in a sort of very passive, aggressive voice or just an aggressive voice. I mean, it's one of the two. And obviously the Israelis are extremely, you know, justifiably anxious about all this. So, I mean, I do think the Israelis at times have not helped their own cause. I don't think Netanyahu played it brilliantly. On the other hand, you know, what they've been able to do is really play the bad cop to summon the in Europe or the good cop. I mean, I think it's very much a sort of a combined effort and they're able to keep the West's feet to the fire on this issue and remind them that, you know, given they live in the region, they have a very serious stake on what happens. So I think in terms

of intelligence, I think in terms of combating, certainly in proxies. I mean, basically, the Israelis and the Iranians are already fighting in Syria. I mean, that's, you know, these things are already started. You know, the Israelis pay an absolutely pivotal role in basically keeping a light shone on this. And I think that's, you know, that's vital. I mean, and they're reminding the West that, you know, you guys might be sitting back and thinking about, you know, wonderful deals. But at the end of the, we are the ones who have to pick up the pieces and pick up the consequences. So it has to be something that we can live with. And I think really during Obama's period, of course,

the deals that were being addressed were not something really the Israelis felt comfortable with. I mean, Iranians as a whole, by the way, their relationship with Israel is much more, if I may say so, sort of relaxed. I mean, they don't have an issue with the Israelis. I mean, there's huge numbers of Iranian Jews, of course, and many of whom, I have to say,

are in Israel at the moment. And, you know, there are a strong, links. I mean, and I said to someone, I said, you know, I think, I think there are only two countries in the world, possibly three, that have this sort of obsession with Cyrus the Great. You know, one is Iran. The other is Israel, you know, and possibly America, by the way. But certainly in Israel, they're really sort of keen on Cyrus of Great. And there was a, there was a phone in show many years ago, which was very, I mean, summed it up for me, actually, in some ways. And it was obviously Israeli, you know, Persian television in Israel. And they were talking about Iran. And then they had this phone call from Iran, you know, so everyone got a little bit tense, you know. And the guy on the phone call actually started out quite aggressive on the phone call. You know, you guys, you know, where the hell, you know, and all this. And yeah, I think the studio audience was a little bit, well, you know, maybe we should cut this guy off. And basically the conclusion of this guy was he sort of said, you know, he said, two and a half thousand years ago, you know, Cyrus the Great liberated you lot from Babylon and said, you, when the hell are you going to send someone to liberate us from the current, you know?

And of course, the whole thing just, and that sort of spilled over. And I thought it was a great sort of, you know, the attitude in Iran, among Iranians, towards the Israelis is much less toxic that you're finding. I mean, they're bored with the ideology, to be honest. And, you know, they don't forget that actually, you know, the relationship with Israel prior to the revolution was actually pretty positive. That is such an interesting point. And I think it comes back to, I was going to ask you something about,

because people say to me, well, you know, you're from Russia. Surely, you know, the Russian people are going to get fed up of Vladimir Putin and overthrow him and install brilliant, wonderful liberal democracy. And I'm like, why? Why would they do that? They've never had democracy in the entire history of the country. They've never had this thing that they're supposed to be aspiring to now. But with Iran, it sounds like actually there was a history of things not, I mean, it wasn't an Islamic Republic of the type that it is now before.

So how likely is it that, you know, these protests are successful in forcing genuine change and transformation? And you get a leap of some kind forward, backwards, left, right, whatever, in a different direction where you end up with an Iran that has a completely different posture towards the world and is welcome back into the international community. Well, that's a really good, I mean, it's a really good point. in the sense of, you know, what are the prospects for, you know, change in Iran in that sense. And, you know, as you say, if you look at the Russian experience, you know, the transition to democracy is never something that should be taken for granted. And these are difficult. What I would say is this, of course.

First of all, I'd say that culturally Iran has a very, very positive, there's a receptive audience in the West. Let me put it that way. I mean, there's no that. You know, actually, to be honest, I usually say to the Iranians just allow people to call you Persia and you'll find actually that branding is going to work wonderfully. and all people will talk about is carpets and caviar cats and this sort of way. And you know, you'll immediately soften your image. But I use that sometimes as students also just to point out, you know, how word association,

you know, how important it is in a way and how branding is important. Because also to point out, you know, in the West, if you talk about these things, there are positive connotations of that and people will sort of build on it. Now, in the political sense, and this is something I have been harping on about, really, is that, you know, a lot of people will be fighting the last revolution, of course, and looking at 1979 as the model for anything going forward. I've said that actually what people really need to look at is 1906, and 1906 was Iran's constitutional revolution,

which set up, you know, basically a parliamentary system on the British model. Okay. And it, you know, obviously it didn't work in the long term, but it set the template, and this is important. It set a reference point for every subsequent political movement. And even to this day, you know, younger people come up and they say, what happened to the aspirations of that movement, of that revolution in 190.

2006. Why have we not promised, you know, why has that promise not been delivered? And I think that's in some ways quite important. I'm one of these people and one of these historians, I have to say, who actually believes in the power of ideas to change things. And yes, it can take a long time for these ideas to seep in. And yes, it can take, you know, it can have a troubled journey, if you can put it that way. But the fact is one of the things about the current movement is that, you know, 15 years after probably the most systematic, you know, root and branch, suppression that occurred in Iran after the Green Movement in 2009. A whole new generation of Iranians have come up, you know, many of them teenagers, by the way, expressing exactly the same views

in a way of a previous generation and talking about rights. You know, people say it's about the veil. It's not about the veil. It's about the right to choose. If you want to wear the veil, wear it. If you don't want to wear the veil, don't wear it. But it's the fact that people in Iran, men, women, Baha'is, religious minorities of other sorts, whatever you want to talk about, ethnic minorities, have rights that protect them, you know, and have civil and human rights. And these are very, very fundamental ideas, you know,

that come, you know, I think have been best achieved in a way and expressed in the Western context, but certainly have deep, deep roots in many different cultures and were expressed very clearly, you know, 100 years ago. And the fact that they were expressed very clearly 100 years ago in Iran shows that they have deep, you know, they have deep roots and it's difficult to eliminate that. Successive regimes have not been able to get rid of it, and people have aspired to it. So I, you know, while I think that the road ahead is going to be a difficult one, I'm encouraged by the fact that there is this sort of set, there is this political awareness among this new generation of Iranians, which is very impressive. and they've sort of learnt in a sense from the legacy of the past,

which is the torch has been handed on, and it's not going to go anywhere. So, you know, ultimately, I think, you know, there is an opportunity. But the key really for the West is not to look a gift horse in the mouth. I mean, the West has a terrible, terrible reputation for dropping the ball, you know, on almost every occasion. So if, for instance, you know, Iran does move towards a secular system of government and a democratic settlement, I should say, that suits its own indigenous, or culture. I don't want to, you know, prescribe anything for them, whatever in that sense,

but let's say a secular republic of some sort. I think it will be transformative in the region, in terms of Iran's relations of the West, in Iran's international standing. And this is something that the West, at the very least, should not obstruct. I put the bar very low there, by the way. But, you know, even if we're not saying encourage, and I think it should encourage it, but what it shouldn't do is obstruct it. And, you know, there are strong parallels here again with the Ukrainian situation, where we found, if you remember right at the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, a number of European countries, very cynical, very skeptical, do we really want to get into

this? Can't the Russians just get this done quickly? Can we just move on and so on and so forth? again, what I say to people about the current protests in Iran is we don't know. I don't know where it's going to go. I mean, anyone who says they can predict it, you know, nonsense. But I wouldn't dismiss it so quickly either. I mean, that's the key.

Don't be so quick to dismiss it. These people are showing enormous courage. And, you know, I think they should be, you know, respected for that. And they should be given the space, in a sense, to try and achieve those aims that, you know, most of us in the West take for granted. Do you have a website or do you plan to have a website? Because if you do, then EasyDNS is a company for you. EasyDNS is the perfect domain name registrar provider and web host for you.

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easydns.com forward slash triggered. Use our promo code, which is also triggered, and get 50% off the initial purchase. Sign up for their newsletter, Access of Easy, which tells you everything you need to know about technology, privacy and censorship. Ali, has this provoked a backlash against the religion of Islam? Because people associate the religion with this very oppressive regime, morality, police, etc. Or do people just see this as an example of where, you know, Islam gone wrong, to put it, mildly?

I think there's both, to be honest. Now, you know, people want to be very careful about it. So, you know, I always say that, look, you know, that the secular is. that Iranians are aspiring to is very much, you know, what we would identify as an Anglo-American secularism, rather than the French model, you know, in that sense of laicism, if I can put it that way. There's not, you know, Iranians are always, I, in my view, will always have a tendency towards a spirituality and have a sort of religious belief. What they don't want, however, is the government to be involved in religion, and they don't want the government to be shoving

religion, you know, right down their throats. And, you know, there are arguments that basically, in two ways. You know, yes, we have these clerics where a centre of sheism in a sense, as we said at the beginning of the podcast, but, you know, very much like what the Italians did to Catholicism. You know, we ought to build a wall around the religious cities.

They can do whatever they want in the Vatican and Iraq, you know, whatever, but they shouldn't come out. The other side of it, of course, is goes to the heart again of what you were saying there, that, you know, when the revolution started, people would say that what we need to do is we need to bring religion and politics, together. We don't want to divide religion and politics because religion will make politics ethical.

And of course, many clerics at the time even said, that's not what's going to happen. What's going to happen is we're going to make religion political and we're going to ruin it. And that's basically what's happened. So basically, you know, so what they say is, you know, I mean, they used to say, I don't know if it's a very good analogy anymore, but they say, you know, look at the Americans, they have lots of religion. It's a secular republic, but they have lots of religion. I'm not sure that's the best comparison to make these days, but nonetheless, you know, that's the point. The point is if you take politics out of religion, religion can flourish,

and it can flourish in its purest form, right? I have to say, though, going back to what you would say, I think there's a lot of young people who are just completely fed up with religion, full stop. Now, what are they done? 20 years ago, I used to talk to Iranians, young Iranians, and they were turning towards Christianity, for instance. They just didn't like, they said Islam is just, they would say to me, actually, they said it's a religion of death.

They said, you know, all we do is celebrate martyrs, you know. Of course, you know, Christianity is obviously built on the concept of martyrdom, of course, so, you know, but they seem to at least to say it had a, you know, there was hope built in that. But then also a lot of Iranians have turned to various, how should we say, you know, what I call Zoroastrianism with house rules, if I can put it that way. I mean, they can't become Zoroastrian in that sense, but they sort of feel this is more authentically Iranian in terms of a belief system.

And, you know, they, you know, they will, will pursue religious beliefs that suit them. But they definitely have a certain, I think now the younger generation certainly have a deep antipathy towards what we would call organized religion. And in this case, obviously, Islam and Iran. It will take a long time for the religion itself to re-establish itself, if I can put it that way, as something credible among the young, certainly. And we constantly talk about the young people, and it's obviously, it's always a young who engage in revolutions and have this change. But what effect and what influences the internet played upon these young people? Are they looking at apps like Instagram and TikTok and seeing how we live in the West and going, hang on a second, this person's allowed to dress like this?

This person is allowed to earn money. This woman is allowed to live the life that she wants. Why am I not allowed that? I think that's absolutely right. I mean, I think, you know, one of the reasons I say to people, we need to be very careful about how we analyze the current situation is because we're operating in a very different environment, and that environment is dictated by social media and the internet

and means of communication that our ancestors, even our very recent forebears, would not have been familiar with. Technology has always played a very pivotal role in Iranian political movements from the foundation of the telegraph, through obviously to the radio and, you know, cassettes and this sort of thing and then obviously satellite. But this is something else. And I think you're right about this. It's very difficult, you know, the Iranian young people are particularly tech savvy. They understand the connectivity. They are connected, by the way, and you're quite right. You know, they are connected

with the outside world. They do see things. But more than that, they see the internet and social media is a tool of organization. I mean, that's been quite interesting. And we don't see this thing. Obviously, we don't see this thing because, you know, in a sense, as I say to people, if we can see it, then surely the government can see it. So, you know, the idea is a lot of this is below the radar. But there is, as I understand it, an enormous amount going on in what we could call, you know, parts of the web that are hidden in some ways because they're there to protect themselves. And it is a constant battle, obviously, in Iran. I mean, the government is trying to close off avenues. Young people are opening up other ones.

you know, it's a running battle. And I think one of the most important things the West can do actually in this is to ensure that the internet stays in some way or form open, you know. I don't know whether the Starlink, you know, that Musk was talking about, whether that's functioning or not or whatever. But, you know, we have to maintain channels of communication because that's the way they organise, that's the way they mobilize. And I think it's been highly effective.

And, Ali, very much on that point, one of the, I mean, it's not a criticism because, you're not criticizing them, but one of the concerns about, how likely the protesters are to succeed in achieving their aims is that they don't have an identifiable leader. There's no organizational structure. So even if they were able to somehow force the current regime out, what does it get replaced with? There's a lot of concern that, A, they wouldn't be very successful because they don't have an organized structure and some kind of leadership. and B, if they were to succeed, you know, do you get some kind of mess afterwards and then you end up with the army taking over or something of that nature?

I mean, these are distinct possibilities. I mean, let's not have any illusions about it. But where I would dispute with those that get very obsessed with the absence of leadership is that, again, we're refighting 1979 rather than sort of looking at broader political movements in Iran. 1906 had no single leader, you know, had many different leaders, many coming from what we would call a middling level, not even, you know, a high level. Now, of course, you know, senior clerics at times have come out and support, but often this occurred later rather than earlier than anything.

And you're already seeing these sort of things in Iran, by the way. So, you know, again, if I think in due course, I think you're absolutely right to say that there will need to be a a greater, a sharpening in a sense of the organization, the leadership. It could be many, a few leaders, by the way. It doesn't have to be a single leader. But that would have to come. We're, what, 10 weeks, 11 weeks into a protest cycle at the moment? I'm entirely prepared to see that it would subside and then reemerge.

You know, these things, if you go back and look at the period in 1979, 78, I should say, if you look at the period in 1906, there were lulls as well as sort of, of, you know, increases in tempo and activity, and these things happen in stages. So I do say to people, we ought to be a little bit more cautious about the fact that's saying, oh, where there's no clear leader there. There are no shortage of people who can play the role of leader in Iran, by that. I mean, there are no shorter to them. They're very bright, interesting people there. And I'm sure, you know, beneath the radar, a lot of them are operating. If you look at the way in which the government has sent out snatched squads to pick off people on the streets.

It's a clear indication that they understand there are street organizers going on. They may not be in the sort of category of leader that people sort of assume with Ayatollah Khomeini. But as I remind people, even in 1978, you know, not everyone saw Ayatollah Khomeini as the primary leader. I mean, it took him a while to consolidate his position. People rallied round him certainly because they saw him as a potential figurehead, but not everyone saw him as the leader of the revolution. I mean, that's something that came later. And I wanted to ask you something, perhaps slightly unrelated, and maybe even not in terms of your core area of expertise.

So feel free to pass on it if you want. But I'm serious, in light of the World Cup currently happening in Qatar and our attitudes to the way migrant workers are treated there, the way gay people are treated women and so on, there's obviously a big debate, and I am still trying to chart a path for myself, how I feel about it, because on the one hand, the moral relativism of, oh, yeah, you know, it's just their culture, let them throw people off roofs and whatever.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That, I find that upon. On the other hand, do I feel that we and Britain should decide how every country in the world sets its laws and treats different groups? And, you know, again, it seems almost colonial to some extent or imperialistic to go in and say, well, you must allow this to happen or you mustn't allow this to be going on. So how do we navigate that, Ali, when we're dealing with cultures, you know, these are ancient cultures with their own ways of doing things that I think ought to be respected as well. So how do we navigate this?

Well, I mean, the interesting thing is to root it in that historical tradition. And you're absolutely right. But if you look at Iranians today, as I said, two things. One is obviously these demands that they have are rooted in political movements going back to the 19th century. But they're also rooted in their own, what I consider to be, a deep. humanism that actually transcends a lot of Iranian or Persian culture through the centuries. You know, this idea that, you know, let's just let's just take the case of drinking, you know, alcohol. Are we really assuming that in Iranian cultural, Persian culture,

nobody drank? I mean, you know, over thousands of years, people have been drinking wine. If you look at the role even of women, if you look at, yes, there are traditional aspects, but it's also, you know, what you're seeing in, you know, that one of the great sort of myths, I think of the Islamic revolution is that somehow they went back to the older order. No, in some ways, these are very radical new interpretations. It's a bit like, you know, do you remember when the Taliban blew up the Buddhas at Vamian and people said, are they being authentically Islamic? And someone said, well, what did the original Muslim invaders think?

I mean, you know, the fact is what they were doing was being even more radical than the original Muslims. Do you see what I mean? I mean, and this is also a question mark that's happened in Iran. So the Islamic Revolution, sorry to interrupt, just to simply. simplify this. So the Islamic revolution isn't Iran going back to its

cultural heritage of thousands of years. It is in fact a radical departure from those towards a much more authoritarian, ultra-conservative Islam. I mean, I think absolutely, I mean, there is obviously a tradition of autocracy in Iranian history. Of course there is. But, you know,

democracy and fairly modern inventions in that sense of developments in terms of the last couple hundred years. But certainly even if you look at the Iranian idea, if you look at the ideology of the Iranian revolution, they even say in there, they say, we are going to implement Islam as it should have been implemented.

Do you see what I mean? So they say nobody else has done it. We are the first to do it. So in a sense, you know, it's a hugely hubristic position to take, you know, thousands of years, nobody understood it, but we're going to do it. And so Islam has never been done properly, Ali.

Exactly, exactly. And that's what they say, do you see what I mean? So they say, you know, what we're going to, so what I would say is you can easily look at it and say, actually, this is a radical departure. Yeah. And if you look at, um, uh, even, you know, when I was working heavily in the reform movement and others in the 1990s and early noughties, because of sheism is a, is interesting in this regard, because it, it relies on the principle of continuous interpretation of the scripture. Okay, that's why you have these mullers and clerics

and jurists and others. They're constantly looking at the scripture and reinterpreting it for the time. And of course, people would say, then, but in terms of the veiling, for instance, you know, that there's nothing particularly Islamic about the sort of veil and the veil that Iran implements, that, you know, we need to interpret these things in light of, you know, how society moves along. So there was an interest in that. What the regime has done is basically actually is, in some ways, actually extremely un-Islamic. And, you know, I would say actually since 2009, a number of things that they've done have bordered, I think, are actually quite blasphemous from an Islamic point of view.

I mean, I've talked to Muslims here, you know, who say that they're quite staggered by some of the claims they make, you know, particularly in terms of the Supreme Leader and his and the authority he claims. These are things that basically in traditional Shia, you know, theology just, you know, are seen as innovative and innovations of this sort are actually very, very frowned upon. And Ali, when I talked to one of my Iranian friends, and I was putting forward, whilst I was doing research for this interview, and I was asking him certain questions, he said to me, the thing you need to understand, Francis, about Iranian culture, is there is this kind of counterculture

that has always existed within Iran. And actually, there's a lot of people who, when they want to go and party, young people, they go to Tehran because it's got this fantastic underground party scene. Well, you know, the joke in Iran, you know, was always that, you know, before the revolution, we used to, you know,

pray indoors and drink outdoors. And then after the revolution, we, you know, prayed outdoors and drank indoors. I mean, it's that, you know, there is a sort of a cosmopolitan, iconoclastic tradition, certainly in Iran. And, you know, it's one of the things that's allowed the regime to survive, if I can put it that way. Because for all the autocracy, there's a lot of sort of crevices and ways in which you can sort of navigate through and actually live your life as you'd want to, as long as you're, you know, you navigate that sort of thing carefully. But of course, as the regime has become more and more autocratic and more and more determined to impose its will upon the population, even those avenues are being shut down, you see, so then it becomes incredibly difficult. And it is this point, you know, what I say to people is I say, you know, why are people annoyed? Why are people angry?

It's because, you know, basically you have closed off every opportunity for them to have a bit of fun, you know, to be able to live their lives. you're suffocating the life out of them and of course people are going to react and also I have to say the memory of the last revolution is now fading a lot of people were by what the consequences of the first revolution were and weren't in a hurry to have another one

now the new younger generation obviously have no memory of the revolution in 1979 and therefore are less fearful if I can build it that one and Ali is the reason that the regime has become more tecratic is it just simply religious doctrine or is it because they can feel that power is slowly slipping from their fingers,

so they're trying to grip more tightly onto it? I think it's just hubris, actually. I think power corrupts and absolute power corrupts, absolutely. And they're complacent in power, and they think they can just push the limits further and further and further. So I think, you know, there is a deep ideological strand within the hardline establishment where they want to go, and they are pushing that,

and they are becoming more and more despotic, I think, is the right word for it, really, in terms of the pursuit of this. So I think that's, it's just an ideological project. Well, Ali, it's been absolutely fantastic interview, and thank you for this incredible insight into something that we understand. As you can imagine, we could probably go on for hours, but I don't think either you or your listeners would want to. No, I actually disagree.

I think our listeners would have found this going to be very interesting. And history is actually one of the most popular subjects on trigonometry. We love to have a lot to get you on another time. But for now, we have only one more question for you, which is, as always, what is the one thing that we're not talking about, that we really should be? And that's a complete free hit. It doesn't have to be related to Iran, even.

Well, you know, what are we, God, you know, and since you already warn me about this in some ways, but I have to say, I can't think of anything at the moment that I, I mean, the one thing I would say is, And this is completely detached from what I've said. But one of the things I would say is I think we need to, one of the things I think we need to be very aware of, certainly in the West, is, I don't know if this is going to make much sense, actually.

I don't know if I should say that. Let's find out. So what I was saying is that, you know, one of the problems I found really is the, the advance of the digital age and our inability really to have regulated, moderated, curated, actually, are digital archives in the sense. There was a wonderful piece that one historian put out, and they said our failure to actually deal with digital archives,

it means that in some ways we're entering a new dark age at a dark age because future historians are going to have this blind spot in their archive of resources, because many people have failed, in a sense, to publicly curate their digital archives. And I know this is sort of slightly left field, but I think for future historians, it's going to be a massive, massive problem, by the way,

that from about 2005 onwards it's going to be a massive blind spot in terms of government and other sort of archives that are simply not going to be available because they have not been properly curated. So I'm going to throw that out there. I know what people are going to make of it. But for me, it's one of the great problems that we're going to face going forward. And unless people tackle that problem now, it's going to be quite interesting for the next generation, how they deal with recent history. Well, that's fascinating. We're going to ask you a couple of questions from our local supporters that only they will get to see on locals.

But for now, Alianzari, tell everybody where they can follow your work if they wish to. They can follow me on Twitter if they wish, but also just to keep an eye on in San Andreas, actually on the Sanandos website, they can see stuff there. And I obviously do a few things on media and others. So that's, yeah, that's. Yeah, I enjoyed the conversation you had with a couple of our former guests recently, Nigel Bigger. Oh, yes, yes. So I recommend people check that out.

I have to go and watch that. You should. It's good. But for now, thank you so much for joining us. And thank you guys for watching and listening. We will see you very soon with another brilliant episode like this one or a show, all of which go out at 7pm UK time. And for those of you who like your trigonometry on the go, it is also available as a podcast.

Take care and see you soon, guys. See you on locals. What would you say is the likelihood that you're... you're going to see a dramatically new system of government.