The protests in Iran are now entering their fourth week. Iran's foreign minister Abbas Arachi denied the claims that thousands of people have been killed in the protests, and blamed the violence on a "foreign plot" pushed by Israel.
00:07:21.960He clearly was trying to do an interview to send a message to the Trump administration via Fox News.
00:07:28.840But do you have any good sense of what the death count would actually be from the protests that have
00:07:35.540been rising up over the past several weeks?
00:07:39.320Brian, it's very difficult, given the news blackout, to have any accurate numbers.
00:07:44.880The Iranian foreign minister's suggestion that the killings are in the hundreds, I think, is most probably off by a very wide margin.
00:07:56.940Another Iranian official had spoken about 2,000 people killed.
00:08:02.800And other relatively authoritative sources estimate that some 12,000 people have been killed.
00:08:09.880We have to bear in mind that there are millions of people on the streets and that even if you look at some of the images of the various morgues where people are sifting through body bags to identify their children,
00:08:29.780one sees simply at those locations several hundred bodies.
00:08:35.600And, of course, the government has every interest in trying to downplay the scale of the violence.
00:08:43.840But we have clear evidence that soldiers are using Kalashnikov rifles with shoot-to-kill orders against significant numbers of protesters.
00:08:54.900Help people understand what the protests are about.
00:08:59.000This is different than the Green Revolution in 2009.
00:09:01.960We've been told that it started out over the state of the economy, inflation, the currency.
00:09:27.400Well, I think that is entirely unrealistic to say that Mossad is responsible for millions of people pouring out in the streets.
00:09:41.620For thousands of young people, the victims are overwhelmingly under 30 years of age who are willing to stand in front of bullets and batons.
00:09:51.720This has been a long time in the making.
00:09:55.000Whatever the interests of foreign power, the Iranian people have had successive uprisings.
00:10:03.180Just in 2002, we had the Women's Life Liberty movement once again in which millions came because of the murder of Mahsa Amini who failed to properly wear her hijab.
00:10:16.580Prior to that, we had the Oban uprisings.
00:10:20.320And the difference, perhaps, is that in 2009, the Green Movement was really about a contested election where the reformist candidate, Mir Hossein Moussabi, claimed to win.
00:10:31.800His supporters came out in the streets and they were met with terrific violence.
00:10:36.700And since then, more and more Iranians are giving up on the prospect of reform.
00:10:42.580They're giving up, sadly, on the prospect of a peaceful transition because the circumstances are that they face not only oppression and denial of their basic human rights,
00:10:57.540but they also now face economic catastrophe, which is in part the result of sanctions which have been imposed against Iran because of the nuclear program.
00:11:07.440But in significant measure, because of the tremendous corruption in what is less a theocracy and more a kleptocracy,
00:11:19.280massive amounts of oil wealth have ended up in the pockets of the economic mafia,
00:11:27.000many of which live here in Canada with significant investments.
00:11:31.440Massive amounts of funds have been given to Hezbollah and Hamas and the Houthis.
00:11:39.920And one of the chants of the people on the streets is that we don't care about Hamas or Hezbollah.
00:11:47.960We want a government that is responsive to the needs of the people.
00:11:52.160So I think the suggestion that, you know, Mossad or foreign agents are responsible for millions of people coming in the streets is not only inaccurate,
00:12:02.920it is insulting at a time when thousands of people have been butchered simply for wanting a better life.
00:12:12.320And it is a country that could provide a better life.
00:12:14.520Your family left when you were a young boy.
00:12:19.700You left before the Iranian Revolution.
00:12:22.060But this was a country that at one point was quite prosperous.
00:12:25.660And people, you know, the young people in the streets may not remember it, but others would.
00:12:30.440This is a country that should be looking after its own people, not sending, you know, people with fortunes to Canada or the United States or to have more money going to the fighters in Hezbollah or the Houthis than are being spent on average people.
00:12:48.480Let me ask you about something that we used to talk about a lot in international affairs and it seems to have faded away.
00:12:54.780It relates in some measure to what President Donald Trump has talked about in saying that he wants to stop the killing and he will respond if the regime does executions or carries out violence in the streets.
00:13:08.080And that's the responsibility to protect.
00:13:10.240We're not hearing about that a lot anymore, whether it's Iran or any other country.
00:13:15.940Does that still have cachet responsibility to protect R2P?
00:13:20.080Brian, I was working with the United Nations in the 1990s as a prosecutor with the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia, for Rwanda.
00:13:32.300And that was the time when R2P emerged in the context of the NATO intervention in Kosovo.
00:13:38.660Since then, and I think the 1990s was a very promising period for international law, for human rights.
00:13:47.140We now live in a very different space.
00:13:49.140We've seen a very serious decline of the rule-oriented international order.
00:13:57.680We've seen the rise of authoritarianism, not least in the West.
00:14:03.820So now is really not a time when, as you put it, the idea of R2P has cachet.
00:14:10.500And of course, ultimately, we also have to realize that military interventions are not necessarily the best way to allow people to achieve a transition to democracy.
00:14:27.180And I think in the case of Iran, what is most important is to look at the millions that are pouring out in the streets, to listen to their chance, to listen to their wants, and to realize that, yes, R2P is important.
00:14:48.380The world has to stand with the people, but at the same time, all efforts should be made to avoid large-scale violence.
00:14:58.700That could make the circumstances even worse.
00:15:01.560Well, then, let me leave you with this.
00:15:09.640And how do you feel about the musings of President Trump, which at this point, as we talk, have been up and down, threats, and they say, well, he seems to be holding off some of the executions.
00:15:29.740Well, I think that the Islamic Republic of Iran should be subject to pressures and isolation.
00:15:39.700The people of Iran need to be empowered.
00:15:41.520But I have no illusions that foreign powers have the best interests of the people of Iran at heart.
00:15:49.500It is famously said that nations don't have friends, they have interests.
00:15:54.160And it is conceivable that whether it's the Trump administration or any other government could strike a deal with the Islamic Republic that achieves their objectives while abandoning the people of Iran.
00:16:10.400So, in that sense, I think we need to distinguish between the geopolitical rivalries and the pursuit of interests by foreign powers and the wishes of the people who are dying on the streets out of desperation, out of their desire for freedom.
00:16:37.020When we come back, a conversation with Kaveh Sharrouz on the politics of the situation in Iran.
00:16:44.640This is Tristan Hopper, the host of Canada Did What?
00:16:47.340Where we unpack the biggest, weirdest, and wildest political moments in Canadian history you thought you knew and tell you what really happened.
00:16:55.660Stick around at the end of the episode to hear a sample of one of our favorite episodes.
00:17:00.160If you don't want to stick around, make sure you subscribe to Canada Did What? everywhere you get podcasts.
00:17:06.000Kaveh Sharrouz is a lawyer in Toronto and a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute in Ottawa.
00:17:12.460He previously was a senior policy advisor on human rights to Global Affairs Canada.
00:17:18.060We've spoken to Kaveh about Iran in the past and caught up with him again in Toronto.
00:17:22.260Kaveh, I'll ask you the question that I'm asking everyone with a connection to Iran.
00:17:26.440Have you been able to contact people inside the country as you watch the protests rise, as you hear about the communications shut down, whether it be internet or phone lines?
00:17:38.180Have you been in touch with anyone on the ground to find out if friends or family are safe, to find out what's actually going on?
00:17:50.220But thankfully, I know that my family is safe because other family members have managed for very short periods of time to connect with folks on the ground.
00:17:59.220But what they're hearing, even though thankfully my own family is safe, what they're hearing is that the situation is pretty bad.
00:18:04.520The regime has not held back its violence, and I think everyone's really frightened and very concerned.
00:18:13.060And of course, there's many people in this country and outside of Iran who are afraid to speak up because of what it may mean for their families.
00:18:22.680Speaking to a friend who just said, I don't want to say anything publicly because I'm worried about my mother, elderly mother still in Tehran.
00:18:32.060I doubt that she's going to be on the streets, but you always do worry about the impact that any comment could have on family members.
00:18:41.460What you're dealing with is a regime that is totalitarian in outlook.
00:18:45.400It's not enough that somebody leave the country so long as they speak out against this regime anywhere in the world.
00:18:53.120The regime holds their family members hostage and goes after them.
00:18:56.860It's certainly within the realm of possibility that somebody's elderly mother could be targeted by the regime because their son or grandchild or somebody spoke out even outside the country.
00:19:06.360This is what the Iranian people are up against.
00:19:09.460What is your understanding of the reason for the protest now?
00:19:13.360There have been protests on and off over the years.
00:19:16.080We have heard that it is economic issues, inflation is through the roof, there is an affordability crisis which seems to take on a different context in every country around the world these days, but it's much more acute in Iran.
00:19:31.060We've also heard it's about water or the excuse from the foreign ministry, as I was mentioning earlier, that no, this is just Israel and Mossad fomenting dissent inside Iran.
00:19:43.200What's your understanding of this uprising and these protests?
00:19:48.780Yeah, with the exception of the, you know, this is fomented by Israel, which I think is rather silly.
00:19:53.600I think it's really all of the above and all of them are deeply interconnected.
00:19:59.160So you've got an economy that is in crisis.
00:20:28.920And now you've got people who are deeply incompetent trying to run the country.
00:20:33.080Um, the country is under sanctions because, um, this regime is deeply, deeply anti-Semitic and wants to destroy Israel.
00:20:39.560So it's been arming terrorists around the world.
00:20:42.440Um, and so, you know, the country's economy is, is suffering.
00:20:46.000Um, the economy is suffering because people don't have rights to speak.
00:20:49.620Um, and on top of all this, as you said, this environmental crisis that's deepening where the, you know, largest cities in the country are simply running out of water.
00:20:57.780You know, people literally can't put food on the table and they can't drink water because there's no water to drink.
00:22:40.300And, um, you know, we've ended up with a regime that can chant death to Israel, but it doesn't provide, it can't provide the most basic needs, um, of its people.
00:22:49.860It's devoted all of its energy rather than cooperating with Israelis who have the know-how.
00:22:54.400It's devoted all its energies to fighting Israel and now is reaping the consequences of it.
00:22:59.620Well, and, and, and of course, they've spent a lot of money and energy, devoted a ton of resources to undermining Western countries.
00:23:12.800And we know about the bot farms that, uh, online that have helped spread the, the message of Hamas or Hezbollah that helped, uh, undermine Israel.
00:23:25.660And we saw an example of this, uh, over this last week when the, uh, it was noted that when the, uh, communications were shut down in Iran, suddenly there were all these pro-Scottish independence, uh, social media accounts that went quiet.
00:23:42.160Because they couldn't post about why Scotland needs to leave the United Kingdom, why Scotland needs to be independent, uh, how awful Britain is to the Scottish people.
00:23:53.120They were silent because the internet was down in Iran, not because it was down in Glasgow or Edinburgh.
00:24:00.600And I think it tells you something about the priorities of this regime and how it views itself.
00:24:05.040This is a regime that ultimately doesn't think of its top priority as protecting the Iranian people, uh, providing for its people or anything of that sort, anything that you would traditionally associate with the role of a government.
00:24:16.380This regime is fundamentally devoted to changing the world order.
00:24:21.340And that means attacking the West, attacking democracies.
00:24:23.880And if that means causing chaos in Scotland, then so be it.
00:24:27.840If it means supporting Russia and sending drones so that Russia can attract Ukraine, so be it.
00:24:32.560They're interested in sowing chaos in the West.
00:24:35.040Aside from, you know, exporting violence to places like Israel.
00:24:38.760Um, and, and this is all part of one big project.
00:24:41.520And the sooner the world is rid of this regime, I think the better it will be everywhere in the world, including places you would not think of like Scotland, for example.
00:24:49.440Well, and of course they, they spread disinformation here in Canada and the United States and elsewhere.
00:24:54.380Uh, it's interesting to watch some of the media coverage.
00:24:58.920And I, I, I'd love to hear your take is, is anyone getting the media coverage right?
00:25:03.780You know, if we were to tune into Russia today or Al Jazeera, um, well, then we would find out that these are peaceful protests or that there are counter protests to support the regime that are even bigger than the people in the streets calling for change.
00:25:37.580I think, uh, the Western media has been late to the story for one thing.
00:25:41.400I mean, these protests, um, really have flared up in the last few days, but they've been going on for a long time.
00:25:46.760Um, at least, you know, we're coming up on almost three weeks now, these protests have been going on and I, it took a long time for the story to work its way onto the front pages of, you know, the New York times or, um, you know, our newspapers here in Canada.
00:25:59.140Um, I, I don't quite know what the reason for that is.
00:26:02.980And also I should note that, um, we don't see a ton of pushback, as you say, against the lies being put out by, um, places like Al Jazeera or, or, you know, other Qatari funded news sources and so on.
00:26:14.240And you also have this kind of far left, um, media ecosystem, uh, that consistently lies and makes common cause with these Islamists.
00:26:23.180Um, it's a, it's a really bad information space at the moment.
00:26:26.860I think there's a lot of efforts by bad actors, um, to, um, spread disinformation, to portray Iran's regime as more peaceful and protective of its citizens than it is, um, to, you know, whitewash what the Iranian regime does.
00:26:42.080Um, and in the West, I think too much of our mainstream media has missed Iran's story for a long time.
00:26:48.480For a long time, we were fed the story about Iran's regime being able to reform.
00:26:53.060And somebody like me was going crazy trying to explain to a Western journalist, like, no, no, no, this is, there's something happening that you need to pay attention to.
00:26:59.140People are rejecting this reform movement.
00:27:01.080Um, I, I think we're slowly coming around.
00:27:03.840I think people are slowly beginning to understand that, but I think the Western media still has a lot more to do on this.
00:27:09.100I, I, I will defend, uh, my employer post media, uh, that, that, you know, we've definitely been covering it from the beginning.
00:27:16.280Has it been on the front page of the Toronto Sun or National Post all the time?
00:27:21.140Uh, but there was a dearth, especially in broadcast, um, in, in terms of showing the images.
00:27:28.860And then that was before the communication shutdown when you could get television images out.
00:27:34.260Um, it, it was noted and it was noted by an off by myself included and lots of people online saying, why is there nothing about this?
00:27:42.740The people of Iran are being oppressed.
00:27:44.900I have not seen anything on campuses, Kaveh.
00:27:47.900Um, have you seen giant marches in the streets of Toronto or, or on campuses the way we did for, uh, say, uh, Gaza?
00:27:56.300Uh, no, I mean, I've, I've seen some marches, but those are by Iranians that are, uh, waving the flag and, and waving Canadian flags and expressing solidarity with Israel.
00:28:04.980Um, in terms of students setting up, um, tent cities, no, I have not seen that.
00:28:10.180Um, which really does make you question, um, the real commitment of these student activists to human rights.
00:28:16.740I mean, because this is a, the Iran story is one that doesn't fit very neatly.
00:28:21.120It's not a very clean story in terms of, you know, the bad guys being the United States and Israel and the good guys being, um, those that are, that are Muslim.
00:28:28.700Here is, uh, you know, purportedly Muslim population, um, or at least, you know, a population that, um, has had Islam forced upon them rising up against the repressors.
00:28:39.500And they're attacking mosques, um, and, and what the reaction that you see from a lot of activists online as well, well, this is, you know, clearly being paid for by the Mossad as if Iranians themselves don't know that for 47 years, they've been oppressed, uh, by Islamic thugs, that the mosques are where these thugs meet and come out and beat people to death.
00:28:59.000Um, there is a real moral confusion, regrettably, um, among our leftist activist class.
00:29:04.480Those mosques are the places where they would, uh, decide to, uh, beat on women that did not wear their hijab properly.
00:29:13.200Uh, and now you've got the iconic photos out there of Iranian women lighting their cigarettes with a, uh, a photo of, um, Ayatollah Khomeini on fire.
00:29:23.320And they're using that to light their cigarette with no hijab on.
00:29:26.640So they know where the oppression came from and it was from the, uh, the regime in Tehran and their proxies throughout the country.
00:29:34.840Yeah, I, I see this, the, the, the way, you know, folks that escaped the Soviet union, um, see leftists, um, attempts to portray the, you know, Soviet union as a, as a good actor in the world.
00:29:47.880Um, it's this incredible, as I said earlier, this moral confusion, um, about who the bad guys are and the people that have actually suffered, be it under a Soviet system, a communist system, or under a theocratic system like Iranians, they are not confused.
00:30:00.640They know exactly who's been oppressing them. They're not interested in these identity politics games and they're asking for solidarity.
00:30:06.040And it's very strange in my view that the left has not been offering to solidarity.
00:30:10.500You know, here's a left that talks constantly about the rights of women and LGBTQ people and workers and so on.
00:30:15.920And I think those are important rights to talk about, but you have in the Islamic Republic, a regime that for 47 years has been targeting women and treating them as second class citizens, has been going after workers and labor leaders, has been, um, treating, um, LGBTQ.
00:30:30.640People as criminals, every group that you can think of that the left is supposed to stand up for and protect the Iranian regime has been targeting them.
00:30:38.840And yet the Western left still cannot find its, its moral compass, um, and come to the side of the Iranian people.
00:30:46.640And yet there was, um, a post by Richard Grinnell, who is Donald Trump's intermediary and a lot of different things.
00:30:54.740And he posted just the other day, I helped sneak gays and lesbians out of Iran.
00:30:59.840And for the first time ever, someone has said, I want to wait just a bit.
00:31:05.620There's real hope coming from the inside.
00:31:12.560He's helping gays and Iran escape the Islamic Republic regime and, and saying, look, they're now hopeful.
00:31:20.600We would expect that on the campus of U of T or UBC or McGill, there would be a chance to bring down the Ayatollahs and the Mullahs because of their oppression of such people.
00:31:35.780I mean, if you actually care about the rights of, of gay and lesbians, um, and you're not in it purely for performative reasons, then you would be setting up some sort of underground railroad for Iranian gays and lesbians to be able to escape that country.
00:31:49.040You would be cheering on the downfall of the people that have been criminalizing gay and lesbian activity.
00:31:54.540You would be cheering on the downfall of a regime that in its constitution treats women, um, as half of men in its laws.
00:32:02.820It treats women as being worth their lives, being worth half of men.
00:32:08.300And yet so many of our activists on the left are completely morally confused about it.
00:32:12.820Let me ask you about the, uh, issue of graft and the corruption, how that plays into the, uh, the chants that we're hearing or were hearing, uh, when we could hear them, uh, in the streets of, uh, Iran and how it relates back to Canada.
00:32:31.900Yeah. So you, you mentioned earlier, this is a very corrupt government that, uh, the IRGC makes money off of building dams where they don't need them or infrastructure projects that are questionable at best.
00:32:44.640And then they pocket the money. And we know many of them have come to Canada. And that's an issue you and I have talked about before.
00:32:51.160Um, those chants about, you know, their kids living well off in Canada showed up in the protests.
00:32:58.740The, the people in the street know that we've been letting regime figures, key regime figures who got rich off of oppressing people move to Toronto and Montreal and Vancouver and Calgary and live wonderful lives.
00:33:16.180Yeah. What a, what a terrible condemnation of Canadian policy, um, that was.
00:33:21.480So this was a video that went around, as you mentioned of Iranian protesters chanting, our children are dying here.
00:33:26.660Their children are in Canada. Um, you know, Iran is not North Korea. Iranians have access to the internet.
00:33:32.820They have access to social media. They see the children, um, of regime officials, um, living lives of luxury in, you know, in London and Paris and increasingly in Toronto and Montreal and Calgary and Vancouver.
00:33:46.560Um, Canada has regrettably, and this is quite frankly, a bipartisan problem. This is not, I mean, the, the liberals in my view made it worse,
00:33:55.680but this problem actually regrettably started under, um, Stephen Harper who otherwise was actually great on Iran.
00:34:01.840Um, we opened our doors to anyone, um, that, that could come here as an investor, anyone that had the kind of money, um, that could come here and, you know, buy a business or, or, you know, buy up real estate.
00:34:13.980Um, and when you're dealing with a kleptocratic governments like Iran's or Russia's, typically the types of people that can afford to come through the door that way, um, are people that have ties to the regime.
00:34:25.480And so what's happened is, you know, that, um, immigration system coupled with very, very poor due diligence on our part in terms of who's coming into the country.
00:34:34.000These things have come together and created a situation where you have people literally walking down the street and running into, um, you know, the police chief of Tehran in Thornhill, just North of Toronto.
00:34:44.360It's shocking to me that no one in our, um, you know, security system, intelligence system, immigration system ever bothered to Google this guy to see, you know, who is he and why is he coming here?
00:34:55.620And, and this has happened dozens of times and there are reports that there are hundreds of these people here.
00:35:00.000I am not shocked because when we invited people in after the Rwandan genocide, people who were fleeing the genocide, we also let in the perpetrators and they ended up living next to each other in the same neighborhoods as often happens.
00:35:16.440And it's why when there was the, uh, the mania to, uh, help more and more people, I mean, you remember the 2015 election and the war going on in Syria and it started with, well, we'll take in so many thousands of Syrian refugees.
00:35:32.480And then it would be even more, uh, and on and on and on it would go.
00:35:39.020Um, and, and, and the initial, uh, plan was not to vet anyone before they get it, got in.
00:35:44.980And I said, why would we not vet people?
00:35:47.820You're going to end up with the same thing we did in Rwanda, where we bring in people who are fleeing for their lives and we bring in the people that they're fleeing from.
00:35:56.200And that's what we've also done with, uh, the Iranian community here in, in this country.
00:36:04.820I think that is, uh, and I don't mean in the, uh, United States going in and changing the regime, although that could happen or they could contribute to it.
00:36:14.020And how does the population get rid of the folks in charge now and, and who replaces them?
00:36:21.540I, I know that you are not a, um, a big fan of, uh, Crown Prince, uh, Reza, uh, Pahlavi.
00:36:29.080Um, he is setting himself up, I guess, as some sort of figurehead, uh, waiting in the wings.
00:36:35.400But how does Iran transition, hopefully back to what it was before in terms of freedom and ability, how it functions politically is up to the people.
00:36:47.040But how do they get back to freedom and away from an oppressive regime?
00:36:51.140How do they get rid of the guys in charge now?
00:36:55.300Um, so I, I think several things need to happen for this regime to fall.
00:37:00.660One is, I think, street protests and you're seeing them on a mass scale now.
00:37:04.780Um, those are important, but those can be crushed pretty quickly.
00:37:08.040Um, I think what we'll also take will be, um, mass strikes.
00:37:12.420And this is something that happened in 1979 that brought down, you know, the monarchy and, and brought the Islamic government to power.
00:37:18.760Uh, the oil sector went on strike and if the oil sector can go on strike again, um, if that can be coordinated,
00:37:23.880if those workers can be paid for their time on the picket lines, um, then, you know, the, the lifeblood of this regime, um, is, is then affected and the regime actually could collapse.
00:37:33.940And finally, I mean, I think what we're seeing is this is a regime that is not going to hesitate, um, in terms of using brutality, in terms of, you know, shooting bullets into, uh, crowds.
00:37:46.000I don't, I don't think it would be a great idea to arm, uh, people because once arms are out there, they become impossible to control.
00:37:51.860And, and the, the prospects of civil war increase, but this is the kind of thing that requires outside help.
00:37:58.660Um, if the United States or if Israel can actually cripple the apparatus for repression that the Iranian regime uses, you know, be it through cyber warfare or be it through very, very targeted, um, assassinations or targeted bombings of let's say the intelligence ministry in Iran or the IRGC, um, headquarters in Iran.
00:39:33.640I am not worried that the revolution itself, if the revolution was to succeed, that it would be taken over by bad people simply because even though, um, you know, I have, I don't see anyone in the opposition that's actually taking part in this revolution that is worse than the Islamic regime.
00:39:49.800Um, you earlier alluded to the fact that I am not a fan of the movement that, that the crown prince Reza Pahlavi is built.
00:39:56.160And I, I, I think that's true, but I also want to be fair, um, despite my problems with him, despite the criticisms I have of him.
00:40:03.600Um, I think any government led by the crown prince would be better than, would be light years better, um, than what we currently have.
00:40:11.580Um, now I don't think it's the best that, that we can achieve.
00:40:14.360Then that's kind of where the problem lies and that's where my criticism comes in.
00:40:16.980We can talk about that if you're interested, but I, I, I still think the options on the table that would come from a revolution are considerably better.
00:40:25.200And the Iranian people themselves have been there, you know, unlike 1979, where they were confused about what they wanted, where there were, you know, a lot of Marxists in the mix that wanted to make Iran kind of a Soviet satellite state.
00:40:54.980You know, I understand your point that it would, uh, any government led by him would be far superior to, to what they have now, but what are your concerns?
00:41:03.680Well, my concern is that the movement that Mr. Pallavi has built.
00:41:07.740And, and I say this as someone that, that had been in touch with the crown prince that knew, um, him a little bit, knew his, his team and had worked with them.
00:41:14.880Um, my understanding had always been that what he is interested in and what, and what his team is interested in is building a very broad coalition, um, that brings together people from different ethnic groups, different points of view.
00:41:27.340Um, and so on, um, but unfortunately what I've observed in the last couple of years, and primarily this happens in Farsi.
00:41:32.960So if you were to actually observe them in English, you would, you would hear them say very, very nice democratic things.
00:41:37.520But when you actually observe them in, in Farsi and read what they write and hear what they chant, um, you begin to see that what they're trying to put together is not a broad coalition, but a very narrow one, um, of people that simply adhere to one worldview.
00:41:50.540So I'll give you an example, and this is one that I've used in, in other interviews of very favorite chant of the Pallavist crowd.
00:41:57.880And this is not, um, you know, a random chant.
00:41:59.960This is something that's echoed by the wife of the crown prince, by members of his team.
00:42:03.840Um, they have a chant that doesn't translate very well into English, but roughly it translates into death to the, these three rotten groups.
00:42:24.340Um, I think the left, you know, as we've been talking about have, there, there was a fair bit of moral confusion in the West and also Iran, the Iranian left.
00:42:31.100But the idea that a future regime would, um, bring death to the leftists and would completely leave them out of the equation and leave them out of discussion.
00:42:41.620Supporters of Reza Pat have been going on and on, on social media, um, attacking any Kurdish person that talks about the rights of the Kurdish minority.
00:42:48.860Calling them separatists, um, instead of trying to bring them into the tent, instead of trying to broaden their coalition, they have not done that.
00:42:55.500And I worry that a future, um, regime led by the crown prince will actually end up isolating large segments of the Iranian population.
00:43:04.420And many ethnic groups like the Kurds, for example, that should really be welcomed.
00:43:09.180Do the Americans under president Donald Trump or any other outside countries have a role to play in aiding, assisting, acting to help this revolution?
00:43:20.700There's long been criticism that had Barack Obama just, you know, expressed support or provided some support in 2009 that the green revolution would have succeeded.
00:43:32.060Um, so, you know, Donald Trump intervening in international affairs is not seen by many, uh, as fondly as Barack Obama intervening.
00:43:42.360So what's your view on, on the prospect of, of Trump intervening in some way or offering support?
00:43:51.100So, uh, for those that, that know me or, or, you know, read my writing on social media, I am not a fan of Donald Trump.
00:43:57.840Um, and I think he has done more harm than good in the United States and internationally.
00:44:01.380But in this one case, um, I think at least rhetorically he said all the right things, you know, he said that he wants the regime gone.
00:44:08.580Um, he said that he's on the side of, um, Iranian people, which has been wonderful.
00:44:12.160And I think almost universally by the protesters has been welcomed, um, where I have criticisms and I, you know, I, I, I don't want to make them too harshly because who knows what tomorrow will bring with, with Donald Trump.
00:44:25.020It's always hard to predict the future is that he gave a lot of encouragement to protesters to go out in the streets.
00:44:29.300So very early on in these protests, he said, you know, the United States is locked and loaded and we're, we're going to support you.
00:44:33.700Just a couple of days ago, he said, um, you know, help is on the way to the protesters.
00:44:38.820And this encouraged a lot of people to go out in the streets, thinking that the United States was actually actively going to get involved and was going to give them some sort of cover by either attacking, as I mentioned, you know, the intelligence agency or carrying out a cyber attack, giving space for protesters to succeed.
00:44:52.020Um, unfortunately he has not done that yet.
00:44:54.860Um, and in fact, yesterday he was saying things that would suggest that, that perhaps he's not going to take any action.