TRIGGERnometry - Iranian Historian Breaks Down Iran Protests

00:00:00.000 What you have is a Islamic system headed by what is known as a supreme leader who claims to be not only, you know, the Lord's anointed, but actually the Lord's representative on earth.

00:00:13.440 And if you're in that sort of situation, it causes problems in terms of governance because nobody's really accountable.

00:00:21.840 He claims to be accountable to God alone.

00:00:23.440 And 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.

00:00:31.940 And that's the big weakness.

00:00:34.940 I mean, it basically had everything.

00:00:36.080 It's like, you know, a revolution which, you know, gave it the revolutionaries in Aladdin's cave and it's proceeded to just basically spend it all.

00:00:43.580 The memory of the last revolution is now fading.

00:00:45.300 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.

00:00:49.620 But now the new younger generation obviously have no memory of the revolution in 1979 and therefore are less fearful.

00:00:55.640 The distinctive thing this time around is that the protest is overtly political.

00:01:00.020 It's led by the young and it's led by women.

00:01:03.240 And certainly the protesters now are not thinking about reforming things.

00:01:06.500 You know, it's not about tweaking aspects of the Islamic Republic.

00:01:08.800 They just want it gone.

00:01:09.900 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.

00:01:19.620 I mean, in Iran, this is not the first time a woman has been brutalized.

00:01:24.840 So, you know, people would say, well, you know, why would this trigger off?

00:01:27.880 Well, it would trigger something because at this time, you know, there comes a time when people say enough.

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00:02:58.140 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry.

00:03:01.380 I'm Francis Foster.

00:03:02.780 I'm Constantin Kishan.

00:03:04.160 And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.

00:03:09.760 Our fantastic guest today is the perfect person to talk to you about the subject we want to discuss.

00:03:14.500 He's a British-Iranian historian at St. Andrew's University.

00:03:18.100 Ali Ansari, welcome to Trigonometry.

00:03:20.120 Thank you for having me.

00:03:21.500 It's a real pleasure to have you.

00:03:22.860 Before we start talking about Iran, it's a subject that a lot of our audience have asked us to cover.

00:03:28.500 Tell everybody, who are you?

00:03:30.140 How are you?

00:03:30.940 How are you where you are?

00:03:32.060 What has been your journey through life that leads you to be sitting here talking to us?

00:03:36.740 Well, as you noted, I'm British-Iranian.

00:03:39.160 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.

00:03:56.400 I thought I might as well do something where I had some linguistic ability.

00:03:59.720 So that helped, I think.

00:04:02.360 And I've been studying, researching, writing about Iran for probably about 30 years, which is way too long, really.

00:04:10.100 And I'm now and I've been at the University of St. Andrews, actually, where I founded an institute for Iranian studies back in 2006.

00:04:17.460 So but I've been here at the university since 2004.

00:04:20.600 Which is why, as I say, you're the perfect person to talk to about this.

00:04:24.480 And Ali, as you know, in trigonometry, we like to explore the broader issue rather than just going to the news headlines that are out right now.

00:04:32.600 So right now, I think a lot of people are in the position where they were with Ukraine, where it's like something's happening.

00:04:39.040 No one knows what it is.

00:04:40.520 Most people couldn't find the country on the map, don't know the history.

00:04:44.820 And I'm certainly, in terms of Iran, very much in that place myself.

00:04:48.740 I don't really know anything about it.

00:04:51.360 Can you talk to us about the, you know, the broad, you know, obviously, there's a lot of history we could cover.

00:04:57.440 And in an hour, we're probably not going to get to all of it.

00:04:59.320 But I suppose the big question is, how are we where we are today?

00:05:03.920 How has this happened?

00:05:04.960 Take us all the way through to, you know, over the last many decades.

00:05:08.840 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.

00:05:17.440 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.

00:05:28.820 There were two very, very different ideas, as is, you know, not unusual in these things about where the revolution should go.

00:05:35.840 Summed up really in the title of the new state, the Islamic Republic.

00:05:39.960 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.

00:05:48.200 And the other side, which eventually won out, that basically said, no, the ambition really is to establish an Islamic state of sort.

00:05:56.000 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.

00:06:04.840 So what we've ended up having really is that one wing of the revolution has triumphed over the other.

00:06:10.460 And that wing is really an autocratic Islamist wing around the person of a supreme leader.

00:06:15.760 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.

00:06:24.260 The constitution of the Islamic Republic did enshrine a number of sort of rights for people, not a huge amount, but certainly, you know, a limited amount that might have been seen as valuable by most Iranians.

00:06:35.520 But most of these have been crushed.

00:06:36.600 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.

00:07:03.720 And if you're in that sort of situation, it causes problems in terms of governance, because nobody's really accountable.

00:07:13.060 He claims to be accountable to God alone.

00:07:15.680 And of course, this has led to huge frictions.

00:07:18.160 It's led to huge frictions in terms of the way in which the country is governed.

00:07:21.480 It's led to huge corruption and frictions in terms of the political economy of the country.

00:07:25.500 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.

00:07:39.460 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 has all taken us all a bit by surprise, to those of us actually who've been watching Iran, it hasn't really.

00:07:51.260 I mean, it's something that most people anticipated, because the situation was just getting worse.

00:07:57.660 The regime was entering what we might call a deteriorating cycle.

00:08:02.760 And the last protest they had was in 2019.

00:08:06.900 It was pretty violent, violently suppressed.

00:08:09.940 And things have just got worse.

00:08:11.720 The distinctive thing this time around is that the protest is overtly political.

00:08:16.120 It's led by the young, and it's led by women.

00:08:18.880 And there is a deep, deep ideological divide and gulf now between the protesters and the authorities.

00:08:29.780 And neither side wants to compromise.

00:08:32.200 And certainly the protesters now are not thinking about reforming things.

00:08:35.400 You know, it's not about tweaking aspects of the Islamic Republic.

00:08:37.700 They just want it gone.

00:08:39.360 So, you know, things are much, much more serious this time around.

00:08:43.260 So it's an attempted revolution at this point, it sounds like what you're saying, right?

00:08:47.140 I think people are basically coming to the conclusion that internal reform is impossible,

00:08:52.920 and that the only thing ahead of them is really for a complete transformation of the state.

00:08:56.980 And therefore, they just, you know, they view it as revolutionary.

00:08:59.920 Now, of course, you know, when we look at things like revolutions,

00:09:02.500 it's very difficult to, you know, predict the outcome of these things.

00:09:05.920 It's very difficult to know whether it's revolutionary.

00:09:07.860 My own view, by the way, as a student of Iran, is that Iran has been in,

00:09:11.160 has had revolutionary conditions for some time.

00:09:13.200 But the question is, is whether these could be, you know, operationalized in a way,

00:09:17.580 or whether, you know, that conjunction of events takes place to trigger these things off.

00:09:22.680 My assumption always was that the government would all,

00:09:25.000 would end up doing something pretty stupid, and which would trigger something.

00:09:28.380 So, you know, if you go back to the Arab Spring, you know, I mean, I always said to people,

00:09:31.800 you know, the problem with these political upheavals is they're not predictable.

00:09:34.400 You know, who knew that in Tunisia, a local trader was going to self-immolate

00:09:37.380 and trigger off a whole sort of series of protests.

00:09:40.200 Well, I mean, in Iran, this is not the first time a woman has been brutalized.

00:09:45.780 So, you know, people would say, well, you know, why would this trigger off?

00:09:48.820 Well, it would trigger something because at this time, you know,

00:09:51.440 there comes a time when people say, enough.

00:09:53.480 And Ali, has this got the popular groundswell of people behind this movement?

00:10:02.440 Or is it very much a kind of a young person thing, a university-educated people

00:10:08.540 who are rising up against them?

00:10:10.580 Because I've got Iranian friends and they say, actually, a lot of the poorer people

00:10:14.600 are very much more conservative.

00:10:17.680 They're very much more religious.

00:10:18.800 And there tends to be a lot more support for the government

00:10:21.640 from these more poorer communities.

00:10:25.240 I mean, I don't think that's true anymore, I have to say.

00:10:28.240 That's always been the tendency that, you know, the poorer rural communities

00:10:33.160 or some in the sort of more shantytown aspects will be conservative with the small sea

00:10:37.900 or actually even conservative with the large sea and really support the government.

00:10:41.420 The fact is that actually, even if you look at 2019,

00:10:44.180 a lot of the violence perpetrated against people in Iran was done against these very,

00:10:49.520 you know, much poorer communities.

00:10:50.840 A lot of the protests were protests that had economic reasons behind them,

00:10:55.140 pretty, you know, brutal economic reasons, actually.

00:10:57.040 I mean, the level of poverty is extraordinary.

00:10:59.720 And the poor, you know, really have nothing to lose anymore.

00:11:02.920 What's happening this time around, I think you're quite right,

00:11:05.020 is, of course, that a lot of this is also being led by, you know,

00:11:09.580 while I don't like to use these sort of terms like lower and middle class and others,

00:11:12.800 I think, you know, in Iran, the class system is very simple.

00:11:16.020 There are the rulers and then there are the ruled.

00:11:18.120 I mean, that's basically it.

00:11:19.440 They have various different levels of wealth.

00:11:21.300 But those who are within that political fraternity are enormously wealthy.

00:11:25.960 I mean, I don't know if any of you see this or rich kids of Tehran,

00:11:28.600 sort of Instagram accounts and stuff.

00:11:30.600 It's extraordinary.

00:11:31.580 I mean, it's pretty obscene, you know.

00:11:33.740 But the vast majority of people struggle.

00:11:36.420 Now, what you can say is there's sort of like a professional educated class.

00:11:39.880 That's true. And those who go to university and those, obviously, who are the manual labourers.

00:11:44.400 But actually, I think the level of protest this time around basically crosses that divide.

00:11:49.320 I mean, it's a whole broad range.

00:11:52.460 And this is what's quite interesting.

00:11:53.780 And particularly now, what's been distinctive, actually,

00:11:57.400 is the level of support from what we could term the wider political and social hinterland.

00:12:04.580 And what I mean by that, and you'll have noticed, hopefully, you may have noticed if you were

00:12:09.580 watching the Iran-England match, certainly, that among sporting, you know, artists, sporting

00:12:15.520 celebrities and others, there is a lot of sympathy and support for this movement.

00:12:20.340 So how I've described it really is that, yes, the individuals out on, you know, doing the

00:12:24.560 sort of physical protesting might be, as a proportion of the population, relatively small.

00:12:29.100 I mean, of course, it is.

00:12:29.940 It always is in these protests.

00:12:31.180 There's a sort of a vanguard.

00:12:32.060 But the hinterland, the supporting hinterland is vast.

00:12:36.040 And this is what's problematic for the regime.

00:12:39.680 You know, the regime knows that it's almost fighting a guerrilla warfare with a group of

00:12:45.500 people who are very well supported by a sympathetic society that also is utterly fed up with what's

00:12:52.200 been going on.

00:12:53.520 And Ali, how much of this has to do with US restrictions against Iran and the embargoes

00:13:01.440 that are happening?

00:13:02.480 Is this partly to do with the fact that people are struggling so badly they can't eat?

00:13:08.740 They can no longer function?

00:13:10.360 So the death of this poor woman has just lit the flame to essentially a pile of grievances

00:13:16.920 that have been building up for many a year.

00:13:18.720 Well, I think there's a sort of a narrative, if I can put it that way, that tends to see

00:13:25.400 everything that happens in Iran as a consequence of US actions and US sanctions in particular.

00:13:30.160 US sanctions, I've always said, and sanctions in general, and this is the way I've described

00:13:34.160 it, are salt rubbed into a very large self-inflicted wound.

00:13:38.280 And that self-inflicted wound is political and economic mismanagement on a grotesque scale.

00:13:43.020 And what's interesting is most Iranians in Iran understand that.

00:13:47.700 So they're obviously not enamored with being sanctioned.

00:13:50.580 I mean, I think they're the most sanctioned country in the world, right?

00:13:52.420 I mean, they sort of mock the Russians for complaining that they're sanctioned.

00:13:55.360 They say, you haven't seen anything yet.

00:13:56.580 Yeah.

00:13:57.420 On the other hand, you know, if you look at, you know, the views that are expressed among

00:14:02.020 Iranians, almost all of them say that we know where the source of our problems are.

00:14:06.240 You know, the source of our problems is a government that is inherently corrupt.

00:14:09.520 And, you know, had they managed the country's resources better, then, you know, we wouldn't

00:14:16.240 be in the situation we're in.

00:14:17.580 And let me give you one example of what I mean by that, because, you know, there's a lot of

00:14:21.620 talk about, you know, what Trump did, maximum pressure, so on and so forth.

00:14:24.900 One of the great tragedies of modern Iran is the fact that they're running out of water.

00:14:29.280 Okay, so any historian of Iran will tell you that the Iranian plateau is not short of water,

00:14:34.420 actually, in terms of its water resources.

00:14:35.960 But the rainfall always falls in the wrong places.

00:14:39.380 So what you need to do in order to irrigate, you need to have good water management.

00:14:43.680 What's happened in the last 40 years is not only is the population, I think, probably tripled,

00:14:50.020 almost tripled, doubled, two and a half, basically.

00:14:52.040 But, you know, they wanted to go even iron.

00:14:53.780 There's been a drawing down of those water resources, a huge use of, again, of water to

00:15:02.960 supply agricultural development, you know, pistachios and stuff, take a huge amount of

00:15:07.620 water.

00:15:08.240 And the water table in Iran has basically depleted.

00:15:11.060 And in 2017 and 2019, in particular, you saw that large stretches of southern Iran just

00:15:18.320 didn't have any running water.

00:15:19.700 I mean, it's just, it's a catastrophe.

00:15:21.820 I mean, it's an absolute catastrophe.

00:15:23.260 And I've talked to environmentalists in Iran who were just distressed by this, I mean,

00:15:27.120 really badly distressed.

00:15:29.420 This has nothing to do with Western sanctions or, you know, or this, this is basically to

00:15:33.940 do with poor governance.

00:15:35.820 I mean, it's as simple as that.

00:15:36.960 And, and, and the trouble is, you know, if you look at it through and through, you'll

00:15:41.700 see that, yes, there is impoverishment, but where does this impoverishment come from?

00:15:45.980 It comes fundamentally from the, the, the corruption and political mismanagement that's at the heart

00:15:53.180 of this regime.

00:15:54.840 And one of the things that I think a lot of us find quite striking about this situation

00:15:59.800 is you obviously came here during the revolution.

00:16:04.140 Yeah.

00:16:04.320 Uh, and I was born shortly after, but just to think that certainly within your lifetime

00:16:09.640 and almost within my lifetime, you know, you see these photos of women walking around in

00:16:15.040 Iran, uh, dressed sort of like Western women, you know, you don't have a religious police,

00:16:20.180 uh, in, in the way that you have now, all of this, uh, it must be an extraordinary transformation

00:16:26.560 for, for a country to go through.

00:16:28.600 And I imagine the memory of the fact that things don't have to be the way that they currently

00:16:33.580 are lives on for many people, even though it is the young people who are protesting.

00:16:37.780 How has that, that played out in this, in this whole scenario?

00:16:42.620 So there are two things about that, which I think are quite important.

00:16:45.800 One is that the Islamic Republic always used to, uh, brag about the fact that while its

00:16:50.680 economic record was not great, at least its political record was better than what happened

00:16:54.480 in the last years of the Shah.

00:16:56.000 So in the last year of the Shah, the economic record was pretty good, but it was politically,

00:17:00.340 the political environment was quite suffocating.

00:17:02.020 So people would always say that, you know, yes, politics isn't brilliant in the Islamic

00:17:05.620 Republic, but it's better.

00:17:08.560 Okay.

00:17:08.920 Now they don't really have that.

00:17:10.460 I mean, they neither have the politics or the economics and everyone can look back in

00:17:14.340 the 1970s and say, actually, uh, economically our international standing, our economic standing,

00:17:19.640 whatever the problems there were politically, uh, was actually vastly better.

00:17:24.520 I mean, you know, and social life was also vastly, I mean, politics was, was constrained,

00:17:30.220 but nobody interfered with your, with your social life, basically.

00:17:33.240 So people had that.

00:17:34.560 Now, one of the aspects and the Iranian government, the Islamic Republic gets very, very anxious

00:17:40.160 about these satellite television channels that largely based in London, as Adam, um, that

00:17:45.900 broadcast all these films into Iran.

00:17:47.520 Um, and there's always, you know, at the moment they're, they're obsessed with, you know, it's

00:17:52.040 always BBC Persian, Iran international, these sort of things.

00:17:54.320 And they all say these are foreign interference.

00:17:56.740 Actually, what a number of these channels, including, and I should mention Manotur.

00:18:00.040 So Manotur and Iran international have done two, uh, two of the channels based in London,

00:18:04.080 who, what they have actually done is they pumped into the country, broadcasting the country,

00:18:09.900 documentaries, historical documentaries about Iran in the 20th century, using huge number.

00:18:15.040 I mean, an enormous amount of archival material.

00:18:17.340 I don't have a clue how they managed to get hold of all this, I have to say, but they

00:18:20.260 got it.

00:18:21.580 And obviously this archival material that shows, you know, the Shah and the Empress and whatever,

00:18:26.140 and people, you know, wandering around the streets all, you know, wearing, you know,

00:18:29.360 basically Western, you know, style clothes, but also a certain degree of sort of international

00:18:33.980 standing.

00:18:35.460 The Shah also spoke very good English.

00:18:37.020 He spoke very good French.

00:18:38.260 You know, he, he could communicate with people and people look at this.

00:18:41.740 So it's not memory so much.

00:18:43.180 It's almost like a, an implanted memory, if I can put it that way, because obviously these

00:18:47.460 young people have no memory of what goes on in the 1970s.

00:18:50.040 I have no idea.

00:18:51.100 But what they get now is they get this sort of, they're almost reminded of something that

00:18:57.280 they, you know, their, their, their parents would have said you had, you know, and it looks

00:19:02.440 good.

00:19:03.140 I mean, for them, it looks good.

00:19:04.800 So I think this has had an enormous impact.

00:19:07.540 And I said this years ago, I said, forget all these political programming and, you know,

00:19:12.040 news programs, young people aren't probably watching a lot of this, but what they are

00:19:15.960 probably watching are documentaries about, I don't know, you know, Reza Shah or Muhammad

00:19:22.040 Reza Shah or the progress the country made.

00:19:24.480 I mean, there was a great, great documentary, for instance, done a few years ago on the Iran-Iraq

00:19:30.360 war.

00:19:30.660 But basically, the vast majority of the documentary was the lead up to the Iran-Iraq war.

00:19:35.060 And it had the whole negotiations between the Shah and Saddam Hussein, lots of extraordinary

00:19:39.960 footage.

00:19:42.640 You know, it was a bit of an eye opener for a lot of people when they saw this, because

00:19:46.360 they wouldn't have been familiar to it.

00:19:47.560 I mean, you have to remember this is a society in Iran that doesn't teach history in the way

00:19:52.400 that we, we would understand it.

00:19:54.140 They don't have that history.

00:19:55.260 What they have is a very, very sort of political history in the way that you might have seen

00:19:59.200 in the Soviet Union.

00:20:00.720 I did.

00:20:01.520 I did.

00:20:02.280 And that's one of the things I was going to ask you, Ali, because I think we in the West

00:20:08.000 also probably don't know the history of Iran very well.

00:20:11.000 Of course, you do.

00:20:11.780 But most of us have no idea.

00:20:13.680 And I think, you know, forgive me, but to most people in the West, Iran is a small country

00:20:18.800 far, far away.

00:20:20.000 It's insignificant.

00:20:21.440 Irrelevant.

00:20:22.560 Yes.

00:20:22.920 But actually, it's a descendant of a great empire in the Persian Empire, the center of

00:20:29.140 Shia Islam in the world, and a hugely oil rich country, which is very powerful in the

00:20:35.800 region and not just in the region.

00:20:37.520 I mean, we see right now Russia buying Iranian weaponry in order to fight in Ukraine.

00:20:44.660 So what is the significance of all of this more broadly?

00:20:48.280 Because I think we, would I be right in saying that we massively underestimate the significance

00:20:53.220 of Iran in the West?

00:20:56.360 I, you know, I have to say, I think in the popular conception, you're absolutely right,

00:21:01.280 because Iran really since 1979 has faded from, you know, the popular sort of stare or

00:21:11.460 imagination, whichever you want to call it.

00:21:13.020 I think prior to that, that wasn't the case.

00:21:15.780 I mean, the Iranians had a fairly sort of positive image in the West, probably to the

00:21:22.640 detriment of the Shah, it has to be said, but nevertheless, it did.

00:21:26.260 And, you know, obviously, since 1979, the image of Iran has taken a deep turn south.

00:21:32.660 I mean, it's not done well at all.

00:21:34.560 But there's a lot of sympathy, I have to say, among people in the West, including the United

00:21:38.860 States, by the way, for Iran or Persia.

00:21:41.300 I mean, I often use Persia a lot in my discussion because it gives, it connects with people in

00:21:47.480 a way that Iran doesn't.

00:21:49.600 And, you know, I have to point out, this is the same country.

00:21:52.280 I mean, Persia is just the name that the Western countries used to call the country Iran until,

00:21:56.460 you know, until the 20th century.

00:21:57.500 But it makes that historical connectivity.

00:22:01.340 And I think by rights, you know, Iran in the region should be the economic motor of the

00:22:05.520 Middle East.

00:22:06.320 I mean, by rights.

00:22:07.340 I mean, if it got its act together.

00:22:09.980 There was a study done, I think, many years ago, I think by the UN.

00:22:13.220 The UN said that basically Iran has every, you know, every possible asset for industrial

00:22:17.980 growth or something, you know, expansion, apart from good governance.

00:22:21.260 And that's the big weakness.

00:22:24.260 I mean, it basically had everything.

00:22:25.040 It had water, it had, you know, human capital, you know, resources, natural resources.

00:22:29.660 It has huge amounts.

00:22:30.620 And of course, you mention oil.

00:22:31.740 But the great, you know, the great sort of unspoken thing is that it does have actually

00:22:35.580 have the second largest reserves of natural gas in the world.

00:22:38.220 And none of this has been touched.

00:22:39.540 You know, so for instance, you'll see today that people say Qatar, you know, is doing very

00:22:42.900 well because it has access to these gas reserves.

00:22:45.480 Actually, that gas field it has is shared with Iran.

00:22:47.860 I mean, it's not, you know, so it's not Qatar's gas field.

00:22:51.380 But of course, Qatar is exploiting it, obviously.

00:22:53.540 And Iran isn't because nobody's interested in investing in Iran.

00:22:57.260 So nobody does anything in Iran.

00:22:58.620 And it does have these enormous, it has an enormous capacity.

00:23:03.100 As someone said, you know, to be the Japan of the Middle East, you know, to basically

00:23:06.640 lead that economic growth.

00:23:08.780 But it's, you know, it's a tragedy, really.

00:23:11.020 The last 40 years, it's really squandered that opportunity.

00:23:13.400 So, yes, you know, my view, and this is, again, an argument that I have, is that the way the

00:23:18.340 what the Islamic Republic has done is it has inherited the architecture of the modern state

00:23:24.020 from the Pahlavis.

00:23:25.000 So the Pahlavi dynasty ruling, you know, from the 1920s through to 1979, basically built the

00:23:31.700 state.

00:23:32.360 They built the modern state.

00:23:34.840 Imperfectly.

00:23:35.280 But nonetheless, they built it.

00:23:37.420 It was by 1979, pretty rich.

00:23:40.100 It was the largest producer in OPEC by the time, by the way, larger than Saudi Arabia.

00:23:43.960 I mean, Iran basically lost its lead because of the revolution.

00:23:47.460 And, you know, it was, you know, a big investor, actually, in the West as well.

00:23:53.540 I mean, this is, I mean, the Shah had lots of money.

00:23:55.860 I mean, the Shah was one of the people who was behind the oil price shock of 1973.

00:23:59.860 People forget that, by the way, because they always see it as the Arab or, you know, embargo.

00:24:04.660 But actually, it was the Shah that really pushed it by the end of 73.

00:24:07.760 And there was huge amounts of money.

00:24:10.340 And Iran's standing was, you know, was pretty positive.

00:24:14.100 Again, I'm not saying without problems.

00:24:16.260 So what the Islamic Republic did is it inherited that.

00:24:19.320 And it's basically gutted it, essentially.

00:24:22.620 You know, so it's basically inherited this huge resource and spent it.

00:24:27.240 It's like, you know, a revolution which, you know, gave it the revolutionaries in Aladdin's cave.

00:24:33.680 And it's proceeded to just basically spend it all.

00:24:36.640 What it hasn't done is reinvest.

00:24:38.980 And that's the problem.

00:24:40.280 I mean, that is the problem.

00:24:41.340 And even if you look at Iran's oil wells, by the way, they lack investment.

00:24:44.960 I mean, they lack investment.

00:24:45.780 They're running out.

00:24:47.000 They need to be maintained in a proper way.

00:24:48.880 And they just aren't because, obviously, of the sanctions, but also because of Iran's relations with the West.

00:24:53.480 Most of the companies that would be able to do the work that Iran needs to have done are Western.

00:24:59.340 Yes, the Chinese come in now and then.

00:25:01.040 But, you know, the Iranians are also a bit sniffy about the Chinese, to be honest.

00:25:04.400 I mean, they sort of think that the best equipment is Western.

00:25:07.440 So, I mean, there's this wonderful, you know, schizophrenic attitude towards the West, of course.

00:25:10.920 They want Western technology.

00:25:12.300 They want Western expertise.

00:25:15.220 But, you know, the ideology loathes the West.

00:25:18.280 So, 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.

00:25:26.580 I remember a guy coming up to me and saying, you know, we've got to reduce tensions in the United States.

00:25:31.360 And I said, well, this is back in 2007, by the – and I said, well, you know, it would help if you stopped saying death to America every Friday.

00:25:37.380 You know, and they – and he looked at me.

00:25:41.320 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.

00:25:48.280 And I said, well, if it's part of your culture, mate, you know, there's not much I can do about it.

00:25:51.500 You know, I mean, this is, you know, this is the absurdity of it.

00:25:54.840 On the one hand, they want 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.

00:26:02.680 Hey, Francis, do you want to protect kids?

00:26:04.920 I was a teacher for 12 years, so no, I will never forget what those little c***s put me through.

00:26:11.180 Francis, what did your therapist say about moving on with your life?

00:26:14.940 They ruined me. I was filled with joy and goodness until those little c***s took my dreams and shredded them.

00:26:20.940 Francis, remember what the lawyer said about not discussing the allegations in public?

00:26:25.420 I was found not guilty on all charges.

00:26:27.620 Not guilty is not the same as innocent.

00:26:29.980 Anyway, going online without using ExpressVPN –

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00:27:48.000 That's expressvpn.com slash trigger for three extra months for free.

00:27:52.680 I'm going to use it right now to find Francis a new therapist.

00:27:56.120 I f***ing hate them!

00:27:57.220 Well, this is what I was going to ask you, Ali, because I think we in the West, we're keen to be self-reflective.

00:28:04.080 We're always keen to, you know, find our flaws and our faults and all that.

00:28:08.320 So, again, super lame in question, but why are we sanctioning Iran?

00:28:13.460 Where does that come from?

00:28:14.400 Is it simply the revolution was seen as illegitimate or what are the reasons for?

00:28:19.380 Because the story you're telling is actually a very sad story.

00:28:22.440 It's a country of tremendous potential, great riches.

00:28:27.580 The people that I've met who are Iranian are extremely well-educated, very intelligent.

00:28:32.700 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.

00:28:40.340 Essentially, that's what you're saying.

00:28:42.120 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,

00:28:48.920 you know, that gas, that oil, that influence in the region might have actually been very helpful to some of what we want.

00:28:58.060 So why is there this tension between us and Iran?

00:29:01.020 Well, I mean, the immediate, I mean, there are two sort of reasons.

00:29:03.820 We ought to mention the more historical aspects.

00:29:06.520 But the immediate cause, of course, is the hostage crisis in 1979.

00:29:09.740 So, you know, obviously, the taking of the U.S. embassy in November 1979 and keeping them, you know, the diplomats hostage for 444 days had a fairly bad impact in the United States.

00:29:21.460 But you've got to add to that, by the way, the Iran-Contra scandal in 1984 or so, you know, which all came out.

00:29:27.560 So both Democrats and Republicans in America have bad experiences with Iran.

00:29:31.200 The Iranians, of course, will claim that all this is down to 1953 and the coup that was launched by the British and the Americans against the then-nationalist prime minister, Mossad.

00:29:41.560 You know, they all like to sort of point to a point of origin, an original sin that causes all the problems.

00:29:48.760 And I, you know, I don't think we probably don't have time to go into all the details of the history.

00:29:52.280 I mean, all I would say is a lot of these are politically genuine.

00:29:54.880 I mean, a lot of these are genuine historical issues that need to be discussed and properly scrutinized.

00:29:59.500 But in terms of the way they're used politically, these are political issues.

00:30:03.060 You know, the Russians did far worse things to Iran, to be honest, over the last 150 years.

00:30:07.660 And yet, funnily enough, there's, you know, the official ideology is very pro-Russian.

00:30:11.300 Okay, so it's not, you know, it's not an issue.

00:30:13.440 But, you know, in popular culture and certainly popular political culture in Iran today, you know, 1953 looms very large.

00:30:21.060 So they'll claim that that's the reason we have an enmity with the United States.

00:30:24.120 That said, the sanctions issue is really a product in 1979.

00:30:27.280 The decline in relations, really, that emerged in the 1980s.

00:30:31.720 Although, while sanctions were placed on Iran at the time, I mean, when I used to go to Iran in the 1990s and the early noughties, yes, Iran was a sanctioned country.

00:30:40.480 But it wasn't heavily sanctioned.

00:30:42.580 Yeah, I mean, there were restrictions on U.S. business in Iran in particular.

00:30:46.120 I think fairly misguided, to be honest, in those stages.

00:30:49.160 But it was driven by that sort of, the enmity that American politicians had for Iran, for the reasons that I've outlined.

00:30:56.880 But, you know, you could buy American goods in Iran.

00:31:00.000 I mean, it wasn't difficult to do because they all came through Dubai anyway and all this sort of thing.

00:31:04.100 And it was possible.

00:31:04.840 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 1990s.

00:31:16.560 But the really, really tough sanctions came really with Obama.

00:31:20.940 And also, I beg your pardon, really prior to that with the nuclear issue.

00:31:24.720 When the nuclear issue became very prominent in the early 2000s, sanctions began to pile on.

00:31:30.040 But, again, the really tough ones come in around 2011, 2012.

00:31:34.580 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.

00:31:43.440 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.

00:31:53.140 And the nuclear process becomes basically the synchronon of Iran policy.

00:31:57.880 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.

00:32:11.340 I mean, this is the problem.

00:32:13.180 So there's a whole narrative that's built up in there that is also quite destructive, I think, to our understanding.

00:32:22.440 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.

00:32:34.020 And everything else that's happened in Iran is secondary to that.

00:32:37.520 And that's been a flaw, I think, in the way we've approached the country.

00:32:41.240 But certainly, you know, the origins of the current situation is really the hostage crisis in 1979.

00:32:45.640 I mean, that's basically it.

00:32:46.860 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.

00:32:59.220 Yeah.

00:32:59.940 So how does that affect our relationship now with Iran?

00:33:04.360 Do you think that we're just going to keep applying the pressure?

00:33:08.260 And hopefully, by doing that, ease this regime out of power?

00:33:13.800 Well, I mean, in policy terms, it's enormously difficult, you know, for reasons.

00:33:20.400 So you have a country, basically, in open revolt.

00:33:23.720 You have another policy that seeks to get a resolution of the 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?

00:33:36.580 So you face a very, very difficult problem.

00:33:38.840 But then, of course, you know, this idea that are the Iranians ramping up enrichment, which they have been.

00:33:44.000 Now, when you say, are they close to building a bomb?

00:33:46.040 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?

00:33:52.740 I'm a little bit more sceptical about how close they are to building a bomb, I have to say.

00:33:57.200 I mean, I think it will take time for them to actually develop that.

00:34:01.360 And then, obviously, they need to test it.

00:34:02.880 I mean, where are they going to test it?

00:34:03.880 I don't know particularly, but anyway, so, of course, they've claimed that they never would go down that route.

00:34:09.360 I mean, I tend to be fairly cynical about these claims, but, you know, some people in the West have believed it.

00:34:15.020 But nonetheless, I think at the moment, we're probably slightly further away to Iran actually developing a workable device than people think.

00:34:24.780 That's my view, although I should say, you know, if you happen to get a nuclear expert on who will tell you otherwise, I will defer to them.

00:34:32.260 But that's my reading of the situation.

00:34:35.220 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.

00:34:44.460 You know, they're not at ease.

00:34:46.660 It's not like the JCPO 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.

00:34:58.060 I mean, obviously, the West and the Israelis in particular are not going to look on this very, very favourably.

00:35:01.940 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.

00:35:13.680 And it's 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.

00:35:21.540 It's not a great look for Putin, but there you are.

00:35:24.200 You know, he's taking his drones at the moment.

00:35:26.340 I think he's past caring about here.

00:35:28.080 I think it's, yeah, but, you know, I have to say, you know, so this time last year, you know, my own view was always that, you know, Russia took the view and Putin took the view that he sort of mentored the Iranians.

00:35:43.180 You know, you guys are revolutionary and are fairly rabid about it at times, but hey, you know, I can handle international politics, you know, I'll, you know, I'll use my Vita at the UN and so on and so forth.

00:35:52.840 And 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.

00:35:58.900 I mean, it's really quite extraordinary stuff.

00:36:00.540 I mean, it's very religious, very millenarian.

00:36:04.060 And this is the striking thing, though.

00:36:05.380 What it does, of course, is it means that the protests in Iran become part of a wider problem.

00:36:10.300 And this is quite interesting for me.

00:36:11.900 I haven't fully understood or fully sort of thought in my 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, you know, vis-a-vis Ukraine and Russia as well.

00:36:31.400 And, of course, Zelensky has made this point very, very clearly.

00:36:33.720 I mean, he's also, you know, he's a wonderful sort of PR person for the protesters in Iran in a sense.

00:36:39.540 He's now saying, look, you know, our struggle is won, you know.

00:36:42.680 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.

00:37:01.800 I mean, it just, you know, there might have been a possibility previously, you know, some sort of arrangement.

00:37:07.900 I mean, it's been done before.

00:37:08.940 The West has not always been as terribly good at sticking to its ideals.

00:37:13.000 But now it just becomes enormously difficult.

00:37:17.680 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.

00:37:27.080 I mean, I think that it will rebound in Iran and it will empower the protesters as well.

00:37:31.800 And Ali, what role does Israel play in all of this?

00:37:35.220 Because obviously Iran has been incredibly antagonistic to Israel.

00:37:40.200 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?

00:37:49.820 And that meant that the embargoes, the sanctions have been harsher as a result?

00:37:54.000 Well, I think, you know, the Israelis, I mean, one of the interesting things about the recent protests is actually Iranian ire and anger is really being directed towards Saudi Arabia rather than Israel, which is quite striking.

00:38:06.320 Normally, they would always blame Israel for everything.

00:38:07.980 I mean, it's all like, you know, knee-jerk reaction.

00:38:11.560 And, you know, for the Iranians, certainly the Iranians, and this is the fascinating thing.

00:38:15.260 I mean, for the Iranians in the regime, you know, Israel is an ideological problem.

00:38:20.080 I mean, they always, they try to describe it as a geopolitical problem.

00:38:22.300 It isn't.

00:38:22.780 It's an ideological problem.

00:38:23.820 You know, and they're constantly talking about, you know, we're going to eliminate Israel.

00:38:28.020 Israel will collapse.

00:38:28.920 I mean, either in a sort of very passive-aggressive voice or just an aggressive voice.

00:38:32.660 I mean, it's one of the two.

00:38:34.640 And obviously the Israelis are extremely, you know, justifiably anxious about all this.

00:38:41.220 So, I mean, I do think the Israelis at times have not helped their own cause.

00:38:45.420 I don't think Netanyahu played it brilliantly.

00:38:48.320 On the other hand, you know, what they've been able to do is really play the bad cop to

00:38:55.680 some in Europe who are the good cop.

00:38:57.820 I mean, I think it's very much a sort of a combined effort.

00:39:00.760 And they're able to keep the West's feet to the fire on this issue and remind them that,

00:39:05.160 you know, given they live in the region, they have a very serious stake on what happens.

00:39:09.480 So, I think in terms of intelligence, I think in terms of combating, certainly in proxies,

00:39:14.300 I mean, basically the Israelis and the Iranians are already basically fighting in Syria.

00:39:17.260 I mean, that's, you know, these things have already started.

00:39:20.900 You know, the Israelis play an absolutely pivotal role in basically keeping a light shone on this.

00:39:27.160 And I think that's, you know, that's vital.

00:39:29.220 I mean, and they're reminding the West that, you know, you guys might be sitting back and

00:39:33.380 thinking about, you know, wonderful deals.

00:39:35.360 But at the end of the day, we are the ones who have to pick up the pieces and pick up the

00:39:37.840 consequences.

00:39:38.380 So, it has to be something that we can live with.

00:39:40.520 And I think really during Obama's period, of course, that the deals that were being addressed

00:39:44.040 were not something really the Israelis felt comfortable with.

00:39:47.260 I mean, Iranians as a whole, by the way, their relationship with Israel is much more, if

00:39:54.560 I may say so, sort of relaxed.

00:39:56.380 I mean, they don't have an issue with the Israelis.

00:39:58.520 I mean, there's huge numbers of Iranian Jews, of course.

00:40:00.600 And many of whom, I have to say, are in Israel at the moment.

00:40:07.740 And, you know, there are strong cultural links.

00:40:09.820 I mean, and I said to someone, I said, you know, I think there are only two countries in

00:40:13.420 the world, possibly three, that have this sort of obsession with Cyrus the Great.

00:40:17.080 You know, one is Iran.

00:40:17.960 The other is Israel, you know, and possibly America, by the way.

00:40:20.520 But certainly in Israel, they're really sort of keen on Cyrus the Great.

00:40:23.320 And there was a, there was a phone in show many years ago, which was very, I mean, summed

00:40:28.940 it up for me, actually, in some ways.

00:40:30.020 And it was obviously Israeli, you know, Persian television in Israel.

00:40:33.160 And they were talking about Iran.

00:40:34.660 And then they had this phone call from Iran, you know, so everyone got a little bit tense,

00:40:38.800 you know.

00:40:39.460 And, and the guy on the phone call actually started out quite aggressive on the phone

00:40:45.160 call.

00:40:45.360 You know, you guys, you know, where the hell, you know, and all this.

00:40:47.680 And, and yeah, I think the studio audience was a little bit, well, you know, maybe we

00:40:51.380 should cut this guy off.

00:40:52.360 And basically the conclusion of this guy was, he sort of said, you know, he said two

00:40:56.460 and a half thousand years ago, you know, Cyrus the Great liberated you lot from Babylon

00:40:59.840 and said, when the hell are you going to send someone to liberate us from the current, you

00:41:03.360 know, and of course the whole thing just, and that sort of spilled over.

00:41:06.580 And I thought it was a great sort of, you know, the attitude in Iran among Iranians towards

00:41:13.140 the Israelis is, is, is much less toxic than you'll find in the sort of, I mean, they're

00:41:19.200 bored with the ideology, to be honest.

00:41:20.980 And, you know, they don't forget that actually, you know, the relationship with Israel prior

00:41:25.400 to the revolution was actually pretty positive.

00:41:28.320 That is such an interesting point.

00:41:29.700 And I think it comes back to, to, I was going to ask you something about, because people

00:41:34.000 say to me, well, you know, you're from Russia, surely, you know, the Russian people

00:41:38.580 are going to get fed up of Vladimir Putin and overthrow him and install brilliant, wonderful

00:41:42.880 liberal democracy.

00:41:43.920 And I'm like, what, why, why would they do that?

00:41:47.740 They've never had democracy in the entire history of the country.

00:41:51.580 They've never had this thing that they're supposed to be aspiring to now.

00:41:56.060 But with Iran, it sounds like actually there was a history of things not, I mean, you, it

00:42:00.900 wasn't an Islamic Republic of the type that it is now before.

00:42:04.060 So how likely is it that, you know, these protests are successful in forcing genuine

00:42:12.760 change and transformation, and you get a leap of some kind forward, backwards, left, right,

00:42:20.360 whatever, in a different direction where you end up with an Iran that has a completely different

00:42:25.480 posture towards the world and is welcomed back into the international community?

00:42:29.460 Well, that's a really good, I mean, that's a really good point.

00:42:33.620 And in the sense of, you know, what are the prospects for, you know, change in Iran in

00:42:37.860 that sense?

00:42:38.600 And, you know, as you say, if you look at the Russian experience, you know, the transition

00:42:41.720 to democracy is never something that should be taken for granted.

00:42:44.640 And these are difficult.

00:42:46.440 What I would say is this, of course, first of all, I'd say that culturally, Iran has a

00:42:50.320 very, very positive, there's a receptive audience in the West.

00:42:54.940 Let me put it that way.

00:42:55.580 I mean, there's no that you, you know, actually, to be honest, I usually say to the Iranians,

00:42:59.060 just allow people to call you Persia, and you'll find actually that branding is going

00:43:02.380 to work wonderfully.

00:43:03.360 And all people will talk about is carpets and caviar cats and this sort of thing.

00:43:08.320 And, you know, you'll immediately soften your image.

00:43:11.080 But I use that sometimes with students also just to point out, you know, how word association,

00:43:15.800 you know, how important it is in a way and how branding is important.

00:43:18.240 Because also to point out, you know, in the West, if you talk about these things, there

00:43:22.340 are positive connotations of that, and people will sort of build on it.

00:43:24.840 Now, in the political sense, and this is something I have been harping on about, really, is that,

00:43:30.020 you know, a lot of people will be fighting the last revolution, of course, and looking

00:43:32.660 at 1979 as the model for anything going forward.

00:43:35.840 I've said that actually, what people really need to look at is 1906.

00:43:39.500 And 1906 was Iran's constitutional revolution, which set up, you know, basically a parliamentary

00:43:44.540 system on the British model.

00:43:46.140 Okay.

00:43:46.280 And it, you know, obviously it didn't work in the long term, but it set the template.

00:43:51.840 And this is important.

00:43:52.620 It set a reference point for every subsequent political movement.

00:43:55.500 And even to this day, you know, younger people come up and they say, what happened to the

00:43:59.820 aspirations of that movement, of that revolution in 1906?

00:44:03.160 Why have we not promised, you know, why has that promise not been delivered?

00:44:06.560 And I think that's in some ways quite important.

00:44:08.420 I'm one of these people, I'm one of these historians, I have to say, who actually believes in the power

00:44:13.820 of ideas to change things.

00:44:15.720 And yes, it can take a long time for these ideas to seep in.

00:44:19.000 And yes, it can take, you know, it can have a troubled journey, if you can put it that way.

00:44:23.860 But the fact is, one of the things about the current movement is that, you know, 15 years

00:44:29.160 after probably the most systematic, you know, root and branch suppression that occurred in

00:44:33.500 Iran after the Green Movement in 2009, a whole new generation of Iranians have come up,

00:44:38.960 you know, many of them teenagers, by the way, expressing exactly the same,

00:44:43.820 views, in a way, of a pre, you know, of a previous generation and talking about rights.

00:44:48.940 You know, people say it's about the veil.

00:44:50.400 It's not about the veil.

00:44:51.720 It's about the right to choose.

00:44:54.060 If you want to wear the veil, wear it.

00:44:56.100 If you don't want to wear the veil, don't wear it.

00:44:57.960 But it's a fact that people in Iran, men, women, Baha'is, religious minorities of other

00:45:03.340 sorts, whatever you want to talk about, ethnic minorities, have rights that protect them,

00:45:08.360 you know, and have civil and human rights.

00:45:10.400 And these are very, very fundamental ideas, you know, that come, you know, I think have

00:45:17.260 been best achieved in a way and expressed in the Western context, but certainly have

00:45:21.840 deep, deep roots in many different cultures and were expressed very clearly, you know,

00:45:27.380 100 years ago.

00:45:28.200 And the fact that they were expressed very clearly 100 years ago in Iran shows that they

00:45:31.180 have deep, you know, they have deep roots and it's difficult to eliminate that.

00:45:36.420 Successive regimes have not been able to get rid of it and people have aspired to it.

00:45:39.420 So I, you know, while I think that the road ahead is going to be a difficult one, I'm

00:45:46.400 encouraged by the fact that there is this sort of set, there is this political awareness

00:45:51.060 among this new generation of Iranians, which is very impressive.

00:45:55.060 And they've sort of learned in a sense from the legacy of the past, which is the torch has

00:45:59.360 been handed on and it's not going to go anywhere.

00:46:01.560 So, you know, ultimately, I think, you know, there is an opportunity, but the key really

00:46:06.500 for the West is not to look a gift horse in the mouth.

00:46:09.880 I mean, the West has a terrible, terrible reputation for dropping the ball, you know,

00:46:14.200 on almost every occasion.

00:46:16.020 So if, for instance, you know, Iran does move towards a secular system of government and a

00:46:22.080 democratic settlement, I should say, that suits its own indigenous sort of culture.

00:46:25.620 I don't want to, you know, prescribe anything for them, whatever, in that sense, but let's

00:46:30.320 say a secular republic of some sort.

00:46:32.860 I think it will be transformative in the region, in terms of Iran's relations with the West,

00:46:38.440 in Iran's international standing.

00:46:40.860 And this is something that the West, at the very least, should not obstruct.

00:46:46.800 I put the bar very low there, by the way.

00:46:49.100 But, you know, even if we're not saying encourage, and I think it should encourage it, but what

00:46:56.240 it shouldn't do is obstruct it.

00:46:58.240 And, you know, there are strong parallels here, again, with the Ukrainian situation, where

00:47:02.800 we found, if you remember, right at the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine, a number of European

00:47:07.540 countries, very cynical, very sceptical.

00:47:09.740 Do we really want to get into this?

00:47:11.260 Can't the Russians just get this done quickly?

00:47:13.800 Can we just move on?

00:47:15.300 And so on and so forth.

00:47:16.300 Um, again, what I say to people about the current protests in Iran is we don't know,

00:47:21.780 I don't know where it's going to go.

00:47:23.040 I mean, anyone who says they can predict it, you know, nonsense, but I wouldn't dismiss

00:47:27.280 it so quickly either.

00:47:28.640 I mean, that's, that's the key.

00:47:30.460 Don't be so quick to dismiss it.

00:47:32.000 These people are showing enormous courage.

00:47:34.320 And, you know, I think they should be, you know, respected for that.

00:47:38.100 And they should be given the space, in a sense, to try and achieve those aims that, you

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00:48:48.440 Ali, has this provoked a backlash against the religion of Islam?

00:48:53.940 Because people associate the religion with this very oppressive regime, morality police, etc.

00:49:00.700 Or do people just see this as an example of where, you know, Islam gone wrong, to put it mildly?

00:49:07.960 I think there's both, to be honest.

00:49:09.840 Now, you know, people want to be very careful about it.

00:49:11.720 But, you know, I always say that, look, you know, the secularism that Iranians are aspiring to

00:49:17.220 is very much, you know, what we would identify as an Anglo-American secularism,

00:49:21.540 rather than the French model, you know, in that sense of laicism, if I can put it that way.

00:49:25.680 There's not, you know, Iranians are always, I, in my view, will always have a tendency

00:49:29.680 towards a spirituality and have a sort of religious belief.

00:49:32.760 What they don't want, however, is the government to be involved in religion,

00:49:35.800 and they don't want the government to be shoving religion, you know, right down their throats.

00:49:39.700 And, you know, there are arguments that basically, you know, in two ways, you know,

00:49:44.740 yes, we have these clerics, we're a centre of Shiaism, in a sense, as we said at the beginning

00:49:48.860 of the podcast, but, you know, very much like what the Italians did to Catholicism, you know,

00:49:53.780 we ought to build a wall around the religious cities, they can do whatever they want in the

00:49:57.520 Vatican in Iraq, you know, whatever, but they shouldn't come out.

00:50:00.740 The other side of it, of course, is, goes to the heart again, of what you were saying there,

00:50:04.200 that, you know, when the revolution started, people would say that what we need to do is

00:50:10.540 we need to bring religion and politics together, we don't want to divide religion and politics,

00:50:14.360 because religion will make politics ethical.

00:50:17.640 And, of course, many clerics at the time even said, that's not what's going to happen.

00:50:21.260 What's going to happen is we're going to make religion political, and we're going to ruin it.

00:50:25.560 And that's basically what's happened, you know, so basically, you know, so what they say is,

00:50:29.240 you know, I mean, they used to say, I don't know if it's a very good analogy anymore,

00:50:32.040 but they used to say, you know, look at the Americans, they have lots of religion,

00:50:34.440 it's a secular republic, but they have lots of religion.

00:50:37.040 I'm not sure that's the best comparison to make these days.

00:50:39.220 But nonetheless, you know, that's the point.

00:50:42.500 The point is, if you take politics out of religion, religion can flourish,

00:50:45.640 and it can flourish in its purest form, right?

00:50:49.280 I have to say, though, you know, going back to what you were saying,

00:50:52.480 I think there's a lot of young people who are just completely fed up with religion, full stop.

00:50:57.880 Now, what have they done?

00:50:59.340 In the 20 years ago, I used to talk to Iranians, young Iranians,

00:51:02.740 and they were turning towards Christianity, for instance, they just didn't like,

00:51:05.640 they said, Islam is just, they would say to me, actually, they said, it's a religion of death.

00:51:09.820 They said, you know, all we do is celebrate martyrs, you know.

00:51:13.620 Of course, you know, Christianity is obviously built on the concept of martyrdom, of course.

00:51:17.240 So, you know, but they seem to at least to say it had a, you know, there was hope built in that.

00:51:22.920 But then also a lot of Iranians have turned to various, how should we say, you know,

00:51:28.180 what I call Zoroastrianism with house rules, if I can put it that way.

00:51:31.840 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.

00:51:38.020 And, you know, they will pursue religious beliefs that suit them.

00:51:44.080 But they definitely have a certain, I think now the younger generation certainly have a deep antipathy towards what we would call organized religion.

00:51:52.400 And in this case, obviously, Islam and Iran.

00:51:55.020 It will take a long time for the religion itself to re-establish itself, if I can put it that way,

00:52:01.640 as something credible among the young, certainly.

00:52:07.180 And we constantly talk about the young people.

00:52:09.640 And it's obviously, it's always the young who engage in revolutions and have this change.

00:52:16.900 But what effect and what influence has the internet played upon these young people?

00:52:21.500 Are they looking at apps like Instagram and TikTok and seeing how we live in the West and going,

00:52:26.560 hang on a second, this person's allowed to dress like this.

00:52:29.760 This person is allowed to earn money.

00:52:31.500 This woman is allowed to live the life that she wants.

00:52:35.020 Why am I not allowed that?

00:52:37.000 I think that's absolutely right.

00:52:38.060 I mean, I think, you know, one of the reasons I say to people,

00:52:41.300 we need to be very careful about how we analyze the current situation

00:52:45.480 is because we're operating in a very different environment.

00:52:48.540 And that environment is dictated by social media and the internet

00:52:52.580 and means of communication that our ancestors, even our very recent forebears,

00:52:57.560 would not have been familiar with.

00:52:59.680 Technology has always played a very pivotal role in Iranian political movements,

00:53:02.660 from the foundation of the telegraph through, obviously, to the radio and, you know,

00:53:07.200 the cassettes and this sort of thing, and then obviously satellite.

00:53:09.960 But this is something else.

00:53:11.300 And I think you're right about this.

00:53:12.940 It's very difficult.

00:53:14.040 You know, the Iranians, the Iranian young people are particularly tech savvy.

00:53:17.820 They understand the connectivity.

00:53:20.040 They are connected, by the way.

00:53:21.460 And you're quite right.

00:53:22.520 You know, they are connected with the outside world.

00:53:24.320 They do see things.

00:53:25.540 But more than that, they see the internet.

00:53:28.340 And social media is a tool of organization.

00:53:31.320 I mean, that's been quite interesting.

00:53:33.760 And we don't see this thing.

00:53:35.140 Obviously, we don't see this thing, because, you know, in a sense,

00:53:38.160 as I say to people, if we can see it, then surely the government can see it.

00:53:41.160 So, you know, the idea is a lot of this is below the radar.

00:53:44.460 But there is, as I understand it, an enormous amount going on

00:53:47.580 in what we could call, you know, parts of the web that are hidden in some ways,

00:53:55.360 because they're there to protect themselves.

00:53:56.920 And it is a constant battle, obviously, in Iran.

00:53:59.460 I mean, the government is trying to close off avenues.

00:54:03.100 Young people are opening up other ones.

00:54:04.940 You know, it's a running battle.

00:54:06.960 And I think one of the most important things the West can do, actually,

00:54:09.540 in this is to ensure that the internet stays in some way or form open.

00:54:12.780 You know, I don't know whether the Starlink, you know,

00:54:16.460 that Musk was talking about, whether that's functioning or not, whatever.

00:54:18.820 But, you know, we have to maintain channels of communication,

00:54:22.060 because that's the way they organize.

00:54:23.560 That's the way they mobilize.

00:54:24.620 And I think it's been highly effective.

00:54:27.980 And Ali, very much on that point, one of the – I mean, it's not a criticism,

00:54:31.580 because, you know, criticizing them.

00:54:33.500 But one of the concerns about how likely the protesters are to succeed

00:54:37.480 in achieving their aims is that they don't have an identifiable leader.

00:54:44.080 There's no organizational structure.

00:54:45.940 So even if they were able to somehow force the current regime out,

00:54:51.620 what does it get replaced with?

00:54:53.260 There's a lot of concern that, A, they wouldn't be very successful

00:54:56.780 because they don't have an organized structure and some kind of leadership.

00:55:01.840 And, B, if they were to succeed, you know, do you get some kind of mess afterwards

00:55:06.360 and then you end up with the army taking over or something of that nature?

00:55:12.140 I mean, these are distinct possibilities.

00:55:14.420 I mean, let's not have any illusions about it.

00:55:17.220 But where I would dispute with those that get very obsessed with the absence of leadership

00:55:21.920 is that, again, we're refighting 1979 rather than sort of looking at broader political movements in Iran.

00:55:27.520 1906 had no single leader, you know, had many different leaders,

00:55:32.400 many coming from what we would call a middling level, not even, you know, a high level.

00:55:37.160 Now, of course, you know, senior clerics at times have come out and support,

00:55:40.660 but often this occurred later rather than earlier in anything.

00:55:44.220 And you're already seeing these sort of things in Iran, by the way.

00:55:46.540 So, you know, again, if I think in due course,

00:55:51.400 I think you're absolutely right to say that there will need to be a greater sharpening,

00:55:56.900 in a sense, of the organisation, the leadership.

00:56:01.000 It could be many, a few leaders, by the way.

00:56:03.020 It doesn't have to be a single leader.

00:56:05.520 But that would have to come.

00:56:07.100 We're, what, 10 weeks, 11 weeks into a protest cycle at the moment.

00:56:12.140 I'm entirely prepared, you know, to see that it would subside and then re-emerge.

00:56:16.560 You know, these things, if you go back and look at the period in 1979,

00:56:19.560 78, I should say, if you look at the period in 1906,

00:56:23.180 there were lulls as well as sort of, you know, increases in tempo and activity.

00:56:29.720 And these things happen in stages.

00:56:31.580 So I do say to people, we ought to be a little bit more cautious about the fact that saying,

00:56:35.380 oh, well, there's no clear leader there.

00:56:38.260 There are no shortage of people who can play the role of leader in Iran, by the way.

00:56:42.140 I mean, there are no shortage of them.

00:56:43.460 They're very bright, interesting people there.

00:56:45.940 And I'm sure, you know, beneath the radar, a lot of them are operating.

00:56:50.860 If you look at the way in which the government has set out, sent out snatch squads to pick

00:56:55.460 off people on the streets, it's a clear indication that they understand there are street organizers

00:57:00.440 going on.

00:57:01.020 They may not be in the sort of category of leader that, you know, people sort of assume

00:57:05.320 with Ayatollah Khomeini.

00:57:07.180 But as I remind people, even in 1978, you know, not everyone saw Ayatollah Khomeini as the

00:57:11.920 primary leader.

00:57:12.560 I mean, it took him a while to consolidate his position.

00:57:15.460 People rallied around him, certainly, because they saw him as a potential figurehead.

00:57:19.080 But not everyone saw him as the leader of the revolution.

00:57:21.840 I mean, that's something that came later.

00:57:23.920 And I wanted to ask you something perhaps slightly unrelated and maybe even not in terms

00:57:29.820 of your core area of expertise.

00:57:31.340 So feel free to pass on it if you want.

00:57:32.980 But I'm serious.

00:57:33.660 Because in light of the World Cup currently happening in Qatar and our attitudes to the

00:57:42.140 way migrant workers are treated, the way gay people are treated, women and so on, there's

00:57:47.580 obviously a big debate.

00:57:48.840 And I'm still trying to chart a path for myself, how I feel about it.

00:57:52.520 Because on the one hand, the moral relativism of, oh, yeah, you know, it's just their culture.

00:57:57.800 Let them throw people off roofs and whatever.

00:57:59.880 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:58:00.860 That, I find that apparent.

00:58:02.980 On the other hand, do I feel that we in Britain should decide how every country in the world

00:58:08.300 sets its laws and treats different groups?

00:58:11.900 And, you know, again, it seems almost colonial to some extent or imperialistic to go in and

00:58:17.040 say, well, you must allow this to happen or you mustn't allow this to be going on.

00:58:21.240 So how do we navigate that, Ali, when we're dealing with cultures?

00:58:26.820 You know, these are ancient cultures with their own ways of doing things that I think

00:58:31.180 ought to be respected as well.

00:58:32.480 So how do we navigate this?

00:58:35.140 Well, I mean, the interesting thing is to root it in that historical tradition.

00:58:38.300 And you're absolutely right.

00:58:39.440 But if you look at Iranians today, as I said, two things.

00:58:43.580 One is obviously these demands that they have are rooted in political movements going back

00:58:47.300 to the 19th century, but they're also rooted in their own, what I consider to be a deep

00:58:51.460 humanism that actually transcends a lot of Iranian or Persian culture through the centuries.

00:58:56.540 You know, this idea that, you know, let's just take the case of drinking, you know, alcohol.

00:59:01.360 Are we really assuming that in Iranian culture or Persian culture nobody drank?

00:59:05.500 I mean, you know, over thousands of years, people have been drinking wine.

00:59:08.780 If you look at the role even of women, if you look at, yes, there are traditional aspects,

00:59:15.620 but it's also, you know, what you're seeing in, you know, one of the great sort of myths,

00:59:20.020 I think, of the Islamic revolution is that somehow they went back to the older order.

00:59:23.640 No, in some ways, these are very radical new interpretations.

00:59:26.860 It's a bit like, you know, do you remember when the Taliban blew up the Buddhas at Barmian

00:59:31.060 and people said, are they being authentically Islamic?

00:59:33.800 And someone said, well, what did the original Muslim invaders think?

00:59:36.140 I mean, you know, I mean, the fact is what they were doing was being even more radical

00:59:40.160 than the original Muslims.

00:59:42.100 Do you see what I mean?

00:59:42.760 I mean, and this is also a question mark that's happened in Iran now.

00:59:46.180 So the Islamic revolution, sorry to interrupt, just to simplify this.

00:59:50.460 So the Islamic revolution isn't Iran going back to its cultural heritage of thousands of years.

00:59:56.980 It is, in fact, a radical departure from those towards a much more authoritarian, ultra-conservative Islam.

01:00:04.700 I mean, I think, I think absolutely.

01:00:07.600 I mean, I don't, you know, there is obviously a tradition of autocracy in Iranian, you know, history.

01:00:11.780 Of course there is.

01:00:12.340 But, you know, democracy and fairly modern inventions in that sense or developments in terms of the last couple of hundred years.

01:00:18.980 But certainly, even if you look at the Iranian idea, if you look at the ideology of the Iranian revolution,

01:00:24.900 they even say in there, they say, we are going to implement Islam as it should have been implemented.

01:00:30.260 Do you see what I mean?

01:00:30.820 So they say nobody else has done it.

01:00:33.420 We are the first to do it.

01:00:34.820 So in a sense, you know, it's a hugely hubristic position to take, you know, that thousands of years, nobody understood it.

01:00:39.820 But we're going to do it.

01:00:41.200 Islam has never been done properly, Ali.

01:00:43.740 Exactly.

01:00:44.380 Exactly.

01:00:45.020 And that's what they say.

01:00:45.900 Do you see what I mean?

01:00:46.460 So they say, you know, what we're going to.

01:00:48.520 So what I would say is you can easily look at it and say, actually, this is a radical departure.

01:00:53.040 Yeah.

01:00:54.520 And if you look at even, you know, when I was working heavily in the reform movement and others in the 1990s and early noughties,

01:01:03.420 because of Shiism is interesting in this regard, because it relies on the principle of continuous interpretation of the scripture.

01:01:09.960 OK, that's why you have these mullahs and clerics and jurists and others.

01:01:13.800 They're constantly looking at the scripture and reinterpreting it for the time.

01:01:16.780 And of course, people would say then that 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.

01:01:24.600 That, you know, we need to interpret these things in light of, you know, how society moves along.

01:01:29.920 So there was an interest in that.

01:01:30.940 What the regime has done is basically actually is in some ways actually extremely un-Islamic.

01:01:36.280 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.

01:01:45.160 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.

01:01:54.060 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.

01:02:06.900 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,

01:02:16.660 the thing you need to understand, Francis, about Iranian culture is there is this kind of counterculture that has always existed within Iran.

01:02:23.320 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.

01:02:33.500 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.

01:02:39.220 And then after the revolution, we, you know, prayed outdoors and drank indoors.

01:02:43.420 I mean, it's that, you know, there is a sort of a cosmopolitan iconoclastic tradition, certainly in Iran.

01:02:52.100 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.

01:03:09.880 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.

01:03:19.000 So then it becomes incredibly difficult.

01:03:20.580 And it is this point, you know, what I say to people is I say, you know, why are people annoyed?

01:03:26.660 Why are people angry?

01:03:28.100 It's because, you know, basically you have closed off every opportunity for them to have a bit of fun, to be able to live their lives.

01:03:39.080 You're suffocating the life out of them.

01:03:41.600 And of course, people are going to react.

01:03:42.940 And also, I have to say, you know, the memory of the last revolution is now fading.

01:03:47.720 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.

01:03:52.340 Now, the new younger generation obviously have no memory of the revolution in 1979 and therefore are less fearful, if I can put it that one.

01:03:59.400 And Ali, is the reason that the regime has become more autocratic, is it just simply religious doctrine?

01:04:05.920 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?

01:04:13.820 I think it's just hubris, actually.

01:04:15.820 I think power corrupts and, you know, absolute power corrupts, absolutely.

01:04:19.380 And they're complacent in power and they think they can just push the limits further and further and further.

01:04:24.660 So I think, you know, there is a deep ideological strand within, you know, the hard line establishment about where they want to go.

01:04:31.440 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.

01:04:39.440 So I think that's, it's just an ideological project.

01:04:45.080 Well, Ali, it's been an absolutely fantastic interview and thank you for this incredible insight into something that we understand.

01:04:52.000 As you can imagine, we could probably go on for hours, but I don't think either you or your listeners would want to.

01:04:58.800 No, I actually disagree.

01:05:00.240 I think our listeners would have found this to be very interesting.

01:05:02.840 And history is actually one of the most popular subjects on trigonometry.

01:05:06.840 We love having your story.

01:05:07.740 Oh, good.

01:05:08.140 Yeah.

01:05:08.680 We'd perhaps love to get you on another time.

01:05:11.480 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?

01:05:19.320 And that's a complete free hit.

01:05:20.480 It doesn't have to be related to Iran, even.

01:05:22.680 Well, you know, what are we, God, you know, and since you already warned me about this in some ways, but I have to say, I can't think of anything at the moment that I, that I, I mean, the one thing I would say is, and this is completely detached from what I've said.

01:05:37.940 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.

01:05:54.020 I don't know if I should say that.

01:05:55.280 Let's find out.

01:05:55.740 So what I was saying is that, you know, one of the, one of the problems I found really is, is, is the, the advance of the digital age and our inability really to have regulated, moderated, curated, actually, our digital archives in the sense I, you know, one, there was a wonderful piece that one historian put out.

01:06:15.380 And they said our failure to actually deal with digital archives means that in some ways we're entering a new dark age and a dark age, because future historians are going to have this blind spot in their archive resources, because many people have failed, in a sense, to properly curate their digital archives.

01:06:30.480 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, there'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.

01:06:47.300 So I'm going to throw that out there. I know what people are going to make of it. But I, 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, it's, it's, it's going to be quite interesting for the next generation, how they deal with recent history.

01:07:03.040 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, Ali Ansari, tell everybody where they can follow your work, if they wish to.

01:07:15.320 They can, they can follow me on, they can follow me on Twitter, if they wish. But also just to keep an eye on, on, in St. Andrews, actually on the St. Andrews website, they can see stuff there. And I'm, I'm, I obviously do a few things on, on, on media and others. So that's, yeah, that's it.

01:07:30.740 Yeah, I enjoyed the conversation you had with a couple of our former guests recently, Nigel Biggar.

01:07:35.740 Ah, yes, yes.

01:07:36.520 So I'd recommend people check that out.

01:07:38.040 I have to go and watch that.

01:07:39.840 You should. It's good. But for now, thank you so much for joining us.

01:07:43.540 And thank you guys for watching and listening.

01:07:46.700 We will see you very soon with another brilliant episode like this one, or, or show, all of which go out at 7pm UK time.

01:07:53.000 And for those of you who like your trigonometry on the go, it is also available as a podcast.

01:07:58.480 Take care and see you soon, guys.

01:08:00.320 See you on Locals.

01:08:01.040 What would you say is the likelihood that you're going to see a dramatically new system of government?

01:08:08.300 Have a question.

01:08:09.240 Take care and see you soon.

01:08:11.260 Hi, come on.

01:08:11.620 Bye.

01:08:12.120 Bye.

01:08:12.840 Bye.

01:08:13.380 Bye.

01:08:14.120 Bye.

01:08:14.720 Bye.

01:08:15.160 Bye.

01:08:23.020 Bye.

TRIGGERnometry - December 01, 2022

Iranian Historian Breaks Down Iran Protests - Prof Ali Ansari

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