TRIGGERnometry - “We Need Regime Change”

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00:00:52.200 There were so many videos, there were so many just of this sort of like universal voice that

00:01:01.560 was saying we need help. We cannot fight this alone. These people are killing us with military

00:01:07.060 grade weapons. I'm worried that the administration and others have called for people to rise up

00:01:15.460 only for them to be killed for nothing.

00:01:20.000 I think everybody understands and anticipates

00:01:22.280 that they very well might not come home.

00:01:25.080 But what else do you do?

00:01:27.300 The war is one step.

00:01:28.780 The uprisings, possibly armed uprisings, is another,

00:01:32.060 and defections is the other.

00:01:33.140 And I think that those two things, if they're neglected,

00:01:35.360 we're not going to have the regime change.

00:01:36.640 And I think ultimately, this is the time to do it.

00:01:39.600 The worst-case scenario is that the war ends

00:01:42.280 and the regime remains in power.

00:01:43.760 would have been better that there was no war at all.

00:01:48.120 Elika, welcome back to the show.

00:01:49.620 Thank you for having me.

00:01:50.860 Every time we put out an episode

00:01:52.580 where the guest is somewhat critical of the war in Iran,

00:01:56.460 all the comments are like,

00:01:57.740 you need to speak to an Iranian.

00:01:59.620 So here you are for diversity purposes.

00:02:03.040 Diversity, oh my gosh.

00:02:04.300 Or maybe authority.

00:02:05.640 Author, okay.

00:02:08.000 Don't hit me with the diversity.

00:02:10.620 She's here for authority, guys.

00:02:12.340 It's going to be an interesting one.

00:02:13.760 All right. So welcome back. Obviously, the subject is a serious one, even though we're

00:02:17.880 joking around. Tell us, you know, what your take is on everything that's been going on.

00:02:24.620 I think my take is, you know, it's a very long take because this is something that has really

00:02:30.340 built up, built up until the moment that we are right now. Obviously, if you were following what

00:02:35.260 was happening in Iran around January, where we had this massacre on January 8th and 9th,

00:02:41.020 where it's estimated, well, these numbers, you know,

00:02:44.020 people want to war over these numbers,

00:02:46.240 but the numbers that came back from the hospitals

00:02:48.160 was about 36,000.

00:02:50.160 And that was just each hospital in every city

00:02:53.040 listing how many casualties they had.

00:02:55.100 And that's not including the people

00:02:57.460 who were just executed on the streets

00:02:59.000 and who never made it to the hospitals.

00:03:00.800 So suffice it to say that we're talking about tens of thousands.

00:03:04.560 At that point, from my perspective

00:03:07.440 and from the perspective of people inside Iran,

00:03:10.140 we are always sort of hedging towards what's going on in there

00:03:15.600 and what do they need from us, right?

00:03:17.300 Because that's the only role we play.

00:03:18.860 They don't have internet.

00:03:19.700 They can't communicate with the outside world.

00:03:21.280 So we want to know, well, what is it that you want?

00:03:23.420 So through that period of time, there were so many messages.

00:03:26.600 There were so many videos.

00:03:28.160 There were so many just of this sort of like universal voice

00:03:31.480 that was saying, we need help.

00:03:33.600 We need help.

00:03:34.640 We cannot fight this alone.

00:03:36.560 These people are killing us with military-grade weapons.

00:03:39.600 How do you defeat military-grade weapons? And so that was the call for help. Now,

00:03:46.480 where things get tricky is that, okay, so then you have the US and Israel coming into this picture,

00:03:52.340 and people sort of give this sort of condescending attitude of, oh, you think that these people are

00:03:59.040 just here to save you and save your country? Well, none of us ever said that, right? None of us ever

00:04:04.440 believed that any nation was acting anything but in their own interest. And it really,

00:04:09.560 that is the way that things are. Everybody understands that nations act in their own

00:04:13.200 interests. But because of this backdrop of since October 7th, this radical anti-Zionism,

00:04:21.480 anti-Israel, anti-anti-anti-anti-Western, which stems back to Soviet infiltration, right? We've

00:04:27.040 had that conversation, I think. It came to a point now where this war, which was supposed to be seen

00:04:33.740 through our eyes as a rescue mission, perhaps through the US and Israel's eyes as, you know,

00:04:40.000 decapitation of an enemy, whatever, has now turned into something where people are being

00:04:45.400 almost radicalized in support of the regime. And so it's getting really dark.

00:04:52.480 Well, I think there's probably some people are being radicalized in support of the regime,

00:04:55.940 but there's also, I mean, cards on the table. Francis and I recorded a conversation. We'll go

00:05:02.740 out a couple of days from now, from when this goes out, where we are basically saying it doesn't

00:05:09.260 look to us like any of the objectives any of us might have wanted to be achieved, i.e. Iran doesn't

00:05:16.420 get nuclear weapons, i.e. the protesters who you are talking about get justice or have a regime

00:05:24.420 that replaces the current regime that doesn't treat them the way that regime change. I don't

00:05:30.180 think that's going to happen. It's clearly not happening at the moment. And there's a possibility

00:05:34.040 of a global recession. So you can also be concerned about what's happening without being radicalized

00:05:41.020 in support of the regime. Well, yeah, of course, those are two completely different things. There's

00:05:45.180 obviously, you know, a well-meaning sort of skepticism about what are the objectives of this

00:05:50.980 war? And when do we know if those objectives have been achieved? I think one of the main issues

00:05:55.340 that's sort of, and it's something that I can't even get my head around, is that I don't think

00:06:00.540 that there's ever been a time where war by itself would effectuate regime change. There are other

00:06:04.800 things that need to sort of unite, like, for example, uprisings, defections within the ranks.

00:06:11.320 And the person that has mostly, largely been responsible for that is the crown prince,

00:06:17.540 Reza Pahlavi. So when he called people out into the streets in January, they went out in their

00:06:21.700 millions. When the internet got shut down, his views went down in the millions. So there was

00:06:26.500 a strong evidence that there was a strong connection there. And so I think where this

00:06:31.160 war has gone, sort of been negligent is in not pulling in the other actors that would effectuate

00:06:38.720 regime change, right? Also Reza Pahlavi, I think there's, I can't say the numbers for sure, but I

00:06:43.980 I think there's like 150,000 people within the ranks

00:06:48.520 that are looking to defect to him.

00:06:51.860 And so-

00:06:52.640 What are you basing that on?

00:06:54.120 How do we know that?

00:06:55.200 His team says that.

00:06:59.040 How do we know?

00:07:01.580 I mean, I can only tell you what his team says,

00:07:04.880 but what I can tell you is that-

00:07:06.200 But do you see what I'm getting at, right?

00:07:07.420 But we have enough evidence of his support, right?

00:07:10.340 We have enough evidence of the people

00:07:11.780 chanting his name in the streets.

00:07:13.040 We have enough evidence of millions of people coming out when he called them to come out.

00:07:17.320 So that's good enough that we know that there are a ton load of people inside of Iran who support him.

00:07:23.200 But either way, it's not about, this isn't making a case about who supports him, who doesn't.

00:07:28.120 It's making a case that why aren't we taking the necessary steps towards regime change?

00:07:32.900 It's not going to be just the war in isolation.

00:07:35.400 It's going to be the war does what the war needs to do.

00:07:37.840 Then Reza Pahlavi calls the people into the streets.

00:07:40.420 The regime is significantly weakened.

00:07:41.980 there's been defection within the ranks and then the regime falls. So I think it's almost like

00:07:46.800 we're doing step one. But if we're not going to do step two and three, then what's the point?

00:07:50.860 I mean, that's a fair point. And when we interviewed Ted Cruz, he talked about arming

00:07:54.180 the protesters. But I'll be honest with you, Elika, you know, I feel about the war in Ukraine

00:08:00.100 very much the way you feel about Iran. It's personal to me. I have family involved and

00:08:03.620 whatever. But I have never called for people in Russia to rise up against Vladimir Putin,

00:08:08.700 because I always knew that if they did that,

00:08:10.780 that they'd just get slaughtered

00:08:11.860 and nothing good would come of it.

00:08:14.020 And I was on Diary of a CO a couple of months back

00:08:17.660 and when this whole conversation about Iran was starting,

00:08:20.640 I think the protests were just happening.

00:08:23.460 And I was kind of saying at the time,

00:08:25.720 I'm really not certain that calling people into the streets

00:08:29.220 is going to create a positive outcome here.

00:08:31.860 And I'm worried that that,

00:08:33.400 I mean, the way things are going now,

00:08:35.780 I don't see this working.

00:08:38.700 Well, I mean, it really speaks to the brutality of the regime, right? It's because, like, when you think about 1979, when there were these uprisings in Iran, and the Shah just, he left because he was like, I don't want this type of bloodshed of what it would take to sustain this regime, right?

00:08:53.660 And so now, that is the situation. This regime is so brutal that there really is no lengths,

00:08:59.920 no ends that it would go to to not suppress the uprisings. But at the same time, it's like,

00:09:05.080 they're going to die anyway, right? So that's the way that they look at it. They look at it

00:09:08.880 like they have nothing left to live for. Everybody in Iran has been affected by this regime now.

00:09:13.100 Somebody's parents has been hanged. Somebody's children have been shot. You know, this isn't a

00:09:18.820 life for anybody. So when you tell people at that point, you know, to go into the streets to fight

00:09:23.840 for their freedom at that point, it's like what they might as well die fighting. That's the way

00:09:28.500 that they see it. I think everybody understands and anticipates that they very well might not

00:09:33.180 come home, but what else do you do? And then the only other option is, is outside help. And now

00:09:39.260 outside help is like the worst thing that you could possibly do because it's American imperialism

00:09:44.640 and Israel's plan for greater Israel or greater Iran or whatever the hell it is.

00:09:49.660 So it's like we're fighting a battle on so many fronts and it's just, it's impossible.

00:09:56.320 Well, it's kind of what I'm saying.

00:09:58.120 I'm not sure that this can get solved the way that people want

00:10:01.500 and therefore encouraging more people to rise up against the regime.

00:10:05.580 I take a point, look, if I was living in an authoritarian country

00:10:08.500 and I felt the regime was evil, I'd rise up against it.

00:10:10.700 And look, it'd be up to me, do I get killed or not, whatever.

00:10:12.960 But from outside, I'm worried that the administration and others have called for people to rise up only for them to be killed for nothing.

00:10:26.940 But I think that they're killed for nothing if everything isn't locked in place, right?

00:10:32.980 I think if you have the war, which is, you know, decapitating the regime, if you have protesters who are coordinated in rising up,

00:10:41.000 if they are armed, if there are defections.

00:10:44.880 Because that point of defection almost always happens

00:10:48.040 where it seems that the instability is at a tipping point,

00:10:51.300 that it could go one way or the other.

00:10:52.760 And then there's personal stakes.

00:10:54.340 There's personal stakes where it's like,

00:10:56.180 OK, this is going this way, so I'm going to...

00:10:58.300 How it's always been with regime change, right?

00:11:00.540 And we even saw with Syria, like, it was 11 days.

00:11:03.500 Nobody could have... Everybody said,

00:11:04.620 oh, this brutal regime, decades-long Assad regime,

00:11:07.260 there's no way that this is coming down.

00:11:09.400 But somehow it did.

00:11:10.580 And I think the mistake...

00:11:11.880 Well, after a brutal civil war that lasted God knows how long

00:11:15.600 and killed hundreds of thousands of people.

00:11:17.760 Do we want that for a run?

00:11:19.020 No, but when it came down, it was in 11 days.

00:11:22.300 But you had to have the civil war first.

00:11:24.400 Yeah.

00:11:25.160 I mean, we've basically had the worst of it,

00:11:30.360 as far as I'm concerned.

00:11:31.400 I just think what doesn't make sense is to half-ass these things.

00:11:36.020 That's what I think doesn't make sense.

00:11:37.400 I don't think it makes sense to have a war

00:11:39.480 and to not be sort of collaborating with people like Reza Pahlavi

00:11:43.820 or, you know, collaborating in ways that can help make the protests successful.

00:11:50.100 Maybe if it involves arming, I don't know, something that involves defection.

00:11:54.360 I just think that this needs to be covered in a much more broad way for it to work.

00:12:02.460 And also, look, nobody's ever really been honest about what it takes

00:12:06.340 to turn a country that is authoritarian

00:12:08.600 to a country which is a liberal Western-style democracy.

00:12:12.980 For example, take Venezuela.

00:12:15.220 My family have been involved in protests

00:12:17.380 time and time and time again,

00:12:19.380 going out on the streets, demonstrating.

00:12:22.340 But what we have in Venezuela

00:12:23.900 is something called the colectivos,

00:12:25.340 and they're essentially Chavices

00:12:27.020 or the regime's armed thugs, and they suppress.

00:12:30.960 In order for you to gain freedom,

00:12:33.520 you need to get rid of all the colectivos

00:12:35.860 in the Iranian case, it's the IRGC.

00:12:38.640 And I think what this really speaks to is how much ideology can really destroy nations,

00:12:44.980 right? So you talk about socialist dictatorships, Islamist dictatorships. In either case, these are

00:12:51.200 people who are convinced to the death of them that their ideology is the right ideology,

00:12:55.560 even in the face of contradictory evidence, right? With socialism, I mean, it's the worst

00:13:00.860 ideology in human history, basically the deadliest ideology in human history. And you see that these

00:13:05.780 people are so totalized in their worldview that they are willing to live and die to maintain that

00:13:11.920 system. The same with Islamism, right? I think, to push back on what you're saying, Elika, I think

00:13:16.860 Islamism is actually far worse. I take what happened in Venezuela with Delci Rodriguez.

00:13:21.520 Now, people talk about regime change, but Delci was an integral part of Maduro's government.

00:13:27.280 But, you know, when you talk about socialism and all the rest of it, she's not that ideological

00:13:32.320 because she was happy to kick him to the curb

00:13:34.220 and become leader herself

00:13:35.300 because what she's really interested in

00:13:37.240 is power and status and the money.

00:13:40.460 Whereas you look at, you know,

00:13:42.100 some of the lads in charge of Iran,

00:13:44.940 you know, they're pretty...

00:13:47.480 They really believe.

00:13:48.280 You know, they're true believers.

00:13:50.840 They are true believers.

00:13:52.480 Yeah.

00:13:52.980 They are true believers and that's why,

00:13:54.780 that's why, and it really to me speaks to how much,

00:13:59.140 and I guess this is why I have such a hard time now

00:14:01.800 in the world that we're in, where radicalization is happening, because it's like,

00:14:05.820 I know the story of the other end of that so well, right? Once that radicalization is entrenched,

00:14:10.780 you can't convince, you can't push back on them. There's nothing you can do, because in their minds,

00:14:16.100 they have this story, right? This is my fight. This is my fight, and God wants me to fight this

00:14:21.320 and to defeat the bad people, to bring the good things to the world. And it's like, you see what

00:14:25.980 you're bringing to the world. You see this is just death and destruction. Oh, but they're martyrs.

00:14:29.820 they're martyrs for a greater cause. There's always some way to spin it in your mind. And so

00:14:34.360 it's just, that's really what we're looking at. We're looking at an ideology that refuses to

00:14:39.160 leave Iran. And it's like, how do you kill an ideology? Well, if you look at history,

00:14:46.280 the only way of doing it, if you look at Japan or Germany is to essentially decimate the country,

00:14:52.000 bring it to its knees and then, and then have a process of de-radicalization like we did with

00:14:57.220 Germany. And that's why I'm worried about this conflict, Elika, because we're not going to do

00:15:01.540 that, right? And no one's advocating for that. And that means, you know, some of the conversations

00:15:07.280 we've had while we've been here, it's likely that you end up in a trap where you are not prepared

00:15:13.320 to do the actual thing that you need to do, because it's terrible. Like what we did to

00:15:18.380 Germany and Japan was awful. You don't want to do that to Iran. But that means you don't have

00:15:22.800 a way of achieving your objectives yeah you don't have a way of getting rid of the nuclear material

00:15:28.700 they've taken it they've dispersed it we don't know where it is you're not going to get it with

00:15:32.100 airstrikes uh and now also the other thing is they've got control over the you know a hell of

00:15:39.620 a lot of oil gas fertilizer helium etc and there are a lot of people are now saying actually they've

00:15:46.280 got all the trump cards i mean i don't know i feel like they've they've had all the cards for

00:15:53.400 the past 47 years i just wonder where this goes do you know what i mean like at some point this

00:15:57.440 regime has to fall but when is it why when it can't last forever why nothing lasts forever

00:16:02.900 okay sure even the british empire didn't last forever oh i'm very sad and and and that pretty

00:16:09.820 much owned the whole world but i you see what i'm saying though like it could last another 50 years

00:16:15.080 I think the way that these regimes typically end themselves is because, I mean, we just have to remember that these people aren't really exactly in their right minds. They're not reasonable people. And so when you think of like Hitler, for example, right? He was not reasonable. He was drunk on power. Eventually he was going to, he was killing the Jews and nobody really did anything. Nobody cared. Holocaust, whatever. Finally, when he invades Poland, people are like, oh, this is a real threat. And then so comes the war.

00:16:44.420 I think the thing about actors like this, like the regime,

00:16:48.960 is that they won't stop.

00:16:50.920 They won't stop with the October 7th and the massacres

00:16:55.060 and the sort of imperialism out into the Middle East

00:16:58.980 that draws these forever wars.

00:17:00.620 They won't stop.

00:17:01.880 And so my thing is that one of these days,

00:17:04.680 they're going to do something that's the last straw.

00:17:06.220 They've already done something that's the last straw,

00:17:08.360 according to the United States.

00:17:09.940 It's just that this last straw wasn't enough to go all the way.

00:17:13.760 I just don't see, I think the reason that this regime has to fall, like every bad faith regime

00:17:20.240 in history, is because it will eventually do something that invites the world wanting to attack

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00:18:55.820 at checkout. Look, that may very well be the case, but the problem is if you look at it at a

00:19:02.720 purely practical level. What we're doing and what we're talking about is simply not going to enact

00:19:07.960 regime change. It just isn't. And that is the unfortunate situation. A regime change can happen

00:19:14.040 now if the circumstances are right. And so the question is, why aren't we aligning the

00:19:18.740 circumstances to make it right? We have this window in time. We have this window in time

00:19:23.340 where we can get the Iranian people out into the streets, possibly on them, possibly go for,

00:19:29.400 You know, their precision strikes are so incredible.

00:19:31.960 Why can't they go for the weaponry that they're using on the protesters?

00:19:35.760 Because it's just assault rifles, I like that.

00:19:38.140 Well, can't they target that?

00:19:39.920 No.

00:19:40.360 They're targeting the booths.

00:19:41.840 They're literally, they're targeting the booths where they're doing the checks.

00:19:44.320 I know, but you're not going to take out every single AK-47 in Iran.

00:19:48.300 It's not going to happen.

00:19:49.580 And this is the thing.

00:19:50.540 It's like the IRGC are still going to have guns at the end of the day.

00:19:54.440 Yeah.

00:19:55.040 Well, maybe then it involves arming the protesters.

00:19:58.020 I don't know.

00:19:58.400 maybe involves arming the protesters, maybe involves more coordinated riots. You know,

00:20:03.580 the funny thing is that this is literally America's speciality. Every time it's done these

00:20:08.000 coups and things like that, even 1953, that was exactly what they did. They coordinated protesters,

00:20:14.520 they armed them. I actually don't know if they armed them, but they coordinated them. They made

00:20:18.520 it a serious thing. And it was from that tension, that regime change, Mossad, whatever. But they

00:20:25.460 know how to do that. I find it odd that there's no investment in that end of it, which is where

00:20:31.820 the regime change happens. I think it's very odd. There's a part of me that wonders, do you want

00:20:36.440 regime change? Well, this is kind of the problem here, because as we talked in that conversation

00:20:43.160 that's coming out shortly, we've talked to a lot of people. Some of them work in the administration,

00:20:48.560 some of them know things, don't want to go into the details how they know them. But

00:20:52.660 there is no plan here there's no grand strategy here from what we understand i'm not saying we

00:20:59.600 know we're not experts in this but that's what we're being told there's no great strategy here

00:21:03.800 this is just like oh we did venezuela now we can do this and and what you're pointing out is the

00:21:10.000 same thing that we are concerned about which is it hasn't actually been thought through to that

00:21:14.460 level or pre-planned to that level which is why you're not seeing the things that were promised

00:21:20.300 or you'd want.

00:21:22.680 You see what I'm saying?

00:21:23.420 Yeah, I don't know.

00:21:24.800 I think that this whole thing

00:21:26.980 needs to be revisited, shall we say.

00:21:30.840 But I do think that

00:21:32.020 those are the three steps to regime change.

00:21:35.920 It is the war is one step.

00:21:37.980 The uprisings, possibly armed uprisings

00:21:40.820 is another and defections is the other.

00:21:42.420 And I think that those two things,

00:21:43.820 if they're neglected,

00:21:44.640 we're not going to have the regime change.

00:21:45.940 And I think ultimately,

00:21:47.160 this is the time to do it.

00:21:48.280 If there is a window in time,

00:21:49.660 It's now. And so I really don't understand why this isn't being coordinated in that way.

00:21:55.700 It's also political, Elika, in that the Americans have no stomach for regime change,

00:22:00.340 especially after Iraq, especially what happened with Afghanistan.

00:22:03.420 But those are not the same.

00:22:04.760 They're not.

00:22:05.220 They're not the same.

00:22:06.340 This is kind of worse in a way, though, because Iraq wasn't holding the world ransom economically.

00:22:12.440 Iran can and is.

00:22:13.840 true but the the fear that people have over regime change is that you know it's going to be

00:22:19.580 another iraq it's going to be another afghanistan it's going to be another failed state well it's

00:22:23.760 not a failed state it's or it's like a thousands years old nation state you're not the the what

00:22:29.780 those regime changes did was that they tried to impose an outside government and build effectively

00:22:35.000 build a state that didn't exist because those were new countries at the time as well and so

00:22:39.900 Iran, you have this like really old kind of nation state that is unified behind language, behind a flag, behind culture, behind all of these things.

00:22:49.480 We don't want a foreign-imposed government.

00:22:52.020 That's not what, this is not Iraq.

00:22:54.500 We want...

00:22:55.600 Well, you do, though.

00:22:57.120 You do want a foreign-imposed government.

00:22:58.500 No, we don't want a foreign-imposed government.

00:23:00.900 Well, if you cause regime change and then replace it with one of your puppets, which is what you want to happen.

00:23:06.800 No, that's not what we want to happen.

00:23:08.260 Okay, maybe I'm...

00:23:09.220 Rezal Pahlavi is only a transitional leader.

00:23:11.680 So this has been articulated so many times,

00:23:14.400 I don't know why people don't get this.

00:23:15.880 He's a transitional leader that comes into the country

00:23:18.320 once the regime falls to facilitate moving the country

00:23:21.540 into a democracy where people can vote for their own leader.

00:23:25.160 What if they vote for an Islamist regime?

00:23:27.120 Well, no one's going to vote for an Islamist regime.

00:23:29.080 How do you not?

00:23:29.400 Because we know the statistics of what people favor.

00:23:32.020 Oh, okay. I actually don't. What are the statistics?

00:23:34.540 90% of people in Iran are against it.

00:23:37.400 Against the regime?

00:23:38.220 Against the regime.

00:23:39.220 Wait, how do we know that?

00:23:40.980 Because there's studies, like the Gammon study,

00:23:43.680 which is in, I think, the Netherlands conducted,

00:23:46.420 and it speaks to people inside Iran, obviously, anonymously,

00:23:49.980 and they collect data about their public sentiments.

00:23:53.780 And they say that 90%, or is it 85% or 90%,

00:24:01.440 there's 10% that support the regime.

00:24:05.420 Still, it's a country of 90 million.

00:24:07.380 It's still a lot.

00:24:08.760 And they have the guns.

00:24:10.060 But your point about 90% is very powerful.

00:24:12.300 I mean, we've had people on the show,

00:24:14.480 Eamon Dean, who's a former Al-Qaeda,

00:24:16.860 MI6 double agent, for example.

00:24:18.380 He gave a very different assessment of it,

00:24:20.740 which was like 25% of people support the regime,

00:24:23.540 25% hate the regime.

00:24:26.060 To me, I'll give you a similar example for Russia,

00:24:29.260 which is easy for me to explain.

00:24:31.640 So I am someone who's a fierce critic of the Russian regime

00:24:34.480 in the way that you are a fierce critic of the Iranian regime.

00:24:37.460 But I would not say that I know what percentage of people in Russia are opposed to.

00:24:42.900 Because maybe you don't know.

00:24:43.800 Because nobody does.

00:24:44.980 Yeah, but you absolutely can have a fair assessment about the sentiments of a country through extensive polling over time.

00:24:51.700 And for the past 46 decades, repeatedly polls have shown that it's a very high percentage, almost 90% of Iranians who are against this regime.

00:25:02.200 and it's I just think it's just like who would want who would like this regime it just is you

00:25:08.560 do have this minority of course you have a minority of extremists but this is where it's like

00:25:13.020 you you do not know Iranians if you think that that's who the majority of Iranians are they

00:25:18.500 don't identify that way they don't identify with Islamic extremism it's not part of our culture

00:25:24.360 it's not part of our cultural personality it's just it's so it's so obvious to us that when

00:25:30.340 people ask these questions. It's like, we even give you the statistics, right? We even give you

00:25:35.380 the polls. But it's like, people just believe what they want to believe. I don't know what to tell

00:25:39.940 you. It's not a country that's 50% Islamist radicalist. It's just, it's not who the Iranian

00:25:45.120 people are. Oh, sure. No, no, I'm certainly not saying that. But I, again, example from my own

00:25:50.740 experience, which sort of makes it easier for me to think about these things. The Soviet Union was

00:25:54.880 deeply unpopular by the time it collapsed. But that doesn't mean that 90% of people living in

00:25:59.600 the Soviet Union were opposed to the Soviet Union. If you took a poll in the Soviet Union around the

00:26:04.960 time that it actually collapsed and there was regime change, there was still a shit ton of

00:26:10.240 people who supported it. It just became weakened economically and morally and in other ways.

00:26:16.000 But to me, when someone says 90% of people in a country agree on something, that to me,

00:26:21.260 you may be right. I'm not disputing it. I'm just saying to me, that's a bit of an alarm bell

00:26:26.240 because that seems unprecedented. It's not an alarm bell. It's a terrorist regime that everybody

00:26:32.120 hates and has destroyed the country. It's brought it to ruin, to economic collapse. Everything about

00:26:38.380 them that they do, they take the money and they give it to proxies. They are so radicalized. They

00:26:43.500 don't take care of the country. They kill people for protesting. The methods of torture are medieval.

00:26:49.420 They hang people. Nobody likes this regime. I'm not saying that 90% of Iranians agree on other

00:26:55.340 things. Iranians never agree on anything. It's actually disturbing how much they disagree.

00:27:02.020 But I can, if you want to include the diaspora, 99% are against the regime statistically.

00:27:08.080 Well, the diaspora are the people who left, right? So that would make sense that they'd

00:27:10.920 be against the regime. So on average, you're talking about about 95% of Iranians in this world

00:27:16.180 at least agree on being against this regime. I've never even seen this type of like overwhelming

00:27:22.560 evidence of people who support the regime.

00:27:25.520 When I go online, I don't see anyone except the bots

00:27:27.960 that support the regime.

00:27:29.400 If they are people who support the regime,

00:27:31.180 they're here in the West.

00:27:32.340 They're Anna Kasparian and Cenk Uygur.

00:27:34.740 But where are all of these massive, you know,

00:27:38.360 spokespersons for the regime?

00:27:40.640 Well, I mean, look, there may be a lot of people in Iran

00:27:44.840 who actually can't go online because there's been

00:27:47.940 an internet blackout.

00:27:48.940 Oh, they have internet.

00:27:50.540 The ones who support the regime have internet.

00:27:53.100 Okay.

00:27:53.760 Yeah.

00:27:54.480 And also as well, look, I don't know,

00:27:57.180 but how many people get radicalized at school?

00:27:59.380 They don't get radicalized at school.

00:28:01.080 It just doesn't work.

00:28:02.000 I mean, yes, they do.

00:28:02.900 They have to go to school and they say,

00:28:04.540 death to America, death to Israel.

00:28:06.740 But it just doesn't work because they go home to their parents

00:28:09.320 and their parents say, yeah, just say that.

00:28:11.120 But, you know, we're not like that.

00:28:13.140 You know, they don't go home to radicalized parents.

00:28:15.680 It's just the culture inside of Iran is very different.

00:28:19.400 It's a culture of tolerating this sort of infrastructure of extremism,

00:28:24.820 but also being outside of it because you have a people who are,

00:28:29.340 what's the word? Familiar. I don't know what the word is.

00:28:33.340 It's like literate in this type of propaganda.

00:28:36.220 And so you build propaganda literacy the more you live under this regime, right?

00:28:41.040 And so it gets to a point where everybody understands it.

00:28:44.520 Everybody understands the manipulation, the dishonesty, the lies, the danger.

00:28:48.200 Everybody understands it.

00:28:49.960 I'm not saying that there aren't the extremes.

00:28:52.440 Of course there are the extremes.

00:28:54.140 10% of 90 million, that's millions.

00:28:57.660 I'm not good at math, but I'm pretty sure that's millions.

00:29:00.440 That's millions of people.

00:29:02.360 So I'm not denying that those millions of people exist.

00:29:06.160 It's just there's a huge disparity.

00:29:09.400 And you even saw when some of these uprisings were happening

00:29:13.380 a couple of years ago,

00:29:15.540 So they started to throw the turbans off of the Mueller's heads

00:29:18.920 when they were walking down the street.

00:29:20.660 And, you know, that was a little bit controversial,

00:29:22.420 some people said, you know.

00:29:24.160 And others, other Iranians said, you know, F you.

00:29:27.080 But there's like, there is quite a strong divide there.

00:29:30.560 They don't even like seeing them in the streets.

00:29:33.220 Because the concern is, going back to America,

00:29:35.820 so they have said, like, for instance, on our show,

00:29:38.660 Ted Cruz said that if, I think it was by November,

00:29:41.180 if the war, if the war...

00:29:42.500 By the midterms.

00:29:42.840 By the midterms.

00:29:44.520 If the war was still carrying on by the midterms, they would have failed.

00:29:47.840 Trump said at the very beginning, four weeks maximum.

00:29:50.300 Now, we all know that Trump talks a lot of nonsense.

00:29:52.760 There simply isn't the stomach, Elika, to carry out a prolonged campaign in order to

00:29:58.000 get rid of the regime and the regime's goons and everything that is needed to keep the

00:30:05.000 regime in place, which is my concern, because what could actually happen is Trump turns

00:30:12.360 around in a week, two weeks, three weeks, and goes, you know what? We've degraded their military

00:30:16.180 capacity. We've bombed. He's already said that. We've got new leaders. Yeah. Exactly. So we've

00:30:23.640 destroyed the capacity to produce nuclear weapons. Tick, tick, tick. We've secured the Strait of

00:30:28.380 Hamun. It's now up to the Iranian people. Rah, rah, rah, Cuba next. That could very easily happen.

00:30:34.280 I mean, I think that's pretty much happened already. Yeah. He's already said that there's

00:30:38.040 regime change because everyone there is a new leader. Right. So this is kind of our concern.

00:30:42.620 And look, I know we're pushing back on a lot of stuff you're saying. I'm going to sound like our

00:30:46.040 mutual friend who we all admire, Dave Smith here. Like, I really hope what we are saying is wrong.

00:30:52.840 No, I don't. And we are rooting for the Iranian people to be free of the tyranny of the Islamic

00:30:58.260 regime. But we're just really seriously concerned at this point that there is no great plan.

00:31:03.980 And given some of the ways that we, because of the conversations we've had, understand

00:31:10.160 the way this can escalate, we're just very concerned that basically what is likely to

00:31:16.000 happen is Trump is going to pretend that he got this big victory, but actually what he's

00:31:20.540 going to do is cut and run.

00:31:22.280 And I don't think the Iranian people are going to be better off.

00:31:24.660 I don't think the nuclear material is going to be eliminated.

00:31:27.460 So the one thing you could say is, well, you've flattened the missile program, you've destroyed

00:31:33.920 the military industrial complex, you've set them back 10 years, let's say.

00:31:38.740 You know, some people will take that, I guess.

00:31:43.400 Yeah.

00:31:44.300 You probably wouldn't.

00:31:45.960 No, I think what they've said inside Iran repeatedly is that the worst case scenario

00:31:51.340 is that the war ends and the regime remains in power.

00:31:54.220 would have been better that there was no war at all.

00:31:56.720 Because after that, that's when they do

00:31:58.260 their most brutal crackdowns.

00:32:00.540 That's when they start killing everybody and saying,

00:32:02.460 you were a Zionist, you were a Zionist, you were a Zionist.

00:32:04.800 People who are just filming outside of their windows, whatever.

00:32:07.860 So that's actually worst case scenario if they stop this war.

00:32:11.860 But, you know, you can't deny how much public sentiment

00:32:15.020 has shifted the direction of the war as well,

00:32:18.620 because it's considered generally a very unpopular war.

00:32:21.820 And I think that I, and this is why I think this is largely because of this backdrop of what the conversations that have been had in the Middle East over the past three years, especially the very, very, very, very, very anti-Israel view of things, which has sort of driven this conversation towards, okay, yeah, some people are extreme and they're going to say, oh, the regime are the good guys.

00:32:44.500 But some people, the more like Dave Smiths of the world, are going to say, well, these people are not really bothering us.

00:32:50.360 You know, these people haven't done anything wrong.

00:32:52.260 They're just a regular government, just like my government and your government.

00:32:55.520 And isn't America a terrorist government, too?

00:32:57.840 And that sort of really manipulates public perception in a way that people are not willing to get on board with a war that they just fundamentally don't think has any purpose or benefit to them, maybe not even in the long run.

00:33:11.940 right? I genuinely do not think that the public, the American public, think that the Islamic regime

00:33:18.400 is a threat. Because it probably isn't a threat to them, really, if you look about it, if you look

00:33:24.540 at it and you analyze it objectively. Now, it's far more of a threat to the UK. It's obviously a

00:33:29.480 much greater threat to the Middle East and the stability of the Middle East. But to the average

00:33:33.680 American living in Kansas City, why is Iran threatening them? It's a threat if the regime

00:33:40.300 succeeds in its ambition. It's a threat, right? What is its ambition? Well, its ambition is

00:33:45.880 death to America, death to Israel. And right now, its task is to remove Israel. But that's kind of

00:33:51.500 like my toddler saying death to daddy. It's not... Right, but there's action. There's not just

00:33:57.000 intent, there's action. So what is the threat that they pose to America if they... Yes, sorry,

00:34:02.140 sorry, sorry, sorry. So the first stage is to remove Israel because these are the two oppressors,

00:34:07.900 right? The oppressors of the West and the oppressors of the Middle East. So they've put

00:34:12.820 in action all of the stages necessary to remove Israel. They created a second IRGC called Hezbollah

00:34:18.280 in Lebanon, which is closest border to Israel, have been attacking Israel nonstop ever since.

00:34:23.320 Of course, Hamas, same thing, Houthis. And all of this is part of the campaign to remove Israel.

00:34:29.140 Now, Israel is relying on the United States for aid to defeat these proxy groups, which another

00:34:34.260 thing that people are like, why should we have to pay money to Israel? Because they don't

00:34:38.120 understand that Israel is the one that is holding down the forts against these forces. Because let's

00:34:43.360 say if those forces did win, let's say the United States pulls out its funding. Let's say that they

00:34:47.600 don't consider them allies anymore and Israel falls and the Islamic regime wins. Now the Islamic

00:34:53.280 regime has exported its revolution out into the Middle East. Now you have the Islamic Republic of

00:34:58.220 Lebanon, which already is a state within a state. It's just ready to go one way or the other. You

00:35:02.300 have the Islamic Republic of Lebanon, you have the Islamic Republic of Palestine, you have the

00:35:06.340 Islamic Republic of Yemen, the Islamic Republic of Syria, God knows where. And now you have these

00:35:12.320 combined forces, right, with combined military technology, all of these things. You don't think

00:35:17.400 at that point they're going to go for the second thing that they stated in their charter, which was

00:35:21.780 next, we're going death to America. You don't think that's going to happen. So, but then you

00:35:26.340 could say, well, I just don't think that's ever going to happen because Israel will always be

00:35:29.500 there and we're always going to support them. The public sentiment in this nation is that there

00:35:34.200 should be no support for Israel, that Israel is the biggest terrorist state in the world.

00:35:38.780 All of this stuff is just like a complete inversion. It's just total moral inversion

00:35:43.140 of the situation. If you want to keep funding Israel for the rest of your life, then maybe

00:35:47.800 the regime will never threaten you. Sure. We get asked this all the time. Which VPN do you use

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00:37:11.940 offer, go to CyberGhostVPN.com slash trigonometry or click the link in the description of this

00:37:17.520 episode. It's completely risk-free. So check it out today. But the one thing that I would say is

00:37:24.980 that when we're talking about Iran, their death to America, Iran would have to be monumentally

00:37:31.160 stupid. They would have to be monumentally stupid in order to do a 9-11 type terrorist attack,

00:37:38.360 for example, because that would mean their entire country gets obliterated. That's why they go

00:37:42.900 around the side door they didn't do october 7th they went around the side door yeah but october

00:37:49.720 7th was done to israel right in the same way that like the taliban didn't do 9-11 but they let al-qaeda

00:37:56.000 right you don't train and do other things but then it was the taliban that had the shit kicked

00:38:01.440 out of them for yeah and now the islamic regime is having the shit kicked out of them so it's not

00:38:05.920 it's not gonna be you know so direct yeah but you you move indirectly you say oh and as dave

00:38:12.500 Smith said. They had no idea about October 7th. Yeah, I don't think that's true.

00:38:19.040 No. But I still don't know that if I were an American, I'd be sitting here quivering in my

00:38:27.660 boots at the threat of Iran. I mean, some of the things that were said about this, you know,

00:38:32.440 Iran is an imminent threat. I mean, come on. Really? Imminent? I don't think it is, right?

00:38:37.820 If it has a nuclear weapon, it's imminent. To whom?

00:38:41.360 To anyone.

00:38:43.740 Why?

00:38:44.140 If it has a nuclear weapon, you don't think it's an imminent threat?

00:38:46.760 To America, no.

00:38:47.580 No, it could do whatever it wants with it.

00:38:49.380 Okay.

00:38:50.240 But is North Korea an imminent threat to the United States?

00:38:53.380 No.

00:38:53.560 I don't know.

00:38:54.180 North Korea got nuclear weapons so that they could just be left alone to have their dictatorship

00:38:58.680 and peace, effectively, right?

00:39:00.660 That's what they did.

00:39:01.940 And this is the thing is like, I, you know, I remember I was very curious and interested

00:39:07.400 in the arguments you made last time you won the show

00:39:09.580 when you talked about the type of Islam

00:39:12.400 that the Islamic regime practices in Iran

00:39:16.740 and the fact that, you know, there's the Mahdi coming back

00:39:20.920 and all of this eschatological stuff,

00:39:22.740 which, you know, obviously that exists, right?

00:39:25.920 But from Iran's perspective,

00:39:28.020 the much more rational reason to get nuclear weapons

00:39:30.480 is to be a regional hegemon

00:39:32.560 or at least to protect itself from what it perceives as the threat.

00:39:36.160 That's exactly the problem, isn't it? Because then you cannot control their behavior going

00:39:41.940 forward because they're a deterrent state. Once you get nuclear weapons, they're a deterrent state.

00:39:47.600 So yeah, you can march straight into Lebanon. Who's going to stop you? You can march straight

00:39:51.320 into Gaza. You can go do whatever you want with Israel. Who's going to stop you? That's the whole

00:39:56.080 problem. Well, Israel has nuclear weapons, so who's going to stop you is Israel.

00:39:59.840 So what? Are we going to have a nuclear war? No. Well, historically speaking,

00:40:04.480 nuclear weapons appear to actually create peace. Stalemate. Yeah. Yeah. This is not me advocating

00:40:10.500 for us to let the Iranians get nuclear weapons. My concern is, if I'm being honest, as I understand

00:40:16.400 the situation on the ground is, like, other than negotiations, which I don't think are going to

00:40:21.620 work long term either, but they might work short term, there's actually no way of stopping the

00:40:27.120 regime from getting nuclear weapons short of successful regime change and boots on the ground.

00:40:32.160 That's why we need a regime change.

00:40:34.220 And that's why everything else,

00:40:35.500 no matter how long you go down the rabbit hole,

00:40:37.780 is just kicking the can down the road.

00:40:39.560 It just makes no sense.

00:40:40.700 We want to get into this situation

00:40:42.260 where both the regime and Israel have nuclear weapons,

00:40:45.640 but the regime, this is the difference

00:40:47.000 of what's in whose charter, right?

00:40:49.200 In their charter, it's that they must eliminate Israel.

00:40:54.460 So whether that escalates into a nuclear war

00:40:56.760 actually becomes deterrent

00:40:57.900 because they both have nuclear weapons,

00:40:59.800 or they just keep, I mean, where does this end?

00:41:02.680 And isn't the US always going to be implicated in that war

00:41:05.580 when it comes to the regime and Israel?

00:41:07.980 So I just, this is just dragging the October 7th nightmare

00:41:12.180 on and on and on and on and on and on.

00:41:14.540 I just think that none of this is going to make any sense

00:41:18.380 unless there is a regime change.

00:41:20.360 The problem is, is I don't think there is going to be a regime change

00:41:23.800 simply because the Americans don't want it.

00:41:25.240 I think the Israelis do want it.

00:41:26.700 I don't know that Americans don't want it.

00:41:28.700 I just don't think they're doing the, as you say,

00:41:31.500 they're doing the things to achieve it yeah so therefore you don't want it if you're not prepared

00:41:35.360 to do the things to achieve it then you don't want it if he wanted to he would yeah exactly

00:41:39.640 exactly i don't get that reference but it makes sense you don't get that reference no oh you

00:41:45.280 didn't get it either yeah i got it well what's the reference it's like with men like when they

00:41:48.500 don't call you or whatever yeah they don't message if you if you if he wanted to he would i've been

00:41:52.360 married for far too long to understand yeah so the americans effectively don't want it you look

00:41:58.320 at the israelis the israelis do want it but the problem is the iranian people definitely want it

00:42:03.420 absolutely but the israelis can't do it without the americans because the americans are the senior

00:42:08.020 partner yeah and also the more israel goes down this path the more it loses support in the united

00:42:13.840 states yeah you already see that there is a massive chasm between the way people of the

00:42:19.360 ages 40 and over view israel and the way people but that's because of all of this radicalization

00:42:24.860 which I genuinely have serious concerns about where this ends.

00:42:30.120 You know, like, this is such, you know, it's such...

00:42:33.440 It's such Soviet disinformation, all of it.

00:42:38.640 It's like this whole idea that, you know,

00:42:41.040 the West is the source of all evil,

00:42:42.900 and Israel and the US reflect that greatest evil.

00:42:46.600 And this, like, sort of perception hijack over time, right?

00:42:50.060 And I think especially after October 7th,

00:42:53.280 it has been most, most deeply entrenched such that you can, you literally look at all of these

00:42:58.320 situations and the way that they see it is, is the total opposite to the reality. And the fact

00:43:04.220 is that the more that there are these wars, the more they see the, the, the bad guys as the good

00:43:09.940 guys, right? Because they're constantly circling back to the same conclusion, which is that Israel

00:43:15.520 is the source of all evil in the world. And to, you know, to, to make that true, to make that

00:43:21.560 conclusion true. Everybody else has to be good. Everything that Israel is fighting has to be good

00:43:26.600 or misunderstood or just reacting to Western imperialism, right? That's always the story.

00:43:31.920 All of these people are always just reacting to Western imperialism. For 1,400 years,

00:43:36.700 they were reacting to Western imperialism, right? Zero agency. So what I fear happens over time is

00:43:44.860 that the more they're able to rewrite and invert these stories through war, because it's always

00:43:50.440 It's happening through the Gaza war.

00:43:52.560 It's happening through the Iran war.

00:43:54.320 The more they're radicalizing people

00:43:56.160 towards this really staunchly anti-Israel,

00:43:59.800 like deranged anti-Israel perspective.

00:44:03.620 And that, oddly enough,

00:44:05.600 is starting to really hurt the Iranian people

00:44:08.320 because of how much they need to make

00:44:11.480 the Islamic regime faultless by extension.

00:44:15.940 So now you're seeing like, for example,

00:44:18.820 they hanged three men a young wrestler right and you see these people leftists taking to the

00:44:26.620 internet saying he murdered a i see he murdered an irgc officer here's the video and it's like

00:44:33.640 some black grainy shadow that doesn't show anything and they're literally just regurgitating

00:44:39.080 state propaganda and it's like look at what you're doing you you are romanticizing a terrorist regime

00:44:46.520 just because of your hatred for Israel.

00:44:49.520 Because if this really was a terrorist regime

00:44:51.500 and you had to accept that,

00:44:53.060 then you would have to also accept

00:44:54.540 that Israel being at war with it might be justified.

00:44:58.100 And you can't in any circumstance make Israel justified.

00:45:01.160 So to make Israel never justified,

00:45:03.920 the regime can never do any wrong.

00:45:05.660 And so now this is directly affecting us

00:45:07.740 and now our morale,

00:45:08.920 because we're experiencing this

00:45:10.880 where we're seeing thousands and thousands

00:45:13.340 of people being killed.

00:45:14.400 and you see people going on Piers Morgan saying,

00:45:17.700 we think that Ayatollah was a very courageous man

00:45:19.900 because at least he didn't capitulate to the Israelis.

00:45:22.420 It's like, what planet are you on?

00:45:24.940 Who says that?

00:45:25.900 It's like saying Hitler was a very courageous man.

00:45:28.560 And so this is such a time of extreme distortion

00:45:32.940 and moral inversion.

00:45:34.100 And I think my fear at the same time,

00:45:37.420 it's like you have a physical war,

00:45:38.700 you have a narrative war,

00:45:39.640 but where does this narrative war go?

00:45:41.860 Where does that end?

00:45:42.760 Well, this is part of Francis and I's concern about all of this, because I think you described it very well, what's happening. And I think there's been a huge amount of propaganda and brainwashing and whatever. And also, though, I think we also have to be honest. And we've talked to lots of people off camera and on camera on this trip. A lot of people who are not anti-Israel and who are not anti-Semitic and all the things that people like to say whenever anyone has a critique of Israel's foreign policy.

00:46:10.340 Can we get some more water?

00:46:11.420 Yeah, please.

00:46:12.340 That was so sweet, the way you were like.

00:46:15.180 There seems to be no water in this cup.

00:46:17.940 That's apparently how you're supposed to make,

00:46:20.040 I didn't even think of it,

00:46:20.960 but that's how you're supposed to make men do things.

00:46:23.100 Oh, totally.

00:46:23.660 Really?

00:46:24.020 You just identify properly.

00:46:25.700 100%.

00:46:26.020 You just go, oh, something's missing here.

00:46:28.000 Yeah, there's no water in my cup.

00:46:29.560 Yeah, and you did it.

00:46:30.620 Yeah, it's beautiful.

00:46:31.820 I like the fact that you pretend you didn't know what you were doing.

00:46:34.680 She didn't pretend.

00:46:36.080 She described exactly what she's doing.

00:46:38.700 I'm like, I'm just so innocent.

00:46:40.480 Oh, my God, no water.

00:46:42.060 We will cut this bit out, I think.

00:46:44.120 I think it's good.

00:46:44.880 Oh, shall we keep it in?

00:46:45.920 Yeah.

00:46:46.120 All right, cool.

00:46:46.900 Well, she just manipulated me to get her some water.

00:46:48.980 Yeah.

00:46:49.460 Anyway, I guess the thing that I'm concerned about is

00:46:54.460 I think there's also a lot of people who are not anti-Israel,

00:46:59.700 who are not anti-Semitic, but who see that Israel

00:47:03.600 and actually Saudi Arabia and the UAE as well,

00:47:06.380 they have as all countries do their own agenda and the agendas of those countries do not fully

00:47:13.200 align with the agenda as they would perceive it of the united states for the reason that we tried

00:47:17.900 to talk about earlier which is there are different levels of threat that are presented to those

00:47:21.900 countries versus america right and because of that and this is where a lot of people have like

00:47:27.200 a brain spasm where i agree with you the propaganda begins to take effect because they go

00:47:33.040 Israel has tricked America. I was like, how? What is the mechanism? And they start to make

00:47:38.680 all this shit up about the super powerful Israel lobby, which I don't think that's remotely true.

00:47:44.420 I don't think President Trump can be like tricked into stuff like this. What he can be tricked by

00:47:49.980 is like his own ego or his own political ambitions. These things might be very well possible. But I

00:47:56.040 guess what I'm saying is there are more and more people now in America who feel that Israel has

00:48:01.480 a tone agenda that's different from America's and they want their government to be pursuing

00:48:06.540 the interests of the American people. That's fair. Which is totally fair and totally reasonable.

00:48:12.480 And my worry is as well that one of the other things that starts to happen is whenever anyone

00:48:16.300 expresses that point of view, there are far too many people online who instantly start calling

00:48:20.980 them names and start saying they're anti-Israel, anti-Semitic. I mean, we get all the names.

00:48:25.080 Everyone gets the names. Everyone gets the names. There's no option where you don't get the names

00:48:29.960 anymore sure that's true but if you want to radicalize normies against a particular view

00:48:36.440 just start calling them names for expressing a view you see what i'm saying yeah i mean i haven't

00:48:42.260 i haven't personally seen that i haven't personally because those people in my opinion don't speak up

00:48:47.080 too much i haven't seen people i haven't seen really i've seen some videos where someone's like

00:48:51.980 where i think i saw this video of a woman that she was like this is not our war blah blah blah

00:48:56.020 and it was actually got loads of likes.

00:48:58.580 Every time I've seen people say stuff like that,

00:49:00.420 it's like very much like all the comments are like,

00:49:02.680 you're so right, this is so amazing.

00:49:04.920 I've never seen somebody get backlash for saying that.

00:49:08.300 I mean, there is a lot of people now

00:49:10.200 who are in favor of this war

00:49:12.420 calling anyone who disagrees with it.

00:49:14.480 I mean, you've seen the micropenis discourse on Twitter.

00:49:19.860 I actually have not seen the micropenis discourse.

00:49:23.420 It's one of the intellectual discussions of our time.

00:49:25.700 The Mark Levin's of the world are going after the Megyn Kelly's of the world,

00:49:29.240 and it's all just devolved to, like, literally micropenis.

00:49:35.020 She's got a micropenis.

00:49:36.460 She's a massive...

00:49:37.480 I mean, I just...

00:49:38.820 Like, this is...

00:49:40.300 I find it incredibly sad that, actually,

00:49:43.420 this is where the level of the discussion's got to.

00:49:45.540 And he's body shaming.

00:49:48.480 I think you can shame someone with a micropenis.

00:49:51.100 I'm still on board with that.

00:49:52.360 I'm old school.

00:49:53.520 You can what?

00:49:54.320 You can shame someone for having...

00:49:55.560 Yeah, I think so.

00:49:56.640 But how would you know?

00:49:58.440 I mean, that's a good question.

00:49:59.820 How does Megyn Kelly know Mark Levin has a micropenis?

00:50:02.880 Yeah, the shame has to be at least accurate.

00:50:04.920 Yeah, that's fair.

00:50:05.760 Otherwise, it won't live in the body.

00:50:07.220 And so what have you really achieved?

00:50:08.840 That's a fair point.

00:50:09.780 You might have MPE, micropenis energy.

00:50:13.360 All right.

00:50:13.760 Well, I'm glad this episode has taken this turn.

00:50:16.540 It's great stuff.

00:50:18.560 No, but I think that...

00:50:20.560 I think this is all...

00:50:21.860 This is all...

00:50:22.900 You know, sometimes when I just look at the internet,

00:50:26.080 and I try not to these days because it's so bad and it's getting worse,

00:50:29.360 especially if there's so many bots on X now.

00:50:31.820 And I don't know if they've just targeted my account.

00:50:33.940 I think it's the regime that's specifically targeting my account.

00:50:36.780 Because every time I post, it's just like so many comments

00:50:40.560 that are just like, you fucking bitch, all this, that.

00:50:43.560 And it's always like zero followers, zero posts, zero.

00:50:49.600 Oh, and I'm sure you heard about the whole beheading thing.

00:50:52.900 The beheading thing?

00:50:54.900 The beheading thing?

00:50:55.900 No.

00:50:56.900 You guys didn't hear about that?

00:50:57.900 No.

00:50:58.900 So, Goldie and I, do you know Goldie?

00:51:01.900 Goldie Kamari?

00:51:02.900 Goldie Kamari, yeah.

00:51:03.900 Oh, right, okay.

00:51:04.900 We got an email from this hacker group saying that they'd commissioned a Mexican cartel to behead us for $250,000.

00:51:14.900 So, um, I obviously went to the FBI,

00:51:19.080 and, uh, they opened the investigation.

00:51:22.000 DOJ determined that it came from the Ministry of Intelligence in Iran.

00:51:27.020 Wow.

00:51:27.820 Yeah. So, and that was...

00:51:29.820 And just get this, because it gets worse.

00:51:33.060 After I had been on a...

00:51:35.560 on an episode of Piers Morgan, right?

00:51:38.420 And Anna Kasparian had taken a clip

00:51:41.700 of me and Goldie laughing at Cenk

00:51:44.100 because he was going, Israel's to blame for 9-11, Israel's to blame for Iraq, Israel.

00:51:49.720 Like, it was just funny. Like, we were laughing. And then she manipulates the clit and takes our

00:51:54.580 laughter and says essentially that we were laughing at war. And she calls us laughing

00:51:59.120 hyenas. So the Ministry of Intelligence, in its email that it was going to behead me,

00:52:04.020 used Anna Kasparian's thing and said we were laughing like hyenas at war, just quoted her

00:52:09.600 word for word and it's like is is this oh and then they have her in their telegram group chats

00:52:16.880 so that fast news which is one of the state's media they have her they're promoting her doing

00:52:22.720 her like an anti-israel stuff within their group chats and it's like and they've also you know

00:52:28.400 they've had chen huger on their um irib which is their broadcasting channel and of course tucker

00:52:34.420 colson the gray man himself and it's like is is there not a point where people are going to see

00:52:40.880 like how how on god's green earth these are people that are going out there saying like oh we're pro

00:52:47.100 american you are literally being used by the enemy of of the united states they agree with your

00:52:54.660 talking points they follow you and fangirl over you and the fbi is concerned about me against you

00:53:02.480 Do you know what I mean? Like, you're not pro-America. You've gone so far the other way.

00:53:08.020 And it's this moral inversion that terrifies me, because where does that go, right? And I just,

00:53:15.280 I don't think that people understand, like, I don't know why, but I keep thinking about Nazi

00:53:20.180 Germany, because I get it now. Because I get that during that period of time, the build-up,

00:53:25.960 no matter what you said to these people, they would have been like, what are you talking about?

00:53:29.260 this isn't extreme. This person is just saying their opinion, and that opinion is true. Like,

00:53:34.740 there would have been no way to get through to people the more and more people were radicalized

00:53:39.440 until something like that happened. And I just, it kind of just puts me, like, paralyzed in a way,

00:53:46.040 because I'm like, what do we do about this growing extremism, which isn't extremism anymore,

00:53:51.620 because it is the sentiment of a lot of the country now.

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00:55:24.420 Well, the worry is you say you're worried about where it ends, right? I'm going to tell you where

00:55:28.460 it ends and we're already seeing it now, which is a growing rise of radical extremism and terrorist

00:55:34.380 attacks. That's where we're seeing it. We've been here a matter of weeks. We saw a terrorist attack

00:55:39.440 in Austin. We saw a happily supported terrorist attack on a synagogue in Michigan, which could

00:55:45.960 have been horrific, a truck loaded with explosives. We saw a nail bomb attack happen in New York.

00:55:52.620 And the more this war carries on, the more people get radicalized, the more Iran

00:55:58.620 starts to fund terrorism abroad, which I'm sure it will do at certain points,

00:56:03.540 the more we're going to see this. But this is exactly what the regime has been planning all

00:56:07.480 along the regime is planning all along to subvert the western left and now it's happened no i don't

00:56:12.840 know i don't know how it happened to the western right who would just we're pro-america apparently

00:56:17.040 not i don't know how you get tucker carlson and the islamic regime i genuinely don't i wrote a

00:56:22.480 whole article about it oh you did i didn't want to make you sneeze again i heard that inhalation

00:56:26.980 i wrote a whole article about a long time ago tucker carlson and the woke right

00:56:31.740 and I kind of lay out what I think is going on.

00:56:35.520 And I mean, that point that you make, Alec,

00:56:38.060 is actually really important.

00:56:39.500 And I totally agree with it,

00:56:40.820 which is, I think there is an honest critique

00:56:45.540 of this war, for example, to be made.

00:56:47.460 Of course.

00:56:48.220 And we've made it today.

00:56:49.180 I mean, it's war.

00:56:50.420 But there's a difference between that

00:56:52.000 and where people are getting to now,

00:56:53.740 where Tucker Carlson is literally on camera saying,

00:56:56.420 oh, you know, Sharia law has made

00:56:58.200 all these Arab countries brilliant.

00:56:59.740 and you go what the fuck are you talking about what the fuck are you talking about but you know

00:57:05.060 what's so funny about even when i saw that was that he starts and he's like yeah our problem

00:57:09.540 here is just is self-hate we we hate the west it's like you're so close

00:57:13.340 but you're the one that's doing which is actually the point that i i actually wrote in my article

00:57:20.240 which is a lot of people on the well not a lot some people on the right have become so disillusioned

00:57:25.520 with where the West was going, particularly during the woke period, they, they started to

00:57:31.160 almost hate the West, but in a different way. So the left hates the West for its ideals,

00:57:37.540 whereas this section of the right hates the, the West for failing to live up to its ideals.

00:57:42.600 And, and they, they kind of became radicalized this way, but you would have think you would

00:57:46.540 think that, and, and the funny thing is the reason that conversation came up is all the evidence

00:57:51.660 shows that the American

00:57:53.660 right considers radical Islam

00:57:55.700 to be the number one problem. Not anymore.

00:57:58.420 Well, the bulk of it

00:57:59.600 still does, but some of these

00:58:01.620 people who've taken trips

00:58:03.540 to various parts of the Middle East,

00:58:05.980 they are now trying to

00:58:07.540 make that not the argument. And by the way,

00:58:10.040 as three people who come

00:58:11.520 from Britain, I mean, we can tell you how this

00:58:13.560 is going to go. Yeah, absolutely.

00:58:15.240 And for

00:58:17.460 someone like Tucker, who keeps

00:58:19.180 slagging off Britain for mistakes that it's

00:58:21.500 made, to be fair, in terms of immigration policy and other things, to then not see that that is

00:58:26.560 going to also happen in America. I just, I don't get it. I think, yeah, there's so many moving

00:58:31.420 parts here. I think, you know, we have the part of like, you know, the Soviet ideological subversion

00:58:37.000 where it sort of comes into the US in the 60s and 70s and starts to sort of radicalize people

00:58:42.100 towards this Marxist slant. And unfortunately, there was that fusing of the social justice

00:58:47.140 movement at the time, right? The civil rights movement, which was obviously a legitimate

00:58:50.380 movement. But once it becomes fused with Marxism, it's kind of like inextricably intertwined. And

00:58:56.840 so that's why we have this Marxist foundation in modern social justice, which is inherently

00:59:02.040 anti-Western. It is anti-West, anti-imperialism, because this is the root of all evil. Well,

00:59:07.240 imagine if they saw what the Soviets did, right? Imagine if they knew what communism did,

00:59:11.800 then they would know that there's a very different root of evil.

00:59:15.160 um and then i think another thing which is like really showing up for me right now that sounded

00:59:21.680 so therapy like another thing that's showing up for me um but is i keep thinking about renee

00:59:29.680 gerard scapegoat theory i don't know if you know it tell everybody okay so um and and mixed in i

00:59:36.660 sort of like have this hybrid model with carl young's shadow but essentially renee gerard

00:59:43.320 talked about something called mimetic rivalry where two people two sides would um rival each

00:59:49.600 other because they want the same thing and and the wanting of that same thing is what assigns

00:59:53.880 value to it like two kids wanting the same toy oh if you want it i want it so this kind of like

01:00:00.400 mimetic rivalry is something that exists you know maybe between political sides like the left and

01:00:05.080 the right east and the west whatever um so what he talks of when he talks about scapegoat theory

01:00:10.500 he basically explains that these two sides that are rivaling each other,

01:00:15.280 let's say the left and the right in the United States,

01:00:17.600 they eventually reach a point where there's imminent violence.

01:00:21.260 It's like there's nothing that can happen here

01:00:23.020 except one of us has to kill the other.

01:00:25.340 In that moment, what will happen is that they'll find a scapegoat

01:00:30.060 and they will project all of their social problems onto this scapegoat

01:00:34.140 and they will eliminate that scapegoat

01:00:36.280 and then feel or believe that all of their problems have been resolved.

01:00:39.960 Obviously, this has happened numerous times,

01:00:43.120 and Rene Girard actually created this theory

01:00:46.640 because of the Jews, like the Jews being the convenient scapegoat

01:00:50.360 throughout history, throughout Nazi Germany, blah, blah, blah.

01:00:53.640 And, you know, then there's this other side of it where...

01:01:00.320 So that's kind of like a macro kind of look at it,

01:01:04.560 but I think there's another side of it that it's the same thing

01:01:07.160 that's happening on an internal level.

01:01:09.320 So when you think about these people who are so, so, like these Candace Owens, Anarchasparians,

01:01:15.740 these people that it's like their life and soul to destroy Israel, it's very clear that

01:01:22.140 there's something in them, some type of wound, some type of trauma, some type of pain that

01:01:27.440 they are projecting outward to avoid confronting that whatever is in that shadow, right?

01:01:32.620 And by eliminating that thing, you feel like you've eliminated that shadow within you,

01:01:37.360 right?

01:01:37.540 Right. So that's also Carl Jung's theory, and it matches perfectly with Rene Girard's theory.

01:01:42.940 And what I feel like we're seeing is people who have some degree of really deep interpersonal

01:01:49.480 problems, and they are now doing this whole scapegoat theory. But the difference is now,

01:01:54.400 instead of saying Jews, they say Israel. And you can really feel, you see it in these people's

01:01:59.000 eyes. They genuinely believe that they will finally get peace, or the world will finally

01:02:03.740 have peace once Israel is abolished. And you know that it's a fallacy because you know all of the

01:02:12.300 things that are around Israel that they continue to ignore. You know that they continue to ignore

01:02:16.500 this terrorist regime in Iran. ISIS, Hamas, Hezbollah, oh no, they're not that bad. You know,

01:02:23.040 they continue to ignore the worst of it. And that in itself is kind of like an admission that what

01:02:27.980 they're doing with Israel is some form of scapegoatism, which is both political, in my

01:02:32.960 opinion, unpersonal. They also feel that essentially Israel activates all of these

01:02:38.920 different countries. And if you took Israel out of it, everything would calm down. It would be

01:02:43.420 like turning just the hob off. And all of a sudden, the Middle East would stop being this boiling pot

01:02:48.740 of resentment and anger. Yeah, if you killed all the Jews. Yeah. Well, yeah, Israel didn't exist.

01:02:54.240 Well, they wouldn't even say that. They would just go, oh, we need to change what Israel is.

01:02:58.460 And you actually drill down on what they mean by that. They can't explain it. But basically,

01:03:02.660 what they want is for the state no longer to exist.

01:03:07.160 And then once it does, it's utopian thinking.

01:03:09.620 We're going to reach this nirvana, which is obviously nonsense.

01:03:12.840 Yeah, well, it's the idea that once the state stops existing,

01:03:17.260 they will be absolved, right?

01:03:19.480 They will be absolved of all of that white guilt

01:03:21.960 of Western imperialism, like the original sin, right?

01:03:25.220 It's like Israel is the original sin of Western imperialism,

01:03:29.460 colonialism and all of the things that they've ascribed to it, which also came from the Soviets,

01:03:35.000 mind you. And it's this sort of spiritual renewal that they want to experience through it,

01:03:41.500 which is just such a sort of leftist privileged luxury belief. You know, it's like, I'm going to

01:03:48.180 have spiritual renewal by dismantling the state of 9 million people, including Arabs and Muslims.

01:03:55.700 Well, Israel is the perfect, it fits very, very well

01:04:00.840 into the woke theory of everything.

01:04:03.520 Because the narrative about...

01:04:04.680 That's a good book title.

01:04:06.320 The woke theory of everything.

01:04:08.020 But if you think about it, what is the core of the woke ideology?

01:04:12.900 The idea is that everything is best understood

01:04:16.560 through oppressor and oppressed groups.

01:04:19.220 There is a group that is oppressing everybody.

01:04:20.940 There's a group that's oppressed.

01:04:22.140 with an original Marxism that was about class and economics.

01:04:27.200 Obviously, they updated it to race and ethnicity.

01:04:30.980 So you've got these white people, the Israelis, they're white,

01:04:35.780 oppressing the brown people who are also clearly oppressed

01:04:42.060 because they're losing.

01:04:44.040 Because that's how you know who's oppressed.

01:04:45.760 And I've always said this is like it's the teacher

01:04:49.660 in the playground mentality

01:04:51.480 where she hears some screaming,

01:04:53.960 she turns up,

01:04:54.740 there's a kid hitting the other kid.

01:04:56.200 That must be the kid

01:04:57.500 that's the bad kid.

01:04:58.720 Right.

01:04:59.200 Whatever happened before that,

01:05:01.220 nobody pays any attention to.

01:05:03.560 And so he's real.

01:05:04.000 I don't think teachers

01:05:04.640 are allowed to hit.

01:05:06.060 No, no, no.

01:05:06.540 The kids are hitting each other.

01:05:09.200 I glitched in the middle of that.

01:05:10.620 I thought I was explaining

01:05:11.840 myself very well.

01:05:12.640 Apparently not.

01:05:13.620 What I mean is...

01:05:14.180 You were.

01:05:14.660 It was my fault.

01:05:16.140 Your fault.

01:05:16.920 Okay, we'll go with that.

01:05:18.000 So it fits very well with this mentality.

01:05:22.200 And Israel is therefore the perfect vehicle for expressing what is ultimately the anti-Westernism.

01:05:28.640 That's what this is really about, because they just see Israel as like the colonial outpost.

01:05:33.440 Yeah. And so the people who live here in L.A. who've got that no one is illegal on stolen land side.

01:05:38.820 Yeah.

01:05:39.300 They don't leave their house, but they can say Israel should leave its house.

01:05:43.620 Right. Because the spiritual renewal has to come from afar.

01:05:46.560 Yeah, of course, because you don't want to leave your nice house.

01:05:49.080 Yeah, and I think, you know, and how far the moral inversion goes is that, you know, you say,

01:05:54.360 well, there would be peace in the Middle East if it wasn't for Israel,

01:05:57.380 or, you know, activating all of these groups.

01:06:00.380 It's never, the responsibility is never on the other end.

01:06:04.080 Like, can these groups stop trying to kill Israel?

01:06:07.000 And then everyone will be safe and free.

01:06:09.780 Because, no, but they would say, and I know because I've heard it and I've had the conversations with them,

01:06:13.840 They would say that this is an uprising

01:06:15.920 Because they're oppressed

01:06:17.420 October the 7th was an uprising

01:06:19.720 That's how they would see it

01:06:20.680 No, but the other countries

01:06:22.180 What are you going to say about Lebanon?

01:06:24.860 What are you going to say about Hezbollah?

01:06:26.040 They're fighting Colombia, it's an uprising

01:06:27.560 That's what it is

01:06:28.460 Well then why can't we go to war with Iran then?

01:06:31.060 Because we're fighting a colonial

01:06:32.420 No, because

01:06:33.260 They're not colonists, they're brown elements

01:06:34.740 They can't be, it's not possible

01:06:39.000 But that's, you laugh

01:06:41.460 That is how they think

01:06:42.540 Yeah, I know that's how they think

01:06:43.540 It's still funny.

01:06:44.500 Because when they look at the Middle East,

01:06:46.700 they don't know that it wasn't all Muslim before.

01:06:50.700 Yeah, no, they don't understand that.

01:06:51.900 So they don't understand that Muslims colonized all of that land.

01:06:54.680 We were Zoroastrians, so we were colonized by Islamism.

01:06:57.740 Right.

01:06:58.040 So why can't we say that this war is fighting a colonial empire?

01:07:04.180 Because the Ayatollah is brown.

01:07:05.480 Yeah.

01:07:06.260 That's literally what it is.

01:07:07.580 He's Jewish. He's actually Jewish.

01:07:09.140 Is he?

01:07:09.780 No, but we should say that right now.

01:07:11.340 then they'd say well he deserves to get bombed that's quite a conspiracy that's why i say we

01:07:15.920 should say he's jewish i think he might have a few or why i think he might have a few issues

01:07:21.140 i think we could make ourselves right i think we could make an argument for that and it's also

01:07:26.520 there's there's the america is the evil empire as a result of them being the evil empire everybody

01:07:32.760 else is oppressed nothing like just like nothing about it ever makes sense you talk about the

01:07:38.740 But you talk about Hezbollah, you talk about the Houthis,

01:07:41.240 you talk about the regime.

01:07:42.480 You're like, yeah, they're fighting oppression,

01:07:44.000 but they are committing more oppression than anybody else.

01:07:47.240 Yeah, but they're doing it for good, I think.

01:07:51.240 They're doing oppression in their own lands for good?

01:07:53.740 Yes.

01:07:54.240 Okay.

01:07:54.980 Yeah, because to suppress the Mossad agents.

01:07:56.820 Because they're brown.

01:07:57.760 Yeah.

01:07:59.360 And oppressed by evil Israel.

01:08:02.000 It's good we're agreeing, finally.

01:08:03.460 Yeah, finally.

01:08:04.420 All of the debate is over.

01:08:06.100 I think the logic is airtight.

01:08:07.600 It's airtight logic.

01:08:09.260 They win.

01:08:09.840 I think we have to go forward as leftists

01:08:11.760 because we clearly see that that is the superior world view.

01:08:15.520 Well, I'm fine.

01:08:16.560 I'm gay and trans.

01:08:19.000 We've done it.

01:08:19.960 I don't think we'd be accepted.

01:08:21.660 What do you mean?

01:08:22.520 I self-identify as a woman.

01:08:24.480 You self-identify as a woman?

01:08:25.520 Yes, I think it's a good note to end the episode on.

01:08:27.700 Elika, what's the one thing we're not talking about that we should be?

01:08:30.820 Oh, my gosh.

01:08:31.920 Oh, my gosh.

01:08:34.020 Don't say right.

01:08:34.640 Ideological subversion.

01:08:35.560 should i say more yes yes oh okay i thought that was the end of the episode so manipulative

01:08:42.120 should i say more

01:08:44.740 she knows what she's doing as well she said the end of the episode i thought it was like boom

01:08:51.840 and then no you've watched our episodes come on aleca tell us more okay um i think that

01:08:58.840 what people aren't talking about enough or what people aren't seeing enough of is the way that

01:09:04.800 bad faith actors, um, use periods of vulnerability such as war, um, to try and turn the public

01:09:14.460 in their favor using tactics of ideological subversion and propaganda and how that, you

01:09:22.060 know, radicalizes people, even people far, far away, people in the West, people in the United

01:09:27.540 States. And that radicalization changes the nature, the fabrics of the society that we live in

01:09:33.680 And ultimately, what happens is that this sort of, you know, becomes like a Trojan horse of humanity, where you keep saying that you keep siding with these people who have subverted you, right? You keep saying these are the good guys or these are the people that we need to have some understanding for. And then that sort of, you know, you usher in authoritarianism into our societies through this Trojan horse of humanity.

01:09:58.840 And so now authoritarianism, terrorism,

01:10:01.320 all of those things start to become normalized

01:10:03.060 when we see these terrorist attacks.

01:10:04.700 We're like, well, I mean, this poor guy

01:10:06.880 was probably like really just upset

01:10:08.560 over something that happened.

01:10:09.840 So we really have to have more understanding for it.

01:10:12.340 And so our tolerant societies

01:10:14.000 are now being lost to intolerance

01:10:17.420 because of that normalization of authoritarianism,

01:10:20.120 which is coming from this ideological subversion

01:10:22.280 that these bad faith actors are doing to the Western world.

01:10:26.560 Elika, thank you so much.

01:10:27.800 Head on over to triggerpod.co.uk where she's going to answer your questions.

01:10:33.620 The focus of Iranian female suffering is often on the birka or the niqab.

01:10:38.480 But what does life for an Iranian woman actually look like beyond that,

01:10:42.320 that we do not or fail to understand?

01:10:57.800 We'll be right back.

TRIGGERnometry - April 05, 2026

“We Need Regime Change” - Elica Le Bon

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