S8 Ep45: What President Raisi’s death means for Iran

[00:00:01] Due to the themes of this podcast listener discretion is advised

[00:00:07] Lock your doors close the blinds change your passwords. This is secrets and spies

[00:00:26] Secrets and spies is a podcast that dives into the world of espionage

[00:00:31] Terrorism geopolitics and intrigue this episode is presented by Matt Fulton and produced by Chris Carr

[00:00:37] Hello everyone and welcome back to secrets and spies on today's episode. We have another

[00:00:42] unanticipated chat with Philip Smythe as

[00:00:45] Regular listeners know Philip is one of the leading researchers for running back militia groups in the Middle East

[00:00:50] He's come on the show several times now to share his analysis of the twists and turns in the region over these past few months

[00:00:56] Following the sudden death of Iran's president last weekend

[00:00:59] Philip graciously joined me again on short notice to unpack what this latest twist means for Iran domestically

[00:01:05] For the regime's web of proxies and for the wider Middle East before we begin if you're enjoying this podcast

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[00:01:59] Philip Smythe we had to stop meeting this way, sir. Well stop causing all these crises

[00:02:04] I I will I will try you put up these tweets and this is what happens

[00:02:08] Yeah, it's like it's it's sort of like firestarter, you know, like I don't really I don't really have control over my powers

[00:02:14] It's starting to be a problem. I don't know anything about superhero stuff. I'm an adult

[00:02:18] Okay

[00:02:20] Okay back on back on track here. You've I'm not even gonna ask you to introduce yourself again

[00:02:27] You've been on quite a few times since October 7th

[00:02:30] Whenever something sort of unexpected and often tragic or concerning happens in the region

[00:02:36] I send up the bat signal to you like

[00:02:39] Immediately we had that happen again

[00:02:42] Last weekend, so this is now your your fifth time on the show. I'm an ace now. You're an ace

[00:02:48] Yeah, you know I got to thank you anticipating this would happen to thank you. I got a red lobster gift card

[00:02:54] I'm sure I'm gonna get some sure how well that yeah, maybe spend that quickly

[00:03:00] It's so nice that you're looking out, you know, not just for the listeners but also the guests I

[00:03:05] Appreciate that. Yeah, we try to take care of you guys, but a true altruist through and through yes

[00:03:09] Alright back on track again

[00:03:11] Let me sort of get us started with the what happened and then we can talk about the how and the why and what it means

[00:03:19] So on May 19th, which was last Sunday as we're recording an Iranian Air Force helicopter carrying President Ibrahim Raisi

[00:03:27] Foreign Minister Hussein Amir Abdullahi on and several other officials crashed in East Azerbaijan province

[00:03:33] That's in the country's mountainous northwest corner near Turkey Armenia, and of course Azerbaijan

[00:03:38] Earlier that day Raisi and his delegation met with

[00:03:42] Azerbaijan's president to inaugurate a hydroelectric dam along their shared border

[00:03:47] Raisi and the foreign minister were in one of three helicopters flying back from the event Bell

[00:03:52] 212 and

[00:03:53] Traveled through an area experiencing heavy rain fog strong winds and snow all listeners will be shocked to learn

[00:04:00] Not ideal conditions for a helicopter

[00:04:02] Around 130 that afternoon the helicopter went missing and was first reported by Iranian state TV to have suffered a hard landing

[00:04:09] Dozens of search-and-rescue units went looking for the helicopter hours later with some assistance from a Turkish drone and the EU's Copernicus

[00:04:17] Satellite mapping service they found the crash site in a forested area on the side of a mountain

[00:04:22] None of the eight occupants had survived. So Philip maybe first

[00:04:27] Tell us a bit if you can

[00:04:29] who Raisi was and

[00:04:31] What his relatively brief career as president was like so he actually this goes all the way back to the 79

[00:04:39] Islamic Revolution and kind of the turmoil that went along for a couple of years as

[00:04:44] Romania was really

[00:04:46] Keeping it in place through the 1980s. He was well known for

[00:04:51] executing tons of prisoners and there are lots of stories about this from people who've

[00:04:57] Survived and kind of left the country a lot of dissident media covers this that he would achieve a lot of

[00:05:06] Infamy for his

[00:05:08] well, the fact that he always would like to execute people and he viewed that as kind of the means to

[00:05:15] Institute his version of justice in this new Islamic Republic

[00:05:19] And I could go into more of that

[00:05:22] I think I don't want to I don't want to flog a dead horse here

[00:05:26] I mean the guy clearly was responsible for a number of very serious human rights abuses

[00:05:31] Well, he had a nickname to this effect, right? Yes. He did. He there's a reason why he has this name

[00:05:36] He it was almost always a death sentence a death sentence a death sentence that would come down to the point where either is even

[00:05:42] internal criticism of him

[00:05:44] Even from people who are allies that you know, what are what's really becoming of the Islamic Revolution?

[00:05:50] You know, are we just an execution squad?

[00:05:53] Which they technically have remained in many many ways

[00:05:57] but he's considered, you know, I hate to boil this down to this dichotomy of

[00:06:04] Well, there's hardliners and there's moderates because it's not it's not really how this works and also the definition of moderate

[00:06:11] I think is really misunderstood

[00:06:13] Yeah

[00:06:14] When I use the term hardliner in this respect

[00:06:17] He was a true believer number one number two. His hands were quite wet with the blood of anyone

[00:06:25] Considered a foe he was not the most popular guy even in some of the circles he traveled in but

[00:06:32] He kind of maintained that that respect for being a radical from those radicals more radical sections

[00:06:38] I'm talking specifically about the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps

[00:06:41] You know could force which is the far of the overseas section of Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps

[00:06:47] I

[00:06:47] Liked him quite a bit

[00:06:49] But he was a guy that you would put in place and this is what Khamenei did

[00:06:53] When you want to send kind of that outward face

[00:06:56] uh

[00:06:57] demonstrating, you know, this is a true believer in the revolution a guy who is willing to be the least popular and that's who we're going

[00:07:04] to

[00:07:04] Be fronting kind of there are our kind of external our external face around the region

[00:07:10] And in you know different articles in the west

[00:07:13] Um, but in general, I mean he maintained that kind of radical

[00:07:16] Uh the radical attitude nothing really changed and then again when I say that radical attitude i'm talking, you know

[00:07:22] There was obvious public support that he would offer for

[00:07:26] A lot of the different militias the iranians backed and you can see this now. I mean it's pretty much every single iranian-backed

[00:07:32] Shia militia in iraq, uh, even you know, lebanon lebanese. Hezbollah

[00:07:37] Some in syria have all been putting up their you know condolences and here we're having you know this uh

[00:07:43] This condolence ceremony, uh in our hometown in the qad province, you know

[00:07:48] And this is what we're doing and this is how it's going to work. Um, so it's interesting how many are bending the knee

[00:07:54] Uh to kind of show that loyalty to iran but are you know

[00:07:58] Happily putting his his image up not just because he's the president but it sends other messages within kind of those irgc

[00:08:04] uh loyalist sections

[00:08:05] Uh, but this is a guy who's been there from the beginning. He's you know old school old hand and I you know something

[00:08:11] I'm i'm getting out of this and I hope i'm not jumping ahead too much but

[00:08:15] We're kind of seeing there's a shift happening simply based on the age of a lot of these people and also how many have been

[00:08:21] Killed sometimes in you know fighting but then other times they've just been you know killed in accidents and other stuff

[00:08:27] um

[00:08:28] The the those old hands that first generation for the islamic revolution is getting quite old

[00:08:34] They are getting quite long in the tooth and a lot of the key leaders who survived

[00:08:39] Survived purges they've survived, you know internal internal issues, uh political ones you name it

[00:08:45] There are there's a dwindling number of them left and I don't want people to think that oh

[00:08:49] Well, iran's gonna moderate now and it's going to be you know, a theocracy that we can you know have a mcdonald's in

[00:08:55] Um, that's not really the direction. It's going in. Khamenei

[00:08:59] Is still in power now remember khamenei

[00:09:01] uh was essentially

[00:09:02] Given the position in many respects by khamenei because he was a kind of trusted lieutenant

[00:09:07] But then beyond that there were also there's also a lot of other politics going on in terms of how he became the supreme leader

[00:09:13] but he too is part of this old school leadership the old school that knew khamenei that did things in iran to

[00:09:20] solidify the revolution

[00:09:22] And now you have this new wave of people and you know, I I had actually written something back in

[00:09:27] Like 2012. I think it was called the battle for the soul of shiaism

[00:09:31] And in it it was interesting, you know khamenei

[00:09:35] Really spent a lot of time on on essentially missionary work and educational work. And when you think that you're like, oh

[00:09:40] Well, it's just some religious conversion, you know, oh education. That's wonderful

[00:09:44] Not really because the the missionary and religious and education stuff

[00:09:47] They were getting was was kind of the radical version of the islamic revolution

[00:09:51] Which was already radical in and of itself and kind of placed an emphasis on that

[00:09:55] So this new school of people that are coming up we're talking people who are clerics people who are in

[00:10:01] important families they're not just

[00:10:04] You know, they're not just educated in this way, but they're also wired into an established network

[00:10:08] That means there's other vested interests going forward to be radical like this to be militant in other respects

[00:10:14] Um, and i'm talking, you know outwardly looking they're they're looking to so there was actually a recent article

[00:10:18] I know it was co-written by uh, suzanne maloney. Um, I think it was in politico

[00:10:23] I want to say it was politico

[00:10:24] But I think she really hit the nail on the head with this one

[00:10:27] Where you know, this is now the direction that things are moving and now why do you have that?

[00:10:31] Um, you've had for the iranians monumental success for a lot of their militant radicals the irgcqf overseas

[00:10:38] I mean look, you know, they were saying back a couple years ago

[00:10:42] That hey we dominate four arab capitals, you know, look at us now

[00:10:46] Um, they are they've completely changed the game, uh when it comes to dealing with the israelis

[00:10:51] And so imagine you're having that kind of reflected back on iran

[00:10:54] Even where there is a ton of incompetence and a lot of you know

[00:10:58] paint covering rust

[00:10:59] Within the country, but you still have these these these circles that are

[00:11:04] And I I described this in another interview as almost trotskyite and orientation

[00:11:08] But then stalinists in the way that they run the show

[00:11:11] um, and that's

[00:11:13] It's it's a very dangerous picture moving forward as you know, we're having, you know octogenarians

[00:11:19] Uh leading the country forward, um, right and I think you know his position within that says quite a bit

[00:11:24] Or his former position within it says quite a bit just for context here. So ali, uh, hamanai who is iran's supreme leader

[00:11:31] He is currently, um 85

[00:11:34] Uh, he's been in office for almost 35 years. So he succeeded. Uh, rohullah khamenei the

[00:11:39] Islamic republic's founder when he died in 1989

[00:11:43] Raisi

[00:11:44] Has been part of the club from the start as you said he was only uh

[00:11:50] Elected slash appointed and maybe we can talk a bit more about the that that system and how it works

[00:11:56] It's a bit of a very carefully tended garden that those elections are sort of picked from

[00:12:02] But so he was elected I say that in quotes, uh in august 2021

[00:12:07] His nickname though within the country was the butcher of tiran. So

[00:12:12] Just so I understand you here. You're saying that his placement as president

[00:12:17] Is sort of at the time a signal by uh, hamanai that like we're not going to moderate

[00:12:21] We don't we don't care what you within iran think

[00:12:25] Beyond that it's also we are the continuance of the true islamic revolution

[00:12:30] Meaning there is no quote unquote moderation. No, we are sticking to the line established by khomeini and established by

[00:12:37] Uh, or at least I should say maintained by the irgc

[00:12:41] Um, that was really the signal going forward and then remember, you know

[00:12:45] I

[00:12:45] Don't want to I don't want to kind of dive into the weeds on this one because you know

[00:12:49] This always ends up turning into whenever you discuss iranian politics. It's a it's very byzantine

[00:12:56] To use that in a in an ironic sense

[00:12:59] what I would say is you have different influences now and

[00:13:03] On on kind of government structure and who's getting picked for what?

[00:13:07] And with that hamanai's power base and his kind of his own radicalism

[00:13:11] Uh is supported by the irgc he is the supreme leader, you know

[00:13:15] The buck stops with him and from him the irgc gets legitimacy meaning some level of religious and ideological

[00:13:22] Uh legitimacy and plus the system essentially works on their quote-unquote loyalty to him

[00:13:27] But now they have other interests at stake, you know

[00:13:29] Of course, they want somebody who's not just going to be loyal to khamenei

[00:13:32] They want somebody who's also going to serve some of their interests as well. Um, but by picking but by picking him that means

[00:13:38] Uh, he was not only satisfying the irgc's interests and his own interests, but it's that that other direct signal

[00:13:45] It's a direct signal outward, but it's also a signal inward and we also have to remember the context of this too

[00:13:51] You've had protests by iranian women that have been ongoing for years now

[00:13:55] Uh a lot of violence that went along with them

[00:13:57] They used to get markedly more attention in the news than they do now

[00:14:01] but you know that was

[00:14:02] Another crack in the system and it's interesting if you're reading what hamanai was saying for the past couple of years

[00:14:08] He kept talking about you know

[00:14:10] Essentially, it's a version of what's called west toxification and that was used by khomeini quite a bit

[00:14:16] A number of iranian thinkers, uh came up with this concept but kind of going forward off of that

[00:14:21] He kind of was stipulating, you know, we one of the biggest issues that we have here is this cultural

[00:14:27] Inundation from the west. It's really the west that's making these women not want to wear shador or wear hijab

[00:14:32] That's really the issue here

[00:14:34] And that's we need to crack down on it and then showing a crack in our society that they are

[00:14:38] Covertly trying to destroy the islamic republic in this way

[00:14:41] Um, and so that's there's there's more messaging that's even on that, you know, it's it's iranians who are overseas

[00:14:46] Oh, you know you guys you guys want to support this kind of thing. Well, guess what? Look who we have

[00:14:51] Look, we have running the show technically now when I say running the show

[00:14:55] Uh, that's also a whole other different ball of wax because the presidency

[00:14:59] Doesn't really hold that much power within iran. I mean it's it's

[00:15:03] I mean for all intents and purposes, it's it's

[00:15:06] Not a very very strong position compared to what the supreme leader does supreme leader. Uh meaning khamenei

[00:15:13] Uh, his finger is really on the button most of the time

[00:15:15] But I mean it's interesting in terms of kind of gauging where certain power interests are within the country

[00:15:21] When certain people are appointed so you you were bringing this up before a carefully tended garden. I love that description of it

[00:15:28] So in iran khamenei and and you know assembly of experts and a number of different bodies have to approve

[00:15:35] Who is going to run for president? But even let's say let's say somebody won, uh that that's the guardian council, right?

[00:15:42] Yes, the council of guardians

[00:15:44] Right body of clerics who vet candidates for elections and approve. Yes, you can run. No, you can't

[00:15:51] Uh, and then also khamenei gets a signing. He gets to sign off on that too

[00:15:54] Um, so I mean let's imagine there's somebody that they technically approve of like let's say we need loyal opposition

[00:16:01] And let's say loyal opposition wins. Uh-oh. That's kind of sending a bad signal

[00:16:06] So we might stuff some ballot boxes here or we might just say yeah, but he can't run now

[00:16:11] We're actually excluding him because maybe he's going to be too popular

[00:16:14] uh, and you see that quite a bit you see it when uh khamenei is often, you know feels feels

[00:16:20] His power or the ideology is threatened because it's part of his job description

[00:16:25] And so there are a lot of people in there that sometimes will be allowed to run it and you'll think oh well

[00:16:30] I guess that's giving some diversity, uh in there, but they've also kind of calibrated this where it's like

[00:16:35] Yeah, but even if it were a popular truly popular election, uh, this guy isn't really going to win anyway

[00:16:41] So, you know, whatever we don't need to uh, jury rig it as much but you know

[00:16:46] It's it's I I think in in part a lot of this because it really does come down to what khamenei wants

[00:16:53] And it really comes down to what his internal kind of group groupings that represent him

[00:16:59] Uh and also work with him want uh, you're seeing that direction kind of moving in a less opaque fashion

[00:17:06] And and now it's pretty overt and I think with raisi, uh coming up

[00:17:11] It's another symbol of just how overt it was because I mean imagine of all the people he could have picked and I mean

[00:17:16] again sends its signals and and and helps, uh,

[00:17:20] Bolster a lot of these other networks you mentioned earlier the

[00:17:24] Success that the irgc and the quids force have had in the rest of the region with the arab proxy groups

[00:17:31] Like hamas hezbollah, uh the various groups in um, iraq

[00:17:36] Um and elsewhere and I think they have had a lot of success there a lot of success

[00:17:41] Some of it in terms of if you look in the context of like october 7th like catastrophic success in places where they probably didn't

[00:17:47] Intend to have it

[00:17:49] Um, would you say that that runs?

[00:17:51] Contrary

[00:17:53] To the situation iran is facing at home where for the last decade or so

[00:17:57] There seems to be real fault lines developing maybe not to the extent that like the regime's going to fall apart tomorrow

[00:18:04] real fault lines developing where uh,

[00:18:07] The the demographics are not working in iran's

[00:18:11] Are not working in the regime's favor. There's huge economic problems major discontent. I mean you have like iranian

[00:18:21] Agents working for the masad potentially launching operations on israel's behalf inside the country

[00:18:27] Like that's a pretty bad situation for them

[00:18:30] It is and it isn't and I think we kind of I I always I hate saying this and I hate doing it

[00:18:35] But I think it's a classic example

[00:18:37] um

[00:18:38] not to give you a reductio ad hitler, but

[00:18:41] Right up until the end of the war. You still had units of the ss that were killing jews shooting them passing them

[00:18:48] uh driving them off places and

[00:18:51] Do you think that maybe that manpower and the ammunition and the skill sets of some of these fighters meaning the nazis?

[00:18:58] Could have been used. I don't know against the red army or against, you know, western allies the brits the americans instead of doing that

[00:19:05] And I think this is where a lot of westerners get confused about ideological commitment

[00:19:09] And also it's it goes even beyond that you're not you don't just have ideological commitment

[00:19:14] You also now have a financial commitment too. You have this network that essentially runs the economy there and it is a moribund economy

[00:19:22] Heavily sanctioned and also it's just not functioning very well

[00:19:25] And also when you promote ideologues and you promote people who are not just true believers, but loyal to you

[00:19:32] Uh, you get a lot of incompetence

[00:19:34] And I mean the good example of this was the helicopter crashing into the mountains. That is absolute and total incompetence

[00:19:40] So, I mean look at this combining that I mean

[00:19:43] One could kind of make the the illusion to I don't know the french revolution, you know with marie antoinette saying let the meat cake

[00:19:49] You know, well all these rich irgc guys you see in the rich kids of tehran kind of instagram posts

[00:19:55] You know driving around in beamers and new mercedes and living in these palatial mansions up in the hills

[00:20:01] um, but I don't necessarily think that

[00:20:04] Is really concerning them all that much because again

[00:20:07] It's it's now comes down to who runs the religious foundations that also run their own private businesses and employ people and get stuff done

[00:20:13] Oh, that's the irgc

[00:20:15] You know, it's the bonyads that are attached to very specific clerical networks

[00:20:19] Oh, well who's running a lot of the military stuff that also employs people and it's the most important aspect for the iranians right now

[00:20:26] Oh, yeah, it's also the irgc

[00:20:28] Who can crack down on you quite effectively

[00:20:31] If you're trying to have a protest if you remember back going back to 2009 the green revolution

[00:20:36] You know a lot of these efforts have been stymied and I think you kind of have this there's a despair with

[00:20:42] A good chunk of the population

[00:20:44] But then there's the other aspect of well, you know, i'm just going to keep it running and you know

[00:20:47] I guess it's just how it is. There's some of that as well

[00:20:50] But when you look at it the top-down approach is very very irgc

[00:20:55] Uh, khamenei kind of the loyalists run operation doesn't mean that other people don't have their slice of the pie

[00:21:01] But to have a slice of the pie you have to have buy-in with that system

[00:21:05] So there's only so much one can really do

[00:21:07] You know what what third estate's going to come up and you know?

[00:21:10] Burn down the best steel in this case or burn down evan prison in this case

[00:21:13] Particularly when it's very very hard and they've invested in quite heavily in uh, kind of the securitization of that of the regime

[00:21:20] But you because you were saying well, there's israeli

[00:21:23] Potential of israeli agents using iranians that are there and things like that as a sign for you know

[00:21:28] How things have become cracked up? I mean

[00:21:31] I'm, not going to necessarily say that that's a symbol of you know, deeper iranian problems

[00:21:35] I think one of the bigger symbols of it is when you have infrastructure that's crumbling

[00:21:40] When you have your president your foreign minister and a number of high-level advisors

[00:21:46] That are on the same helicopter. That is not even

[00:21:49] Capable of doing what they were making it do and interestingly

[00:21:53] I mean, this is another classic flying flying around that terrain in those weather conditions, correct?

[00:21:59] Take that but then also there were there were other little reports that dripped out that the irgc had actually grounded some of its drone

[00:22:05] fleet in that area

[00:22:07] Because of the weather so, you know, it's like right

[00:22:10] So if an unmanned right if an unmanned aircraft is too dangerous for that to go up

[00:22:14] Why would you put an aircraft with your senior leadership up there? Correct?

[00:22:19] And it's and again, I mean that I don't want that to open the door to kind of the conspiratorial thinking

[00:22:24] I think you know conspiracies and and

[00:22:27] um, I think

[00:22:29] A lot of malicious behavior what looks like malicious behavior can be described by incompetence

[00:22:34] And yeah, it's it's interesting, you know

[00:22:36] Because here two things can be true at the same time

[00:22:38] One of them is you have a ton of incompetence a lot of uh, kind of grift

[00:22:42] You have a lot you have a lot of corruption. You have a lot of these issues internally in iran

[00:22:47] It doesn't mean they're not capable of projecting outwards even if sometimes it's kind of the paper tiger approach

[00:22:52] They're still doing it. They're still getting what they want

[00:22:55] um

[00:22:55] So sometimes they're more effective in some areas and not effective at all in other areas and are really grasping at straws to get it

[00:23:02] done and I think we're seeing that I think we're also seeing this is

[00:23:06] Kind of after effects of what happens when the people you're promoting into positions of power

[00:23:11] Yeah, they're true believers. They're loyalists and everything else, but can they fix the car? You know, it's here's my mechanic

[00:23:18] He's my son great. So, you know, where did he learn to become a mechanic?

[00:23:21] Well, you know, he's kind of hung around the shop and I gave him a wrench and uh, you know, whatever

[00:23:25] I think you could fix your mclaren f1. It's fine

[00:23:28] Like that's that essentially that's that's kind of what is coming out here

[00:23:32] And and I think you're going to see that more kind of increasingly as time goes on

[00:23:35] But it also demonstrates another thing

[00:23:37] Because you've had so many let's say successful professionals that have been pushed out of the country

[00:23:41] You have so many people who have been marginalized in a different way. And now what's the only way to rise in that system?

[00:23:46] Well the irgc

[00:23:48] So you kind of have this this kind of self-replication in a weird way where if if the quasi competent ones who are left

[00:23:56] Uh based on you know brain drain due to the revolution and a lot of other things that occurred. Um,

[00:24:01] Where where does one go, you know, and it the other thing I want to get into this

[00:24:05] Um, and again, you can stop me if i'm going into another rabbit hole here

[00:24:09] Sorry, I just want to clarify one thing before we get too far from it. You mentioned the bony ads. Um, they are these uh quasi

[00:24:17] Uh state run often affiliated with the irgc very bloated

[00:24:21] And corrupt, um charities and sort of corporate entities. Is that a fair description for listeners?

[00:24:28] Yes, but bony ads also I mean they are their state run but their state run because the state is a theocracy

[00:24:33] So normally they're supposed to be run via kind of a clerical apparatus

[00:24:37] But the bonyad itself is really it's it's a state-run thing

[00:24:40] I mean you're correct on that but there's kind of these weird little gray zones to it

[00:24:44] Um, and it's also kind of an issue of sometimes it comes down to just to kind of give a little example here

[00:24:49] Maybe you'll have a specific bonyad that's running, you know

[00:24:51] Jihad and construction and i'm not talking about jihadism like if there's literally a jihad and construction one that builds stuff

[00:24:57] And maybe through through one of the clerics that's associated with them

[00:25:01] That's how lebanese hezbollah gets money ostensibly to I don't know rebuild apartment buildings in dahiya, you know

[00:25:08] It's a when I say it's labyrinthine. I was joking before saying it's byzantine

[00:25:12] but it is

[00:25:14] They can be kind of overly complicated just based on kind of familial connections and other network connections and you name it

[00:25:20] But yes the way that they run

[00:25:22] Uh, they're very very important because a lot of money and this also includes donations

[00:25:26] So you can donate to one of these charitable funds that's supposed to be employing people and also technically runs as a quasi business

[00:25:34] So you have kind of an issue there too. Yeah, but you know this cleric he runs this, you know

[00:25:38] It's the imam khomeini foundation

[00:25:39] Well, the imam khomeini foundation operates directly with irgc and you know runs under khamenei's jurisdiction and his his loyalists

[00:25:47] So, you know you have issues that are like that your comparison with nazi

[00:25:50] Germany, I think actually is is really warranted at an interesting way to look at it

[00:25:56] I mean so in this case the ss is analogous to the irgc, right?

[00:26:02] And you know in like 1949 as the curtain was falling on the third reich

[00:26:08] Uh, I mean these are both

[00:26:10] Examples of regimes that have gotten totally high on their own supply that believe their own propaganda

[00:26:17] And because of it have this horse these like horse blinders on to the reality around them, right and it makes them

[00:26:24] Incompetent ineffective like just fully

[00:26:28] Set on achieving these ideological goals

[00:26:32] No matter how unrealistic or harmful the pursuit of those goals are over time, right?

[00:26:37] So in the case of the nazis, right you had at the end there

[00:26:42] You know sometimes like literal children from the hitler youth running out in front of like battle-hardened soviet

[00:26:49] Shock troops right and just getting mowed down for nothing

[00:26:52] it was the younger people who really still truly believed in that ideology whereas

[00:26:59] the older officers and and enlisted people many of which had seen world war one knew that like

[00:27:05] The game was over and this was pointless and we're all just this is done for us

[00:27:09] what I find interesting with iran though is that demographic situation is kind of

[00:27:14] I think in many respects shifted. Is that is that fair?

[00:27:18] That it's the older people that are still with it and a lot of the young people are like no we're we're tired of this

[00:27:23] Yes, but that also doesn't mean there isn't a parallel development

[00:27:26] That's also going on where they're trying to develop their own wings of young people, but in general

[00:27:31] Yeah, it's the young people are kind of fed up with living under that, you know

[00:27:36] They're going to parties they drink, you know

[00:27:38] They want to live kind of the normal cool western life, you know, a lot of kind of cultural attributes don't really

[00:27:44] Flow very well with a shia theocracy that's being imposed on many of them. Um, so you do have that issue again

[00:27:50] It's it's another reason why you see how many coming out and talking about the culture war essentially, you know

[00:27:55] And how it needs to be interesting. Well, it's I I mean that's kind of what it comes down to but it's yeah

[00:28:01] It I actually would say it's not

[00:28:04] In any way comparable to you know, this clinical culture war in the united states

[00:28:08] Uh or in western europe, but but what I would say is, you know

[00:28:11] He views it as an existential threat to

[00:28:15] What is going to happen within the islamic republic of iran?

[00:28:18] But I what I would say you also have that that kind of parallel development that's going on where a lot of younger people

[00:28:25] Who might may actually be enamored with the regime itself because maybe their father was in it

[00:28:30] You know, maybe their father did something interesting. Maybe they had a family member who was there

[00:28:34] Maybe they didn't have a connection. They're looking for kind of

[00:28:37] you know some economic, uh greater abilities and

[00:28:41] You know, they join up but then they become true believers and I want to give you a good example here like the perfect example

[00:28:46] Uh qasim. Suleimani the former head of the irgc qf meaning the quds force islamic revolutionary guard corps quds force

[00:28:53] He was not an original kind of joiner in the 79 revolution. He even talks about this

[00:28:58] He is symbolic of kind of this second wave that happened

[00:29:03] When the iran iraq war began he was coming of age and then what did he do?

[00:29:07] He joined the irgc and a lot of them would join a lot of people who try to join artesh if they could

[00:29:12] You know because a lot of them were just drafted in and thrown into the battlefields

[00:29:16] But you know tesh is the regular army not the irgc correct

[00:29:20] Um, so he didn't do that. He joined the irgc but not only did he join the irgc

[00:29:24] But the guy clearly demonstrated a lot of true true believer status, uh, you know kind of status

[00:29:30] Not symbols, but but kind of a status in and of itself

[00:29:33] And then also pulled off

[00:29:35] Some of the most successful moves that iran has experienced in the middle east now in large part

[00:29:39] It wasn't necessarily just because of sulimani but kind of getting down to brass tacks here. That's a symbol of you know, how

[00:29:47] The regime its ideology and its big power brokers and kind of the the the big

[00:29:52] Kind of power players within it are still pulling people on and still kind of getting newer generations and every once in a while

[00:29:59] You know you get somebody who's very very talented at what they do

[00:30:03] Uh is a good leader and also is bolstering people like hamani, you know, even if there might be some personal disagreements

[00:30:08] I mean, they're still you know on the same team and fighting the same battle

[00:30:12] so, I mean, I think that they're

[00:30:14] the possibilities there of younger people kind of

[00:30:19] Being radical and at least continuing that form of radicalism is most certainly there

[00:30:24] But I do want to I actually do want to talk about this

[00:30:27] I constantly read this on twitter and I constantly read it in articles. They are not wrong in saying it

[00:30:32] But they're completely missing a key nuance here

[00:30:36] One of it is one of these things is it's saying well, you know, they're all septuagenarians. They're all octogenarians

[00:30:41] You know, these are all old men clearly

[00:30:43] They're out of touch with everything and it completely ignores how the system is built

[00:30:47] So, you know initially when the islamic republic of of iran was constructed

[00:30:52] To attain the position of a supreme leader and in shiaism 12 or shiaism

[00:30:56] Which is what they believe in whether it's a 12 or shia state to become an ayatollah. Normally you have to be

[00:31:03] Pretty aged you have to be very well educated

[00:31:05] Uh, you have to be revered by your other colleagues other clerics

[00:31:09] You have to have a status within there and guess what it takes decades and decades and decades

[00:31:14] You're not going to see a 20 year old or a 34 year old ayatollah

[00:31:19] Or somebody at least with with the religious credentials that are required to ascend in that kind of apparatus

[00:31:26] and it's interesting how you juxtapose that to you know, the kind of western, you know, we're

[00:31:32] There's a kind of weird obsession in media, you know for kind of the virility of being young and you know

[00:31:37] You're having having high spirits and being able to get stuff done and address problems immediately

[00:31:42] Um, and it it doesn't necessarily correlate with the kind of original concepts for you know

[00:31:46] The islamic revolution islamic governance. And so again, I mean, I don't necessarily think it always counts against them

[00:31:54] Having older leadership also, you know, i'm going to totally use some what do we call it?

[00:31:58] Woke ism a woke ism. Is that it but i'm going to say something i'll allow it. That's fine

[00:32:02] Yeah, I'm gonna say something very ageist here. I know now i'm not but it's in general

[00:32:08] You know, we we tend to not pay the same respects to older people like some other cultures and I think in this no

[00:32:15] we don't but

[00:32:17] The point i'm getting at is

[00:32:19] It's just interesting in terms of well

[00:32:21] Their system is literally built upon that premise and we are approaching it along the one of you know

[00:32:26] Well, they just don't get it and then it completely excludes in many cases

[00:32:30] uh

[00:32:30] You know the fact that there are also young people they try to bring on and they also have their own cult of youth

[00:32:35] And cult and they combine it with a cult of martyrdom

[00:32:38] So it's not out of the realm of possibility that that you know, they have kind of built their own power base

[00:32:43] And I keep using that that term, uh quite deliberately so because that's essentially what they've done again

[00:32:49] It doesn't mean that you know, it's totally solid. It doesn't mean that there can't be some levels of changes

[00:32:55] however

[00:32:55] I do think that moving forward a lot of those

[00:32:58] Changes might actually be one where they are projecting even more into the region because they feel emboldened

[00:33:04] Because you're having these kids again getting high on their own supply

[00:33:07] They are believing the propaganda and they are you know, we're going to continue executing

[00:33:11] We're going to continue doing what we want to do, you know the houthis in yemen

[00:33:15] Yeah, why don't they just take the rest of the country? I don't understand. Let's just send them some more cruise missiles

[00:33:19] You know, it's you never know where that can come out and it's interesting, you know, khamenei

[00:33:24] who

[00:33:25] you know has kind of

[00:33:27] He and his irgc lieutenants have kind of more carefully planned out

[00:33:32] Uh their operations in the region

[00:33:34] It's just interesting to me that you know, he's quite radical at his age and was also an original

[00:33:40] You know you picked because he was a true believer

[00:33:42] So what does that mean if you and you also have this bolster by I mentioned the assembly of experts

[00:33:46] I mismentioned them before

[00:33:48] Um, they're the ones who technically pick the next khamenei the next supreme leader

[00:33:53] All of these guys are true loyalists to khamenei

[00:33:57] They are also, you know true believers in the system and they have a vested interest in maintaining some form of that

[00:34:02] I mean they even went forward where so-called reformers like rafsanjani and a few other people

[00:34:08] Thought it was a smart idea to bolster khamenei because he was in a weaker status and they could they could get more power

[00:34:14] well

[00:34:15] Because he wasn't he wasn't a true ayatollah. He was not a marja

[00:34:19] meaning he was not um

[00:34:21] Of kind of high ranking status to the point where he's he's highly recognized and his advice can be followed through on

[00:34:27] he couldn't really attain that and it's almost like it's just kind of a

[00:34:30] Afterthought, uh, and that's not really how the islamic

[00:34:34] Islamic governance system islamic republic should really work. But what i'm what i'm getting at is

[00:34:39] if you're having these people processing through you're now having the the rankings not as

[00:34:45] Not considered as highly anymore

[00:34:46] They just consider they want somebody who's loyal to the regime meaning loyal to that system of governance

[00:34:52] What do you get from that?

[00:34:53] You know, obviously you're going to want somebody who's the most loyal and can guide the country through and protect your interests

[00:34:58] Which does not necessarily say you're going to get somebody who's quite moderate and going to do the right thing

[00:35:04] The regime was sort of founded and and and has been you know led for the past

[00:35:09] What you know a few decades by this, uh principle. It's called uh, well, I do fucky which is translates to um

[00:35:16] guardianship of the islamic jurist, uh in in layman's terms, could you

[00:35:21] Explain what that is and and how it functions within iran. Sure

[00:35:26] one of my favorite accomplishments was to introduce this into militia analysis because

[00:35:31] Like very few people were looking at it before and so like yeah, but does it believe in absolute will I tell fucky?

[00:35:36] So let me explain absolute will I tell fucky and we have to preface this with absolute will I tell fucky because we let it tell

[00:35:43] Is a concept that exists in 12 or shia's and it also exists in a lot of other uh forms of shia'sm where

[00:35:50] And this is kind of the baseline of it a cleric can take responsibility

[00:35:55] for let's say an orphan or let's say somebody who's diseased a widow and provide aid to them and provide guidance and structure and kind of

[00:36:03] Offer some kind of controlling mechanisms, you know people who are mentally ill or or you know

[00:36:08] People with an extraordinarily low iq

[00:36:11] Kind of thing, you know, they would come in and say well we can run this this center and you can come here

[00:36:16] And it's under the management of this ayatollah

[00:36:18] Uh my hodja to this lamb, uh, meaning it's another medium level cleric and he'll he'll oversee this and he'll do this

[00:36:25] So that's initially where the concept was was quasi growing from that's the more kind of quietest model the more traditional shia model

[00:36:32] It's not necessarily a a model of governance. It became a model of governance because

[00:36:38] Khomeini and a number of it was actually a number of other clerics

[00:36:42] But khomeini was really the one who pushed it the hardest and this came from different influences one

[00:36:47] You had the dalwa party, uh, which had formed it included a lot of shia clerics

[00:36:51] Also some sunni ones too that were looking for a new system to preserve islam because they were worried about communism's infiltration

[00:36:58] They were worried about the west and west toxification

[00:37:01] And so what they did was okay. Well, then we need to extend this concept of williah

[00:37:06] Of protection that's what it is and we are the jurisprudence

[00:37:09] We're the jurisprudence here. So we're the ones who can best execute all those law that he's given to us in quran

[00:37:17] And and we can we can best do that and we need to be the overseers and protectors of the entire population

[00:37:24] Until in the shia sense until imam al-mahdi who's kind of their messianic figure who comes back kind of like jesus

[00:37:30] This is their like apocalyptic end times kind of story their book essentially yes, it is 100% in apocalyptic

[00:37:39] Concept for the ideology. I mean actually khamenei is

[00:37:43] essentially the agent of uh

[00:37:46] Imam al-mahdi on earth so think of it kind of like there's a mix a mixture of kind of

[00:37:50] Pope, you know kind of a papal authority kind of

[00:37:53] Figure kind of modeling there. But again, that's kind of what it comes down to now in absolute with it

[00:37:59] You know, you're probably seeing well, but they're an islamic republic they have a republic well, they're very anti-democratic

[00:38:06] In fact khomeini discussed this quite a bit and then beyond that, you know the republic itself

[00:38:12] anything that that's kind of made there can be overwritten by the supreme leader because literally it's it's

[00:38:17] I've compared it to like the hebrew national ad

[00:38:21] If you want some more irony in here

[00:38:22] So the hebrew national ad is you know, we answer to a higher power and that's essentially

[00:38:27] It's essentially how this is this is executed

[00:38:30] So with absolute will I at the end of the day to kind of like really summarize it if I am adhering to it

[00:38:35] Obviously in this case. I am going to be adhering to to

[00:38:40] Khamenei who I will also call imam khamenei. You'll notice that khomeini was called imam khomeini

[00:38:46] Why is that they go back to the 12?

[00:38:49] The 12 imams who were kind of correctly chosen

[00:38:52] uh figures to lead

[00:38:54] Islam in this case shia islam and they're viewing that as as these people are extensions of that line

[00:39:01] Of people who are you know martyred and and kind of put into power because of you know

[00:39:06] Familial and religious connections a couple hundred years ago. So they have that

[00:39:10] Uh, the other part of this is let's say i'm an adherent

[00:39:13] What does it mean and I I run into this problem a lot because if you're trying to describe like how shia militias work

[00:39:19] And say they're they adhere to absolute with it

[00:39:22] I think there was a false impression that happened

[00:39:24] Uh, and I just remember this where some people thought that just meant you press the button

[00:39:28] You know khamenei says go you go, you know, how how high do you jump?

[00:39:32] Uh doesn't always work that way. However, the concept of it is

[00:39:37] political guidance social guidance religious religious guidance all comes down to essentially what comes out of khamenei's office

[00:39:46] That's where it comes now

[00:39:47] Here's here's the funny thing. You can still be a believer in absolute with it

[00:39:52] Not really be an adherent to khamenei

[00:39:56] But there were other clerics who were under khamenei who adhere to will I go to absolute with it?

[00:40:01] so for instance, I had to law hari who who represented he was a

[00:40:05] guy who was along with

[00:40:07] muhammad muhammad sadiq solder

[00:40:09] Uh in iraq, um, and a lot of the sodderists would look to him kind of early in the 2000s

[00:40:15] Um, but he is an adherent to absolute with it. Okay. Is he an ayatollah?

[00:40:19] Yes, as you can sometimes consider it almost a grand. I a grand ayatollah. Yes, which is kind of a very very high presence

[00:40:25] Um yet he's still technically ranked in this system beneath the supreme leader

[00:40:30] I mean it's interesting, you know, there's another example of this

[00:40:34] Ayatollah ali sistani who is in iraq and he is the leading the biggest uh, 12 or shia cleric in the world

[00:40:41] Um, he's essentially like the queen mother when it comes to 12 or shiaism, uh, somehow he's he survived he

[00:40:48] Lives in najaf, uh, and his representatives kind of cast his views

[00:40:53] He is more of the quietest sense of cleric meaning. He's not i was gonna ask you to talk about that

[00:40:58] No, it's so the thing is and this is actually what I've got

[00:41:02] How much have I written about this?

[00:41:03] It's funny because I feel like i'm stumbling over myself because I want to talk at a million miles an hour and just speedboat

[00:41:08] so

[00:41:10] Not always the best thing to do but um

[00:41:12] What I would say is so with sistani he's more of a semi quietist

[00:41:15] So sometimes he gets involved in politics every now and again, but he isn't calling for hi

[00:41:20] I am ayatollah sistani and I am starting the state and I am going to be the leader and what I say goes

[00:41:26] That's not really how he runs it and that's not really what he he does. It's not how he executes

[00:41:31] Uh, you know what he would like?

[00:41:33] Um often his political changes come through statements here and there through representatives

[00:41:38] And they're not always that binding

[00:41:40] Unless you're you know, unless it's some other kind of smaller issues

[00:41:44] and when I say that I mean

[00:41:45] There's one example that actually happened in the early 2000s where uh, he had put out that you know

[00:41:50] Gays should be killed and even though he is considered, you know

[00:41:53] Quite moderate and he does not like the iranian system. It does not like the iranians

[00:41:57] You still get stuff like that occasionally and there were followers of his who were going out and you know

[00:42:01] Try to kill the gays

[00:42:02] And of course the iranians jumped on that very quickly and used that as an example

[00:42:07] But before I get ahead of myself so you can have somebody like sistani who is the most lauded shia cleric

[00:42:13] And oddly you'll have groups that are pro-absolute williah tal-faqih who are totally

[00:42:20] Loyal to khamenei and you'll see them with sistani pictures there

[00:42:24] So sometimes they will they will go to

[00:42:27] different clerics for certain rulings

[00:42:30] Often you want to follow if you're a 12 or shia right education everything else you want to follow, you know one cleric

[00:42:36] But you'll often see this where oh, no, no, no, you know

[00:42:39] He handles these other religious affairs, but our political affairs are really handled by khamenei

[00:42:44] Which is kind of another reading of absolute williah tal-faqih

[00:42:47] Other times they just lie blatantly and some of these militia groups will just slap his face on the side of one of their jeeps

[00:42:52] Because hey, no, no, no, we're showing how iraqi nationalists we are and we're true believers too

[00:42:57] So you were doing this because of sistani's fatwa not because khamenei told us to do it a couple months before he ever said anything

[00:43:02] You know, and that was that was a common thing. I mean that happened in in syria and iraq in 2014

[00:43:07] We always get

[00:43:09] Another kind of side note on this. I always found it really fascinating how you know, a lot of people would say

[00:43:14] uh

[00:43:15] Sistani and his fatwa in in june of 2014, which was to fight isis because they had taken

[00:43:21] Mosul and they were going down towards baghdad

[00:43:23] That's really what what inspired people to join, uh, you know

[00:43:27] The kind of proto al-hashd al-shalbi or the popular mobilization forces and join these militias

[00:43:32] Yeah, meanwhile, the iraqi shia militias backed by the iranians had been recruiting people since early that year

[00:43:39] Actually late, you know in 2013 to fight in iraq and they're also fighting in syria too

[00:43:43] Which was a campaign that sistani did not support

[00:43:46] Muqtada salter publicly did not support it and even hit some of his guys that were called by the iranians were sending him over

[00:43:52] there, so you see there's like this mismatch, it's very

[00:43:55] It can be very very confusing at times because there are a lot of moving pieces

[00:43:59] And it's very very hard sometimes to ascertain

[00:44:02] Well, this guy is an iraqi and he gets a lot of religious guidance from sistani

[00:44:06] But oddly enough he is politically loyal to khamenei even when they butt heads with sistan

[00:44:10] Like how does that work?

[00:44:12] And sometimes it just kind of it passes through it's a bit like, you know to compare it to the catholic church

[00:44:17] you can have different kind of

[00:44:19] Can have different bishops that are far more liberal than what the vatican wants that are in power

[00:44:24] In that small section that they they kind of that they're running. Uh, but meanwhile, there's still adherence to the pope

[00:44:31] and again, it's not an exact match in fact, I it's kind of a

[00:44:34] Very harsh comparison, uh in terms of how it's actually run

[00:44:37] But I don't want anyone to think that it's like, you know

[00:44:40] He asked me to put the godfather line. He asked me to push a button. I pushed a button

[00:44:44] There is a piece of that that is there but it's not necessarily that's not how people work

[00:44:48] So there's there's always a lot of you know gray zone that's kind of going forward with it

[00:44:51] Thanks for that. We're going to take a quick break and we'll be right back with more

[00:45:14] I wanted to give listeners a good sense of how

[00:45:18] uh racy's death

[00:45:20] Will operationally impact iranian foreign policy. So his title is was president

[00:45:27] But um, it would be wrong to consider him president in the sense of like a federal system like ours or even a parliamentary system

[00:45:34] Can you speak to like what his what his day-to-day role is and how much influence he has over?

[00:45:40] The coordination with groups like hezbollah or hamas

[00:45:43] Well, he he functions more as a as kind of a figurehead that's out there

[00:45:47] Uh when I say that let's compare it to the supreme leader the supreme leader when he engages groups like lebanese

[00:45:52] Hezbollah or he engages. I don't know

[00:45:55] Asai bachlal hawk in iraq another militia

[00:45:58] He'll often send representatives that are from qom

[00:46:01] Meaning the one of the holiest cities for shia islam and it's in iran

[00:46:05] And he'll send one of his representatives from there and they'll often meet privately or he'll send somebody from the irgc that will go along

[00:46:11] other times you might have the president because as a

[00:46:14] Important figurehead and you have them meet with somebody some other important state, you know figurehead or you know

[00:46:20] Politician who's also a militia leader. Well, that certainly sends another another signal doesn't it? Sometimes it's also the back channel stuff

[00:46:26] I'll send the president on that trip and he will talk to a shia militia guy here

[00:46:31] Um, but raisi was not necessarily

[00:46:34] Going out and saying, you know here uh, khamenei, you know told me to tell you that you need to bomb

[00:46:39] You know, but you know bomb the israelis in I don't know

[00:46:42] Kiryat shimonah today. That's not really how that worked but in general kind of his

[00:46:47] Daily tasks wise. I mean there is also kind of i'm gonna call it oversight because that's not the correct term that I want to use

[00:46:54] but

[00:46:55] In their system, they have a number of different vice presidents

[00:46:57] I mean you have to think of it kind of like there's there's a pecking order there too. I mean, uh muhammad

[00:47:02] Mokhbar is now his technically technically his successor because he was the first vp

[00:47:07] Um that was that was kind of there

[00:47:10] There's a lot of kind of internal politics that kind of happens with this as as the presidential position

[00:47:15] It's higher than say being obviously higher than being a mayor, you know of tehran or something like that. Um, you have more

[00:47:23] More fingers kind of on the power structure and also in terms of patronage networks

[00:47:27] That's another kind of big thing and not really an official thing, but it's

[00:47:30] Another important aspect. I don't really see discussed all that much

[00:47:33] But I tend to look at his position to kind of wrap this together

[00:47:37] You know, how does it view the shia, you know, how is he dealing with the shia militia but also doing his daily tasks?

[00:47:43] It is

[00:47:44] Markedly different and similar at the same time to how you might look at an american president

[00:47:49] American president is a figurehead for the united states. You view foreign policy kind of through what they are guiding

[00:47:55] Uh, even though in iran, they're not guiding the foreign policy. Uh, you can view

[00:48:00] Uh kind of other aspects to it. What are the what do the american people think if they've elected this president twice?

[00:48:06] Does that mean they're in a more conservative trend or a more liberal trend?

[00:48:10] You know in this respect with iran

[00:48:12] It's the well

[00:48:13] Obviously there's a they're doubling down on the islamic revolution and doubling down on their their radical leadership

[00:48:19] And they're doubling down on people who are long in the tooth

[00:48:21] They were you know, quote unquote loyalists even if they're unpopular. They don't care what you think

[00:48:25] so I think that's kind of a more important aspect to kind of

[00:48:28] Focus on when it comes to kind of the presidency and kind of its roles

[00:48:32] Raisi was considered to be next in line to be a supreme leader after uh, humanayi who is as we said

[00:48:38] He's 85. So he's probably not going to be around a whole lot much longer

[00:48:43] So can you say in the short term who is likely to replace?

[00:48:48] Raisi as president and then looking a bit longer than that

[00:48:52] What does it mean for um, how many succession planning so there are elections that are supposed to be coming up in june?

[00:48:58] uh, and

[00:49:00] It's interesting for whoever's going to be president. They're going to get the four-year

[00:49:04] Uh treatment from that one and it's interesting. I mentioned before, uh, muhammad mokhtar

[00:49:09] who

[00:49:10] He was the first vp

[00:49:11] And if you look at him and i'm just i'm going to give this as an example of who is kind of

[00:49:15] Filling the role for the moment

[00:49:17] He was this is a guy who's sanctioned by the eu for missile technology and and being involved in that

[00:49:24] He's considered a really really close irgc loyalist

[00:49:28] So you kind of see you know

[00:49:29] There's an interesting trend line here for who they want in power and who is kind of surrounding them

[00:49:34] But he's currently technically the the kind of acting president at the moment

[00:49:39] There's been a lot of talk too. You know if if raisi was really, you know

[00:49:44] I don't want to say on the chopping block, but if he was really going to be the next supreme leader

[00:49:49] That's an interesting pick again

[00:49:50] I mean I said before he was not the most popular guy

[00:49:53] But the irgc viewed him as a true loyalist as a true person who could you know

[00:49:58] Do the functions and also do them very viciously and probably give them enough leeway to do, you know

[00:50:03] Fun little things they wanted to do in the region and also internally, uh in iran

[00:50:08] But one of the interesting names that has popped out of here is uh, khamenei's son. So ali khamenei's son mustafa

[00:50:14] he is

[00:50:16] He's an up-and-comer in a way and what's interesting here is I left this out when you bring this up at the presidency

[00:50:22] um

[00:50:22] I've always found it. It's interesting when you study how our iran has functioned khamenei was

[00:50:28] I think he was like second no third. He was the third president for the islamic republic

[00:50:33] So one can consider it

[00:50:34] Well, if you've had that kind of position and we've seasoned you we've seen how you're coming through

[00:50:38] We're seeing who you're most loyal to where you are with the ideology where you're disagreeing where you're functioning

[00:50:43] uh where you're going to be next and interestingly because of his time there and also his time in the islamic majlis is his time in

[00:50:51] Essentially their parliamentary system

[00:50:54] And his time as a cleric as a militant cleric on the battlefields

[00:50:57] This is what kind of convinced khamenei, you know in part that hey this guy could be some supreme, you know

[00:51:02] Leader material here. He is a true believer. He's a true loyalist

[00:51:05] um now that's not the case for every it doesn't mean that everyone who's been president is like

[00:51:09] Yeah, this guy could be the next supreme leader and that's how it works

[00:51:11] That's not how that works. But what i'm saying is sometimes there's a process where there's

[00:51:17] They essentially kind of see they get their seasoning and then you kind of see where they go

[00:51:21] Um, and you see what the supreme leader is thinking what the assembly of experts might be thinking

[00:51:26] And I think this is one of those opportunities, you know for khamenei

[00:51:30] For somebody who was widely disliked in iran

[00:51:33] Uh, and also somebody who was not as well known in the west save for all the vicious human rights abuses that he had executed

[00:51:40] You know, how do you get that person out there?

[00:51:43] Almost oh it's almost like pr pr imaging and kind of branding

[00:51:47] So there's that part of it there but going back to to his son back to khamenei's son mustafa

[00:51:53] Uh khamenei, so he is another true loyalist, but he's considered a bit

[00:51:59] I don't want to say dim, but he's not considered like the best pick. I mean one he's not the best pick because

[00:52:05] He's khamenei's kid. Does that not now establish?

[00:52:08] You know that there's now kind of an interesting ruling system in the country by nepo, baby. Yeah

[00:52:13] Yes, I I mean imagine that though and and again, that's another criticism just on the side

[00:52:18] I could also have a counter criticism to that to that criticism. The counter criticism is interesting

[00:52:24] Nobody complains about how many people who are of saeed of a saeed status meaning they are

[00:52:29] direct descendants of the prophet muhammad, which is very very important in kind of

[00:52:34] Familiar in the clerical networks within shiaism

[00:52:38] Uh, nobody seems to you know

[00:52:39] To be upset when there's like three lines of sultars in iraq

[00:52:43] Who are considered kind of the political and religious leadership for that set of iraqi shia?

[00:52:49] So, you know, I think there's also kind of a misunderstanding there as well

[00:52:52] But in general iranians, you know, a lot of iranians are like this going. Oh, so now it's a family affair

[00:52:57] Now it's a it's a family operation and you're handing it off to your kid

[00:53:01] Who again is not widely known for his religious scholarship and you know, also not really widely known for

[00:53:08] uh a lot of the the

[00:53:11] For more, you know political moves or for the kind of more storied career of his father

[00:53:16] and I mean that one's popped up quite a bit, but I also think it's popped up quite a bit because

[00:53:21] It's more interesting to talk about him

[00:53:23] And I think sometimes you never know who who might be put in place by the assembly of experts

[00:53:28] And and when I say that it's interesting a lot of names don't even come to mind for me and they don't because

[00:53:34] You'll see chatter of it. Like you're not going to see like an iranian media

[00:53:37] You'll get whispers of things like there are hinted ways and kind of these double entendres and triple entendres of kind of referring to somebody

[00:53:44] And oh and this one's in the medium where you're playing the game of kremlinology here, you know

[00:53:48] But do we do we really think uh, you know, anatoly dobrynin, you know, it's gonna it's gonna come up here, you know, it's

[00:53:54] Uh, you know, who do we think is next? Is it andropov?

[00:53:57] I didn't think it was going to be andropov. He was too close to this section of the kgb

[00:54:01] So you never really know, you know what can happen with that and I say this I mean

[00:54:06] one can take this on the flip side, you know to counter what I was saying earlier that

[00:54:11] One maybe because he's a younger true believer

[00:54:14] Who's come through his father's system a system that his father helped truly develop over the past couple of decades

[00:54:20] You know, maybe that's kind of you know

[00:54:22] What the islamic republic at least under khamenei

[00:54:25] Is looking for in addition to kind of you know, protecting familial interest here

[00:54:30] But again, I I mean I come down to this where you know

[00:54:32] If raisi was being considered and i've also seen pushback to that too. I have i've seen a lot of pushback to that

[00:54:38] Uh in different sections where yeah, he was slightly younger and yes, I mean it's interesting

[00:54:43] I'll give you an example some of the iraqi shia militia groups are referring to him as ayatollah

[00:54:49] So ayatollah meaning, you know

[00:54:51] He's kind of a leading

[00:54:53] Leading cleric which is interesting given, you know, who was really going to him for you know

[00:54:57] Religious guidance or anything else but kind of elevating that that religious sense

[00:55:02] Because where did you ever see him regularly referred to that?

[00:55:05] Outside of iran. It's sort of like calling a phd student a doctor before they've delivered and defended their thesis

[00:55:12] Yes, well that I mean khamenei had the same issue though

[00:55:15] That's the thing people were calling him ayatollah and he was not ayatollah

[00:55:20] In fact, there's still very little evidence that really he's true ayatollah

[00:55:23] I mean it's it's fascinating because you have somebody like sistani or najefi or you know

[00:55:28] A lot of these guys in najef, you know, even even you know

[00:55:31] I'm not talking about mukhtar solder, but you know muhammad muhammad saldik solder his father

[00:55:36] You know, you look at these people with their scholarship khamenei, you know that amount of scholarship that amount of time in

[00:55:42] No matter what how radical their thoughts are how unradical they are

[00:55:46] It's it's part and parcel to this iranian system now

[00:55:50] Post khamenei that's kind of what i'm getting at that

[00:55:53] You know

[00:55:53] They will elevate these people even falsely to kind of put them in a box and say yeah

[00:55:58] You see they were really rising and they were really ascending

[00:56:00] It's just it was interesting to see it from the iraqi side of iranian controlled groups that were kind of putting it out there

[00:56:06] Oh, really?

[00:56:07] You couldn't just launch that that uh uav that was going to fly to israel

[00:56:11] Uh, you couldn't really just launch that and say it's in memory of president. Raisi. No ayatollah. Raisi

[00:56:17] Fascinating. Okay. So there's some religious element here

[00:56:20] He's just adding that one on but every other time i've seen that that we always was dealing with khamenei

[00:56:25] You know whenever the ayatollah talk would come they'd never really officially say it

[00:56:30] But some other connected group would say it. It's it's almost like the the the uh,

[00:56:34] The fatwa that never really existed which was you know, his nuclear arms fatwa, you know, it's it's interesting. You don't see

[00:56:42] You you don't see this in in western media

[00:56:44] And you also don't see it published within uh iranian media or even arabic language media where you'll see chatter

[00:56:49] And I want to give this example because I remember this from syria

[00:56:52] Clearly khamenei had to give the ruling and press the button and say hey

[00:56:56] We need to send guys over there from my shia militias in iraq and lebanon a bunch of other places

[00:57:02] Which means it has to come from the top. That's how it works by definition. That's how it works yet

[00:57:07] There's no fatwa. There's only one fatwa that really came out from a shia political leader that was connected to khamenei

[00:57:14] And it came out like a year and a half after

[00:57:17] They had already been mobilizing and been sending people over there

[00:57:20] And there were always kind of these vague mentions in arabic language of you know

[00:57:24] The supreme leader has given his blessing. This is his this is his technique shari. It's essentially

[00:57:30] Like an edict coming essentially from god you're if you're disobeying the taklif then you're not you're not doing god's duty

[00:57:36] You know, that's how he often gets people to quote unquote press the button

[00:57:39] Religiously speaking so you'd see mentions of that but you'd never see the actual document

[00:57:44] You'd never see the actual thing. They were always dancing around the issue

[00:57:48] And what ended up happening was it was like yeah, of course khamenei issued a fatwa

[00:57:51] Okay, but where is it? But see he didn't really issue a fatwa. So we just don't know, you know

[00:57:56] They were playing that game anyway, i'm sorry for for kind of going down that that little hole but

[00:58:00] I mean I see some some comparison to this here where you know, okay. Well, what?

[00:58:05] What game are we really playing here guys? You know, what's what's going on here?

[00:58:09] What were we setting up this guy for so I don't know. I I don't know i'm actually your guess is as good as mine if

[00:58:15] uh, so

[00:58:16] mastaba, um is uh

[00:58:18] 54 right so relatively young compared to the rest of the regime

[00:58:22] If he succeeds his father as supreme leader

[00:58:26] Does that?

[00:58:28] Does that suggest like that?

[00:58:29] Iran has a royal family now

[00:58:31] Like is there some sort of political inertia that okay eventually down the road that must have a son will then replace him

[00:58:37] Like how does that just change things? Well, it's possible that it does but it's also I mean

[00:58:42] Mustafa has to be put in he has to be put into that position. And again, he's young

[00:58:47] He doesn't have anything nearing an ayatollah status

[00:58:51] You know, where's you know, where has he been doing his scholarship and he's known for running bunyads and stuff

[00:58:55] He's known for running certain charities

[00:58:57] um, but you know at the end of the day

[00:59:00] You know, I look at it from you have to look at it again from like 30 000 feet 30 000 feet

[00:59:05] That is not a good look for the regime

[00:59:08] Uh as a whole if they're if they're trying to project outward and say no the islamic revolutionary government

[00:59:12] This is how it works. We are nothing like the pahlavis, you know, ha ha, you know those royalists who had no skill for doing this

[00:59:18] But again, I mentioned this before, you know familial networks, it's often how shia clericalism works, you know

[00:59:25] It's like the hakim family

[00:59:27] You know

[00:59:27] It just kept going down and then to the brother then to the brother and then to the cousin and then to the cousin's son

[00:59:33] So, I mean it's possible that that can happen. I mean it's entirely possible

[00:59:37] but again if we're looking at the original concept of of absolute willayah talfakeh where

[00:59:43] First and foremost in that earlier practice you had to be a marja

[00:59:47] You had to be a grand ayatollah you had to have those statuses. That's why khomeini, you know

[00:59:52] They gleefully called him imam khomeini because he could pretty much stand on his own two legs for his own scholarship

[01:00:00] That's why when khamenei came in and he didn't really have that he was hujat al-islam again that mid-level cleric

[01:00:05] I mean sayyid hassan nasrallah

[01:00:07] Has the the status of a hujat al-islam

[01:00:10] Um, which is that mid-level and then he was kind of ascending up the ranks

[01:00:14] Um, not nasrallah but khamenei

[01:00:17] You know, I look at that and that's a further degradation of what that original form was trying to be

[01:00:24] Which again, that's a long-term concern that i'm quite sure khamenei has thought about

[01:00:29] I mean, obviously he doesn't want to discredit his time in office

[01:00:34] Uh, he doesn't want to destroy kind of the legacy of khomeini or his legacy for that matter probably moreover more importantly

[01:00:41] So then what does that send if that sends that?

[01:00:43] Oh any, you know any true believer in the revolution who who happens to be shia and connected?

[01:00:49] Well, I mean that's just more more of that kind of painted over, you know, rusting paint. I was painting over uh,

[01:00:56] rusting uh

[01:00:57] Uh body of like a car, you know, does it still run maybe?

[01:01:02] But um, I look at that as there's a lot of larger scale strategic issues for you know

[01:01:09] Thinking about the islamic revolution if that comes comes forward

[01:01:12] I mean the other other side of it is does that you were asking does that create a dynasty not necessarily?

[01:01:17] I mean, I you know if i'm trying to carefully parse my words and play dc think tanker here and go

[01:01:22] I have no conclusions for you

[01:01:23] You know, i'll never get in trouble. Actually you misread my policy advice because I put and over here

[01:01:29] you just

[01:01:30] You missed that

[01:01:31] Back rubs to the insurgents, you know, it's like

[01:01:34] I said well, he didn't give an exact number. Well, you can't measure like that

[01:01:39] What i'm getting at is sorry

[01:01:41] so

[01:01:44] What i'm trying to get at is

[01:01:45] dynastic power in shiism 12 or shiism is not unheard of

[01:01:50] Okay, it's not it's not a foreign thing

[01:01:53] And I think you know some people who who will come out and say well god, you know

[01:01:56] This will be a total destructive thing. I think it's it's not necessarily haveses

[01:02:01] But you know, there's a chunk of it where you can make the argument that well, he is saeed

[01:02:05] He's a he's coming from you know line of prophet muhammad

[01:02:09] His father led the islamic republic and look at how much success we've had overseas and in solidifying the regime

[01:02:16] And preserving khomeini's rule you can make arguments like this

[01:02:21] But I do think that kind of that that other outside effect also plays into this too

[01:02:25] And then also if khamenei has a kid, you know, and let's say that kid, you know

[01:02:31] So that kid is is does he have does he have children offhand do you do you know, I believe he does

[01:02:37] Yeah, I I believe he does

[01:02:39] Um, because that would be kind of part and parcel

[01:02:41] It's weird that I didn't know that right off the top of my head. I'm actually gonna have to look that up now

[01:02:44] It's gonna bother me

[01:02:46] i'm very annoyed by this

[01:02:48] um

[01:02:49] Anyway, it's imagine he has a son and imagine the son wants to get into the the kind of realm of clericalism like his

[01:02:56] Grandfather and like his father, um, you run into other issues here

[01:03:00] Where you know, i'll give you a good example. Khomeini did not appoint his son and his number of sons were quite prominent

[01:03:08] Uh, and actually one of them I actually have the book here. So he wrote the kalthar

[01:03:14] He's quite radical true believer in irgc

[01:03:16] But nobody was saying, you know true believer in kind of the more radical conceptions of khomeinism

[01:03:21] And you know, he was not he was a cleric and he was you know in the news every once in a while

[01:03:27] But no one was saying hey, we're gonna stick him up there. We're gonna stick, you know, i've been khomeini up there

[01:03:31] So I I do wonder about that, you know because there was talk there was some talk

[01:03:35] You know, this might be a successor, you know a different khomeini

[01:03:38] It's interesting how politics will play at this. So what networks has moshtaba built himself once his father is gone

[01:03:45] I mean look at it. You want to see another kind of ascension issue?

[01:03:48] Look at how bashar al-assad came up after his father and in that system

[01:03:52] I mean that was

[01:03:54] In kind of the arab and I call it arab revolutionary system like an abbas system or an inocerous system

[01:04:00] It was very very hard to believe that, you know

[01:04:02] And the kid will take over and then it just became commonplace that of course, you know

[01:04:05] Of course, they're going to take over and you know kind of an arab nationalist

[01:04:08] Uh a type of regime but for bashar al-assad

[01:04:11] You'll notice there was a ton of pushback that did actually happen

[01:04:14] But the father had laid the groundwork properly so that he could come in there

[01:04:18] The old guard would be around him some of the old guard that needed to be eliminated kind of disappeared or didn't have an issue

[01:04:24] Other people who were loyal opposition and thought they could escape that position. Maybe didn't have such a good time

[01:04:30] That takes a lot of time and building

[01:04:32] And what I would say is how much has moshtaba had that's the bigger question

[01:04:36] And now that raisi if raisi was next in line, which meant a lot of these apparatuses were there

[01:04:42] Now they have to be reworked in some way that creates a whole other

[01:04:46] Uh, the potential for a whole other issue in terms of let's say he ascends to becoming the supreme leader

[01:04:52] Uh, he's the supreme leader and yet you have massive sections of the irgc

[01:04:56] That just don't happen to like him because they haven't worked well with him or they don't you know value something

[01:05:01] So what does he do in return? Does he just give them everything you want they want maybe he pushes against them

[01:05:05] Maybe he encourages something else there like there are so many different little

[01:05:09] Dynamics that can really come into play here

[01:05:11] But I think we need to really look at you know, where the groundwork is being laid and it's very very hard because it's extraordinarily

[01:05:17] Opaque i'm sure there is a team of political analysts in langley right now writing a very detailed profile on this guy

[01:05:24] I I am i'm quite sure they've already written it and i'm also quite sure that it's detailed to a point

[01:05:30] like many other analyses

[01:05:32] Yeah fair. So when the day comes that hamanayi

[01:05:37] You know shuffles off this mortal plane

[01:05:39] Do you expect the question of who comes next whether that's you know?

[01:05:44] Kendall roy taking over daddy's firm or someone else maybe more qualified

[01:05:48] Do you expect that that'll be resolved by then or could we expect some period of we don't know what's going to go down

[01:05:54] Um, if we remember back to when khomeini died in 89

[01:05:59] And the ascension of hamanayi in 90

[01:06:02] Technically he was picked but technically you had a lot of politicking going on between you know

[01:06:07] People who will call quote unquote the moderates a phrase that I hate

[01:06:11] Uh, and a lot of other people who were you know

[01:06:13] Trying to bolster him or take power away or gain their own power

[01:06:16] And I can't imagine that hamanayi hasn't learned from that. I can't imagine that he would want

[01:06:22] A repetition of that for his son if he's trying to secure legacy

[01:06:27] And so I mean I I would assume that the groundwork is probably being laid

[01:06:31] I mean if that's where this is going i'm assuming that groundwork has probably been laid but there's only so much you can do

[01:06:37] When you have so many years to go, uh, there's only so much you can do when you know, they've already appointed, you know

[01:06:43] One new person to assembly of experts, uh, who's also a radical who is also a true believer slightly younger

[01:06:49] But you see stuff like this

[01:06:51] And you know, I can't help but think you know hamanayi has successfully

[01:06:56] Secured his power in the regime. He has he has done that through

[01:07:01] Empowering the irgc he's done that through allowing their overseas adventurism

[01:07:05] Um, he has you know cracked down on things that irgc would want to crack down on I mean

[01:07:10] Just he's kind of stuck to that line which tells me sorry

[01:07:14] Sorry, he's arguably more important to the regime than homani at this point

[01:07:18] Is that is that fair to say homani needs to be there as that kind of that?

[01:07:22] He's essentially playing george washington, but a george washington that existed in in let's say our living memory

[01:07:29] You need that as the figurehead but as the population's getting younger and younger

[01:07:33] Uh, and the new kind of the new blood is coming in and people are dying off

[01:07:38] Hamanayi will have higher resonance and will have more value to them. Do I think it's quite the same as homani?

[01:07:45] well, I mean

[01:07:46] Think of it this way. It's it's

[01:07:48] I could see a similar process occurring where it's kind of like with bashar al-assad bashar al-assad used to do the holy trinity

[01:07:56] It used to be called the holy trinity. I still have pictures of the holy trinity when they were still up

[01:08:00] uh, the holy trinity was

[01:08:02] Um his so he would have his father his deceased brother and bashar and they would be together

[01:08:08] You know his brother who died when he was speeding outside of aleppo in a sports car

[01:08:13] Uh his father who had you know taken over and ruled the country for how many decades?

[01:08:17] Uh and did his own corrective revolution quote unquote and then bashar

[01:08:21] Optometrist and he did that it was to kind of buoy his legitimacy

[01:08:25] And I think hominy has done that in many cases, but you know being a true believer

[01:08:29] You can't necessarily remove hominy from that because you yourself get legitimacy from it

[01:08:34] But I think as the generations kind of go forward, you know, it's then kind of picking, you know, where do you go?

[01:08:39] I mean who says it's interesting, you know, who do we say was?

[01:08:43] Well, most uh, most historians say it was the most important and one of the best american presidents

[01:08:48] If not the best abraham lincoln not george, washington, which is like fascinating

[01:08:52] You know, what are some of the most memorable presidents? Well jfk. Well

[01:08:56] It's interesting how we look at that and how time, you know

[01:08:59] We'll change things and kind of change the resonance and kind of change kind of the power portfolio

[01:09:04] Who do you need there? Well, are we going to see you know, kind of the trinity appearance?

[01:09:08] Uh with hominy hamana and younger and hamana the younger, you know, it'll be interesting

[01:09:14] It'll be interesting to see how that if that plays out if it plays out like that

[01:09:19] but again, I I think hamana right now in terms of

[01:09:22] Iran's overseas accomplishments

[01:09:25] He has accomplished a hell of a lot more than his predecessor

[01:09:28] And I think that's only because you know, he's had time they've had a learning curve

[01:09:32] They had a lot of failures look at the iran iraq war, you know, khomeini wanted to conquer iraq

[01:09:38] He did he wanted to conquer iraq and put all the shia holy cities under his rule. That was his main goal

[01:09:43] He sacrificed for a couple of years afterwards

[01:09:46] Thousands tens of thousands of young iranians to get that it was kind of the same kind of poor tactics poor strategy

[01:09:52] Throw them against the wall give them a plastic key around their neck walk over the minefield

[01:09:56] They honestly did that so I mean you look at that and I mean, yeah

[01:10:00] We're hasbollah established then was was a number of you know groups in bahrain and saudi arabia and other places where they established. Yeah, sure

[01:10:08] Um, but they were kind of early networks that still had some level and I say some level of autonomy

[01:10:13] I don't want people to believe oh, they're just doing their own thing and they liked

[01:10:16] Khomeini, but you know, they were true believers in that system

[01:10:19] They were that first wave and I think khamenei what he's brought in

[01:10:23] It's now the second wave of being more a more formalized military apparatus a more formalized status as being a power in the region

[01:10:31] It's more formalized in terms of the control that you have over the groups or maybe a lack of control

[01:10:35] You know what i'm getting at here where you know, they'll play kind of their game of pragmatism here

[01:10:40] And that's how it fits iranian policy

[01:10:43] So I would say, you know that that kind of I want to call it

[01:10:46] It's almost fermented in a way. Okay, so you're seeing a lot of these bubbles rising and you're seeing kind of the beer being created

[01:10:53] Um, is it necessarily done? No, uh, but you know

[01:10:57] Which process it's the argument of which process of fermentation was the most important when making a beer

[01:11:02] You know, you're gonna have arguments until you blew in the face over it

[01:11:05] And I think that's it's a very very similar kind of parallel to this. It's a great point

[01:11:08] Anything else you'd like to add on this that we that we haven't gotten to yet today

[01:11:12] You know what? I wanted to touch on it just kind of going to my favorite hobby horse, which is the shia militias

[01:11:17] I was mentioning before that they were bending the knee to the death of president. I see

[01:11:23] And it's something I find I mean i'm not shocked

[01:11:26] that

[01:11:27] That they were doing so i'm not not one bit

[01:11:30] But had you seen this about 10 years ago, it would have been a much more closed kind of thing

[01:11:34] You know, we wouldn't have seen as much of it

[01:11:35] We maybe see like one report of a ceremony that was held in baghdad, you know something like that

[01:11:40] But kind of the blatant nature of it tells me a lot about iran's control over a lot of these groups and what's coming out

[01:11:47] I'm noticing kind of the messaging around it

[01:11:50] For a lot of the major organizations and even some of the minor organizations

[01:11:54] All of them are kind of doing the bending the knee and putting their heads down and kind of going. Yeah

[01:11:58] No, no, we really liked him. He's a great guy, you know, we really liked him a great totally great guy

[01:12:02] You know, we're gonna launch a little operation over here for him. Great guy

[01:12:05] You know, we sent activists to the funeral and they waved our flags so you can see you know

[01:12:09] We are on side and I find that interesting as

[01:12:13] Kind of a way of demonstrating how the iranians are still maintaining even when they have issues with these militias at various times

[01:12:20] A very very tight net on them and I think you know narrative wise

[01:12:25] I think it's easier now to see more complexity and issues that some of these groups might have with the iranians

[01:12:30] But I also think this is another symbol

[01:12:32] Of how much true control the iranians really have over them and how willing they are

[01:12:38] How far they're kind of willing to demonstrate that and be public about it

[01:12:42] Um, it's more than just putting up a khamenei picture, you know on on the uh, the uh, windshield

[01:12:47] Uh the visor that's up there, you know and driving down with a dushka mounted in the back

[01:12:52] Um, I mean, I think this is this is another interesting development

[01:12:55] Okay, so you're now having you know showing people crying over the death of the iranian president

[01:12:59] Are you an iraqi group and weren't you saying that you're an iraqi nationalist group?

[01:13:03] Oh, no, but we're brothers together

[01:13:04] Oh, by the way

[01:13:05] We put up a sign that literally says that we are brothers and everything and showing a picture of

[01:13:08] You know iraqi shia militia commander abu mahtial muhandis who was killed alongside qasim

[01:13:13] Soleimani and in the picture soleimani is there then you see raisi sitting in the middle

[01:13:16] What kind of symbol does that send it's it's a rather blatant display of iranian control when?

[01:13:23] The iranian president doesn't necessarily control relationships with these militias

[01:13:27] You know or even foreign policy and they're not putting any for the fm who was killed we didn't even discuss him, you know

[01:13:32] so

[01:13:33] You know, it's just it's it's fascinating from that angle

[01:13:36] And I think you know, I as as a lot of people are kind of getting absorbed

[01:13:40] They said well, it's far more complex than really it's not really black or white. No, it's not really black or white

[01:13:44] But come on, let's be honest here, you know fascinating that these posters went up within a day

[01:13:50] But boom boom, it's all up there. It's not like qasim soleimani

[01:13:52] It's not the same kind of relationship and it's being demonstrated as if it's kind of on par with it

[01:13:58] Uh, or at the very least they are commemorating it in the same form. Yeah. Thank you for that

[01:14:03] I think so much of the of the context here is um

[01:14:07] That you need to really understand these these systems and these and these actors

[01:14:11] It's just very kind of inherently foreign to a lot of westerners

[01:14:15] Um, and that's why I think your your analysis here is so always so valuable

[01:14:19] So I I thank you for that

[01:14:20] I owe you uh for the with all your help over the past couple months making sense of these twists and turns

[01:14:25] I uh, owe you a meal and several beverages sometime soon

[01:14:29] You owe me absolutely nothing and I am more than happy to have a meal and beverages with you. It's fine

[01:14:34] Nothing is owed frankly

[01:14:35] I wish I were more clear and then what i'm doing because i'm discussing it with you

[01:14:39] And I can very easily discuss this stuff with you

[01:14:41] but I also run into the problem where

[01:14:44] I don't want to turn into a gatling gun, which I will choke over my own like i'll choke on my own tongue

[01:14:49] Doing this because I get too excited and then I forget names of people that I have literally written down 5 000 times in the past

[01:14:55] Day. Yeah. So yeah. No, I um, it's we

[01:14:59] Try to keep the normies along, you know with the who is this person and what is what does this group mean?

[01:15:04] But no, I I think you do a very good job making making sense of it to people

[01:15:07] I I will i'll quote my mother on this one because I have to leave it with that

[01:15:11] um

[01:15:12] I remember my mother read one of the first monographs that I wrote and she meant this in the the best way possible

[01:15:18] Although it's going to sound really wrong. She's reading and she goes there's too many muhammads in this and she she

[01:15:24] You can read that a lot of negative ways

[01:15:25] That's not how literally my mom reading a draft of my novel being like

[01:15:29] I don't I don't make up these rules. This is just this is just what they call themselves

[01:15:33] Well in part, I mean i've learned from this and it's kind of the well refer to a body refer to a this

[01:15:38] You don't necessarily need to talk about every

[01:15:40] Cleric every person every this and I want you I so want to and i'm like it's screwing me up in terms of how i'm processing

[01:15:47] but hopefully I mean the the hope that I always have and I kind of I I

[01:15:51] I I want to pretend that i've been honing it with you. But frankly, I just keep screwing it up because i'm an idiot

[01:15:57] But I it's I keep trying to do that because it's like I i've only listened to myself once

[01:16:02] You know, it's and when I did that i'm like, okay, but how is how would the wife understand this? Okay?

[01:16:08] Yeah, I know what I need to do

[01:16:10] Yeah, hopefully that's okay though

[01:16:12] Yeah. No, I think that's I I think that's I think that's great. I will have links to uh,

[01:16:18] Where listeners can find your work and uh your your twitter feed should they wish to follow you great follow

[01:16:25] A lot of good, you know bits of wisdom about about the region as they as they occur

[01:16:31] So yeah, thank you again, my friend. Um always great to have you with us

[01:16:35] Well, thanks for having me again and it really means a lot and always happy to talk to you

[01:16:38] So thank you for running such a perfect podcast that really it covers a ton and I love it. Thank you

[01:16:43] Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that. All right. Well until next time I will uh, i'll see you

[01:17:19] Thanks for listening. This is secrets and spies