Yeah.

They had all supported the revolution, but they're-- it's fair to say they support factions that are mostly excluded from power by early 1980s.

So Islamic Republic is left with an attempt to construct a new Islamist republic, and it doesn't have its intellectuals.

It doesn't have its organic intellectuals.

It doesn't have its artists.

It doesn't have filmmakers.

And it starts to build them.

Yeah, you stick with it.

And what about Israel? Are they prepared to let, you know, have this m- greater, the greater Middle East, which includes Israel or not?

not?Well, I- I- Israel, it's interesting.

So the Mecca Pact is also bad news for Israel in a way.

Israel for so long has lived in a fantasy.

It's, it's a terrible fantasy in which it will continue to occupy Palestinian land.

It will then continue to kill thousands of Palestinians with impunity, and somehow it will also get recognition and normalization and, and it will be sort of accepted a- as a country by, by the, by the, by its Arab neighbors.

Uh, under Netanyahu, there was an Israeli journalist who called it cakeism, you know, having your a- ca- cake and eating it too.

So there's still enormous amounts of energy, is there, being expended on this business of trying to make the women's hijab almost the marker buoy of whether they've succeeded? I mean, this is an own goal, isn't it?

And that's the problem we're in right now, right? So there's some thinking that, uh, the Iranians don't really believe that no matter where these negotiations take place, whether the Omanis or the Pakistanis or the Qataris are, are mediating these negotiations, there's a f- there's some belief amongst the Iranians that no deal with America is worth the paper it's written on.

Yeah, unfortunately, that's, um, you know, that, that is a belief that some are com- and some people are just not sure- hopeful that they can get a deal at all, uh, and I mean some people in the establishment.

But I think enough people also understand that obviously the problem also does originate, uh, from Iran.

This anti-American, anti-Israeli crusade that has really defined, uh, Iran for so long, it's, it hasn't done Iran any favor.

And I think m- enough people, even in establishment, understand that they need to change their ways.

They look at different countries in the region, Saudi Arabia, others.

None of these countries are, you know, lackeys.

But, but there isn't one now Can you see one growing? Can you see one coming?

Yeah.

This has started because of they started having a new standoff with Saudi Arabia, effectively ending, declaring an end to a ceasefire that has held for some time.

They've also had a ceasefire with the United States.

But if the Houthis go ahead and do that, um, you know, it will have a massive effect on the economy.

I should also say that the Houthis have some sort of incremental strategy.

They're not gonna act sort of hastily.

Um, but there are things they can do.

Tell us more about how you understand this new round of violence and how the Iranian regime, uh, and who within the Iranian regime may have been agitating for it.

Why now? Was it a smart move for the regime?

No, it wasn't a smart move.

But I think there's an internal debate and that is sort of reflected.

I think the reason they do it is that they panic that they're going to lose the control of the Strait of Hormuz.

There are some people in the regime, they have also proponents in D.C., so you can hear them on Twitter and other places, who basically claim, I think wrongly and frankly a little foolishly even, that Iran's real leverage is the Strait of Hormuz.

So it has to always have the ability to close it.

So if they're using this southern route, we're going to lose this ability, so let's close it and show that we can close it.

Did it fail or are we just asking the wrong questions here?

How did it make you feel?

So Ayatollah Khomeini's funeral is obviously a important moment in Iran.

This is the man who ru- ruled the country for thir- 37 years.

But as for my gut reaction, um, first of all, one goes over the legacy of this man, and it's a terrible legacy, I think, from most perspectives.

I think regardless of actually what politics you have, even if you were kind of proponent on some, uh, s- you know, some factions of this regime, he will be seen, he will be come to seen, um, to have had a terrible legacy.

Throughout his rule, he-- When he started his rule, Iran had just finished an eight years war with, with Iraq.

It had started the process of economic development.

What, what was the message that they were trying to send with all of this stuff?

Arash, what are you hearing from your sources about this deal and the timing of it tonight as this big celebration is happening at the White House?

Well, the timing matters, you know, for the United States.

But for Iran, this is an important moment.

It's an effective end to the war.

And it's an effective end to the war.

And it also, in the last 24 hours, 48 hours, a hardliner fringe really came out strongly against this deal.

So it's very much...

Have the Iranians from either state-run media or official news organizations or semi-state-owned news organizations, have they given any more clarity as to what the terms of this Memorandum of understanding looks like because so far in the last 12 hours or so, we have not gotten that much more clarity on what's in it, the sequencing of what plays out over the course of the next several days before Friday when it is supposed to be signed.

And then it's become clear from both the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and just the actions of the IDF that they didn't agree to what the United States might have ideally wanted out of that scenario.

Iran continues to insist that Lebanon is included in the ceasefire and that there will be only a ceasefire if Israel withdraws from Lebanon and stops all the attacks there.

I personally don't think that's true.

I think if they sign a deal, they might even say this.

But no matter what happens in Lebanon, they'll go ahead with it.

Because what Israel can do there then is to play the spoiler, right? So Israel will keep things up in Lebanon in order to stop the So if Iran and the United States have agreed on a deal, and if they let Israeli escalations in Lebanon stop it, they're effectively letting Israel have a veto, and neither side is going to like that.

So I think Iran sees that it's important to say that Lebanon is important for them, and they'll continue harping on that.

What is the decision-making process like inside Iran if we know about it? And to what extent do you think we will see Mujtaba Khamenei at some point publicly to kind of either lend his support to a deal or to keep his distance from it if he's not necessarily behind

Can you bring us up to date with the latest state of play? What is actually happening or perhaps, more importantly, not happening?

It's great to be with you.

Uh, you know what's happening is basically that Iran attacked Israel, Israel attacked Iran back.

Uh, but Iran doesn't want to return to the full war, so they've both called it quits at this stage, basically.

Um, they've, they've both showed that attacks on each other will have consequences, and Iran has to stop.

Um, and they very much want these negotiations with the US over some sort of an interim deal to succeed.

So I think they'll continue trying to get that deal.

I think that was a single-source story and a lot of people pouring scorn on that.

Where do you see all of this right now, both as a journalist, as an Iranian in the diaspora? Where do you see these developments? How do you put them together?

You know, we are at a very sort of turning point in Iranian history.

We are in what we call an interregnum.

You know, it's clear that age of Khamenei, the father, is over.

His son is not a new supreme leader, but we have to see what kind of a durable regime arrangements we'll have.

We have to see how the talks with the U.S. will end up.

And, you know, you're right.

that.

Yeah.

You know? It would be a very different world if it was what I'd like it to be.

And there really is a huge gap, so I don't think Rubio is wrong there in some...

There is a really huge gap between people and the regime.

I think most people really despise so much about the regime.

And, you know, the reasons for this are actually not that hard to fathom.

So the Islam Republic, since nineteen seventy-nine, tried, first of all, to bring about an Islamist Puritan society in which everybody is good Muslims and observes all rules of Islam and all.

So I just was wondering if you could just talk about that briefly.

So I just was wondering, I mean, who is right? Is there really a, a kind of division, a power struggle going on in- i- inside Tehran at the moment, or do you think they are all singing from the same hymn sheet?

Iran obviously has politics, and there are divisions.

There have always been divisions between different, between different matters.

On a matter as crucial as this, of course there are divisions.

But where Sanam is right and President Trump is wrong is that, you know, the hardliners-- And what do we mean by hardliners here? Let's clarify it.

Those who have come out against talks with the US.

There's a faction in Iran that says, "Don't talk to the US.

What, what can you tell us about him and what, what his character or the fact that he seems to be well, one of the people in power now, or certainly the person leading negotiations with America, what does that tell us about the state of Iran and where it's going, and I suppose whether these peace talks succeed or whether there's gonna be more war?

What is your sense as to how-- And again, there's a range of, of, of feelings and emotions that you describe, but what is your sense as to how people's feelings have changed over the course of this war?

I think, I think a lot of people, um, who might have, you know, a lot of people might have had, you know, openly or semi-openly or, or in their hearts, uh, feelings that, okay, maybe if, if the supreme leader, who many people hated because, you know, he was a heinous dictator, maybe if he's killed, something better will immediately happen, or maybe the war will help weaken the Islamic Republic and pave the path for a better future.

Um, and this becomes harder to imagine as time goes on.

People see the ugly face of the war, um, and the very uncertain future.

But they're also worried about, and this is hard for people to understand sometimes, like, you know, that they're very worried about the war ending also.

So as they're, a lot of people are terrified by the war, um, they might want it to stop, you know, one minute, but another minute they're thinking, "Well, wait a minute, what if it just stops and the regime is more brutal?" Or, or, "What is it gonna-- What is gonna happen the day after?" So there's this terrible, um, feeling of uncertainty, um, and fear of, um, of things getting worse as they consistently have now for years for Iranians, um, that really, you know, contr- it, it, it sort of rules people's lives.

And so end with w- a little bit more on what you said earlier, which is if the war were to end today, where would that leave the people of Iran?

Well, you know, they will be, both people and the regime, you know, would be left, um, in a very concerning, um, situation, by which I mean the regime will have problem, um, providing for their basic economic needs, um, and providing basic, um, security to people.

Um, can you talk about the disconnect between the military gains and this moment that the president promised?

Well, the, the Islamic Republic continues to control, um, the streets, the security forces, um, and the opposition, unfortunately, still doesn't have the necessary sort of organization to challenge it.

Now, of course, it is possible that after the war ends in whatever shape, in the aftermath, um, there might be mass uprisings, there might be a sort of challenge, uh, to the regime.

Um, but it would be quite difficult, uh, to bring it down even then, because even though the regime has been, yes, its military capabilities have been weakened, um, but it continues to have a lot of repressive capacity.

Look, there's a-- the, the real disconnect is that the president, uh, from the very beginning, uh, has spoken of two goals that are not necessarily to do, to do, have nothing necessarily to do with each other.

One is, like, regime change and, you know, preparing the conditions for regime change as he spoke here.

The other is degrading Iran's capability to project power beyond its borders.

What are you seeing in the potential off-ramp here? The, the plans offered by, let's say, the US administration.

But now, living abroad in the midst of a war, he feels lost.

Look, I'm a political guy, and I feel politically helpless, and that's terrible.

You know, to be a political guy who doesn't have an organized political force is like being a footballer who says, "I'm a footballer and I love football, but it's just, there's just one tiny problem.

I don't really have a team to play with." So I feel helpless.

I still do.

I mean, I am an analyst.

I sit here.

Why wouldn't you be jubilant?

And can you just explain then for listeners why it's him that is the focus rather than the actual president, Pazeshkian?

The president in the Iranian system usually is a bit like prime minister in some authoritarian systems, by which I mean, you know, you're sort of a caretaker who runs government ministries, but the real locus of power are not these ministries, are the revolutionary guards, are these sort of other unaccountable institutions.

And Pazeshkian is a particularly weak president.

Some other presidents have been stronger.

Perdeshkan is a weak president.

Perdeshkan is sort of an accidental president.

You know, he was very much a very humble constituency MP from northwestern Iran.

Is that an answer to that kind of revolutionary energy? Well.

Why is that so important?

Well, Iran tries, tries a nuclear program like many other states do.

Um, and it looks like by the US estimates, by 2003, it stops all weapons work.

Before 2003, it had sort of toyed with that.

But after that, it insists on its nuclear program, and this is really one of the follies of, of Khamenei, again, the Supreme Leader of Iran.

There's this terrible mistake that the Iranian regime obviously makes, which is that they neither dart toward a bomb, which they haven't really done weapons work since 2003.

Had they done it, you could say, "Okay, fait accompli.

I, I think the first is, y- you know, of all of the different reasons that have been given for epic fury, what do you think is the most compelling? W- why, why are the US and Israel doing this right now?

Who is this guy who is going to be so important to, you know, really the future of U.S.-Iranian relations?

Let me first also very briefly say that 1953 happens, the US and UK are able to organize this coup, and it's kind of crazy that it kind of works, on its own terms works.

Of course, now we consider it a fiasco in many ways, obviously for Iranians, it was a fiasco that got rid of our democracy, but it's able to work on its own operational terms, i.e. it successfully changes the government.

But it's kind of a fluke, actually.

It's not very easy to pull this off again.

It becomes important.

Although, if you did want to change the government, coups have a much better chance of going, if you ask me, than, you know, airstrikes and hoping people will rise up and stuff.

But it is important, isn't it, in terms of the legacy, which is what we're really looking at, of mistrust and enmity between these two countries, that hostage crisis that takes place.

How much of how this war progresses is really down to them? Who's really in charge now?

The Revolutionary Guards is a powerful force that controls much of Iran's politics, economy and military.

What it is not, however, is a unified force.

It is very much a constellation of a few different networks, each of which has its hands in different places.

So there are elements in the IRGC who love to deal with Russia and China.

There are elements who, um, might prefer some sort of a normalization with the West.

There are elements who have different opinions on how much, uh, internally repressive the regime should be or, or socially.

Do you see any sign that the next chapter in Iran will be any less brutal or repressive than the one that we've had for almost the last 40 years?

Arash Azizi is an Iranian American historian and writer.

Clearly, we are entering in the post-Khamenei phase, and I am cautiously, cautiously optimistic that some of the worst policies of Khamenei will be abandoned in due time and that our country will emerge to be some sort of more, uh, more normal, basically.

But unfortunately, at this moment, it's clear that it is going to be US and Israel, as well as different factions inside the regime, who get to determine our fate.

That first moment when you heard the strikes were happening, what was your overarching emotion?

You know, first of all, very concerned and worried.

Things are changing.

And when Khamenei was killed, a moment that I had sort of waited for all my life, and I always thought I would be happy, it was hard for me to feel anything.

I definitely couldn't celebrate as, as my country was under bombardment, and I was worried about my family dying.

What do you make of that development?

It's a very concerning development.

Of, of for long, many Iranians have been very worried about this, that this will lead into a state collapse and civil war.

Um, you know, uh, many of people who support such plans, um, amongst our Kurdish compatriots are, you know, try to be optimistic about it.

But, um, the chances are that this could go very wrong, that it could lead to a civil war, and that it could end up being suicidal for them is a lot.

I'm actually sort of writing about that as well.

Um, and, you know, some, many Iranians that I s- I spoke to, uh, believe that this will bring about a large coalition against such an effort, because Iran's territorial integrity is very important to many of us.

What is the best case scenario here? Do you think there's any way this ends with a less oppressive leader of Iran, uh, somebody who, who embraces human rights, somebody who embraces the freedoms that the Iranian people deserve?

Now, he didn't name them explicitly, but given what Anne just said, what are the realistic choices right now?

I think Anne is exactly right, and that's really the key issue.

The key issue that frankly many Iranians have struggled to face.

We, Iranians who want democracy, have failed to create a credible, ready alternative.

This is what you, we could have done over the past few years.

You know, we haven't been able to.

Of course, a, a big reason for this is regime's brutal repression, um, of any time anything tries to take shape inside Iran.

Arash, what do you think the expectations are inside Iran, given everything Anne just said? Are people being realistic about this? What impressions do you get?

Yeah

... and, yeah, so it's, but, but it's also, we also know that he is not a-... person who bluffs without doing things, right? He pulled out of a nuclear deal.

He killed Qassem Soleimani in twenty twenty.

He attacked Iranian nuclear sites last year.

So we know that he does walk the walk when he needs to.

Um, but from the Iranian perspective, you know, from any Iranian national interest perspective, the regime must give up all that it needs to give up to avoid this war, because any prolonged war will be disastrous for Iranian people.

Just hard to imagine after this massacre that we've just gone through, after everything that we've gone through, another war will be just the most-- the worst thing that could happen.

Do, do you think that any military strike by America might bring people back out on the, on the streets because they would see that as finally, uh, someone coming to their aid?

Arash Azizi is an Iranian-American contributing writer at The Atlantic and a lecturer at Yale University.

A lot of people went on the streets with the hope that somehow Trump will be behind them, whatever that means.

But of course, that didn't quite materialize.

So Iranians now face a situation in which they have been killed in very high numbers by the regime.

The policies of the regime continues to be untenable.

The status quo is untenable, and now a river of blood separates the regime and the people, which it already did, but even more than ever before.

Azizi was surprised to learn that some favored intervention from the United States.

These are people who are very wary of the examples of Iraq, of the examples of Libya.

He told us the two key differences this time around.

First of all, the regime has never been so diplomatically isolated and so troubled at home.

It has lost its allies in the region and beyond.

At home, it is just failing to pass basic tests of competence.

So the regime is really more distressed than it's ever been.

At the same time, people of Iran have been sort of angrier than they've ever been.

But this shows itself in the protests having the most sort of insurrectionary character compared to the previous ones.

But even if it's holding firm right now, Azizi said last year's conflict with Israel and the U.S. had fundamentally destabilized the regime, leaving it vulnerable.