Basij

The protests that erupted at the beginning of this year in Iran started in the markets, frustration over the economy and daily hardships facing ordinary Iranians.

Of course, the IRGC and the Basij militia managed to kill their way out of the moment of civil unrest earlier in the year.

Thousands of Iranians lost their lives as the regime once again demonstrated their desire to hold on to power at any cost.

And the regime continues to detain and execute anyone that they view as a threat.

Now, today, what Trump is doing that's different, that's unique, is to actually, for the first time, shift gears from the policy of submission through hardship to cutting off the vital oxygen needed for them to pay their bills, to pay their soldiers, their IRGC, their militias that are foreign imported as part of their ideological regional army.

and the civilian Islamic soldiers called the Basij.

50% of the Basij and the IRGC are in it for the paycheck.

Now, under Biden, oil sales increased tremendously, which filled their coffers with money.

And when Trump came to power until very recently, he didn't really bring those oil sales down, even though his administration spoke against it.

These are the old-time revolutionaries that are from the time of the first supreme leader, who were young men who fought in Iraq, who created the IRGC, who created the Secret Services, who are now older men.

They brought all of these old-time revolutionaries in Iraq.

And they brought a very kind of psychotic individual, Hossein Tayeb, to become the head of the Basij, the internal suppression forces.

And of course, the people hate them.

They can't fund the Basij and the other security forces.

And they're getting increasingly desperate.

And you can tell by their body language and you can tell by Scott Pesent's body language that we've got them by the you-know-whats and we're going to continue squeezing.

And of course, the regime in Iran has been very, very close ally of Russia of China of all of the dictatorial bloody regimes right that have inflicted so much suffering on their own people and other countries around them so With that I actually wanted to ask you because you mentioned something very important earlier about the use of proxies to targets people inside of Iran.

The Basij forces that have been responsible for a lot of atrocities inside of Iran actually used the help of Hezbollah and Iraqi, Iranian-backed militias that are Shi'ite extremist groups, terrorist groups that have been part of the IRGC for decades, and they were inside of Iran.

basically suppressing and killing people on behalf of the regime.

But now, what is the reality of these relationships between the Islamic Republic regime and what's left of the kind of the leadership that they have right now and the ability for them to continue connecting and supporting? Now, we know that Iraq is an exception because in Iraq, The militias are not getting their support, their financial support from the regime.