Mohammad Reza Pahlavi

So then when we make those, they go back.

They go back further, like in 53, when we overthrow the elected leader of Iran, right? And we install the Shah, right? Mosaddegh, right? And then, of course, we don't like people that are authoritarian, but, of course, the Shah, you know, he ruled with an authoritarian iron fist, right? And the people in that community, many of them students and young people, decided that they had had enough and they were ready to revolt.

So I feel like that part of what we've done is fuel radical Islamic...

Or since you've lived in the Middle East a lot longer than I did, I only did four years there, you grew up there.

So,

uh, I don't understand how you can have that much of a footprint and imprint in American politics when you have a government that toppled the Shah.

which was an American ally, to where you could have the IRGC to replace them and cause the death of so many Americans to have such a footprint, even to where it can have influence.

Well,

Raised in this country that have no concept of what's on the other side and allow them to come into your family and try to influence you or even destroy your government from inside.

But, you know, that's why communists and Islamists.

are able to work together so much because they did it in Iran to overthrow the Shah.

And I tell people because I have the same kind of a concept, right? A mullah who wants to put money in his pocket from oil sales basically says, well, you know, oil...

in the run-up that could have been done differently.

And I'm going all the way back to the 1960s and playing footsie with Ayatollah Khomeini, which we found out later on that they were doing because they thought, well, he would be better than the Shah and he would be a nice guy and give us oil.

How many other people are out there that, again, we were engaged with and probably shouldn't have been or should have been engaged with in a different way? I understand we've got to protect our interests, but we've got to make sure it's being done in a way that doesn't result in another 9-11.

Back to World Trade Center.

So Iran somehow feels much more unleashed and it's claimed to control of the Strait of Hormuz for now.

is a kind of claim to the Persian Gulf being an Iranian lake that we haven't seen since the Shah's period.

And even the Shah never made that claim this boldly.

And I think that's, in a sense, unless the U.S. is able to force Iran back into its cage, the entire scene in the Gulf has now changed.

And this situation that you described with the Gulf countries so livid at Iran for the damage that has been done to you reflects what we've heard from out of these Gulf countries as well, but also to me is utterly incomprehensible.

But it's also the direct result of the Mossadegh coup in 1953 when Iran's democratically elected prime minister was overthrown by an MI6 attack.

and CIA plot to install the Shah.

So there is this belief in Iran, and it persists today that whenever something mysterious happens, it's the English, Inglis.

Inglis itself, the Farsi word for English, carries connotations of duplicity and cunning and the sly fox of Britain.

I don't think we want Pastor Trump, but I also am not sure that I would want some of the pastors that I know of in the world to be in the White House either.

You know, I think of Jimmy Carter, who was a well-meaning man, but I don't know that he was the best person to be there when Iran... with the Shah of Iran and Khomeini, I think there was just a lot of naivete there.

So anyway, any thoughts on any of that? I think,

as you think, Mark, that Jimmy Carter was a committed Christian, a godly man, President Carter, but I don't think he had adopted an understanding of the difference in the Bible's teaching about the responsibility of government and the responsibilities of individuals.

you know, the kind that think women should be beaten in the streets for whatever bad things they've done, who served as the first supreme leader of Iran from 1979 until his death in 1989.

He was the leader of the Iranian revolution, which overthrew Mohammad Pahlavi and transformed the country into an Islamic republic.

That means that they lived under Sharia law.

No Jews or Canadians allowed.