Is the Iranian War About to Become Apocalyptic? (w/ Trita Parsi) | The Chris Hedges Report
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241,919 views Apr 7, 2026 The Chris Hedges Report
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<이란 전쟁의 늪과 파멸적 시나리오: 전략적 오판이 불러온 비극>
1. 요약: 막다른 길에 다다른 트럼프 행정부의 이란 전쟁
전쟁의 배경과 현상황
미국과 이스라엘이 2026년 2월 이란 전쟁을 개시한 이후, 이란은 세계 주요 석유 및 가스 수송로인 호르무즈 해협을 봉쇄하였다
협상의 결렬과 이스라엘의 영향력
트럼프 행정부는 단계적 휴전안을 제시하고 있으나, 이는 1단계에서 이란의 모든 지렛대를 포기하게 만드는 불평등한 제안으로 이란에 의해 거부되고 있다
내부 통제 실패와 인도적 참사
이란 내부에서는 미국의 지원을 받은 무장 세력이 평화 시위에 잠입해 폭력 사태를 유발했으며, 이란 정부는 이를 빌미로 이틀 만에 약 7,000명의 시민을 학살하는 만행을 저질렀다
최악의 시나리오: 핵무기 사용 가능성
전쟁이 교착 상태에 빠지고 이란이 비대칭 전술로 세계 경제를 압박하자, 퇴로가 차단된 트럼프가 승리를 선언하기 위해 비재래식(핵) 무기 사용을 고려할 수 있다는 우려가 제기된다
2. 평론: 오만과 무지가 빚어낸 지정학적 자살행위
본 대담은 제국주의적 오만과 상대국에 대한 기술적·심리적 무지가 어떻게 한 국가와 세계 경제를 파멸로 몰아넣는지를 날카롭게 해부한다.
첫째, '에스컬레이션 지배력'의 환상이다.
트럼프 행정부는 압도적인 군사력만으로 이란의 항복을 받아낼 수 있다고 믿었으나, 실제로는 이란이 쥐고 있는 '에너지 목줄'의 파괴력을 간과했다
둘째, 이스라엘에 의한 미국 외교 정책의 '포섭'이다.
미국은 자국의 이익보다 이스라엘의 지역 패권 유지 전략인 '잔디 깎기'에 동원되고 있다
셋째, 제재와 지원의 역설적 결과다.
미국의 경제 제재는 독재 정권을 무너뜨리는 대신 민주주의의 보루인 중산층을 말살하여 정권을 더욱 폭력적으로 만들었다
결론적으로, 현재의 이란 전쟁은 전략적 이성보다 통제 불능의 광기와 정치적 체면치레가 지배하는 형국이다. 트럼프가 '히로시마와 나가사키'를 연상시키는 언어를 사용하며 핵 사용을 암시하는 것은, 그가 체스판에서 승리할 수 없음을 깨닫고 판 자체를 불태우려 한다는 방증이다
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Transcript
0:1010 secondsDonald Trump on Easter of all days issued an expletive laden threat to Iran in which he demanded the regime quote
0:1818 secondsopen theing straight of Hormuz you crazy bastards. He vowed to target the country's energy and transport
0:2525 secondsinfrastructure which is a war crime. His latest rant is part of a pattern of incendiary rhetoric, including a threat
0:3333 secondsto bomb Iranians, quote, "Back to the stone age where they belong. Tuesday will be power plant day and bridge day
0:4141 secondsall wrapped up in one in Iran," he posted. There will be nothing like it. Open the straight, you crazy bastards,
0:5050 secondsor you'll be living in hell. Just watch. Praise be to Allah, President Donald J.
0:5656 secondsTrump. Leaving aside the obvious questions about Trump's mental stability, the threat comes as the Trump White House approaches yet another
1:051 minute, 5 secondsself-imposed deadline. By tomorrow, Iran must reopen the Strait of Hormuz, one of the world's most important shipping
1:121 minute, 12 secondslanes for oil and gas, or according to Trump, face apocalyptic retribution. The strait has been effectively closed since
1:211 minute, 21 secondsthe US and Israel launched the war in Iran in February and has seen global oil prices skyrocket. What does this latest
1:281 minute, 28 secondsdeadline portend? Will it be extended in desperation as past deadlines by the US have been? Or will it signal an
1:361 minute, 36 secondsescalation of the war? One where vital energy facilities and infrastructure,
1:411 minute, 41 secondsincluding desalination plants, will be targeted by Israel and the United States, as well as by Iran. Iran insists
1:491 minute, 49 secondsthat it will only open the strait after receiving compensation for war damages paid via a new legal regime based on
1:571 minute, 57 secondstransit fees imposed on shipping in the straight. Joining me to discuss the looming Tuesday deadline in the war on Iran is Tita Parsy, an expert on US
2:062 minutes, 6 secondsIranian relations, Iranian foreign policy, and the geopolitics of the Middle East. He is the author of four
2:132 minutes, 13 secondsbooks on US foreign policy in the Middle East with a particular focus on Iran and Israel. He is the co-founder and
2:212 minutes, 21 secondsexecutive vice president of the Quincy Institute and the co-founder and former president of the National Iranianamerican Council. He has served
2:302 minutes, 30 secondsas an adjunct professor of international relations at John's Hopkins Universities, SIS, New York University,
2:372 minutes, 37 secondsGeorgetown University, and George Washington University, as well as an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute and as a policy fellow at the
2:472 minutes, 47 secondsWoodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC. So Trita,
2:522 minutes, 52 secondslet's begin with this self-imposed deadline, the newest that I spoke about in the introduction.
3:003 minutesUh but it does seem although these, you know, the these self-imposed deadlines have been extended, it does seem that we have
3:073 minutes, 7 secondsreached a very frightening point where there's serious consideration of massive
3:143 minutes, 14 secondsescalation in desperation uh obviously driven by desperation. Is is that where you see us headed?
3:223 minutes, 22 secondsI fear that is where we are. We can see a pattern in which Trump is issuing angrier and angrier tweets with all
3:293 minutes, 29 secondskinds of deadlines and threats of escalation. He has largely backed off from actualizing many of those knowing
3:373 minutes, 37 secondsvery well that he doesn't have escalation dominance. So take a look at what the situation is in the Persian Gulf right now. For instance, we have
3:453 minutes, 45 secondshigh oil prices because the Iranians are not letting the tankers through. Um uh you know, they're letting some through but not all. Uh they're trying to
3:533 minutes, 53 secondscollect transit fees, etc. But we don't have a destruction of the oil infrastructure in the region. And this is deliberate. Now, if the United States
4:024 minutes, 2 secondsgoes after the power plants and other type of infrastructure in Iran, the Iranians have threatened that they will go after the oil infrastructure in the region. If that happens, we're not just
4:114 minutes, 11 secondsin a situation in which right now oil prices are high because of a bottleneck in the Persian Gulf, but once that bottleneck is open, the oil will flow
4:194 minutes, 19 secondsrather quickly. We will be in a situation in which the oil will not flow for quite some time because there will be a production problem. It can take 3
4:274 minutes, 27 secondsto 5 years to rebuild all of those different things. that would cause a prolonged and much higher level of oil prices that would destroy Trump's
4:354 minutes, 35 secondspresidency and throw the world most likely into a global depression. So precisely because of these reasons,
4:414 minutes, 41 secondsTrump has so far been very careful not to go that full distance. But because of his desperation, because of his false
4:484 minutes, 48 secondsbelief that he's still in a strong position, they can dictate the terms to the Iranians and his psychological refusal to accept the fact that in order
4:574 minutes, 57 secondsto get out of this war, he actually has to give some concessions, there is a likelihood that he will just go all out and do something absolutely insane,
5:065 minutes, 6 secondspotentially using non-conventional weapons. So that risk cannot be discounted because if we presume rationality, well, we wouldn't be in this position in the first place.
5:165 minutes, 16 secondsThere's nothing rational about being in this war or having started this war under this false belief that the Iranians would cave or collapse within 4 days.
5:255 minutes, 25 secondsAnd of course, the other question is how desperate is Israel?
5:295 minutes, 29 secondsI don't think the Israelis are desperate, but I think the Israelis are very comfortable knowing that they can keep on pushing Trump uh in the direction that they want him. I mean,
5:385 minutes, 38 secondstake a look at, for instance, where he's now suddenly saying that he will bomb Iran back to the stone age. And then on top of that, he said, uh, we will set
5:475 minutes, 47 secondsthem back and then the next president may have to bomb them again.
5:515 minutes, 51 secondsThat's the exact Israeli blueprint for their strategy of mowing the grass.
5:565 minutes, 56 secondsUh, this is not the way the US has been conducting war. You know, the US, as much as it it's committed a lot of atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan, the
6:046 minutes, 4 secondsUnited States did not deliberately target universities Iraq. But that is what the Israelis have been doing in Gaza and in Lebanon. And this is exactly
6:126 minutes, 12 secondswhat they're doing right now together with the US and Iran. Sharif University,
6:166 minutes, 16 secondstheir top university was hit just yesterday. So we're seeing the Israelization of America's conduct of the war, but
6:246 minutes, 24 secondsalso of the goals of the war in which uh you know mowing the grass strategy which by definition means an endless state of
6:326 minutes, 32 secondswar with Iran is now being embraced by Donald Trump. That's a sign of desperation and a sign of the control or
6:396 minutes, 39 secondsor the influence that the Israelis have over his direction.
6:446 minutes, 44 secondsuh if there is an escalation, a military escalation, if they hit for instance the
6:536 minutes, 53 secondsoil facilities on Car Island, if they actually strike the power plants
7:007 minutesuh in Iran, what do you see the Iranians doing at that point? And I see them targeting
7:087 minutes, 8 secondsuh um refineries as well as power grids in the GCC countries and in Israel. And as I mentioned that will create a
7:177 minutes, 17 secondscompletely different oil crisis than compared to what we have right now.
7:217 minutes, 21 secondsRight now this is just because of a bottleneck in that other scenario will be because of infrastructure being destroyed, production being uh uh
7:307 minutes, 30 secondsdegraded. that's going to cause a completely different type of a scenario that ultimately will likely destroy Trump's presidency. And this is part of
7:387 minutes, 38 secondsthe reason why he's refrain from going in that direction so far. But out of this desperation and which he realizes
7:467 minutes, 46 secondshe is not in control. He cannot dictate the terms. He cannot decide when this war ends or when it uh uh pauses. Uh
7:547 minutes, 54 secondsthere is a risk that he will go down this path. Right now, the US is apparently putting forward these phased
8:018 minutes, 1 seconduh ceasefire proposals and then Trump gets more and more frustrated because the Iranians are rejecting them. But why
8:088 minutes, 8 secondswould any country at this point agree to a phased ceasefire? Would the United States and Israel, mindful of the track
8:158 minutes, 15 secondsrecord that Israel and the United States have in Lebanon and in Gaza in which these ceasefires have been violated uh
8:228 minutes, 22 secondswithin minutes by the Israelis without any repercussions from the US and we have never reached phase two or phase three because they were not meant to go
8:318 minutes, 31 secondsto that point. And if you take a look at the proposal that has been put on the table so far, it is essentially asking the Iranians to give up all of their leverage in phase one. And then there's
8:398 minutes, 39 secondsa huge question mark as to whether there ever will be an achievement of reaching phase two.
8:458 minutes, 45 secondsWell, that's every agreement going back to Camp David. They're they're always written in phases. Israel gets what it wants in the first phase and ignores
8:528 minutes, 52 secondsevery other phase. That's that's the pattern for those of us who have covered the Middle East.
8:588 minutes, 58 secondsIndeed. And when we when it comes to Gaza, for instance, the Israelis were very I mean, they're not even hiding it.
9:039 minutes, 3 secondsThey were very clearcut. They're never going to go to phase two.
9:069 minutes, 6 secondsUh and and uh the Trump administration thought that at least phase two would be achievable, but they knew themselves that phase three was never going to be
9:149 minutes, 14 secondsachieved. At at this point, if you're serious about diplomacy, you don't put forward proposals of that kind and lowballing uh because it simply won't go
9:229 minutes, 22 secondsanywhere. And if you don't have time on your side, which Trump does not, getting serious means that you actually put some real compromises on the table. And so far, we have not seen that.
9:339 minutes, 33 secondsWell, you also had strikes on Iran in June and then again starting on February 28th with this war in the midst of negotiations.
9:439 minutes, 43 secondsExactly. Twice Iran now has been struck by two nuclear weapons states in the middle of negotiations.
9:529 minutes, 52 secondsSo all of that adds to a scenario in which the Iranians are not going to agree to anything that does not end the war in a durable manner. End the war,
10:0310 minutes, 3 secondsnot just cause some sort of a ceasefire.
10:0610 minutes, 6 secondsUm, and within that also they're going to be asking for concessions that the US probably thought
10:1310 minutes, 13 secondsit would never have to give, such as uh lifting of the sanctions. They may not agree to completely open the straight.
10:2010 minutes, 20 secondsThey may actually try to install a transit fee system permanently and use their control of the straits not to end
10:2810 minutes, 28 secondsthe war but to negotiate uh or manage the relations with states after the war. States who in the past
10:3710 minutes, 37 secondsused to have economic relations with Iran but who cut those economic relations in the last 1015 years because of pressure from the United States. It
10:4510 minutes, 45 secondsseems like the Iranians are going to try to use this leverage to rein restart those economic relations with those states rather than using it uh for some
10:5310 minutes, 53 secondssort of a uh negotiations with the United States. If that is the case, it tells you something of what type of assessment the Iranians have themselves
11:0211 minutes, 2 secondsof their position of weakness or strength. And they may be miscalculating as well and overplaying their hands. But it shows you that the distance between
11:1011 minutes, 10 secondswhere the US is and where the Iranians believe they are is so massive that any negotiation um that is based on these
11:1811 minutes, 18 secondstype of lowball things are are absolute non-starters and are probably setting back the cause of uh ending this war.
11:2411 minutes, 24 secondsWell, that's what we get for having two Zionist asset Jared Kushner and Steve Witov running our negotiations with
11:3111 minutes, 31 secondsIran. I think at the end of the day though um the real issue is that it's not the negotiators not to say you know
11:4011 minutes, 40 secondsin defending them or how they conduct themselves or even if they know anything about these subjects the details that have come out of from the Geneva round
11:4711 minutes, 47 secondsof negotiations really are frankly embarrassing in terms of how little technical knowledge uh coffin and Kushner appear to have had uh and as a
11:5611 minutes, 56 secondsresult opportunities you know they contributed to those opportunities being missed but the fundamental problem is who the
12:0512 minutes, 5 secondsnegotiators are reporting to and that is Trump and with him right now you have a scenario in which he had been lulled
12:1112 minutes, 11 secondsinto this belief that the Iranian regime is so weak it has no choice but to capitulate and all you need to do is to
12:2012 minutes, 20 secondspush it a little bit whether it's through military threats or actually taking military action and they will either implode internally or they will
12:2812 minutes, 28 secondssurrender and that was a fundamental misread of the situation But it was not a misread from the Israeli side. I think the Israelis knew very well that that was not the reality.
12:3812 minutes, 38 secondsBut they knew also that the only way you could convince Trump to do something like this, take military action, adopt a regime change policy, things he had promised his base that he wouldn't do,
12:4812 minutes, 48 secondsthe only way you could do that is to convince him that it's going to be so easy. It's just going to be a repeat of Venezuela. And as a result, you're
12:5612 minutes, 56 secondsbetter off doing that than to negotiate a deal and agree to a compromise with Iranians. And that mindset ruined the negotiations and then also led to this war being turned into a debacle.
13:0813 minutes, 8 secondsYou already have the Iranians imposing tariffs, fees, whatever you want to call it. I think it's $2 million per oil
13:1513 minutes, 15 secondstanker. I think those tankers have about $200 million worth of oil. They've already set up this kind of toll booth system in the straight.
13:2413 minutes, 24 secondsThey have, but it has not been I mean de facto is operating right now. Even the French apparently now are getting some ships through and I suspect that there's
13:3213 minutes, 32 secondsgoing to be a larger number of countries that will negotiate either collectively or their bilateral deals with Iran. But
13:3813 minutes, 38 secondswhether that is a temporary situation on war or whether that becomes a permanent mechanism post-war remains a question.
13:4713 minutes, 47 secondsClearly the Iranians want to go towards the latter making sure that this is now a permanent situation. If that ends up becoming one of the long-term outcomes
13:5513 minutes, 55 secondsof this war, u then that it's a clear sign of what a disastrous decision it was for the United States to initiate
14:0214 minutes, 2 secondsthis war in the first place. But there's still a lot of question marks as to whether that mechanism in the long run will work, will be accepted, etc. But
14:1114 minutes, 11 secondsright now, that is where the Iranians have their mindset.
14:1514 minutes, 15 secondsI want to talk about the diaspora. I was in a Persian restaurant in New York on Saturday and the owner told me when the
14:2314 minutes, 23 secondson February 28th when they assassinated the supreme leader, they all broke out the champagne. Um, and but there is this
14:3114 minutes, 31 secondsdisconnect between the diaspora, the Iranian diaspora. Uh and I think at this
14:3814 minutes, 38 secondspoint the citizens of Iran were watching uh their schools be obliterated with the death of what's the final count 175
14:4714 minutes, 47 secondsschool girls uh you know basic infrastructure being they just hit a petrochemical plant um and it reminds me
14:5614 minutes, 56 secondsvery much of the Iraq war where you had figures like Anan McKaya and Chalabi and others kind of cheering on the
15:0315 minutes, 3 secondsdestruction of Iraq. Can you speak to that issue?
15:0615 minutes, 6 secondsSure. Absolutely. First of all, I think it's important to know that those people in the diaspora who were cheering the war, not just the assassination of how
15:1415 minutes, 14 secondsmany, but actually wanted more war, were never a majority in the community, but they had become a very strong plur plurality just in the last year or so,
15:2315 minutes, 23 secondswhich in and of itself is quite astonishing. Mindful of the fact that just 10 years ago, support for war within the Iranian-American community
15:3015 minutes, 30 secondswas less than 5%. So some things clearly had shifted. Uh the latest poll done by the National Iranian-American Council that was published last week showed that
15:3915 minutes, 39 secondstwothirds of the Iranian-American community opposed this war. But this brings us to the other parallel that you just mentioned in regards to Iraq. Back
15:4815 minutes, 48 secondsin 2003, those Iraqi voices, Iraqi American voices that were cheerleading this war, they were paraded on
15:5515 minutes, 55 secondsmainstream media going from channel to channel begging the United States to bomb their ancestral home. The same thing happened here in which a lot of
16:0416 minutes, 4 secondsthose voices were overwhelmingly invited onto all mainstream media shows to kind of give um uh an Iranian face to this
16:1316 minutes, 13 secondswar to humanize it to say that essentially this is done out of humanitarian concerns. Um those voices were never representative of the
16:2216 minutes, 22 secondsmajority of the community and that right now they're representative of a a shrinking minority because more and more people are understandably turning
16:2916 minutes, 29 secondsagainst this war. They had been criminally naive, thinking that this was going to be a quick affair and that this would liberate the country, that Israel
16:3616 minutes, 36 secondswould bring democracy to Iran in the midst of its ongoing genocide in Gaza. Criminally naive, but nevertheless,
16:4316 minutes, 43 secondspeople are understandably turning away from that position. But it is the mainstream media that I think more than anything else have been responsible for
16:5116 minutes, 51 secondsgiving everyone the impression that that is the totality of the Iranian-American community, whereas it wasn't even a majority to begin with. It is a
16:5916 minutes, 59 secondsshrinking minority now, but still those are the voices that are being paraded on TV just as they were in the Iraq war.
17:0617 minutes, 6 secondsI want to talk about the sanctions. Um Iran is a wealthy country. Uh it uh had
17:1517 minutes, 15 secondsuh a thriving middle class. We should also be clear, Iranians like Iraqis, I also worked in Iraq, are highly
17:2217 minutes, 22 secondseducated. A vast majority are highly educated. Um it's not in any way as uh you know the the kind of the way it's
17:3017 minutes, 30 secondspainted certainly by the Trump White House but often in the media. Um and the middle class is a bull work of any
17:3717 minutes, 37 secondsdemocracy. Our own disintegrating middle class certainly contributed to the rise of Trump and the right wing. Um, but
17:4517 minutes, 45 secondsmany of the policies that the United States have has carried out since the the revolution uh I think have have been counterproductive to building democracy.
17:5617 minutes, 56 secondsAnd then we just have to throw in the Moseday the overthrow of Moseday by the CIA and British intelligence which at
18:0318 minutes, 3 secondsthe time was the he was the prime minister and he wanted control of Iranian oil rather than turning it over to British petroleum. he was overthrown
18:1218 minutes, 12 secondsin a coup and that was one of the last if I have that correct truly functioning democracies in the Middle East which we
18:2018 minutes, 20 secondsdestroyed. So, but talk a little bit about how this uh I don't think Israel United States actually wants democracy.
18:2918 minutes, 29 secondsThat's why they're kind of pushing the Shaw's son on on us. Not so much Trump,
18:3418 minutes, 34 secondsbut certainly the Israelis. But talk a little bit about how counterproductive our policies have been and how those
18:4218 minutes, 42 secondspolicies have really um uh played to the advantage of this uh Ayatollah, you know, the Ayatollahled regime. No,
18:5218 minutes, 52 secondsyou're you're absolutely right and you're putting your finger on something very important that goes to explain why you had 5% support for military strikes
19:0119 minutes, 1 second10 years ago and and then suddenly a strong minority uh in the community uh above 45% but not 50 that um uh in the
19:1019 minutes, 10 secondsbeginning of this war were in favor of it. Obviously the fundamental factor is the repression of the Iranian uh government itself that has intensified
19:1919 minutes, 19 secondsbut the question is why has it intensified and here the sanctions come in as a very important factor between
19:2719 minutes, 27 seconds2016 and 2017 when the JCPA was in effect and the US had lifted or at least waved its sanctions the Iranian economy
19:3419 minutes, 34 secondsgrew 6 to7% every year the middle class was getting stronger um and if this had continued for another 10 years if the US
19:4319 minutes, 43 secondshad never walked out of the JCPOA and sanctions had remained. This is just for people who don't know this is the Obama correct
19:5019 minutes, 50 secondsuh the the agreement which freed up I think billions you probably know the exact figure of Iranian frozen assets
19:5819 minutes, 58 secondscorrect frozen assets were freed up but more importantly the Iranians were were able to sell oil again uh investments could be flowing in it didn't happen to
20:0620 minutes, 6 secondsthe extent that the Iranians hoped for but nevertheless even in that limited sense their economy grew 6 to 7%.
20:1320 minutes, 13 secondsIf that had continued, economists have uh made calculations, Iran's middle class would have become the strongest,
20:2020 minutes, 20 secondsif not one of the strongest middle classes in the Middle East by 2025, 10 years after the signing of the JCPOA.
20:2820 minutes, 28 secondsThis would then have led to a scenario in which the Iranian middle class, as in all other middle classes, would be exerting pressure on their government
20:3620 minutes, 36 secondsfor greater openness, political liberalization, same trends that we have seen in other places. But they would be doing so from a position of strength
20:4420 minutes, 44 secondsbecause the growing economy would have reduced the state's ability to control all means of production and assets and and uh uh income in the country.
20:5420 minutes, 54 secondsInstead, Trump walked out of the JCPOA, imposed even stricter sanctions on Iran,
21:0021 minuteswhich then decimated the Iranian middle class. Between 2018 and 2019, onethird of Iran's middle class actually went
21:0921 minutes, 9 secondsinto poverty. as a direct result of the sanctions. This then predictably led to
21:1621 minutes, 16 secondsan even more repressive Iranian government who had to use more repression in order to be able to sustain their own power in the country
21:2521 minutes, 25 secondsas the economy was deteriorating further. Then we saw the massive protest in 2022 around Masa Amini and of course
21:3321 minutes, 33 secondsthe protest uh earlier in December and January uh in which the government was using more and more repressive means and
21:4021 minutes, 40 secondsin January killing several thousand uh protesters.
21:4521 minutes, 45 secondsAnd what you saw there is that as a result of this increased repression which to a large extent has to do with
21:5221 minutes, 52 secondsthe economic situation which has very much to do with the sanctions uh being reimposed is that uh the population also
22:0222 minutes, 2 secondsthen in reaction became radicalized. In 2009 they were protesting in favor of making sure that the election results
22:1022 minutes, 10 secondswould stand that there wouldn't be any election fraud. uh but it was about change within the system. By 2022
22:1722 minutes, 17 secondsthere was no demand for reform. It was a demand for the re the regime to fall altogether and the means for that was
22:2422 minutes, 24 secondsstreet protest and revolution. By 2025 26 the demands that we were increasingly hearing from the protesters was again no
22:3322 minutes, 33 secondsreform just get rid of this regime. But now suddenly at least a portion of the protesters a minority but nevertheless
22:4022 minutes, 40 secondsstarted asking for military uh intervention from the outside. The argument being that the population no
22:4822 minutes, 48 secondslonger is in a position to overthrow the government on its own. It has to have military intervention. So you had these protests again occurring of course but
22:5522 minutes, 55 secondsinstead of being from a position of strength as they could have been had the sanctions been lifted now people were out there out of desperation and despair protesting from a position of weakness.
23:0723 minutes, 7 secondsUm and I think this is a very important lesson for us to understand because yes sanctions can destroy and devastate the economies of these countries but we have
23:1623 minutes, 16 secondsalmost no examples in which the sanctions lead to successful protest movements that overthrow the government.
23:2323 minutes, 23 secondsMore protest but less successful protests and more desperate protest.
23:2823 minutes, 28 secondsThat's exactly the pattern that we have seen here and it tells us how counterproductive US policy has been. if we assume that the goal actually has
23:3723 minutes, 37 secondsbeen to see Iran move in a more liberal and and democratic direction.
23:4123 minutes, 41 secondsNow, the US government has admitted to also arming factions within Iran. Can you speak about that?
23:4723 minutes, 47 secondsYes. So, we had Trump himself reveal it to uh a Fox News reporter that the US had been sending arms to the Kurdish rebels in Iran. Um, and on top of that,
23:5823 minutes, 58 secondsof course, we saw how both the Israelis were saying that they were on the ground. How we saw the uh former head of
24:0524 minutes, 5 secondsthe CIA, Mike Pompeo, saying that the Mossad and others are on the ground and that armament, etc. have been shipped. I think what is emerging here with these
24:1424 minutes, 14 secondsrevelations or admissions is that the protests in December and January were overwhelmingly peaceful and they were
24:2224 minutes, 22 secondsoverwhelmingly by people who just came out out of their frustration and anger at the repression and mismanagement of the economy by the Iranian government.
24:3024 minutes, 30 secondsBut there were also elements there who operated under the shadow of these protesters who the protesters had no relationship with and did not know
24:3924 minutes, 39 secondsabout, who were armed and trained by Israel or the United States, who used extensive violence, burning banks,
24:4624 minutes, 46 secondsburning mosques, burning fire stations,
24:4824 minutes, 48 secondskilling a lot of um uh police and other members of the Basie for instance, which is something we had not I just want to interrupt you. The best
24:5624 minutes, 56 secondsseizure are these popular militias the popular militias for people who don't know which are used by the government to repress the population but you know
25:0425 minutes, 4 secondsdespite the fact that they are of course extremely unpopular we had not seen this level of violence from protesters before
25:1125 minutes, 11 secondsthe 2009 protesters were extensively peaceful with a very strong nonviolent discipline. Uh a person I spoke to who
25:1925 minutes, 19 secondshas essentially attended all protests in Iran since 2009 uh said that in 2009 if anyone started using violence or throwing stones at uh
25:2825 minutes, 28 secondsshops etc other protesters would intervene to keep a nonviolent discipline. This time around he said he was out protesting in 20ou in in in
25:3725 minutes, 37 secondsJanuary but then he saw people dressed in black that seemed to move very coordinated planned way uh using
25:4525 minutes, 45 secondsviolence and he saw no one intervening because people were as afraid of those violent elements as they were of the repressive representatives of the state
25:5325 minutes, 53 secondsand this is a phenomenon we had not seen before in Iran in the last 40 years or so. And again, when Trump is coming out and saying, "Hey, we armed these
26:0226 minutes, 2 secondspeople." It frankly makes sense. The picture is starting to become complete.
26:0726 minutes, 7 secondsWell, and that those armed attacks became the excuse for wholesale slaughter. We don't really know. I mean, 7,000 Iranians killed in the streets,
26:1626 minutes, 16 secondsmaybe more, but they became the excuse to gun people down all mass.
26:2126 minutes, 21 secondsYeah. The Iranian government essentially started gunning people down on mass not making a distinction between you know uh peaceful legitimate protesters and
26:2926 minutes, 29 secondsothers who have been trained and armed by foreign u uh services. Uh and as a result you had frankly a massacre. You
26:3726 minutes, 37 secondsknow some people are throwing out the number 30,000 40,000 etc. see no evidence for that. But reality is there
26:4426 minutes, 44 secondsis evidence for around 7,000 and 7,000 people killed is a ridiculous and horrific number of people killed by the
26:5226 minutes, 52 secondsIranian government in just two days. Uh and that tells you something. It tells you how bad the situation was. Uh how
26:5926 minutes, 59 secondshow u perhaps desperate even the Iranian government was uh thinking that it was losing control and then allowed its militias to just use violence in an indiscriminate manner.
27:0927 minutes, 9 secondsThere's an internet blackout. It's hard to get information. Um, but one senses from a distance, you know more than I
27:1727 minutes, 17 secondsdo, that the mood within Iran is changing as Iranians understand that this is not about regime change. This is
27:2627 minutes, 26 secondsabout the the destruction of the physical infrastructure of Iran to do to
27:3227 minutes, 32 secondsIran, what Israel did to Gaza, what it's doing as I speak to southern Lebanon,
27:3727 minutes, 37 secondsand what it did to Syria um to turn Iran into a failed state.
27:4327 minutes, 43 secondsAbsolutely. I think it's starting to become clear. I think it was clear to a lot of people, but for those um portions
27:5027 minutes, 50 secondsof the Iranian population who out of desperation thought perhaps military intervention can help them, it's starting to become very clear to them
27:5927 minutes, 59 secondsthat this was never about them. This was never about their freedom. this was a campaign that had nothing to do with those things and that the goal of the
28:0728 minutes, 7 secondsIsraelis always have been to turn Iran into a failed state because that takes Iran off of the geopolitical chessboard
28:1528 minutes, 15 secondsand Iran can no longer pose a challenge to Israel's designs for hegemony in the region if Iran turns into a failed
28:2228 minutes, 22 secondsstate. Um, and I've written about this going 10 years back that that was the Israeli objective with uh any war that they would be engaging or or starting.
28:3228 minutes, 32 secondsUh and now I think it's become clear to a lot of folks that um you know they're they're they're not out there to help them but to destroy the country as a
28:4028 minutes, 40 secondswhole. And we're seeing at least on the side of folks inside of Iran that um uh
28:4728 minutes, 47 secondsyou know more and more people are speaking out against this war even people who may have been part of the protest early on or who perhaps even were in favor of the war that they are
28:5628 minutes, 56 secondsshifting sides. Still some people I'm sure this is a huge country 90 million people. you can find a lot of different opinions but the trend I think is quite
29:0329 minutes, 3 secondsclear and I think um what is not happening with the same clarity is within the diaspora and I think part of
29:1029 minutes, 10 secondsthe reason is for many of those who took these strong positions in favor of the war they've essentially entered no man's land they don't know where to go from
29:1929 minutes, 19 secondshere uh and as a result they're just doubling down uh on the position that they held before and just becoming more and more radical to be able to
29:2729 minutes, 27 secondsessentially handle the cognitive dissonance for uh that they have put themselves in and put uh helped put their their
29:3529 minutes, 35 secondscompatriots in inside of Iran. We had a similar phenomenon happening in the 1980s with a group called the Mujah
29:4329 minutes, 43 secondswhich was an opposition group on the US labeled as a terrorist group by the United States.
29:4829 minutes, 48 secondsExactly. Up until 2010, uh they sided with Saddam Hussein during the Iraq Iran war. They actually were a pretty popular
29:5529 minutes, 55 secondsgroup prior to that as part of the opposition to the Shaw. But because they sided with that invader, uh it was
30:0230 minutes, 2 secondsessentially their death now. And instead of reassessing uh and and rethinking what they had done, their response was
30:1030 minutes, 10 secondsto just double down and become more and more dependent on any foreign entity, a rival of Iran, that would seek use of
30:1830 minutes, 18 secondsthem. And as a result, essentially they turn themselves into a hated group that became like a mercenary for any of Iran's geopolitical rivals. I fear that
30:2730 minutes, 27 secondsthe monarchists may actually go in the same direction because they made this massive bet on this idea that bombing their own country would bring about
30:3530 minutes, 35 secondsdemocracy instead of it's bringing about death and destruction. Um and uh and I think it's very hard for them to manage
30:4330 minutes, 43 secondsthat. So I think they will frankly double down instead of trying to extravate uh themselves from this situation. Unfortunately
30:5030 minutes, 50 secondsI just want to close about the use of nuclear weapons. Um that is you know especially with Israel there's no been
30:5930 minutes, 59 secondsno Israel has certainly if they've learned anything with the almost three years of genocide it's that they can kill with impunity. not only with
31:0631 minutes, 6 secondsimpunity, but they can be supplied with billions of dollars of armaments to continue to kill with impunity. Um, and
31:1531 minutes, 15 secondsyet they are not achieving their objectives. As you pointed out correctly, it is Iran that will determine, I think, when this thing ends
31:2331 minutes, 23 secondsand they can through asymmetrical warfare and crippling the global economy, they have uh, you know, they have us by the throat. I I know it's
31:3231 minutes, 32 secondsspeculation, but I I unfortunately, you know, my fear is that we can't rule it out. And can you talk about that?
31:4131 minutes, 41 secondsYeah. No, it's it's extremely concerning because this is just a scenario the United States should not be in. But I'm hearing it increasingly from people,
31:5031 minutes, 50 secondsincluding former officials,
31:5331 minutes, 53 secondsthat fear that this is the direction that Trump may be going in. that his desperation for something that can turn
32:0032 minutesthis war around, something that can allow him to declare victory and end it even without an agreement um requires him from to take actions of this kind.
32:1032 minutes, 10 secondsPerhaps it could have worked if there was a a successful effort to extract the uh highlyenriched uranium, the 60%
32:1932 minutes, 19 secondsenriched uranium that the Iranians have somewhere underneath the ground around Fordo, which they apparently have not been able to access or extract
32:2732 minutes, 27 secondsthemselves. But this would be a tremendously difficult operation, probably quite a few American deaths.
32:3332 minutes, 33 secondsBut Trump seems to think that he needs something of that kind in order to say,
32:3832 minutes, 38 seconds"I won the war. it's now over and I'm going to leave and that this is then pushing him in the direction of more seriously considering nuclear options
32:4632 minutes, 46 secondsand and from what I hear there is that pressure from Israel as well. I don't know this for certain. Again, um there's a lot of communic, you know, a lot of
32:5432 minutes, 54 secondsinformation that is flowing around right now, a lot of speculation. We don't know any of this for certain, but folks are pointing to the fact that Trump is using
33:0233 minutes, 2 secondsthe language of World War II, for instance, total surrender, the type of language that preceded the bombing of
33:1033 minutes, 10 secondsHiroshima and Nakasaki. uh and and they're very worried that because Trump doesn't have any other options, he doesn't, you know, he's doesn't seem to
33:1933 minutes, 19 secondsbe willing to take the deescalatory offramps that are available to him because it will be an admission that this war was a failure. It will be an
33:2733 minutes, 27 secondsadmission that he did not succeed that as a result he may actually go so desperate that he will take uh
33:3433 minutes, 34 secondsescalatory actions such as using nuclear weapons.
33:3833 minutes, 38 secondsAnd just to close, what would be the Iranian response? How fast can they I mean at that point it's impossible to know because we don't
33:4733 minutes, 47 secondseven know if if this were to be used and it feels uh frankly uncomfortable even talking about this publicly given the
33:5433 minutes, 54 secondsfact that it is such an unthinkable option or should be such an unthinkable option. Um no idea whatsoever what the Iranian response would be and if they
34:0234 minutes, 2 secondseven could respond in any way, shape or form because it would be completely unclear um uh because it all depends on exactly where they would hit etc. But
34:1134 minutes, 11 secondsagain, I don't think we are there yet. I hope we don't get to that point. But the fact that this is increasingly being discussed in Washington as a potential
34:1934 minutes, 19 secondspossibility, it tells you about how badly this war is going.
34:2434 minutes, 24 secondsGreat. Thank you, Trita. Uh, and I want to thank uh Sophia, Max, Thomas, and Victor who produced the show. You can find me at chrisedges.substack.com.
34:3434 minutes, 34 secondsThank you so much for having me on, Chris.
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