Back by popular demand: Charlie Gammell on the latest in Iran

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And I think what we're seeing now, if you look at the targeting of the U.S. in Iran,

the hitting of kind of civilian targets, i.e. energy infrastructure, that to me shows

that they've run out of military targets.

And if you run out of military targets and you start hitting oil depots and your enemy

still hasn't buckled, it feels like there is a swing there and that swing is not necessarily

in your favor.

And the question that comes up in my mind at the moment is, where do they go?

And I think that's why they've had these rumors about the CIA working with the Kurds.

Because the Americans don't want to commit drug ground troops, but if they can get away

with committing other people's ground troops, then perhaps that might do the thing they

want to do.

Hello, and welcome to another special Iran-focused edition of Behind the Lines with me Arthur

Snell.

Last week I spoke to Iran expert former diplomat and historian Charlie Gamal about what was then

a war that had been going for just a couple of days.

And a response to that podcast has been amazing.

I've had so many positive responses.

People really got a lot from Charlie's experience, knowledge, and insight.

And so I thought, well, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

So Charlie is back by popular demand.

We're speaking on late on the evening of Monday the 9th of March, Charlie.

Welcome.

Good to see you.

Good to be with you Arthur.

Well, good to have you.

I know you're a very busy man at the moment, but thank you for joining us again.

No, it's a pleasure.

And we've got a little bit to, we've got quite a lot to cover since, since what happened

last week.

Yes.

I mean, last time we spoke, I think Ayatollah Khamenei was still alive, just for example.

So yeah, a lot has happened.

I thought we, let's start with Iran and its leadership.

So we're speaking just as it's been confirmed that Khamenei's son, Mojtaba Khamenei, has

been confirmed as the new supreme leader.

Now we've talked about him a little in the past, but it's worth noting that he is by

no means a major Islamic scholar, he's not somebody who would traditionally hold the

title Ayatollah.

So can we say a little bit about who this guy is and what does his appointment tell us?

So Mojtaba Khamenei, one of Annie Khamenei's sons, born in Mashad and the Khamenei family

is a very sort of a family steeped in clerical traditions.

His father, Ali Khamenei, as we've talked about in the past, was a revolutionary.

He was imprisoned by the Shah on many occasions and was prime minister during the President

rather during the Iran-eraq war and then became supreme leader when Khomeini died in

89.

And so he comes from a family that is absolutely steeped in the values of the revolution,

the values of resistance, the values of hatred of America and Israel.

And Mojtaba Khamenei's career towards the end of the Iran-eraq war, he sort of cut

his teeth in this battalion called the Habib battalion, which was one of the most ideologically

zealous bits of the IRGC towards the tail end of that kind of very bloody conflict with

Iraq.

And if you look at some of the people who were also in that battalion, they've gone on

to do some quite interesting things in the Islamic Republic.

These are figures that might not, whose names might not mean a lot to your listeners,

but men like Hossein Tayyab.

And these are really sort of the practitioners of the dark arts behind the power in the

Islamic Republic.

They're often referred to as the gatekeepers or they were referred to as the gatekeepers

to Khomeini.

And they've, some of these people have emerged alongside this organization called IRGC,

IRGC Intelligence Organization, which has been around for about, so there's 12, 12

years now, maybe a bit more.

And these figures are these kind of very sort of shadowy pro-regime figures, Mojtaba

himself, despite, you know, he's really not got a lot of theological clout, but he was

instrumental in the post-2009 when Ahmadinejad's second term, his election was contested,

when Iranians came out into the street to protest against that stolen election, Mojtaba

was key in shaping the Islamic Republic's response to that.

And you see those footprints on the response to the protesters in January.

It's a kind of an escalatory cycle of violence that you could say really begun or really

intensified in 2009.

So he's got credentials that go to the heart of the Islamic Republic's intelligence apparatus,

not ministry of intelligence and security, but the IRGCIO, which shows its loyalty completely

to the Supreme Leader's office.

And I think something that is important for now to remember is that Mojtaba Khamenei

was very, has, was always very good friends with Khasem Salamani, the IRGCQF commander,

who was killed in 2019.

And I think why that's important, just reading sort of IRGC press outlets today, you've

got members of Salamani's family coming out and saying, you know, we think this is a

great thing.

And Mojtaba and Khasem were always good pals.

And you might think, well, they would say that.

But to me, looking sort of reading through the lines of that, the significance there is

that Iran's use of proxies in the region and Iran's ability to play spoiler in the region.

These are the kind of things that Mojtaba learned directly from Salamani.

And I think it's those kind of editorials in those IRGC papers aren't accidental.

And that may be a signal of the policy that he's looking to take the Islamic Republic

in, particularly in the context of this war at the moment.

Yeah.

So would it be fair to say that what we can read from this is that whether or not they're

able to do this, and of course, you know, Iran is under severe attack from two exceptionally

powerful militaries, but the intention illustrated by this appointment is a continuous

continuation of this kind of defiance, a continuation of attacks on targets across the

region, effectively, the hardliners remain in control.

Absolutely.

I think that's absolutely it.

And it's also, it's a domestic play to say we are still in charge.

And there's a lot of, to appoint your son as the next supreme leader in your son who

lacks the theological credentials to become the Rahpah, as per the theology or the sort

of the political theology that Hameini set down in his original treatise before the

revolution.

You know, that just shows that they are the IRGC are in control.

The Islamic Republic will continue in the name of Hameini.

And I remember one very perceptive advisor, or sorry, analyst of the Islamic Republic,

said to me when I was asking about, you know, who's going to be the next supreme leader.

He said to me, look, it doesn't actually matter because the show will go on.

And whoever it is, the show will go on.

And I think that to a degree, that's true.

But I also think there's a risk here, right?

Because it just leaves the door open to further protests.

Those people in the Islamic Republic who've had families killed in the protests in January,

they will be looking at this and thinking, that's a slap in the face for any desire for

change that they've had.

So, so there are big challenges that, that most of the face is now, he's, can he unite

a fractured country, but also, can he unite the government behind him?

And when I say the government, I mean those splits that we are seeing emerge between

the politicians, people like President Pezish Guyan and the hardliners, people like Ahmad

for the head of the IRGC.

So, he has a huge job ahead of him.

And the question will be, does he have his father's ruthlessness and his father's ability

to take people with him?

Yeah.

And when you say, can he unite the country, I suppose it's a question as, when we, if we

talk about a sort of democratic politician who unites a country, we, we normally assume

that they reach across the divide and they, you know, perhaps they appoint someone from

the other party to own an important position or something like that, but we're talking

here that he unites the country with an iron grip by terrifying people into feeling

that they have no option but to support him.

Yeah.

And I think it's, it's worth reflecting on the fact that the, the role of the Supreme

Leader, it's a sort of a, in, in many ways, it's like a monarch in the sense that, in

a constitutional monarchy, so it sits above the messy day to day of politics and, and what

that allows it to do is it is that it's not tainted by the ups and downs of government.

And I think that was always a harmony, seniors, genius, that he, he simultaneously controlled

everything and gave the impression of just being a cleric.

So what, what should we have to exercise a lot of day-to-day control to make sure that

the splits, these, some of these splits don't emerge and, and that coherence is, is maintained.

Well, at the same time, if he's to be a successor to his father and, and, and, and Homani, he

will have to adopt that sort of slightly above the fray position that shows a degree of omniscience

that shows that he's almost too senior to get involved in the messy intricacies of policy.

And his father in 2009, that was almost his father's only misstep from a kind of power

perspective, was when he was seen to be getting too personally involved in the day-to-day running

of Iran through interfering in the election and putting much to the, er, sorry, putting

Aham Dilejard as, as, as president.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you, you mentioned this division in the leadership and, and that takes us back, you

know, so much has been happening in a short space of time, but a couple of days ago, the

president of Iran, who of course, in, in most normal countries, president sounds like

the person who's in charge, obviously, in Iran, it's a bit different, but the president

of Iran gave what sounded like a sort of attempt at a de-escalation speech.

He talked about apologizing to Gulf neighbors, of course, Iran has been trying to improve

its relations with countries like Saudi Arabia and, and the UAE, and, and he talked about

how Iran would not attack those countries, countries where, of course, we've seen constant

Iranian attacks on Saudi, on Dubai, famously on, you know, on Bahrain and so on.

Now those attacks don't appear to have stopped.

So what's going on there?

For those of us who are not, er, the Iranian equivalent of Kremlinologists, what, what, what,

what, what are we not seeing?

So I think it, it, it's really important to know that the, the Islamic Republic is a,

is a, is a democratic system in some ways, but, but ultimately, all in that sort of

organogram of power, everything goes back to the Supreme Leader.

And, and, and the way of thinking at it is that you have the Supreme Leader, you have

the Supreme Leader's office, and then you have IRGC Intelligence Organization, IRGC,

QF, Basage, and that's kind of one, that's probably the big pillar of power in the Islamic

Republic.

Yeah.

Then you have this kind of parallel and sometimes competing, but, but not necessarily

on a level playing field, column, which is elected politicians, er, to a degree, it's

the judiciary, and then it's also the ministries and the Ministry of Intelligence and Security,

the Army, the Navy, right up to the president with his cabinet.

And that's just to be very clear, the IRGC, which is, it has a major military function,

is not the same as the Army and the Navy and the military of intelligence.

So, totally, and, and the IRGC started life as, as these things called commentaries, they

were revolutionary commentaries, and one of their first big jobs was to go and put down

uprisings in Kurdish parts of Iran, where separatists were trying to sort of break away

from Iran and trying to cause problem for this new revolutionary state.

So, the IRGC really is the, the, the, the sort of the genistries or whatever, whatever

you want to call it, the Praetorian Guard writ large, it's the, it's the thing that protects

the revolution, and the Army, the sort of normal Army, as you would call it, sits alongside

it, and there's always been a hope in it, every time there's a, there's a sort of round

of protest, or for example, when Assad fell, the question is, would the Army turn against

the IRGC?

Would the Army say, right, you know, we're not, we're not going to fight for this, this

Islamic Republic thing anymore, we're going to, we're going to fight for Iran, and we're

going to side with the people.

And I think the comments that Pezashgian made the other day, I mean, it was, it was almost

immediate that the IRGC started launching drones at Dubai, and that was a, that was a

rebuke in public, and in private, from Vahidi Ahmad Vahidi, who's the head of the IRGC,

to Pezashgian say, look, we, we run this now.

So, and, and in, and I think that, that balance that exists in the Islamic Republic has always

been when you had Kharmenei there, it was a source of strength, because he could play

those two parties off against each other, and he could manage that, that kind of constructive

tension in a positive way, and you'd see it as a, you know, in negotiations with Iranians,

these elected officials had no decision-making authority, they couldn't make it in a negotiation,

they couldn't take a particular conversation in a, in a particular direction, if it was

off script, they would have to go out the room and sort of call, call the guys back in

Tehran. So, you have these elected officials, but they're very constrained, and ultimately

that, those constraints are becoming intensified as the conflict takes hold, and really that

favours the more hard-line elements of the government. So, when Pezashgian calls for

de-escalation in a kind of a roundabout way, you know, the, the IRGC remind him, who,

who really, you know, calls the, calls the shots.

Yeah. Talking about Iran as a country, you mentioned earlier there that the role in,

in the early days of the IRGC in putting down supposed uprisings of, of Kurds or threatened

uprisings, we might say. Now, in Iran, if I'm not mistaken, the Kurds represent about

10% of the population, so that's probably coming up to 10 million people, but clearly,

you know, many of them will have no intention of being involved in an armed uprising.

There's been some speculation that the CIA might be arming the Kurds or the Israelis

or both, but it doesn't look very likely or plausible that that's really going to sort

of get legs. But to what extent is there a sort of energy that is ripping Iran apart

from within, distinct from what's happening in terms of this kind of external assault

from the US and Israel?

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So I think it's important to even though in this latest round of conflict, there has

been from what you can see, and I know it's difficult because of the internet blackout,

but from what one can see in some of the open source stuff, there has been a rally around

the flag, people saying we don't like the Islamic Republic, but we're going to stand

by them because they're protecting our country against American and Israeli missiles.

And I go along with that two degree, I think also, but at times like this we shouldn't forget

that only two months ago, the Iranians killed 35,000 or 30,000, whatever it was of their own

people imprisoned a lot more or probably about 20,000 and that. And that has left a massive

toll on the collective psyche of the people of Iran. So despite the dead cat bounce that

they might get from appealing, from appearing to be defending the Iranian nation, no one's

in any doubt that these guys aren't. They're not good people. So the forces that drove

the January protest are still there. They definitely haven't gone away. And I was asked

that same question in the 12th day war, people saying, are people going to arrange going

to come out into the streets and try and overthrow the government? And I said, well, one, no,

not now because the bombs are falling and they don't want to, you know, they don't want

that to happen to them. But two, they were probably, as we saw happen, wait until the

conflicts die down. Perhaps the repression has died down because the posture of the Islamic

Republic now is to cease bias everywhere. And almost it's a more repressive environment

than it was three or four months ago. And then I imagine in a couple of months when, if

and when the conflicts die down, that's when some of this popular rage and anger that

still exists in Iran will rise up. And the outlook for the Islamic Republic in the medium

term is not particularly good because economically this hasn't, this war is not going to make

them richer, ecologically, it's not going to make Iran's sort of reservoirs of water

fill up. So the problems that were that were driving the conflict or the driving the

protest were rather in January, they're still there. And this sort of manufactured unity

could wither quite quickly when the, when the sort of common enemy disappears, I, if

it does disappear. Yeah. So let's talk briefly about that,

but how far Iran can continue to fire drones, one or two missiles. Now clearly they've,

they've taken an enormous number of targeted strikes from us in Israel. And of course,

some of those strikes have gone off target. It's increasingly clear that probably a girls

school was killed tragically. Lots of little girls killed in that context. But there seems

to be some evidence of Iran improving the accuracy of some of its strikes, possibly

with the help of Russia, or there was a very important, I think two important US military

radars in Bahrain and Qatar appear to have been hit. So it's a bit hard to tell. The volume

of strikes seems to be going down, but is there a degree to which perhaps the accuracy

is increasing? Or what's your sense of how long Iran can sustain its attacks on the region?

So the drones, I think the drone is the big one. And, and, and they've got a fairly large stockpile

of those drones. And what I don't think we've seen is I don't think we've seen the, the larger of

the Iranian, the Horaam Shahran, those kind of larger missiles. And there is a, there is a sense that,

that they're looking to absorb as much US punishment as they can. And then fireback missiles that,

that deplete the sort of patriots. I think the US has spent two and a half billions, to

shot two and a half billions worth of Patriot missiles. And a Shaheed 136 costs about, I don't know,

50 grand. You can see that asymmetry works in Iran's favor. And there's, there's, you know,

they've been planning for this for a long time. And they know that they can do those maths. And

they also know that if they, if they can wear down this stockpile of interceptors that the US has

spread the conflict as wide as possible so that the US is having to protect, you know, LNG facilities

in Qatar, but also other bits and bombs around the region. Eventually, some of that arithmetic will

start to work in their favor and they can bring out their heavier missiles or they can just keep

launching the drones. So I think on the other hand, it's possible that, that's, you know, if you look

at the, the, the Saudi response, they're not that rattled at the moment. Yes, there has been

attacks on desalination. Yeah. And there have been some strikes on energy facilities, but the broad

Saudi picture is that we're okay with this. But what we really want is that the Americans finish

the job. And that seems to me to be the, the sort of turning point of a lot of the Gulf thinking

is, is putting pressure on the Americans not to stop the war, but to, to finish the job.

Okay. So that's really interesting because I think right at the beginning, there was this slight

shock in, in the GCC countries, probably particularly those that are more dependent on

international visitors and tourism, so notably the UAE. But what, what you're saying now is that

actually it's sort of in for a penny, in for a pound, and, and they need the US and, and Israel

to, to just sort of get, get it done. Yeah. And in many ways, you're answering very clever

because they, they can see this sort of, I think we, you know, I've spoken about it before, this

kind of alliance between America and the Gulf States, which is sort of driven by obviously

Gulf States money, Trump's Averis and a bit of AI thrown in there. And it's no surprise that

the Iranians have attacked, attacked data centers to try and kind of drive a wedge between America

and the Gulf allies. I think the big fear remains from those, from a lot of those Gulf nations is

that what they don't want is Iran to become a second Syria and there to be a sort of flourishing

of sectarian violence that goes from Syria and, you know, touches in Iran and, and you have this

kind of destabilizing effect that can effectively give rise to ISIS 3.3.0. For example, that the guys

in Kurdistan, they're also nervous about Iraq becoming destabilized and, you know, at what point

is that going to blow back onto them? So a lot of these regional countries now thinking,

if you've started something, you have to finish it because a wounded Iran kind of unmoored from

the constraints of, you know, any any kind of geopolitical norm is potentially much more

dangerous than the Iran they had 12 days ago. So I think that's definitely an emerging theme,

but then that does beg the question, you know, can America finish it? Can Israel finish it? And

what does what actually does finishing it look like? Yeah, and I think that's an important

point because it's something we touched on when we spoke a week ago, which is that,

but Israel or certainly Benjamin Netanyahu, and I'm sure many of his supporters and senior commanders

do seem to have an objective of bringing down the Islamic Republic. Now, it's I've not seen anywhere

convincingly articulated what Israel thinks would replace it. Of course, we hear about

Reza Pallavi, the son of the former Shah, there's also the group which is which has come out of the

MEK, which was a sort of revolutionary group that fell out with the Islamic Republic in the early

days. But there doesn't seem to be a realistic sort of government in waiting hanging around,

and nor does there seem to be a plan on Israel's part to install such a government. And as for

America, I mean, I think that the most polite thing you can say about Trump is that his plans and

justifications change, you know, most days and certainly sometimes within minutes.

Yeah, I mean, in many ways that that has been a defining feature of this not just this

conflict, but a lot that's led up to it. You've had these sort of wildly oscillating justifications

and we're going to help protesters, we're going to not help protesters. And I think today he said

yesterday calling for the IGC to surrender. And I think there's almost 2,000, 200,000 IGC troops,

they're just why would they surrender? And to whom would they surrender? I mean, it's

right. And I think actually a lot of the a lot of the hype around Reza Pallavi, I think,

and I said this last week, you know, the guys in Iran are training for Al-Tramathans and he's

running a park run. And I think that even though it was probably a bit flippant, but it that's

feels to me to be the case. He's been a bit left behind when all kind of blood and thunder started.

And the Mujahideen Ikhalka are seen in Iran as traitors for siding with Saddam to degree in the

Iran Iraq war. They are a cult, basically. They don't. And I think positive and inclusive for

the future of Iran. And there really is. It's such a truism at times like this,

for people to say, well, the Americans don't have a plan. But they really don't have a plan.

And his brother doesn't have a plan because it feels like it doesn't need to have a plan

beyond basically destroying everything. And I think what we're seeing now, if you look at the

targeting of the US in Iran, the hitting of kind of civilian targets, i.e. energy infrastructure,

that to me shows that they've run out of military targets. And if you run out of military targets,

you start hitting oil depots and your enemy still hasn't buckled. It feels like there is a

swing there. And that swing is not necessarily in your favor. And the question that comes up in

my mind at the moment is, where do they go? And I think that's why they've had these sort of rumors

about the CIA working with the Kurds because the Americans don't want to commit drug ground troops.

But if they can get away with committing other people's ground troops, then perhaps that might

do the thing they want to do. But I still, I'm still not convinced that in the wirehouse,

there's a consensus on what success looks like. I think you've got sort of, you know,

Pete Higgseth, who's starting to resemble a cartoon character more than a serious politician.

And then you probably have JD Vance, who's much more, we need to talk to these people because

that's the only way to end this conflict. But much like in the Islamic Republic, the ones at the

moment that are favoring dialogue are increasingly sidelined as the kind of violence ratchets up. So

the people wanting dialogue aren't likely to get a word in edgeways for at least another couple of

weeks. Yeah, I mean, that's an important point to make that in a certain way, there's a kind of

ideological resemblance. Obviously, I'm not trying to suggest that the hardline is running the

Islamic Republic are necessarily the same as the hardline is running America, but you have

a group of people for whom the the action is perhaps more important than the goal. Now in

Shia Islam, that might be bound up with concepts of martyrdom and sort of sacrifice, which is

inherent in in the sort of Shia worldview. And perhaps there's certainly no martyrdom complex

going on with with Trump and his people. But I think what they have is a obsession with spectacle.

And for them, the spectacle of American power and might. And as you say, striking that oil

terminal, and we all saw those apocalyptic shots, you know, literally like a kind of, you know,

the twilight of the gods, a Gertar Demeron, but perhaps for certain people within America's

leadership and their political core supporters, that that is a sort of empowering vision.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and I would say that that's a sort of a pXS type thing. In the

absence of a clear policy, if you've got the biggest arm in the world, why not just why not just

use it? And I do think that history is, you know, people absolute power corrupts absolutely. I

think it's, Trump wouldn't be the first person to get seduced by the allure of just deploying

violence on a massive scale. And I suppose the deeper you get into that, the only way out is

through consistent or continuing to employ massive violence. And that's the, that's the, that's

the real danger here is that there's no, there's no off-ramp. I mean, he has just said that the war

will end soon, but then as you know from Ukraine, he's been saying the Ukraine war's going to end

for quite a long time now. Yeah. And it seems that particularly if, if his ally Israel is continuing

to drive forward, I think Trump, Trump is very scared of looking as though somehow he's back down.

So he can, he can declare victory, but of course, if another drone hits a, you know, an airport

in the Gulf, then it doesn't look very victorious. And presumably he's rather scared of that. And

I imagine the Israelis are sort of whispering in his ear, well, you don't want to do that. Do you,

you know, Mr. President, because you'll look silly. And of course, he doesn't like to do that.

So I suppose finally, we, you, you, you touched on the, the analogy of Syria. And of course, Syria

had a 15 year civil war that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives, destabilized the region,

refugee flows and so on. But compared to Iran, Syria is a really quite small place with a

fairly small population. Iran, you know, is, is, is a, is a sort of near continental sized country

that stretches from Pakistan all the way to the borders of Europe, from the Caspian sea,

down to the Indian Ocean, with nearly 100 million people in it. It seems to me that people haven't

really taken cognizance of the scale of the risk of a country like Iran collapsing into anarchy.

I mean, yeah, I couldn't, I couldn't agree more. And I think that, that question of what will

you do if you don't win? That is a question that has not been adequately addressed in the American

administration because they just can't really count on its situation where they don't win. And I

think the, the danger of Trump saying we've won. And then there's a divergence between American

and Israeli policy. And then the Israeli think, well, we'll, we'll, we'll just keep on striking

because, um, because, because we, we don't think the job's finished. And then the Iranians will

keep on striking the, um, the, the, the Gulf and, and Arab countries in the Middle East to drive

a wedge between America and the Arabs and the Israelis. And I, and I feel like in this kind of

very asymmetric conflict that is emerging, this is almost like the sort of apotheosis of the global

war on terror. Um, and this, this could be it's sort of final, very grisly showdown, maybe not

it's final, but we're treating this like a, like a Venezuela or like a CT problem. And actually,

this is a mature, very rich, um, very powerful country that has capability to do lots of damage

to lots of people when it sets its mind to it. So that question of what, what happens if America

doesn't win? Who's gonna, who's gonna sort of tidy up the pieces afterwards? It, it simply

hasn't been asked. And, and I don't think that the American administration at the moment has the

kind of intellectual bandwidth to answer that kind of question. Yeah. I mean, I'm struck by

people have made analogies to the situation in Gaza before the October the 7th massacre.

And there was this idea, it's a slightly unpleasant concept, but of mowing the grass that the

Israelis was periodically, uh, carry out military operations to, to degrade, uh, Hamas. And so

they believed Hamas's ability to threaten Israel, clearly they were completely wrong. But it seems

to me that, you know, the Gaza Strip, as, as we all know, is, is a tiny little bit of land with

a very dense population with complete Israeli domination in terms of, uh, you know, the ability to

sort of seal it off and, and attack it and so on. Uh, the, the idea that you can treat Iran like

it's a sort of Gaza and draw a ring around it and, and sort of say, well, we'll just keep it secure.

That strikes me as, as completely delusional. Yeah. I, I, I think you're right. I think this is,

but I, this is where, you know, I was talking someone the other day and they said, well,

America does have a plan. They, they bomb until Iran either capitulates or comes to the table.

Um, something that is, that is the stated plan, but, but for Iran survival is victory and

it urnses their path to victory. And they know that they just, that, that the longer they kind of,

um, push this conflict out, the more chance they've got of surviving, which in their mind is,

uh, uh, a victory. Yeah. And, and I think it's worth mentioning, of course, that the,

although it's a very kind of self-destructive victory, a victory that includes a whole,

a reshaping of the whole economic model of the GCC, where you have countries that, you know,

lots of people have enjoyed laughing at influences in Dubai, sort of saying, well, we didn't know

there was a geopolitical situation in this region, but whether or not we find that amusing,

the fact is that a business model in the Gulf countries has been established on the basis that

there is quite a high level of security, albeit in a insecure region, and that you can have airports

and great internet connection and, you know, ubers that arrive on time and all the rest of it.

Now if, if that economic model fails, it is not just, uh, troubling for the countries of the GCC,

but actually increasingly a huge amount of kind of world investment and growth expectations

are built on the idea that GCC money is involved. So the ramifications go much wider than just

what's happening inside Iran. Absolutely, absolutely. And you've only got to look at, you know,

Trump's latest, his roadshow to the Gulf last May, I think it was all the money that was promised

to go into the American economy. I mean, America stands the lose from some of that massively.

Yeah, the trillions of anticipated Gulf money. Yeah. Okay, so final question, Charlie. What should we

be looking for if, if we think that Iran is, uh, perhaps willing to deescalate, or we think

that, for example, the Americans believe that they can declare victory and walk away. Would, would

Iran, would there be a pause, you know, are there, are there sort of middle options that aren't

quite the end of the war, aren't quite victory, but I sort of cease fire that, you know, maybe China

stepped in and negotiated or something like that. So I think there was a comment from a senior

regime official today saying, um, we will not negotiate with the Americans whilst the fighting

is ongoing. And to my mind, that is, that is clearly a signal saying, well, if the fighting stops,

we might talk with you. Yeah. And Ali Larajani has long been booted as, as in sort of American

circles, as he's the guy we can do business with, who was until much to bit in that tiny little

interim, Ali Larajani was running the country. He is someone who can sort of cross the divide as

it were, potentially, and talk to the Americans. That's the only really deescalatory path I can see.

It won't come from a peasantian or an Iraqi, from a sort of political camp. It'll come from the

regime inside of. And again, as I've sort of said before, the challenge there is that one that

might not satisfy Israel. And two, it might not lead to a lasting sort of sustainable solution.

But three, also, it's a massive portrayal of the sort of people that were on who've gone out

and protested in, in January. So the path to deescalation is itself fraught with kind of,

you know, baked in risks and challenges that could rear their head later down the line.

Well, with that thought, we will continue to watch this very closely. Charlie, thank you so

much for sharing your insights and knowledge with us this evening. Always good to be with you, Arthur. Take care.

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