The FOX News Rundown: U.S. And Israel Strike Iran

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I'm David Asman.

I'm Janice Dean.

I'm Jimmy Fella, and this is the Fox News rundown.

Tuesday, March 3rd, 2026, I'm Evan Brown.

War against Iran's regime continues with both the U.S. and Israel striking targets and terror proxies.

But what happens when the dust settles, and it's time for Iranians to rebuild?

The only solution for a peaceful transition can only be a pluralistic approach where everybody is included.

No one single ideology has the dominance to carry the entire nation.

This is the Fox News rundown, U.S. and Israel's strike Iran.

The Ayatollah is dead.

Israeli strikes on regime targets in Iran, purportedly kill his successors, his ministers, and his bureaucrats

that could potentially keep the government of Iran's Islamic Republic alive and fighting.

And this means the Islamic regime, which first rose to power in a violent overthrow of Iran's ruling Shah in 1979,

could be on its own deathbed.

But what comes next?

Remnants of Islamic theocracy won't go quietly, and while there are loud and large protests demanding civil rights and democracy,

just how ready are they to take levers of power and not enforce a new brutality or retribution?

Who will craft a new system that ensures rights of Iran's non-pursue minorities, which includes Kurds, Arabs,

Azeris, Balakler, and religious minorities, including Sunni Muslims, Jews, Christians,

and even the very ancient Persian faith of Zoroastrians.

And what about Iranians who just live secular lives?

Can Iran be governable going forward?

The large contingent of Iranian Americans are hopeful and have been waiting for the chance.

As an Iranian-American, it is a complex, emotional moment for us all.

Marty Yasefiyani is an Iranian-born American citizen who for years served as Chief Strategic Counselor to Iran's exiled crown prince,

Reza Polavi, the son of the late deposed Shah.

Now a key opposition leader who intends to build pluralistic democracy among Iran's different population groups.

I think without exaggerating, I think I can speak on behalf of most members of the two or three million Iranian American community.

That we're torn between the homeland of our birth, being bombed, and the new homeland that has given us all very generous refuge,

where we have built lives and contributed energetically and enthusiastically and have learned the practice of freedom and democracy.

It's a very, very emotional, complex moment for us to be able to make a distinction.

We worry about the American servicemen and women.

On the other hand, we worry about the boys and girls, fathers and mothers back home in Iran.

And really, the emotional decision to choose regime change over regime continuation.

So which human being can look at that and decisively come through and say, this is the right feeling to have.

We're all mixed emotions on that.

No one will shed tears for the demise and decapitation of the supreme evil, the leader, Hamine.

No one will shed tears over the extermination of all those who have suppressed Iranians for 47 years.

For those who slaughtered thousands, thousands of boys and girls just these past few weeks in Iran, doesn't matter how many thousands,

whether it be the 6,000, the regime itself says, or the 30, 40, 50,000 others project, thousands have been slaughtered.

The human toll aside, a beautiful, rich, wealthy nation, rich and resources has been, its economy has been driven to the ground.

So no one is shedding tears on that, but we worry what's coming next.

Let's talk about what comes next, because that is certainly a concern.

What fills that power of vacuum.

It would be a pretty low bar, I think, to suggest that it's better way to say this.

Whatever comes next has to be better, right? The bar is pretty low considering the Islamic regime.

What could be worse than that one might think Nazi Germany, but whatever comes next, it almost by default thinks it could, it could be, it's got to be better than that.

So what does come next? I mean, there's, there are some competing factions here.

Perhaps the exiled crown prince, Reza Palavi is someone who, you know, someone who has a lot of popularity, certainly in the diaspora.

There are other groups as well that stand opposed to him.

And at one point stood along with the Ayatollas and have made enemies of them since.

But how do we determine what happens next?

I mean, there's the immediate short term of what happens next, and then there's the longer term.

Yeah, you're exactly on point.

Unfortunately, the region, the world America, the West has reached, has been at this point before Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya.

We all saw the moment that everybody celebrated that what can come next will be nothing but better.

Saddam Hussein, the world was convinced, nothing but better that can come after the Taliban, after Assad, after Gaddafi, we were all at this moment that nothing but better can come.

But the challenge is when things are not thought through, certainly when societies and policies and nations are diverse pluralistic, have a variety of ideologies and opinions and ethnic groups.

You cannot say one solution pre designed and dictated is going to do it.

So what we have been working on, as you may know, we just concluded a meeting in London last week, where we brought together based on the philosophy of pluralism.

Iran's 92 million people are not a monolith in terms of politics.

We have a very strong presence of monarchists.

As you know, I served the Crown Prince Rezopalavi for many, many years.

So I wear that hat, but we have significant numbers of people who desire a republic, which must be respected.

We have numerous ethnicities in Iran, Kurds, Turks, Baluchis, Azeris, Iranian Arabs who have their own various viewpoints, some of them are monarchists, some of them are not.

So we believe that the only solution for a peaceful transition can only be a pluralistic approach where everybody is included.

No one single ideology has the dominance to carry the entire nation.

Rezopalavi is the best known name. He has inherited a heritage, which is associated with modernity and secularism that is fundamentally a driving philosophy for Iranians today, modernity and secularism.

But we also need to know there are others who may believe that a republic is what they wish.

There are those who have other ideologies and the only way to make sure what comes after is not civil war.

It's not all of the others uniting against one side, but that everybody collectively work together.

And that is believe we believe is what is ahead and is the best solution at hand.

The crown prince to whom you have these connections with has, and I don't want to speak for him, but I'm going to try to summarize some things that he said in the past is that he advocates for either a constitutional monarchy or a constitutional republic.

And that one obviously might benefit him personally if he gets to be a king, but he has said that the Republic without a king would be okay by him too.

What is his role in all of this? He's obviously been a figurehead. I think he's well respected. I think even people who may not want to see him as a king at least have a healthy respect for him.

And I think that's a good place to start.

How does he and folks like yourself? How do they ensure that pluralism that you've just talked about?

Because that's not easy to do. We've seen, as you've mentioned in other Middle Eastern nations, which are not Persian, but Arab, they descended into to write chaos between these factions very quickly.

How does that? How do we prevent against that?

Yeah, you're accurate in terms of reflecting on the Crown Prince Reza Palavi as being an important in my view, a mission critical important name.

Many people can find comfort in rallying around him, both a constitutional monarchist, as well as many people who desire Republic can see him as a brand to rally around.

We are hoping to bring the rest, the balance of those who may still need to find a comfort zone in that in that role. And that has been our goal in our mission.

The assembly that we brought together named the Iran Freedom Congress is to bring all sides together, constitutional monarchists, those who desire Republic, all every single ethnicity, civil society leaders, including mission critical players inside Iran.

Who are now former reformists turned regime changers now, many of them in prison under house arrest, the collective Reza Palavi himself issued a statement to IRGC forces to defect and join him.

So he himself sees that remnants of the current regime must be included. So our philosophy, I think, is deeply integrated in his philosophy as well. We just want to put into practice what we believe he also has conviction for, but it's doing it together as opposed to excluding and doing it solo.

Marty Isufiani is our guest. He used to be a strategic counselor to Reza Palavi, the exiled Iranian crown prince. And we're talking about what comes next for Iran after the Islamic regime on the Fox News rundown, US and Israel strike Iran. Please like, subscribe and share this podcast. We'll have more straight ahead.

What does that mean for people who are associated with, and again, Americans may not understand all of these factions, but I'll get the, for instance, M.E.K. or Mac, Mujachadine Kallak, the group of leftists who at first were on the side of the Ayatollah and realized that they they also became a target of his of his insanity.

And do they have a seat at this table because there's a lot of bad blood still with between certain groups involving them.

Yeah, I mean, again, the philosophy of pluralism and inclusion will need to be open to all, if it's mean, if it is to mean anything real and serious. So philosophically, I think this group welcomes anyone and everyone, but there are minimum requirements for this inclusion.

The most important one of which is territorial integrity. This is critical. For example, the ethnic groups that have joined this Iran freedom congress collectively reject separatism.

This isn't a fundamental requirement. Number two, civility and rejection of terrorism.

Number three, transparency and organization. Number four, secularism.

Number five, which probably should be number one, women's rights.

The master revolution was what was about women's rights. The slogan was what women life freedom. So when we have organizations, whereby they segregate their members into men and women, when we have an organization,

where it's leader, where's a hijab that the Iranian women gave blood to reject. These are some of the issues that any group which wants to join this freedom congress will need to address.

And most importantly, in terms of the MEK is the troubling history that they had during the eight year brutal war with Saddam Hussein.

It is a fact that they joined the invading army of Saddam Hussein. So if that group desires to be included, I think it probably will need to address those points directly.

Resolve them, put it behind them, then they may have a chance to speak. But until that is done, it is a troubling set of circumstances that that particular group needs to address.

One of the things you just mentioned secularism. Again, the American zeitgeist might not get the nuances of everything.

The majority of Iranians are Muslim and don't want to stop necessarily being Muslim, but they are okay to be secular in public.

Or if that's the correct way to say it, or a more concrete way or easier way, it's just to not be extremist, to not be the 12th or Islam type of extremist that we've seen that is running the country for 50 years.

What does that get addressed and balanced? Because I think there is, in some would say in this country in the United States, a healthy trepidation about Muslim countries. It's not gone well over the past 20 years at the very least.

It's a critically important question you asked. And the American public is right to be confused about what it is.

After all, as you said, 95% of the Iranian nation are Muslim, well, 10% of them are Sunni, but it's called the Islamic Republic.

When it came into the fold, there was a vision that Islam as a republic isn't neat idea and it can work. The difference here is for 47 years that Iranian people have experienced what Islam combined with Republic and democracy means it has not worked.

Visualize the reformation movement of Christianity, where at the peak of suppression and all of that challenges that Christianity went through, it came through the conclusion that secularism is the direction to go.

I can say that Iranians after 47 years, I can say vast majority of them have concluded not that they're not religious or they do not they have abandoned their faith, though many have.

But even those of faith have come to the realization that Islam as a form of political governance has not paid off.

You balance that with, you know, with the public life. I mean, the I just to go back on something you had just said previously that the idea of the hijab that women have bled to try to remove.

There might be some who are conservative that want to wear the hijab is that something is that does that become a public or a political stumbling block in a new Iran?

No, in fact, no, in fact, I think the message of the women life freedom movement was as long as it's not a forced choice.

The operative word is choice freedom of choice freedom of clothing. I invite my good American compatriots to take a look at the streets of Iran today.

You will see the optics vast majority of people are showing to the world their desire of modernity their desire for choice in what they wear.

Look at look at the young women. We have most people who will say we respect their sister's desire to wear hijab so they wish as long as I'm not forced to do what I wish.

Mara Yusuf Viana, you spent years as the chief strategic counselor to the exiled crown prince Reza Pallavi. Thank you so much for being with us on the Fox News rundown pleasure being with you see you soon.

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