Who's Running Tehran?

0:00Hello listeners, welcome to another episode of the Jake Shapiro podcast. Who, what a week, what, what a last, what a last 10 days. Joining me on the podcast is Tommy Driza, it's easy, he's been on the podcast several times before. I think he's one of the best commentators out there about Iran, I would highly recommend checking him out on Twitter, we'll have a link to his sub-stack in the show notes. I'm a subscriber. If you're looking for an unbornish objective take from an Iranian perspective on what Iran is doing in its strategy, this is a person that I have found is the most insightful about this. And I was extremely appreciative that he was able to make time in his busy schedule to come on. So thank you, Tommy Driza. Listeners, there's a ton of content out there, you can go listen to some of our geopolitical cousins podcast, we obviously got things cooking here on the Jake Shapiro podcast. I have not put out anything on the sub-stack this week. I will be rectifying that soon, I'm honestly having trouble finding the exact right way to say it, or maybe I should focus on some other things, but there will be some content

1:01there as well. We're also, we recorded this Friday, March 6, that's 10 a.m. here, central time in New Orleans. We'll probably get this out early tomorrow morning if I had to guess, so maybe some things will change, maybe some things won't. But I'm expecting kind of worse going to the weekend, I'm not sure that the conflict has gotten quite as bad as it can yet, but I'm still sticking to, I don't see how this conflict goes much longer than a couple of weeks. So we will see all of these models and all of this analysis is getting tested in real time. So, without further ado, email me at Jacob at JacobShapira.com. If you have questions, comments, concerns, anything about the podcast. If you want to have me speak at an event, or if you're interested in figuring out how to get access to my research and other things like that, you can also email me there. Otherwise, take care of the people that you love, cheers, I will see you out there. All right, welcome me back onto the podcast, Hami Dresa. It's too soon to have you back on the podcast, but the world had different plans for us and

2:03here we are. I mean, we were just talking about this before we hit record. You've become a minor celebrity because your analysis is so good and people are starting to notice it. So, thank you for making time to come on and it's well-deserved. Thank you so much for having me again. I mean, speaking of being celebrity, I really would like this not to be in a war time and as a result of a war, but what I do is to just try to, you know, make sense of where things stand and just share my understanding with others, so that's what I am trying to do at the moment. Thank you. Of course, and obviously we'll talk about what's going on right now. We're recording Friday, March 6th and the morning. People try to push this out this afternoon, but it might bleed into tomorrow morning. But both for my own sake and maybe for your sake, I wanted to open up some space for you to take a step back and think about where we're going in a larger context because we're on, you know, day six roughly of the war, I think it's fair to say.

3:04And there are so many developments to keep track of every single day. I mean, just this morning we had President Trump demanding unconditional surrender after basically saying he needs to be appointed to the Council of Experts to help pick the next supreme leader, like just mind blowing stuff all over the place. There's the drone attacks on Azerbaijan, there's the involvement of Turkey, there is the involvement of the Kurds. There's so many of these pieces here to talk about and that's before we even get into the market reaction. But I guess one of the things I wanted to ask you because most of the folks that I'm talking to in my space who are global macro analysts or who are thinking about this from a global macro perspective are thinking this can't go on for more than two weeks. Two or three weeks because the United States and Israel don't have the interceptors and the capacity to keep going or because Iran might fall in on itself. It just seems like it's a race against time with capacity on the U.S. Israeli side versus resilience on the Iranian side. So I wanted to start by asking you, first of all, is that ring true to you or do you think that this could go on for much longer? And the second thing I wanted to ask you is if you do think it's shorter, what do you

4:09think this means for Iran over the next 12 months? I mean, the Iranian regime has been incredibly resilient thus far, but one of the scenarios that I'm worried about is maybe this ends in two to three weeks. And then all of the internal infighting in Iran, which has basically been put on hold as the country hangs in for its survival, comes out. And you start to get complete and total instability in the country and all the things that would mean, which would also not be so great for global trade flows and commodity flows and everything else like that. I'm starting with a very high-ended, high-arking and hopefully longer-term question as we back into the conversation. What do you think about all of that and take it whatever direction you want? I know there's a lot there. Yeah, sure. As you were speaking, actually, I was going to say that it's a race against time. And then you said it, so I agree with that. And as much as I can see and of course, based on my kind of constant monitor, I think during of the narrative, also positions on the Iranian side, that seems to be at least

5:13on the kind of interpretation on the Iranian side as well, that it's about how long we can resist and it is kind of widely interpreted as a battle of wills, you know, like who's going to back down first and obviously both sides are trying not to be the first who does that. You mentioned, of course, a number of interceptors, that's also something that the Iranian military planning has been obviously based on to a great extent, but on the other hand, we have another limitation on the Iranian side, right? And that's the number of ballistic missiles. And more important than that, the number of launchers, which can basically launch those missiles, especially the more advanced ones towards Israel.

6:16So we can, of course, discuss more in detail how the Iranians have been trying to overcome that limitation, but overall what I wanted to say is that, of course, that's true. That's also how I interpret this kind of the time frame, the time window would be something like a couple of weeks to a month or something. But of course, the whole situation is unpredictable and based on what we are seeing already, I think, at least as far as the military planning on the U.S. side is concerned things, I mean, I may be wrong, but there are indications that things are not going as fast as maybe they had expected or they had planned, reports of, for example, the U.S. considering the redeployment of hatred, air defense missile systems from South Korea, reports of Pentagon and the White

7:21House meeting with the chiefs of the U.S. arms industry and defense industry to speed up the production of interceptors and so on and so forth. And alongside the kind of very rather strange, late decision to evacuate American citizens from the region, it didn't happen on day one or two, it happened on day three and after war. So these are all indications that maybe things are not going as fast as the U.S. planners had anticipated. So this is one thing, but on the other hand, the scope of damage on Iran is kind of really unbelievable, right? And on the very first day, on the very first hour, actually, the Supreme Leader and a bunch of other Iran King military and political officials were killed and just last night, for

8:28example, local time in here and early morning in Iran, there were reports of heavy bombings like people in Iran, on social media, everywhere I checked, they described it as unprecedented and then it turned out that areas around Iran and also in some other parts of the country were targeted with two bombers, like the U.S. heavy bombers targeting underground missile facilities. So it's one thing for Israel, for example, to target the access points to the missile bases as it did in the 12-day war last June and also it's been doing now, but it's something totally different when and if the missile is stockpiled itself, which is very different

9:28underground is targeted. So we don't know the exact scope of damage, but it's clear in the kind of reducing tempo of Iran missile fires. Anyway, so given all that, it really seems that, and by the way, at the same time Iran trying to inflict as much damage as possible to U.S. assets around the region. And we know that for one ballistic missile, I mean, even the shorter range ones directed at the Gulf countries, there's a need for a few interceptors to be fired to intercept them. So these are all the calculations, we cannot speak only in terms of numbers, but numbers also matter here. So all these lead me to think that this kind of, you know, how to say hyperactive phase

10:32of war, let's say, may end in a few weeks, but then, I mean, it really depends on a lot of factors to predict even the short term after the end of this active phase of hostilities. Let's alone meet to longer term like 12 months or further. So the first question would be, I mean, under which conditions the war is going to end, maybe not unconditional surrender, but some sort of surrender, some sort of, you know, appeasement by the Iranians towards what Trump wants. So that would lead to one set of scenarios. And then if it is the United States, for example, that would announce a unilateral ceasefire like they did with the Hussis, for example, last year, that would produce other outcomes. But in any case, the Iran, and I'm not speaking on about the government, the state and the

11:34country that will, you know, come out of this war is not going to be the same as it was in the past. And I think that he is actually maybe one of the primary aims of Israel, not necessarily the United States, because again, there's a lot of indications that the war, the strategy, speaking of strategy, and this time I'm not speaking of like the detailed war planning as we just discussed, but the strategy in terms of, you know, what you want to achieve, what are the end games and basically what are the means to achieve that? I really don't see Donald Trump having something clear as a strategy, but Israel is certainly do. And for them, as I can see, based on the facts on the ground and also based on following, you know, some brilliant Israeli colleagues who covered the situation and analyze it, it seems

12:38to me that Israel is pursuing one of these two outcomes, either a regime change or state collapse, because, you know, the pattern of Israeli strikes is like in this criminal micro targeting of every single governmental building, let's say, or infrastructure in the country. So whatever is left of the Islamic Republic, if it survives, is not going to be able to govern the country, maybe the internal security and coercive sort of capacity of the state will remain enough to suppress internal dissents, but then externally things are not going to look good. So I really don't see any optimistic scenario out of this in the mid to long term, to be honest with you. All right, well, there's a lot to unpack there. Why don't we start with this question.

13:40This is one of the questions I've been getting most often, because I think, and we'll sort of get to that larger question, I think, by asking some of these smaller questions, I think many Westerners and Western observers are confused at why Iran is not just bombing Israel, is going after Saudi Arabia and the UAE and Qatar and maybe even Azerbaijan and maybe even Turkey. Can you talk about how that fits into Iran's strategy? What is the strategic goal behind hitting some of these regional countries? Yes, of course, and I have covered this a few times in my day in the recaps as well, but to put it in a nutshell, there's two rather interconnected goals. Both of them related to that, you know, a question of resilience and kind of, you know, the ability to absorb shocks and continue fighting that we just discussed.

14:42So first of all, there's an operational logic behind it, and it has to do with the American radar systems stationed in the Gulf countries, basically around Iran. So those have, I mean, of course, the primary aim has been to install those radar systems and, I mean, it's not just a radar system in itself, right? It does a purpose in providing data for the intercepting systems like TAD, like Patriot, et cetera, to be able to effectively operate, right? So of course, the primary aim is to provide security for the U.S. bases in the region and also for the U.S. allies, I mean, the countries where those bases and those systems are stationed

15:44around the Gulf, but speaking of Israel at this moment, it is also the first layer of defense for Israel because these radars, these intercepting systems, they work as the first layer of, like, better to say, as early detection for Israel. So when Iran fires a ballistic missile towards Israel, these systems can, you know, quickly intercept, and then it gives Israel, you know, a good time to respond. And once, and if these radars are taken out, then it's going to be much more difficult for Israel to be able to intercept those. And that's one of the reasons that we've seen in the past, I mean, the past six or

16:47one days, actually, since the start of the war, as far as I could follow, at least three radars of Todd missile systems in the region have been damaged or out of service. One in Jordan, two in the UAE, if I'm not mistaken, I'm not aware of more, but there were other early warning systems apart from the Todd-related ones that was also targeted. So when I look at the kind of strategic narrative in Iran in the official and semi-official outlets, they are describing this as phase one of their operations. And that can actually explain somehow why, on the side of the United States and Israel, they are ramping off their operations, you know, why out of a sudden, last night, we had this kind of new, more extensive wave of attacks, because as far as I know, already

17:52after day one, like after 24 hours, Israel had managed to open this air corridor toward central Iran. So operational maneuverability was not the main issue here. It's about the kind of compressed response time on their side. So this is the first thing why Iran is targeting those areas. And second one is about energy, of course, because, yes, Iran is stationed, I mean geographically, right at the state of hormones, and it has the capacity to disrupt the shipping in the strait as it has already. But then there is a limit to the extent that they can sustain it, you know, if they want to have a more lasting and more effective impact on the energy market, one that would convince

18:53the United States to stop the war. So if, again, you look at the pattern of Iranian attacks, apart from those military bases belonging to the United States, they are targeting production, refinery, whatever energy facilities in the region. So the logic is that we can keep the strait closed. And by the way, it's not closed technically speaking yet. It's about disruption and the risk of passing through, which, you know, keeps the ships away. Iran has not, for example, taken a step to mine the strait as, you know, it would be envisaged in a traditional closing scenario, but anyway. So they can keep this closed or disrupted for some time, but given the face and scale of Israeli, sorry, American attacks on Iranian naval forces and naval assets in the southern

19:54parts of the country, there's a limit, time limits, how long Iran can sustain that. But if, I mean, in their perspective, if they, you know, managed to kind of, you know, how to say to target these, these energy infrastructure in the region and, you know, bring them out of order for some time, then the actual impact that would be considered as a strategic, why the United States would, would appear. And by the way, and there's also one final point, actually. And that's simply, I mean, especially when we compare with the, the 12-day war, the 12, in the 12-day war, there was a big difference, very big difference. And that was, it was Israel, Iran war, the United States came in for very limited one of a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. And then after two days, ceasefire was announced, right?

20:58This time, the United States is involved from the get-go, and it's actually, at least as far as American officials or concern throughout administration officials are concerned. They described this as daily initiative, not as Israel's, right? So now Iran faces two adversaries, one being the United States, and that's the only place that Iran has access to anything American that they can target, you know, especially in terms of military targets. So these dimensions actually shape the Iranian thinking and war planning at the moment. That last point you made, I think, is an important one, and it's actually one that has been sticking with me quite a bit over the last couple of days. Because if you walk around any town or city in the United States right now, you would have no way of knowing that the United States was engaging in a special military operation or at war, whereas I doubt there's a street where town you could walk through in Iran today

21:59and not know that the country is at war. Does Iran have any capacity to strike at the United States beyond what's in the region? Do you see that there's any kind of asymmetric capability that they have at all, or do you think that's just beyond Iran's capacity? No, nothing at all. Iran doesn't have the intercontinental ballistic missiles, and the estimates would suggest that it would take at least eight to ten years for them if they decide to develop something that would reach the United States, of course, the Israeli claims and more recently Trump's own claims aside, technically speaking, there's no evidence of that. So it's all about, I mean, in terms of the reach of Iranian missiles, so if you look at the map and as far as the US is concerned, which means that we need to look towards the

23:06west and southwest, it would go as far as Eastern Europe, and then we had actually some reports about Cyprus. I'm not sure if it was drone attack or missile or whatever against the British base in Cyprus, but that's the maximum that Iranian missiles can reach. And beyond that, we can, of course, think of some, I don't know, like sabotage operations by intelligence or operational agents, you know, getting their way into the United States or even some terrorist attacks, maybe some time that would be planned or implemented by Iran-backed agents, but nothing in terms of kind of taking the actual war to the

24:08street of the United States, that's beyond question. What about cyber capacity? This is one I feel like everybody is always afraid about it and it never materializes. Is there any cyber capacity to this that Iranian hackers or somebody could use to try and at least impose some kind of cost to the average American, or is it really just, hey, as we got to drive the price of oil up as much as we can, and the price of natural gas up as much as we can, that is our only recourse. Well, they worked a lot on the cyber report, and for some time, it seemed to be actually part of the forward defense strategy, and I wrote about it years ago, like six years ago, I think, the cyber element also becoming one pillar of that. So forward defense we discussed before, right? And it's about taking the battlefield as far from Iranian territory as possible. So cyber could help with that, and we have had incidents of cyber attacks against Israel, especially some more serious, some less.

25:11But then even in that field, it's not even close to what the United States has, both in terms of offensive and defensive cyber capabilities. So like, I don't know, like campaigns against, like hacking campaigns against institutions, organizations, yes, but something that would, for example, make some major disruption in, I don't know, say, water supply, energy supply or whatever in the United States, I doubt that. I must say that I'm not an expert on cyber, but based on what I know about the Iranian security strategy as capabilities, I don't think that is really in the cards. They have worked with Russia and China on that as well, but then it's mostly been aimed at Israel first, and on Iranian dissident networks, dissidents and dissident networks outside

26:16of the country rather than some kind of state, a statewide target thing. Yeah. In the weeks leading up to the war beginning, there were certainly reports in English media and in English language media about, you know, supreme leader, Khamenei, picking successors or four potential successors for himself and asking senior commanders and senior Iranian officials to pick four successors for all of their positions to try and build on some redundancy. And you've also made the point about how the Iranian regime is multi-layered. You were never just going to take out the very top and the regime was going to collapse in on itself. The question I want to lead up to then is because we've been talking about Iranian strategy and the decisions that Iran is making and what tactics they have available to them. But who is calling the shots right now in Iran? Is it because the reports have been that all authority has been delegated to local commanders. So is there a top-down directive, for example, to hit Azerbaijan with drones? Is that maybe somebody who's getting over their skis, who is a local commander, who has

27:21the general mission, which is to impose costs on regional actors in order to try and force the United States and Israel to stop? My question is where is the decision making happening? And if it is happening at that local level, you know, when President Trump is even thinking about, I mean, you know, I'm thinking about this from the point of view of negotiations. Who is he negotiating with in the first place, who, I don't think Iran is going to surrender unconditionally, but who even has the authority to surrender unconditionally in Iran, and who could actually do that? Does that question make sense? Yeah, it does. But what I can say is that the decision-making, of course, is increasingly decentralized, but it's not chaotic yet. So we have to, I mean, there's two things here. One is operational autonomy, which is, I would say, which has never been as expansive and

28:23extensive as it is today for the local commanders and the field commanders, and I will get into that in a bit. And then we have the kind of strategic part of the picture, like a strategic decision-making. So operational decision-making versus strategic decision-making. So this decentralization and this multi-layered system that I've been also talking a lot about and written a lot about, especially recently, this is a part of the regime's survival strategy in time of crisis. And by crisis, they mean both domestic or external crises, you know, like war or something like that. So we have something, a concept like called a mosaic doctrine or mosaic strategy within

29:24the IRGC, which dates back to early 2000. So if you remember, at the time, there was huge concerns in Iran that after Iraq and Afghanistan, you know, it might be their turn. So for the US, to attack Iran as well, Iran was designated as a member of the so-called axis of evil, right, by George W. Bush. And so they started back then thinking of how to operate, continue operating if there is a war. And then this was developed under General Aziz Jaffari, the former commander of the IRGC. And it was based on the idea that, okay, we have this number of provinces. Now it's 31. Back then, I believe it was less, but let's stick to 31. So we have 31 provinces. And then we have 31 general provincial headquarters of the IRGC. So in times of the crisis, it's these provincial commanders who basically take over in terms

30:32of the main power centers in that region. And what's the function? What's the use of it? It would be used as a tool to make sure that if the kind of routine or regular chain of command is disrupted, the country is still going to be able to farm. And then we have a function and for the military to respond and continue engaging and so on. Then after 2009, after the green movement, which was according to the, like, inside the records of the Islamic Republic itself, was the closest, before, of course, the latest round of protests in January, was the closest that the Islamic Republic went towards collapse. They revised this whole thing and it went to the extent that according to the kind of internal regulations of the Indian government in time of crisis, actually, not only those provincial

31:37commanders of the IRGC would have operational autonomy, but would also be considered superior to provincial governors who are the main executive or administrative, but are to say officials in the province. So it means that in time of crisis, the country would automatically be militarized. This is very important. This is something that many people don't, either don't know about or have not talked about quite, you know, as much as needed, but so this is important. The point is that the system was designed to automatically be militarized, the moment that the big crisis happens. And then we have the 12-day war and the 12-day war basically showed the shortcomings of this approach. So despite the operational autonomy, et cetera, on the matters of especially war and peace

32:44in the first place, and then also in how to respond, how extensively, when exactly to our visual direction, et cetera, those all needed a final gratification by the person of the Supreme Leader. And we had moments when he was not available, and that created some challenge. After the war, they started given more autonomy, but autonomy, not in the sense of, you know, fire at will. It's about these guys having clear instructions that if the war happens, what exactly you have to do? And you are free to do that. You don't need to wait for instructions from the center. So this is what has happened and led to Iran being able to fire missiles almost immediately after the deaths of the Supreme Leader, even. So this operational autonomy remains and continues despite the challenges.

33:45So it has brought some benefits, of course, especially in terms of how quickly Iran could respond, but the challenges, what I understand, I, again, I may be wrong, but what I understand as being the main cause, for example, of that missile being intercepted over Turkey, because the last thing that is not a republic once at this moment is to expand the scope of the war beyond the region, to engage NATO directly, and especially Turkey as the largest army of NATO, just the next door. So this has challenges on itself, but speaking of whose main power broker, strategic decision making, et cetera, all indications suggest that it is now in the hands of the Supreme National Security Council, especially this person of large journey. Ironically, I don't know by the time that this podcast is published, if he is still alive or not, because the capitation seems to be not just one of tactic, but a wartime strategy

34:48by both the US and Israel. And then, by the way, I think we discussed the idea of consolidation before, right, but so we had the defense council as well, and Shamhani as the head of it, and he had ambitions actually to be, if not the king, the kingmaker, I wrote about it as well. He was not fortunate enough to see that time. He was killed also in the first wave of strikes, but now there's two people with significant institutional backing, and also, like themselves being heavyweights, within, especially the security military establishment. One is Adi La Rijani, the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council. The other one is Mohammad Baraghali, both the former Vars commander and the current speaker of parliament. So there is this interim leadership council, of course, consisting of the president, the

35:49Chief Justice, and a cleric from the Guardian Council. But now these guys, Rijani and Gali Bofsin, to be the main people in charge of strategic decision making, and there's another layer at the military strategic level. And based on what I can follow from the Iranian sources, there's two people. First, the current Chief Commander of the IRGC Ahmad Vahidi, who's an ultra-hard liner, was an interior minister before, and he was actually also the first commander of the Qat's Force, before Soleimani. And then also the head of IRGC's aerospace force, which is, by the way, in charge of the missile program. And I actually, I forgot, I mean, he's known among the supporters of the regime as they

36:51get majid, but I just don't remember the family name. So these two guys, Ahmad Vahidi, and say they've majid, these guys are in charge of the military side of things. So I mean, it is clear the structure more or less, but factional rivalries, of course, exist. Like, in a normal situation, I cannot imagine, like, Vahidi and especially Laryjani, for example, you know, these guys are getting along very well with each other, you know? So these nuances also exist here. I want to give you a completely hypothetical scenario. I know that President Trump is out there tweeting about unconditional surrender, but the poll numbers look terrible, gasoline prices are rising in the United States. We had a ugly unemployment print this morning. There's a lot of pressure on him domestically. If he reached out to the council or whoever else and said, look, we have accomplished our

37:54goals. We are ready to start winding this down and to come to some sort of ceasefire arrangement. I know I said unconditional surrender, but that's the negotiating tactic. What do we have to do? Do you think that Iran's leaders would agree to that? Do you think that they would continue, maybe, to try and impose costs at the straight of four moves? And in the region for a couple more days, to try and increase the pain threshold in a way to try and instill some level of deterrence because they need the region to feel more pain so that this doesn't happen again. How do you think Iran would react to the United States looking for a mission accomplished way out of the current escalatory cycle? I think they would accept this because, as I said, the pressure is mounting on them as well and come on. It was actually a funny thing I heard today, I read actually today from a member of parliament. I don't know how credible it was, but the way it was framed, he was like, now we have

38:54two candidates, like final candidates for the Supreme leadership, none of which is willing to accept the job. So, you know, I mean, from the perspective of the Islamic Republic supporters, they would say, yeah, this is because of the high place of the job and because these guys are decent, they are not going to accept that, but I really don't think it's the only problem. I mean, if that's accurate, it's just too dangerous, you know, for anyone to take office in these circumstances because they are just going after every single person. So they do need to stabilize this and they do need to, you know, keep the United States out of this. Look, I've been monitoring this whole Iranian military strategy for, I don't know how long, especially recently, it's been like literally out by out, I've been updating myself.

39:55So the whole plan from, let's say the start, at least the start of Trump's presidency was not to let the United States, or better to say, deter the United States from entering into a conflict, like even you look at the 12-day war, they did their best at the time, not to target any single U.S. base in the region in order to keep the U.S. out. Even when the United States decided to come in and it was then, you know, turned out that it was telegraphed, right, it was coordinated. So okay, they observed the cost and only responded symbolically to the U.S. base in the region because they didn't want further involvement. The problem for them is that now the United States is on board full force. And as they say, one step ahead of Israel.

40:55So their calculation was always, I mean, I really don't think that it is an accurate calculation, but anyway, it is as it is. Their calculation was that we can withstand Israel on our own, but we cannot withstand the United States. It's about confronting Israel, but keeping the U.S. out. So if, at any moment, the United States decides that it wants to, it wants out, it wants out, then I think they are going to be fine with that. The only problem would be if, you know, they want to, it depends, of course, on the really equations on the ground, if they would ask for grantees that Israel would also stop or not, and also about kind of future potential U.S.

41:57attacks, something like that. So these sorts of grantees was overall, I mean, it would be difficult for me to imagine that they wouldn't agree, except such an offer. Let's turn to another question that has been out there quite a bit, which is the role or potential role of China in all of this and where that fits into U.S. strategic thinking. There was also some reporting late yesterday from Reuters that claimed that China was in talks with Iran to allow crude oil and LNG vessels safe passage through the straight of war moves. Reuters even had reports that there are still ships moving through the strait, but they're Chinese or Iranian owned. You know, I've sort of made the case that for the United States, this is not about China and that there's really nothing China can do to help Iran. There's nothing militarily that China can do. Maybe they can apply some soft political pressure, but even that, I don't think, is really going to do much for China, especially considering they have the summit coming up with Trump next month, next month, and they've been building things up.

42:58So if you're in Tehran, what are you thinking about China's role in all this and these reported conversations about keeping the strait open for Chinese ships, that seems kind of outlandish to me. Does that land for you? Do you think that those conversations are actually happening and does Iran actually have the capacity to differentiate and to allow some ships through, but not other ships through? I think it does. I think if the host is dead, Iran does for sure. And it was the Iranians who were feeding the hosties with information about rich ships to targets and which of them not. So theoretically, I think it's quite possible. And I wasn't actually surprised when I saw the reports and to be totally honest with you, I was a bit surprised why it's not already taken place. I mean, I would have thought that the Iranians would have already had some, would have already

44:00given some guarantees to China, you know, since the day they decided to do this. So the fact that China is now reportedly stepping in to secure its own interests, that's I think quite interesting. But anyway, look, you mentioned that that's not much China can do to help Iran, but it goes other way as well, in the sense that there's also not much China can do to restrain Iran at this moment because this is the myth of China's leverage on Iran and this, I need to get credit to Jatun Fulton, my dear colleague who works on China with the list, he's always been speaking and writing about this. So this notion that China has a huge leverage on Iran, it pulls the plagues, you know, it just doesn't make sense.

45:01And that explains why China at this stage wants only to secure its own interests because it knows its limits. I mean, the Chinese are really pragmatic in knowing their limits. So they know that it is existential for the Islamic Republic and that they would continue doing this for some time. So let's just, you know, secure our business, that makes sense to me. But beyond that, I think both China and Russia have already helped Iran in some significant ways, I think. So look, we had reports already last year, I'm not sure which one it was, but after the World War anyway of at least one episode of a ship which was tracked and we can imagine there were more that were not tracked or identified.

46:02Chinese basically shipping these solid fuel for grain and missiles in a two-year-old. So these kinds of, at the technical level, cooperation between China and Iran was already ongoing. And what was also interesting to me, you know, in the weeks leading up to the US-Israel Operation, was the kind of live location sharing of where the American assets and the fighters just everything are located. And then I'm not that much into this kind of satellites, imagery, analysis of Ossint, but I saw in various sources that those images were provided by Chinese satellites.

47:02So Iran had a clear view of how many, for example, American fighter jets of what type, how many reconnaissance aircraft, et cetera, et cetera, are in the region. And now interestingly, I don't know if you saw that. It was just a couple of hours ago, a Washington Post report that Russia is right now providing Iran with the information of US bases and US assets which facilitate the Indian targeting of those facilities. So wealth powers are actually on board, maybe much less than people even within Iran would anticipate. Honestly, since day one, I started feeling that something is not quite right, you know, these attacks are just too accurate in most cases, especially the attacks on the US bases around the Gulf. So it didn't really seem something like Iranian in the sense that it was just, I mean, the

48:09time, the time between between the 12, they were on now, it was just not enough for Iran to build something that significant in indigenously, you know. Now it's getting clear that there are some friends on board sharing intelligence, which is I think also another interesting aspect of this war. Very interesting. I had not seen that. Gosh, we're starting to run up against our hour mark. So and I saw more questions. So let's let me ask you another question here about Iran's proxies. I'm sure you've seen and listeners have seen that, you know, Israel asked the southern suburbs of Beirut to be evacuated. They've been hitting Lebanon very hard over a hundred deaths and reports of Hezbollah, you know, special and experienced fighters heading there into southern Lebanon potentially to attack Israel. I'll be slightly tongue in cheek here. I'm surprised that Hezbollah has any special fighters left.

49:09I thought that Israel had already knocked all of them out. There's also the Houthis, which the reporting on this is that the Iranians are trying maybe holding the Houthis in reserve, that the Houthis haven't really committed to the battle yet, but maybe they could come in sort of secondarily. And then, you know, I actually think the situation on the ground in Iraq seems a little calmer than I would have expected considering the level of Iranian influence there. And we haven't even talked about Syria. I joked in a podcast yesterday who would have thought that two years ago Syria would be the most stable country in Iraq, but here we are in March, 2026. So that's a slightly humorous way of trying to get at what are the state of Iran's proxies? Can these proxies actually prolong the fight? Can they allow Iran to impose more pain? Is this more by reputation now because they've been so decimated? How should we think about the role of these proxies in the general compound? Well, let's just always say, I mean, you notice that I do not use term proxy categorically for all these groups, but that's a different story.

50:10So let's stick to the present. Look, the only surprising element here for me is the Houthis, actually, that we haven't seen anything significant because they are among all these Iran-like groups in the region. They are the most capable and the most willing by far to engage. And then again, I mentioned this sorry time and again of the aftermath of the US attack on the Iran nuclear facilities during the war that the day after the Houthis on their own, they announced that they are no longer committed to the ceasefire with the United States only to take it back after a few hours. What had happened in between was that the Iranians who wanted to make a ceasefire and reached

51:13out to them saying that, look, guys, we appreciate your support, but let's not escalate at this moment. So they are willing to engage, but then there's a limit. And that limit comes from the geographical location of the country. To the extent to which they can have an actual impact. So we saw that they had a kind of constant engagement in the Gaza war, in support of Hamas, and that caused a lot of kind of, you know, that actually led to the US British campaign and also Israeli strikes. But then in terms of actual impact, it was limited because I believe that the number of day long-range ballistic missiles are much more limited than Iran. So what remains is the Houthis potentially targeting the Gulf states, especially in

52:19this case Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Something that they have done in the past, even at the time, that they didn't have the same capabilities that they have, or they are believed to have now. And that explains why they are not involved yet in any significant way. Because it's not about like, you know, I don't know, like an actual sequencing, like that kind of very efficient system of which of these actors has to join the fighting when. It's mostly about whether or not they want to engage a war on Saudi Arabia and the UAE themselves. So far, the Islamic Republic, I mean, I know that it doesn't make sense. Again, I'm just reflecting on the Iranian narrative. The Islamic Republic depicts its attacks as being against the US targets and US personnel

53:21and US, you know what, not against these countries, right? The Houthis coming in, that would mean something different, that would mean raging war against Saudi Arabia and UAE directly. Because what has to do with the US capabilities Iran is taking care of that directly. So I do believe that they are somehow waiting and also how to say serving as a deterrent with the Saudi Arabia and the UAE, if you decide to join the fighting in a significant way, we are here. So it's like a democracy, how is it called, a democracy sword over the head of Saudi Arabia and the UAE. So that's about the Houthis. And the Iraqis, again, I'm not surprised because it's just too much for them at stake. And over the course of the Gaza war and then, I mean, of course, also, you know, taking into account domestic developments in Iraq, many of those groups decided that it's better

54:24to stick to politics, it's better not to escalate and so on. By the way, just recently in November, we had an election in which many of those pro-Iran factions or Iran-backed factions, whichever way we described them, they took the majority. So they are also kind of very much entrenched into economy. So they know that first, there's a lot of, they have a lot of interest, economic political interests, and there's a lot for them at stake. And second, they are just too exposed if the United States want to take on them. So for that reason, it's just only the more ideologically committed, those actual proxies of Iran, like Qatar, Hezbollah, Harikat and Najaba, and Qatar, say the Shah, these guys are the ones who are active and also some other smaller groups.

55:26So that's about Iraq and Hezbollah. I think it was already obvious at least to the observers following Lebanon a bit more closely that there was something going on in terms of rebuilding Hezbollah's capacities. There were various reports of what's first commander is being directly on board, repairing the commander's structure of Hezbollah and we also know that many of Hezbollah's missile structure and so on had remained intact. So again, it wasn't a surprise for them to get involved, but I had said on the limited scale of their engagement shows that Hezbollah is not even close to what it was two years ago. So yeah, this is the current state of they are not going to be a very decisive factor in the end, you know. The only real decisive factor is Iran's own missiles and they knew that already after

56:29the 12-day war. It's a matter of first, showing unity, ideological allegiance and second, for groups like Hezbollah, especially, look, it was only a matter of time for Israel to start another large scale invasion of Lebanon because they were, if I know that they were rebuilding Israel is no. And so they were already, it was only a matter of time. Now they have a better opportunity because it was Hezbollah who initiated the fight in now they can, you know, go there and comfortably say that we are defending ourselves. Yeah. All right. I'll get you out of here on two slightly squishier questions and you can, you know, feel free to decline or answer however you want. The first is, I want to ask how you think Iranians themselves will react in the future toward the United States, toward Israel, toward their own regime, towards the regional actors.

57:33Do you think ultimately that blame will be placed at the feet of the regime? Do you think that this will harden even moderate attitudes that were existing in the country toward Israel and the United States, which are bombing Iran? I mean, I want to say with reckless abandon, I mean, it's quite, quite severe. The bombing campaign that they're imposing on the Iranian population, who do all of the above, I'm trying to get a sense of, you know, where, where the Iranian people are going to work into all this. And I know that there are limits to, you know, what you can say about that. But you're going to get closer than I am. So I'll throw that question to you first. Look, the only predictable thing about the Iranian society is that it's really unpredictable. And this is me as an Iranian saying this, and really, I mean, the Iran society always surprises me. It keeps surprising me even as an Iranian who's lived in the country for most of his life.

58:34So it's a very difficult moment for the Iranians, I can say, because just over two months ago, or not over, like, less than two months ago, we had the massive protests and then the massacre by the Iranian government itself against the protesters. And as we know, we are speaking of thousands of people killed. So it already led to a trauma. And for the first time in years, I would say that, you know, maybe the majority of the country would be at best indifferent of, you know, if there's going to be a war or not, because, you know, there was this argument that, when the government killed its own citizens or was the difference, there were people who were warning about the differences, the actual differences, the destruction of the war.

59:35But, you know, when the society at large is so traumatized, so suppressed, and so hopeless that it doesn't see any way forward, you know, they really stopped thinking in very rational ways. We need to admit that. But now I can see that, and this was, again, of course, expectable, let's, before that, I have to say this. So there was this rather fantasy that Donald Trump will attack, and then they will take out the Supreme Leader and the heads of the government. And then the son of the former Shah is going to come back and take over. And then we are going to start a prosperous period for the rest of the century, maybe, at least. But now what's happening is that, of course, the first part of this imagination has already

1:00:41happened. Supreme Leader is no longer there, many of the senior officials have been killed. They may be killed as we are speaking now, but the regime is still resilient and we are witnessing an inscriminate bombing of basically everything. And there was a report today about how many schools, how many hospitals, how many, even like some iconic places, like the Azadir sports complex, which was the place where many of these international sports events were held over the years. And it was built by the way, by the Shah. That was totally destroyed yesterday. So now these things are also happening, and I can see that there's a lot of people who are getting even more frustrated by what Donald Trump is bringing to them.

1:01:44So it can go either way, and it also depends on the course of the war. We may, and we, on this I think we need to think in terms of generations, not just years. So imagine a regime change scenario, like tomorrow or the day after, and then some people, or many people may say that, okay, it was worth it in the end. We sacrificed a lot, but now we took our country back. But what about the next generation and generations, you know, this, because I, as I said, I grew up in Iran, I studied in Iran, and in our history books, it was like all about the eras of the periods of glory, of the Persian Empire, and then the Iranian states, and then a foreign invasion. So for me as an Iranian, living in 2025, and I mean it, I'm not exaggerating.

1:02:52The story of Alexander the Great, conquering the Persian police, the story of the Arabs conquering the Sassanid Empire, the story of Mongols destroying the country, these are all alive as if they have happened just yesterday. This is the Iranian mindset, you know, this is something that no amount of psychological study, I don't know, sociological study in the West can understand. You need to live through it, to understand it. So I'm sure that after generation, this is going to be considered as another invasion of our sacred land, you know, by whatever reason, or for whatever objective that is happening has happened. This is something that's, again, I must say that it's really difficult to say for sure,

1:03:57and maybe I'm a little bit, or more than a bit, out of my experts, zoom at this moment when I'm saying this, it's me as an Iranian mostly, mainly not as an expert on Iran, but this is how I feel, what's there to say about your question. Okay, and last, and thank you for sharing that perspective. Last question I'll let you get out of here, and thank you for being so generous with your time. If we are here talking again on March 6, 2027, what do you think Iran's strategy looks like? It's an impossible question, but if you're trying to put yourself 12 months from now, what do you think the questions are going to be occupying Iranian strategists? It's a very open-ended question, so take it whatever direction you want. Hey, so it's really impossible to say, especially given how the region has been over the past two years, and you know that I was writing a book about it, about the access of resistance

1:04:58and the whole Iran strategy, and it was two years of just revising and revising, and by the way, just yesterday, so it's almost in the press, but then yesterday the editor was generous enough and kind enough to contact, we say, look, it's just us pushing the press button, but we want to make sure that you don't want to add a few pages as afterward. And I said, okay, wait a little bit, I will write something to add to that, you know? So this is the current state of affairs. It's really difficult to say, I hope. I hope that, and this is the only thing really I can say at this moment, I hope we are still speaking of the strategy of Iran after a year. I mean, I don't care, I really don't care. The last thing I care is this, Al-Qafali, that we are speaking about Iran's strategy because the risk of the partition of the country, the risk of civil war, the risk of the worst

1:06:02case scenario is that we Iranians never wanted to even think about, and I believe it's the same for many non-Iranians as well, these are real, they are just there. So that's the only thing I can say that I hope after a year we still sit together and speak about Iranian strategy. Okay, thank you for your time, and we'll look forward to the book and to the afterward and to all your analysis in the coming days and weeks. Thank you, it's always a pleasure to have you.