Iran War: A Look from the Inside /Nima R. Alkhorshid

0:00Support is available 24-7 with verbo care. We're here day or night, ready whenever you need help, because a great trip starts with the right support. Finding a hoodie that lasts through the season can be tough. The American Giant Classic Fool's Hip Hoodie is made to last year after year. Snag the hoodie that brings comfort for life. We've 20% off your first order at American-Giant.com with code staple20 at checkout. We have been inundated on our TV screens in the Western media with images of Iran and all kinds of commentary on what's happening inside of Iran and how they're getting ready to fall, etc. What we almost never hear anything from in the Western media is anything from an Iranian perspective. And we are very grateful today to have with this Nima Al-Horshid, I'm still like a set of rockers. That's why it does. Of dialogue works, I've been on his show several times, I just love your show.

1:02I mean, the whole concept dialogue works, you know, war is stupid and the last thing should happen. And so we're really grateful to have you on today. Thanks for coming on to our show. My pleasure. And just real briefly, because this is the first time you've been at some of our audience may have seen you, what is your background, just real quick, so people understand where you're coming from, from an Iranian perspective? Yeah, I studied civil engineering as an undergraduate student. Then I did my master degrees, then I did my PhD in geotechnical engineering. I'm currently working at the university teaching soil mechanics and foundation engineering. And that's totally different from what I'm doing as a podcaster. And my background, I was in Iran, I left Iran in 2014, and since then I live here in Brazil. And anything else I can provide with information if you're in New York. No, that's great, that's great. But you have some context in the run.

2:03In fact, if I understand correctly, you have recently returned from a run not too long before the war started, is that right? Yeah, exactly. My family are all in Iran, and most of my siblings are living in Iran, my own, my family, on my side, on my wife's side, all living in Iran, I was in Iran in December, and I stayed there for 40 days during these protests, then riots, and these huge mess and chaos that has happened. Okay. Let's just show you where I want to start with here. So let's get right into the heart of this issue. What was projected beginning, I think, on the like the 29th of December, just passed coincidentally, I'm sure coinciding with the meeting of President Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu in Mar-a-Lago, a big protest started up after that when, according to Scott Besson, we artificially tried to hammer the Iranian economy again to undermine their currency.

3:08So that it would be debased with the hope, he said, of causing an uprising, which succeeded, causing an uprising there, and then that turned into a violent oppression. So can you tell us, get the fact for fiction, how much of that was organic, how much of it may have been fostered from the outside, and what is the status of the general people in Iran, if there's even a way to characterize it? Carol, if you accept, I want to start a little bit with history, and what was happening, what is the meaning of today's Iran under the Islamic Republic of Iran? Because before going to the protest, and what has happened just a little while ago, you have to understand Iran is living in the Middle East, in the West Asia, in a very different, sort of region, because you see all these Persian Gulf Arab states are the outcome of the British Empire, and they were created by the British Empire. And today, as the war is happening, many people are asking, why is Saudi Arabia?

4:11Why do they need the United States to defend them? I think this is a crucial, one of the most important questions right now, because look at the defense budget of Saudi Arabia, today is more than ten times the defense budget that we are on, but they're not capable of defending themselves. And this whole concept of this protest, all of these unrest happening in Iran, it comes, Carol, let me get back to, you know, before the revolution. There was a democratically elected, you know, prime minister in Iran, called Mohammad Mossadek, in 1953, which was removed by, you know, agents from MI6, CIA, and then the Shah was placed in his, you know, in his position. Then we had the revolution. This is all the outcome of the British Empire. And I see what I'm seeing today is happening with the protests and right now with the war

5:14that is happening. I think this is the residues, these are the residues of the British Empire in the mind of the new cons and new liberals in the United States, because they want to, I said the coup, the coup d'état against Mossadek. They removed him, they put someone else in his position, was the Shah of Iran. And they want to do the same, today is the same, Donald Trump is talking about choosing the supreme leader of Iran. You know, moments before coming to this live, we've learned from Axis that the Trump administration, Marco Rubio, informed the Arab states in the Persian Gulf. They said, we are not the main objective of us is not to do the so-called regime change. So what are they seeking for? They want to place, they want to put their, you know, they're doing the same. The concept, look at what is going on, they want to choose someone within the government

6:14to put into place and they keep the same thing they did in Venezuela. This is what's going on in Iran, I think we are still dealing with the problems that the British Empire has left in the region, in the Persian Gulf, in the West Asia. Well, you know, that's even more bizarre than what this is already looking like if that is accurate. Those reporting from Axios is accurate that we're looking to have a leader change, not a regime change per se, because we're sure going about it in the most destructive and weird way that Stephen Imaginewell, by having all of these, you know, the destruction of the armed forces and the capabilities to project power anyway, but let me ask you about, I mean, is there any chance that the people of Iran would accept anyone that President Trump chose because he did say that in the year, if he can pull that true social up from early this morning, where he said that that that's what he wanted, he was demanding unconditional

7:17surrender. So let's start there. And then that he said he wanted to choose the new supreme leader. So what do you make of that? I see that totally delusional of far from reality because since the revolution happened in 1979, you see the suffering, right after the revolution, we had the war between Iran and Iraq. In that war, the United States together with Europeans and putting, adding Soviet Union and somehow China all supporting Iraq in that war for eight years, Iran was fighting Iraq is supported by the United States on all the countries that have just mentioned. And today, Iran and the whole concept of the revolution in Iran in 1979 to be independent, which is the key in that region. None of these Arab states are independent. That's why they cannot defend themselves. They need the United States to be there.

8:17They need to, you know, despite all of these military budget, you know, defense budget, outcome, they're not capable of defending themselves. Iran may ask himself that what is happening in these countries because they are not designed to defend themselves, they're designed to be used against Iran, they're designed to be used against independent nations in that region. And this is the whole concept. And Donald Trump, it doesn't seem to me that he understands what's going on in the case of Iran. The revolution, the basis, the foundation of revolution was based on the, we want to be independent from the east and from, and from the west. And this is, this was the main motto, the main objective of the revolution. And we've been witnessing that Iran has gone through wars, tremendous sanctions for more than 46 years of, you know, sanctions, you know, the most sanctioned country I, you know,

9:17even as long as we can see Iran is one of those countries. But so, so let me ask you then, if that was the, the history, and that's why the 1979 revolution happened to get what it independence, at least to many people in Iran, and you can tell me where you fall down on this, this, this range of it, felt like well, we didn't really get independence because now then we're under the, the, the isola who is some considered very repressive and, and bloodthirsty, et cetera. So there was a lot of protest over the years, the against the, the isola government inside of Iran. Now how did all that play up into the January time when a lot of protesters were coming up and then there was lots of violence, tell us to, what's the reality, what happened with that? Karl, today's reality of Iran, from what they've seen for more than 40 days being in Iran, after I got back in Iran, after more than 12 years, and I saw a society totally transformed, improvement was enormous within the society in terms of everything.

10:20But what was hitting the country and the society was the, the, the influence or the outcome of the sanctions, these brutal sanctions on the Iranian economy, they were somehow, since the Donald Trump took power, they were trying to crush the economy in Iran. You know, we have two sort of parties, they're not that much of party, but they're parties, they can divide them in two party system that we have conservative and reformist part. The current president of Iran is a reformist, who was trying to do his best to improve this situation with the, you know, with the economy of Iran. When the, these protests started because of the difficulties that the economy of Iran is facing right now is suffering from, and he decided to bring all these people who are mostly the elites from the market in Iran, economists, he talked with them, you know, he had various meetings with them. Then we saw, it was filling, it seems to me from outside that the government is trying

11:26to just diminish just to reduce the protest, and we have to do something else. Then we saw, I saw that these protests are just merging into riots, they're going after banks, they're going after, you know, they're going after, you know, ambulances, more than, you know, when I was in Tehran, it was reported that a quarter of the ambulances were burned, were destroyed during the protests, and who can understand this sort of protest? It was all manipulated from outside, it was obvious what is going on, and what made it even more obvious, it was since the connection, since Iran started, you know, they caught the internet connection with outside, and then everything stopped. You see that everything is just disappearing from the scene, and that was the whole concept, you know, they were trying, what Donald Trump is trying to do today, asking Iranian people

12:30to come out, to do the heavy lifting for the United States, and Israel was done before, because it was a soft war, it was all started with the economy, pressuring the Iranian economy, then bringing people out, making some sort of chaos, killing the police officers, killing the protesters, making some sort of chaos, it all was defeated. Then they started, let's go to the plan B, this is the plan B of the United States, this is not plan A, this is the backup plan, the attack that is happening right now is the backup plan of the Trump administration, they had it in their mind, even Bibi Netanyahu has said that Donald Trump, even before becoming the president of the United States, he said that he's going to attack Iran, the war, you know, you and I was somehow, I was amazed with Donald Trump, you remember all those, you know, podcasts, all those interviews that he had before been elected in the United States, he said,

13:33why are we fighting, why do we need Iran and Russia to be our enemies, but behind the scene, it seems to me that it was totally different, because Netanyahu just said it on Fox News, he said, Donald Trump had it in his mind, it said, Donald, it's trans war on Iran, it's not Benjamin Netanyahu's war, so if that's not the case, the Trump administration can come out and say, no, that's not, that doesn't have anything to do with the reality, but to my understanding, this is the backup plan, they see, that's why they're begging the Kurdish terrorists, mostly from Iraqi Kurdistan, to come, to cross the borders of Iran to do some sort of, to make some sort of chaos at the border, and then inside Iran. Now, I haven't done good authority this morning from somebody who has direct knowledge that apparently Barzani in the Iraqi Kurdistan has said, no, we're not going to do that, the Iraqi government has said, no Iraqi Kurds are going to go into Iran, at all, apparently there is some possibility from some Kurds inside of Iran, you can talk about

14:34that in a second, but one thing I specifically like to ask you, there is almost widespread universal belief in the elite in Washington DC anyway, in that man, all we're trying to do is help those poor protesters in Iran, and we're trying to get the shackles of this repressive IOT government, off of them, we've taken him out, and now we're just waiting on them to rise up, and then apparently with court, courted Trump, on that true social we just saw a second ago, as long as we get an authorized or an acceptable new leader in there, then everything can come to an end, and then there'll be a peaceful democratic country. Is that a possibility that the people would turn against the current government? No single IOT of possibility of that sort, because the people today understand that, you know, it's so amazing to me that, you know, even outside of the Iran, you know, we had this U.S. Treasury Secretary Besson saying that the world was happening

15:37in Iran, the protests then riots, it was all because of the sanction and the pressure, the economic pressure on Iranian people, and to those people in Iran, it was a, it was a fraction of the society, it's I would say less than 10% of the society, they were not happy with this situation, because they understood what's going on, what at stake for the Iranian society, the people, majority of the people, let's put it this way, they're not happy with the economy, and the way that the economy works. But when the, these protests turned into riots, the people, many people understood what's going to, all right, this is not what I'm going to do, I don't want to, you know, set the things on fire, I don't want to destroy anything, then what I'm understanding today, this is totally delusional, that they feel the people in Iran would come out, we do some heavy lifting for the Trump administration, to overthrow the government, that is not going to happen, because the society

16:43is under the attack, as we talk schools, you know, hospitals, stadiums, they were attacked by the United States, because they're running out of targets, and despite all of these rhetoric, that missile and CIA have a lot of intelligence coming from Iran, they know what to do, they know the targets, they don't know anything about the targets, and what they're doing right now in Iran, but destroying the buildings, killing civilians, killing children, nothing more than that, they're achieving, and all of what they're doing is the opposite of what Donald Trump wants to achieve. And this is not amazing to me that some people are that delusional, even Donald Trump is talking about choosing the next leader of Iran. How can someone go that far delusional? Yeah, well, they can go a lot more delusional, I'm sad to say, let's take a look here real quick, at what then is the Iranian government going to do, because I think it was the New York Times or

17:46Wall Street Journal reported before this conflict started, that the Iranian government had calculated that the less risk to them would be to not completely capitulate and submit to what the the terms which the United States was asking before, which is complete, de-defensification, if that's a word, you know, getting rid of the nuclear weapons, getting rid of a nuclear program, getting rid of their long-range missiles, getting rid of their support for the regional allies, et cetera, all that stuff, basically to make themselves defenseless against in the region. They said it would be less risky to not give into that, and no one that they would get more than it would be to submit to it. But then they had to know that what we're seeing right now, because of the firepower that was already arrayed, was going to come down. So, do you think that the Iranian government miscalculated, and will they be able to survive this? I think they did, no, they didn't, what was happening, the policy of the Iranian government was to negotiate, and even the Foreign Minister of Iran said to the army, to the intelligence said,

18:50we are doing our job. Our job is to negotiate, to talk with other countries, if they're willing to talk with us, if they really want to solve the issues, the problems, and you have to be careful, you have to be prepared. The intelligence is prepared, was prepared before the war happening. The army was prepared, they're more than, currently more than prepared, because when I was in Iran, there was nothing of this sort of, this, this war just happened, you know, four to five days ago, six days ago. And in those days, they were, they were, literally the military was saying to the government, to the diplomats, to diplomats in the government, to Foreign Minister of Iran, this is the war is coming. We don't care about what you are negotiating on. And they were telling the government over and over, and the government said, we understand your position, but we have to talk with the United States, that's not the weakness, but unfortunately,

19:52what is perceived in the president, you know, on the part of the president of the United States, and on the part of the Trump administration, that negotiation is weakness, because they see these negotiations as weakness, or somehow they want to deceive Iranians into some sort of posture, we are negotiating with you, we are not going to attack you, then attacking Iranians. And they knew, Iran is prepared for a long war, in my opinion. So that's the big question, can Iran maintain this level of bombardment from the United States and Israel, and remain viable, can they continue to exist as a state without collapsing? Yeah, Iran, quite a lot of these people who are mostly living in the United States, outside of Iran, don't understand this structure of the government. This structure is almost impossible to be collapsed. It's impossible, because they have managed, we have two armies in

20:56Iran, IRGC and the Iranian Army, intelligence, two intelligence, intelligence under the government, intelligence under the IRGC. The government is so much, you know, you can, let's assume, they grabbed the Kurdistan, one of the provinces we're on, that would not that much influence the government and the Kabul, that would, because the system was designed, they were preparing for this war, for more than 25 years, they know, because look at the map of Iran, you see all these American bases around Iran. And most of the people who were exaggerating how these bases are dangerous, they see how these bases were somehow being destroyed in less than seven days. And these bases were not used to defend those countries, they were used to defend Israel or to attack Iran. And Iran somehow exaggerated the power that the United States had. And that's why

22:02they went for, for, to, to, to, to be prepared for such an attack from the United States. They're more than prepared. And do you think that, so one of the primary objectives is laid out by the Secretary of War and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the last two days is to destroy their missile launch and capacity. They have almost completely destroyed the, the Navy. So far, nearly all of their, uh, warships, if any size, have already been taken down, uh, the air defense apparently has been, uh, severely reduced, I think by about 70%, that's the claim anyway. Uh, now that you're going to have a lot more flights over and they're looking for even more, is it possible that the United States and Israel together will obliterate the, the ability for Iran to continue offering resets, to continue from the underground storage facilities to fire and off drones or missiles, or do you think that Iran can weather that and still maintain a viable offensive threat? I think what's happening right now, and the petexan saying that we neutralize or somehow

23:05new toward Iranian air defense system. Today, we've seen many, many footages coming out of Iran showing how the air defense system is still hitting, you know, the, the, the drones going to Iran. And what is kind of, is important when it comes to the Iranian military capabilities is that it's not concentrated in one region. Iran is a huge country, is a vast country, and there's, there's, you, all these major, you know, provinces in Iran, they have their, their headquarters, they, they can, you know, work in isolation, they can be separated from the government in Tehran, they can operate, you know, on their own decisions. That's why I don't see that these cities, we've seen these footages of these, you know, missile cities, underground cities. They're not just in one or two places, they're all spread all over Iran. You said for how many there are,

24:06roughly, I have no understanding. I could, I would say at least from all these provinces, you know, at least they have one or two of these cities, because we have 25, 26 more than times two is going to be 50, I don't know, 60 something like that. My estimation is that. So it would take a profound amount of ordinance to destroy all of these from the air alone. It's going to be impossible. I'm sorry, we'll run a really short on time here. Another question I've got really important. How do you assess the the Iranian government's decision to expand the war right away and to start hitting all these other countries, not just where the bases are, the US bases, but also some of the economic infrastructure from them. What is their expectation? What are they trying to get accomplished? It depends on the United States and Israel. If they start attacking Iranian infrastructure in terms of, you know, the oil facilities,

25:07you know, the main the bases, the infrastructure of Iran, you know, in terms of the water, oil, all these main elements for the survival of a nation, they're going to attack all these facilities in the Persian Gulf and in Israel. And I think that the Iranian assessment right now is, let's see what is the next step on the part of the United States and Israel. If they start attacking, for example, you know, you know, the nuclear facilities in Iran, we're going to go after the nuclear facilities in Israel. We're going to attack the salination in Israel. If they attack us, you know, in terms of the water, the supply of water in Iran, because some regions in Iran are getting the water from the pipes. What is the intention of by hitting these other countries? Do they want, does Iraq, I'm sorry, does Iran want these other countries to put pressure on the US and Israel to stop the war? Or is it purely punishing them because they've already helped the West?

26:11I'm not sure that they're going to attack Saudi Arabia or UAE or these Persian Gulf Arab states, but I'm sure that they're going to hit Israel the same way that is they're attacking Iran. That's the main war in UAE and Dubai and Kuwait, for example, that they've already been hit there. Yeah, but look at Aramco, what has happened in Aramco in Saudi Arabia, for example. The Iranians are not saying if it was hit by Iranians, they would say that it was hit by Iranians, but it was a false flag operation in the part of Israelis because from all the sources that they've checked so far, there is no single source that said, we attack Azerbaijan, for example, or we attack Saudi Arabia, or Aramco in Saudi Arabia, or facilities. And we have a chaos right now with the concept of this war, with what is happening that this false flag operation can happen,

27:13nobody knows who's behind this. And since Israelis have the greater apparatus, they have the mainstream media, they can say it was Iran, but we know, as Tucker Carlson reported, that there were two Assad agents being arrested in Saudi Arabia, and they wanted to do the bombings, and they wanted to sabotage something. There is a lot going on in that, because when you have war, you have K. I'm sorry, we're just about out of town, like in the 30 seconds or so, what do you, how long do you think Iran can stand up under this kind of onslaught from the West? I think, from my understanding, Iran has been prepared for at least five or six years of the conflict, and because of the, it's not just came out out of nowhere, because they have this concept of the Iran Iraq war, which lasted eight years, they were assuming that this is going to be the same

28:16at least five, six, eight years of the conflict of the war before coming in. And you think they can survive that long? I think that they're prepared for that. Wow, well, we're going to find out, and I pray to God that we don't have to find out that somehow this work can be brought to an end, quite because I'm not sure that the U.S. and Israeli side can endure it that long, but we'll have to leave that for another time. Love to have you back on again soon, didn't get to half the questions I would have loved to talk to you about, but I'm very much grateful for you to come in on today. Thank you. Thank you. And listen, we've got two more big hitters coming up right after this. We have Ambassador Chaz Freeman in just a minute, I guess, actually. So look for that link there. And then also we have Scott Ritter for the first time on the show coming up at 2 p.m. Those are back-to-back. We will see you in just a minute on the Daniel Davis deep dive.

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