Is the Iranian regime more afraid of peace than war?

Arash Azizi says Iran's rulers may be more afraid of peace than war.

While the world watches Donald Trump, the American-Iranian historian argues the real story is the stasis inside Tehran. 

A collective leadership built around a 13-member National Security Council, with parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf the strongest figure, now calling the shots. 

Azizi says they stepped away from the June memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Washington that would have reopened the Strait of Hormuz, partly because normal governance frightens them more than crisis. 

Now the new Mecca defence pact between Turkey, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, a throwback to the 1955 Baghdad Pact, is leaving Iran more isolated than ever.

Azizi's sharpest claim is that the biggest threat to the regime is its own people. The ideological Khomeini era is over, he says, and the state has quietly lost its war on the hijab, with women now in tank tops on the streets of Tehran. 

So who breaks the deadlock? Latika Burke and Geraldine Doogue ask whether Iran can find its own Deng Xiaoping, or whether it just hobbles on like Saddam Hussein's Iraq in the 1990s.

Guest: Arash Azizi, author of What Iranians Want

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Mentioned in this episode:

These are Iran's emerging power players, Azizi's previous appearance on Global Roaming