After Venezuela, is Iran Next? - with Karim Sadjadpour

For any population suffering under dictatorship, when they see the abrupt collapse or the rendition of a dictator, it makes them realize that, you know, our dictator is not all powerful either, right? Maduro is sitting in a jail cell in New York City and, you know, people are wondering, you know, could that be the case with... And I think it opens up possibilities for people in their head and in this view that, you know, no dictator lasts forever.

Thank you so much, Dan.

So, anytime you have protests in essentially what is a totalitarian regime, it's significant because every single one of those people that goes to the streets is really risking their lives. That said, so far what we've seen in terms of the crowds have not been the same size as the last major protest in Iran, the Women, Life, Freedom movement. There have been crowds of probably, I've seen, you know, small thousands in many dozens of cities throughout the country, but it hasn't yet reached a tipping point where you think, well, this could be existential for the Islamic Republic. And, you know, what I say, Dan, is when you see protests in a country like Iran, I'm always looking at the interplay between three forces. Obviously, one is the Supreme Leader, 86-year-old Supreme Leader Khamenei, likely the longest-serving autocrat in the world. What is his physical health? What is his mental state? One of the things that America and everyone, frankly, missed in the 1979 revolution was that the Shah of Iran had terminal cancer. Nobody knew that. And that had a profound impact on his ability to quell popular unrest. So number one, what is the physical and mental state of Iran's 86-year-old Supreme Leader? Number two, how cohesive are the country's security forces, namely the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij militias? So far we haven't seen any signs of defections or any signs of splintering. You know, that's an important prerequisite for any government to collapse. And then number three, what is the psychological state of the protesters? If indeed we anticipate this coming crackdown, is that going to silence them or could that embolden them? And these three things are all interrelated then, because if the security forces see that, you know, the leader may not be either physically or mentally there or has lost his morale, that has an impact on their cohesion. If the protesters see that the security forces are no longer strong and cohesive and the leader is no longer all there, you know, that emboldens them. So the interplay between these three forces, I think, are going to be determinative.

I agree on the first point, Dan, somewhat less so on the second point, and let me explain why. Number one, yes, I think leadership is critical in any type of dissident or revolutionary movement. There's a wonderful book which I always recommend to people by a guy called Jack Goldstone. It's just a book on the history of revolutions, and he said that every revolution needs two kinds of leadership. You need inspirational leadership, but even perhaps more importantly, you need organizational leadership. And in a country, as I said, in a regime like the Islamic Republic of Iran, which is essentially totalitarian, the one thing they essentially do effectively is repression. They're very effective at decapitating individuals who are capable of that kind of leadership role, whether organizational or inspirational. The name of Reza Pahlavi, you know, as his supporters would call him, Prince Reza, has been mentioned much more this time than in previous protests. And, you know, he, to the extent anyone is being viewed as a potential leader of this movement, I think there's no one else's name that I've heard. You know, one of his major challenges is that he's 4,000 miles away, and it's very difficult to organize when you're thousands of miles away. So yes, the leadership factor is very important. When it comes to the second point you reference, that there needs to be some type of religious leadership or religious support for these protests, you know, there I'm a little more skeptical because I think this is a society which is post-revolutionary, but in many ways it's kind of like, I'm not saying that it's no longer a religious society, but it's certainly post-Islamist. And so people are not taking their cues from the religious establishment. And there was a wonderful book written about a decade ago from two political scientists who essentially argued that empirically we know that revolutionary dictatorships, revolutionary governments tend to have a longer shelf life. They tend to be more durable than just your run-of-the-mill dictatorship. And, you know, we can cite some of the examples, right? Soviet Union lasted three generations. Cuba is still around. China, you know, communist China has lasted several generations now. Whereas, you know, run-of-the-mill dictatorship, Hosni Mubarak, Bashar Assad in Syria, you know, those tend to be a little more brittle because one of the arguments here is that revolutionary dictatorships tend to have this powerful organizing principle which helps to maintain the cohesion of those security forces. It's my sense, Dan, that the Islamic Republic at most has perhaps 15% popular support. I think there's probably 15% of Iranians who say, you know what, this government has done a good job managing us, you know, economically, politically, socially. I would say the vast majority are opposed. But, you know, 15% who are united, highly armed, and highly organized, and willing to kill en masse can continue to prevail over the 80-85% if they're unarmed, unorganized, leaderless, and not willing to die en masse.

Because of the fact that this is a regime which is somewhat unique in that it's not only politically authoritarian and economically authoritarian, it's also socially authoritarian. You know, there's few governments that are the combination of all those things. You know, Venezuela's government, for example, obviously politically and economically authoritarian, but, you know, it let people have boyfriends and girlfriends or drink alcohol, dance, etc. The Islamic Republic tries to police every aspect of people's lives. So, you know, what we saw in 2022 was the trigger for the popular uprising was social. A young woman, Mahsa Amini, was killed for showing too much hair. This time, the trigger, as you referenced, was economic. But the reason I mention it is that there's just so many grievances which people have that are motivating them. And, you know, ultimately I would say when you're ruled by a regime which is a theocratic regime, this is a regime which purports to represent God's will on earth. They purport to represent the Prophet Muhammad's will on earth. It's actually even more insulting when a regime like that is repressing you and stealing from you than just your run-of-the-mill dictatorship, because at least Vladimir Putin doesn't have pretensions of carrying out God's will or being morally superior. So I think the Islamic Republic, its subjects find it even more offensive because it does, you know, all of this graft and repression in the name of God. And it's obvious for people to see that over the last two, three decades all of the resources of the state have been spent on projects which have been total failures. Right? A nuclear program which they perhaps spent upwards of half a trillion dollars on when you consider, you know, all of the sunk cost, but then all of the opportunity cost for them, you know, essentially under rubble now. Their regional proxies, you know, they spent tens of billions of dollars trying to build Lebanese Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis in Yemen, the Assad regime in Syria. You know, those proxies have either been deposed or decimated, and Maduro in Venezuela is the latest example of one of their allies who's been deposed. And so I think that most citizens look at the priorities of the government and they say, we've wasted our resources on these loser proxies or this losing nuclear program, and we should be a wealthy country. Iran should be, in my view, a G20 nation. It has the human resources, the natural resources, the history to be a G20 nation, and it's punching way below its weight. There's probably no country in the world with a greater gap between its state and its society than Iran. And so, this is a perennial source of frustration. But, you know, the way I think about the Islamic Republic of Iran is it's like a zombie regime in that it's ideologically dead, it's financially dying, but it's still capable of killing to survive. And, you know, with these types of dictatorships, that type of ruthlessness can oftentimes be more sustainable than we'd like to think.

Well, as you mentioned, this was triggered by currency traders, and so the collapse of the rial mobilized them and merchants in the bazaar. You know, usually that strata of society has been either somewhat apolitical or even, you know, supportive of the Islamic Republic. It's been a more traditional strata of society. And ultimately merchants and business people everywhere want to see stability. So, you know, popular revolutions are not, you know, what business people usually like to see. And so the big question there is, you know, can those folks be ultimately co-opted by the government somehow? And the government in fact did try to appeal to them by saying, actually, your grievances are well-founded. We're going to work with you to improve that. So, so far, you know, you've had these currency traders and bazaar merchants rise up. Then, as always, universities have been a hotbed for protest, university students, young people rising up. We haven't seen the same level of protests among the Iranian middle classes. The vast majority of people are rooting for the protesters. But as we've seen, the numbers have been not in the tens or hundreds of thousands. They've been in the low thousands, and so I think people are just kind of watching on their mobile phones to determine what to do next. And, you know, what we know about revolutions, Dan, is that the paradox of revolutions is that, you know, for a revolution to happen it needs to attract a critical mass of people. But a critical mass of people won't join it unless they think it's going to succeed, right? Because no one wants to join a movement which is going to get crushed. And that's why revolutions quickly go from the old Hemingway saying about bankruptcy: it happens gradually and then suddenly. And so right now we're in the gradual stage, and it could snowball, but it could get crushed again. The only caveat I'd like to add here is that at the end of the day you still have an 86-year-old Supreme Leader. He's not going to be around that much longer. And I believe this is a country very ripe for some kind of political transition.

I'm skeptical that any foreign intelligence is directly involved. The Iranians have never needed, you know, outside encouragement to dislike their rulers. My sense is that the CIA's capabilities inside Iran are much less than the Mossad's capabilities. And ultimately what we know, obviously, from history, Dan, is that as much as it's in America and Israel's interest to see political transition in Iran, I think both governments would acknowledge that it's going to be up to the Iranian people to determine the outcome. We can try to influence things on the margins, but we're not going to be able to shape the endgame.

Well, his leadership has also proven to be totally bankrupt. At age 86, he is fighting a very high-tech, sophisticated three-front war against America, Israel, and his own society. And he recognizes that his system has been totally penetrated by Israeli intelligence. You know, around two dozen of his top military commanders were essentially killed overnight, either in their bunkers or in their bedrooms in the 12-day war. And he's always been someone who has ruled with tremendous paranoia. But now, you know, you can only imagine the sense of paranoia that he has of, you know, whom can he really trust? Who is in his inner circle? That paranoia was obviously certainly heightened in the last couple days when Nicolás Maduro was plucked from Caracas by the United States and is currently, you know, in a jail cell in New York City. I'm sure he's got to be thinking to himself, you know, who can I trust? Everyone in my inner circle. And when you have so few people whom you can rely on and you can trust, your ability to take, you know, decisive action is much more limited. So, you know, Khamenei is someone who, he's going to be 87 later this year. He should be playing with his great-grandchildren. He's not someone who is well equipped to be fighting this incredibly sophisticated three-part war. The vast majority of Iranians, including within the regime, are just waiting for him to die. And, you know, the cost-benefit for them of taking action or trying to launch a coup or protest against an 87-year-old, you know, why don't we just wait it out, I think is the mentality of a lot of people. And then the big question is, you know, what comes next in Iran? And I think it's really a country which is up for grabs right now.