Iran has developed a distinctive asymmetric military strategy that prioritizes precision missiles and unmanned drones over traditional air power, enabling effective defense against superior Western military forces. This approach, combined with strategic patience, popular mobilization, and constitutional commitment to supporting oppressed movements globally, positions Iran as a regional power capable of challenging US hegemony. The strategy leverages Iran's strategic industrial capacity, control of the Strait of Hormuz, and the Iranian mentality of long-term planning to create a sustainable defense posture that has proven effective in recent conflicts.
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The Age of Iranian Military Supremacy? w/ Ehsan Safarnejad | Psychlib 66Added:
Yeah.
I believe we may be live. I think we are live. Yes.
Welcome to a new episode of the Psych Live series of uh The Resistance is Fertile Podcast Universe. This is uh number 66 if memory serves and today we are absolutely delighted, I amazed actually, to welcome from direct from Iran Ehsan Safaee Nejad who to my eyes is one of the prime military analysts of this conflict. So, Ehsan here, I'm a clinical psychologist. We started this uh podcast to look at the psychology of the oppressor and the psychology not of the oppressed of course but of the targets.
And uh to kind of what we call support the psychological uh resistance front for, you know, mostly people in the West who want to uh support the resistance against what Iranians brilliantly call the empire of arrogance, right? And um we, because of the psychological background, we tend to start our conversations by inviting our guest to tell us a little bit of their psychological political journey to whatever uh perspective they're holding today. So, if uh that's okay with you, I would like to uh invite you to do the same but before that, I always forget, I want to of course uh welcome my uh co-host uh Indika who is the guy with uh good ideas and the flowery words.
And uh so, Ehsan welcome and over to you, my friend.
Uh it's a First of all, it's a pleasure to be on your show. Uh It's an honor. Uh Uh But uh you know, getting into the conversation uh Look, I'm uh I'm I'm an AI engineer. I'm I've studied and graduated in the field of artificial intelligence and robotics.
I always mention that not to sort of brag or say, "Oh, look my fancy degree and stuff."
But it's more so about the fact that uh I have no business talking about the things that I'm talking online, right? I have no certification that would make me academically eligible to talk about these things. Uh Deep down, I'm not even really interested to talk about these things.
But uh you know, you you mentioned the psychology of the individuals uh whom you invite. You You tend to show an interest in bad thing.
Uh well, in my case, um you know, it's living in Iran, which is in the crosshairs of United States, and we're constantly subjugated to the tyranny of the empires, whether it be the British Empire uh which carried out the coup d'état alongside United States. Both of them were involved uh in the Operation Ajax, which they toppled uh the prime minister Mohammad Mosaddegh.
Uh or other things. We have constantly had to live under that tyranny, right?
And the fact that you have to live in a country that is sanctioned for the past 47 years.
So, uh and and the sanctions are very brutal.
Uh people only know about the the very surface level of the aspects of sanctions, which is that you can't trade with uh people in other countries. You can't transfer money. But the truth is that it's much more devastating than that.
Uh when you're under sanction for under sanctions, uh you basically have no way of uh telling the narrative based on your perspective. So, you're always being discussed online, on mainstream media, on network channels, but it's always someone else talking about your narrative, talking about what you are going through.
Uh and you know, despite the fact that we have seen some people doing very good job of uh actually telling the Iranian side, but it still lacks that anecdotal uh sense that it fails to understand the Iranian human experience.
It's all about It's all about how I perceive you dealing with the situation.
It doesn't come from the fact that, for example, I always tell this story about 4-year-old Ava.
Uh he had a She had epidermolysis bullosa, this little girl. It's a uh rare genetic disorder which you basically you have a very bad skin, you know, very fragile skin. You get all these uh blisters on your skin, on your mucous membrane.
Uh you need very specific kind of medicine and uh medical bandages because they can't use the the same kind of bandages that you and I use.
Ergo, uh you you know, you have to again purchase a very specific bandage.
Uh well, because of the fact that it's a very rare genetic disorder, it means that the people who are dealing with that condition are very few.
And that's why very few countries and very few companies actually produce that kind of item because the way that you make break even or you make profit is through selling your product on the global market. So imagine Iran being sanctioned and can't and it can't import the medicine that it wants. That little girl died a very painful death.
But these kind of experiences, the fact that you know you see like your relatives dealing with you know cancer and they need specific kind of sedatives to deal with the chemotherapy and everything, but those sedatives are sanctioned because of you know under the justification that they're considered to be dual-use items and products.
These kind of things are sort of hard to get a grasp on unless you live in Iran, unless you have family members who are going through that condition. And again, it goes back to what you asked about you know basically the psychological reason behind me coming to this field and talking about Iran despite the fact that it has nothing to do with me.
I mean, I make no money. Uh I I I don't really make any money going on these shows that the foreigners like invite me to. It doesn't really have economic gains for me, but the reason that I do it is that I think that the Iranian narrative has been completely absent in the discourse online and no one really talks about the human experience that we go through. One final thing, again I mentioned that the sanctions have different effects.
Uh one of the effects that it has, so for example uh you know, there are people who talk about different countries online. They have shows on the so-called alternative media and they try to put an alternative narrative to that of the mainstream media. There is no such channel in English at least uh in Iran uh talking about the Iranian experience and that's because because of the sanctions, no one can really monetize their videos on YouTube.
And there you go, again, this is a way the sanctions have been a way of silencing an entire nation so that the West can go without any challenges and you know, demonize this group of people so that's you know, where I come from, why I do this and why I tend to go on these shows and talk about the Iranian experience.
Thank you very much. Before I I give it over to my brother Indy, you mentioned doing this not for the money and this is also something that's very dear to our hearts. I started speaking out when the floodgates of Tufan Al-Aqsa opened and you know, I realized I was going to ride the wave in a way so I made a commitment to never make a penny for myself from speaking out on the back if you like of the suffering of the people of West Asia with large and so what we do is we try to go beyond just talk and give material support to the people who are resisting in Azerbaijan existing. So we are highlighting our fundraisers every week and this week fundraiser we highlight is for Mustafa in Gaza. I put the the link in the chat on YouTube. So this is a bit special because we've had to go on Zoom because we know that Zoom is more stable when we're interacting with folks in Iran. So it means we don't have all the all the bells and whistles we had before on the StreamYard application. So we can't show your comments, but we read them and I also put the put the link for Mustafa and also we'll put it in the description. So if you can at all donate, please do because it's a way to materially support people in West Asia. And I also wanted to say Sam will say it further that you have your YouTube account where which is called political afficionado, I believe. I'll just show it for a minute if I may. Let me see if I can get there.
Ooh, no, I don't know how to do that.
Okay, um and also your um X account, right? So what I will do is I will put all those links in the chat and also I'll put them in the description because you have great analysis and I think people, you know, should really listen as as the liberals say, "Listen to Iranian voices." But to the Iranian voices that are actually acting out of >> [snorts] >> patriotism, out of love for their country and their civilization and to to stand up against this genocidal empire. Sorry, brother in the uh Go ahead now.
It is very nice to meet you, Esra'an, and I've been following your stuff and it's it's very good to get this analysis from Iran. And one thing that's happened, I think, across the world as a result of this war is in many ways I think the sanctions have been broken. In one sense, when you talk about the closing of Hormuz, it was always closed to Iran. You have opened that up for yourselves and then the rest of the world is is kind of moving along with that as soon as the American ships leave. But also in terms of it's interesting how you talk about kind of the information sanctions. How Iran is constantly the topic of discussion, but not at the table to discuss itself. But I think that is changed now. There's people like you out there, there's people like Professor Marandi, there's people like the martyr Lotfollahi.
There's people like Qalibaf. So these are all household names now. And I think the narrative structure has changed. And explosive media as well as the the Lego videos and so on.
So I mean, have you How does that feel from within Iran? Are you aware that the rest of the world is is hearing you and and I think listening to you and in many ways following you now?
You know, uh as you guys know, there have been more restrictions put on the internet, uh you know, during the war. And there's a reason for that.
Uh one reason is that uh you know, the internet was used in order to uh basically remotely control these micro aerial vehicles uh to carry out swarm drone attacks against the Iranian uh air defense systems. And you know, basically carry out a suppression of enemy air defense system uh type operation inside Iran, right? So and and by the way, in order to explain that because some people think that that means that the Iranian air defense systems are not good. But no, it's it's an innate problem of the the air defense systems that use kinetic energy in order to intercept you know, flying objects. Uh just to oversimplify things, if there is any military analyst out there, I hope that you don't get angry at me for simplifying things. I know that it's more complicated, but you know, for the sake of discussion, let's >> For our audience, please simplify. Yes.
Yes.
Uh most people when they think of air defense system, they only think of the missile launchers, right? The launchers that have, you know, these different tubes on them and, you know, they shoot the interceptors, right?
Uh that is not the correct perspective about air defense systems. They have radars. They have actually different types of radars. They have command and control centers and everything like that, but you know, that that missile launcher is actually very important for our discussion because if you have six missiles inside them and then seven uh targets are coming towards you, what are you going to do once you launch your six missiles?
Well, you're vulnerable, right? And this is the idea behind swarm type attacks against these systems. So, I've seen many people say, "Oh, Iran should purchase, you know, Russian air defense systems or Chinese air defense systems."
No, all of those air defense systems are vulnerable to swarm attacks.
So does the US uh made air defense systems. They they are all uh vulnerable to the to that kind of attack. But going back to uh your your main topic because you brought up the internet uh you you you asked about Iran and the perception of the Iranians uh on how the world works and is there any conscious uh understanding on behalf of the Iranians of how the world actually works? Uh I can't really talk about the Iranian experience. Uh I don't feel that I'm uh in any way to represent the entire nation, but many people do and many people don't.
I I know that it's a very uh you know very weak kind of answer and probably not what you expect, but let me let me explain as to why I say I explain it like that.
You see people supporting Iran on the internet, right? There are many people who discuss those things on the internet, but at the same time there is this kind of understanding inside Iran that the majority of the Westerners and apologies for say for saying this, but it is my it tends to be my viewpoint that many people don't actually think about foreign policy in Western societies.
They don't. They they tend to they tend to sort of complain about the internal issues more the the immigrants, for example, illegal immigrants. They talk about the increase in the price of food, fuel, but then there is this gap that exist in the you know, worldview that you know, many of those things are the direct result of the foreign policy that they their country has adopted. So, in UK many people talk about oh, how it has become Islamistan or whatever, but then there is this uh lack of awareness that it is the direct result of your own action your own actions. And while we see, you know, different activists paying more attention to Iran, I think that we haven't seen anything similar to for example, the the protest against uh Iraq invasion. We haven't seen anything like that.
And that's why, you know, it's it's very complex how we feel towards uh you know, the comments that we are receiving from our friends in the alternative media, in you know, many activists again online. But, there's sort of that confusion as to what the average individual, average Joe feels about the war.
And by the way, I For example, I'll give you this anecdotal story. I saw this video of this uh you know, person from Texas.
Or maybe he wasn't from Texas, and he was just Southerner in United States. He went on, and he sort of removed this Trump-Vance advertisement uh at the back of his truck, right? Saying that uh I voted for you to fix the problem, but now I have to pay this amount of money in fuel station.
Fuel station at the pumps.
This is sort of very heartbreaking for the Iranians, because it does not generate or stem from this sense of oh, you're killing Iranians, you're threatening to kill an entire civilization, you're you have threatened to kill uh you know, ordinary people, you have threatened to target the Iranian infrastructure, you have adopted you know, genocidal rhetoric against Iran, you killed, you know, an entire school worth of students, you know, little girls, little boys in Mina uh you know you know, school.
Uh it doesn't come from that. It could It comes from a place of oh, now I have to pay more money to fill my tank. So, it sort of hurts our feeling to a certain extent. It It doesn't seem that people are showing empathy towards our suffering, but more so, they're they're sort of throwing temper tantrum because this might sound contradictory to you guys, but I would have been more pleased if the person would say, "You know, we're paying more price for paying for fuel more than we are paying paying before, but this is worth it because we want to help the Iranians." Then that my understanding would be that okay. Their heart is in the right place. They're just ignorant. They have lack of information.
What we are seeing now is basically this kind of cold truth that very bitter truth that you know, it's it's all about how people are affected in their own country with regards to their basic necessity.
That's all.
Yeah, I There's like a selfishness at the heart of that society. It's a So you speak about illegal immigrants. That's really part of their sort of ongoing ethnic cleansing of of that continent. And it is a not not so much a philosophical self, but a selfishness. And then they deny that selfhood to people like Iran. So the idea that killing children in Iran, it's just not thought of as even human children. It's part of that dehumanization. And then even the concept that Iran might want to defend itself. The basic concept of self-defense, that's not extended. Even among Western liberals, the idea that is that Iran should maybe file a case to the UN, but otherwise sit back and take it. But anyway, go ahead Benji.
I was going to make almost the same point. So it's great. Let's let's Essence respond to that.
Yes, there is that level of selfishness and you know, in in some ways uh the left doesn't really have a good reputation inside Iran.
Not because if you go and ask people on the streets they're against leftist policies. I would guarantee you that if you go and talk to people uh on the street and you say, "Okay, are you in favor of UBI?" They say, "Oh, yes. Are you in favor of tuition-free universities and education?" They say, "Yes, absolutely."
If you go and tell them, "Okay, what do you think about free health care?"
They're supportive of all those ideas, but at the same time they're held back against uh like this notion of leftism because they have seen left being used and this truly saddens me to say as useful idiots who justify the wars uh that United States starts.
So, I was this in this Twitter space and we were uh I mean, this Twitter space was filled with Trump supporters.
Uh it was filled with individuals who are right-winger everyone.
But, it's very interesting because uh when this person was trying to speak, they actually the other individuals who were present at that Twitter space, they actually apologized to me saying that he's a neocon, he's crazy.
So, the neocons are hated. No one cares about what they have to say. But, if CIA wants to start a war against other countries who do they use in order to justify their aggression?
I'm sad to say leftist.
During the Mahsa Amini protests {slash} riots, it's very tough to talk about Mahsa Amini uh the aftermath of Mahsa Amini's death at police custody because yeah, people had genuine and genuine grievances, but at some point it just became the fact that you had these Kurdish separatist terrorist groups inside Iran using assault rifles, using shotguns in order to kill ordinary people.
That's That's what happened. But then you had these individuals who be who have been into Iran and they knew that you know, the the image that is being portrayed portrayed by the mainstream media is not true at all.
The fact that Mahsa Amini died in police custody does not mean that, you know, you have to wear cover up from head to toe. If you walk uh on the streets of Tehran, Shiraz, you would understand that the the reality of the society is much different to that of uh what is being portrayed in mainstream media. And actually when when we were talking on Twitter space or other platforms, when I was debating other people, when I was uh sort of falling short of arguments to convince the other individual, because they would just constantly talk about the propaganda narratives. I would say, "If I go now in the street, start filming people, which is by the way not really that morally uh correct thing to do. Uh you should ask people if they're okay to be filmed and recorded. But if I go and do that, would you stop pushing propaganda?" So this is the what you can do. But unfortunately, you had many people many people who were looking at things from supposedly moral perspective. You know, and I say so supposedly not because I want to undermine their fundamental uh principles, but because they were applying those principles in a in a dishonest and disingenuous way.
So, So, that's what happen That's what is happening inside Iran. Somehow, you can't force women to, you know, wear a hijab or something like that, but you can kill them in Israel and, you know, in Palestine in the occupied Palestine if you're an Israeli, right? Somehow, you can't force them to dress uh more uh conservatively, but you can kill them.
It's okay.
It's okay that 26 uh school teachers in Minab have been murdered.
I think all of them were women.
So, you can kill them, but you can't force them to wear a hijab. Th- Th- This is something that i- in Iran, we have the toughest time understanding, you know? Uh obviously, I'm not trying to again justify different things. Uh my argument is very uh specific. So, there's a lot of dishonesty that we see. There's the the sense of selfishness and trying to uh act as if they are morally superior to us.
And then, again, there is this uh Again, everything goes back to the dishonesty and the hypocrisy because w- when you're on these different TV networks and they talk about, "Oh, Iranian government has restricted put more had put more restriction on the access to the internet."
Uh then, you mean you will have all these individuals saying, y- you know, again, criticizing that, but then, at the same time, uh they were nowhere to be found when we were trying to push for sanction relief and not, you know, extensive sanction relief, but the ability to be able to import medicine.
That's all.
In six, which was a initiative, which was an initiative between Iran and the European Troika, was about Iran giving oil to the European countries in exchange for humanitarian goods such as medicine and food. And even that initiative failed due to the pressures that United States President Donald J. Trump exerted in the form of maximum pressure campaign. So, you have all the Apologies for that. Sorry. Uh but so so you have all that pressure and you have these people being constantly absent uh from the discourse, but then they come and they try to portray that they care about Iran.
And it it's it's like everything else.
Uh it's it's based on hypocrisy and they feel they they like to feel better about themselves. It's not about the people in Gaza.
A good Palestinian in the eyes of many liberals in the West, unfortunately, is a dead one.
So, somehow inherently taking up arms and resisting about against the oppression of United States, of Israel, it's not okay.
You know, and it again, it's very on very interesting that the hypocrisy is present there because these people, some of them, tend to be the same people who wear t-shirts with the picture of Che Guevara on them. So, who was Che Guevara? He was a military commander. But then, you know, so you have all this mixture of contradictory ideas that do not really mesh well together.
Yeah. Uh so, we've had our first donation, so thank you very much, Abram.
Someone asked about seeing my doggie because you don't know that Asim, but the real style of our show is my little dog. But the dog only comes out once we have five donations. It will be today.
So we have four donations away. But thank you very much for the real support that you're giving. And again, you know, I always say even if you give $1, people in Gaza won't be insulted. They'll go, "Oh, this person cares so much that they went through the whole thing, gave $1."
So it's a gesture of support and the psychological support it gives our siblings in Hazard is also important. But I wanted to come back to something you said I think is very important. I was having this conversation with one of my comrades and brothers yesterday about the arrogance of the white mind. You know, we call it here the white empire.
It's been pillaging, ravaging, extracting, and raping the world for 500 years and it's changed headquarters. You know, it was in Europe, it was in London, then it moved to the US. Now it's maybe between US and the coup by JAFO. We don't know exactly where it is.
But it's this white thing and one thing that was absolutely brilliant to me in the Iranian revolution is Iranian Islamic revolution started calling it the empire of arrogance. Instead of using the old Marxist term of imperialism, they called it arrogance.
And in fact, psychologically speaking, imperialism which is, you know, imposing imposing, extracting cheaply things from other nations by weakening the nation, the society, destroying their traditional social relations and spiritual traditions and everything is actually arrogance. Is this idea that you can go around the world to places you have no idea about some places like Iran, like China, with you know, civilizations going back uninterrupted for 5,000 years and tell people how to live and coincidentally it's always in your own self-interest, right? And that arrogance is present on the left and on the right. Like and we were saying, I'm you know, I use Marxism as a way of analyzing the world, but I also respect other societies you know, I don't think it proves that like God doesn't exist all this nonsense.
But it's on us to show that, you know, we can learn that maybe the tools that we use could be useful to others, but then it's for others to see. But that pointing to the arrogance, I think is the key to what's wrong with us, you know. I'm the token white guy here, I like to sound my show. So, I mean us, you know, Europeans and our settler colonies.
And this is a lesson that Iran is showing us in the flesh and also in terms of the narrative war, you know, what Iran has been doing is not saying not proving that they're human in the eyes of the dehumanizer, but it's just to go okay, you know, we we are going to stand toe-to-toe with you. And you said this last thing which speaks to me so much, you know, the most that we are allowed to do in the West is to grieve for the victims. So, we love victims. Look poor victims in Gaza and Cuba is going to be you know, overrun tomorrow so we can support them.
But and you notice earlier I didn't say the oppressed, I said the targets. But when the target says, "Mhm."
Yeah, you know, we're not going to be a pushover. We're going to resist the way the um Iranian nation is doing, then all bets are off and uh you know white white empire doesn't know what to do with this and I think this is something that Iran has been doing in the 12 days war and even more so in the 39 days and whatever comes after that is actually changing the world already and is going to change it even more.
How do you see that?
Yeah, you you're absolutely right. Look, there is this unfortunate truth that in the in the world the victor has the saying on how to shape the narrative.
Unfortunately people don't really like uh people who are weak. Like yes, they they they tend to say oh, the poor Palestinian mothers and daughters and uh kids are being killed, murdered by the Israeli regime. They like to say that.
But again, you you know that Qassam is the Din Qassam which is the military resistance force that is defending the Palestinians against uh the the tyranny and the occupation by the Zionist regime is being vilified, demonized every single day. You have people like Mehdi Hasan uh at the same time that he pretends that he cares about the Palestinians he goes and repeats the propaganda about October 7th. He demonizes those those legitimate resistance forces which is very very sad.
I hope that by Iran's victory, what I do hope that will happen by Iran's victory is that we for the first time we would have a power that would genuinely support you know anti-imperialist uh movements all around the world. As you know, Iran has had very good relations with Venezuela. It had stood against United States aggression in Syria. And the dirty war that was basically uh instigated by CIA in the form of Operation Timber Sycamore. And now the Al-Qaeda leader is in charge of the government in Syria. Uh Iran was is supporting people of Lebanon and Palestine in their resistance. And it's not even that.
Sahel states, for example, in the alliance of Sahel states in Africa that are these four countries that are basically fighting against uh French imperialism. Uh Iran is supporting them as well. So, I hope that if Iran wins and uh if we sort of gain a foothold at a negotiating tables, you know, Iran becomes a regional not a regional power because it is already the regional power, but a regional hegemon.
That would then enable Iran to support these uh movements more so because in within the Iranian constitution, there is an article. I'm sorry, I'm I'm having difficulty remembering which article it was, but it says that they that Iranian government the Islamic Republic has a fundamental duty to support every oppressed uh you know, group, movement, demographics uh anywhere in the world, right? And you literally have a division within the IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Uh you have a division like an air force, naval force, whatever, right? The divisions that exist within, you know, different militaries that is called Quds Force. Quds Force uh obviously has received its name from the capital of Palestine.
>> [snorts] >> It's a symbol. It's a symbol that this division will do everything that it can in order to support uh oppressed people all around the world. So, whenever you hear uh IRGC being involved in training, helping other groups in different countries, it's usually Quds Force, right? This this division within this uh this military that is called uh by It was labeled as the biggest counter-terrorist group in the world by the former Iranian leader Marty Sayed Ali Khamenei.
Uh when you see that, I I hope that by winning this war, we will be able to achieve that. And obviously, there is a lot of uncertainty amongst people because it's very tricky to choose whom you're going to decide. Sometimes, you might think that other people have good intentions, but it's unclear whether they will be able to support you, right?
Uh you might think someone is is on your side, but then the question becomes, can they help me against United States? Well, if Iran wins against United States in this war, well, I think that those debates will be put to rest, and other countries will have uh you know, easier time uh Of course. trusting Iran, but even apart from that, trusting themselves.
>> really need people to trust Iran.
They might decide to follow Iran's footsteps, you know? It's And and you know, take up arms and resist about the uh against the imperialism because the country has already shown that United States is not invincible. So, I I think that would be the better outcome. You know, you have this coalition or this general movement on global level that you know, everyone understands that they don't have to agree and concede to every erroneous extraneous demand that United States has.
I think it's really about trusting ourselves. Cuz because Iran you talk about it becoming a regional power. I think Iran has become a great power already. And I think in terms of moral leadership, I think it's more of an example and more of a leader than Russia or China. Because Russia or China defend themselves, certainly. They look out for their interests. But Iran has support for Palestine built into its constitution. Iran has the Al-Quds Force, which is devoted to I mean, given the modern nation-state structure, which is a different nation.
And they've taken they've paid in blood for that. Soleimani, great men have paid in blood for their support of something else. And I think so you talk about when you talk about how like basically liberals or what you call leftists, everything in America is all within the right quadrant globally. [laughter] But what what they're left um they for long for many years they've had this weaponization of good intentions.
So, people will have good intentions towards say women's issues or good intentions towards what they copyright as human rights or so on. And that is weaponized against the enemies of the state. Give me one second. I need to kill something.
It's an F-35.
Yeah, it's an F-35. It's my air defense.
You've You've just shown the new secret Iranian air defense system. to shoot down the F-35s.
Like getting a drone. No, so there's this weaponization of good intentions, right? And you can see in Iraq with the with the Iraq war, there was a long build-up to that where they make dumb Americans think that Iraq is somehow involved in 9/11. Many Americans thought that. But even after 9/11, Iran volunteered to help America. So they built up you know, good intentions that could be used for their dirty deeds. But what you have saw happen with I guess we can call it the Iran war or the Ramadan war, it seems to be a longer process.
But what happened was that they didn't have that build-up of good intentions. In fact, the build-up for the attack, the most recent attack on Iran, was the release of the Epstein files where it's released that And prior to that, the build-up was the genocide of Gaza. So their sort of narrative build-up was number one, we kill children in our day job in Gaza, and then on vacation we rape children.
And then that was the build-up. So >> [gasps] >> and then in parallel to that, the world has seen people from Iran who are very sensible and rational and doing the moral thing.
And so I think you talk about if they win this war, if you talk about the war of hearts and minds, I think it's already won.
Not and not by like propaganda, not by movies, but by the deeds that people have seen and the sacrifice that people have seen come out of Iran. And of course it has to be backed with ultimately superior firepower. And and I think I don't know if we should get to that now or later, but I think Iran has not just changed the psychological battlefield, but there's been a paradigm shift in the real battlefield. And maybe I'll just go ahead and ask this. But do you think that there has been a paradigm shift between the old fighter aircraft carrier, basically manned aircraft era, and then Iran So Trump talks about destroying Iran's air force. The IRGC doesn't have an air force. It has an aerospace force, which is a different entity. And I guess decades ago, but really after the after the Iraq Iran Iraq war, there was a decision to move away from manned flight to unmanned flight. And in terms of that, Iran is not sort of People talk about asymmetric warfare, but I think the asymmetry is on Iran's side because when it comes to unmanned flight, Iran is in many ways the global leader.
I don't know. There's a question somewhere.
That what you can get.
>> [laughter] >> Okay, do do you want to continue?
Oh, no, I do not want to continue. I went on too long.
>> [laughter] >> Okay, so no, you're absolutely right. Um the what is what we are seeing today, uh you know, in this conflict is very very peculiar thing. So, first of all, if you compare the war first that we have seen, and I like to compare different war first wars with one another. You had World War II, you had uh Iran's 8 years of defense against Saddam's regime. You have had uh Russia-Ukraine conflict, and then you have had Iran conflict. Well, the war in uh uh World War II, it was more about, you know, an infantry soldiers. So, was the Iranian 8 year of defense against Saddam's regime. So, conventional forces, tanks, armored vehicles, infantry uh soldiers breaching the shores, you know, carrying out attacks, engaging in trench warfare, all that kind of stuff.
Then in uh you know, Russia-Ukraine conflict, you have had a mixture of both of these things. Obviously, trench warfare to the surprise of many has had very important has has been a very important facet of that warfare.
But apart from that, you have seen the extensive use of uh unmanned drones uh and you know, missiles and things like that. Interestingly enough, uh Russia that has this very advanced arrows air force hasn't really used this air force in order to gain uh air dominance or air superiority over the sky of Ukraine. So, that hasn't been the case. But it has been a mixture of, you know, using unmanned drones uh you know, slash loitering munitions.
Obviously, Iran provided Russia with Shahed 136 and combination of uh you know, air-launched um standoff missiles that are uh basically launched from, you know, very far distance.
Uh so, that has been the case. But it was a mixture of these two things.
In what we saw during the this war, the Ramadan war, was a complete absence of infantry soldiers or in- infantry warfare.
And then this uh very very big emphasis on launching drones and missiles. So, the war has ha- has have been conducted in a very particular way.
And when it comes to the intensity, the number of missiles that Iran has launched or number of the targets that United States has struck during the war, you know, there is just no comparison to any other warfare war uh that we saw earlier, right? So, that in terms of the firepower, it has been completely different uh in terms of scale, right?
Uh obviously, you mentioned the the sort of shift in the in the paradigm of warfare.
It's not so much as as to say that, you know, fighter jets are obsolete or they're even on their way to become obsolete, but it has been Iran's plan because Iran has been preparing for this war for 20 years to fight a defensive warfare.
Uh we can't go and challenge United States, you know, I don't know, uh like 2,000 km away from our our shores or our borders, but we can defend our own country because we took our Sorry.
10,000 km away, 2,000 km away you can hit, but you don't have any missiles that are 10,000.
Yeah, but we can't go and, you know, challenge them, you know, you know, outside of our missile range.
And we can't fight a defensive war. We can't fight an offensive war. We have been preparing for this war to defend our territorial integrity, our sovereignty.
Uh and this needed this this needed a lot of protection on our part.
We have been digging tunnels for the past 20 years.
For the past 20 years building uh underground missile bases, working on different uh missiles that we can launch and uh you know, different types of uh RTX, the the kind of explosives that you use in the warfare in in the I'm sorry, warhead of the missile. Uh your audience might think that it's it it's interesting, but uh General Hajizadeh, the commander of the IRGC Aerospace Force, mentioned that during one of his interactions and conversations with Russian generals, they actually told him, "Because of Iran's uh lack of having nukes, you guys have invested in RDX research, you know, developing this uh this kind of particular explosives that we, as a superpower, don't really have. The kind of warheads that you have, conventional warheads that you have, we don't have them. Right? So, Iran has done the things in its own very peculiar way. You know, the missile programs usually tend to go in a very formulaic way. You you start building a missile, then you keep increasing the uh size of the warhead, and once you're done with that, you start increasing the range.
Then you work on nuclear warhead.
Then after that, you go after precision and accuracy.
In Iran, we have had our own particular pattern of uh or formula of developing our missile program.
Once we had, uh you know, a very peculiar, not peculiar, specific range, like 1,000 km, 1,400 km, something along that that range.
Uh we went after precision. So, we didn't start increasing the range or the uh you know, basically the weight of the warhead, the payload. We didn't go after that. So, we have had our own particular way of uh you know, approaching this problem, which has created a of problem for United States because they can't go to this place and say oh look Iran has hit a school the same way that you know they have hit and targeted our school in in our country.
They have targeted I think more than 750 schools inside Iran. They're either either partially or completely destroyed. But they can't do that. And you would you just know that because the blood of the foreigners, the Israelis or the Americans are thicker than the blood of the Iranians, their life is worth much more. You would know that if they had that they would also win the narrative war.
The fact that you know you mentioned that we are sort of winning the narrative war.
It's because of the the the way that Iran approached the military problem as well, right?
But yes, we we are doing things in a very specific way. And who knows maybe in the future we will be able to determine how wars will be conducted, you know?
But as of right now United States is still very dangerous.
And obviously if they lose in Iran I would think that they will become even more aggressive towards the countries in Africa in Latin America. They will try to win some sort of They will try to save face by gaining some kind of victory in different countries. I'm really worried about Cuba right now.
So yes Iran has done that and Iran has been able to change war. But it it's more so about showing the world that there is a way there is a solution to the imperialism of United States if you're determined enough. And by the way, it's very important to uh to put an emphasis on the social aspect of everything. The Iranian people have been demonstrating for the past 70-something days uh every single night in the streets. Why do they do that?
Well, because they saw that Laridjani well, he didn't go into hideout. Yeah, uh obviously his his commuting was being uh surveilled uh and you know, he was being protected by his security team. But he was present during these demonstrations, some of these demonstrations.
When people see that their politicians, their leaders walk alongside them in the streets you have that kind of uh manifestation of the phrase leading by example.
And that's that's a that's also a very much uh very important factor in Iran's resilience against United States.
They have seen that 30-something of their generals have been martyred during the 12-day war. They have seen their military generals being martyred during the Ramadan war, albeit to a lesser extent because they have adopted new security protocols. But these things in some ways have even have have made the Iranian people more supportive of their government. One thing that I like to mention before I wrap this uh answer up is the fact that to a certain extent United States and Israeli decapitation policy has backfired. Because let's imagine that United States and Israel do not uh you know, basically assassinate any individual.
And at this point, anyone who is agreeing to go into a certain office inside Iran, they know that they're flipping a coin. And you know, they might not be living for much longer, right? So, it's a gamble that they're taking.
But let's let's say that you know, United States and Israel would stop being so dumb and wouldn't assassinate anyone.
What would happen?
You will have these people who are being killed. And then the leaders who are living safe and you know, people will start asking question. What is happening? It's very easy for these leaders to say, "Yeah, fight, fight until the victory." But you're not paying the price. We just buried our children in a cemetery. What price did you pay?
Right? So, to a certain extent uh you know, they're failing and it it is I can attribute a great portion of Iran's success uh to push back against the US aggression to the structure of the Iranian society uh and and how the leaders actually put their money where their mouth is.
Right. Uh so, we titled this episode the age of Iranian military supremacy and then I added a question mark at the end for two reasons. One may be part of my still, you know, white supremacy in some corner and partly is out of respect for people like yourself who are very careful in the way you present things. But let me put it this way.
I realized in 2017 actually reading um Andrei Martyanov's book Losing Military Supremacy, that the US had lost military supremacy, but nobody knew it yet, right?
And we see we we saw it in Ukraine, right? And but who has military supremacy? And here I'm you know, I don't follow Martyanov.
I don't believe it's the Russians.
I would actually make an argument that it's Iran. Number one, the one thing that came out, the first thing that came out of the war in Ukraine, was the Iran drones. In other words, the Shahed drones. And that is an invention of Iran. And the Shahed drone literally is the AK-47 of today.
Now, you know, the AK-47 is the weapon that changed the world. It was the weapon of the decolonial struggles. This is why you find It was known as the great equalizer, right? This is why you find it on so many uh nations' flags.
And maybe we're going to see a Shahed drones on >> [laughter] >> the flags of the future nations, maybe the you know, the real nations that will emerge out of this butchery of the Sykes-Picot in in West Asia.
That's one point, right? The second one, as you say, is the one to do with those missiles. And you gave us a glimpse of the different way of going about developing missiles that Iran uh the different path that it has chosen. I think that path is probably rooted in, you know, Iranian civilization. Although I have to say I'm speaking out of ignorance here. I'm maybe projecting.
And another aspect of that military supremacy that you kind of alluded to towards the end of your answer, I believe, is you know, Clausewitz said war is the continuation of politics by other means, but actually war is also the continuation of civilization by other means. And the Western civilization is about eradicating the other guy, you know, like exit said it, we do war, we kick them when they're down.
But actually is is the Islamic way of war and maybe, you know, older than this, the Iranian civilization way of war is not about this. You go to war to defend yourself, but you don't go to war to humiliate, to exterminate your enemy, you know, when they stop fighting, you also stop fighting. And that, I would personally contend, is part of that rising Iranian military supremacy.
The other part of which you you said is that popular mobilization behind it, right? So, it's a kind of whole phenomenon that it behooves us, you know, in the West to try and approach with an open mind and understand what is it that makes Iran so special in this particular context. And finally, brother Hassan, you keep on saying if Iran wins this war, and I just want to say when Iran when wins this war.
Look, I like to I like to explain myself.
Uh unfortunately, I'm a very pessimistic person. Like this is my nature. I tend to think about the worst things that happen.
And but this is a a part of this algorithm is called a minimax algorithm.
Basically, you draw the tree of decision-making.
And you think okay, what am I going to do, right?
Then you will think about what your adversary is going to do.
When you're thinking about your adversary, you don't think that they're stupid players.
You would try to think of them as being competent.
Obviously, during the war we have seen that the there are a lot of incompetency in the US military. We have seen that.
But even so, as an analyst, I can't sit here and say, "Well, they made that mistake, so maybe they they would do this other mistake again."
Again, right?
Uh so, basically, what I'm trying to say is that expect the worst, prepare for the best, right? And this is the Iranian mentality. The Iranian mentality is about patience.
Uh I have talked about this uh a lot. We're carpet maker, folks.
We spent a decade uh basically making carpets. A single carpet, it takes a decade. Sometimes, I mean, depends on uh you know, what type of carpet we want to make, but sometimes it takes a decade.
We we have we're patient.
We have this humbleness inside ourselve in order to always think about the things in which the things by which United States can hurt us.
And obviously, they have a lot of very impressive uh military weapons that they can use against us. Look, again, some people, when I talk to them, they think that uh "Oh, I'm underestimating the Iranian capabilities." But no, I have talked to the IRGC officers.
They're very humble. They're very down to earth.
You have to know that uh when when they talk about United States and their capabilities, they're very educated.
For example, I had this friend who could tell you that if if you would tell if you would ask him, "Okay, what do you think about USS Abraham Lincoln, right?"
He would list you, you know, all the specifications. He was like a walking, talking encyclopedia of the American weaponry.
Uh, but despite that, uh, he was also optimistic about the future in some ways.
So, what I tried to say is that the courage that an IRGC officer shows does not from does not stem from ignorance and lack of knowledge about the American weaponry.
And at the same time, that knowledge that they have about the American weaponry does not result in capitulation and cowardice.
So, they have a very good understanding of what is happening on the battlefield, what the enemy is capable of doing, and you mentioned something that is very true. Obviously, you tried to be very respectful and you said, "Oh, maybe it's because of my ignorance." But, no, that was actually very brilliant. Look, the weapons that you have shape what kind of, uh, military strateg- military strategy you adopt, right?
It's not just the Iranian engineers and their ability to build these sophisticated drones or, uh, missile systems. No, that that hasn't been the case. Despite the fact that I'm on the record saying that when it comes to ground-launched, surface-to-surface, uh, you know, short-to-medium-range, uh, missiles, Iran is at the pinnacle of the missile program in the world. And by the way, I I used three conditions. It's very important because if you remove each of these conditions, this will become a wrong assortment.
But you know, despite the fact that I say that, at the same time, I know that we have just our missile systems.
They have many many great tools at their disposal. It's just that they're dumb.
Apologies for saying this very clearly.
It's just that they're dumb. If we had a fraction of the money, the human resources, and the weapons that they have, we would have wiped the floor off with them.
They have everything. They have airborne radars. We don't have them. We don't have airborne radars. We don't have advanced fighter jets. We don't have them. The operation that we carried out in Kuwait and Qatar, uh and it it became like a huge success and everyone was talking about it. We carried that operation out using F-4s and F-5s, relics of Vietnam War, during the '60s and '80s. They were created during these years.
So, it it's not that we have those things. We don't have uh For example, we don't have uh air defense systems that are geared towards uh intercepting ballistic missiles. We don't have that.
There are many things that the American military has that we don't have.
The the kind of Kevlars that they use.
In Iran, we we don't have that.
Our assault rifles, they're not up to the standards of the American weaponry.
It's very important to explain these things not because I'm someone who has believed the American propaganda. No, I think that the American weaponry are overhyped.
You know, this is this is my my impression of the American uh military industrial complex. We have this weapon system. It has supersonic ultra mega navigation control. They They They create these words and then they create an acronym. And all of these things are geared towards making you think that they are more advanced than what they really are. And they're quite advanced.
But, you know, they're they're masters of advertisement.
Right? So, I don't believe what they say. I think that they're overhyped.
You know, most of the things that you see in, you know, an advertisement about uh you know, the American weaponry is just complete nonsense.
But, at the same time they have things that we wish that we had.
Right? Uh it's just that the combination of, you know, having this uh industrial capacity that we currently have, the missile program that we have, and the Iranian mentality in the warfare, you know, which you mentioned uh very astutely.
The combination of these two things have enabled Iran to push back against the United States aggression.
What I think would be the likely outcome in the war is that Iran is going to win.
Iran is still going Iran is going to win and it's going to win very decisively.
But, again, as the people who are uh the underdog in this conflict, we do not have the luxury of being arrogant. I think that arrogance of the empire had a lot to do with the defeats that they have suffered.
In Iran, when I was thinking about how the war in Ramadan would pan out before the start of the war, I was talking to this mili- former military officer and I was telling him "Oh yeah, we will have difficulties doing this and that." And he told me that "Oh well, they have bases in the region."
And my response was "Well, they're going to evacuate it.
They're going to evacuate their bases."
But interestingly enough, they didn't.
Why didn't they do that? Because you heard Donald Trump confess that they thought that the war would be over in 3 days.
He said that He said that "Well, we didn't think that they are going to target the countries in the region and we thought that the war would be over in like very short amount of time."
A- As people who are critics of the American arrogance, you brought up the fact that we call them the empire of arrogance, we do we shouldn't repeat the same mistakes. And that's why I say if rather than when, but personally, yes, I'm leaning towards the uh explanation or the theory that Iran will win this war.
Uh and and you know, things are much better than what we thought.
Uh you know, there would have been many tools at the United States' disposal which they could use in order to hurt Iran, but again, it's just that they're very unintelligent. I refer to US president as Ronald McDonald.
Who Who Who that clown in the McDonald's commercial?
And you know, it's partially in order to joke around, but No, he's That's my genuine opinion about him.
He's a freaking clown. He doesn't understand what he's doing. So is Pete Hegseth.
That guy is like Leatherface in Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Going around and just sucking off military generals uh you know, left and right. That can't be good for the morale in the military apparatus. But these people, because of their arrogance, they think that they're in a position to you know, make those mistakes and get away with them.
Uh yeah, that that's my opinion. To to just be before you go into it, I just want to thank from the bottom of my heart the eight people who have already donated, and as promised the doggie came, and he is even more thankful than than I am. So, on behalf of brothers and sisters in Gaza, thank you. You know, yesterday was Nakba Day, 78 years of that slow and accelerating genocide to holocaust. So, thank you to each and every one of you. If we get to 10, if we get to 10, I'll show you the I have a cat on my lap. I'll show you the cat. So, thank you again, Issam. I'm I'm learning a lot, and that's it's an important point you raised about I mean, estekbar, right? Is that Is that how you say it? Arrogance like turned inwards now. Trump never served in the military. He voided it cuz he had bone spurs or whatever. For him, it's something he watches on TV. And Hegseth, I think, was just a basically a looter and a murderer in Iraq, and then he plays someone He plays a tough guy on TV.
Now, you talked about >> [clears throat] >> not underestimating the Americans, and that's of course correct. They do have strong weapons. They have aircraft carriers, they have Tomahawks, they have they have I mean I guess better rifles, better armor. They they have a lot of weapons.
But in many ways that's kind of their weakness as well. Because America's a military which is designed to attack anybody anywhere, anytime. It's designed not just to attack Iran, it's it's designed to attack Yemen. It's designed to attack Venezuela. It's a designed to attack Cuba. It's designed to attack Russia.
It's in and in all these ways it's designed for no particular task at all. It it's stretched out. And in fact all these fronts I mentioned they're kind of fighting all of them at the same time. But there was a brief period in yeah I mean you you're an engineer, right? Like so you understand that the the first part of the job is limiting the scope of what you're doing.
And then their scope is kill everybody everywhere all the time. Whereas Iran's scope is defend Iran. So what I think what you're seeing within Iran is that very strategic, frugal planning has enabled them to be very good at that one job of defending Iran.
Whereas attacking Iran is just one of a hundred jobs that the US military has to be prepared for. And you as you can see they're not they're not very good at it. They're not they're not optimized for it. Iran's you spoke about the missile program. So I told him he like limited the range of missiles. He limited the use of nuclear missiles. He he he put a very moral policy. When people came to him with with X or Y missile he said make it more precise. Make it more precise.
And it's not just a strategic thing. It's it's an Islamic thing. It's it's a a moral thing.
There's a moral guidance to the to the Iranian military program which is of course completely lacking from the American program.
But do you think that age because there was an age so normally in warfare I mean if you read Sun Tzu attacking a walled city is a bad idea. It's dangerous. It's costly.
But and normally in warfare defense has some natural advantage. And it it's a bit of an unusual historical situation where someone in 10,000 km away can terrorize or overthrow someone on the other side of the world. But for the last century that that was possible. The US could go to Vietnam. It could go to Afghanistan. It could seemingly go wherever it wanted. And after 9/11 they had a list of seven countries and they went through the list. They went through you know, Sudan, Somalia, Libya, Iraq.
Um Syria and then Iran was last on the list. But as we talk about, if God willing they inshallah like they win the war that will be the end of American expeditionary warfare.
As in I think they already lost naval supremacy in Yemen. But now they're losing air supremacy in in Iran and of course their ground forces can't show up at all. So just in terms of broader military practice, do you think there's an advantage coming back to the defender? Because America was able to offend all over the world. But Iran has shown a relatively low cost model for defending yourself. Which is historically, if you have a fortress, you should be able to defend it. Um yeah, do you think they're changing history in that way?
Yeah, very good question. Look, um first of all, the reason that I don't talk about the Islamic aspect of things is that uh there is this hostility towards religion. Not just Islam, but religion.
Uh yeah, it's but it it happens to be the case with people. Sometimes I even like to tell people, "Okay, if it makes you be less aggressive to what I say, think of our religion as a part of our culture. Think of it as culture." Because you know, they're more uh you know, tolerating towards the culture. But, yes, what you talk about is 100% the case. Very astute analysis.
Yes, that has happened uh during the war against Saddam's regime.
When there was the so-called uh war of the cities.
Uh Iran was also launching missiles at uh Iraq. Albeit in very, very few numbers in comparison to what the Iraqi air force and the Iraqi military was doing. As soon as the Iranian missiles hit a target, and it had civilian casualty, Ayatollah Khomeini put a moratorium on launching those missiles against his against Iraq.
So, yes, what you say is not just true in an abstract academic sense. We have precedents in which we can to which we can refer to as you know, the evidence that it is the case. The it is the Iranian culture, you know, it's about defense more so than, you know, going around and terrorizing people.
When it comes to Iran, the the the reason that we have been able to push back against uh United States is the fact that we have again been we have been preparing for a very long time.
I'm not saying that uh you know, only Iran has these tools at its disposal.
But, any country that wants to push back against United States aggression, they have to understand a few things.
One, they need to be really determined. And they they are they need to be really resilient and be willing to pay the price. That's the first thing.
You can't stand against a country against an aggression uh by the empire without your population being on board, which is by the way one of the things that doesn't really make sense in the narrative that is pushed by mainstream media because if this is a regime that most of its population hated, then how come that United States can't can't overthrow it? You know, and while it is on the threat by an external force with the might of the US military, it just keeps surviving, right? So, it shows the efficacy and the support that people have for the government itself.
So, one thing that doesn't match with the narrative, but you know, going back to the topic to the main topic, apart from that, every country has geopolitical advantages that it needs to take advantage of. For us, it was the Strait of Hormuz.
If we hadn't block the Strait of Hormuz and set up a new navigation uh structure around the maritime navigation in the strait, things would have been different, right?
Other countries have similar means at their disposal, but they need to take care of they need to be mindful of that.
They need to be willing uh to use them as leverages.
And the strategic planning is also very important, right?
Uh the fact that you need to work on your industries is also very important.
The You know, I always cite this research.
Uh it was done by Australian strategic uh Australian strategic >> ASPI Is it ASPI? Uh Australian strategic uh something initiative? institution something uh if I remember correctly.
But I'm sorry. I should have maybe looked at the name before I come on the show, but I I I I didn't know that I'm going to talk about this. But they actually uh they they made a list of 40 strategic industries.
And you might be shocked that Iran in term of in terms of the number of strategic industries that it has, it ranks above Japan.
Japan.
Now, obviously Japan has a semiconductor industry, so it's not quite fair to say Iran has six and Japan has five because there needs to be like some kind of comparability between you know different strategic uh industries, but that shows you that Iran is a relatively developed country, right? The one of the things that we we found out and we integrated that into our strategy uh with regard to fighting United States was that uh the rate of production is very important. So, the American military is filled with these uh weapons that are sophisticated, but they're really, really expensive as hell, too.
Right? So, very good weapons, but very, very expensive. And they can't produce them at the rate that we can produce Shahed drones. So, for example, when we launch a Shahed drone inside Iran, for each drone that we fire, we make two.
This is the sustainability of our military, right? And this is what we have been able to, again, integrate in our overall uh strategy. The second thing was that okay, we we secured the what's it called? The rate of production. We have a strategic industries. We have a good foundation inside Iran. But then you have another thing, uh another problem. If you are to pose a war of attrition against your enemy, because look, this is a very childish example, and it's oversimplifying things, but there is this thing that we talk about in the fighter community. We say that uh the fighters are categorized in three different ways.
They're either a slugger, which means that they will knock you out with one punch, or they're brawlers, which means that they have incredible stamina, and they will constantly come at you and punch you in the face, or they're chess players.
The chess player wins through decisions. Sometimes unanimous decision, some sometimes through uh you know, divided uh decision. The brawler wins through, you know, sheer force of constantly coming at you. And the slugger obviously wins with the knockout.
Uh or TKO you most of the time.
It It's again, I'm oversimplifying things because I'm derailing the conversation.
They tend to say that the chess player wins against the slugger. The slugger wins against the brawler because the brawler becomes uh you know, less cautious and becomes reckless.
So, he goes and, you know, puts himself in the range of uh in the range in which the slugger can knock him out with one punch.
And then uh the uh the the brawler wins against the chess player, right?
So, what is Iran?
Iran is a a combination of the chess chess fighter, the the fighter who's sort of like the chess player, and the brawler. It has incredible stamina.
But, United States is the slugger one.
They can knock you out very quickly, and they uh they tend to prioritize, you know, short wars, which uh gain them victory, right?
What is the solution for you if you want to oppose them?
Well, it's by waging a war of attrition against them.
Now, here we we meet a challenge, because United States has dollar, which is the world's reserve currency, and it enables the country to just print money and distribute the inflation on the rest of the world.
How How would you address that?
Well, in order for me to address that tool at the disposal of United States, I have to address the physical items, the physical shortage, the physical scarcity.
Yes, they can uh you know, print money, but if there is a shortage and scarcity when it comes to helium gas, when it comes to sulfur, when it comes to graphite, these nine different commodities, very strategic commodities that have to pass through a strait of Hormuz, how are they going to that? They can't print helium. No, it has to be manufactured.
So, that was another way that Iran uh tried to basically neutralize one of the tools at disposal of United States.
What I'm trying to say here is that yes, you know, a big portion of it comes down to the ingenuity of the Iranian engineers, but any nation any nation that wants to get ready to fight back against uh, United States, they have to think about this on different levels.
And I think that uh, United States will actually become even more aggressive.
They will become more aggressive. The a while ago, Donald Trump uh, talked about how they stole a an oil cargo from this ship and he said, "We're like the pirates."
He He said that. He bragged about US military stooping low as in into the level of the pirates. So, I think that, you know, from now on, it will be even worse than this.
Wow, fascinating, fascinating answer.
First, I want to say we are still one donation away from seeing, um, Indie's cat. And, uh, so, do what you have to do. Indie, you just you just threw this one out of the ass. Uh, uh, first, I want to try and emulate our Iranian Not the first one, wasn't wasn't it? But, the our Iranian brothers and sisters' wonderful kind human and ironic without being sarcastic sense of humor by saying, you know, reminding the audience that, you know, when you were saying bro learning thing, I thought, "Oh my god, this is going to be another rock, paper, scissors, uh, conundrum."
But, it isn't because you say Iranians are chess players. And by the way, my understanding is chess does come out of Iranian civilization.
And very resilient, which in a way also in a very strange and very painful way 47 years of sanction kind of builds that in you, right? Builds that resilience even if you didn't have it, which Iranian civilization did have.
But so Iranians are playing uh this, you know, resilient brawler, playing chess, and on the other side you have Trump playing Uno, thinking that the more cards you hold the more strong you are at Uno, and it's it's a little bit what you said. They have all these weapons, all these cards, and they don't see that this is not how the game is played, and then they're playing um against, you know, a master a chess master.
And there I I asked for the the chat for questions, and there was a very good question, so I'm going to uh to just read it out to you. I don't know how much longer you have. You've been so generous with your time. I could speak to you for hours, honestly.
I wanted to come to another thing which is kind of the future. This kind of this question gets to it, but it's very precise, and it's from um S.
Wooster, and it says, "What kind of security model would it take for Iran to feel secure enough to end the war?
>> [snorts] >> After what has transpired, I don't see how Iran can trust the US, and I can't see a way out. How do you see this yourself, Hassan?"
Okay. So, first of all, we need to address something.
Uh there is no deal, no treaty, nothing in the world that would protect you. There is no single piece of paper that can protect you against the empire, which is which was one source of our criticism towards certain uh portion of the I don't want to refer to them as leftists because my understanding of leftist leftist ideologies is different than what they say, but they label themselves as leftist. But you know those Yeah, they're liberals. Yeah, absolutely. So one thing that they say is that oh, the Iranians they they should just like go to UN and things like that. Obviously, we are signatory to NPT.
And you know, Article 4 of the NPT says that we are we have the right to a peaceful civilian program. We can have enrichment, but United States isn't agreeing with this.
So any any piece of paper that you sign won't be enough to guarantee your security.
Now, if there are practical and approved, you know, sort of methods or measurements, not measurements, measures that the other side takes in order to indicate that it will not attack Iran, those things will be acceptable, but it's very hard to do those things as well, right? Because like I'm first of all, we're we're going to address what would be the ideal case and what would be the right case uh of, you know, having a security pact or uh I don't know, any kind of treaty agreement with United States that would secure Iran's future.
But this is way too idealistic and I and it won't work. But what will work is something analogous to INF, for example, in which you had, you know, these inspectors from both countries going to each other and they see the commission of the said military weapons in the said and aforementioned countries.
And that is to say, well, Israel should decommission its F-35I uh fighter jets. It should decommission uh their F-18 fighter jets, but they will never accept that, right?
And its nuclear program, yeah, which they don't accept exists.
Yeah, absolutely. [laughter] And don't get Scott Ritter as one of the inspectors, please.
Okay.
Yeah. [laughter] But, um having said that, so this is the very the sort of idealistic approach. You know, this will This is what works.
But, United States and Israel, they will never agree to that, right? So, now we have to talk about alternatives to that correct approach that might be acceptable to both sides.
Well, control over the Strait of Hormuz, recognition of Iranian control over the Strait of Hormuz is a very good step to begin with, right?
The the removal or uh you know, dismantlement of US presence in certain countries can also be a very good uh thing, right? Now that Israel because Israelis will never honor any deal. Not Not that United States does, but somehow the Israelis are even more crazy. They killed Yitzhak Rabin because he signed, you know, a semi semi sane kind of uh uh peace treaty with Yasser Arafat. So, they they're completely crazy even amongst themselves.
If a person talks about, you know, showing some sense of uh sensibility, they will kill them, let alone the other people.
Uh and obviously everyone knows that uh ITF, the Israeli terrorist force which is called Israeli Defense Force, uh emerged from Haganah organization, which was a legitimate terrorist organization inside the occupied Palestine. Right? So, they're completely crazy, but you know, again, moving in that direction of trying to do the impossible, I think that the control over the Strait of Hormuz would be more more of a swallowable pill, more of a pill that United States will be able to swallow.
Uh the next would be again reduction of US military presence in the region, and obviously again you need inspectors, you need very uh thorough inspection regime uh by third-party guarantors, such as Russia and China.
Uh obviously that comes with its own complication uh in the region, but again, it's in the spirit of talking about uh you know, what can be done potentially, but if you ask me, it's called it's sort of like a futile effort.
There is no way in which United States with the arrogance that is embedded in in them, the US officials, would try to reach any reach any kind of deal with Iran. You saw how uh Ted Cruz sat in front of Tucker Carlson, and then he was asked, "What's the population of Iran?" And he couldn't answer.
He couldn't He's advocating to go to a war with a country whose population he does not know.
So, that kind of arrogance Who Who really thinks that uh you know, they will come to the negotiating table and they will be able they will be willing to sign a deal with Iran that would be even remotely and slightly uh you know, in the interest of the Iranian population. I'm not I'm not optimistic.
To be fair, he probably doesn't know the population of the US. We've had now 10 donations, brother.
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So, you you mentioned You mentioned three points that would be subject for negotiation. You mentioned three points.
>> here?
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Thank you, brother.
Well, so so so you you spoke about the three points that would be up for negotiation. Let's say um the control of the Strait of Hormuz, the basically decommissioning of bases, and inspections. But I would argue that Iran has already kind of established that. As in you have control of the Strait of Hormuz, and I don't see that going away.
And Sri Lanka's fine with that, China's fine with that, and even Trump has said they're kind of fine with that. Oman is obviously fine with that. I think that's a fait accompli that's that's almost done.
Um the second one is the decommissioning of the bases and you've decommissioned the bases. So, we've been talking about this for a while, but there's just the story out in the Washington Post, I think, where they acknowledge it that there were precision strikes on I think 228 like uh facilities. Uh the the people from the US think tanks were like these they weren't they said there were no misses. There were no impact craters because the Iranian missiles are so precise. Those radars are not coming back. I don't think those bases are coming back. The the Bahrain base has been effectively evacuated. And if they want to rebuild it, they will need Iranian permission to get ships in and then Chinese permission to get the res- the resources they need. And this is a country which can't rebuild a bridge in Baltimore, which is like, I don't know, 10 mi from its own capital. Tho- tho- those bases are not coming back. So, in that sense, the negotiation has been done. And you talk about inspections, I mean, you're inspecting stuff with drones. Like, Hezbollah's inspecting Israel with with first-person viewers now. Like, the ins- the inspections are are are happening. Like, the resistance is doing the inspections. And I think that is the only way you talk about Israel is even less negotiable than America. And yeah, Israel is put there specifically to be as crazy as it is.
And then America can say, "We can't control it." It's It's a way of denying responsibility. But if you ask the Native Americans, the Americans are negotiation-incapable. They used countless treaties over and over to just push them further and further into further and further reservations and to genocide that land.
But I think But when you talk about like all those things you won't talk about, Iran has done it. Like, they've negotiated with with fire, I guess.
Okay. Look, um I It's very important to understand that when a person looks at the details of things, uh things are more complex than, you know, the the overall narrative. Yeah, you might look at uh my background and say that I don't know what color it is actually, but let's call it like orange or whatever, right?
And uh I'm sorry, I don't know what what color it is. Maybe light brown. But uh let's say that that's the color, right?
You first have to say, "Well, it's the said color. It's like light brown." But then you have to say, "Well, it has slight shades and slight lines of uh very light s- uh silver or yellow running through it, right? Running through its texture.
So, the those are the details. Yes, Iran has targeted the facilities, the military bases that you have mentioned.
Iran has targeted the radar systems that you have mentioned, but question becomes if it's that easy, then where does these sorties of American Air Force land in?
Right? Cuz they are landing in the region. There are a lot of sorties that land in the region. What are they? If those said bases are completely destroyed. Now, we have damaged them.
They have dam- we have damaged them, you know, greatly. We have inflicted very precise attacks to certain things.
We have degraded their ability of uh you know, the I mean, when it comes to the early warning systems, their early warning radars that are very uh very important uh for missile defense in Israel. Yeah, we have degraded them, and they are not going to come back really, you know, soon.
Uh you know, it will take them a long, long time to, you know, rebuild those things, but still they have military presence there.
They have access to civilian airports of these said countries.
In Israel, and this is Israel. I'm going after Israel because the countries in the Persian Gulf, the Arab monarchies, they're even more pathetic when it comes to uh caring about their own sovereignty.
But in Israel, which is, you know, sort of pushing United States around, uh you know, it it the the KC-13 tankers that United States has have been parked in a very short distance from the Ben Gurion Airport, which is the civilian airport. You can see them from the People post photos from civilian planes. They can see them, yeah. Yeah, so that's the thing. They they can still use these uh like civilian airports in the Arab monarchies in the region as well.
Unfortunately, it's not so simple as to say that United States uh military bases have been eradicated from the region. Again, their ability to host personnel in these facilities, to allocate weapons, and different uh different military hardware, those things have degraded severely, but it hasn't been completely eviscerated. But then there is the second thing. Look, any war that you fight needs to end with a treaty.
This is the case. Even in terms of what we saw in the aftermath of World War II and Germany, you know, there was some kind of a deal that was reached. You know, you need to establish something. You know, yes, every day that goes on that that this war goes on, you We more and more countries sort of implicitly agreeing to the fact that Iran uh is in charge of the Strait of Hormuz.
Yes, very recently 30 uh vessels passed through the Strait of Hormuz in one day, which was I think a a record uh you know, since the start of the war.
Uh why did they pass through the Strait?
Well, because the countries were were willing to pay Iran the toll that it requested for.
Uh so, yes, you're you're absolutely right with that, but it there there is a need to provide some sort of leeway or exit strategy for Donald Trump through some kind of deal.
Because they can attack us.
And they can inflict more damage on Iran. And by the way, the way that they damage Iran, it's some of the damages that they inflicted on us is irreparable irreparable. So, for example, how am I supposed to rebuild an embryo embryology clinic that has these embryos in it? Uh and you know, these embryos belong to individuals. What am I supposed to do?
You You're not just talking about the equipment, technologies, you're also talking about uh basically develop uh research.
Research that is lost.
Right? You're talking about the hospitals that have been uh targeted in a country that is under sanction for the past 47 years.
Uh we don't build everything inside Iran. We build a lot of things, but we don't build everything. So, how long would it take for us to rebuild those things? Yes, com- compared to the Arab monarchies in the Persian Gulf that it's very cute when they think that they have industries. It's very cute. Uh we we produce a lot of things. So, yeah, comparatively speaking we have the upper hand. But the question is, do we want to actually go to that length?
Even if there is a slight opportunity to reach a deal for United States, Iran is going to exhaust those routes in order to make sure the prevention of another a a a a a possibility which is much more hurtful to the Iranian economy.
Uh yes, we we are uh we will basically repair and maintain the steel production factory that was targeted inside Iran.
But again, these are all things that are considered as wasted opportunities or unnecessary damage uh that potentially can be I mean, not I don't like to use the term potentially, but hypothetically maybe would be more accurate term because I'm against it. Uh but hypothetically those things can be prevented.
Yeah. So, this is the reasoning behind why Iran still negotiates with United States.
That that that's absolutely fascinating and before I come to my uh rambling ending or hopefully in the question, I want to tell you as and that the chat I've donated to more. So, you're stuck with us for a bit longer and this is an absolute delight for Indie me and of course the chat and also for brothers and sisters in Hazara.
>> [snorts] >> Uh you know, there are two very parallel and I think mirror pathologies in the West. One is the liberal pathology that you very eloquently outline. You know, we are going to bomb you into the Stone Age to protect whatever, you know, uh the right of women to go out in the street in their underwear or something like this. But another one, which you know, we're part of the anti-imperialist universe. So, the other one that comes more from our side is like go and kill every single US pig imperialist until they all die and you know, go maximalist on everything all the time.
And it's very easy for us in the comfort of our Western, you know, belly of the beast little lives to expand brown people's lives in that way, right?
So many people on the internet, I Iran is making such a mistake to talk with the US. Don't you know these people never respect any treaty? They'll just come back at you and all the rest of it.
And you know, and Hamas made such a bad mistake by signing the ceasefire and everything.
As if, you know, there wasn't blood, there wasn't families, there wasn't clinics, there wasn't embryos, as you so eloquently said, that would be destroyed forever as a result of this. And you know, as I'm trying to understand war as this total event, I'm also say seeing and I hear it in the way you speak, there's always the thought of what comes next. You know, war is just something you do when you can't solve a conflict in any other way, but it's in the service of the future, right? And I hear it in what you say.
And I also hear it in seat in China's position on in the international world.
So, I'm officially the China glazer here. I'm always trying to justify everything China does and that's me. but in a way what I see being done and by Iran also in the middle of a conflict and by China is going, "Okay, so how do we leave once this is over, right?" And you have to live with your enemy if you're not a genocidal power, right?
And that is so very important and I feel it in the way in what Iran is doing. I hear it in what you're saying also and this is one thing that, you know, for leftists in the war in the west who like to uh do their revolution by proxy in a way because the guys, if you want to fight the power, you know, go out in the street and go at it. Why not? You're in the belly of the beast.
It's very easy for us to forget. And so although part of me wants, you know, go and finish this thing off, I really respect, understand, and try my best to see where you're going to. So what is the, you know, when Iran wins, in my way of saying it, what is the new what is the new world going to look like? What what kind of a new world is Iran fighting for? Is my question finally.
>> First of all, thank you, thank you, thank you. And when I say this, I'm not the only one.
Many other people are just so sick and tired of people lecturing us what to do.
Look, when we fought against Al-Qaeda in Syria, we lost 30 high-ranking military general.
When we fought against uh you know, Israel in the 12-day war, we we lost 30 military generals, IRGC military generals, 30 uh scientists in our country.
Uh during this war we lost many great political leaders, Ayatollah Khomeini being the prime example, and obviously a lot of uh military commanders.
So, this is this is not that easy. One of the things that I think is very disrespectful to the very notion of resistance is its human element.
Sometimes these people act as if resistance is just so easy.
It's just so easy.
And this is very >> Especially given the fact that they themselves never do it other than, you know, screaming out on the internet or food tweets. Sorry for interrupting, brother.
No, [snorts] no, thank you.
Uh but you know, talk Sometimes they say, "I don't we don't know why Iran just doesn't level Tel Aviv and Haifa."
And all I need to tell them is to look them directly in the eye and very seriously say, "Well, because we're really bad people who don't care about, you know, the liberation of Palestine.
Because it's so easy and we can do it at any given moment. But it's just, you know, we don't feel like it." Just it it's something that we don't feel like it. So, they don't know how disrespectful it is.
You have this 80-something year old man that spent his entire life, 86 years, spent his entire life fighting against US imperialism and fighting in order to help the Palestinians liberate themselves. Please pay attention to the way that I'm phrasing things. We help them liberate themselves. We're not fighting their war for them. We can help them because it's not that easy. We're talking about United States. It has a very powerful military. It has you know, a military budget that is bigger than the next 10 countries combined. Many of them are its allies, right? So, it's not easy. It's the the notion that you think that it's easy, it it's taking away from the sacrifices made by Ahmad Moghnieh, Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, Hajizadeh, Tehrani Moghaddam. All these people made sacrifices. So, this is the the thing that I'm talking about uh the human element of the situation.
If a person like me respects Che Guevara today, it's because I think that he made a he made some sacrifices. If it was so easy, Che Guevara was something someone like any other individual in the world.
So, it doesn't mean like it doesn't make him special. That's that's the first thing. And I'm so happy that you are very respectful. And I, by the way, I try to be respectful as well, despite the fact that I'm Iranian, so a person might think that like I have uh like more grounds to lecture the Iranians about how they should uh conduct the warfare.
I still look at the Iranian military generals and I see a pattern. I see how we went from Operation True Promise 1 to Operation True Promise 2, Operation True Promise 2 to 3 to 4, and I can see visibly unequivocally through factual data that every time that we took these pauses, our military performed better.
Compare the 39-day war with the 12-day war.
There is no comparison.
In the first day of the 12-day war, they like they assassinated a lot of Iranian IRGC military commanders.
The same thing didn't happen this time.
Right? So, there is this sort of humility that we need to have. Even if you consider yourself an engineer, even if you like I said certain things in criticism of Operation True Promise 1 that the Iranian military integrated in their strategy. And Operation True Promise 2 was much more successful.
As the person who actually talked about those things and and I saw the efficacy of my own suggestions on the battlefield, I can tell people that things have become even more complicated than before. To the extent that I'm not really sure of a lot of the things that I say. It has become more complicated. Like yes, I I know that sort of in a way I have like an educated guess.
But it's it's way more complicated than that. But you you mentioned and sorry for sort of take so much time talking about that comment of yours because your question was about what will the world look like after Iran's victory.
I think what we need to do is to empower. This is something that I'm very very passionate about and I think that I mentioned it on Kevork's Show.
I think that Africa in Iranian foreign policy is sort of neglected. Maybe neglected is too strong of a word, but I think that there are many things that we can achieve by collaborating with the African countries.
Africa and Latin America are are two places that I'm very passionate about.
Uh so, hopefully after the world seeing Iranian uh Iranian technology being used in the battlefield, they will, uh you know, reach out to Iran and understand that maybe the benefits of collaborating with Iran uh outmatch uh its disadvantages, which is being sanctioned by United States.
Because you have to understand, when you see a missile traveling at Mach 16, for example, which is 16 times the speed of the sound, that all show that that also I don't know why I said all show.
Also is indicative of the in uh engineering industrial capacity of the country in general, right? And it's not just uh the fact that we produce weapons.
Uh in terms of nanotechnology, uh we're like ranked four or three or four on the world stage.
In terms of the graduates uh in the in uh in the engineering fields, Iran is ranked again fourth uh after Russia, China, India, and United States.
All of these countries uh you know, their population dwarf the Iranian population in comparison, and they're considered to be superpowers.
So, we have this many engineers. These engineers can be exported They mentioned this as export of service. So, Iran can export its services to the rest of the world. We can build them oil tankers. We can achieve great things. We can build refineries for them, right? For example, Iran was set to build this refinery in, I think South Africa, but uh South Africa, because of the threats of sanctions by United States, it backed down.
So, for the countries that are more daring and they they think more about their national interest than what the United States says, uh you know, they can basically work with Iran. There are a few advantages that the Strait of Hormuz will allow Iran uh to have if we play our cards smartly. So, for example, uh there is a talk and that legislation that we are referring to uh hasn't passed the parliament, but uh they're talking about receiving the tolls in the Iranian currency.
If that system is ever established, that means that uh United States will not be able to sanction the countries for trading with Iran because they're using the Iranian currency. The reason that United States can sanction other countries is because of this law called U-turn, uh which which basically uh claims that because of uh fight against the forgery or terrorism, United States needs to know uh you know, whenever a dollar bill is transferred, right? That's the justification, which is a plausible one, but United States is uh misusing that.
Uh if if we are trading in the Iranian currency, then that means that those countries can't be sanctioned.
And that means that more people can receive our services.
Again, in the field of stem cell research, Iran is a key player. It's like fourth.
It's ranked fourth or five fifth uh on the global stage. We produce agricultural machinery. We produce you know, many nuclear uh hardware nuclear devices. So, for example, there is this neutron photography a device that will enable you uh basically it's it's like the x-ray machine, but more complicated and more precise.
Uh and and if you are to build uh you know, very precise industries that require very very uh precise precision with regard to uh producing different components for your for your uh hardware for your device, you will require to have one of these things.
Uh you know, for example, the the gas turbines, if you ever to manufacture them.
But, the way that I see it, I think that there needs to be a change after this war both in Iran and outside of Iran. In terms of the mentality of the people.
I think that we have spent too much time uh trying to find a solution to have diplomatic and a sort of non-hostile relationship with the United States.
Right? We have tried that the best that we could.
And uh we have exhausted exhausted that route.
Maybe the better alternative would be to find ways to collaborate with the countries in Africa, in Latin America. I love Nicaragua. I love Venezuela. I I love Cuba. I think that these countries uh are the the kind of countries that we can really work, uh, in very constructive ways.
Uh, and there is a reason that I mentioned these countries because we sort of, uh, complete each other. So, yes, for example, Bolivia has, uh, lithium mines, right? So, if I was talking about, uh, things when it comes to the resources that the said countries have, I would I might have mentioned Bolivia, which I mean, I I like the leaders of Bolivia, too, but the reason that I'm not mentioning the Bolivia in particular, and, you know, I'm I put more emphasis on Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba is that I think that the industries that we have would be complementary, and we would be able to complete one another and have a very constructive, uh, relationship, uh, in in the future.
Uh, that that's one thing that I think is very important, but I think that it can also be sort of like a sobering realization for the people in Europe with the way that their lives have been affected by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, and them finally understanding that these wars that United States fights, uh, they're not unimportant. They're not, uh, you know, trivial. Because sometimes I hear people refer to certain people who are anti-imperialist.
And the way that average pop average person, uh, talks about them sometimes can be kind of disrespectful, as if, "Oh, look at these people. They have nothing better to do than talk about this country that is like 3,000 km away from us, 4,000 km away from us, or however km away from us, and it's sort of sometimes neglected and viewed as something very dismissible. I think that you know, the aftermath of this war can actually have you know, positive effects in order to uh strengthen the voices of those individuals in their own countries because you know, finally they have empirical evidence in their hand to say that, "Look, you see why you have to pay more uh money for your food. You know why uh fuel costs so much more? It's because the because of the war and the situation that you didn't pay attention to. And for the politicians whom you voted for, which, you know, followed the footsteps of the American regime, because let's remember, uh Chancellor Merkel in Germany was fully on board with the war against Iran before we see all these bad consequences and the ramifications of US unilateral aggression towards Iran.
He said that Israel is doing our dirty work for us. He said that during the 12-day war, uh basically supported Israel.
He support He was supporting United States. Similar thing with uh French President Macron. When he talked to I mean, Donald Trump was crazy enough to publish his uh messages, direct messages that they exchanged. He was on board with doing everything that US is now doing in Iran. Now they are taking step back and saying, "Oh, I think that Merkel even said that uh uh Iran is humiliating Donald Trump."
But so so I what I'm saying is that people shouldn't be fooled by the comments and the statements made by these individuals. Instead, they have to go and listen to the genuine anti-imperialist voices that talked about the dangers and the ramifications of any adventurism against Iran by United States and Israel.
Thank you very much, Hassan. I just want to add in terms of refineries, Sri Lanka's only refinery is built with Iranian help. But then because of American sanctions and nonsense, we've had difficulty servicing it and using it. But we don't need America in this relationship at all. In in like so when when Zheng He came from China in 1409, he left a tablet here, which is in Chinese, Persian, and Tamil. So for thousands for hundreds if not thousands of years, these regions have been connected without like a white empire dictating terms as like who you can trade with, what you can trade, who's good, who's bad. And you speak about Europe, Europe is occupied territory.
None of these leaders you talk about are real leaders. And the these wars America's waging in Ukraine and Iran and in Palestine, they're also attacks on Europe. And none of this is in Europe's self-interest. So I I think Iran's what you spoke about connecting to other countries in Africa and Nicaragua, I mean, please include Sri Lanka. Um I think Iran's future is bright in that sense. And you have a lot to you you've already offered a lot to the world in terms of sacrifice. And hopefully there can be more that we can share that isn't that isn't blood, that that is something more positive. Because if you look at all the engineering skill, all the talent, that can be used for peaceful things. It it's only been used for war because you have been attacked for your entire existence.
But hopefully there is a future where not just your region but the entire world is free from this empire.
And and maybe that will be the last question because you have been so generous with your time. I feel like we're imposing >> also I'm also neglecting my family.
>> So much.
>> [laughter] >> And and I need to walk the dog. No, that's a joke.
Okay, so yeah.
Over to you, Assan.
Uh yeah, absolutely. Look, I think that uh you know, that the way to fight the empire at this point is uh through mass mobilizations of people in every continent, every continent.
You have to understand that there are these sort of like sinus waves uh of uh countries becoming powerful and declining or technologies becoming very important and then declining.
Uh some people think that artificial intelligence is something new.
But no, it you know, the core of the ideas for artificial intelligence dates back to the '60s.
The '60s. There was a There was this period called AI winter that uh you know, took place and you know, basically for that period of time we didn't really see any improvement in AI technology.
But then, you know, we made a comeback and we started doing all these amazing things that you are seeing today. The reason that I'm bringing this up is that yes, for now it seems that we have gained the upper hand in terms of military in terms of war in terms of defending our sovereignty.
But it's also very important to understand that we're on the precipice of a change.
What do I mean by this?
Look, uh you have different uh AI systems that are being used uh in in Palestine to kill Palestinians, right? Uh Where's Daddy, uh Gospel, and Lavender are being used in order to uh target buildings, to create a list of uh uh individuals who are on the list of assassination by Israel. And then, you know, Where's Daddy, if you uh basically prompt the name of an individual in it, it gives you their location, right?
All these systems can be used in order to impose security measures on the population of the Western countries.
And it can change the warfare drastically, drastically in the future.
And, you know, again, we we might be on the juncture in time that is an inflection point.
So, that's why it's very important to not develop hubris, and, you know, stay humble. That, you know, future might change a lot.
Some people criticize the Iran. I'm sorry, I know that I'm jumping from one point to another.
I'll promise you that it will uh pan out. It will uh bear fruit. Uh but, people criticized Iran for not being able to to protect uh its political leaders.
But, what I'm seeing here, when I saw the story about the Russia-Ukraine conflict and how soldiers were assassinated because they were using uh cell phones on the front line.
This is This is how the security is being viewed in different parts of the world in you know, apart from Iran. We never made mistakes even remotely comparable to the ones made in those regions. Which to a certain extent to me is indicative of the fact that people are not really aware of what is happening.
Systems like Maven, Claude, and again, these are AI systems are being used in order to change the very fabric of the warfare.
Which is more an asymmetrical, which is more draconian.
You know, I I've seen especially the American society is very is very interested in these things when it comes to the movies.
You have entire cultures built revolved around Matrix, Minority Report, and movies like that that that portray the cyberpunk-esque uh future, this draconian society. But we we are moving more and more towards that direction.
And if we pass a certain threshold, it would be near impossible to find a solution at least in uh near future to address the the kind of hellhole that we would live on live on. Right?
So I so I think that it's very important to understand the the power of people in the you know, on individual level. You know, the the importance of people mobilizing because unless people unite, again, many things can change, many things. There are many questions that we have to address.
What will happen if same thing that happened in Iran happens in to Russia. If they had 30 of their military generals assassinated, would this be something that Russia would be able to recover from? Let's Let's for now think that Russia doesn't have nuclear weapons. Sometimes we sort of uh we remove certain conditions from certain hypothetical situations in order to just assess something, you know, in isolation.
But who knows? Maybe in future you have you will gain abilities to uh deactivate certain weapon systems to basically disarm Russia from its uh dead hand uh mechanism that it has with regard to its uh nuclear program, nuclear weapons program.
So, these are all the questions that we have to answer, and it's very good to understand that no actor no actor should depend on another great actor to save it from its uh its adversaries. But the solution is what you mentioned Indika uh in part of your your uh commentary when you said that uh we need to start believing in ourselves.
We need to start trusting ourselves.
And once the countries do that, because there are many countries all over the world that want to have a better relationship with Iran. They come to Iran, they see some uh device, they see some service that they are very interested to purchase in order to build up their own infrastructure.
But then they're afraid of United States hegemony and how the empire would react.
But you know, if that confidence is built by seeing Iran as not as the savior, despite the fact that I'm very proud proud of my country. And again, the existence of certain articles within our constitution that demands us helping other countries. Despite that, I think that the a better world to live in is if every country becomes more powerful. And you know, we would we would be able to confront United States together rather than, you know, hope that some kind of savior will come and you know, rescue us. So, yeah, sorry for that sort of like nothing burger of an answer, but No, that was great.
>> It's a great answer. Yeah. I And And I think it speaks to the civilization nature of Iran. And guys, there's a Chinese saying that says, you know, with respect to world revolution, revolution becomes with yourself. An egg cracked from the outside is food.
Cracked from the inside is a new birth.
And I love that you said, you know, we are here to help our Palestinian siblings liberate themselves, but we can't liberate them for themselves. And that is something that is, you know, if you're a civilization, you know this.
You're not going to go, "We are going to And by the way, the West isn't a civilization, which is why it tries to um project its whatever it calls itself on the rest of the world. Ehsan Safaeinajad, thank you so very much for what I hope is the first conversation because I have another thousand questions to to ask you.
And I want to, of course, orient people to where they can follow your great analysis. There is your um Twitter. So, Safaeinajad_ir.
And I'm not that your pinned post is this beautiful video, Yaya Sinouar keeps on living through each and every one of us.
And this also speaks to, you know, the Iranian, not just your own, because you're not alone in that, resonating with the liberation struggle of West Asia, but also you mentioned, you know, uh, South America, Cuba, and I think this is something very important to keep in mind, because that's a new form of universalism that doesn't impose on others. And there is also your, uh, YouTube channel. I don't know if you are seeing it in the share. I hope you are.
Yeah, I can see it. Right. And I'm glad, I'm glad you suggested Zoom, because we actually had a, uh, stable connection, which is not that, uh, easy when, uh, when we are, uh, uh, speaking to our brothers and sisters in Iran. So, thank you very much. Thank you, chat. We almost reached $200 for, uh, Mustafa. I think this week we might have re- raised, uh, something around, I'm not sure, but 1,600, 1,700, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, $1,700 for, uh, Mustafa and his family in Gaza.
And you know, he needs a new tent. So, thank you very much, because existence is resistance.
>> really thank you for the great work that you do, because like, um, this this monetary help is very important, and, uh, uh, really, this is the first time that I've been on any show that has done something like this. And I'm really glad to be a part of it. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
And thank you for the two donations you inspired, plus our matching donations from India and me. So, thank you so much. Have a great day.
Um, be strong, and, uh, let's speak again, uh, soon enough.
And as we always say on these shows, free Palestine and swift victory to the free people of the world.
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