Latest / Beyond the Summit with Amir Golshani / Iran Ends in 1 of 3 Ways, Richard Miniter Explanis
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- Amir Golshani: Welcome back. Today's guest is Richard Minniter, investigative journalist, bestselling author, and one of the most persistent voices examining the hidden dynamics of power, terrorism, and global security. He has written extensively about intelligence failures, presidential decision-making, jihadist networks, and the shadow world where geopolitics, war, and policy collide. Richard's books, including Losing Bin Laden, Shadow War, and Leading From Behind, challenge official narratives and ask difficult questions about leadership, strategy and accountability. At a moment when tensions in the Middle East are escalating again, with Iran, Israel, the United States and the Gulf states all moving pieces on a very dangerous chessboard, there may be no better time to step back and ask what is really happening behind the headlines. Richard, welcome to Beyond the summit Richard Miniter: Thanks for having me. Amir Golshani: Before we dive into geopolitics, I want to understand the person behind the reporting. What originally pulled you toward investigative journalism and national security? Richard Miniter: Well, I like to answer big questions that no one else is asking. And I don't believe in secondary sources. I believe in tracking down the people who made the decision in the room, the documents they relied on. And in the late 90s, I was doing a lot of war zone reporting into the 2000s, and going to Iraq a number of times. I was the first Western reporter into Darfur in 2003 in the Sudan. into various other North African ⁓ East African countries across the Middle East, many trips to Israel, to Lebanon, to other places, ⁓ Kuwait, many, many others ⁓ the Gulf. And spent a fair amount of time also in Southeast Asia, along the Mekong River in Cambodia, in Vietnam, with the Karen and the Kareni ⁓ and the rebels in Burma. both on the Thai side and on the Burmese side crossing into Burma a number of times. know, going through jungles for days and days and getting to rebel camps where they make landmines and assemble forces to attack the government forces. So I've seen a bit. Amir Golshani: I love that. Thank you for sharing that with us. Many journalists report the news, but your work, as you mentioned, often tries to challenge the accepted story. Where did that instinct come from? The willingness to question the official version. Richard Miniter: Well, even the best official version, even assuming the most honest, truth-telling ⁓ authority, they're necessarily always summarizing, right? Because reality is complex and multifaceted, right? people want to hear sound bites. ⁓ also, even for the people at the top, and let's assume they're the most trustworthy people in the world, they receive summaries. and sometimes summaries of summaries from the people underneath them. So the nature of bureaucracy is to simplify and too often to effusticate. So it's quite possible that if you are at the top of an organization, a corporation, a government agency, a university, any large organization, that you are relying on the summaries of summaries presented to you by your subordinates, and you may not be consciously relying at all. you're accurately reflecting what has been given to you. what is given to you has simplified and summarized and perhaps inaccurate. Certainly it lacks that fingertip feel. So what if you go around the bureaucracy? What if you go into the field and meet the people directly involved? Now you're seeing the summaries, you're seeing the complex reality. And that enables you to find stories that others can't find because they would like to sit in their comfortable air conditioned homes or offices reviewing official summaries. And when you discover things on the ground much more interesting, much more complicated, driven by many different factors. Bureaucracies also like to have theories about why things happen, but they don't ask the people on the ground if those theories meet reality. When you go and you present these theories that you've heard from bureaucrats or mid-level people to actual people on the ground. They're very surprised. Like, why would they think that? Remember in Iraq being asked, you know, why would the CIA think that ⁓ and Shia Muslims would never work together? He goes, I am Sunni. I am married to my wife who is Shia. We don't work together. We're married. This is crazy. And in fact, most are intermarried why would CIA think that ⁓ Sunni and Shia Muslims would never work together? either other forms of Shia Islam or with Sunnis or sometimes with non-Muslims. So this analysis was clearly falls apart on the ground, the idea that these two would never work together. And then when you dig into CIA, why they think this, it was all based on a 1965 study that was done of Northern Ireland saying that the Protestants and the Irish Catholics would never work together. And that was just extended into the Middle East. Well. This is what happens when you theorize and project and use abstractions. Reality on the ground is more complicated and theories need to be checked against reality. That's what interested me and frankly continues to interest me. Amir Golshani: I really love that the way you're looking at things, you this is very important angle that is often overlooked. have written about presidential leadership and strategic decision making. What separates leaders who handle crisis well from those who make catastrophic mistakes? Richard Miniter: Well, let's start by being very honest with each other, right? If things turn out well, ⁓ leader is ⁓ to be a great leader. And if they fail miserably, he's said to be a terrible leader. But outcomes are not entirely in the control of any leader, right? ⁓ Especially like wars or economies or revolutions. These are... let's start by being very honest with each other, right? If things turn out well, ⁓ the is ⁓ said be a great leader. And if they fail miserably, he's said to be a terrible leader. These are... more like storms. You can prepare for storms. You can mitigate the damage after a storm, but you can't direct a hurricane or a typhoon in the preferred direction. more like storms. You can prepare for storms. You can mitigate the damage after a storm, but you can't direct a hurricane or a typhoon in the preferred direction. And we tend to have unfair tests of what leaders can do. really can't do these things. And sometimes the leaders pretend that they can do these things because it makes them seem more powerful. But in reality, they cannot redirect storms and they cannot redirect the storm of human activity. That is often driving world events. So that's the first thing. The second ⁓ in the things that are in leaders control, some people make very high quality plans and other people do not. And so a quality plan looks to make changes that will affect the people at the end of the equation, right? To say, Our plan is to make the take-home income of Americans go up by 16%. Right? That's a very clear goal. And you can measure how effective that plan is against that goal. But what you notice with a lot of political plans, they're not like business plans. They're not so specific. not talking doubling the income of the average Iraqi after the US takeover. the way, in the first three years, the per capita income in Iraq went up by three X three times. ⁓ But that was nobody's goal, right? they don't tend to attach numbers to goals and they don't attach timelines to goals. By date X, we will be at place Y. They love goals, which they can then later debate whether they hit those goals or not. Secondly, they have a lot of goals that are process oriented, right? We're gonna work with this department and it's gonna interface with this other agency. Amir Golshani: Right. Richard Miniter: And together we're going to do, what does all that mean? Right? If you're not talking about the people at the end of the, of the complex equation, then you're really talking about process, which doesn't benefit. doesn't have a measurable benefit or cost for the people at the end. And so we see a lot of business plans, but especially a lot of political plans, which simply lack a focus on numbers and time as it affects. ordinary people. Amir Golshani: Yeah, from what you've observed, how often do intelligence failures come from lack of information and how often from leaders ignoring the information they already have? from what you've observed, how often do intelligence failures come from lack of information and how often from leaders ignoring the information they already have? Richard Miniter: ⁓ that's a big question. All right, before we talk about intelligence failures, because if you just talk about intelligence failures, ⁓ ignoring a lot of important things. So there's intelligence failures, there's analysis failures, and then there's a topic we never talk about, media failures. ⁓ if you just talk about intelligence failures, ⁓ you're ignoring a lot of important things. So there's intelligence failures, there's analysis failures, then there's a topic we never talk about, media failures. And so usually what we're calling an intelligence failure is some combination of these three things. An intelligence failure I would define very narrowly as the failure to collect relevant information would have changed the outcome of a decision. We have decided to do X instead of Y if we had known fact Q. And these kind of intelligence failures, the failure to collect a meaningful fact is very low. I mean, in the single digit percentage points. Modern ⁓ North American, European, Russian, Chinese intelligence services tend to do a fairly good job of collecting the facts, the relevant facts. Now we move to the next type of failure, analysis failure. What do the facts mean? Right? This is how do we, these are a bunch of dots on like a scatter point chart. What's the line through them? What's the connecting, right? And where are the dots gonna appear next? Those are both analytical questions. where we see the failures most often. And then on top of that, we have media failures, where the media either fails to report things or underweights overweights a variable, right? So making something seem more important than it is or diminishing something that's truly. ⁓ So I'll give you an example of a media failure on the coverage of Iran today, right? If you read the New York Times, the LA Times, the Washington Post, even the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, even the business oriented, numbers oriented papers, all this discussion of the war in Iran never mentions the inflation rate, which is north of 30%. Inflation, as we know from history, from the French Revolution onward, high inflation rates are often followed by civil rebellions, revolutions, coups, right? Because what money does is anchor people in time. Inflation diminishes savings and therefore makes people think they have less time. The amount of money in their bank account will no longer support them for a year. It can only support them for... Amir Golshani: Right. Richard Miniter: three months, two months. As you shorten that time, right, you're increasing the fear. And at some point, there's at least two lines cross and the fear of the average Iranian or the average person in any country becomes so large that it becomes explosive. And that's how get, how to have inflation's cause revolution. And there's a lot of other connections to inflation, right? We know, for example, that the divorce rate is driven. in modern industrial economies anyway, the inflation rate, right? A higher inflation leads to more divorce. It leads to more layoffs. And there are a lot of negative effects from high inflation. About the only people that benefit are people who owe money and people who are elected to office. Those are the two beneficiaries of inflation. But everyone else is a net loser from inflation. So this is a media failure. The failure to connect the dots for Amir Golshani: Right. Richard Miniter: how the average Iranian is feeling when the price of bread, the price of water, the price of rice, the price of soybeans, the price of gasoline, all these things is climbing very rapidly month over month, while the pay packet, the value of it has been declining, right? That ⁓ it for a very combustible situation. And yet in all our coverage of, this is a media failure, Trump's bombing, ⁓ Israeli bombing, the ⁓ bombing of Iran is nothing the inflation rate or the domestic economic situation. And of course, the bombing accelerates both the fear and the food and water shortages ⁓ of people on the ground. So they're making a combustible situation even more explosive. Right. So this is left out of the analysis. This is a media failure. Right. ⁓ Now media failures feed back into analytical failures because members of Congress or members of parliament and other countries are reading the popular press and then saying to the intelligence agencies, what about this? What about that? So you have a media failure. It feeds back into the loop of intelligence collection and intelligence analysis because lawmakers, academics, others ask questions based on the media coverage. So these three things are tied together. This is why so-called intelligence failures. Amir Golshani: Great, so a couple of points here, so that was great. Intelligence is gathered in relevant and ⁓ relatively accurate facts. So aren't the analysis or analysis supposed to act independent or analyze those facts independent of media? And where do you put the role of? Intelligence is gathered in relevant and ⁓ relatively accurate facts. So aren't the analysis or analysis supposed to act independent or analyze those facts independent of media? Richard Miniter: You actually think so? No, of course not. Amir Golshani: And where do you put the role of, you know, so those biased media, so because there is an intention behind media, we do not have any unbiased media, so they're following their own objective. That's why they're covering or not covering part of the reality. we do not have any unbiased media, so they're following their own objective. That's why they're covering or not covering part of the reality. Richard Miniter: Correct. So yes, all media created by humans or AI designed by humans is going to be biased, because it's going to select some things and not others. It's going to emphasize some things and not others. That is the nature of turning messy reality over here into finished product over here, right? That translation between the two states, complex moving around reality and the need for a short compact report. In that translation layer, you're always going to have what you could call biases or emphases, right? They'll emphasize some things and deemphasize others. That's the niche. It's an unavoidable problem, right? Logically. but the intelligence analysts get, you know, get the Washington Post dropped on their driveway in, the CIA, for example. and many federal agencies actually get the Washington Post, the New York Times delivered to their desks. They pay. hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in newspaper subscriptions and get physical newspapers. And they have TV screens showing the big three networks and CNN showing them what the others are reporting. obviously this colors their thinking. So if you have a biased media, it's going to influence the intelligence analysis. That's point one. Point two, even if there were no biased media, do you know what public choice theory is? Yeah. So there is. Amir Golshani: Yes. For the audience, you briefly mentioned that. Richard Miniter: So public choice theory is a theory, is a school of economics. And it basically says that nonprofit or governmental people have a bias just like for profit people. Right. And in this case, the bias is for the importance of their organization, their status inside that organization, the status of the organization overall, the size of the budget overall, and so on. Right. So they have their own biases. So if you have, intelligence analysts, they don't want to say they don't know, even if that's the real answer, because it makes their agency seem unimportant or it makes them seem unimportant inside the agency, you know, ⁓ Jones, don't, you don't know the answer. Well, we're going to give it to someone. We're qualified. It's going to give us an answer, whether he has to make it up or not. Right. This is just a function of human nature. So you always have biases in analysis. The question is, ⁓ Can we capture enough of the meaningful complexity? And can we have the size of those misbalanced emphasis, these biases? Can we reduce the size to a reasonable number, right? You're never gonna get to zero, but can you get it to approach zero, right? And astonished at how... difficult this is. But when policymakers ask intelligence agencies, OK, this is your consensus view. What's the opposing view? And the bureaucrats have fought that for 20 years. The Bush people, George W. Bush, famously asked at the Pentagon, and this was a, and I've talked to Paul Wolf, what's about this at length when he was deputy secretary of defense. What You know, what's the team B response? What's the alternative analysis? And they didn't want to put it together. They wanted to have their summary, analysis, in order to what the policymakers would do. Right? So you can steer the policymaker by saying, well, ⁓ You only have two options. You can do what we say. You can do nothing and all these bad things will happen. Now there's never two options. There's always more than two, right? Now maybe all the other options are worse, but put them out there, right? Maybe there's some combination of the other alternatives that is actually superior, right? Because options don't have to be standalone. You could take part of option three and part of option seven and a large chunk of option 13 and a tiny bit of option 20 and put them together and have a new option, right? I mean, But the bureaucracy in large corporations, inside government agencies, and definitely a nonprofit world and universities doesn't want to do that. They want to try to control the people above them who are responsible to make the decision. they don't want to present opposing points of view. But when you do force them to do this, as Wolfowitz briefly did, as Doug Fythe, when he was Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy, he asked them repeatedly for alternative interpretations. And that the pushback on that was intense. Oh, we should be independent. You shouldn't be telling us what to look at. No, they're not. It's not about their independence. Those are the words they're using. It's about their ability to control the people above them. And the people above them have a duty to make the best possible decision, which means they should see all of the interpretation. So that's another problem. That's a public choice problem. Well, generally speaking, whenever anyone, media or otherwise, is talking about threats to their independence, they're lying. What they're really talking about is threats to their ability to control other people through turning down the spigot of information. They don't want to provide more information because they're afraid how people will act. Amir Golshani: Do you? Is it fair to say that the same reason that you just explained is behind many analysts' view that makes this war of choice? Richard Miniter: What does war of choice mean? Amir Golshani: It means that it wasn't kind of inevitable. It could be prevented. But US and Israel decided that they want to do this and make it happen right now at this moment. ⁓ Richard Miniter: I think The Iranian regime has been at war with Israel and the West for 47 years. Right. They came to power saying this. So they declared the war in 1979 and they've acted on it. Right. They Hezbollah has killed more Americans than any other terrorist group except for Al Qaeda. Amir Golshani: Right. Richard Miniter: And it's close, by the way. Iran not only funds Hezbollah, but created it. Their intelligence officers were in the room at the formation of Hezbollah in Lebanon. And Hamas, which, by the way, has also killed great numbers of Americans. And the Houthis, who killed some Americans, right? These were all Iranian-backed groups that have been attacking US warships, attacking ⁓ US Civilians taking u.s. Civilians hostage so they've been at war for a while So if all war choice means we can decide when to respond We could have responded 10 years ago. We could respond today. We could respond 10 years from now. If that's all you mean by war of choice Then what that really means is We can pick the best moment to respond right and so but if what you're trying to get at with war of choice is Well, we don't need to do this. We could just ignore this, kick the can down the road. Everything will be fine. Right? Well, once you know one simple fact, which maybe you haven't seen, you'll understand why this has to happen now. Before the bombing began, were negotiations between Iran and the Trump envoy, Steve Witkoff. According to Steve Witkoff, and he said this on these are public remarks. They said, we have the ability to make 11 bombs today. The Iranians thought they could stoke fear and get a deal to go their way by saying we have enough to make 11 bombs today. Amir Golshani: Right. Richard Miniter: They said, we have the ability to make 11 bombs today. The Iranians thought they could stoke fear and get a deal to their way by saying we have enough to make 11 bombs today. and they could do it in a matter of weeks. Well, now it's no longer a war of choice. If they could make a bomb at any time, a couple of weeks, if you're ever going to stop them from having a bomb, this is the last minute. We're at the last minute. So it's not a war of choice. It's a war of absolute necessity. If you give them atomic weapons, you'll be in a situation like what you're dealing with in North Korea or China or Russia, an implacable enemy that can't be removed because it's protected by atomic weapons. Amir Golshani: ⁓ This is the best time. Richard Miniter: This war of choice is happening at the last possible moment. They have 11 bombs they could make. What 11 cities do you want to lose in the Middle East or in the United States? You know, what 11 cities do you want to lose? Amir Golshani: By, exactly. So by bringing up this concept of of choice, which is commonly used, I really wanted to have these kinds of clarification that it was out of necessity, not choice. And you just nailed it. I really wanted to have these kinds of clarification it was out of necessity, not choice. And you just nailed it. Let's focus on what's going on there. So dominating headline, everything is about Iran. And you've spent years studying terrorism networks and Middle East power structure. How do you interpret the current confrontation between Iran, Israel and the United States? Kind of there is heading to, we know we talked about, you know, how we started and why, and how do you... how do you interpret, know, so the situation right now. We are on the day 16th or 17th, I suppose. Richard Miniter: I think, yeah, and look, work can change suddenly. So I'm saying this on this day. It could be different tomorrow. It could be different in five minutes. Okay. Yes. Right. Thanks for that. here's, here's how likely it ends in one of three ways, One, the Iranians decide they want to make a deal and the Trump people have been very clear what they want the deal to be. Amir Golshani: Yes, it's Monday, March 16th that we are recording. Richard Miniter: here's how likely it ends in one of three ways, ⁓ One, Iranians decide they want to make a deal You stop funding terrorist groups. You give up your atomic weapons program and your limit, your rocket program to putting satellites in orbit, you know, a civilian space program, but you're not building long range rockets to strike Europe or the United States. Right. If you can do that, basically, if you can leave your neighbors alone, you can continue to run your noxious, theologically based dictatorship at home. ⁓ Amir Golshani: which is worst case scenario for Iranian people. Richard Miniter: Absolutely, but i'm saying that's the deal if you do those three things will let you keep your Your horrible dictatorship and you stay alive and you stay in power If you can't do those three things because you believe your 47 years of rhetoric Or because you think at the end of the world will bring back the missing imam and you have a religious obligation in your understanding Because there are different understandings of 12 or islam shia islam ⁓ and but in in what appears to be the the dominant understanding among the small group of people who run iran they want the end of the world because that means the missing imam returns and Allah descends to earth and all these wonderful things happen so these by the way would be the absolute worst people to have atomic weapons you don't you want people who have atomic weapons to be afraid of the end of the world not longing for it right The French have atomic weapons, no one worries about it because the average Frenchman, he longs for many things involving wine, women and song, but he doesn't long for the end of the world, The French have atomic weapons, no one worries about it because the average Frenchman, he longs for many things involving wine, women and song, but he doesn't long for the end of the world, right? The North Koreans, they don't long for the end of the world, but the current leadership of Iran does. That's a problem, especially if they have the ability to blow up the world with atomic weapons. So that's option one, they make a deal. That's unlikely because these people just don't believe that they to make a deal. And so they will die at their desks or in their mosques or ⁓ wherever they're to die. They do die, right? It's kind of like, you remember the novel appointment in Samara? And so there's Option two is a coalition transition government involving the son of the Shah ⁓ the Congress of minorities. Option two is a coalition transition government involving the son of the Shah ⁓ the Congress of minorities. The Congress of minorities is a group. So ⁓ 93 million people live in Iran. Roughly 45, 46 million of them belong to some ethnic minority. Azeris, Arabs living in Awaz, Western Eastern Kurds, Baluch. ⁓ the Ziri, Baha'i, and so on. And these people have been meeting together for, I think, 15 years. And they've developed a lot of plans. And if they can perhaps the MEK in that coalition, and they have some forces on the ground, and they impose their authority on the ground ⁓ with the of Israeli and US air power, then there could well be a a transitional government that's brought into place with elections a year or two out. Transitional government stabilizes the nation, gets the sanctions lifted, brings in foreign direct investment. There's been no serious investment in Iran since 1979, not even in the oil and gas fields. So the technology is very old. Virtually no oil wells. capture natural gas. burn it off. You see those like torch like things at the top of their derricks. That's just burning natural gas, right? The world is starved of natural gas. Any modern field has tools collect that natural gas, send it to a storage facility, use temperature shrink it down into liquefied natural gas and sell that to the world. They just haven't made any of these investments in 40 plus years. 70 % of Iran is suffering from water shortages because dams and spillways and water transmission facilities have not been upgraded or maintained. So there's huge investment opportunities in Iran. And once you had a stable government with a decent set of laws, you would see dozens of billions, maybe hundreds of billions of dollars flow into Iran to rebuild, right? And, you know, President Trump's team thinks that the US will benefit from that, and it certainly will, right? If Iran was focused on rebuilding itself, making prosperity for its people instead of making misery for foreign peoples, the world would be objectively better off, and the price of oil would drop between $5 and $9 a barrel. Amir Golshani: Absolutely, 100 percent. Richard Miniter: because the risk premium, which is imposed by the Iranians and their unpredictableness, goes away. So the world will see a lower price of energy, which means that the world economies recover much more quickly. And the world economy as a whole probably grows by half a percent, which doesn't sound like much to non-economists, but is a huge amount of growth. And what that also means is fertilizer becomes cheaper, which means food becomes cheaper because you need gas or oil to bring the food to market. But you also need natural gas to make fertilizer. That's why the Russian bombing of the fertilizer plants in Ukraine is a major problem. Are you raising the global price of fertilizer, which means that without fertilizer, the amount of food produced per hectare is dramatically reduced. So this cycle, which has been spinning in a bad direction since 1979, suddenly reverses and starts spinning in a positive direction. So food production becomes cheaper, transportation of food to consumers becomes cheaper, jobs grow because electricity prices fall. A lot of positive effects fall. Now getting from where we are today to a transitional Iranian government that reassures outside investors and is... heading toward economic growth, that's a long and rocky process and it could easily fail. And then option three, which is the worst of the options of ways it ends is a protracted civil war that makes Northern Ireland or Yugoslavia look tame. There are so many factions. One of the ways in which the Iranians are like the Jewish people is that it is a culture that is very smart. and very good at arguing and therefore divides into factions and sub factions completely naturally. And, ⁓ you know, I have Iranian friends who say, well, I have three opinions on this matter, right? Three opinions, one person, right? It's just the, it's the nature of these people. If you, you read ancient sources on Iran, the Iranian people that are scribing in those sources are the same people we know today. Right? So fond of argument and disputation. ⁓ wanting to have their own ideas, their own independence, right? Which is by the way, why an Islamic theocracy has never been suited to the Iranian character ever. That's never who these people ever were in throughout their yeah. Right. ⁓ but in a modern economy, a people that argues with itself is a great source of innovation, economic growth, having lots of debated ideas. Amir Golshani: I can confirm that 100%. Richard Miniter: And why not this? Why not that? Let's try this. That spawns incredible. mean, Silicon Valley is very good at that, arguing with itself. Iran is a country that does this. I mean, if it got its governance act together, Iran could be one of the richest countries in the world in 25 years. Think about that. I mean, the last time we saw that was 1960. Ghana and South Korea were at the same economic level. Ghana was about $500 per capita income ahead of South Korea. Today, South Korea is one of the richest countries in the world and Ghana hasn't moved. What if Iran had a growth rate from 2026 to 2056 similar to South Korea 1960 to 1980? What would the world look like? What would Iran look like? Right. Amir Golshani: Something that I can confirm for sure, know, this current system with this ideology is not sustainable to rule in Iran anymore. So there has to be a kind of fundamental change because even if there is an agreement on scenario one that you mentioned, people cannot tolerate it anymore. So. this current with this ideology is not sustainable to rule in Iran anymore. The root cause of these problems came from, as you mentioned, so from inflation, economy, of many, many things that are essential for basic normal life. And then it cannot be sustained like this. It has to change. ⁓ at this point, don't think people, Iranian people, majority of them at least, would be happy about just a moderate kind of change. They want fundamental changes to happen in Iran. Richard Miniter: Yes. Amir Golshani: at this point, don't think people, people, majority of them at least, would be about a moderate kind of change. They want fundamental changes to happen in Iran. And in your opinion, which scenario is more probable? many things are unfolding, you know, as we are speaking. ⁓ What do you think? Richard Miniter: Well, first, let me tell you about a conversation I had with an Iranian cleric a few years ago. He said to me that the biggest threat to Islam, to people believing in the Muslim faith in Iran is the Iranian government. That it is so tyrannical that it makes people leave Islam. And we have seen over last 15 years, 20 years, a great movement of people into Zoroastrianism, some into Christianity, into the Baha'i faith, right? Who were Muslims before? And so I asked him, I said, are you saying that in order to save Iran as a Muslim country, it needs to get rid of this Islamic dictatorship? And he said, yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. If that message could get out more broadly, deliver delivered not by Americans, but by credible people in the Gulf, perhaps by the Shia clerics in Karbala and other places in Iraq, that message might resonate. But if option one and the mullahs stay in charge, the decline in belief in Islam will continue in Iran. If option two happens and you have a transitional government, the road to that Transitional government is messy It will be violent The use of his us and Israeli air power to take out ground positions to ground forces to advance could take months Now interesting thing about Wars of this type is they have what are called threshold effects? so You could be drinking something ⁓ that no effect on you, right? And then as soon as you get over a certain concentration, parts per million, it's poisonous and you die. Right? That's a threshold effect. Revolutions work like that too. at some point, and we may be close to that point now, ⁓ we may not, I don't know, but probably are the, the rulers are deciding the army and the police, the Bashege, all those people are asking themselves who's going to win this. And if they think that the rulers are going to lose, they will abandon them, causing the loss. But at some point, revolutions, if they succeed, succeed because those who are defending the rulers decide the case is hopeless. But that could be many messy, deadly, bloody months from now. And that would be a tragedy for the Iranian people. ⁓ So option three, a prolonged civil war, I see as the least likely option. Amir Golshani: Hope that's not the case, yeah. Richard Miniter: And I see option one, which is the whatever Mola is ultimately in charge makes a deal. I think that is diminishing with every day. It would have been, unfortunately, the CIA gave a no kill list to Israel saying don't kill these particular five or 10 people. We don't know who's on it or how long the list is. And we have no public confirmation of a no kill list. It's just talked about, right? Amir Golshani: Why do you think that reason for that? Richard Miniter: because a no kill list is not effective, right? If everybody in the world knows who's on the no kill list, then anybody on that list can take over the country because they know they'll be safe. If there's ambiguity about who's on the list, then there's more pressure for them to make a deal. That's why it's not. Some things benefit greatly from being made public and for unscrupulous reasons are not made public, but other things are made much harder by being made public. Now, maybe what Mossad does is selectively leak one or two people on the no kill list and make it appear as if that Iranian leader has made a deal already with the Iranians, or with the Israelis, therefore get his Confederates to kill him, right? Because in ⁓ ruling class in Iran, it's not just fear of death or fear of loss of power. It's paranoia about everyone else in the room. Amir Golshani: Right. Richard Miniter: And so the Israelis are quite clever, maybe as clever as the Iranians, and they will use that as a weapon when they can. So there's lots of reasons why the coal list is not public. ⁓ Amir Golshani: Right. So I make a guess some of those people and there is. Richard Miniter: I mean, I would guess Laura Gianni's on the list. Amir Golshani: ⁓ is there no information about whereabouts of former Iran president Ahmadinejad, who was reported to be killed at first and then, you know, so there are some rumors that he's been taken somewhere and many ⁓ we can a but you're right. That's the strategy. So considering the current situation of Iran launching missiles and we have seen in the is information about of former Iran president Ahmadinejad, who was reported to be killed at first and then, you know, so there are some rumors that he's been taken somewhere Richard Miniter: Well, I'm gonna just talk about a minute job for a second, right? Is there any reason to think that a minute job has a critical relationship with someone at the State Department or at the CIA or in the US government galaxy of offices, right? If he doesn't have that relationship, there's no reason to keep him alive because you can't make a deal with him. She can't get ahold of Right? If he does have that relationship, it's possible his life was spared so that he could make a deal in the future. So does he have an existing relationship? That's one question. Two, does he have sufficient power to make a deal and compel obedience to the deal? If both of those questions are yes, then he might be on the list of no kill. If only one of them is yes, he's probably targeted for death by the Israelis. Amir Golshani: I definitely have no answer for those two questions. Richard Miniter: But that's the way to think about the problem, isn't it? Amir Golshani: Right, absolutely. Yes, but considering the fact that when he was president and all these UN sanctions, an atomic program, you know, so the main focus came toward Iran at his time. So they can think that he could have a great influence of getting the international attention toward atomic, you know, program in Iran. And then There are lots of things to think about, you know, so, but I don't want to go to that route of conspiracy theories, but definitely, yes, the way that you mentioned is the way to think about it in order to understand if he's on that list or not. Richard Miniter: And then also there are people who get killed by accident, right? The targetters don't know that he's in the room. They're going after another high value target who they do know is in the room. They blow up the room. And then two days later, one of their people on the ground gets in there with a camera and says, ⁓ my gosh, you also killed Rosh and Johnny or a minajad or whomever, right? they're like, ⁓ yeah, that's too bad. ⁓ Amir Golshani: As President Trump mentioned himself, you know, so those people we were thinking of, you know, replacing a supreme leader, you know, were killed as well. Yeah, Iran's missile launches appear to have declined in the recent days, yet people believe that regime still holds significant asymmetric power through militias and proxies. How do we understand that Iran's real military ⁓ right now? Richard Miniter: Yeah, yeah. Okay, well, let's clarify this a little bit, right? So you hear people online or on TV with perfect confidence. Israel started, started the war with 2,500 missiles and they've used X number and therefore they have Y number left. That's all BS. All right. Maybe an office in Tehran that knows the answer. Maybe, right? what do we know about this. Well, we know the UN numbers have always been wrong. We know that the Iranians exaggerate the number of things they have. They've exaggerated the number of centrifuges. They've exaggerated the number of liquid-fueled rockets. They've definitely exaggerated the number of solid-fuel rockets. They have problems manufacturing those, right? They've how quickly they could take a space-based rocket, know, something designed to put up a satellite and turn that into a weapon. Right. So the whatever's out there publicly, we should from the Iranians or their proxies, we should assume that's disinformation. And let's just be a lot more realistic, right? We're not going to have a count because nobody knows. Right. Or the people who know are in the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy, who spend their days looking at screens, counting launch facilities identified by satellite image. Right. And they'll have the best guess. those numbers are obviously not public. the US and the Israelis and other allies are looking every day for rocket launch facilities, drone launch facilities, ⁓ facilities, electrical facilities that provide the power for the targeting computers, et cetera, et cetera. So you don't just hit the rocket launch or the drone launch site. You hit the support sites that provide something of value, right? So widen out, right? And things are being actively destroyed. So the count doesn't matter because they're all scheduled to be destroyed. And as new ones emerge, literally pop out of caves. In some cases, they have these cave launched or these bunker launched weapons. The minute they launch one set of there, that's identified and targeted, right? Now maybe some of the... The hits are not as successful and you have to hit them a second time, whatever third time does happen. but Iran has the incentive to use as many of its rockets and missiles and drones this very minute, because it's a use it or lose it situation. If they don't use it this hour, they could lose it in the next hour. And we're talking about a continuous 24 seven bombing campaign. Right? even, you know, the places that makes key spare parts for fixing rockets, those places are being blown up. Vehicles for moving rockets from one place to another, those are being blown up. The places where the trucks that move the rockets from place to place, that where those places, those trucks are repaired, those are being blown up. I mean, Amir Golshani: even construction machinery, you so that they have dual use in order to take the rubble, you know, of those, you know, heat kind of places to move the rockets. They are being hit as well. another very, very key issue is this rate of hormones right now. If this rate were closed or disrupted for an extended period, how serious would the global economic shock be? Richard Miniter: Well, it's clearly proving to be an enormous shock right now. That's why we're seeing oil prices spike. The U.S. is the world's largest producer of oil and gas and has the ability to turn the dial up. More and more Venezuelan oil is coming on. In Alaska, we're in the midst of completing a pipeline from just south of the Arctic Circle down to the southern coast of Alaska. ⁓ a liquefied natural gas can be put on ships and sent to Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and other Asian allies, which would cut their reliance of that has to flow through the Straits of Hormuz down dramatically, right? Amir Golshani: or at least mitigate the impact, yes. Richard Miniter: Yes, yes. How much longer it takes to complete those. And there may be some national security powers that Trump has in order to put aside court cases that will slow down those pipelines. If it looks like the Strait is going to be closed for a longer period of time, I would expect the Saudis to start building pipelines, both of oil and gas and of water to come from its red to. to water to come from its desalinization plants on the Red Sea coast inland and the oil and gas that would normally go out through the Gulf to go across and go out through the Red Sea. So before people make billions of dollars in investment of that type, you have to see whether that infrastructure will be needed. But if we start to see the Saudis building these pipelines, that would mean the Saudis think that the Straits will be closed for a long time. I actually don't think The straits will be closed for a long time. I think the US Navy's demining efforts have proven pretty effective. They brought to bear some new technology, which the world was not aware of. They have destroyed all of the Iranian vessels that were putting in sea mines into the straits. So ⁓ mines will be cleared out. Either they're cleared out now or they're on their way to being cleared out. Rocket and artillery attacks from the Iranian shore. Amir Golshani: It's not a matter of mine. Richard Miniter: are a problem and there have been tankers and other cargo ships hit by Iranian fire. But the US has enormous counter battery and so every time one of those things opens up they immediately become targeted and hit. Amir Golshani: Is that fair to say, you know, it's more of a fear of the risk that those vessels or tankers are going to take, you know, crossing the strait, then Iran's capability of mining or hitting those vessels right now, insurance companies, so that they're not willing to insure those vessels and tankers. And then the risk is high. You know, that's why they're avoiding that rather than, you know, so being afraid of mines or being directly heat as a result of Iran's capability. Richard Miniter: Right, so what's really closing the Straits of Hormuz not Iranian rockets, artillery, and drones. It's the insurance underwriters within a mile of the River Thames in London. Right, almost all marine insurance is done by Lloyds or its direct competitors who are all within within a mile of each other. along in the Thames Estuary. So what Trump is doing by saying we will insure, US government will put up the money to insure, is acting as a counterweight. But the insurance companies, they don't like risk at all. So they demand big premiums in case they have to pay out. They like you to pay your bill, but they don't want to pay claims if they don't have to. That's just the nature of insurance companies since the dawn of time. Amir Golshani: Right. Monopoly. Richard Miniter: So are they valuing the risk correctly? And if they do, ⁓ should fall. And so it's about what information can be provided to the underwriters and the risk management officers in London to get them to lower the price. And the alternative is to take their market from them and up a facility in the United States that becomes the largest insurer of marine assets in the world. And London is fooling itself if it thinks that Trump is not already thinking about how to steal the global ship insurance market. Amir Golshani: That's a great point. So let's talk about Israel's strategic goals. Do Israel and the United States actually want the same outcome in Iran or their objectives are different? If yes, what are the differences? Richard Miniter: Right. Amir Golshani: Do Israel and the United States actually want the same outcome in Iran Richard Miniter: No, of course not. ⁓ As of today, the goals are aligned. But the goals will diverge. The Americans want a quick war that ends with a final, unchangeable outcome that they can go into the midterm elections this November and say, hey, Iran was a big problem. It's not a problem anymore. can, you know, so you can say thank you by voting for the Republican party. That's what the Americans want to The Israelis are like, well, hold on. ⁓ live in a dangerous neighborhood. We want the problem of Iran to go away. The Israelis are like, well, hold on. ⁓ We live in a dangerous neighborhood. We want the problem of Iran to go away. forever. In fact, we dream of returning to the pre-1979 world forever. In fact, we dream of returning to the pre-1979 world where Israelis went to Iran on holiday. I mean, you can go back and look. are pictures of paying top dollar to stay at expensive hotels with swimming pools, going skiing in Iran, going mountain climbing in Iran, visiting historic sites across Iran. including historic Jewish sites in that country. So, I mean, in the Israeli dream, a new transitional government comes in, Iran signs the Abraham Accords, Israeli investment flows in Iran and rebuilds the country and makes money for putting its capital at risk. And the threat of Iran and all its proxy armies go away and Iran becomes a major trading partner. Right? Not just a source of capital investment, but buys services, software services, accounting services, other services from Israel and buy some of its consumer goods as well. And in exchange, ⁓ buys a of the food that Iran exports. And so that the world that the Israelis see. so these are different visions, right? Look, if the Israeli vision happened, Trump would be perfectly happy. But he's not going to put his presidency and his Republican control of Congress at risk to get to this wonderful dream. So these are urgent paths. Amir Golshani: Right.