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EP769: TL Nuggets #231 – The Alex Marlow Show Presents: Nicky Billou! · The Thought Leader Revolution Podcast

0:03
Nicky Billou: When I was 11 years old, the Islamic Revolution took place.
0:06
Nicky Billou: There were literally gun battles going on in the streets near my home.
0:09
Nicky Billou: They got us out of Tehran to Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where I live now.
0:13
Nicky Billou: They left behind everything and everyone they knew and loved for a chance at a better life for me and my two younger brothers.
0:20
Nicky Billou: They took us from a legacy of tyranny to a legacy of freedom.
0:24
Nicky Billou: And I believe, Alex, inside every human breast beats the living heart of freedom.
0:36
Alex Marlow: All right, new guest of the show today, Nicky Billou is here.
0:39
Alex Marlow: He was born in Iran, then moved to the West.
0:42
Alex Marlow: He's a podcaster.
0:44
Alex Marlow: He is a thought leader in his own right.
0:46
Alex Marlow: And I think he's very knowledgeable on a lot of subjects.
0:49
Alex Marlow: Jermaine, to the news cycle today, and best-selling author as well.
0:53
Alex Marlow: Nikki, I want to talk to you about your arc before we get into what's going on today in
0:58
Alex Marlow: Iran, but your family fled Iran when you were a teenager.
1:03
Alex Marlow: When was this?
1:04
Alex Marlow: What was life like then?
1:05
Alex Marlow: And then you moved to Canada, and just maybe compare and contrast that a little bit.
1:09
Nicky Billou: You got it.
1:11
Nicky Billou: So when I was 11 years old, the Islamic revolution took place.
1:14
Nicky Billou: I was born in 1967, and 1978 is when the first rumbling started to happen.
1:19
Nicky Billou: There were literally, Alex, gun battles going on in the streets near my home.
1:23
Nicky Billou: One day, though, the freak-out factor for my parents went up a thousand-fold when there
1:28
Nicky Billou: It crashed through our living room window.
1:30
Nicky Billou: Glass shards flew everywhere.
1:32
Nicky Billou: And this object landed near my feet.
1:35
Nicky Billou: Now I'm 11.
1:35
Nicky Billou: I don't know what the heck it is,
1:36
Nicky Billou: but it was a bottle full of liquid
1:39
Nicky Billou: with a burning cloth wick, a Molotov cocktail.
1:41
Nicky Billou: So my dad grabbed it.
1:43
Nicky Billou: He pulled out that burning wick,
1:44
Nicky Billou: which is the only reason I'm around to talk to you today.
1:47
Nicky Billou: Wow.
1:48
Nicky Billou: And yeah, it's crazy.
1:49
Nicky Billou: And that's when they said, that's it.
1:51
Nicky Billou: We're out of here.
1:51
Nicky Billou: And they made a plan and they got us out of Tehran.
1:54
Nicky Billou: We moved from Tehran first to Athens, Greece,
1:57
Nicky Billou: and we were waylaid there for two years.
1:59
Nicky Billou: And then finally, we got from Greece to Toronto, Ontario, Canada, where I live now.
2:04
Nicky Billou: Now, when I first got to Canada, I mean, I was a kid.
2:07
Nicky Billou: I'm sure you can relate.
2:08
Nicky Billou: You were a kid yourself once.
2:09
Nicky Billou: I didn't want to leave my home or my friends.
2:10
Nicky Billou: And I'm going, why the hell are we here?
2:12
Nicky Billou: But as time goes on, I started to realize the nobility of my mom and dad's sacrifice.
2:17
Nicky Billou: Because think about this.
2:18
Nicky Billou: They're in their 30s, and they left behind everything and everyone they knew and loved
2:23
Nicky Billou: for a chance at a better life for me and my two younger brothers. And I started to realize, man,
2:29
Nicky Billou: what a beautiful legacy they left for us. They took us from a legacy of tyranny to a legacy of
2:34
Nicky Billou: freedom. And I believe, Alex, inside every human breast beats the living heart of freedom. We all
2:40
Nicky Billou: yearn to breathe free, to march to the tune of our own drummer, to chart our own course. And honestly,
2:47
Nicky Billou: that's why I've become a conservative, because I believe that conservatives in the West are the
2:51
Nicky Billou: people who see this with a clear eye and take a bold stand for the rest of us to remain free,
2:57
Nicky Billou: while the liberals appear to have all lost their minds. And they think these crazy modern Nazis
3:01
Nicky Billou: are people they can cozy up to, which is absolutely insane.
3:05
Alex Marlow: So this is one thing that is, we can just start here in terms of what's going on now. It does feel
3:10
Alex Marlow: like there's a lot of people in the West who are fighting themselves, defending the Iranian regime.
3:18
Alex Marlow: And I know they don't want American ground troops in regime change war.
3:21
Alex Marlow: I understand that position.
3:23
Alex Marlow: I basically am with that position.
3:25
Alex Marlow: But they're acting as though now they have to stoop to the level of where they're defending the Ayatollah, essentially.
3:33
Nicky Billou: That's true.
3:34
Nicky Billou: I call it Trump derangement syndrome.
3:37
Nicky Billou: And I know that you've used that phrase yourself.
3:39
Nicky Billou: If Donald Trump cured cancer, these people would go online and they'd say good things about cancer for crying out loud.
3:46
Nicky Billou: That's how crazy they are.
3:48
Nicky Billou: They can't seem to accept that Donald Trump can make a single good decision or do anything good for humanity.
3:54
Nicky Billou: And here's the truth.
3:55
Nicky Billou: The Islamic regime in Iran is the modern day Nazis.
4:00
Nicky Billou: Alex, they declared war on the West and the United States when they came into power.
4:04
Nicky Billou: The only thing is every single Western leader stuck their head in the sand and pretended it wasn't happening.
4:10
Nicky Billou: But look at what these folks have done.
4:11
Nicky Billou: 1983, Beirut bombing of the U.S. barracks in Beirut, right?
4:16
Nicky Billou: Bill Buckley, the CIA station chief in Beirut, was kidnapped, tortured, murdered.
4:23
Nicky Billou: Colonel Higgins of the United States Marines killed by Hezbollah.
4:27
Nicky Billou: Who's Hezbollah?
4:28
Nicky Billou: Hezbollah is a group that believes in what the mullahs in Iran believe,
4:32
Nicky Billou: and they're entirely funded and ideologically driven by the mullahs.
4:36
Nicky Billou: These are bad people.
4:38
Nicky Billou: They mean the West ill.
4:40
Nicky Billou: They mean America ill.
4:41
Nicky Billou: If they had a chance to get their hands on nuclear material that they could use,
4:45
Nicky Billou: They would absolutely use it.
4:47
Nicky Billou: They'd use it in Israel first.
4:48
Nicky Billou: They'd use it in Europe next.
4:50
Nicky Billou: And finally, they'd use it in the United States.
4:52
Nicky Billou: They would attempt to kill millions of people
4:54
Nicky Billou: because they've got an ideological view
4:56
Nicky Billou: that the world needs to be a one-world Islamic caliphate,
5:00
Nicky Billou: which means caliphate in English.
5:02
Nicky Billou: And that's what they're all about.
5:03
Nicky Billou: That's what they want to do.
5:05
Nicky Billou: Donald Trump is the first president
5:06
Nicky Billou: to see the threat with a clear eye.
5:08
Nicky Billou: He said, okay, you declared war on us.
5:10
Nicky Billou: I'm going to accept your declaration of war
5:12
Nicky Billou: and I'm going to finish this war.
5:14
Nicky Billou: He's doing the right thing.
5:15
Nicky Billou: That's why when I go to rallies in Toronto, people that are Iranian in these rallies,
5:21
Nicky Billou: they stand up and they say, thank you, Ted Amp.
5:24
Nicky Billou: That's Persian way of saying Trump.
5:26
Nicky Billou: Thank you, Bibi.
5:27
Nicky Billou: They thank the United States and Israel for what they're doing.
5:30
Nicky Billou: There's videos of people in Iran, Alex, that are cheering the Israeli aircraft that are
5:37
Nicky Billou: bombing them.
5:38
Nicky Billou: Imagine how desperate you have to be that you'd rather be bombed than live under the
5:43
Nicky Billou: regime that you're living under right now.
5:45
Nicky Billou: imagine the state of mind you need to have that that's preferable.
5:50
Alex Marlow: I'm trying to imagine it, and I think this is what's interesting to me,
5:53
Alex Marlow: is I want to understand where you think the Iranian people are,
5:56
Alex Marlow: because it seems like there's a deep disconnect between where the people are
6:00
Alex Marlow: and where the government power resides,
6:03
Alex Marlow: because it resides with the Ayatollahs and the IRGC,
6:07
Alex Marlow: and it seems like the people are not on board with it,
6:10
Alex Marlow: but are they ready?
6:11
Alex Marlow: Because it's a nation with so many different factions,
6:14
Alex Marlow: so many tribal elements to it. It's very complex from afar. Can you try to help us understand the
6:19
Nicky Billou: essentials? Absolutely. So you're right. There are a lot of different ethnic groups in Iran.
6:24
Nicky Billou: There are the Baluchas, there are the Lors, there are the Kurds, there are the Uzadis,
6:27
Nicky Billou: there are the Persians, there are Arabs in Iran, believe it or not. We are really the first true
6:33
Nicky Billou: melting pot. Cyrus the Great, back 2,500 years ago, made the Persian Empire the first true melting pot
6:39
Nicky Billou: of the world. But here's one thing that virtually the entire country can agree on. The Islamic
6:45
Nicky Billou: Republic is the spawn of the devil. They've been repressing the people of Iran for 47 years.
6:53
Nicky Billou: This is how twisted these people are. If you're a woman and they want to kill you, they're going
6:59
Nicky Billou: to gang rape you before they kill you because in their twisted ideology, virgins get to go to heaven
7:03
Nicky Billou: and they can't have that. Think about how crazy and nutty that is. And I'm going to tell you,
7:08
Nicky Billou: The only people that support the Islamic Republic are hardcore religionists, which are about 5% to 7% of the country, plus the people that are actually a part of the regime that benefit from being a part of the regime.
7:23
Nicky Billou: This is a total of about 8% to 10% of the Iranian people.
7:28
Nicky Billou: The rest of the Iranian people hate their guts and want to see them gone.
7:34
Alex Marlow: So, what happens if the regime is deposed?
7:40
Alex Marlow: What would follow?
7:41
Alex Marlow: Because this is one of the most challenging questions, I think.
7:45
Nicky Billou: Absolutely agree with you.
7:46
Nicky Billou: So, are you familiar with Reza Pahlavi, the crown prince of Iran, the son of the angel?
7:52
Nicky Billou: Yes.
7:53
Nicky Billou: So, he has something called the Prosperity Project for Iran.
7:57
Nicky Billou: So he's brought 100 senior leaders from all kinds of different backgrounds to put together a significant transition plan for Iran post the Islamic Republic.
8:09
Nicky Billou: They're looking at things like territorial integrity.
8:11
Nicky Billou: They're looking at things like form of government.
8:14
Nicky Billou: They're looking at things, what they have to do to rebuild the economy, what they have to do to reopen the country into the world.
8:19
Nicky Billou: So there is someone there that has actually taken the time to put together a transition plan.
8:25
Nicky Billou: And that's the crown prince.
8:26
Nicky Billou: But here's the other thing that's very, very important for your listeners and viewers to understand. The people of Iran, when they've been out in the streets demonstrating for their rights, the name on their lips invariably is Reza Pahlavi. Here's one of the chants. They say,
8:44
Nicky Billou: In English, that means this is the last battle.
8:50
Nicky Billou: Pahlavi will return.
8:51
Nicky Billou: And they are also chanting Javid Shah, Javid Shah, Javid Shah, which means long live the Shah.
8:58
Nicky Billou: Here in the West, the diaspora, which are 9 million strong.
9:02
Nicky Billou: Think about this.
9:03
Nicky Billou: The Iranian diaspora around the world is 9 million strong.
9:07
Nicky Billou: Invariably, at all the rallies, the name of Reza Pahlavi is on their lips.
9:11
Nicky Billou: The people of Iran, both within and without the great country of Iran, want Pahlavi back.
9:18
Nicky Billou: Why?
9:19
Nicky Billou: Because they remember, those that are old enough, the time of the Shah.
9:23
Nicky Billou: The Shah of Iran was probably the most effective leader of the 20th century.
9:29
Nicky Billou: He took a backward nation that was living 14 centuries past and brought them kicking and
9:36
Nicky Billou: screaming into the 20th century.
9:37
Nicky Billou: By the time his reign was over, Iran was one of the top 20 great powers in the world.
9:42
Nicky Billou: The Iranian economy had grown by over 1,200% in 37 years.
9:48
Nicky Billou: These are astounding numbers.
9:49
Nicky Billou: If you look at videos from Iran in the 60s and the 70s, it looks like the West.
9:54
Nicky Billou: Beautiful young girls are wearing mini skirts.
9:57
Nicky Billou: People are dancing.
9:58
Nicky Billou: People are out in parks holding hands.
10:02
Nicky Billou: You know, you've got singers out there.
10:04
Nicky Billou: some of the best singers in the world are Iranian singers from that era. People like
10:09
Nicky Billou: Vigen, people like Gugush and Frank Sinatra, in my mother's opinion, the greatest entertainer of
10:15
Nicky Billou: all time. And, you know, God bless my mother. She said, I'm the most faithful woman in the world,
10:20
Nicky Billou: but if Frank Sinatra came to see me, I'd tell him, your dad, all bets are off, baby.
10:25
Nicky Billou: And she said to me that one of the honors of her life was to get to see him in concert. He came to
10:31
Nicky Billou: Tehran and he did a concert and all the tickets for that show were sold out within 10 minutes,
10:36
Nicky Billou: my friend.
10:37
Nicky Billou: Iran was an oasis in the Middle East.
10:39
Nicky Billou: It was a Switzerland of the Middle East.
10:41
Nicky Billou: And the people of Iran have a collective memory of that, even people who weren't alive at that
10:45
Nicky Billou: time.
10:46
Nicky Billou: And they want that time back because these people have lived under the evil dictatorship
10:50
Nicky Billou: of the Islamic Republic, which is a vicious cross between doctrinaire religiosity and Nazism
10:59
Nicky Billou: and Marxism because everybody's poor except for a few people at the very top of the regime.
11:04
Nicky Billou: Nobody wants that anymore, man. They want their country back. And Alex, I'm sure you might know
11:08
Nicky Billou: one or two Persians in the United States that are acquaintances or friends of yours. They typically
11:13
Nicky Billou: tend to be hyper-educated, hardworking, very successful, and they're out to be the best they
11:20
Nicky Billou: can be in the world. These people are ready to go back and help rebuild Iran. All they need is for
11:25
Nicky Billou: this evil Islamic regime to be shunned to the side and for the transition plan to come into place.
11:30
Nicky Billou: And the Shah's son has said he does not want to take over and be a king. He wants a two-year
11:36
Nicky Billou: transition, and he wants to put it to a plebiscite and have the people decide what kind of government
11:41
Alex Marlow: they want. And America should support that. So a couple of points where I feel like we need some
11:48
Alex Marlow: clarity or understanding. The first one is a lot of this is contingent on the military buying into
11:56
Alex Marlow: it, which that seems very far-fetched. So unless there's any military fighting force, then it's
12:02
Alex Marlow: going to be very hard to have any sort of a peaceful transition whatsoever. So what is the path for
12:08
Alex Marlow: whatever is next for them to be able to go up against the IRGC? Because IRGC is not going to
12:12
Nicky Billou: go along with any of this. No, the IRGC's top leadership is being decimated, though. And I think
12:18
Nicky Billou: the plan is basically to make sure that the IRGC is an effective, well-led fighting force is
12:24
Nicky Billou: destroyed. The people in the military, in the Atish, right, these guys are not nearly as ideological.
12:30
Nicky Billou: Some of their top leaders have been killed as well. And the plan is to have them start to see
12:35
Nicky Billou: that staying on the side of the Islamic Republic isn't in their long-term interest and have some
12:38
Nicky Billou: of them defect. What happened in 1979 is the generals in the air force defected from the Shah
12:44
Nicky Billou: to Khomeini's side. That's what allowed him to take power. And we believe this is something that
12:49
Nicky Billou: can and will end up happening. The IRGC is going to be destroyed. As an effective military fighting
12:55
Nicky Billou: force, I believe the United States and Israel have done a hell of a lot of damage to it,
13:00
Nicky Billou: and they're going to continue to do so. There is a Mossad Farsi-based ex-account,
13:05
Nicky Billou: which is telling the people of Iran,
13:07
Nicky Billou: identify your oppressors and your oppressors
13:09
Nicky Billou: from the Basij and the IRGC.
13:10
Nicky Billou: Let us know who they are.
13:11
Nicky Billou: We're gonna take care of them.
13:12
Nicky Billou: And they're doing that.
13:13
Nicky Billou: There's videos of Iranian people saying,
13:15
Nicky Billou: hey, this is where the IRGC people are.
13:18
Nicky Billou: They're hiding under this bridge.
13:19
Nicky Billou: And you've got this Israeli drone,
13:21
Nicky Billou: which has got this beautiful camera
13:23
Nicky Billou: that shows where they are.
13:24
Nicky Billou: And they send the missile
13:25
Nicky Billou: and they start killing these people.
13:27
Nicky Billou: And that's what they're doing
13:28
Nicky Billou: because they gotta get rid of every single evil
13:30
Nicky Billou: Islamist supporting person
13:32
Nicky Billou: that has a remote handle on power.
13:35
Nicky Billou: And once that's done,
13:36
Nicky Billou: the folks that are more patriotic than Islamists,
13:40
Nicky Billou: I believe are going to say,
13:41
Nicky Billou: we don't all want to be killed.
13:42
Nicky Billou: We want to step forward.
13:44
Nicky Billou: And they're going to say, yes,
13:45
Nicky Billou: we are wanting to be a part of Iran's future,
13:47
Nicky Billou: not part of its past.
13:48
Alex Marlow: So that's where things get very interesting
13:51
Alex Marlow: because the people who are leading Iran now
13:54
Alex Marlow: are religiously ideological.
13:56
Alex Marlow: And that does seem to be their guiding principles
13:59
Alex Marlow: are focused around the Islamization
14:01
Alex Marlow: of really the whole planet, and that includes wiping out America and Israel if they have the
14:06
Alex Marlow: means to do so. And that seems like a very hard circle to square here with the rest of the public
14:12
Alex Marlow: who would like to see, I think, Iran participate, who is a productive member of the rest of
14:18
Alex Marlow: the world community, so to speak. So this is where I ask again about who enforces this. So let's say
14:24
Alex Marlow: whatever government you can dream up, maybe it's a Pahlavi-led government, maybe something else,
14:28
Alex Marlow: Like, how does it get enforced when you've got ideologically driven opposition in the
14:34
Alex Marlow: form of the Ayatollahs?
14:36
Nicky Billou: Well, many of these people have already been killed, okay?
14:40
Nicky Billou: So there's no one single person in charge of the Islamic Republic right now.
14:44
Nicky Billou: There's people who have various pockets of influence, and they're the ones who are holding
14:48
Nicky Billou: out.
14:49
Nicky Billou: So, the United States and Israel have attacked, effectively, using their intelligence services
14:56
Nicky Billou: to get data on this, the leadership of the Islamic Republic. And they're continuing to do so.
15:01
Nicky Billou: I believe it's just a matter of time before the people one, two, three tiers lower than them in
15:08
Nicky Billou: power are going to say, enough of this. I don't want to be killed in my sleep. I want a different
15:13
Nicky Billou: future. And every single Islamist that has been in charge needs to be eliminated. Frankly, whoever's
15:19
Nicky Billou: still at large needs to be taken out.
15:22
Nicky Billou: And believe me, I believe this is the goal
15:25
Nicky Billou: of certainly the nation of Israel.
15:28
Nicky Billou: And I think even though Donald Trump seems to send
15:31
Nicky Billou: some mixed messages from time to time,
15:33
Nicky Billou: he really doesn't want to see the Islamic Republic
15:35
Nicky Billou: continue to stay in power because he knows
15:37
Nicky Billou: that once he's gone, they'll somehow find a way
15:40
Nicky Billou: to reconstitute themselves and they're gonna attack America again.
15:43
Nicky Billou: So once these guys out, that's why I'm very confident
15:46
Nicky Billou: they're gonna be out.
15:48
Alex Marlow: Yeah, and I feel like that Trump definitely wants that.
15:51
Alex Marlow: I don't know if Trump has an idea of what comes next, though.
15:54
Alex Marlow: I spent a little time with him a couple of weeks ago,
15:57
Alex Marlow: and I got to be frank with you.
15:58
Alex Marlow: It didn't seem like he took Pahlavi that seriously
16:01
Alex Marlow: as the successor to what is going to come next.
16:04
Alex Marlow: So maybe his opinions changed the last couple of weeks.
16:06
Alex Marlow: I don't know.
16:07
Alex Marlow: But that's just a real reality that I think Trump has got to deal with,
16:11
Alex Marlow: is that he doesn't want to leave things so chaotic
16:13
Alex Marlow: that we undo the good that has been done
16:16
Alex Marlow: by taking out so many of these nuclear sites
16:18
Alex Marlow: so many of these bad guys. I agree with you. But if you have the ear of President Trump,
16:22
Nicky Billou: you should tell him to take Reza Pahlavi very, very seriously. He has the support of the Iranian
16:27
Nicky Billou: people in a way nobody else does. And that's a fact. And if you go right now, you want to conduct
16:34
Nicky Billou: polling in the diaspora, you're going to see that their support for him is in the neighborhood of 85%.
16:40
Nicky Billou: And in Iran, the support for the Shah coming back, if anything, is as high, if not even higher.
16:46
Nicky Billou: There is no other figure that unifies the Iranian people.
16:49
Nicky Billou: The Pahlavi name is magic in Iran, and it captures the imagination of the Iranian people
16:54
Nicky Billou: in a way nobody else can or will.
16:56
Nicky Billou: The president should take him very seriously.
16:59
Nicky Billou: He also should understand that Iran is not Iraq.
17:02
Nicky Billou: Iran is not Libya.
17:03
Nicky Billou: Iran is not a failed nation state that was a fake country created by the British after
17:08
Nicky Billou: the end of the British mandate in Palestine back in the 1920s.
17:12
Nicky Billou: Iran is the world's oldest continuous nation state.
17:15
Nicky Billou: We have a rich history, a rich culture.
17:18
Nicky Billou: We have a unified vision of who we are as a people, and we believe we have a leader.
17:24
Nicky Billou: And our leader is Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi.
17:27
Nicky Billou: People in the West need to understand that.
17:29
Nicky Billou: There's a lot of people close to President Trump who look at Iran and go, we don't want
17:34
Nicky Billou: another failed Iraq.
17:35
Nicky Billou: And I understand that.
17:36
Nicky Billou: Believe me, that would be terrible for everybody.
17:38
Nicky Billou: But they need to understand.
17:40
Nicky Billou: And Alex, I want to make this point very strongly to you.
17:42
Nicky Billou: Iran is not Iraq, and that is unlikely to happen, very unlikely, because the people of Iran are not sectarians.
17:49
Nicky Billou: They're going to fight each other.
17:51
Nicky Billou: They're going to come together because they want to see the country move past the Islamic Republic.
17:56
Alex Marlow: Nikki, let's take this point on because this is really important.
17:59
Alex Marlow: We all know this to be true, but how would you articulate it?
18:02
Alex Marlow: How is Iran not Iraq?
18:04
Alex Marlow: There's obviously very noteworthy differences, but share some of them that you think are most important.
18:09
Nicky Billou: Look, Iraq is not a real country, okay?
18:12
Nicky Billou: there is no tradition of an Iraqi nation.
18:15
Nicky Billou: Iraq was put together in 1922
18:18
Nicky Billou: after the Ottoman Empire fell apart.
18:21
Nicky Billou: The British decided,
18:22
Nicky Billou: we're gonna create a whole bunch of fake countries here.
18:25
Nicky Billou: We're gonna draw these lines.
18:27
Nicky Billou: And then there's people that were put together
18:29
Nicky Billou: that never really had a history of being a nation,
18:32
Nicky Billou: of working together,
18:34
Nicky Billou: of having a unified vision going forward.
18:36
Nicky Billou: So that doomed Iraq from the start.
18:40
Nicky Billou: As soon as the strongman, Saddam Hussein,
18:42
Nicky Billou: was pulled away from power, the people that never had any sense of shared identity said,
18:49
Nicky Billou: okay, well, you know what?
18:50
Nicky Billou: I'm just going to take what's mine.
18:52
Nicky Billou: That's not the case in Iran.
18:53
Nicky Billou: Like I said, we're the world's oldest continuous nation state.
18:57
Nicky Billou: We've been around for nearly 6,000 years, okay?
19:02
Nicky Billou: Cyrus the Great created the Persian Empire over 2,500 years ago.
19:07
Nicky Billou: He's the man who created the world's first declaration of human rights in the Cyrus Cylinder.
19:13
Nicky Billou: That's up in the British Museum.
19:14
Nicky Billou: Thomas Jefferson derived inspiration from the Cyrus Cylinder to write the Declaration of Independence.
19:21
Nicky Billou: Did you know this, Alex?
19:23
Nicky Billou: I didn't, no.
19:24
Nicky Billou: You need to go look into this.
19:26
Nicky Billou: Cyrus the Great was the man who inspired Thomas Jefferson.
19:30
Nicky Billou: In the Cyrus Cylinder, he said freedom of religion for all of the people in this empire.
19:36
Nicky Billou: He said that people from different backgrounds and different ethnicities can live together.
19:41
Nicky Billou: No one's going to be treated better or worse.
19:43
Nicky Billou: We have a history of believing in human rights as a people.
19:47
Nicky Billou: And I'm telling you, that history is very important to understand because it gives the Iranian people a sense of identity that just didn't exist in Iraq.
19:57
Nicky Billou: And if you go and you look at what happened in Iran back in January, and you look at the videos that are being sent out before they shut down the internet, invariably the Iranian people are saying, we want the mullahs gone, okay, and we want Pahlavi back.
20:12
Nicky Billou: And look, on January 8th and 9th, Reza Pahlavi asked the Iranian people, this is before the internet shutdown, to pour into the streets to show that they wanted the Islamic Republic to go away.
20:23
Nicky Billou: Iran's a nation of 90 million people. Alex, 35 million Iranians poured into the streets of the
20:31
Nicky Billou: cities. That's nearly 40% of the population. Alex, tell me, other than Donald Trump, which world
20:39
Nicky Billou: leader could give an instruction like that and get 40% of the darn country to jump into the streets
20:45
Nicky Billou: and cheer his name? Because I'm telling you, you'd be hard-pressed to find a single one.
20:50
Nicky Billou: The Iranian people understand their past. They understand their history. They understand the glory of their culture. They want it back. The Iranian people remember Pahlavi, remember how Iran was, even those that weren't born. Then they can see the videos because of the internet. God bless the internet. And they don't want to be part of an Islamist life anymore.
21:13
Nicky Billou: That's why, Alex, they went into the guns with nothing but their bare bodies.
21:18
Nicky Billou: Have you ever seen anything so darn brave in your life, Alex, as those young Iranians that went into the guns with nothing in their hands and got slaughtered by their tens of thousands demanding their rights?
21:29
Nicky Billou: Because I got to tell you, Alex, as a human being, as a man, I have never seen anybody, any group of people be that brave.
21:37
Nicky Billou: It humbles the hell out of me, and it makes me determined to help these people win their freedom in any way possible.
21:43
Nicky Billou: because I'm sitting here comfortable and alive and healthy and prospering in the West. It's my
21:49
Nicky Billou: people who are suffering back home in Iran. They want their freedom. They want it now. We're grateful
21:53
Nicky Billou: to the United States for stepping up and taking these mullahs down. Keep it up. Keep bombing them
21:59
Nicky Billou: until they've got no way to resist and then let us do the rest. You don't need boots on the ground.
22:05
Nicky Billou: The Iranian people are going to jump into the streets and we're going to take over. And at that
22:08
Nicky Billou: point, Pahlavi will return. And when he does return, my friend, I believe Iran will be America's
22:14
Nicky Billou: greatest ally because Iran and the Iranian people are people who understand loyalty and they
22:20
Nicky Billou: understand gratitude. And we're very grateful to Donald Trump in the United States and to Israel
22:25
Nicky Billou: for having freed us. And we want to say this, Israel is a nation that understands paying its
22:31
Nicky Billou: debts. 2,500 years ago, the people of Israel were being held as slaves by the Babylonians. Cyrus
22:38
Nicky Billou: went and overthrew the Babylonian empire
22:41
Nicky Billou: and freed the Israeli people
22:43
Nicky Billou: and allowed them, not just allowed them,
22:45
Nicky Billou: but escorted them back to their homeland in Israel
22:48
Nicky Billou: and helped them rebuild the temple.
22:50
Nicky Billou: That is something that is biblical.
22:52
Nicky Billou: It's fact.
22:53
Nicky Billou: And today, the Israeli people are doing the same
22:56
Nicky Billou: for the Iranian people, and we're very grateful for it.
22:58
Alex Marlow: Nicky Billou, you've got the Thought Leader Revolution podcast.
23:01
Alex Marlow: You've also got something called East Circle Academy,
23:04
Alex Marlow: which is a coaching apparatus that you've got going.
23:07
Alex Marlow: So I know you moved to Canada.
23:09
Alex Marlow: Are you still there?
23:10
Alex Marlow: I am.
23:11
Alex Marlow: I live in Toronto.
23:12
Alex Marlow: So what's Toronto like in the age of Trump right now?
23:16
Nicky Billou: I got to tell you, I love my city, but I'm sure you know we're living under a quasi-fascist
23:21
Nicky Billou: government right now.
23:23
Nicky Billou: Justin Trudeau has taken away a lot of our rights, and his successor, Mark Carney, just
23:27
Nicky Billou: passed a bill called C9, where he's trying to make it basically a crime to express yourself
23:34
Nicky Billou: online with wrong things.
23:35
Nicky Billou: So if they don't like your political opinions, just like in the UK, they're going to be able to arrest Canadians.
23:40
Nicky Billou: So I'm hopeful that in Canada, we're going to be able to elect a conservative government and we're going to be able to reverse some of these things.
23:46
Nicky Billou: But it's not looking good for the people of Canada at the moment, my friend.
23:49
Nicky Billou: Not at all.
23:50
Alex Marlow: Yeah, it's disappointing.
23:51
Alex Marlow: It feels like almost every other nation seemed to understand that Trump was on to certain things.
23:57
Alex Marlow: And Canada's really staked out an identity of justifying Trump and whatever they can, which is just not.
24:03
Alex Marlow: I don't think it's advisable.
24:04
Alex Marlow: I don't think it goes well when you do that.
24:06
Alex Marlow: But that's what they've done, which is kind of a shame.
24:08
Alex Marlow: Tell me about the eCircle Academy.
24:11
Nicky Billou: So eCircle Academy is a company that I started several years ago.
24:15
Nicky Billou: And our vision really was to be a company that stood for freedom.
24:20
Nicky Billou: Because of my background being someone from Iran, I believe in helping people be as free as they can possibly be.
24:28
Nicky Billou: And one of the main things of freedom is having some financial freedom.
24:31
Nicky Billou: And there's a lot of people that are in business that are good people that are doing what they do, but they're just not good at the game of business.
24:37
Nicky Billou: And what we do is we help them become better business people so they can actually succeed and make the money to create financial freedom for themselves.
24:43
Nicky Billou: And we don't work with woke people.
24:44
Nicky Billou: I got to say this off the top of our head.
24:46
Nicky Billou: We only work with conservatives and sane people.
24:49
Nicky Billou: So if you're a woke person, don't come to East Circle Academy.
24:52
Nicky Billou: But if you're a person who believes in freedom and if you're a person who believes in the principles of live and let live and letting everybody else be free and you own a business and you want to grow it, please come see us.
25:01
Alex Marlow: That's so right on.
25:04
Alex Marlow: Again, not helping the woke succeed is great, but also just the fact there are so many people
25:08
Alex Marlow: that I know in my personal life and in the audience who are really good people and create
25:13
Alex Marlow: quality products and are just really bad at marketing and selling and getting it out there
25:16
Alex Marlow: and optimizing their return on their talents.
25:19
Alex Marlow: That's good.
25:20
Alex Marlow: I'm glad people like you are out there to help.
25:22
Alex Marlow: Nikki, you're a very inspiring guy, and we're all rooting hard for Iran in the audience,
25:28
Alex Marlow: and it's really nice to catch up with you.
25:30
Alex Marlow: If you want to hear more from Nicky, the Thought Leader Revolution podcast, wherever you get your podcasts.
25:34
Alex Marlow: Thanks, Nicky.
25:34
Alex Marlow: Appreciate you.
25:36
Nicky Billou: Alex, thank you for having me.
25:37
Nicky Billou: It's an honor.
25:37
Nicky Billou: And I got to say, I love the work that you're doing at Breitbart.
25:39
Nicky Billou: Breitbart is my go-to source for news.
25:42
Nicky Billou: And really, it's a fantastic, fantastic organization.
25:44
Nicky Billou: Thank you for what you do to make it relevant.
25:47
Alex Marlow: Perfect.
25:47
Alex Marlow: That really could be nicer of you to say that.
25:50
Alex Marlow: That's what we're here for, is to try to reach people like you.
25:53
Alex Marlow: And you spreading our message out there.
25:55
Alex Marlow: It just does a lot for us as well.
25:56
Alex Marlow: So thanks a lot, Nicky.
25:58
Alex Marlow: God bless you.
26:05
Speaker 3: This episode has been brought to you by
26:07
Speaker 3: ecircleacademy.com, the proven system to add six to seven figures a year to your thought leader practice.