Latest / Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott / Iranian National Dr. Nazee Moinian Gives Perspective

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Iranian National Dr. Nazee Moinian Gives Perspective · Conversations: Special Guests with Preston Scott

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Good morning everybody. If you are just joining us, where
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: you been. We've been here for a couple of hours
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: as we start officially today our twenty fifth year of
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  Speaker 1: the Morning Show with Preston Scott. I am Preston. He
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  Speaker 1: is Jose running the radio program as always Show fifty
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  Speaker 1: five sixty four, and I am delighted to have with
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  Speaker 1: me as a guest doctor Nazi Moynian. She's a political
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  Speaker 1: science and ron A scholar from the University of Saint Andrews,
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  Speaker 1: but she now serves as an Associate fellow at the Middle
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  Speaker 1: East Institute in Washington, DC. Doctor Mornian, Welcome to the program.
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  Speaker 1: How are you today, Good morning?
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  Speaker 2: Thank you for having me on. Happy twenty fifth year.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you very much. I appreciate that. I thought it
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  Speaker 1: was important to get your perspective on the events that
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  Speaker 1: have unfolded in the last few weeks in Iran. You
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  Speaker 1: left the country in nineteen seventy nine to give our
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  Speaker 1: listeners some perspective, give us us just a little bit
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  Speaker 1: of snapshot of your family and your reason for leaving.
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  Speaker 2: Sure, I'd be happy to do that. So I left
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  Speaker 2: on December thirteen, nineteen seventy nine. And so when i'm
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  Speaker 2: asked that question, I sometimes say nineteen seventy nine. I
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  Speaker 2: sometimes I add sixteen seventeen more days and make it
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  Speaker 2: nineteen eighty. So it is just a very simple forward story.
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  Speaker 2: We didn't go on the back of a pickup truck
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  Speaker 2: or on top of a horse to cross the mountains
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  Speaker 2: into Turkey and then Europe and then US. We literally
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  Speaker 2: just sat in a plane on a plane with my
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  Speaker 2: mom and my brother left Iran, landed in London, and
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  Speaker 2: then landed in JFK, where my sister lived with her
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  Speaker 2: husband in New York. I was little, so it was
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  Speaker 2: my brother, so everything was very new to us. America
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  Speaker 2: was the land of Disney World and Mickey Mouse and Flintstones,
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  Speaker 2: and you know, we were excited. I can see still
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  Speaker 2: to this day my mother's face which was pained in anguish. Why,
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  Speaker 2: I mean, I can go on.
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  Speaker 1: Well, I'm just curious what was described. Why the pain
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  Speaker 1: and anguish.
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  Speaker 2: Well, you know, she was a forty year old young
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  Speaker 2: woman with five kids at the time. We were the
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  Speaker 2: last two of my brother and I. She had left
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  Speaker 2: her country behind. We are also Jewish Iranian, so it
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  Speaker 2: was a huge tectonic shift, not only for us, for
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  Speaker 2: the Iranian Jews to leave a country they called home
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  Speaker 2: for about twenty five hundred years and go to another country.
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  Speaker 2: But they had been doing that. They had been emigrating
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  Speaker 2: to Israel after nineteen forty eight, the independence of Israel.
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  Speaker 2: So a lot of Iranian Jews had already left to Israel.
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  Speaker 2: But that had nothing to do with the Islamic Revolution.
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  Speaker 2: That was out of their ownvolution. And they made beautiful
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  Speaker 2: lives in Israel. And there was the ranks of higher
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  Speaker 2: ranks of army, and maybe this was different. This was
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  Speaker 2: an imposed on us because we and I've said the
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  Speaker 2: story before, so I apologies to those who have heard
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  Speaker 2: it already somewhere else. But you know, it was a
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  Speaker 2: very modern, forward looking country. We had four hours of
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  Speaker 2: English studies every day, British English and four hours of
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  Speaker 2: Persian and Arabic was only taught to us in the
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  Speaker 2: context of learning the religion and Oran, which was mandatory
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  Speaker 2: at the time. So I, as a Jew, learned Oran
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  Speaker 2: just as a Muslim did, sitting next to me, and
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  Speaker 2: actually I excelled. And my teachers sometimes would turn around
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  Speaker 2: until the class look at this Jew. She has the
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  Speaker 2: highest grading class. And you guys are all failing, and
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  Speaker 2: that was just, you know, to me, that was just
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  Speaker 2: another top grade in my report card. I didn't care
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  Speaker 2: if it was math or it was Gooran. But I
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  Speaker 2: was very much into learning about different cultures in different languages,
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  Speaker 2: which is why I'm doing what I'm doing now. The
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  Speaker 2: point that I'm trying to make is that we never
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  Speaker 2: saw this revolution coming. My parents didn't see the service coming.
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  Speaker 2: CIA analysts didn't say city's revolution coming. We saw the
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  Speaker 2: writing on the wall. Basically, when our very modern western
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  Speaker 2: eyes skiing in Staden Saint Mary it's in the winter
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  Speaker 2: and going to central Fine summer, neighbors around us would
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  Speaker 2: come to the top of the buildings and rooftops at night,
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  Speaker 2: under the cover of darkness and chance atla Akba, which
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  Speaker 2: at the time it was something we were used to hearing.
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  Speaker 2: We you know, we had been in a Muslim country
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  Speaker 2: for thousands of years and it has a melodic sung
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  Speaker 2: to it. The Five Prayers were part of our culture
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  Speaker 2: and upbringing. This is different. This was a belligerent call
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  Speaker 2: to take up arms, and my father and I basically
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  Speaker 2: looked at each other, and I was sitting next to him,
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  Speaker 2: and he said, it's time for us to leave, and
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  Speaker 2: we didn't have a passport, we didn't have tickets, We
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  Speaker 2: didn't know where to go, what to do. My father
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  Speaker 2: didn't either, But you know, at the time, a little
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  Speaker 2: bit of money greasing someone's palm would have achieved a lot.
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  Speaker 2: And he did that, and he got passports and tickets
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  Speaker 2: and in a few days we left.
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  Speaker 1: Doctor Mornian. The regime that has been in power since
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  Speaker 1: the Revolution of nineteen seventy nine has been responsible for
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  Speaker 1: the deaths of perhaps thousands of Americans, certainly Israeli's weather
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  Speaker 1: directly or through proxies, but mostly its own citizens since
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  Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine. What do you think is the narrative
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  Speaker 1: missing from Americans understanding of this conflict as it unfolds
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  Speaker 1: right now?
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  Speaker 2: That's an important question present. Thank you for asking, and
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  Speaker 2: please call me Nasi every time as someone calls me doctor,
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: I'm ready to grab my stethoscope somewhere. I mean, I
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  Speaker 2: don't have you know. The the gist of this regime
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  Speaker 2: is that it's an ideologically driven regime that aims to
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  Speaker 2: transplant the Western civilization with an Islamic caliphate. There is
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  Speaker 2: no gray area with that doctrine. That's been the doctrine
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  Speaker 2: since the nineteen sixties and the evolution of Ayatol Homani,
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  Speaker 2: the leader of the Islamic Revolution, and the compilation of
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  Speaker 2: his works and his sermons, and later on when he
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  Speaker 2: became the leader of the Islamic Revolution, his public statements.
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  Speaker 2: He was part and parcel against what he thought was
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  Speaker 2: the corrupt infidel West and the teachings of the West.
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  Speaker 2: And he thought Muslim lands were usurped by the Jews
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  Speaker 2: and the Christians, and the Muslims were subjugated and they
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  Speaker 2: lost their way and because of them, because of the
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  Speaker 2: Jews and the Christians and the Western civilization, there needs
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  Speaker 2: to be a reckoning that we need to take these
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  Speaker 2: lands back, push the Americans and Israelis and the Europeans
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  Speaker 2: out of their lands, and be able to announce a
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  Speaker 2: global Islamic caliphate based on morality and justice. So just
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  Speaker 2: by those two last words, we know how corrupt this
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  Speaker 2: regime is. There is no sense of morality. A regime
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  Speaker 2: that considers itself an ally of God, a representative of
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  Speaker 2: the Divinity, is corrupt to the core and kills randomly
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  Speaker 2: and purposely its own citizens and the citizens of other countries.
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  Speaker 2: So doing that in the name of religion just disqualifies
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  Speaker 2: this dictum on every angle. So back to your question,
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  Speaker 2: what don't we know about the Islamic regime. The Islamic
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  Speaker 2: regime is not a monolist. There are Iranians now about
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  Speaker 2: eighty percent of Iranians who are against the regime. They
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  Speaker 2: on it gone according to surveys done over the years,
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  Speaker 2: but recently out of a company or an organization called
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  Speaker 2: Gaman Ga m Aa and out of Netherlands who anonymously
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  Speaker 2: got in touch with forty four thousand Uranias and aster views,
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  Speaker 2: so it has about ten to twelve million followers. Because
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  Speaker 2: it's a country of ninety two million people, there is
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  Speaker 2: no tier to be shed for anyone in the regime
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  Speaker 2: that's taken out by the coalition forces. Preston, I don't
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  Speaker 2: have to tell you. IEDs don't just plant themselves magically
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  Speaker 2: by the roadside. In Afghanistan and Iraq, embassies and military
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  Speaker 2: bases don't just magically blow up. And you know, hamas
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  Speaker 2: Husbilan Hutis are not funded by two ferries. These are
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  Speaker 2: all the works of the Islamic regime which brought jihadism
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  Speaker 2: into four Prior to that, we had the Federian of Islam,
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  Speaker 2: which did you know, terrorists, the terrorist activities Federan Islam
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  Speaker 2: was known to countries that were the targets of Federanisam,
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  Speaker 2: but they were limited in objective. They were limited to
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  Speaker 2: removing a random prime minister or random oil industry in
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  Speaker 2: the executive. But now this is a global movement and
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  Speaker 2: unfortunately we see adherence to that movement in college campuses
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  Speaker 2: around this country. In Europe. It's all over and we
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  Speaker 2: ask ourselves where did this come from? Well, this came
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  Speaker 2: from the nineteen seventy nine Islamic Revolution, which made political
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  Speaker 2: Islam a modus operandi and announced over big bullhorns. It's
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  Speaker 2: objective of pushing back against the American power jews around
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  Speaker 2: the world European countries, which I went through before. So
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  Speaker 2: when I hear some pundits, mostly intellectuals in Western think tanks,
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  Speaker 2: that say, you know, we should have kept Larry Johnny.
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  Speaker 2: He was he was a moderate. He we could have
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  Speaker 2: dealt with him in a rational manner. Yes, you know,
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  Speaker 2: that's that's an okay thing to think, but that's not
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  Speaker 2: okay thing to act on Larry Johnny and his cohorts
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  Speaker 2: or any of these guys that were taken at had
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  Speaker 2: maximilist aims, but they played it so well. They played
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  Speaker 2: good cup, bad cup against the persons that's sitting across
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  Speaker 2: the table with them, so that you will have that
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  Speaker 2: sense that this is a regime you can deal with
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  Speaker 2: and we don't have to take him to a war, which,
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  Speaker 2: by the way, they asked for. We gave them all
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  Speaker 2: kinds of exits, off ramps, opportunities, deals deals. You know.
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  Speaker 2: That's if you are not a jee hardist ideolog ideologue,
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  Speaker 2: he would have said, Okay, this makes sense for my people,
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  Speaker 2: for the Iranian people. This regime is not meant for
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  Speaker 2: the well being of Iranian people. This regime is meant
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  Speaker 2: for the wellbeing of this jihadism. And the expert of
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  Speaker 2: the revolution across the world.
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  Speaker 1: If I add up all her degrees, she's been on
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  Speaker 1: a college campus just a little longer than than me
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  Speaker 1: joining us doctor Nazi morning from the Middle East Institute,
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  Speaker 1: where she's an associated fellow Nazi. If you were sitting
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  Speaker 1: at a table today with President Trump, maybe even Secretary
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  Speaker 1: of State Mark or Rubio, what would you advise them?
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  Speaker 2: I would advise them to stay the course. And I'll
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  Speaker 2: tell you why I was thinking about this yesterday when
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  Speaker 2: I was at the gym working out. We are taught
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  Speaker 2: from early years when there's no gain, no pain, no gain,
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  Speaker 2: you have to work towards what you want to be
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  Speaker 2: able to get what you want. And it could be hurtful.
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  Speaker 2: It could be painful physically, emotionally, psychologically, economically, but it's
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  Speaker 2: worth the end goal. This is what we're going through
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  Speaker 2: right now, and I'd like for that to be at
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  Speaker 2: the top of our minds when we're watching the events
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  Speaker 2: the theater of operation in the Gulf evolve, you know,
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: the kinetic action, the unfortunate escalation of the war. This
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  Speaker 2: is what we had We had to have done years
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  Speaker 2: ago to be able to signal to the Iranian regime
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  Speaker 2: that they cannot act with impunity, they cannot continue to
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  Speaker 2: act impunity. We didn't, and the monster became even a
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  Speaker 2: bigger monster. But you know, President, I think of the
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  Speaker 2: regime as a Russian nesting doll. You take out the
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: outer layer. It's big, it's powerful, it's imposing, and you
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  Speaker 2: think this is it, and there is another doll inside
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  Speaker 2: and you take that or not, and there's a doll,
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  Speaker 2: another doll inside, and each doll might be more potent,
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  Speaker 2: more lethal than the one before it, But there is
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  Speaker 2: an end to this, and I want us to know
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  Speaker 2: your listeners, my students, that it's worth. It's a noble cause.
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  Speaker 2: It's a noble cause to save the way we live,
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  Speaker 2: to the values behold year, to the way to the
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  Speaker 2: world we want to leave our children to it. Bothers
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  Speaker 2: me when people say, but there is no eminent cause,
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  Speaker 2: There wasn't no eminence for it to us. Why does
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  Speaker 2: it have to be at our front door for us
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  Speaker 2: to take action? And it has been at our front door.
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  Speaker 2: Letsten just try to kill our president twice our secretary
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  Speaker 2: of state? Are other American officials and other dissidents American
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  Speaker 2: dissidents in this world? Uh, it's painful, but I'm sorry.
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  Speaker 2: It's very simple, no pain, no gain.
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  Speaker 1: Let's transition that and talk about the people that your
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  Speaker 1: family left behind. There have to be relatives and friends
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  Speaker 1: that have languished under this leadership for reasons that we
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  Speaker 1: may not ever understand. They could not leave, did not leave.
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  Speaker 1: Tell us about the Iranians. How many what would your
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  Speaker 1: guestimate be? You said eighty percent earlier? Is that really
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  Speaker 1: what we're looking at? Eighty percent of that country is
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: in support of what we're trying to do.
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  Speaker 2: I don't know if it's at support. It's true that
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  Speaker 2: eighty percent are against the regime, and I just want
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  Speaker 2: to leave it at that. I don't think anyone wants
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  Speaker 2: to see their country bond. Sure, it's a huge psychological
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  Speaker 2: trauma to look at your window and see explosions like
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: you were looking at fireworks. But you know, magically enough,
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  Speaker 2: the people I talked to in Iran and the videos
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  Speaker 2: that they sent to me when internet is up, they
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  Speaker 2: are cheering this on. They're like, we understand this is
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  Speaker 2: costly to American lives, American treasure to us, but we
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: want you to finish the job. So these people and
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  Speaker 2: the Iranians in general president are worldly, sophisticated, educated people.
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  Speaker 2: And I'm not talking about people who live in big cities.
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  Speaker 2: They want to be part of the West, they want
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  Speaker 2: to be in America's orbit. They speak fluent English. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: how many times do you walk on the streets of
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  Speaker 2: Tehran or any other country and you start a random
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  Speaker 2: eleven year old boy and he tells me that he
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: learned English on over internet, and he speaks it beautifully.
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  Speaker 2: He wears jeans, he has a very modern haircut. He
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  Speaker 2: agrees with American values. Usually in Middle East, what has
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: happened is that the regime is pro Americ, pro West.
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  Speaker 2: They need ammunition, they need the purchase of oil, but
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: the Arab street is against American values. This is the
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: reverse in Iran. Iran street is for America and values
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  Speaker 2: and the regime is against. If anything, we have to
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  Speaker 2: embrace their lives because the lives of Iranian are a
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: mirror to our own lives, and that doesn't happen too
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  Speaker 2: often in Middle East, the only other countries, probably Israel.
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  Speaker 1: I appreciate your time and your expertise, your experiences and
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: bringing them to our conversation. And as I mentioned in
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: the break, I welcome you back anytime. Thank you so much.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you to you joining us.
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  Speaker 1: Doctor Nazi Mornian with the Middle East Institute in DC,
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: PhD Political Science around Studies from the University of Saint
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: Andrews in Scotland, master's degrees from Columbia Graduate School of
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: Arts and Sciences. Yeah, she's been added a bit and
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: a great person to give us some context to what's
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  Speaker 1: happening in the Middle East. Twenty nine past the hour