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Iran at war: inside the deepening Middle East crisis | The Fourcast · The Fourcast

• 0:00
  It's easy for Netanyahu and for Trump to say it's in the hands
• 0:03
  of the Iranian people, but they're still fighting this war,
• 0:06
  and the end game or the off ramp is far from clear.
• 0:11
  It's not your traditional, you know, Saddam Hussein type
• 0:14
  dictatorship where you get rid of one guy and and everything
• 0:18
  goes. This is not the Shahs, a
• 0:20
  dictatorship where the Shah goes and and the army dissipates.
• 0:23
  This is actually much more of an Organism.
• 0:25
  They're not stupid. They've probably anticipated a
• 0:28
  lot of what what has happened. And I can hear the sirens where
• 0:31
  you are right now. Yes.
• 0:34
  Do you have to change location? Hello and welcome to the
• 0:41
  forecast where in Tel Aviv where in the last few minutes there
• 0:45
  have been more missile warnings and interceptions going on in
• 0:49
  the skies above us as this war with Iran, Israel and America,
• 0:56
  which is now spreading across the Gulf and into Lebanon today
• 1:00
  grows. If anyone thought this was all
• 1:02
  going to be all over in a couple of days and Iran would be bombed
• 1:06
  to the negotiating table and there would be some sort of
• 1:09
  peace, it's not turning out like that.
• 1:12
  It looks like this is going to be dragging on for some
• 1:15
  considerable time. Iran has not imploded.
• 1:18
  The appeals from Trump for people to come on and, you know,
• 1:22
  rise up and take over their government, echoed by Netanyahu,
• 1:27
  are not materializing just yet and don't really look like they
• 1:31
  are possible because of the realities of the security state
• 1:35
  in Iran. So where, where is this going?
• 1:38
  How might it grow and what might the consequences be?
• 1:42
  To discuss all of this, I'm joined by the economists, Israel
• 1:46
  correspondent Anschel Feffer and the Iranian author Sanam Naragi
• 1:51
  Andolini, who was founder of the International Civil Society
• 1:55
  Action Network, which promotes sustainable peace.
• 1:58
  Well, Anschel, I mean, both Netanyahu and Trump in their
• 2:02
  opening statements, you know, basically sort of said, you
• 2:05
  know, over to you, to the Iranian people, you know, now is
• 2:09
  your opportunity. You're never going to get an
• 2:11
  opportunity like this. Do you think they really thought
• 2:14
  there would be a revolution? Well, there there was at least
• 2:19
  the stirrings of a revolution back in January.
• 2:23
  And this certainly has created a situation where there there was,
• 2:29
  you could call it an opportunity.
• 2:30
  Certainly from Netanyahu's perspective.
• 2:33
  I think Trump felt also that he had some kind of moment here in
• 2:37
  which he could perhaps settle historic scores with Iran and
• 2:41
  perhaps show himself to be some great world leader leading the
• 2:45
  nations of the world to freedom. But it was obviously never going
• 2:49
  to be as simple as that. And it took all first of all,
• 2:53
  this long build up of the Americans that they've assembled
• 2:57
  here, this massive Armada, this, you know, the assassination of
• 3:01
  Khamenei on on Saturday morning was a very well planned
• 3:06
  operation, Months and months of, of intelligence collecting and,
• 3:11
  and planning until that moment. But then, and I think that Sam
• 3:15
  said that there's this tendency to look at Khamenei as a as a
• 3:19
  larger than life figure. And that kind of obscures the
• 3:23
  fact that that that the Iranian regime and Iran as a country is
• 3:26
  a very complex thing. And just to switch on a
• 3:30
  revolution is something you can't do in any country.
• 3:33
  Certainly not where even once you've taken out the supreme
• 3:37
  leader and dozens of other senior figures, there still is a
• 3:41
  very strong security apparatus both geared towards internal
• 3:48
  suppression and externally wielding thousands of missiles,
• 3:53
  which hundreds of these we've already seen flying towards
• 3:56
  Israel and other other countries here in the region.
• 4:00
  So what happens next, I think is, you know, it's easy for
• 4:04
  Netanyahu and for Trump to say it's in the hands of the Iranian
• 4:08
  people, but they're still fighting this war.
• 4:10
  I mean, the Israelis and the Americans are still carrying out
• 4:12
  hundreds of missions every day. We're now on day three and the
• 4:18
  end game or the off ramp is far from clear.
• 4:23
  And so they would have known therefore, or at least thought
• 4:26
  it was likely, that this would 'cause some mayhem in the Gulf
• 4:31
  countries and that Lebanon would be brought into it as it has
• 4:34
  been, and that they would have to be prepared to fight on 2
• 4:37
  fronts at least. Well, I think this was something
• 4:40
  that they did take into account, but I think they also hoped that
• 4:45
  the, the decapitation operation that began this war would be so
• 4:50
  devastating as to, you know, totally throw perhaps the
• 4:53
  Iranian regime into, into disorder.
• 4:57
  Now that's happened to some level.
• 4:59
  And they're, you know, that we do know, we're seeing also the
• 5:01
  results of, of, of the various Iranian missile teams being
• 5:07
  ordered or allowed to, to, to, to act almost independently.
• 5:12
  But they're still there. It's, it's still, it's still a
• 5:14
  very impressive operation that the Iranians have.
• 5:19
  And I don't think that simply by decapitating the, the head of
• 5:22
  it, they've, they've totally vanquished it.
• 5:26
  And we're seeing and, and I think that the, the, these
• 5:28
  attempts by the Iranians to launch missiles at various
• 5:32
  targets in the Gulf countries isn't necessarily an attempt to
• 5:37
  destroy the, you know, the energy infrastructure there or
• 5:40
  the tourism industry. We've seen strikes.
• 5:43
  I think it's an attempt to exert pressure and to say to, you
• 5:46
  know, to say to Donald Trump, look, you think that you can,
• 5:50
  you can win by by killing our leader.
• 5:53
  Let's see how let's see how you like it.
• 5:55
  If, if your eyes in the Gulf, their economies are suddenly at
• 5:59
  risk and the the Gulf states have these multi multi billion
• 6:04
  economies based on all those hotels and, and, and energy and
• 6:09
  airport and so on. And that's now, you know,
• 6:12
  there's a big question mark looming over that.
• 6:14
  I mean someone, yes, come in on that.
• 6:16
  I mean, both in terms of why decapitation hasn't worked and
• 6:23
  what what you think the strategy might be in in in the effect on
• 6:29
  the gulf because, because you might say, well, aren't they
• 6:31
  just turning everybody against them?
• 6:33
  You know, we've had this regime in place for 47 years.
• 6:37
  At any point, anybody who has underestimated them has ended
• 6:42
  up, you know, facing various consequences, whether you're the
• 6:47
  Iranian public, whether you're Reza Pahlavi or now with with
• 6:51
  the situation. These guys back back in the
• 6:53
  early 80s when they were just getting into power, you know,
• 6:57
  just settling in, the entire parliament was bombed and people
• 7:02
  thought that's the end of them and it wasn't.
• 7:05
  Khomeini died in 1989 and people thought it's the end of the
• 7:10
  regime and it wasn't. And, and the reason for this is
• 7:14
  that the, the structure of this, of this system of governance,
• 7:18
  there's the military peace, there's the administrative
• 7:20
  peace, there's the religious peace.
• 7:22
  It's an Organism that actually is quite diffused in terms of
• 7:25
  its nodes of power. It's not your traditional, you
• 7:28
  know, Saddam Hussein type dictatorship where you get rid
• 7:30
  of one guy and, and everything goes.
• 7:33
  This is not the Shah's dictatorship where the Shah goes
• 7:36
  and, and the army dissipates. This is actually much more of an
• 7:39
  Organism with buy in from different elements within the
• 7:43
  system. And you know, they're not
• 7:47
  stupid. They probably anticipated a lot
• 7:49
  of what what has happened. And from from what we hear, they
• 7:52
  had 4 levels of leadership plan. So one goes that they had up to
• 7:57
  4 levels planned in terms of who's going to replace the next
• 8:00
  guy. So these are all things that
• 8:02
  I'm, I'm not trying to defend the regime.
• 8:04
  What I'm, what I'm trying to say is that in any contest or any
• 8:08
  conflict, you need to know your adversary.
• 8:11
  This, this is the thing, right? And, and the, the narrative that
• 8:15
  people have been fed in the West is that these are the crazy
• 8:18
  mullahs. Well, they're not so crazy.
• 8:20
  They they have always operated on the basis of survival, their
• 8:24
  survival instinct for themselves, number one, but
• 8:27
  they've also weaved into their narrative faith and nationalism.
• 8:33
  And as a nation, Iran, as Iranians, generally speaking, we
• 8:38
  have a history of, you know, imperial games being played.
• 8:41
  Well, there was the Russians or the Brits and so forth.
• 8:42
  And so there is a there is an instinct to be very wary and
• 8:47
  and, you know, allergic to foreign intervention and, and
• 8:51
  this kind of bombing. So, so that's also now probably
• 8:54
  playing into it. Reza Pahlavi became has become
• 8:58
  like a pied piper for for the for Netanyahu's message.
• 9:00
  I mean, it, it was it, you know, he's been saying people go out
• 9:03
  into the streets. He keeps saying we, we are
• 9:06
  coming. He's, he's not there.
• 9:07
  He's sending other people's kids out into the streets.
• 9:11
  And, and at the moment, again, if you look at the kind of the
• 9:14
  essence, you know, 93 million people, the structures that they
• 9:17
  have, the Iranians at the moment are saying we're going to stay
• 9:21
  at home. We're going to, you know, what
• 9:24
  the hell is going to happen because, because we've already
• 9:26
  lost many lives. And, and yes, they want change,
• 9:30
  but I don't think they want change via a decimated country.
• 9:34
  None of us want that. And, and the more hospitals are
• 9:38
  hit, the more national heritage sites.
• 9:40
  We've just heard the Goddess Tan Palace in, in Tehran, which is a
• 9:43
  UNESCO site was, was damaged today.
• 9:47
  The more that happens, the more there's going to be anger
• 9:51
  towards anyone, you know, towards somebody like Pallavi
• 9:53
  who's, who's been supporting the war regarding the, the, the
• 9:56
  region. So the Iranians said that they
• 9:59
  would go on the offensive against any space, any places
• 10:04
  where the, where there are U.S. military presence, which is what
• 10:07
  they've done. The attacks on Dubai are, you
• 10:11
  know, they're, they're definitely of concern because
• 10:14
  it's the hotels and, and the economic infrastructure.
• 10:16
  But it's, but I think it's basically as a strategy and it's
• 10:20
  a, it's a, it's a risky game. They know that they are
• 10:23
  outgunned. Of course they are.
• 10:24
  It's the United States and Israel that is, that is fighting
• 10:26
  them. They know that they're outgunned
• 10:28
  militarily. They're trying to exact as much
• 10:31
  damage as they can and pressure economically, you know,
• 10:35
  insurance prices going up and, and and so forth so that there
• 10:39
  can be a ceasefire and some sort of negotiation out of this.
• 10:44
  Now that means they're escalating, which means that the
• 10:46
  US and Israel will escalate and that's really dangerous in terms
• 10:50
  of where where that will take us.
• 10:52
  And there is that the answer to that, the antidote to that as
• 10:54
  far as I'm concerned is that there needs to be an off ramping
• 10:58
  and de escalation plan that ties into it.
• 11:01
  The idea of a referendum in Iran so that we can have some kind of
• 11:06
  an orderly transition out of the current state and into something
• 11:10
  else with the political dissidents that are there with
• 11:14
  the release of political prisoners and and so forth.
• 11:16
  And, and again, it's notable that Mr. Pallavi has not said
• 11:19
  anything about political prisoners being released.
• 11:22
  And on the first day of the targeting Mir Hossein Mousavi's
• 11:26
  compound, he's one of the most renowned, you know, recognized
• 11:30
  leaders, dissident leaders of he was the leader of the green
• 11:34
  movement. His compound was targeted.
• 11:37
  The guy is under house arrest. Why was he targeted?
• 11:41
  So, so these are these are just interesting sort of dilemma, the
• 11:43
  questions that that need to be addressed and, and comes to the
• 11:47
  question, what is the, what is the goal here?
• 11:49
  Is it, is it transition or is it decimation?
• 11:52
  And and, you know, creating a country that's gonna be on its
• 11:55
  knees so that you can then have a puppet fly in from Washington.
• 11:58
  I'm sure. I mean, someone was hinting
• 12:00
  there at, you know, this idea that it was crazy mothers.
• 12:04
  And I know from the briefings I've had from, you know, British
• 12:09
  government that there has been this idea that the Iranian
• 12:13
  regime was incompetent, was likely to collapse on itself,
• 12:17
  was deeply unpopular and was just kind of useless.
• 12:20
  A lot of as a lot of sort of, you know, international, you
• 12:25
  know, strategy, you know, is there a danger that they have
• 12:29
  all thought that Iran is much worse than it might be?
• 12:34
  Well, there certainly is a danger when you carry out such a
• 12:37
  drastic step as assassinating a leader of a country.
• 12:44
  That's not something that happens very often.
• 12:46
  And, you know, I don't think it's happened for decades that
• 12:48
  one country has done that to another.
• 12:51
  So it's a very drastic step. It's something that Lee, on the
• 12:55
  one hand suddenly will leave the regime reeling.
• 12:57
  But to think that they're that incompetent and they're not
• 13:03
  they're not incompetent. They're certainly not Madame
• 13:04
  Mullahs. And it would be hard for for
• 13:08
  for, you know, Israelis or Americans to claim that Iran is
• 13:12
  such a great threat while at the same time they're not very, you
• 13:15
  know, they're not very clever or sophisticated nation.
• 13:17
  I think that anybody in Israel who deals with, you know, with
• 13:21
  the Iranians, whether intelligence officers or
• 13:24
  academics or politicians, and don't forget, until 47 years
• 13:27
  ago, Israel and Iran were close allies.
• 13:30
  And in Israel itself, there are hundreds of thousands of Jewish
• 13:34
  Israelis who, who, who are of Iranian descent.
• 13:37
  Many of them were born there. So the, I don't, you know, maybe
• 13:42
  at St. level people think that talk about them being mad.
• 13:46
  But certainly that's certainly not the view, you know, amongst
• 13:50
  decision makers and in the intelligence community.
• 13:52
  That said, I think there is a bit of a hubristic or maybe
• 13:56
  maybe I'm slightly, you know, maybe it's a lot of hubris right
• 14:03
  now. And certainly, you know, since
• 14:05
  October seven, 2 1/2 years ago, there has been this roller
• 14:08
  coaster of trauma and hubris here in Israel.
• 14:11
  It's, and we've seen it manifest itself in different ways.
• 14:15
  So the, the, the feeling that Israel can Israel, which is a
• 14:18
  much smaller country than Iran, both in, in territory and
• 14:21
  population can step in and somehow along with the Americans
• 14:25
  change the, the historic direction of Iran.
• 14:30
  I think that's, that's slightly over exaggerating any country's
• 14:36
  powers. And, and I fear that that's what
• 14:38
  may have happened here. But on the other hand, this
• 14:41
  assassination was only 60 hours ago, so it could, the shockwaves
• 14:47
  of it could still topple the regime.
• 14:48
  I think we're we're rushing to to make assessments of things
• 14:52
  that are very much in the early stages of of the event.
• 14:57
  No, of course. But what we're also trying to
• 14:59
  read is, is what the offer Ampersand AM calls it might be.
• 15:03
  And whether it's the same for Netanyahu as it is for Trump.
• 15:07
  You know, they are reading from a similar script today in terms
• 15:11
  of what the war aims are. And they say that they're trying
• 15:13
  to take out missile launch sites, take out any nuclear
• 15:18
  capability, but are not trying to impose a new system or a new
• 15:22
  regime or a new ruler. Do you think they both really
• 15:26
  want the same thing? No, they're politicians and
• 15:29
  politicians, you know, ultimately, always all politics
• 15:32
  is local politics. And they're, you know, they're
• 15:35
  both facing elections this year. Netanyahu's facing a
• 15:40
  parliamentary election, which could if the, you know, if the
• 15:44
  current polls are to believe, could bring an end to his long,
• 15:48
  long term in office. And Trump, it's a, it's a
• 15:51
  midterm, but the midterm is an important verdict on, you know,
• 15:55
  on his administration. So they're, you know, they're
• 15:58
  both constantly looking at the polls and thinking about how
• 16:01
  this war, this war will be framed as part of their campaign
• 16:05
  narrative. And it, it is different for for
• 16:09
  them, you know, for each one of them.
• 16:10
  Trump will be looking at oil prices.
• 16:13
  You know, voters in America think about how, you know,
• 16:16
  determine how they're going to vote by the price they pay at
• 16:18
  the pump. And he'll want to show that he
• 16:21
  can do a very different war to Barack, not so much Obama, but
• 16:26
  but certainly Bush the second who who dragged America into
• 16:31
  these long protracting wars in the minister.
• 16:33
  He wants to show this is quick and over.
• 16:36
  Whereas I think Netanyahu wants to be able to show the the
• 16:38
  Israeli public that he's reached something decisive when it comes
• 16:43
  to. And I can hear the sirens where
• 16:45
  you are here in Jerusalem. We're not hearing them yet.
• 16:50
  Where? Where?
• 16:51
  Yeah. Do you have to change location?
• 16:53
  No, it's all right. I think we'll carry on for now.
• 16:57
  So, I mean, but this is just an illustration.
• 16:59
  I mean, every, every night that's disrupted like this for
• 17:03
  Israelis, that does harm the Tony out.
• 17:07
  On the other hand, if Trump ends this war on his own terms, which
• 17:11
  we saw in the war in June and say, OK, I've won.
• 17:14
  And now there's a new leadership in Iran which is happy to, to
• 17:18
  deal with me and, and, and accept my, my dictate.
• 17:24
  It may not be the same for Israel.
• 17:26
  It could end with Iran still having a significant ballistic
• 17:30
  missile capability. And also it could end with a,
• 17:32
  with a betrayal of the Iranian people.
• 17:34
  It could end with someone else who was involved with
• 17:37
  suppressing the protest back in January, someone who has blood
• 17:41
  on his hands going, you know, taking the the role of supreme
• 17:45
  leader or whatever power there is behind the scenes and just
• 17:51
  cutting a deal with Trump at the same time.
• 17:53
  So the outcomes right now as you said, the Trump and it and the
• 17:57
  hour are are reading from the same script, but the outcome is
• 18:00
  not necessarily going to going to be satisfactory for either of
• 18:04
  them. And Sonam, what kind of off ramp
• 18:06
  do you think Iran wants? So first of all, I, I see three
• 18:10
  different goals here that, you know, there might be sort of an
• 18:13
  overlap Venn diagram of some sort, but also maybe not the
• 18:17
  Iranian public. Generally speaking, if we, you
• 18:20
  know, we, we don't really know. But if, if we go by whatever
• 18:24
  sentiment that we've, we've heard, you know, generally
• 18:27
  speaking, people want freedom and they want some form of
• 18:30
  democratic secular state so that you can just be yourself and,
• 18:33
  and, you know, get rid of the theocracy, right?
• 18:35
  That that's one side of it. the United States, I don't think
• 18:40
  they fund them. I mean this Trump
• 18:41
  administration, I don't think they care.
• 18:43
  They just want someone that they can do business with possibly or
• 18:48
  demonstrate that that they, you know, that they suppressed
• 18:51
  because they were an American adversary for so long.
• 18:54
  So, but but as we know if if and I think I think Angela's right,
• 18:58
  if somebody shows up or at the current, the current sort of
• 19:01
  interim leadership that has that has emerged, if there's some
• 19:05
  deal that's made and the Iranian public are betrayed, I don't
• 19:11
  think that Trump particularly cares about that.
• 19:13
  And then I think that the Israeli side of the story, I'm a
• 19:16
  bit more cynical because I think that for, for Israel, a strong
• 19:21
  secular democracy in Iran is not necessarily an end goal that,
• 19:25
  that Netanyahu would want. Because it's quite likely
• 19:27
  that's, you know, a government like that would question
• 19:31
  Israel's, you know, treatment of the Palestinians and have a say
• 19:35
  and, and would would still be a powerhouse in the region
• 19:37
  challenging some of the sort of extremities of, of the, of the
• 19:41
  Israeli regime. So I think, I think that that
• 19:43
  for them, they want a weakened state may be fragmented and and
• 19:48
  as I say, some something along the lines of Syria where you
• 19:50
  have a country with a 0 defensive defence infrastructure
• 19:55
  and that that you can, you know, do what you want with it as as
• 19:58
  you wish. So I think there are different
• 20:00
  interests at play at the moment. And then just just one, one last
• 20:03
  one interest. And now the interest necessarily
• 20:05
  the same thing. Well, exactly no, that I agree
• 20:08
  that I agree. That's that's why I was saying
• 20:09
  the current, the current leadership that that you have
• 20:11
  and and hopefully you know, through elections that will
• 20:13
  change. But one of the things that, that
• 20:15
  people aren't interesting right now is that, you know, Iraq is
• 20:18
  up in arms that they, I have colleagues in Iraq and they were
• 20:21
  saying that young people are out and they're waiting for the
• 20:23
  fatwa of war. Hopefully they won't, that won't
• 20:26
  happen. It'll be calmed down.
• 20:27
  But that's dangerous. Pakistan is, has been up in
• 20:30
  arms. I mean, the, the, the Pakistani
• 20:32
  U.S. embassy consulates in, in Pakistan have been, have been
• 20:36
  overrun. Lebanon, we're seeing
• 20:39
  difficulties. Bahrain, we're seeing issues.
• 20:41
  These are not, these are consequences.
• 20:44
  These aren't things that the Iranians instigated.
• 20:46
  It's the, their public's reaction to the killing of
• 20:51
  Harmony because in some of these places, Harmony was more popular
• 20:55
  than he was in Iran. So, so it, it's, you know, the
• 20:58
  calc, the fact that some of this stuff wasn't calculated is
• 21:02
  really problematic because it's not hard to have seen.
• 21:04
  It was, you know, it was, I think it's all in plain sight.
• 21:06
  Somebody who knew the the region could have probably given that
• 21:08
  analysis upfront. I'm sure.
• 21:10
  What were you going to say? Well, I don't think that a
• 21:13
  secular liberal or whatever democratic Iran, which is
• 21:17
  somewhat supportive of the Palestinian cause, is bad for
• 21:20
  Israel when compared to in Iran, which has provided billions of
• 21:23
  dollars and thousands of missiles to Hezbollah, Hamas,
• 21:27
  the Houthis and others surrounding Israel who actually
• 21:29
  use those things. So I don't, I don't, I mean, I'd
• 21:32
  like to be cynical as well, but I really think that Sanam is
• 21:34
  wrong about that point. There's nothing.
• 21:38
  I hope you're right, Angela. I really hope you're right.
• 21:41
  Well, you know, I did, unless you expect a secular democratic
• 21:45
  Iran, Iran to, to continue supplying Hezbollah with
• 21:49
  missiles. And I, I doubt, I doubt that's
• 21:51
  what you're saying. So, yeah, perhaps for Netanyahu,
• 21:55
  his narrow political interests, having Iran as as as its
• 21:59
  constant bogeyman has has been very good politically over the
• 22:03
  years. It's something not good for the
• 22:05
  Israeli people or for Israel as a country and for all security.
• 22:08
  And we've we've seen that Israel has been in the last 2 1/2
• 22:11
  years, the target of Iranian missiles were usually fired by
• 22:16
  other by others, but the supply designed and funded by by Iran.
• 22:21
  So I think any almost any other type of Iran would be better for
• 22:25
  Israel. But yes, also chaos there is it
• 22:29
  would be bad for the region. I don't think that necessarily
• 22:32
  Israel wants to see Iran as a weak and disjointed countries
• 22:38
  where it's minorities are, are each carving out a place
• 22:41
  something like Syria or Iraq right now.
• 22:44
  I think Israel very much wants to go back to those days when
• 22:47
  they were countries which had which had which had strong a
• 22:50
  strong relationships. And, you know, almost anybody I
• 22:53
  speak to who is a serious, either Iran export or an Israeli
• 22:57
  Iranian, all, you know, they all say, we hope that in our
• 23:00
  lifetime to return to, to Tehran and Isfahan and all the, the
• 23:04
  cities that we, that we knew and, and loved being in before
• 23:08
  1979, that that's the main consensus that I hear amongst
• 23:13
  most Israelis. And I'm not here to in any way
• 23:16
  to defend Israel. I'm here as a journalist.
• 23:18
  But I, I don't, I just, I don't think that, you know, there's a
• 23:21
  lot of obviously a lot of hatred here in Israel towards
• 23:26
  Palestinians and towards, you know, and, and just, you know, a
• 23:29
  lot of very negative feelings. There isn't a negative feeling
• 23:32
  here towards the Iranian people. You know, it's Israel.
• 23:36
  Israelis love Persian cuisine and Persian music or Iranian
• 23:40
  music, whatever you want to call it.
• 23:41
  And it's very much part of life here.
• 23:43
  And you know, Krish, a minute or two where from where you are
• 23:48
  right now, there's I can think of two or three excellent
• 23:51
  Persian restaurant. Yeah, Salam, I just want to end
• 23:55
  with you both really on on this idea of sort of what what you
• 23:58
  know, what the people might feel such it is.
• 24:01
  I mean, when you talk about the Iranian people, obviously there,
• 24:05
  there are the people who are, you know, cramming the squares
• 24:08
  demonstrating in favour of the the regime and there are the
• 24:12
  people who came out demonstrating against the regime
• 24:16
  and were killed in their thousands a few weeks ago.
• 24:19
  I mean, do they have much in common?
• 24:22
  I think I think they have a lot in common, but I think that the
• 24:26
  question of how you bring about from a leadership standpoint, A
• 24:32
  belief that the Iran that we have belongs to all of us, to
• 24:36
  everyone is the challenge. And, and what's happened is that
• 24:40
  the, you know, we've had 47 years of a of a regime that is
• 24:44
  basically said, if you don't, you know, if you don't agree
• 24:45
  with me, go or I'm going to throw you in jail.
• 24:50
  And instead of having an alternative voice coming out of
• 24:54
  Mr. Pallavi, who who has, you know, self-proclaimed himself to
• 24:56
  be the leader of the transition, instead of having a voice that
• 24:59
  says actually, we, it belongs to all of us, let's have it.
• 25:02
  Let's envision a future where we can be there.
• 25:05
  Let's envision a future of some form of restorative justice,
• 25:08
  some form of national dialogue. You know, something along the
• 25:11
  lines of the South Africans had a people's Charter.
• 25:13
  You could look at it, read it and say, oh, I belong to this,
• 25:16
  right. But some vision of the future
• 25:18
  where people don't feel existential threat one way or
• 25:21
  another to bring us back to that idea of what is it that we love.
• 25:26
  I might, you know, when in my darkest moments, what I think is
• 25:29
  that all of the anger and all the trauma is in part related to
• 25:33
  the fact that that Iranians deeply, deeply love their
• 25:37
  country. And and I think and shall you
• 25:39
  know your point That is, you know, the Jewish Iranians that
• 25:41
  went to Israel still have deep affinity.
• 25:44
  I remember meeting many when I was in Tel Aviv some years ago.
• 25:47
  So it there is a Iran has a has, we have deep roots to, to the
• 25:51
  and a sense of, you know, sense of connection to the country.
• 25:54
  But we need leadership that says all of us have a right to be
• 25:58
  there and, and it belongs to all of us.
• 26:00
  And go actually go back to our his long, long history.
• 26:03
  Iran is the first secular empire.
• 26:06
  It was, you know, they said pay your taxes and and and practice
• 26:10
  whatever faith you want to have. We have it in our history, but
• 26:14
  it's been decimated over the years by this regime, by the
• 26:17
  Pallavi regime before that and, and the, you know, Pallavi right
• 26:20
  now and, and we need to reconcile, I think, I think with
• 26:24
  each other and you know that they're off ramping.
• 26:27
  I think partly is to first of all just contain this conflict
• 26:30
  and then help with this idea of a, of a orderly, as I say,
• 26:34
  referendum. I mean that they themselves are
• 26:36
  speaking about how to have some change, but I don't think that
• 26:40
  that it, that change on the back of bombs and bullets is going to
• 26:43
  be, is going to lead us to a democratic space.
• 26:46
  I I think it just enables more authoritarianism.
• 26:50
  And, and so, yeah, the sooner we can de escalate and have some
• 26:53
  kind of national space for dialogue with all the opposition
• 26:57
  leaders and everybody involved. I I think that's that, you know,
• 27:00
  let's imagine that these two, three days are incredibly,
• 27:03
  incredibly dark as the news of civilian deaths and attacks and
• 27:07
  so forth come. You know, it's just, it's just
• 27:10
  relentless. And Angela, I mean, you say the
• 27:12
  Israeli people have no, you know, hatred of the Iranian
• 27:16
  civilian population. But but people here seem pretty
• 27:21
  sanguine about this war and politically, everybody's falling
• 27:25
  into line. I mean, we've spoken to, you
• 27:27
  know, Naftali Bennett and Yah Lapid in the last day or so and
• 27:31
  they are all saying, you know, we're all Israelis.
• 27:34
  We're all together. We totally support the
• 27:36
  government. We totally support the war.
• 27:38
  I asked Yah Lapid, you know what, what if this helps
• 27:41
  Netanyahu win re election And he he kind of shrugged and sort of
• 27:44
  said, well, we're all Israelis now, you know, are Israelis, You
• 27:50
  know, what do they, what do they want at the end of this?
• 27:53
  You know, do they do they just think this will buy us a few
• 27:55
  more years or do they think there's something bigger than
• 27:58
  that that's possible? I.
• 28:00
  Don't think there is that much strategic thinking.
• 28:02
  And Naftali Bennett and NIA Lepi, just like Netanyahu, are
• 28:07
  focused more than anything else right now on the on the election
• 28:12
  that's going to take place in a few months.
• 28:14
  We don't quite know the date yet, but it's it's close and you
• 28:20
  don't win votes by talking out against the, you know, against
• 28:26
  the war which has just begun, perhaps in a in a in a few
• 28:29
  weeks, if this war continues and and drags into a into less, less
• 28:37
  satisfactory outcomes original, then you'll start hearing that
• 28:41
  kind of criticism. But don't expect politicians who
• 28:44
  party leaders who have, who are about to, to, you know, to start
• 28:48
  their election campaign to criticize a war strategy.
• 28:52
  You know, I don't, you know, I, I haven't seen too many
• 28:55
  politicians that brave in, in, in other countries that at this
• 28:59
  time of war in America right now.
• 29:01
  It's, it's perhaps different because anything that Trump
• 29:03
  does, it's pretty easy for the Democrats to criticize him.
• 29:08
  But, you know, cast your mind back to, to, to summit to other
• 29:12
  wars in other countries. Usually parties, you know, most
• 29:16
  opposition parties kind of line up behind, behind the
• 29:19
  government. And it's not easy in Israel
• 29:23
  right now to speak against the war with Iran when, when Israel
• 29:26
  feels that, that, that they have already been at war with Iran
• 29:29
  for so long and so much of what's happened in the last 2
• 29:32
  1/2 years is connected to Iran. So I, you know, I just don't
• 29:36
  think it's realistic to start, certainly not in on day three of
• 29:39
  this war to expect the main opposition party leaders to
• 29:45
  start criticising, come back in a couple of weeks and, and, and
• 29:49
  we'll probably hear them talk a bit differently then.
• 29:52
  Thank you both very much indeed, Angel San, and thank you for
• 29:55
  your time. That's the forecast for today.
• 29:57
  Until next time, bye bye.