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Why Iran's mullahs fear Trump - and Netanyahu · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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  Speaker 1: It's Thursday, January fifteenth, twenty twenty six. There are fresh
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  Speaker 1: calls for governments to crack down on Elon Musk's Grok
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  Speaker 1: artificial intelligence tool. Grok, which is embedded in the social
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  Speaker 1: media platform x formerly known as Twitter, has generated a
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  Speaker 1: flood of sexualized, non consensual deep fake images of women
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  Speaker 1: and children, the Australians, revealing today the influential Australian Council
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  Speaker 1: of Trade Unions is demanding stronger regulation. But in the
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  Speaker 1: United States, Defend Secretary Pete Hegseth says the Pentagon is
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  Speaker 1: about to incorporate Grok into its internal platforms. Iran the
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  Speaker 1: most exotic and romantic of countries, rich in history and
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  Speaker 1: blessed with natural beauty and immense oil and gas resources,
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  Speaker 1: but now into its fifth decade, crippled by a brutally
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  Speaker 1: repressive regime that seeks to export its brand of militant
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  Speaker 1: Islamic fundamentalism to the world via terror proxies like Hamas,
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  Speaker 1: Hezbollah and the Hoofees. In recent days, the regime of
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  Speaker 1: Ayatola Ali Kamane has crushed a rebellion that started with
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  Speaker 1: the shopkeepers of Tehran's Grand Bazaar. So what happens now?
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  Speaker 1: Foreign editor Greg Sheridan is here. A year ago, the
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  Speaker 1: Islamic Republic of Iran was the all powerful sponsor of
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  Speaker 1: Hezblah Hamas and the hoofies, working towards a nuclear weapon
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  Speaker 1: rich in oil dollars, standing strong against the United States
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  Speaker 1: and Israel. Now, Iran's terror proxies are broken, its nuclear
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  Speaker 1: program is under a cloud, its economy is crippled, and
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  Speaker 1: its streets are flowing with the blood of Iranian civilians
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  Speaker 1: who tried to rise up against repression. President Trump is
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  Speaker 1: urging Iranian anti government demonstrators to care protesting, promising help
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  Speaker 1: is on the way.
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  Speaker 2: The large scale protests that began to run and spread
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  Speaker 2: to several cities appear to have subsided, replaced by pro
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  Speaker 2: government trallies broadcast on state media.
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  Speaker 1: The twenty six year old who was arrested days ago
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  Speaker 1: during demonstrations is now facing imminent execution in the.
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  Speaker 2: Final death banks of a regime.
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  Speaker 3: They're at their most dangerous.
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  Speaker 1: The riding began with the food sellers and hawkers of
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  Speaker 1: Tehran's Grand Bazaar and has spread across the ninety million
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  Speaker 1: plus population of this vast country. It's been met everywhere
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  Speaker 1: with the guns of a sprawling security infrastructure that brooks
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  Speaker 1: no dissent. We've been here before, with the twenty nineteen
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  Speaker 1: uprising of economic hardship and the twenty twenty two protests
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  Speaker 1: sparked when morality police beat to death a twenty two
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  Speaker 1: year old woman, Masa Amini for allegedly wearing her head
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  Speaker 1: scarf incorrectly.
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  Speaker 4: Women in Iran sat their headscarves on fire and fury.
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  Speaker 4: They are tired after morality police beating them up and
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  Speaker 4: the Islamic Republic leaders who police their every move.
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  Speaker 1: This time, at least at first, the uprising seemed different
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  Speaker 1: from exile. Crown Prince Reza Paalavi called on Iranians to
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  Speaker 1: rise up. Donald Trump promised to strike the regime if
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  Speaker 1: it murdered its own people. Among the diaspora, there was hope.
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  Speaker 1: Now that hope seems to be fading. Greg Sheridan is
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  Speaker 1: The Australian's foreign editor. Greg, we're seeing huge unrest in Iran.
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  Speaker 1: Reports of tens of thousands of bodies hard to confirm, because,
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  Speaker 1: of course, the Iranian regime has shut down communications. Do
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  Speaker 1: you feel that this is going to be the end
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  Speaker 1: of this regime or do you feel that it will survive?
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  Speaker 3: Clear quite pessimistically. I think it's likely the regime will survive.
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  Speaker 3: The government has opened a little bit of the Internet today.
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  Speaker 3: They wouldn't do that if they didn't fill their in control.
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  Speaker 3: There's no sign of a splintering in the security forces.
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  Speaker 3: The very scale of the bloodshed indicates that they're not
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  Speaker 3: losing their nerve about killing their own citizens, and they're
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  Speaker 3: not having trouble getting their security forces to kill their
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  Speaker 3: own citizens. Some of the well known moderates within Iranian
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  Speaker 3: life are calling for a crackdown, which means they don't
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  Speaker 3: see any alternative to the regime. The government is still functioning,
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  Speaker 3: and if anything, the numbers of demonstrators seems to have
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  Speaker 3: eased off a little bit in the last twenty four hours.
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  Speaker 3: So as usual, if a dictatorship can convince the army
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  Speaker 3: to kill its citizens in very large numbers, it tends
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  Speaker 3: to hang on to power.
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  Speaker 1: What's the calculus for Donald Trump?
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  Speaker 3: Now?
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  Speaker 1: He almost encouraged the protesters out. He's said that if
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  Speaker 1: they were able to take control of the state's institutions,
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  Speaker 1: that would be a good thing. He's indicated that he
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  Speaker 1: would strike Iran if it killed many of its own people,
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  Speaker 1: which of course it now has. What does he do now, Well.
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  Speaker 3: Trump is revealing himself as a neo conservative. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: move over Woodrow Wilson, John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Franklin Roosevelt.
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  Speaker 3: Only a few weeks ago, Trump's national security strategy said
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  Speaker 3: we no longer have any interest in the internal affairs
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  Speaker 3: of other nations. We don't care how they organize themselves,
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  Speaker 3: meaning we're not worried about human rights. But here he
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  Speaker 3: is saying if the Iranian leaders, he says, I'm concerned
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  Speaker 3: about all the death. If the Iranian leaders kill their
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  Speaker 3: people in large numbers, we will strike them. Now, there
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  Speaker 3: are a lot of problems with that statement. First of all,
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  Speaker 3: it's a good thing that Trump is on the side
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  Speaker 3: of the demonstrators, a very good thing, and that's where
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  Speaker 3: America should always be, on the side of liberty and
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  Speaker 3: democracy and against dictatorship. But it's hard to see how
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  Speaker 3: any a strike from the air can materially aid the demonstrators.
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  Speaker 3: You can't bring the regime down with their strikes, and
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  Speaker 3: the people are being shot by individual soldiers and Islamic
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  Speaker 3: Revolutionary Guard Corps members and Basiege militia members in the street. Well,
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  Speaker 3: you can't really deal with that from the air. Trump
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  Speaker 3: may yet decide not to do anything. We're speaking on
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  Speaker 3: Wednesday afternoon, so we don't yet know, and in which
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  Speaker 3: case his words were a bit problematic because he's encouraging
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  Speaker 3: people to risk their lives with an American promise of support.
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  Speaker 3: Now he's not responsible for them risking their lives, because
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  Speaker 3: these demonstrations have occurred independently of Trump. On the other hand,
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  Speaker 3: there may be military sound reasons for striking Iran's attempts
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  Speaker 3: to reconstitute its missile program. The Iranians are scared of Trump,
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  Speaker 3: They're scared of Benjaminette Yahoo, they are suffering from sanctions.
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  Speaker 3: Trump is intensifying sanctions. So whether he decides to do
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  Speaker 3: a sort of a demonstration strike, a military strike on
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  Speaker 3: a specific target, maybe a strike at some of the leaders,
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  Speaker 3: although I don't think he would strike the Ayatolla Harmoni. Look,
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  Speaker 3: it's genuinely very unpredictable, but it's hard to see how
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  Speaker 3: it materially affects the position of the demonstrators.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up. Why this uprising started with the most unlikely
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  Speaker 1: of revolutionaries. You've written very evocatively about the shopkeepers who
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  Speaker 1: were some of the first people out on the street
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  Speaker 1: as part of this unrest. Included in that group were
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  Speaker 1: some of the shopkeepers in Tehran's Grand Bizarre What does
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  Speaker 1: it mean that it's shopkeepers who are out on the
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  Speaker 1: streets voicing their rage about this regime.
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  Speaker 3: It's very dangerous for a government when it loses the
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  Speaker 3: support of shopkeepers, because shopkeepers are non ideological. They're not left,
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  Speaker 3: they're not right, They're interested in the functioning of their businesses,
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  Speaker 3: and they are if you like, the coal face of
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  Speaker 3: everyday life. If the shopkeepers can't function, that means ordinary people,
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  Speaker 3: ordinary families can't get bread and milk and eggs and
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  Speaker 3: tomatoes and what have you to just keep normal life functioning.
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  Speaker 5: Now.
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  Speaker 3: Iran a very sophisticated culture that inherits the great Persian culture,
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  Speaker 3: and it has great traditions of scholarship.
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  Speaker 5: It has brilliant film made and so on.
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  Speaker 3: It has always had a sophisticated urban class which despises
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  Speaker 3: the Muller's regime, but that class could never bring about
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  Speaker 3: political change on its own.
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  Speaker 5: The latest revolt different from the.
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  Speaker 3: One provoked by the death of that young woman who
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  Speaker 3: didn't wear a hijab with sufficient piety for the Muller's liking.
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  Speaker 3: The latest revolt is based on economic collapse. A lot
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  Speaker 3: of things to learn from that. One is that all
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  Speaker 3: the folks who told us the American and Israeli strikes
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  Speaker 3: on Iran would lead to a great surge of patriotism
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  Speaker 3: in which the people supported their government were just talking
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  Speaker 3: absolute moonshine. The people despise their government, and the government
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  Speaker 3: is not functioning for them in any way at all.
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  Speaker 3: The Islamic Revolution of nineteen seventy nine has delivered the
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  Speaker 3: Iranian people nothing but despare isolation, economic misery, and conflict
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  Speaker 3: with the world's most powerful military, the United States, and
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  Speaker 3: also with Israel. And they've got nothing in return. So
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  Speaker 3: that made it a very dangerous revolt because it mobilized
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  Speaker 3: people far beyond the urban liberals. It mobilized working class people.
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  Speaker 3: There were strikes, it mobilized workers, It mobilized people in
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  Speaker 3: villages and on farms, and you felt that that was
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  Speaker 3: a moment of maximum danger. But the Iranian regime, in
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  Speaker 3: its way, is quite sophisticated in knowing how to hang
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  Speaker 3: on to power. It resembles in many ways in North Koreans.
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  Speaker 3: North Koreans are the worst regime in the world and
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  Speaker 3: have the worst human rights in the worst economic performance,
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  Speaker 3: but they're extremely sophisticated about staying in power, and the
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  Speaker 3: Iranian regime has some genuine support on theocratic grounds, so
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  Speaker 3: they're like the Taliban.
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  Speaker 5: They don't want life to be happy and successful. They
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  Speaker 5: want it to be miserable.
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  Speaker 3: They don't want you to enjoy music, they don't want
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  Speaker 3: women to be equal to men, and so forth. But
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  Speaker 3: it also has created quite a big and very corrupt
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  Speaker 3: class who live well while the majority of people live poorly.
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  Speaker 3: So the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which is the most
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  Speaker 3: important military force, they have a much better material standard
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  Speaker 3: of living than the ordinary Iranian. So they would think
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  Speaker 3: if the current order collapses, they're likely to go down
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  Speaker 3: the totem polt, perhaps quite radically, so that gives them
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  Speaker 3: a big motivation. I mean Putin does something similar. He
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  Speaker 3: always makes sure his bodyguards are very wealthy.
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  Speaker 5: They're very well rewarded for.
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  Speaker 3: What they do, and that gives them a strong motivation
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  Speaker 3: to stick with him. And dictatorships don't typically collapse when
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  Speaker 3: they get more dictatorial. They typically collapse when they start
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  Speaker 3: to liberalize and they allow some social space for an
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  Speaker 3: opposition to get organized. Well, the Iranian leadership is not
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  Speaker 3: going to allow any like that, so I think the outlook,
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  Speaker 3: sad to say, is very bad. On the other hand,
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  Speaker 3: they are a bankrupt and hollow regime, and I'm sure
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  Speaker 3: the Americans and the Israelis will be trying to entice
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  Speaker 3: someone in the Iranian leadership to lead a revolt, but
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  Speaker 3: that seems to be unlikely because it didn't happen at
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  Speaker 3: this maximum stress moment. So I think we can say, sadly,
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  Speaker 3: it looks like the bad.
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  Speaker 5: Guys have survived.
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  Speaker 3: But on the other hand, they are scared of Trump,
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  Speaker 3: they are scared of Netnyahu.
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  Speaker 5: The people hate them.
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  Speaker 3: There are a lot of movable parts in this There
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  Speaker 3: are ethnic minorities which are armed and which hate the
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  Speaker 3: central government. So there's a lot of moving parts in
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  Speaker 3: this story. But for the moment, the regime looks to
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  Speaker 3: have held on. You know, you could get some good
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  Speaker 3: things out of this, because every dollar the Iranians spend
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  Speaker 3: on a nuclear program and missiles is a dollar they
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  Speaker 3: can't spend on food. If they're scared of their own shopkeepers,
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  Speaker 3: they might want to spend a bit more money on
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  Speaker 3: food and a bit less money on a nuclear weapons program.
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  Speaker 3: So there are ways that this could get a little
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  Speaker 3: bit better. But this regime is going to learn one
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  Speaker 3: key lesson out of this, which is if you want
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  Speaker 3: to stay in power, you've got to be willing to
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  Speaker 3: kill thousands and thousands of people, and they've always been willing.
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  Speaker 5: To do that.
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  Speaker 1: Greg, you always make me feel better about the world,
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  Speaker 1: and at least in this case, you've made me understand it.
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  Speaker 1: So thank you very much. Greg Sheridan is The Australian's
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  Speaker 1: Foreign editor.
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  Speaker 5: Thanks so much, Claire.
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  Speaker 1: Greg Sheridan is The Australian's Foreign editor. You can read
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  Speaker 1: all Greg's reporting right now at the Australian dot com
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  Speaker 1: dot au