The Meyers Report 7-10-2024 Round Table Iran
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00:00You look at not just France and England, but you also look at India, France, and England.
00:17And they all come from different situations.
00:21I mean, India, the economic situation overall has been very strong.
00:28France has been okay, and England has not been that great.
00:31But in all three cases, the hard-core, more right-wing parties either were pushed out
00:43or did not perform as well as they expected.
00:47I'm not sure what a right-wing party is anymore, because in this country, I would be considered
00:54right-wing, and actually, I'm a liberal.
00:58I see.
00:59Well, I mean, the thing is, you look more at parties that have, quote-unquote, populist
01:06slash...
01:07What I find interesting is that the distinct, just take France, for example, the distinction
01:15between the far left and the far right is not very great.
01:21They're both populist movements.
01:22They both cater to the working class, and in fact, a lot of the program of the IRN in
01:31France, the far right, could have been written by the far left.
01:35Yeah, with some distinctions.
01:36I mean, one of the things is...
01:38Well, one of them is, of course, Israel, but...
01:43One of them is the issue of who is French, or who is English, or who is Indian.
01:49So, for example, Modi basically said, the true Indians are the Hindu.
01:58The French far right said, the true French are people who are French, blood French, born
02:06here, and not only born here, but they are part of the French tradition.
02:14The British was a little bit less smart.
02:17I mean, most of the Tory rhetoric was more on immigration and economic.
02:26It was more economic than I would say political or social, but they're all populist.
02:32And the other thing is that all of these populist parties, that's a big distinction with France
02:37between the extreme left and extreme right, is populist parties basically are really nothing
02:43more than shields for the large corporates.
02:50In France, one of the things that distinguishes the left from the right is the right's attachment
03:00to the formal colonial interests of France, and to like the Pétain regime, and stuff
03:08like that.
03:09It blends less so in the most current iteration of the far right.
03:17We know that Le Pen was rooted in anti-Semitism and pro-colonialism and all that.
03:25This far right is not so much, although I think they gave that up kind of grudgingly,
03:32but they did give it up.
03:33Yeah, but I mean, there's still, for example, there's a whole issue of Frenchness.
03:39They tried to redefine Frenchness as almost like a race thing.
03:44And the argument that people like Macron and others were saying, was saying, you know,
03:50being French is not a race.
03:53French is an idea.
04:00The French government is contradictory on this, and French society is contradictory
04:04on it, because being French means subscribing to the values of France.
04:14It's got nothing to do with ethnicity, yet the level of discrimination against the non-white
04:20residents of France is huge.
04:22They're basically excluded from mainstream France.
04:25Right, exactly.
04:26But now what the National Rassembly, whatever rally it was, the party wanted to do was to
04:35make it, and they made it explicit.
04:38And that's where they really, you know, basically instilled fear in all the other parties and
04:46people turned against them in the second round.
04:49Right.
04:50Yeah.
04:51So, I mean, that's.
04:52I was surprised.
04:53I wasn't.
04:54I was surprised at the second round, but one of the things that surprised me is the fact
05:00that the centrists came in second, not third.
05:06Yeah, because once again, you know, the extreme left was a bit extreme.
05:14But the other thing about the extreme left is the extreme left is a hodgepodge of very
05:19different things.
05:20Yeah.
05:21And the fact is, on the extreme left, in the so-called NFP, can't agree on very much.
05:29No, you've got to.
05:30I mean, it includes the Greens, it includes the Trotskyite ex-communists, it includes,
05:36actually I say ex-communists, I'm not sure that they'll show an ex-communist, but anyway.
05:43And it has what we used to call socialists.
05:46Right.
05:47Let's go back to Jack for a second.
05:48Do we have Hal Daub or Alvin with us tonight?
05:51Can you check your sound, Hal?
05:53Can you tell me?
05:54Yes, we've got the real guy.
05:57Oh, you slayed your chipmunk.
05:58Good evening, everybody.
05:59Why don't you slay a chipmunk track before you get on tonight, or what?
06:06I'm listening.
06:10Are we getting on on the Iran thing?
06:11Yes, we're going to start it.
06:14Give us another five minutes and we'll start recording.
06:17Right.
06:18Yeah.
06:19Yeah.
06:20And, you know, and again, in England, again, what happened was interesting is that the
06:24extreme, extreme right, the extreme right basically sunk the Tories because, right,
06:32because Labour won like a third of the vote.
06:36Right.
06:37But it's the sweet revenge of old French people that didn't like Macron raising their retirement
06:45age and they haven't forgotten it.
06:47Yeah, the point is the poison of socialism.
06:51Well, what did he raise the retirement age to, Hal?
06:5464.
06:5564.
06:56From 62.
06:57Two years ago.
06:58Well, yeah, last summer was it was a big idea by decree.
07:04They actually started it just before COVID.
07:07And and then because we were in I was in France at the time and there was a metro strike and
07:13it was a nightmare because the people were walking out over it and then they suspended
07:17the reform effort because of COVID and then returned to it.
07:22And he couldn't couldn't get a parliamentary majority to pass it.
07:25So he passed it by decree by the special provision in the French Constitution and then survived
07:30the no confidence vote afterwards.
07:33But you know, the rule in France is if you pass by decree, you have to come back the
07:36next year to the parliament to get it voted on.
07:39Right.
07:40So he never overcame the bumblebees.
07:43Right.
07:44Yeah.
07:45I mean, well, you know, I think I was I mean, I was in France.
07:49And again, the contrast between I traveled around France, too, and the contrast between
07:55what you see and the level of people is quite striking.
07:59I mean, people are spending money like crazy.
08:02The stores are full.
08:03Cafes are full.
08:04Restaurants are full.
08:05People have jobs.
08:06Unemployment is down historically.
08:09But people are just saying, oh, nothing's working and prices are too high and we don't
08:16have enough money.
08:17And the other thing that people we don't know is that the level of salaries in France is
08:22much lower than here.
08:23I mean, you know, you've got a professional engineer in France or a banker will make $50,000
08:30a year.
08:31Right.
08:32And the pension is like fifteen hundred pensions, like fifteen hundred euros a month.
08:37And that's a typical pension.
08:40But a good meal in the city of Paris today will cost you about 40 percent of what a 50
08:44percent of what a cost of math has been yet.
08:46Exactly.
08:47Oh, sure.
08:48It's much cheaper.
08:49Things are much cheaper, too.
08:50But I mean, the thing is that, again, it's there's a disconnect like in this country
08:54between the economic condition, macro conditions, if you want data and the way people are spending
09:01money and the level of satisfaction or dissatisfaction of the population at large.
09:06And that's true everywhere.
09:07Yeah.
09:08Well, yeah, I find on that on that subject that, you know, if you ask people how their
09:13own situation is, they say pretty good.
09:15If you ask them what the national situation is, they say pretty bad.
09:18But then if you sum up all the individual responses, what you get is a good national
09:21situation.
09:22So it's inconsistent.
09:23Exactly.
09:24They cancel each other out.
09:25Right.
09:26Exactly.
09:27Yeah.
09:28But I mean, it was really fun to be in Europe.
09:31It was really interesting.
09:32I'm going in September, so I'll report back.
09:35Yeah, I'll call you before I give you a few tips.
09:38OK.
09:39We'll start recording in about three minutes, the way it's going to go.
09:44I'm going to introduce Karim and I'll introduce our questioners, Hal and Paul.
09:52And Biff is going to have some questions.
09:55OK.
09:56And then we'll basically, Karim, you'll go through the subjects that we had discussed
10:02and let's see if we can do this in a half an hour to 40 minutes.
10:08Well, let's make it shorter.
10:1030 minutes.
10:1130 minutes.
10:12I'm good with that.
10:13Good idea.
10:14Less is more.
10:15Right.
10:16So we'll start this in two minutes.
10:23Biff, you should be centered in the screen if you can.
10:29I'll get centered in the screen when it matters.
10:33I just wanted to say to the two gentlemen who put former in front of their occupations,
10:40I'm a Marine.
10:41There are no former Marines.
10:45You guys are still diplomats and congressmen.
10:48The way you speak, the way you think, the way you react.
10:52So you can take the former off because you're still very diplomatic and you're still very
10:58inclusive.
10:59Booyah!
11:00OK.
11:01Booyah!
11:02All right.
11:03I'll fix it, guys.
11:04I'll do it right now.
11:05Then we'll get started.
11:06One second.
11:07Thanks, Biff.
11:08One second.
11:09Paul, you be careful.
11:10Biff can have beguiling eyes.
11:11OK.
11:12Did I fix it properly now?
11:36OK, boys.
11:37OK.
11:38OK.
11:39So let's get started.
11:40Good evening, everyone.
11:46Welcome to Wednesday, July 10th, 2024, edition of the Myers Report Roundtable.
11:53Tonight we're going to be focusing in on the Middle East, particularly Iran.
11:59After their elections, we have with us tonight Karim Pakravan, who's been a longtime friend
12:05and participant with us.
12:07He is an expert on the Middle East through his personal connections as well as international
12:13banking.
12:14He was a member of one of Iran's ruling families under the Shah.
12:18Mr. Pakravan has a personal understanding of the Middle East and financial management,
12:25international finance, and quantitative methods in finance, global macro financial markets,
12:32regulations and geopolitics.
12:34He is currently teaching.
12:35He's an associate professor of, a visiting professor of finance at DePaul University
12:43after 25 years or more in international banking.
12:51With us also, we have, asking questions after Karim speaks, is Congressman Hal Dobb, who's
13:00also the mayor of Omaha and generally just brilliant.
13:06We have Paul McGonigal, diplomat and international banker.
13:11And we have Biff Hawkey, who was an international businessman with partnerships in the Middle
13:18East, particularly Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.
13:22Karim, welcome.
13:25Thank you.
13:29What is happening?
13:31What is happening in Iran?
13:32Okay.
13:33I think very briefly, put it in context for a couple of minutes, basically two years ago
13:41in September, riots started in Iran over the murder by the police of a young woman because
13:48of her improperly being veiled.
13:52Women and young people and workers and all kinds of people rioted for months.
13:57Hundreds were killed.
13:58Thousands were imprisoned.
14:00Eventually, the movement was put down, but that left an indelible rift between the people
14:08and the government.
14:09At the same time, Iran is in a very bad economic situation.
14:13It is suffering under sanctions, mismanagement and corruption.
14:16Inflation is very high.
14:18You've got obscene levels of wealth at the top of the society.
14:25Particularly mostly people who are tied to the regime, children of mullahs, mullahs,
14:31people who are revolutionary guards and so on and so forth, and extreme poverty and the
14:37middle class has been wiped out.
14:41On top of this, Iran has basically, its foreign policy has moved in a hard line direction,
14:51especially after President Trump basically revoked the JCPOA, the nuclear deal.
14:59And then the Israel-Hamas crisis hit, which again posed another dilemma for Iran.
15:08So that's a little bit the context.
15:10How is that a dilemma for Iran?
15:13Well, because on one hand, Iran wants to remain a revolutionary country, a theocracy, Muslim
15:22theocracy, and at the same time, it is trying to ease the sanctions by continuing negotiating
15:31with the United States.
15:34And so they basically have very schizophrenic policy.
15:38So on one hand, they've created this axis of resistance, basically the foreign policy
15:46is oriented towards China, Russia, North Korea, as well as their proxies in the region.
15:55At the same time, they realize that the economic situation is dire, and unless they can fix
16:01it, they won't be able to maybe pacify the population.
16:08So again, several times in the past decade, we came very close to massive riots would
16:14overthrow the regime, and then the regime crushed them.
16:18So I think that is the context in which it was fortuitous, you could say in a way, that
16:27the president, Raisi, who was basically an idiot and a moron, died in a helicopter crash,
16:36which was, again, a little bit mysterious, and then allowed holding new elections.
16:43And this is another paradox in Iran.
16:44By the way, when you say it was mysterious, who do you think might have done it?
16:49Well, they think that people in the regime itself in Iran were trying to do it to get
16:55him out of the potential succession to the Ayatollah Khamenei as the supreme leader.
17:02So it wasn't us, and it wasn't the Israelis or anybody else?
17:06No, it was just, I mean, if it had anything, it would have been the people themselves.
17:09I mean, killing the guy does not represent any interest for the U.S. or Israel, because
17:19the guy was a nobody, and he wasn't a man who had power in any way.
17:29So the paradox of the Iranian regime is that they restricted the number of candidates,
17:36and the previous election that Raisi won, they basically did not allow any so-called
17:42moderate or reformist to run.
17:44This time they allowed one to run.
17:47And not only that, but then they let him win.
17:50I mean, there was pretty much fair and square.
17:53People voted and he won.
17:54And they actually had an honest election?
17:58Well, yeah.
17:59I mean, because in 2009 there was a reformist running, and Ahmadinejad was running for a
18:05second term, and the regime basically announced that Ahmadinejad had won, and that's it.
18:12And this time they allowed this guy to win.
18:14Now why?
18:15This guy's position, Pezreshkian, he is what we would call a moderate loyalist.
18:24And his program was basically trying to improve, to lessen the societal pressures on women,
18:34try to make a deal with the West on a return to the nuclear deal, and improve relations
18:40with the West.
18:42And also, which is interesting, he's openly very critical of Iran's relationships with
18:47China and Russia, which he believes are exploiting Iran by basically buying very cheap, I mean,
18:58China in particular, buying very deeply discounted Iranian oil in exchange for third rate goods.
19:04You know, this raises two questions.
19:08Question number one is, if the U.S. took up the nuclear arms deal with Iran, would they
19:15honor it?
19:16Well, they did honor it in the past, in 2015, until Trump basically walked out of it.
19:23But they were honoring it.
19:24They had inspections, they had sent out all their enriched uranium to Russia, the IAEA
19:34was there, and they wanted to continue, basically, negotiations based on that.
19:45But I mean, they did honor it at that time.
19:47So the other question that I would ask is that, historically, Iran has, since it is
19:54a non, its people are not Arabs, that they have a closer relationship culturally, I think,
20:04with the West than they do some of their own neighbors.
20:08Is that accurate?
20:09Is that right?
20:10Well, certainly the population is pro-Western.
20:13They are, they, it's not just they're pro-Western, they want to be, you know, involved in the
20:19world.
20:20The Iranians can travel pretty much anywhere, they, there are sanctions on everything they
20:27want to do.
20:28They can't do business with almost anybody in the West, I mean, their businesses with
20:34India and China and Russia and other places.
20:37And the Iranians are very pro-Western.
20:39So the government is ferociously anti-Western, but the population is not.
20:46And they show it.
20:47And they, they're basically anti-Chinese, anti-Russian.
20:56They do not support the government's doling out hundreds of millions of dollars to Palestinians
21:03or Lebanese, Hezbollah, or any other sort of group.
21:08I mean, they've shown that repeatedly in the slogans they were shouting during the demonstrations.
21:13So the, the problem is that the regime legitimacy in their own eyes resides on being anti-American
21:24and anti-Israel.
21:25Let me, let me ask you something.
21:28Does, how much does Iran control the Houthis, Hezbollah, and Hamas?
21:35Well, I think that they, to go back to the dream of Ayatollah Khomeini was to create
21:45an Islamic nation and in the Middle East.
21:50So he promoted-
21:52Nasser way back when the fifties dreamed of that too.
21:54No, he dreamed of having an Arab nation, basically secular, but if this was like more Islamic
21:59nation, I mean, Khomeini was not at all an Iranian nationalist.
22:03And that's why he started with promoting the Hezbollah in Lebanon and allying with
22:11Shiite groups in other places.
22:13But in the past few years, they've really poured money into Hezbollah, into Houthis,
22:18and Hamas.
22:19It created what they call the axis of resistance.
22:23But these groups basically are now fairly autonomous.
22:30They have their own objectives.
22:33And Iran, I mean, I don't have inside information, but I really think that they were really surprised
22:39by Hamas attack on Israel.
22:41They were not ready for that and they did not significantly help Hamas.
22:48On the other hand, Hezbollah is part of the Lebanese political scene.
22:53They have their own objectives.
22:55So do the Houthis who are engaged in a civil war or within Yemen and also a war with Saudi
23:03Arabia, which right now is in suspension.
23:07So they've created basically institutions or organizations which they do not control
23:12that well.
23:13Now, it's interesting that one of the first thing that the new president Iran did, he
23:18wrote a letter to the Nasrallah, the Hezbollah chief, and saying that, you know, we will
23:22continue to support you.
23:26So he can't go very far from the reservation.
23:33So I mean, so it's ambiguous, I would say, that the degree of control they have over
23:42their proxies.
23:44So if you were king for a day, what would you think the next two years look like for
23:49this newly elected president?
23:51Well, I think what he will do is he'll get he'll get some concessions from the hardliners
23:58on things like women's like women's bailing and hijab.
24:06They might sort of reduce some of the restrictions on the Internet.
24:15They might they might also maybe give some other social freedoms.
24:22They might free some political prisoners.
24:26That will be an important sign to see how much influence this guy has, because there
24:30are some very prominent political prisoners in Iran.
24:34And if the if the regime frees them, they'll show that this guy has some clout.
24:40He will have probably a more able foreign policy team, including Zarif, who was a former
24:45prime minister, a former foreign minister during the negotiation with JCPOA.
24:51He will try to probably form a JCPOA is a nuclear deal.
24:58And he he will probably have a more able cabinet.
25:02On the other hand, we saw that with the two previous reformist presidents, one Khatami
25:10and one Rouhani, they were very restricted in what they could do on foreign policy.
25:17And this guy also has a brief to try to fix the economy, bring inflation down.
25:22But he can't do that without getting rid of some of the sanctions.
25:30And right now, also, what is happening during an electoral period period in the United States
25:39where I don't think anybody is going to really take any significant measures, but they are
25:46going to tell him to try to basically run the country.
25:51But all the important decisions will be made on on the military issues, on foreign policy
25:57issues.
25:59On the nuclear issues, they will be made on by the supreme leader and the revolutionary
26:04guards, which are the more powerful, the powerful institutions.
26:08On the other hand, we saw that in 2015, basically, Khamenei gave Rouhani some leeway in negotiating
26:18the nuclear deal.
26:21And so he might do the same thing now and give some leeway to this guy.
26:29And the other interesting point is that the guy who defeated Jalili, who was defeated
26:35in the election, was the guy who was a super hardliner, even in Iranian terms.
26:41And he was against it.
26:42He was a negotiator of the nuclear deal with when Trump was president.
26:46And he was basically sabotaging it because he was against it.
26:51So last follow up to all that.
26:53So if this guy has two years to do some of the softer, perhaps social and economic shifts
27:01that the supreme leader lets him do, then doesn't that essentially say that they really
27:11are phobiatically focused on this nuclear issue and not the sanctions so much as the
27:18nuclear issue?
27:19Well, I mean, that's that's a dilemma they have, because on the other hand, they've made
27:23a lot of progress on nuclear issue and they are what they call, you know, weapons threshold,
27:28whatever that could be anything like six months to two years to develop a nuclear weapon.
27:34On the other hand, they know that that is poison for them because of the sanctions.
27:40And if they want the sanctions removed, they have to come with a come up with a acceptable
27:45nuclear deal.
27:46Whoever is the counterparties in the West.
27:49I guess I asked a quick follow up to that.
27:53Why to the leadership, the military leadership in Iran is having nuclear capability such
28:01a big deal given their geography and their location?
28:04Well, I just said that is a Pakistan.
28:08Is it is it Turkey?
28:09No, I think I don't think it's against Pakistan.
28:12I mean, you know, they know perfectly well, I mean, perfectly well that they can't use
28:20nuclear weapons.
28:21So it's more a question of sort of equilibrium of terror with the Israelis and the Saudis
28:27and so on.
28:28But they their foreign policy goes in, you know, and military policy goes in different
28:34directions.
28:35They're very first of all, they're very tactical, not so much strategic.
28:39And they know that having a nuclear capability is won't remove the sanctions, will poison
28:48relations with the neighbors and isolate them even more.
28:51On the other hand, they feel very vulnerable.
28:53And they say that if we don't have this threat of a nuclear weapon, like North Korea, if
28:58they have a nuclear capability, they reduce the the leverage operant options of their
29:06opponents.
29:07Yeah, exactly.
29:09It makes the military option on the West way more difficult to embrace if your opponent
29:15has military, has a nuclear capability.
29:17Exactly.
29:18Why?
29:19It's one of the reasons why we've never used it in Korea.
29:21Yeah.
29:22That's it.
29:23That's it.
29:24Yeah.
29:25That's it.
29:26That's the calculus.
29:27Is it possible if it's what is stronger, their hatred of Israel or a quest for economic prosperity
29:35and peace?
29:37Well, and they get along with Israel.
29:38Well, I think, you know, basically, as I said, the one second they once did get along with
29:44Israel.
29:45Well, they did during the during the Iran-Iraq war, Israel sold them weapons.
29:51And even when the Oslo agreements happened, the then Iranian president at the time, Khatami,
30:00basically said we should not, we should let the Palestinians deal with their own situation.
30:08It's none of our business.
30:11But I think that for Khamenei, being anti-Israel and anti-United States, these are the two
30:23very important tenets of his of his beliefs.
30:29Now, the other question, of course, right now is, as somebody mentioned, the next two
30:33years, this guy is 85 years old and people are already positioning themselves for the
30:41succession.
30:42And the question is even, let's say, if we think longer term, will there be a succession
30:47at all?
30:49It could be.
30:50What do you mean, will there be a succession at all?
30:54The powers that be, like the revolutionary guards, who really are the most powerful instrument
31:01in the country, they might want to say, OK, we're going to have a we're going to put a
31:07new supreme leader, but he will be like the president of Finland, basically.
31:12So he'll tell, we'll tell him what to do and we'll gradually move more towards a regular
31:17republic as opposed to a theocracy.
31:21And the question then is how pragmatic are the revolutionary guards going to be?
31:27And that's the other thing, is that Iran has shown itself to be pragmatic in certain times.
31:32And the revolutionary guards have an interest in getting the economy going again, because
31:41in the long term, they can't govern a country which is which is broke, basically, and people
31:48are seething.
31:50That's a big obstacle the regime faces, is the hatred of the majority of the population.
31:56You know, hatred by the majority of the population, by the majority of the population, yeah, of
31:59the regime.
32:00So what I hear you saying is that the current regime has multiple reasons to seek peace
32:08and prosperity.
32:09Yes, but then there are there also, you know, ideologues and they know that they've seen
32:18what happened with the Shah.
32:21They saw that if they give too much freedom to people, then people turn around against
32:25them and then, you know, overthrow the regime.
32:30That's what they don't want.
32:31So what this is all about is staying in power.
32:33Oh, yeah, sure.
32:34Exactly.
32:35I mean, you know, they've enriched themselves beyond belief.
32:42And they don't want to give up the power.
32:45Revolutionary Guards control a big chunk of the economy and they control the security
32:50forces.
32:51You know, I find it curious when I read about the people in the what would be the civil
33:00service ranks or the ranks of the Revolutionary Guard, the upper echelons and around the Ayatollah
33:09and the whole idea.
33:11They're all very well-educated people, many of them educated overseas.
33:15Oh, yeah.
33:16I mean, yeah, of course, now less.
33:19But certainly there were a lot of people with PhDs from the United States who were in the
33:25upper echelons.
33:27And generally, there is a cadre of administrators and people who are who are educated, but they've
33:34been overshadowed by by by the theocracy.
33:42What is your view on where how is the future going to work out for Iran?
33:46Because obviously what happens there can affect the rest of the world, particularly the Middle
33:51East.
33:52Well, I mean, people have been talking about different scenarios.
33:56And one of the things we've been talking about is would Iran turn into a republic?
34:05First of all, change can come only from the inside.
34:08So again, I'm saying what I'm saying, go back to what I said earlier, once Khamenei dies,
34:15it could be that the power will be taken over in a soft coup, if you want, by the Revolutionary
34:20Guards, who have an interest in long term survival.
34:24And that means potentially integrating with the rest of the world and, you know, and following
34:31more friendly relations with the West.
34:37And maybe at the same time, loosening some of the social strictures.
34:42So you'll have basically paradoxically, you'll go back to the Shah, where you have a fairly
34:48authoritarian regime, socially liberal, and was more integrated in the world.
34:54But that, you know, could take a long time to find a long time of, you know, five years,
35:0210 years.
35:03Oh, is it?
35:04It's been like that.
35:05Could it be done?
35:06And could it could it happen in a shorter period of time, say, two years?
35:09No, because, well, the thing is that, first of all, depends how Khamenei, what happens
35:15to Khamenei when he dies.
35:17I mean, the guy, they've been saying he's dead, he's dying for the past 10 years.
35:23Secondly, it also depends to the population has been so many times crushed and bloodied.
35:34That even though there's heroic, truly heroic resistance from young people and women, particularly
35:41who are the big heroes here, you can't expect them to go and, you know, in front of bullets
35:47and tanks.
35:49So they tried that a couple of times and it turned out with very, very badly for them.
35:54I take it the population, the general population is not armed as we are in the United States.
35:59Yeah, exactly.
36:00And also in the United States, I don't think you'd go very far against the government.
36:07But really, the only real pressure is going to be economic.
36:20But then you have to have people at the top who care about their fellow citizens.
36:26And don't forget that this is an extremely corrupt regime.
36:31And the difference with the Shah also was that the people who work for the Shah and
36:34the Shah himself, they had somewhere to go.
36:38If they were overthrown.
36:39These guys, people have no place.
36:40Where do you want to go?
36:41Do you want to go to North Korea?
36:43I don't think so.
36:46I see.
36:47I see your point.
36:48So bottom line, you're optimistic about the future for Iran and its role in the rest of
36:53the world?
36:54Well, I think that there is very strong incentives for them to try to open up, to try to get
37:02to a deal with the West on the nuclear issue, firstly, and then on other issues.
37:09So you would recommend that a nuclear deal with the West in the United States is a bridge
37:18too far?
37:19I don't think so.
37:20Any deal which would be acceptable to the hardliners in Iran would be flat out unacceptable
37:30to the conservatives in the United States.
37:34The only reason the Obama deal, the JCPOC, got done was because it got done by executive
37:39agreement because they never could have got the U.S. Congress to go along with that.
37:44Well what happened with it?
37:45So it got done by executive agreement, which means it wasn't durable.
37:48Yeah.
37:49But what happened was with the Obama agreement was that he signed it, then Congress basically
38:00threatened to veto it.
38:01Now, he vetoed some kind of, he vetoed a congressional resolution, and then Congress was not able
38:11to overcome the veto.
38:12It was a next deal.
38:13It would have to be done with congressional consent.
38:15You were never going to get away with doing this again by executive agreement.
38:19Is it possible, if there were an agreement, that there could be real oversight?
38:25Is that possible?
38:26I mean, if there is, there will be real oversight.
38:29Yeah, there will be real oversight.
38:32I think that if there was real oversight, I can't, and it was, if it was real, I can't
38:40see most people, conservatives or not, opposing it.
38:44The question is-
38:45Yeah, but I can see real oversight would be so intrusive that the Iranian right would
38:50not agree to it.
38:51Yeah.
38:52Yeah.
38:53It's, well, it depends how desperate the Iranian regime is going to be, truly.
38:57How desperate do you think they will be?
38:59A couple of more plain loaves of money.
39:01Well, I mean, not-
39:03And the other we can be sure of is this new president will not be making this decision.
39:08No, but he can negotiate it and then convince, just like the previous president convinced
39:14Khamenei that it was a good deal to go along with.
39:18He can try to do that.
39:20Anyway, so that's about my bottom line.
39:23So-
39:24But, Paul, what do you, do you see, based upon our discussion and what you know, do
39:29you see a positive relationship coming out of Iran with the U.S. and the rest of the
39:36Middle East?
39:37No.
39:38Yeah.
39:39Well, you, there, as I said, there are a lot of obstacles and it's a real minefield.
39:47Yeah.
39:48I don't think so.
39:49I would want to digress a bit on Paul's answer, no.
39:54What if, and I don't see the long range game plan for the hardline Iranian leadership relative
40:07to Hezbollah and the PLO and the West Bank.
40:16And if they continue to arm them and provide them with food and support for another six
40:24months or a year, it prolongs the conflict there.
40:29Isn't that not in Iran's best interest?
40:32Isn't that a negative for, a bigger negative than they might expect?
40:37Absolutely negative.
40:38I don't see them getting an arms deal or a nuclear deal as long as it's clear that they're
40:43messing around with all these other rush wars.
40:46Hal, you've, you raise an interesting point.
40:49If they continue what they've been doing in terms of the rush wars and there's a new president
40:54in office, that gives them an extra bargaining chip if they can create peace or to calm things
41:02down, that gives them a bargaining chip.
41:03Well, that's, that's where I'm headed.
41:04I'm wondering if there's any leverage there to change that two-year picture.
41:08Well, they were always, they were always happy from the beginning, part of the discussion
41:14between Iran and the U.S. was.
41:16You know, frankly, if I were the negotiator, I think the nuclear issue itself is so important
41:22that I would not lumber it with this other stuff.
41:25Yeah, I would agree with that.
41:26Regional stuff.
41:27I would agree.
41:28There'll be a different discussion.
41:29Yeah.
41:30I respectfully disagree.
41:31I respectfully disagree.
41:32And until there's this engagement by Iran, there'll be no nuclear agreement.
41:36Maybe.
41:37Yeah.
41:38I would agree with Hal.
41:39If you insist on getting that into a nuclear agreement, there won't be one.
41:43Yeah.
41:44Well, it may not be part of the nuclear agreement, but I agree with Hal.
41:49If there's a new administration in the White House.
41:53The other is we had a six power agreement the last time.
41:56There ain't no way we're going to get the Russians and the Chinese to sign on to anything
42:00that we're.
42:01But I would think you're right about that, Paul.
42:03But who needs them in that event?
42:06All we need is peace in the Middle East and peace with us.
42:10And what happens with the Russians and the Chinese is irrelevant because both of their
42:14economies are in trouble.
42:15Because the threat of sanctions by the West is much less threatening if they can, if they
42:21have the support of the Russians and the Chinese, especially the Chinese.
42:25Yes, exactly.
42:26OK.
42:27OK.
42:28On that note, I want to thank everyone.
42:33Thank you very much for your insights.
42:36Be good.
42:37Good luck.
42:38And God bless America.
42:39Be good is a hard one.
42:40Good luck is good.
42:41Good luck is good.
42:42We need good luck.
42:43OK, bye.
42:44Thank you.