Transcription
They continue to spread. Iran's biggest protest since the women life freedom movement of 2022, extending everywhere from Tehran's Grand Bazaar, where they started, to remote villages throughout the 31 provinces.
As per usual, the government's offering dialogue while employing deadly force, issuing menacing warnings, and slowing, even shutting, the internet. Every time social movements arise in the, under sanctions, inflation-hit Islamic Republic, the regime outlasts its opponents. Why should this time be any different? What are the variables?
We'll ask about a global stage where Iran's influence is in stark retreat in Syria, Lebanon, further away in fellow OPEC member Venezuela, after last summer's US and Israel bombing campaign. How resilient do the clerics and the Revolutionary Guards remain?
Today, in the France 24 debate, we're asking: How far will Iran's protests go? With us, Kan Habibian, co-founder of the We Are Iranian Students Activist Group. Thanks for being with us.
Good evening.
Uh, from London, Tara Congeroo, adjunct professor at Georgetown University, author of "The Heartbeat of Iran." Welcome back to the show.
Thank you.
From Washington, Benam Ben Taliblau, Iran program senior director and senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy's think tank. Good to see you.
Thank you. Happy new year.
Happy new year as well to Arshad Alijani. Uh, he is journalist at the France 24's fact-checking and citizen journalist website, The Observers. How are you?
Thank you for having me. Thank you. Good. Uh, on the go, you can listen to the show wherever podcasts are streamed.
Yeah. From rural towns to major cities, protests in their 12th day, mass demonstrations in places such as the western city of Hamadan. We can, uh, perhaps show you images from there. Uh, these are images from earlier in the day. Uh, you were telling us, uh, and you'll tell us more in a moment, Arshad, monitoring with your computer there, uh, what's going on, uh, in other cities this Thursday.
Katherine Viet has more.
Protesters cheer as they tear down a statue of Qassem Soleimani, a former commander of the Revolutionary Guards who was killed by a US airstrike in 2020. In the northeast, demonstrators remove an Iranian flag and then rip it apart. These images, shared on social media, show a glimpse of the anger behind the anti-government protests that have been spreading across Iran for nearly two weeks.
Some analysts believe the situation will only get worse.
What is abundantly clear to me is that the system at large in Iran, the political establishment, is at a dead end. Without, um, uh, change in policy, but also in, uh, its position vis-à-vis protesters, and perhaps, um, the structure of governance in Iran, um, things are going to deteriorate.
Some demonstrations have turned violent. According to the semi-official Fars News Agency, two police officers were killed in the southwest town of Lordegan on Wednesday, while another officer died in a stabbing incident west of Tehran overnight.
Protests first broke out on the 28th of December when merchants in Tehran took to the streets to rally against rising prices and the collapse of the currency.
To other analysts, there might be an opportunity for real change.
I think that for the people, it's a kind of ray of hope that maybe this time they can, they can change the regime and bring about, bring another, uh, maybe free, secular, uh, system in the, in Iran.
Officially, President Masoud Pezeshkian has ordered security forces not to crack down. But according to the Iran Human Rights Group, the Iranian authorities have arrested more than 2,000 people and killed at least two dozen since the unrest began.
Yeah. Let's begin with you, Alijani. What are you seeing this Thursday? And remember, the internet has been officially shut. Are you still getting images though from Iran?
Yeah. Um, I still get the images from Iran from several cities. The protest movement is expanding both in size and, uh, geographic reach. I'm, I'm seeing, um, the, the multiple cities, towns where people are, um, protesting in an unprecedented, uh, amount of people, I, I would say, for example, Jan, Talesh, Bandar Abbas, and, and cities that they've been, they, they never protested in Iran since, I don't know when.
Yeah, because you say unprecedented, but we saw huge protests in 2022. And yes, the biggest protest since 2022, or, or unprecedented, unprecedented?
I just received a message from someone who is now in the protest in east of Tehran, and she says that I have never seen such a huge crowd protesting in my life, and she has been active in 2022. She's been in the protests in 2019, and even she's been in 2009. And he said, and she says that I, I have never seen such a huge crowd, uh, who protest in Tehran, uh, since tonight. And, for example, Kangan, in the last, I think since the revolution, uh, there, there was never been a protest in, in a very conservative town, but it's for some days that people are coming out in Kangan and protesting against the regime.
Protesting against the regime, or protesting against the cost of living, or does it matter? Or is that just a nuance? Uh, Kan Habibian, before I put that question to you, let me ask you, uh, your, you have family in the north. Have you heard from them?
Uh, I was still talking to them until early afternoon, and since, I think for the last two hours, I couldn't reach them because they shut down the internet in most places. We still have some videos, but, uh, regarding my family, no, I cannot talk to them.
Do you have a sense leading up to today of the size of this movement?
Well, if I can insist, because we talk a lot about protests, and the question is, how far will the protests go? It is not a protest when you have almost all the provinces of Iran who are in the streets. When you have that many layers of the society who are in the streets, what we call that is a revolution.
All right. So you, you're defining it as a revolution. Uh, Tara Congeroo, let me ask you, uh, what news are you getting out of Iran?
Well, uh, just before coming on the show, uh, I was speaking with five people simultaneously, uh, two in Isfahan, uh, two in Tehran, and, and, and one in the north. And almost all of them, suddenly the WhatsApp tick, uh, became one, meaning that they were not reading my messages. And that tells you, uh, that, uh, the internet has been shut down. Although two of them from Tehran joined via VPN, and one of them lives in the west of Tehran, a sort of, you can call it, um, more affluent neighborhood. And these were areas that we're not seeing the protests, uh, in the, uh, previous days, but now they are seeing the protests. And this movement is, uh, spreading.
Now, whether we want to call it a revolution or protest, it's important to note that categorically, the Iranian people have come together to once again tell the Islamic regime that we want change. What you have right now, and what you've been offering the people, has not been working, and we want that now. Uh, and, and once again, we're seeing that in full force.
Tara, before, uh, quickly spreading, the protest beginning at Tehran's Grand Bazaar. We can show images from Tuesday of crowds there chanting "Shameless" right near, uh, the bazaar.
Absolutely. You, you talk about the more affluent western part of the Iranian capital. The bazaar. It's got a reputation for, uh, merchants who are relatively conservative. They're business people. They're not revolutionaries. Why did it start there?
Absolutely. The bazaar in Tehran, and I've reported from the bazaar in Tehran during the 2015, uh, nuclear talks that led to JCPOA, which then, you know, failed. Um, so I've spent a lot of time there, and also while growing up in Iran. It is the hub. It is the heart of, uh, the, the city's economy, the capital's economy, in some ways, the country's economy, right? And, um, it's the bazaaris, as you call them, that have the, the, the pulse of, of commerce and economy in their hand. And often times, um, throughout Iran's history, change and uprising and protest started from the bazaar. Um, they are the ones affected by, uh, the, the economy, but also in some ways, they have some control over it. And so, uh, we, we saw the protests start from the bazaar, and that reflected, uh, the, uh, the freefall that the Iranian economy is facing, that is affecting, again, every layer of the society.
Francois, this is a country of 90 million, uh, who has an inflation rate of nearly 50%, and close to that, 50% of the population also live below the poverty line. This is a country that is full of natural resources, human, uh, resources, oil, gas, but every, but the majority of the Iranian population is suffering. And they very well are aware that their suffering is a result of severe corruption, uh, the failed governance of the regime, but also external, uh, pressure, uh, by way of sanctions.
You asked the question about, um, the economy, and whether or not that was the underlying reason behind this round of protests. I will say Iran's failed economy is a direct result of its failed domestic policies and its, uh, incompetent political system that has become and evolved into a mafia state. So Iran's economy and its, its failure is directly the result of, of the country's political failure.
Yeah, we can talk about the mismanagement of the economy, uh, and we will in a second with you, Ben Taliblau. One thing the regime knows is survival. Uh, that is what it's been very good at. It's been written off before and proved its resilience. Um, just picking up on that point about, uh, that that Tara just made, official figures released on Monday showed inflation had reached, uh, more than 52% in December. That's the official rate. On the open market, the fall of the real, uh, spectacular, as published here by the Bloomberg, uh, news agency. And this is just, uh, in the past two years.
So, Benam Ben Taliblau, uh, your thoughts on, uh, uh, can this all be resolved if the regime sits down with those business leaders and cuts some kind of a deal?
Well, great to be with you, Francois, and greetings to you and your, uh, viewers and panelists. Listen, I think even trying to sit down, let alone successfully managing, uh, some kind of economic transition, is way too little, way too late, uh, when you're looking at the relationship between the state and the street in Iran.
I want to go back to, and perhaps connect a few threads that some of the distinguished guests mentioned earlier today. One, of course, is that we've seen protests in Iran before. You mentioned something about the regime's resilience. I would say it was the regime's brutality that has allowed it to limp along in the face of wave after wave after wave of sustained anti-regime protest, uh, over the past few years. In particular, the pattern we've seen in Iran over the past eight years is as the street pushed away from the ballot box and sought, you know, wholesale political change, namely revolution rather than reform, uh, you've seen the crackdown against them get harder. And as they use every available opportunity to come out into the street again and voice their discontent against the state. Uh, these protests have had multiple different triggers. Economic triggers, like most recently, you know, you mentioned the inflation rate. One reason why it spiraled from the bazaar to families and small businesses, and then of course, obviously universities as well, was because the inflation rate for foodstuffs on average throughout 2025, throughout the, you know, fiscal year 2025, was 60 to 73% for foodstuffs alone. So that again is a major trigger.
But despite the trigger, kind of like what Tara was saying, the incentive to stay on the street and the widening scale and scope and the different demography and geography of these protests over the past eight years, this being the most recent and perhaps the most damning because it shows that just six months after the 12-day war, not only is there no rally around the flag, we've seen countless social media videos, videos sent to me where, you know, Iranians are coming out burning, uh, the regime's flag, knocking over flagpoles. Actually, in areas that I think mentioned just a little bit earlier, in in the east in Tehran, Parak, in, uh, Haft Tappeh, like knocking over flagpoles, saying areas that have been cleared altogether, uh, of the regime's flag. I think someone else was talking about the knocking over a statue. So there is widespread discontent. That widespread discontent has manifested itself into political resolve to stay on the street. And I think you really, because you mentioned yourself, Francois, the Women, Life, Freedom movement, um, we saw again the desire for not cosmetic change when it came to the hijab, but wholesale political change that would allow a fundamentally different economic policy, domestic policy, social policy, and even foreign policy. Because if you go back to 2009, you remember that Iranians have been chanting since then, "Not Gaza, not Lebanon, my life, only for Iran." And they continue to chant that today. And these protests have only gotten more widespread and actually more nationalist in their tone, tenor, and orientation, as they contest the street, they contest the state, I'm sorry, from the street.
Yeah, you, but at the same time, uh, we've seen this movie before, like, like all the panels have been saying, ever since 2009. And, uh, each time, yeah, there's been a measure of brutality. We saw a lot of executions after the, uh, uh, Women, Life, Freedom movement of 2022. The regime, uh, will use coercion. Will they be a, what, what is different this time?
For sure. There's three context-based factors that are different. The first is that many believe, not just after the repression that we saw against the Women, Life, Freedom, but the chemical attacks on school girls and school children, co-terminus with that street repression in 2023, that that would have deterred Iranian protesters. This shows that Iranian protesters are not deterred, and less than three and a half, four years later, they're out onto the street again. A corollary to the Women, Life, Freedom movement, particularly in the west and particularly among the diaspora and the opposition, was that given the failure of the diaspora and the opposition to, uh, unite and rally in 2023, that that would have had a chilling effect on Iranian protests. Clearly, that is not the case. You can even just listen to some of the slogans being chanted in favor of the exiled crown prince, for example. The point is to show that whether there's domestic or foreign shortcomings, these protesters will not be deterred. And that overall connective tissue between every round of boom and bust cycle of protests, uh, matters very much.
The, uh, of course, we get to the, the 12-day war torpedoing the rally around the flag thesis as well, because, I rightly understood that many of my Western friends and analysts and colleagues believed that military action, which, make no mistake, was historic on Iranian territory. The last conflict that was conventional that touched Iranian territory was the Iran-Iraq war. That was the 20th century's longest conventional war, and that touched Iranian territory in a major way. It shaped the security state. It shaped society. And many had assumed that resumed hostilities with Israel at that overt conventional level would have had a chilling effect on protests. So for that reason alone, these protests are different. And the final X-factor is Trump. Uh, you know, we have never had a US president that so decisively, even if only rhetorically, has said that they would stand with Iranian protesters. The question here is, how will he do it?
All right. We'll get back to Donald Trump later. Ershad Alijani, back in July, we, our correspondents spoke with Iranians who don't like the regime and who were genuinely upset over their country being bombed. And there was a, a moment when opposition to, uh, to the, the government went silent for a while. I think there are two, maybe there are two separate things. And for to analyze that, you have to know the psychology of Iranians who are patriotic. And even, uh, crown prince, as, uh, our guest says, that he said that Iranians don't need foreign intervention to guarantee their freedom, and Iranians themselves can fight and topple the regime. But if you let me, I want to add two more points about the economic factor, as your guest mentioned. Um, the first point is, Iranians are very savvy, tech-savvy people. And the way of online businesses and the startups is now much more important than the traditional bazaar.
And you certainly proved to us today, they know how to use a VPN.
Yeah, that many people escape that this point. And who run these online, uh, businesses, who run these start, these startups, that the young generation, even Gen Z, who has less sympathy for the Islamic Republic, if not say more hatred. And another point is, you ask what's different this time. If you look at the images of the protests in 2020, 2019, that it was over the petrol price.
Yes, it started with the cost of living.
Yes, it was, uh, middle class, sorry, it was a working-class people in the poor suburbs of Tehran or other cities, and started from there. In Women, Life, Freedom, it was mostly the middle class. And this time, if you look at the images, if you see the cities, if you watch the neighborhoods who are active in this, uh, revolution movement, anything you want to call it, it's a mixture of both. It's a mixture of working class and the middle class. That's the new factor that we have to, uh, put in account to analyze this round of, of, of protest in Iran.
Tara Congeroo, would you agree that this is a synthesis of the last two big social movements?
Again, uh, like I said earlier, and I think, uh, all of the panelists, in, in some shape or form, were saying that the Iranian people, the majority of them, are unhappy with the Islamic regime in its entirety and the way it has been functioning and operating in, in the past couple of years. Um, some in Iran care more about social reform, social freedom. Some care more about political reform, political participation. And some majority care about, uh, these dismal economic conditions. People cannot make ends meet. You buy, uh, a piece of bread for $5. Tomorrow morning, you wake up, and it's $7. And that does not work when people, again, the majority of them are living under the poverty line.
One thing that is striking, and I think this is a very interesting nuance, uh, for audiences, is that for the longest time, um, oftentimes actually conservative candidates, people like, uh, Raisi, who, who died in the helicopter accident just a few years ago, or Ahmadinejad, they would go to rural areas that would not have political participation, and they would lure people to vote for them by giving out handouts and, and, and, and, you know, cash gifts in, in some places. And these places that are protesting right now, these small towns, are in fact some of those places. And that tells us something that the discontent and the anger toward the regime has spread out to every faction of the society, every, uh, level of, of the social working class, if you will. And, and that tells us something that people want change, and they want it fast.
And, and, uh, Arshad mentioned, um, the technology and Iranian youth being quite tech-savvy. Again, this is another nuance. Iran has been censored, um, you know, the society has been censored on all fronts, many fronts, including the free flow of information, media, press, but also in, including the use of the internet. And you have to ask yourself, who makes money off of that? Who sells these VPNs? And that, that goes back to what I was initially speaking about. The, the country's economy is being controlled by a small, yet extremely powerful, politically connected, uh, minority that imposes such censorships and restrictions, uh, upon people, and, and in more ways than one, choke and stifle the society. Um, and so people, once again, are coming together, united, telling the world that we don't want this government, and we, we, we, we want change. We want substantial change. And, and, um, one thing that I would add, uh, to the points that were mentioned earlier as to why, what makes this calculus a bit different, is, uh, of course, you know, President Trump's, uh, messaging. The protests again spreading, but also the Iranian regime, I believe, and according to many people that have been speaking with sources inside, you know, that, that insiders that know, uh, what, what's going on on the ground. The, the, the regime is at, is at its weakest. There are ruptures within the regime, factions that are on standby. They don't know what's going to happen, and they're afraid. And I think we didn't have that in 2022. We didn't have that certainly in 2018 and '19, and, and certainly not in 2009. And I think that's the biggest difference. In some ways, um, these extremely powerful factions that, that make the Islamic regime the strong force that, that they are, they are ready to, to, uh, fight amongst themselves for the fight for survival.
And also for the fight for succession. The Supreme Leader is 86 years old, Ayatollah Khamenei, who broke his silence five days ago with a message of firmness.
We talk to the protesters. They should talk. The authorities should talk to the protesters. There is no point in talking to the rioters. The rioters should be put in their place.
Again, people tuning into this show think, "Oh, the regime is ripe for falling. It might happen tomorrow morning." But just as people have been saying for years, "Oh, Ali Khamenei is going to, is soon going to go away." He's still there, and he's still around, and the regime is still around, and the regime has again outlasted every movement. And when you hear that the tone of that message, he doesn't sound like a man who's in a hurry to go anywhere.
Well, given the response they have been giving the population for the past 47 years, I'm not surprised by the response of Khamenei. And the second point is that whether he is here or not is not something important to me, as long as he is going to face one day the justice of the Iranian people.
Um, when you look at Iran, every time that there is a movement or a revolution or protests, there's always this question about what's going to happen next. And I think that it's not, uh, whether here on TV sets, in the White House, or anywhere else in the world that this decision is going to be made. Despite all the, the diversity of thoughts, beliefs, and choices inside of Iran, I think that right now, the different layers of the society have agreed on three major points. The first one is that the Islamic Republic of Iran must fall. The second one is that the, the people of Iran want to make their choice freely in a democratic and secular framework. And the third point is that all together, despite all our differences, this, by the way, was the strength of Iran throughout its history, they want the, the protection of the integrity of the national territory. And right now, the people in Iran are risking their lives as we speak to have that right to choose for themselves and decide for themselves. And tomorrow, they are going to make that choice freely, and they will give the legitimacy, the legitimacy to any candidate they want. That's the whole principle of democracy. So whether he wants that or not, the people are going to.
Because we saw the revolution, it's young in 1979. It was a coalition that went everywhere from leftists to, uh, clerics.
Yes. That was what's, what's called the unholy alliance in, in Iran. But right now.
Why wouldn't the same happen today? The difference right now is that you have a diversity of people in the street. It started with the bazaar. It was joined by the students on the second day. I see people from the generation of my parents and my grandparents in the streets. I have people who are going to chant the name of the crown prince, Reza Pahlavi. Those, uh, other people who are going to target the regime itself. There is a diversity. That's the whole point of democracy and a population. But what's really different this time is that, uh, there is this union behind the three principles I just mentioned earlier. And what we need to ensure is that we offer the Iranians this framework that is going to allow them to make a sovereign choice for themselves. The rest is up to them.
Uh, we saw in 2022, uh, Benam Ben Taliblau, quite a bit of vitriol, uh, between, uh, uh, various factions of those who oppose, uh, the regime. Can there be a moment of unity, uh, among those who, who, who are against, uh, the Islamic Republic?
I certainly think there can be, and in fact, there is, if you just listen to, uh, the guest right beforehand, Mr. Keon, or if you're taking a look at what's been going on on the streets for the past 12, 12 days now. I think those three principles in practice have been uniting Iranians for a while now in boom and bust cycles. No one is going to try to persuade or convince one Iranian of a, of a, of a different political orientation or of a different perspective why someone else's views, values, and interests are right. But it, it really is all about having that framework where everybody's views, values, and interests are respected. And I have to say that responsibility that you see within Iranian society is critical to actually being able to inject confidence not just into the national debate in Iran, but into the policy debate in the West and in the international community about how best to feel reassured that you can engage with a post-Islamic Republic future in Iran. That a more liberal, a more democratic, a more just, shall we say, representative or responsive government in Tehran that takes into account these views, values, and interests can actually be a net positive and a benefit, uh, for the West. So while, you know, on this panel today, Francois, I think you have one, two, three, four, uh, four panelists, all of whom have some kind of Iranian ancestry or background. We probably were four people. We might have five different political orientations among us. But the point is about the framework to get it there. So yes, there has been diaspora drama. So long as there will be a diaspora, there will be drama. But the point is to actually not let that be a hangover. It's about unpacking that baggage and perhaps all of us at this moment being inspired, uh, by the bravery and the courage and the sacrifice. So whatever drama there has been, the point is to actually draw inspiration and unity from what we see on the streets today.
All right. Benham, you earlier were referencing, uh, how what one of the factors that means that today is different from 2022 is, of course, the international context. And we just saw it with, just 24 hours ago, with Wednesday's seizing by the United States of a Russian flag tanker in the North Atlantic. A reminder of which way the global political winds are blowing. The Bella 1, since renamed the Marinara, reversed course while on route to Venezuela, and it was sailing from, well, Iran. And again, th, this, uh, gives an idea of how things have changed. It's also a reminder, Benham, of, uh, how much has changed in Iran's backyard. Now, these ghost tankers being stopped, that's revenue lost. How is the regime always seems to have enough, though, again, to, uh, uh, feed its own?
Well, the regime, you're right, has been able to limp along in the past. When you look at this policy of, you know, oil sanctions or energy sanctions or stratified financial sanctions, popularly called maximum pressure, uh, here, uh, in Washington. Make no mistake, that hasn't been fully enforced in 2025. You mentioned these oil tankers, Francois. It would be shocking, and in fact, I think it's even shocking to congressional Republicans, that even under the Trump administration 2.0, no matter you could say the military successes, uh, the president has had against the Iranians, when it comes to oil and oil sanctions enforcement, that's actually where the White House has been lagging. If you look at the numbers for the past three, three and a half months, Iran has been exporting two million plus barrels of oil a day. The Treasury Department in early 2025 talked about the ideal goal, the ideal range, uh, for max pressure, sanctions enforcement being just about 100,000 barrels per day. So clearly, the US administration has a lot of work here to do to amplify the economic pain, uh, if it's going to force the street to be deterred.
You know, I'm actually working on, on a piece with a colleague right now about talking about how President Trump might be able to act on his threat. One way could be to actually confiscate, you know, Iranian oil tankers, as he's beginning to do, uh, with Venezuela-bound, uh, oil tankers. That could actually have a major effect. You know, one need not go kinetic immediately, particularly if part of the president's base, uh, fears this as well. There's a lot more room for enforcement of these measures, and as you mentioned, the regime has been able to clearly and cleverly exploit loopholes, uh, in the sanctions regime. So while no tool is perfect, uh, there is a sharp contrast with the president's economic enforcement track record on Iran in term one and economic enforcement track record on Iran in term two. Now, whether this, this is a distraction or due to lack of political interest or more priorities in the international arena, given the Russia-Ukraine war, Israel-Gaza war, potential China-Taiwan tensions, all of that remains to be seen. But when the president is now entering the field so decisively, we talk about trying to find a way to support Iranian protesters and threaten the regime that represses them. The fact that you mentioned the tankers there, that could be the silver lining as to how we see a potential US policy forming against this backdrop.
Of course, Tara Congeroo, there's workarounds, most notably, uh, exporting to places like China without using US dollars for the transactions when it comes to that oil. Is shutting down Iran's oil the way to go, Tara?
Again, Iran, as, as a whole, as a country, has been under sanction for, for how long? For, for many years. And one of precisely the reasons for the country's, uh, dismal economy is because a, a minority percentage have been making a whole lot of money because of this isolation, because of these sanctions, because of these stifling of the economy. And it's ordinary people who are seeing its adverse impact. So further isolating and choking the economy, those in charge have found ways, uh, to operate and will continue to find ways to operate. As I mentioned earlier, the Iranian economy has become, uh, in and of itself, a mafia state, and, and it's functioning. And there are millionaires and billionaires in Iran who have found ways to, um, to engage with the world, and its impact has been only on ordinary people. In fact, um, that goes to my point about the, the, the rupture in the regime. There are so many forces in Iran who are loyal to the Islamic Republic, not for ideological reasons, but because the regime is a lifeline for their longevity and for their, uh, financial survival. Without the Islamic regime, they are done and gone.
Um, with regards to Russia, I think there's a nuance here, uh, that I want to point out to you. Um, for the longest time, the Islamic regime looked to Russia to protect them against, um, the United States and Europe, um, and to an extent, China. But right now, Russia is dealing with its war with Ukraine and is trying to contain that. And we, we can very clearly see, uh, that they're not going to, uh, protect Iran, uh, and, and most certainly, um, they're not going to give up their opportunity to, uh, have some sort of a deal over Ukraine just because of Iran. And I think that's important right now.
Uh, as far as, um, the, the, the sort of future of the protest that we, we talked about, if I may, Francois, um, earlier today, I spoke with a journalist, um, in Iran. She was actually arrested on a few occasions and is now released. And she was telling me, uh, again, speaking of Trump, that she believes that this time, unless there is some form of foreign support, um, the protests might die down. Now, this doesn't mean that the will of the Iranian people is not there. But what she told me, and this is something that I've written about, um, because it's, it's the reality on the ground, is that some of Iran's brightest minds, lawyers, educators, activists, people who can shape the future of a secular democracy in Iran, are in prison. And every time people united, they were brutally cracked down. Um, and, and she was telling me that, um, the way things are looking right now, in some ways, and this was interesting hearing from her, is that, um, there is a sort of standby, wait and see game to see what's going to happen next. Whether it's in the form of a, you know, military intervention or or confrontation, as, uh, US President Donald Trump has been alluding to, or some sort of a movement from inside the regime. So, I think it's important to, to point this out coming from people in Iran, that they're in this wait and see game, because they believe something bigger has to fall in place, um, for, for, for this huge change that everyone wants to see to, um, to, to, to come to fruition.
Yeah. Kan Habib, on, on Sunday night, Donald Trump flying back to, uh, to Washington aboard Air Force One, doing a victory lap after the capture of Nicholas Maduro, asked, uh, about the, the protest movement in Iran and warning Tehran would "get hit very hard" if more demonstrators were killed. Of course, more demonstrators have been killed, uh, since then. People that you speak to, what do they expect, wants from the United States? Something, nothing?
Well, as I was saying earlier, uh, the people in Iran right now are not in the streets because Donald Trump decided to tweet something about Iran, or because Netanyahu decided to tweet about Iran. People have decided to decide for themselves tomorrow. So that's the first point.
When we look at the whole situation, um, people in the streets right now have, sorry, let me rephrase that. If we look at Iran, Iran is about 90 million people. So it's the most populated country in the Middle East. Iran is, if not the oldest, one of the oldest countries in the world. We have one of the most highly educated people, uh, and brilliant youth. All these people are ready to work in a free, secular, uh, democratic Iran tomorrow. We have thousands and thousands of people in the prisons of Iran who are also ready to participate in the Iran of tomorrow. And therefore, what was expected from the international community for the past 47 years was to engage a conversation with them. It was to create a space where they could have created ideas, where they could form unions, political parties. But why don't, don't we have any unions or political parties inside? Because they were abandoned.
And we don't bring democracy, or we don't bring freedom with bombs. Right now, the people of Iran, the youth of Iran, the bazaar, my parents, my grandparents are in the streets because they have decided that for themselves, and that's an incredible act of bravery that they are leading right now. And therefore, the declarations, no matter what the tactics are behind, can be both, can both put the pressure on the regime. Yes. Right. But they can also be dangerous, given the reactions, the multiple reactions of Donald Trump that we've seen during the two mandates he had. Therefore, what's expected from them is to use all the tools that the international already has to protect the civilians, ensure that the internet is still on while people are in the streets, and that the crimes of the Islamic Republic are not once again committed against them. It's, uh, by sanctioning exactly the levers that are used by the IRGC and the Islamic Republic to get richer and richer by the day while the people are getting poorer. Follow the money instead of dropping, uh, bombs, is, uh, what, what you're saying.
It's interesting because again, we showed it at the beginning of this show, those images of, uh, burning flags, toppling of statues. There've been statues of the Islamic Republic's founder, Ayatollah Khomeini, that have been toppled, but also in at least two places, that of Qassem Soleimani, the former head of the Revolutionary Guards, assassinated by the United States, I, in Baghdad back in 2020. We were looking, these are pictures from, uh, K, I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly, that's near Isfahan. There were also, uh, the statues of Qassem Soleimani burned in the central city of Kashan. And it's also a reminder, Alijani, how much sway, just a few short years ago, Iran had over the entire region, over Syria, over Lebanon. And now Qassem Soleimani was kind of the enforcer for that. He was killed in Iraq. It shows that Iran's more isolated.
Um, I come back to another question you'd ask about the so-called Supreme Leader. I, I think, uh, his regime is at the weakest point, and he is at the weakest point of his political life. The economy of the country has collapsed. His proxies in the Middle East.
Yeah. But if they, if they get together on a successor, can they, can they rally?
I think we are beyond that point. As other guests have said, that, that that any new makeup or reform, uh, could convince people. And as you see people chanting in the streets, you can't, despite what, for example, we saw in 2009, even in 2020, 2019, that there were some chants that we could understand a slightest hope for reform of the system. I think since 2022 and the Women, Life, Freedom, we have way beyond that, that, that.
It's no longer, "Where's my vote?"
Yeah. Yeah. It's not, "Where's my vote?" And it's not the, uh, there was a funny slogan in the student chanting that, uh, "Excuse, excuse me, Supreme Leader, you have to leave your office." It's in the Persian, it's a rhyme. Um, now it's something else that you cannot pronounce on the TV set. So, uh, uh, we are beyond that point, I think, for many years now.
All right. Arshad, who will continue to translate the jokes for us when appropriate. Many thanks for being with us from our Observers website. I want to thank as well, Kan Habibian. I want to thank Benam Ben Taliblau for being with us from Washington, and Tara Congaloo in London. Thank you for being with us here in the France 24 debate.