On US Middle East Policy of the last decade:
To begin with, the US has not had any coherent policy for the last 10 years about the Middle East to begin with. So during the Obama era, Obama pretty much left Iraq to a sect of two Shi’a. And there was a cartoon that Obama gave a car’s key to Al-Maliki, the prime minister, which it was certainly a campaign promise that he took, but at the same, it was a reckless decision that he made, which created chaos in Iraq. It really strengthened the Islamic State, ISIS, and pretty much caused the devastation of the entire Sunni civilization in Iraq. I mean, it was one of the things that helped that in both Iraq and Syria. So in some ways, Trump’s policies are similar to Obama’s when it comes to the Middle East, except for sanctions on Iran.
Trump has not had any consistent policies about even Iran, despite the fact that the sanctions have been very effective in many ways, although the pro-Iranian lobby tries to blame the US and especially Trump for every single misery that goes on under the Islamic Republic and all the problems that people are facing daily. But the reality is, even before the sanctions, just two years ago, there was a widespread demonstration in Iran. And there were, we had about 110 cities, demonstrating against the very bad economic conditions that had happened really without precedent in the Islamic Republic’s history. But even, I was talking about Donald Trump’s consistency with regard to the sanctions, but when it comes to the other aspects of his policies, they are being completely inconsistent. So Donald Trump did not lead any coalition, did not lead the world.
And he did not have any strike or has not had any strategies to really unite the world against the Iranian regime. One thing, one more thing about the Obama era, I’m kind of going back and forth because of the time limit, Obama’s policies helped Iran to follow its expansionist policies in the region. And really try to, by being influential or having a pretty much that direct presence in a variety of Arab countries and neighboring countries, to strengthen itself and create a kind of Persian nationalism by talking about this strong state that has a presence around the world. So, to come back to the situation, when you look at this situation and the lack of coherent strategy for the entire Middle East, when it comes to the post-election, we really don’t have any idea what might happen after the election.
Mr. Biden still talks about going back to, what they call The Iran deal, which, it had good components, but in many ways could not prevent Iran from creating a nuclear bomb or nuclear weapons. And we have videos that are available on YouTube that Ali Akbar Salehi, who was the head of the Iranian nuclear agency, he talks about the fact how, for a variety, especially for the Natanz Site, there were certain components, I don’t know technological things, but there were certain components, that before destroying them, they had already bought them from the black market. And these videos are available. And in terms of other weaponry, like missiles and other things, which have, we have seen what happened with Saudi Arabia and what’s going on in Yemen, they have pretty much been expanding these kinds of weapons, and they are actually updating them and enhancing them on a daily basis.
Can the IRGC outlive the Iranian regime?:
The IRGC has been the main force and has dominated everything in Iran for a very long time. Actually, when Ahmadinejad came to power in 2009, it was the reassertion of its power. So IRGC has the control of Iran, and what might happen in the next election, which probably there wouldn’t be much participation, that you have a more, a kind of naked Islamic Revolutionary Guards’ rule. But there is one more thing, which is that if the Revolutionary Guards might outlive the regime. So there is one thing in the sense that the fact that the Iranian regime might fall, is I don’t think it’s a possible thing in the near future. Unfortunately, the way we saw in the, even the Arab spring, which kind of, it gives us a clue how the situation works. In the countries that their army was listening to the West and they had some financial ties to the West, as we saw in certain places like Egypt or in Tunisia, the regime collapsed. In places like Syria, we saw that the regime is still in power.
There were sanctions on the Iraq regime. It doesn’t mean that I’m against sanctions, I’m just trying to explain this scenario. On Iraq, there were sanctions and on Saddam Hussein for a very long time, and Saddam was trying to show all the miseries of Iraq and blaming the sanctions. But anyways, people could not really get rid of Saddam Hussein, despite the fact that even in Iran, they are talking about the army of the hungry, which has, as Dr. Andrew talked about, the situation, how these people are coming out, they are angry. They are the dispossessed, but there is still not a possibility that they might be able to get rid of the regime. And there is one more thing about the IRGC, which is that the main opposition, the Persian opposition, because Iran is a multinational country. We have a variety of nations like, or ethno-nations. Like Kurds, Balochs, Arabs, Turkmen, actually, they have problems with certain parts of the regime. What we have in Iran is an ethno-theocratic regime. Many of the opposition, like the previous former Shah’s son and other groups, are happy with the transformation of the IRGC, and they want it to stay in place. And they want to keep the main skeleton of the regime, just get rid of the Mullah, replace it with a secular regime, but it would be still a Persian nationalist regime that would deny all the other groups, any kind of rights and recognition. So, and actually one of the main reasons that in Iran, the Iranians have not had any form of a unified opposition, has been the fact that they are against any rights and recognitions of the non-Persians. So the main opposition groups are all for the keeping the Iranian regime with the Persian supremacy.