Iran, Beyond the Headlines with Maziar Bahari
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Hello, everybody. Welcome once again to the Weekly Show podcast. My name is Jon Stewart, and we are currently not at war. It's been hours, I think. It means Wednesday. It's Wednesday, June 25th. This will probably come out Thursday. Right now, we are not at war, and Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapon. By tomorrow, maybe the nuclear weapon, and we're back at war, and we either completely obliterated their nuclear program or set it back 36 hours.

Boy, this has just been everything that is so...

about this administration just on display in the moment. Just the even actions that it might take that can be successful are fraught with his fragility at all times. We obliterated their nuclear program. Well, the early intelligence says, oh, but that's scumbags reported that and people that hate the pilots. And you just think, hey, man, if it's real,

And all the things that you said you had accomplished had been accomplished, then it shouldn't be that hard to not be so defensive and angry all the time. And just, it is such an amazing moment when you see a guy who's the commander-in-chief of the United States and the president of the United States in a situation room with like a Trump was right about everything. Like how many of history's great leaders

had their own merch we're doing. We're having in the moment of triumph in the moment, you know, it's Roosevelt at Yalta with Churchill and Stalin, you know, wearing a nice, no fear, fear itself. He had fear itself on the t-shirt available on Roosevelt's website.

And just the shallowness sometimes of their, you know, J.D. Vance, people are saying, you know, we're concerned about intervention in the Middle East and how these things can have unforeseen consequences and instability throughout. And J.D. Vance says, yes, no, we understand that that's something the American people are afraid of. But, you know, the American people have never had a smart person before. Now we have a smart person, a smart person.

And because we have a smart person, you will not have unforeseen consequences. A smart person that thinks anybody that might possibly look into whether or not it was actually obliterated is a scumbag. Press Secretary Carolyn Leavitt comes out and they ask her, was it obliterated? And she says, everybody knows what happens when you drop bunk. Everybody knows.

is what she said. Everybody knows what happens when you have a precision strike with these kinds of weapons. These weapons have never been used before in the history of the planet, but everybody knows what happens. It's just beyond the silliness. And if anybody pushes back, they demand 100% fealty, and anything beyond that sets off anger and frustration because of the fragility. And speaking of which...

My favorite comment from the news has been, has this attack, what is the future for Ali Khamenei, for the Ayatollah? What is the future? Does this put his future in doubt? And you're like, he's 86 and he ain't Jack LaLanne. He's not the healthiest dude in the world. Like,

I don't know what's more dangerous right now to the Ayatollah, the American and Israeli attacks or stairs. This is, man.

But I am, you know, in these moments, years ago, a friend of mine, Maziar Bahari, was a journalist and was imprisoned in Iran. And he wrote a book about his time in solitary confinement. He was imprisoned for reporting on the Green Revolution in 2008, 2009, during that election. And wrote a book about it called, and then they came for me. And then he and I did a movie about it called Rosewater.

And now he does still a journalist and does something called Iranwire.com, which allows voices within Iran to have an outlet where information, because it's a difficult country to get information out of, can come out. And he is such an interesting and has such a...

an encyclopedic and and brilliant knowledge of all that has happened in that country and and the things that are currently happening and the first thing I thought as I saw this was boy I just want to talk to Maziar and just see how he's feeling what he's thinking about this and so very luckily we're going to get a chance to do that today ladies and gentlemen oh

What a treat today. We're very excited. Our guest today, oh my goodness, writer, journalist, filmmaker, bon vivant, traveler of international renown, author, Maziar Bahari, and also the publisher of IranWire.com, and my dear old friend, Maziar, what are you doing, man?

Well, you know, you called me a bon vivant, but vivant is not bon. It's not good at all. No. Yes. No. I can see. I recognize that. Yeah. No, it's a very, very sad and tragic moment for many Iranians, including myself, all around the world. But for me personally, because many of our colleagues in Iran and citizen journalists and also journalists

The families of our colleagues outside of Iran have been harassed and they've been interrogated by different intelligence agents. And this is something that the Iranian government does when it loses a war, a fight. Right. Iran has been defeated by Israel.

Iran has been embarrassed and we are worried that what they're going to do. They executed three people this morning because of espionage and, you know, because of an assassination that happened two years ago. They've been forcing people to confess against themselves. So Iranians really, really...

They're stuck between this thuggish, hostage-taking, corrupt government and Israelis who think that by bombing, they can solve everything. That by bombing, they can bring democracy to Iran. And people are thinking that, okay, if with bombing, you could bring democracy to a country, Gaza would be a Scandinavian democracy by now. Gaza would be like Norway. Absolutely. But it is... So Iranians are just... They have these mixed feelings. And as...

People outside of Iran who are in touch with Iran all the time, we just feel helpless. And this is just so depressing. So it's just horrible. I want to step back for the audience right now just to give a sense of where Maziar is coming from. So Maziar, for many of you who don't remember, wrote a book called And Then They Came For Me. You were covering...

The Green Revolution. This was the 2008 election. I think it was... 2009. 2009. Ahmadinejad against, was it Mosavi? Mosavi, yeah. So Maziar was covering it, filming at the Basij stations where there was a lot of violence. That's sort of their kind of secret police that would come out on these motorcycles and harass and hurt people. At Basij Arms Depot? Yes. In the middle of a residential neighborhood. Right. Don't forget that.

And people were going up to that end and being shot and killed. And Maziar was arrested, interrogated, and then held in solitary confinement at Evin prison for months until a campaign spearheaded by his wife, Paula, and many other international human rights groups got him released, got him out. So your experience in Iran is of this moment that you're talking about.

Iranian government cracking down on what they think are the dissidents and the people that are undermining whatever their security is. Iran Wire, which is the site you started, is an incredible outlet for these citizen journalists that are in Iran. So just to give kind of that

you know, kind of a basic run there of where it is that you're coming from. You've experienced this cycle personally, and now you think that's going to play out on the streets. Have your sources there

been able to still reach out or is it kind of a radio silence right now? What are you saying? It's been very difficult. Yeah, it's been very difficult because sometimes they narrow the bandwidth of the internet, sometimes they shut down the internet. So it's been very difficult to

get in touch with us, both citizen journalists and officials as well. Since last year when former President Raisi died in a helicopter crash, many Iranian officials have been in touch with us and leaking information because they think that they are on a sinking ship and they don't know what's going to happen. And because of that, they are informing us about different things. And one thing that they're talking about is corruption.

So I always like to say that the Islamic Republic is not either an Islamic or Republic. You remember that episode of Seinfeld that, you know, remember that episode of Seinfeld that George told Jerry that, you know, it's my artistic integrity that I'm worried about. And Jerry goes,

What the fuck you're talking about? You're not artistic and you don't have any integrity. And you have no integrity. That is the Islamic Republic. Maziar Bahari, by the way, one of the only Iran experts who will quote Seinfeld fluently. Exactly. One of the only ones. Yes. And days of our lives, yeah. And days of our lives. So what are they saying now? Is it that the corruption may be the thing that finally kind of undermines their authority? Yes.

So let me go through my spiel. So the Islamic Republic right now, Islamic Republic of Iran is not Islamic Republic of Iran. It's Islamic Republic of corruption. It's Islamic Republic of persecution and Islamic Republic of masturbation. We get to the masturbation in a few minutes. I tell you. All right. So this is a government that's corrupt to the core.

Why do you think that the Israelis managed to know how many Revolutionary Guards commanders live in what places and they managed to kill 12 of them on the first night? Because of the fact that Israel has so many spies around Iran and because of the fact that they know the consequences

coming and going of these Revolutionary Guards commanders. They know exactly where the bases are. They know everything. - How? - Because of the spies, because this economy is so bad that they can hire a spy for $5,000. And you know, according to our sources, some of these spies that people see even in prisons,

They're not getting like $100,000 or $200, you know, like Russian spies during the Cold War. They're getting like $5,000 for a bit of information that which commander lives where. And then the Israelis, they juxtapose all that information together and they have this whole, which has helped them to do that. And that corruption is existing every aspect of this government and society.

It's an Islamic republic of persecution. All it knows, you know, in the absence of any real governing of the country, in the absence of providing people with electricity, in the absence of providing people with employment, all they can do is that imprison people, torture people, murder people.

arresting people because of their hijab, et cetera. So they're not really interested. They have given up governing the country maybe since 2019, since the protests in 2019. And persecution is what they're doing. Those were after the death of Masa Amini? Is that the ones in 2019? Before the death of Masa Amini. This is even before that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Before the death of Masa Amini, when we had three days of total internet shutdown and they killed almost 2,000 people.

And then, of course, during the time of Mahsa Amini, there were others. And then it's the Islamic Republic of masturbation. Why? Because all they do is that they're just keeping themselves happy with propaganda.

All they do is that through these forced confessions, through this propaganda, like right now they have these rallies in Tehran for the victory of Iran in this war. You know, what victory you should be embarrassed about. So it's really like, you know, when you think about the

the Islamic Republic's leaders, I would be embarrassed if I were them because they're not even good at being evil. Incompetent at being evil. At incompetence at being evil. Hey, everybody. I know y'all are sweating out our latest 110-degree heat wave, but you know what doesn't belong in your summer plans? Getting burned by your old wireless bill. Your wireless bill.

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who have managed to destroy Hezbollah to a certain extent, Hamas to a certain extent, Iran's flights and the airplanes, and they come and go as much as they want. In 2012, let me tell you a story. You would be interested in this story. In 2012,

Five Iranian terrorists, they went to Bangkok, Thailand to kill Ehud Barak, who was a minister at the time and who was going to visit Thailand. - Minister of Israel, right. - He was not prime minister, he was minister, I think, foreign affairs at the time. So he went to Bangkok. Iranians, they sent five agents to kill Ehud Barak. Three of them hang out with hookers the night before.

There is a picture of them in Pattaya, which is a beach just south of Bangkok. On the day of bombing, the bomb that they were supposed to have for Ehud Barak, it blew up in the apartment building that they were, which was a few blocks from Iran's cultural center in Bangkok.

The guys came out, people called the police, they hailed the taxi, the taxi didn't stop, they threw a hand grenade, and the hand grenade bounced back, and one of them lost his leg. This is the type of inefficiency of evil you're talking about. You know, like Hannah Arendt talked about the banality of evil. This is like the inefficiency, ineptitude of evil. The inefficiency and incompetence.

But let me ask you, Mazhar, so you talked about the difficulty of getting information now out of Iran and into these other things. What about information getting into Iran and when the Supreme Leader and whoever else it is in the Ministry of Propaganda who are putting out the idea that this is a great victory, I think they put out that they had completely destroyed the American base in Qatar.

The people obviously are quite skeptical of all that, but is there an ability for them? Look, it's hard enough for us to get the information. We don't know what happened to those nuclear sites. We don't know what our bombs did. It's hard enough for so-called open information societies to understand the realities on the ground within Iran. How much,

Is their propaganda dismissed and with skepticism? How effective is it? I mean, and when we talk about that, too, we'll roll back. You know, Iran is not a monolith by any stretch. It's similar to many countries. You sort of look at it as red and blue. There's this, you know, divide there. But what is the information that they're getting? So it's...

Iranians, when the internet works normally, like when there is a connection between the Iranians and international worldwide web, they can get their information. There are many sites that are blocked, including iranware.com, but people use VPNs and people use filter busters. And funnily enough,

Iranian government uses Chinese firewalls in order to stop the internet and Iranians use Chinese filter busters developed by Chinese. Some of them. So they use VPN. They get the information. There are satellite channels that are beamed into Iran.

that people look at. And also because the Iranian government cannot at the moment, because of that inefficiency that we talked about, they cannot shut down the internet totally. There are times that people can get the information. So we are using WhatsApp, for example, we have a channel on WhatsApp, on Telegram. So people can get the information as much as they want. But yesterday,

the Iranian government sent an SMS, a text to many Iranians, millions of Iranians around the country saying that you should not like or post on any Zionist or Zionist friendly sites or platforms. And that's open to interpretation. - That's gonna be all of them. I mean, we do control. - That's open to interpretation because, you know,

anyone can be a Zionist. And for even most of the Iranian government officials that I've met, they don't know what the Zionism means. They all think that Zion was a person and these people like, you know, Marxists, they support Zion. Who is this Zion that they're talking about? This is something that I heard from a senior government official that, damn, that's Zion who started Zionism. You know, this is a level of...

But at the same time, you have this society that is educated. They are, you know, they want, you know, they're secular mostly. They hate this government. But unfortunately, there is no alternative.

So when I hear about regime change in Iran, like from different senators, congresspeople, different, you know, like Netanyahu talked about, you know, regime change. It's got to happen. Yeah. Regime change to what? You know, the Iranian opposition has been its own worst enemy for the past few years.

When was it? Almost three years ago after the Mahsa Amin's death and during the Women's Life Freedom Movement, a few of these opposition figures, they got together in Georgetown University together.

And they had this manifesto and people were really looking forward to something happening. I mean, there were actors and actresses and football players, you know, soccer players. And, you know, people thought that they might be able to do something. They could not even hold that group together for more than a month or so.

So the Iranian opposition really does not exist. So imagine if the regime collapses tomorrow, there is no Mandela or Václav Havel who's going to take care of the country. People compare Iran to the situation in South Africa that bring to the end of the apartheid.

But Mandela was not himself. You know, there are some interesting figures in the Iranian opposition, but they don't have a real political party behind them. Mandela had people like

Oliver Tambo, Chris Haney, Mbeke, the current president, Cyril Ramaphosa, who managed to, you know, negotiations, the transition and all that. And also on top of that, ANC, the African National Congress that came to power after apartheid was a political party with decades of history.

Many of these opposition figures outside of Iran, they have not managed to bring even a small group of people together in an organized way to be able to talk to different governments. They don't talk about, they don't have any plans for transition. People say that, yes, we will be in charge of the transition, but they have no idea about transition, transitional justice, and

That means that for the majority of Iranians who are secular, who hate this government, and they want change, to look at the neighborhood around them, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and those are not great role models to emulate. So because of that, we are in a situation where we are, that we have this millions of Iranians who are sophisticated, educated, open-minded, they're taken hostage.

by this group of thugs who are organized, who have power, who have money, etc. So when I heard the president yesterday saying, you know, these are the two countries that don't know what the fuck they're doing, I think that was the exact emotion that millions of Iranians and most probably millions of Israelis could express as well.

Right. I want to tell you, there's quite a few Americans who feel that way right now about what we're doing. So there's, it's kind of a universal statement. I think it's why it's become such a meme, but I think also for, for people to understand, you know, Iran is really split the power base for, uh,

This current, you know, the Ayatollah is more the rural areas, more religious, more extreme. There is that dichotomy of the more educated people in the cities and they have a more liberal. But, you know, relate this to when you and I were in Jordan, it was in the middle of sort of that Arab Spring period.

That feeling of there was a real sense of hope and possibility of what a more democratic ideal might be. Generally one that we were kind of projecting onto them. And I think Egypt presents a really interesting example because that was a ground up revolution. First, there was Mubarak, who was sort of the authoritarian dictator who had been there for decades.

you know, for all those many years, the people on the street during the Arab Spring rose up and overthrew Mubarak, and they were going to institute a democratic election. And what everybody began to realize is, oh, the only people that are organized enough, because civic institutions had degraded for so long over that time,

was Muslim Brotherhood. They were the only ones that had any. So Morsi, through Muslim Brotherhood, becomes the leader of Egypt. They become dissatisfied with Morsi's rule. The streets rise up again. This takes a year. And who takes over? Sisi, another autocrat, basically Mubarak again. And now he's very popular. I think the point that you made is really interesting. Without

If you have an authoritarian regime over a period of time, it degrades your civic institutions. So when you talk about who's next, it's maybe another Ayatollah, maybe it's somebody from Quds Force, maybe it's somebody from Revolutionary Guard, but it is not probably going to be some democratically-minded leader who's going to empower the people. Would that be fair to say?

Well, let's go back to the premise that the country is divided between rural and urban area and educated and not. I think that was maybe the old paradigm. At the moment, we can say that Iran right now is very similar to Soviet Union in the 1980s.

So you have many people who support the regime as they did in Soviet Union. You have millions of people who are getting paid by the intelligence services like you had in Soviet Union. And

They are supporting an ideology, but at the same time, they are getting paid by the system. So they have material interest in the existence of the system. Right. So the government is supporting a lot of them.

A lot of them. So in 1985, if you ask a KGB agent, do you support the Soviet Union because of the communist ideals and Marxist ideals or just because you're getting paid?

he was probably would say yes because of the ideals, but he was supporting because he was getting paid and because he had seen 70 years of corruption and dictatorship in his country. And you know that communism did not work. So at the moment, many people who support the government

I would say most people who support the government, they have some material interests. It can be because they are getting paid by Imam Khomeini's charity foundation that is supporting up to 10 million people. Maybe because they are getting paid by different organizations

Because of the Revolutionary Guards and also, as you know, Revolutionary Guards is not only an army. The Revolutionary Guards is one of the biggest industrial bodies in Iran. It has universities, it has hospitals. So many people are getting paid by the Revolutionary Guards and supported.

Going back to the other question that you have in terms of the organized opposition. Right. So there is no organized opposition outside of the government. At the moment, I would say that the government is fractured into different parts. Some of them are hardcore supporters of Ayatollah Khamenei because they either believe in him as this

island of purity in this sea of, you know, corruption and dirt. And someone who, as they say, he's the, basically the backbone of the revolution. I would say there are, there are many of them. There would be maybe four or 5 million of them who vote for the most hardline candidates during the presidential elections usually.

But there are many other people who do not believe in the government. They believe in, but they still work for the government.

And many of them are good bureaucrats. Who would be good bureaucrats for a good government? No matter what. Yes, for a good government. Like, you know... Iran's deep state. Some diplomats, exactly. Some diplomats that we have, some accountants, bookkeepers, etc. So they don't have any kind of ideological belonging to the system. So the best case scenario would be to have a leader

who would realize that Iran needs stability. And most people really...

don't care about many of the dictatorial aspects of the regime. They want stability in life. And when Trump says, you know, they don't know what the fuck they're doing, I can understand his frustration because as a businessman, he looks at Iran and he says, you guys have gas, you have oil, you have an amazing country. I hang out with these Iranian property owners in New York and I know how brilliant they are.

Why do you keep on chanting these ideological slogans and just don't make money? Just be quiet and make money like the rest of the Middle East, like people in UAE, people in Saudi Arabia, people in many other countries. And because of that, I think the best case scenario would be to have a leader who is nationalist and

who can bring different groups together, who can give people social freedom, who can tolerate some level of democracy and elections in Iran, and then Iranians would rally around him. And someone who has a plan. Because Iranians, they're smart enough to know that if someone doesn't have a plan, they're not going to support that person. Right.

Someone like Mohamed Mossadegh that we overthrew in 1953. Maybe somebody like that. Yeah, Mohamed Mossadegh. Someone like him. Yeah, because he basically came through the system as well. And, you know, here, let's make an open parenthesis because... Well, we couldn't allow it because we thought he was a communist. No, exactly. But the thing about Mossadegh as well is that

people say here that, you know, not here, like in the US, I've seen a lot of my leftist friends and liberals say that he was democratically elected. Mossadegh was not democratically elected. Mossadegh became prime minister, like many other prime ministers before him and after him. The Shah introduced him to the parliament, and he, and you know, the parliament voted for him as the prime minister. Mossadegh's

Main mistake, and I think that many other Iranian politicians and many politicians in different places, main mistake was to make the Americans afraid of the Soviets so much that they couldn't trust him anymore. And they said that, okay, we have to bring our own strongman because Mossad was saying that, was telling Truman and

Then, you know, Churchill and Attlee at the time said, you know, if you don't support me, the Soviets are going to take over. The communists are going to take over. And then, you know, the CIA was a young organization at that time. And, you know, when Eisenhower came to power with Allen Dulles and, you know, they said that, well, if you're so weak that you cannot withstand the Soviets, then we can have our own people. We can have the strong military. So that's why, you know, the coup happened. And he also did, you know, back...

British Petroleum and the fact that they couldn't trust that Mozadegh would do what they wanted him to do for British Petroleum. Yeah, so I think it's very important to understand the other people's narrative. I think Mozadegh's main problem was that he did not understand the American Cold War narrative at the time.

He did not understand the level of fear in the U.S. That that was viewed as an existential threat in the United States, right? Exactly. And the Americans at that time, they didn't care about the narrative in Iran. And they thought, you know, with the coup, they can bring, you know, stability and they could, you know, break the alliance.

The Shah will be our guy. Exactly. And 25 years later, it backfired and there was a revolution in Iran. At the moment, I think that's happening as well, that people don't understand each other's narrative and there's a lot of misunderstanding and miscommunication. So let's talk about narrative because you bring up an excellent point because so much of this is about narrative. And I do have a couple of questions on that.

One is... And I'm sorry for drinking so much water. It's so hot here that, you know, I have to hydrate myself. Maziar, I can tell. First of all, it's very upsetting to me how good you look. I'm already upset about that because... You too, man. You too. Over the years, the...

eroded. Oh my God, no, you look like a young George Clooney. Well, Maziar, thank you. Seriously. That's very kind of you, sir. By the way, when we were making Rosewater, which is a film about Maziar's experiences in captivity in Iran, we had to get Gael Garcia Bernal to do it because there was no one else handsome enough.

to play a young Maziar Bahari. It just wasn't... - And unfortunately, Peter Sellers was dead. So in the absence of Peter Sellers, we had to get Gael Garcia Bernal. - We could have gone with someone handsome enough or witty enough, and we went with Gael, who... - Who did a very good job. - Who did a very good job, bridged the gap. Talking about narrative, so, and it's the two narratives. One, in Iran,

So the revolution, and people know that there's a distinction between Khomeini, who was the leader in absentia, and then when the Islamic revolution came to power, he took over, and then when he passed, Khamenei. Why do they, if this nuclear program is the sole reason

that is preventing them from the kind of progress that you're seeing in some of these other nations. Why do they, do they feel like that's the key to holding on to their power? Is it still the idea of creating a kind of a more Shia-dominated power source from Syria through Iran? Is it, I can't wrap my mind around

why they do allow themselves to be so at a remove when they do have so much to offer, as you say, in terms of brain power, in terms of everything. They've kind of, you know, it seems like cut off their own nose to spite their face in some regard. No, it's a very good question. And I think it goes back to one of the main problems with this government that it has not managed to define itself properly.

and the fact that 40 years after the revolution, 46 years after the revolution, they're still calling themselves a revolutionary government. So in 1979, the revolution happened because of mainly two reasons.

Iranians, they wanted freedom. They wanted to defeat tyranny. The Shah was a brutal force in Iran. People might forget that. The Shah was a brutal force. And also the Iranians, they started their movement for freedom in 1906, one year after the original Russian Revolution. And they had the Constitutional Revolution. And Iran had the first parliament in Asia. So people started to fight for freedom in 1906.

Then, you know, that movement was defeated. Then Shah's father came to power. And there were many movements in the 1940s. And as you said, the coup happened in the early 1950s. So many Iranians, they thought that they could use Khomeini in order to defeat the Shah. And then he would just go home and then they could come to power. And at the same time, the Shia clerics...

They had a lot of power. In 1962, the Shah had the White Revolution that undermined the power of the clergy in Iran. So the clergy, they really developed the... What was the White Revolution? Go back to that, because I'm not familiar. Oh, yeah. So the White Revolution had two main tenets. One was that the big lands had to be...

taken away from landowners and divided into farmers because the Shah thought that the that field oil system that existed in Iran at the time was a main obstacle to the progress of Iran. And he was inspired by Kennedy, actually. He had, he was, you know, that at that time, Kennedy was in power. So there was a lot of conversation between the Kennedy administration and Iran. And the second tenet was the giving women the right to vote.

So when Khomeini started his movement in 1962, he wrote a letter to the Shah saying that, you know, your royal majesty, he used the word royal majesty, giving women the vote is going to drive them to prostitution. You know, like, you know, okay, women get a vote and then they go to a brothel immediately. You know, just like that. It's going to, this letter is available online, you know, and then,

So the white revolution. So after the white revolution, Khomeini, of course, had his original uprising. He was sent into exile. Many of his supporters were killed and put in jail, including this, the current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, who was, I think, around 23, 24 at the time. He was born in 1939. So, yeah.

The clergy, they wanted to take power. And so in 1979, these two forces, the nationalist forces and the Islamic forces, they managed to topple the Shah. But again, as you said about Egypt, the nationalist, the Islamic forces toppled

They were more organized. Khomeini had a network of people in mosques around the country. He was a very good communicator. He knew how to use the cassette tapes. He was sending his messages to Iran in cassette tapes. He was using photocopies of his messages. So that was distributed all around Iran. So when the revolution happened in February 1979,

Khomeini managed to get rid of all the other groups one by one, put people in jail, execute them, and then be the absolute ruler of Iran.

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Terms and conditions apply. Hiring, indeed, is all you need. Now, do you think Iran now, if that's the origin story of sort of this new version, do they define themselves through the Islamic premise? Do they define themselves through opposition to the great Satan, which would be America and I'm assuming Israel? Do they define themselves through this idea that

They are a counterweight to the majority Sunni population in the region. Like what is...

What's kind of the defining foundation then that holds the nation together? Yeah, so I remember that I didn't answer your question about the nuclear. So I'm going to answer both of them at the same time. We got so much. Yeah, I know. I answered both of them at the same time. So again, like what we are talking about, the opposition right now, when Khomeini came to power, he had an ideal of creating Islamic utopia.

exporting the revolution, and he inspired millions of people around the world. You know, there's a guy who lives in Iran right now who came from Washington, and you know, he killed someone on behalf of the Iranian government, and he has been living in Iran for the past 46 years. He inspired millions of people around the world, and as you remember, in the 1970s and the 60s, revolutions were in vogue. So Khomeini was really a good revolutionary leader, but

that utopia was, you know, was a mirage. It was a mirage. Islamic Republic, as we said that, you know, it's like, you know, George with artistic integrity that, you know, that does not exist. So in the absence of being able to create this Islamic utopia, what Khomeini did was

and what his successor, Ali Khamenei did since he's been in power since 1988, since 1989, sorry. And he's been, they've been

They've been insisting on that revolutionary aspect of the Iranian government, of the Islamic Republic. And what do you need for a revolution? You need an enemy. So you have to have enemies. And Khomeini said it himself that Saddam Hussein's invasion of Iran in 1980 was a gift to the Islamic Republic.

Because when Saddam Hussein invaded Iran and started the Iran-Iraq war for eight years, that brought everyone together and they supported Khomeini. And as a result, people, you know, he managed to mobilize people. Then Khomeini died in 1989. Ali Khamenei came to power. And he's been, his catchphrase is,

uh, the enemy. And, you know, he's been talking about, and, you know, talking about is like really for him is, uh, it's give him these, uh, you know, it's, uh,

His character is like, you know, Barry Gibb finding his posseto. You know, it's just like that. You know, it's like when you think about Barry Gibb before, you know. See, this is the fun of hanging out with Maziar. No, no, but seriously, like, you know, Saturday Night Fever before and after. Sure. It's like, you know, it's like...

When Khamenei talks about... Once they found that signature sound, man, doshman. Exactly. Doshman was the staying alive. You know, because apparently Khamenei smokes opium and, you know, people who've known him, they say that every now and then he likes to smoke a little bit of opium. He doesn't say doshman. He says doshman, which is a very much, you know, like an opium-affected sound.

So, yeah, so he has to define a new dushman, a new enemy for himself every time. So it was Saddam Hussein, which was a blessing. And then, of course, America, the great Satan, Israel, the little Satan. And then, you know, the...

Then I think around 1993, 94, he talked about the cultural invasion because of the Western cultural invasion, because of all the velvet revolutions that were happening in Eastern Europe. He talked about that. So he keeps on talking about that. And how can you defeat a doshman, an enemy, right?

You know, through military power. And what is the most potent military device that you can have to defeat and, you know, defeat the enemies? That's the nuclear program. And they've been trying to do that since, as far as we know, since the late 1980s.

when the former Revolutionary Guards Commandant, the letter is available, as Khomeini, after many defeats during the Iran-Iraq war, that we have to start developing a nuclear program. Wasn't even the Shah pursuing that, I think, towards the end? Well, Shah was not pursuing nuclear... Weapon. Weapon? Weapon.

We don't know yet. We don't know. The funny thing about the Shah is that the Americans, they helped the Shah during the time of Eisenhower around the 1956, 55, 56 to develop the program Atoms for Peace. And many countries, they had that. And the Shah had a very smart idea, actually. The Shah was saying that

Oil is a finite resource. So we cannot use oil only for heat. And, you know, we have to have alternatives, alternative sources of power and keep oil for other usage. So the Shah was developing nuclear energy and in the early...

Around late 1970s, there are some documents that some Israelis, they were saying that the Shah should develop nuclear weapon in order to be able to defeat the Arab enemies the same way or at least frighten the Arab enemies. And at that time, the Americans, they did not want to fight.

the Shah to have that and prevented that. And when this government came to power, it basically got rid of all the nuclear program in the beginning, and then they started again in the late 1980s. So when you go to the Israeli archives, that part of the archives is still not available to the public.

But when you talk to the people in the Israeli army in the old times, the military attache, the Mossad people in Iran at the time, they're telling you that that's what happened, that we wanted to have Iran nuclear program. And the other thing is that, you know, between Iran and Israel is that

There is no real beef between Iran and Israel. Iran needs Israel. By the way, I think more Jews in Iran

than any other country around there after Israel and the United States. - Maybe after Turkey, I'm not 100% sure, but-- - Right, maybe Turkey, right. - There's a sizable Jewish community in Iran, and it's one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world. And you know that they're not Ashkenazi and they're not Sephardic. They are Iranian Jews, Persian Jews. - Persian Jews, right. - And there are many of them is, they are very close to where you live. They're in Long Island.

Wait, what? Yeah, yeah. I thought it was Los Angeles. No, no, no, no. Great Neck. Great Neck in Long Island has the biggest Persian Jewish community. They know, you know, they know where to choose. These are like beautiful areas. They have very, very beautiful... You got to go by waterfront, you know, the Jewish... Yeah, exactly. So, yeah. So there's no beef between Iran and Israel. But it is...

Iran's been very clear they would like to destroy Israel, and Israel's been very clear they would like to destroy at least this regime. Yeah. Well, Iran has to say that, again, because Khamenei and the regime as a whole, they need an enemy. But... Doshman. That's the doshman. They need a doshman, yeah, or doshman if you want to emulate a doshman. Doshman, right. So, yeah, in the Shah's time, there was no de facto relationship between Iran and Israel.

But Israelis had up to 10,000 people working in Iran in different industries, advisors. There was a direct flight between Tehran and Tel Aviv. Really? Yeah, to ordinary Iranians.

There are no animosity between Iran and Israel. You know, yes, of course. Do they not? Is the Palestinian question not as important to the Iranians? No, the thing is that the Palestinian question is as important to Iranians as

as the situation of Rohingya is important to the Israelis. You know, they are sad about it. Yes, of course, when they see destroyed houses, their children, et cetera, they are sad about it, but it's not their issue. The same thing for the Israelis. The Israelis, when they look at the Rohingya in Burma, they're sad about it, but this is not something that has to do with them. So many Iranians, they just don't understand why they are stuck between

a corrupt, violent government, a regime, and a government in Israel that thinks that they can just bomb everything. And the solution to everything is bombing, including bringing democracy. And the icing on the cake was a few days ago when the Israelis, they bombed Evin prison in a symbolic gesture that, you know, we want to bring freedom to Iran. We are free, Egin.

And what happened? Many buildings were destroyed, many windows were shattered, and many prisoners were hurt seriously, were injured seriously. And those are the people who hate the Iranian government. And those are the people who are the future of Iran. And the Israelis are hurting them because they want to bring democracy to Iran. Right. It's such a repeat of so many of the ill-founded efforts that we have had in that region for these past years.

100 years of that idea of, oh, we're going to bring democracy. How does the Saudi bloc and Qatar, UAE, how do they play into this? Because I'm always surprised, given the brutality of this campaign in Gaza, given this, you know, there's a lot of rhetoric from Turkey, the Saudis, Qatar. Nobody seems to...

do anything. Nobody seems to want to get involved on behalf of the Palestinians. Like to create, they'll, they'll every now and again, they'll put out a kind of statement about a peace plan that they were going to do, but nobody will put skin in the game. And I'm wondering now, you know, as they're bombing Iran, the passivity of all the other countries, is that tacit approval?

Of these actions? I wouldn't say that it's tacit. Yeah, I wouldn't say that it's a tacit approval. Some of them, you know, because Iran has been trying to have its proxies in different countries, including Saudi Arabia, and it has cells in Bahrain and UAE and Kuwait. Well, certainly Hezbollah and Hamas are the most well-known.

Yes, but also, you know, they have smaller groups. Yeah, smaller groups they have in Saudi Arabia, in Bahrain and other places. And, you know, Iran and Saudi Arabia, they haven't had a very, you know, brotherly relationship since 1979, even before that. But so on one hand, many people in among the Arab countries around the Persian Gulf, they're kind of happy.

that Iran and Israel are fighting and the fact that Iran is being weakened by Israel and the United States. But at the same time, because the security and stability of the region, especially the Strait of Hormuz, where

- Right. - You know, 20% of the-- - So much oil. - Yeah, 20% of the oil produced in the world, it goes through straight up hormones every day. They are worried about the stability of that region, so

Maybe in their heart, they're happy that Iran is being weakened, but when they think about it, the instability and insecurity of the region is not something that can be helping even the Persian Gulf Arab countries. - And for all that time, again, people always talk about the off ramps. I think what's so helpful about this, Maziar,

You giving us the kind of context and background about how Iran developed and how they got here gives us sort of an idea into the psychology of it. You know, you and I still live in the 1979 world to some extent. I would imagine that the majority of people now in Iran and in that region

do not in any way remember 1979, don't have any real ties to that, you know, the enemies and foes and friends of that time. It does present an opportunity to redefine what that region can be. It seems insane to me that this region has been so fraught. What are the real dangers?

Well, you know, in Iran, the situation is not like as you described, because in Iran, they celebrate 1979 revolution every day. People see pictures. They still live in that moment. Oh, yeah. People see pictures of Khomeini, Ayatollah, Ruhollah, Khomeini, the founder of the revolution every day. And people collected.

remember of the collective fuck up that they had in 1979 who came to the streets and chanted when the devil goes out the angel comes in meaning that when the shark goes out the angel Ruhollah Khomeini would come in and I think yeah I mean the

The whole nation, even the young people who don't remember 1979 and the majority of Iranians, maybe 85% have been born out after 1979. They still regret that historical mistake that they made in 1979.

to have a revolution without knowing, without having a plan for the future. And that includes many people in the government now, people who were revolutionaries at the time. When you talk to them privately and sometimes even publicly, when you talk to them, they said, we made a mistake. We should have given the Shah permission

the opportunity to reform the country. The Shah was afraid of the Soviets, of the communists, and then maybe after the collapse of Soviet Union, there would be more opening. In any case, the situation would not be as bad as it is now. And that is according to many people within the Iranian government. Are their resentments more internal or are their resentments... So look,

We've imposed really devastating sanctions on that country. You know, I would imagine it's very easy for them to point to as they did with you, that you are an agent of the West sent to weaken them. That's been their game plan. You've been the doshman. The West has been the doshman for so long that how reflective are they? And even within Iran, for those who resent, you know,

What would you say is the regime's actual sort of support level, you know, given everything that's happened? Yeah, I would say based on the last election that we had and the majority of people voted for the person who was not Khamenei's first choice for president.

And people, you know, about five to six million people or maybe a little bit more, seven million people, maybe they voted for Jalili, who was Khamenei's chosen candidate during the presidential election last year. I would say that is the highest level of support that you would have in the country. And that includes people who are getting funding by the government, the intelligence agents, et cetera.

But this question of sanctions is very important because I think it's multilayered. The problem is multilayered. In order to impose targeted sanctions against the nuclear program, against the human rights violators in terms of

certain sectors within the Iranian economy, you need the bureaucracy to back it up. You need the people in the treasury, in the state department, other places in order to be able to liaise with the banks saying that, okay, this pharmaceutical company that wants to bring, you know, to wants to import drugs

medicine from the U.S. or, you know, medical equipment from the U.S., they can be exempted. They can have this OFAC license that, you know, Treasury issues for the exceptions.

But that bureaucracy has not existed in the U.S. government since the beginning, since 1979, when Carter's administration imposed the sanction. And, you know, neither Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Obama, Bush Sr., Bush Jr., none of them had that. And it doesn't exist at the moment. And at the same time,

The Revolutionary Guards is not only a military force in Iran. It is the biggest industrialist in Iran, and it has many companies.

It has shares in some private companies. So when the Revolutionary Guards Corps, IRGC, is prescribed, is subjected to sanctions, that means that the pharmaceutical companies that are owned by... Ah.

The Revolutionary Guards, the pharmaceutical companies that bring medical equipment to Iran, they are subjected to sanctions as well. That somehow resembles hiding among civilians for the Revolutionary Guards because it is like an octopus. It has its tentacles everywhere in every aspect of Iranian society. And sometimes, you know, you are a bookkeeper or you're an accountant.

Working for a company for a pharmaceutical company and then the Revolutionary Guards take over you're immediately become subjected to sanctions by the American government and many other governments. So I think this is this question about sanctions is very very complicated and

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But I think the main reason for the sanctions is the behavior of the Iranian government. In 1979, when the sanctions started, they started because a group of students inspired and supported by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini took over the American embassy in Tehran, meaning the

a part of the American land. And I think that resentment still exists among many American diplomats and actually among many older Americans who are voting for different elections. Yeah. Absolutely. That's what I meant by it. For the younger Americans, I don't think they have any foreknowledge of that. But for older people who still remember

the pain of that time. That's why I'm saying this seems like a moment where we can finally break free from this kind of historic self-defeating pattern that has isolated. - That requires reading and education though. - Well, it's funny. You always- - I don't think, yeah. - The one thing Maziar was always really clear with me, so we always talked about this when we were sort of working on the film was,

the difference between incompetence and evil. And, you know, you were always really clear that so much of, and we tried to sort of insinuate that with the interrogator that used to, that Kim Bodnia who played your interrogator that would come in, this idea that they weren't evil as much as ignorant and incompetent. And that chasm seems like it's only grown and it is the Revolutionary Guard, the only organization

within Iran now that kind of functions as holding that whole thing together? No, I think the civil society in Iran is still very strong.

Iranians are educated. And since the woman life freedom movement, Iranian society has changed a lot. You see stronger civil society groups and these civil society groups, they are not maybe politically active and they want to topple the government. They are environmentalists. They are patriots.

They are involved in providing employment to different people. They are targeting poverty in different parts of the group. So society as a whole is really progressing and it's really advancing regardless of what the government is doing. - Right, almost nature finds a way. - Exactly. And some of, many Iranians in the absence of any viable opposition to this government,

They are implicitly and explicitly asking the government, just leave us alone. Just leave us the fuck alone. We want to do, you know, we want to provide jobs. We want to clean the environment. This is the air that we all are breathing. You know, let us clean the air. What's wrong with that? But the Revolutionary Guards, on the other hand, they are very organized and

But again, the Revolutionary Guards is not a monolith. There are different factions within the Revolutionary Guards who are fighting against each other.

a voice file came out about five, six years ago. It was about the clash between Qasem Soleimani, the former head of the Quds Force and the commander of the Revolutionary Guards because of the fact that Soleimani was involved in some money laundering, et cetera. So that guy was criticizing him. So Revolutionary Guards is not a monolith as well. And also you have to remember that

And I hope that the American administration remembers that as well, that many people, they are drafted into Revolutionary Guards. So when a young person is graduating from high school or maybe not drafting, but joins the Army, they have a few choices. They can go to the

The army, the navy, or they can be drafted into revolutionary guards and they have no ideological belonging to the revolutionary guard. They don't ideologically support, but they're just drafted to the revolutionary guard. So the revolutionary guards is really not a monolith as well.

And yeah, so in the absence of any viable opposition, in the absence of any viable alternative, the majority of Iranians, they want security. They want peace. They want peace.

They want to be able to provide the basics for the family, whether under this government or not. And have a sense of a future. And they want to have a sense of future. And I think that's very important. When the Israelis, they are targeting Tehran and they're targeting civilian areas or they're targeting oil refineries. And when people remember what the Israelis have done in Gaza,

that doesn't give them the confidence that the Israelis, they want to work with them in the future. - Right, they have their best interests at heart. - Exactly, that they want to work with them in the future. - But see, this is what's so heartbreaking about this region, and this is something that I think I learned from working with you and from being over there. I don't know of a region of the world where there is a larger gap between the nature of the people and the nature of their leadership.

the extremities of people's leadership in these areas versus, I mean, I can remember when we sent Jason Jones, when we originally interviewed you during that time of the Ahmadinejad election,

a warmer group of people, better educated, a more artistic, you will not find when you go into often these regions that are being torn apart by extremist violence, you know, the people in Palestine, a more hospitable, like lovely with nothing who I remember we would go into those refugee camps in, in Jordan, people with nothing who wanted nothing.

only to invite us in and feed us. And I was so struck by the gap between the beauty of the hearts of those people and the hardness of the hearts of, of the leadership. And I feel like

That is where we're caught right now. Yeah. And you know, when you travel to countries like Malaysia or Thailand or any other South Asian countries, but I'm giving Malaysia as an example because it's a Muslim country and they don't have any relations with Israel. The majority of people don't like Israel because of what it's doing to the Palestinians. But the Malaysian government does not build a weapon and write in Hebrew on it, death to Israel.

They don't invest so much money into denying the Holocaust, into anti-Semitic propaganda.

No, they don't have relations with Israel, but, you know, they're doing their job. They have good relations with the U.S. But it's not their reason for existing is to destroy them. Exactly. It's not the reasons for this. And they don't do anything about Israel. They just don't like it. They don't deal with them. That's all. Maybe they deal with them, but not. But it's not something that the Malaysians, they wake up in the morning and see death to Israel all the time. And, you know, if you think about it, like when you're if you're an Israeli and I've been to Israel,

a few times in the past 10 years or so. When you are an Israeli and you have this government that chants "Death to Israel" all the time, as I said, and the example I gave is a real example that they build bombs and they wrote on in Hebrew on it "Death to Israel".

And at the same time, you see that they are funding groups that are acting against you. That doesn't give you the confidence as an Israeli that, you know, you can deal with this government and you think about doing something. Then you also, though, have politicians in the Knesset saying we should nuke Gaza. I mean, that's exactly I can't imagine that's giving much confidence. Of course. I mean, yeah, there are some rabbis in Israel who are saying that we have to emulate Iran. And yeah, we have a Jewish government.

Jewish kingdom in Israel. But I mean, we're not talking about like the extremes. We're talking about normal people for normal Israelis. That's what I mean. I think it would. Yeah, I think it would be interesting. But the problem is that

There is the narrative exactly that the ordinary Israelis, they do not understand the narrative of ordinary Iranians and vice versa. Yeah. If I want to blow our own horn, is that what we are doing in Iran, where we're trying to somehow translate these narratives for the Iranian audiences, but what the rest of the world are saying and for the rest of the world, but what the Iranians are saying.

And it kind of takes us around sort of full circle to what we were talking about earlier. And, you know, we're talking to Maziar Bahari who had been imprisoned in, in Evan and has certainly, uh, you know, his family had been arrested by the Shah. I mean, that's the other thing I want to make clear is, you know, Maziar's experience, his experience was with Khamenei and being, uh, in solitary confinement, his father's experience was,

was with similar repression, but under the Shah. Yes. And so you've seen, you know, the U.S.-aligned government and the non-U.S.-aligned government acting in the same fashion, you know, as they say, meet the new boss. Oh, within the same, but similar fashion. Similar fashion, meet the new boss, same as the old boss. Is there some way, and this is probably a question beyond all of it, where...

A country born in revolution, and let's say the birthday is 79, or in Israel, born in Zionism or whatever it was that created it through, that they mature past this existential tightrope that they seem to always feel like they're walking and grow.

and get past whatever they believe is the fear or humiliation of actions and take this chance of maturing past that moment and giving their good people an opportunity

to rejoin the family of other nations and still obviously have issues. And act fucking normal. Act fucking normal. That's it. Act fucking normal. Act normal. Like, you know, the government of Malaysia, for example, it's not the best government in the world, but it doesn't wake up and say, death to America. Right. You know, it took you about...

Two or three minutes to ask that question. I think that process, it was a long question. No, but it's, you know, but it's important for the right question to be asked. You need to take your time. You need to think about it and you need to articulate it.

For this change that you're asking about, people have to think about it, people have to introspect, and people have to come up with solutions. The Iranian society, the majority of Iranians are doing that. What you're asking about is not going to happen as a result of a bombing. It's not going to happen as a result of sudden change.

As I said, after the woman life freedom, Iranian society was changing. It has been changing.

This set of bombing, this 12-day war, I'm not sure whether it's going to be an obstacle to that or it may have weakened the regime to a certain extent that they may listen to people. If they're wise enough, they would be listening to people and don't worry about hijab and things like that. And they would just

try to have people on their side and survive, but survive in a more normal way.

But there's also the fear, the danger that they go Ayatollah Khomeini's way, that after 1988, after defeat from Iraq, the military defeat, they can close the society. But one way or another, I am very hopeful about the long-term future of Iran because the people I talk to, the young women and men I talk to, especially young women, I think the Iranian women, they're just...

It's just, it's really, their future is theirs. And when you think about the sacrifices that they've made, the amount of shit they have to go through since 1979 and even before that, and their resilience and their brilliance, you can see that the future of Iran can be in the hands of these women. And I'm very hopeful about the long-term future of Iran. But...

In the short term, especially in the next few months after such a humiliating defeat by Israelis and Americans, I'm not sure. There might be some tragedies happening in the next few days, weeks, and months. And I can remember you and I would talk about these movements and the Green Movement and when they would sort of dissipate. The people would come out on the street.

the Basij or the Revolutionary Guard would put it down violently. And you said something to me once that really struck with me, which was the people of Iran decided they like life more than they like freedom. Exactly. And that they were tired of, for their freedom, having to put themselves in such harm's way.

And, and boy, that, that was such a powerful. They want to celebrate life. They just want to have a normal life. Right. The, uh,

most famous song that came out of the woman life freedom. Uh, it's called better. Yeah. Four. And the main line in that song is for a normal life. And that is something that people have been fighting for just the normal life. I want to go out. I want to buy a piece of bread. I want to just, you know, hang out with my friends. I want to drink coffee. And that is not, uh,

that is not allowed in a normal... And that is not against God, and that is not something that guys on motorcycles with fucking sticks should drive through us and start beating us as we're doing it. And the sad thing is that they are shooting themselves in the foot, and they are undermining their own authority by alienating people, by alienating people who may have rallied around them at the time of war, at the time that foreign...

country has invaded the land but i'm unfortunately i'm sure that they're not going to learn from this and they're going to continue with this morality police and things like that well maziar uh this has been for me just wonderful to see you wonderful to catch up with you love to see you too it's it's so nice to see you still just passionately doing the work you know

And I hope the listeners can tell from Mazer, you know, I've always said, like, you're a Renaissance man. Like, the amount of knowledge that Mazer has, and you heard it on display, but man, get him going on film and music, and it gets even deeper and more specific. You know, you can always find good analogies with Bee Gees and Seinfeld. So, you know, if you know a few Bee Gees and Seinfeld analogies, I think you're set for life. He can...

can pull them in very few people of of uh custodians of history have that same knowledge of the disco era well thank you very much to see you too yeah it wonderful and and iran wire

uh is just this incredible platform that allows uh people in iran to still have a voice outside of iran and get their stories out and maziar's been doing uh that work for now it's got to be what 10 10 12 years 12 years now yeah 12 years also available in english so people can go to iranwire.com and read the articles in english or we are also on substack

Oh, look at you. Look at modern Maziar. Very nice. All right. Well, it's just lovely to see you. Maziar Bahari, everybody. Thank you. How much you love Maziar Bahari? So funny. He's so great. And he is a dead ringer for Peter Sellers. When he said that, it clicked for me.

And Peter Sellers, he never let race get in the way of a good part. No, no. And by the way, then that's why we had Gael, a Mexican national playing an Iranian national. And I remember saying to Maziar, when we were first...

you know, going to do the movie. I said, Maziar, I have this idea, you know, all Iranian cast and, and maybe even we do it in Farsi, like, and this is going to be the most, uh, you know, naturalistic portrayal. And he was like, don't you want people to see the movie? Yeah.

You know, he's like, my first rule is he has to be handsome. That actually was his first rule. He thought he thought Gael was was close to handsome. So he was he was good there. But it's so great to hear him. And very few people have, again, his knowledge of history, but also culture and are so agile. He's so agile in the way that he weaves it all together.

but you can tell he's worried. And, and I think he has so many frustrations,

friends and family members and people that I think he's really concerned about. And I think the uncertainty of the moment I could see is weighing on him. Absolutely. It was so good, though, to get those first person accounts through him of what young people are saying on the ground. It's just because that's so often lost in this conversation, what the Iranian people want for the future of their country.

Just the breadth of what I don't know about Iran, what I assume most Americans don't know about Iran, what I feel confident saying our leaders don't know about Iran. At least Ted Cruz. Staggering. Right. Well, I can even remember when we did Rosewater, you know,

I, you know, we, we talked a lot about it and the, I, the idea was like, if you're an American, this was the most nuanced view of, you know, inside Iran you'd ever seen. But if you were Iranian, it probably felt like an utter farce, two-dimensional sledgehammer. You know what I mean? Like that's, that's the gap between our understandings.

of the separate countries. And you can see how those gaps lead to such devastating outcomes. And I think Maziar said it best. He said, it's not a monolith. There are those that really support and are really locked into that revolutionary mindset. And there are those that are just like, we just want to fucking live our lives. Yeah. And who can't relate to that? Totally. I was thinking about something you all were saying, which is

the generosity of the people on the ground not matching what the leadership has to say. And it is also by design, keeping information from people and framing things a certain way. And we saw that with the attack on the base in Qatar, where the internet is cut off from Iran, and they just declared victory. And so I think it makes sense- They destroyed the base. Yeah, we need to take a moment and think about what

information is actually reaching people before we just assume that we disagree with them and this will be, you know, a protracted battle forever. And he, I think he very smartly said, you know, and there are a lot of people there that are grabbing VPNs or, you know, it's, it's, uh, ways of bypassing, but that is always going to be a narrower swath of the people.

And so we don't know the story that they're being told. And by the way, before we get too kind of high on ourselves, we're not sure the story we're being told. Oh, of course. And, you know, it's been obliterate. They're done. It's over. We had to do it. They were within days. They were, who the fuck knows anymore? Oh my God.

now we are we're we're off next week right yes we are a little little celebration of america's birthday there or big beautiful bill if that happens oh christ it's another one where watching them all have to say that reminds me of like whenever you call disney and they have to end every conversation with and have a beautiful disney day or whatever the fuck they have a magical day or

Have a magical day. And when they say Big Beautiful Bill, it feels like a hostage video at almost every turn. Just ridiculous. But Brittany, let's answer the listeners before we get going and then we'll head off into the sunset. Sure thing. First up, we've got John. Do you think Donald Trump should get the Nobel Peace Prize? Sure. Kissinger got it. Why not? Why not?

Whoever's got the bombs, give them the prize. What the fuck does it even matter? The idea that winning that is somehow... Means anything at this point? Well, there's a big cash prize. I think that's why he's into it. Why doesn't he just make his own? He does his own meme coin, make his own. Do the Trump Peace Prize, award it to yourself, and then have it for the rest of the time. You'd rather have it that anyway.

That's such a solid prediction. He's going to. Right. The Trump prize will be given to whoever it was that did the most towards world peace. And it turns out it's me. Oh, my God. I win, guys. And they'll hold the reception at the Kennedy Center where he runs it. It'll be perfect. And remember, he said he was going to be a world class. I don't remember what he said. Violinist.

whatever it was that he said. He was talking to somebody saying he could have been world-class in an instrument and he can play the music.

He's a one man band. What do we need anything else for? He plays the flute. Oh, he said something in an interview. Like I, I could have been, Oh, I, my brain just broke. Sorry. New Trump lore just dropped. Yeah. Yeah. He said he was in an interview and he was saying to somebody, he could have been a world-class musician. Could have been whatever else. Yeah. He just decided. Same. Oh, Oh, how, Oh, how the world could have been different.

What else we got? - Next up we've got, if you were stranded on an island, Colbert or Corral? - Oh, that's easy, a boat. I would have a boat. Why would I have, why would I have one of those two knuckleheads who neither of us, by the way, that's not even a choice on an island. Like there's no, there's not a survival skill amongst the three of us. It wouldn't matter who you had on there. We'd all be gone within three days.

So I did none of us.

A boat. I'd want a boat. There we go. For God's sakes. But this is great. I hope you guys have a great week off. Boy, you guys have been fantastic. And give yourselves a good time to decompress. Brittany, how do they keep in touch with us? Twitter, we are Weekly Show Pod. Instagram, Threads, TikTok, Blue Sky, we are Weekly Show Podcast. And you can like, subscribe, and comment on our YouTube channel, The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart.

Boom. Roasted. Lead producer, Lauren Walker. Producer, Brittany Mamedovic. Video editor and engineer, Rob Vittal. Audio editor and engineer, Nicole Boyce. Researcher and associate producer, Jillian Spear. And our executive producers, Chris McShane, Katie Gray. Guys, have a wonderful week off. We will see you all. The week after. The week after. Early July. Thanks so much. And see you next time. Bye-bye.

The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart is a Comedy Central podcast. It's produced by Paramount Audio and Busboy Productions.

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