Former CIA director: Regime change in Iran difficult

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00:00When it comes to overall regime change, however, I think that's pretty tough to envision other

00:06than from within the regime. Typically, when these situations occur, when a regime is weakened

00:13to the point that it might be overthrown, the individual or group that's on top at the end of

00:19it when the dust settles is the one that has the most effective and charismatic leader and the

00:25most guys with the most guns. And in this case, there's no real opposition leader who has emerged

00:32if he had, he'd be in prison or dead. Although we should note that Israel did bomb the entrance of

00:40the prison that holds most of the political prisoners of Iran. But again, there's not that

00:45figure out there. There's not the kind of robust organization, weapons and so forth that could

00:51materialize. So I'm a bit cautious about the prospects for outside overthrow of this regime.

00:59But you could always envision someone inside the regime at a reasonably high position who could say,

01:05you know, this 86 or 87 year old guy is about to die anyway. Why don't we influence the succession

01:12process a bit here or something along those lines? But I think we should be cautious about

01:17hopes that this might usher in an opportunity for a Jeffersonian Democrat to ride in on a white horse

01:24and take over and recognize that all of this support for proxies and nuclear enrichment and so forth

01:32has been incredibly damaging to their country.