ABC granted rare access to Iran after the 12-day war with Israel

ABC NEWS (Australia)

ABC Foreign Correspondent’s Jonathan Miller was granted rare access to Iran to witness the aftermath of the conflict and explore the regime’s discovery of a network of Mossad spies activated to target top Iranian officials and nuclear scientists including Sayyed Mohammad Reza Seddighi Saber.

Transcript

00:00You can only assume that this will have been years in the making.

00:07Israel will have had a densely populated bank of targets ready to go when that green light

00:13was turned on by Netanyahu on the 13th of June.

00:17They knocked out 35 senior generals within a few days.

00:21In fact, they managed to even kill a replacement within four days of his going into office.

00:30They knocked out 14 nuclear scientists.

00:33That guy who I featured in that clip there, they'd attempted to kill him in Tehran, they'd

00:39missed, they went and got him a second time.

00:40That speaks to intelligence on the ground.

00:43So the Israelis used a lot of technology in this, but they also had people on the ground.

00:48So you can imagine the witch hunt that went on, the regime went into a state of total

00:53panic and paranoia.

00:55And there was a roundup, 21,000 arrests, fast-track trials of accused spies.

01:03And in the weeks since, 10 Iranians accused of spying for Mossad have been put to death,

01:11have been hanged in Iran.

01:13How difficult was it for you to get access there in Iran?

01:16And what sort of restrictions were placed on you while you were there?

01:19Well there were restrictions in that, you know, we had a government minder travelling

01:23with us all the time.

01:24So we couldn't speak to people in the way that you would normally when you make a documentary

01:29or a news report.

01:31People saw this minder over our shoulders.

01:33So we set in place a separate team working undercover who would be able to report for us and do interviews

01:42on our behalf with people who would then express their more genuine feelings.

01:48As to the difficulty of getting into the country, yeah I mean it's not like going to Bali on holiday.

01:52It's a difficult process and you have to be very wary of your security.

01:57This is a do not travel destination.

01:58So you don't go in there lightly.

02:00I had had the advantage of going to Iran last year with four corners.

02:04So I kind of knew the people and knew what to expect.

02:07But you go in there with your heart in your mouth to some degree.

02:10And it wasn't that long ago that we saw people protesting in the streets and we know that

02:14Israel's Prime Minister appealed to those Iranians to rise up during the 12-day war.

02:20That didn't happen.

02:21What sort of support does the regime have in Iran?

02:24Dwindling, Gemma.

02:25I mean look, it's hard to get a handle on exactly the numbers because it's an inexact science.

02:31It's reckoned that between 20 and 30 percent of the country actually is part of or supports

02:37or are beneficiaries of the regime.

02:39The rest, like that's 70 to 80 percent of the 92 million people of Iran oppose this regime,

02:46want to see the back of it frankly.

02:48And some of them were vainly hoping that Netanyahu's invitation to rise up might come true.

02:55It didn't.

02:56There was not regime change.

02:57They've survived.

02:59And the undercover team we had doing interviews talked to one woman who basically said, yeah,

03:06we had hoped that Israel would finally finish the job for us.

03:09But I think this consensus among ordinary Iranians is that while they might have had three rebellions

03:16in the space of just 16 years against this theocratic regime, the impetus for rising

03:22up has to come from within, not be imposed from outside.

03:25What impact will the sanctions have on Iran?

03:29They're brutal.

03:30You know, they've had sanctions in the past.

03:33There have been American sanctions this past 10 years.

03:35These UN sanctions will be crippling, as the saying goes.

03:39It'll mean that they can't get things that they need in normal life.

03:43The economy is already in freefall.

03:45There's 40% inflation.

03:47Ordinary Iranians will suffer and that will only exacerbate the resentment of this regime.

03:52And this conflict between Iran and Israel, is it over?

03:56No.

03:57And in fact, people in both countries felt very strongly that this war was not over, which

04:03is why we've called our film Unfinished Business.

04:06Jonathan Miller from Foreign Correspondent, thank you for joining us.

04:10Thank you, Jenna.

04:11And you can see Jonathan's full story on Foreign Correspondent tonight at 8pm on ABC TV and,

04:16of course, you can view it on iview.

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