00:00Well, let's talk more about the events unfolding currently in Iran.
00:04We can welcome Scott Lucas, who's a professor of U.S. and international politics
00:08at the Princeton Institute at University College of Dublin.
00:11Scott, thanks so much for speaking to France 24 today.
00:15Scott, I'd like to start, if you will, with this threat of Irfan Solfani,
00:22who's been detained during these protests, possibly being executed today.
00:26In terms of the Iranian regime, what does this suggest, that the pressure is mounting?
00:31This is a real deterrent now to tell protesters stop taking to the streets?
00:37Well, I think you've summarised that, that having actually not even mentioned the protest
00:42for about the first 10, 11 days, so you can look at the state English-language media
00:49or French-language media, and it was like there were no protests.
00:53In the past week, there's been a whole shift by the Iranian regime, which is to declare,
00:59oh, we have these protests that are manipulated or even led by the U.S. and Israel,
01:03and all these protesters are domestic terrorists.
01:07And you reinforce that idea that they're just terrorists.
01:11There's no legitimacy to their demands, not only with the threat of the executions,
01:16but as you heard, the threat by the judiciary head,
01:20that you're almost going to have these railroaded show trials,
01:23these very quick public hearings to show how awful these folks are.
01:29And then you are going to back this up with using even more force on those who continue to protest.
01:36A shift in tactics that started about six days ago to use live ammunition,
01:42and which is accounting for, even though we have to be cautious,
01:46but it is accounting for what we can confirm is an escalating death toll
01:50in which you have thousands of protesters who have now been slain.
01:55I mean, of course, those executions, they're one of the reasons
01:59or one of the reasons that he's announced in any way that Donald Trump has threatened to take action.
02:05How do Iranians respond to this?
02:08Are they buoyed by this potential support from the United States?
02:12Are they reticent to take U.S. help?
02:15I mean, difficult to put everybody in the same, you know, line of thinking.
02:20But how do you think that this is being felt on the ground?
02:24And again, you know, despite the Internet cut off,
02:28there are ways to get in contact and talking to friends
02:31and talking to colleagues inside Iran,
02:34the problem with Trump is that he's so unpredictable in his statements.
02:39So he starts off by saying, oh, I'm going to have military action.
02:42I'll take them out.
02:43And then literally only hours later, he says,
02:46oh, but I'm willing to negotiate with the Iranians about their nuclear program.
02:50So you have that question of where exactly is not just Trump,
02:55but where exactly are his advisors right now and what they're thinking.
02:57But I think more importantly is that while some people in Iran are so desperate,
03:04they might welcome the military action to punish the regime.
03:08I think most Iranians realize that any U.S. military action
03:14puts a further target on their backs and it undermines the protest.
03:18And the reason why that is, first is it will justify the regime coming at them even harder
03:23because they will claim that the protesters are just puppets of the U.S.
03:27But secondly, the regime's line in every serious challenge to its authority,
03:33and this goes back to the late 90s,
03:35is to declare that the demonstrators are being manipulated by the U.S. and Israel.
03:39And if the U.S. carries out military action, that will feed that regime narrative.
03:44They'll just simply say, look, Iranians, look, you have to support us
03:47because these protesters are part of this U.S. plot.
03:50So I think the more sensible proposals that are being discussed, not only by the U.S.,
03:56but by other governments, including France, are, first of all, how can you open up communications
04:01where we can break this wall of silence?
04:05And secondly, how can you support political prisoners by calling for their release?
04:11Because what the Iranian opposition really needs now is it needs organization.
04:15And a lot of those political prisoners are the people who have provided the organization in the past,
04:20not for overthrowing the regime, but at least presenting what Iranians want to the regime.
04:27Scott, you began answering that question by evoking the kind of erratic behavior or declarations of Donald Trump.
04:33What, to your mind, is behind the U.S. motivation in being interested in Iran?
04:40Is it purely a question of helping protesters or is this more at play, geopolitically speaking?
04:48There's Trump and then there's the administration, and those two things are different.
04:52I think in terms of Trump, you know, he has a personal interest, which is, on the one hand,
04:58I'll declare myself a president of peace, and that's when he starts talking about negotiating with the Iranians.
05:04And then he'll say, I'm the big guy here.
05:07I can use military action to change everything.
05:10But he also has this interest in oil, just in the same way that part of the reason why the U.S. has moved against Venezuela
05:16is because Trump wants that oil.
05:18Trump has long expressed a desire for oil from Iraq and oil from Iran.
05:23For those people who are actually dealing with what the U.S. can do,
05:26the Pentagon, the intelligence services, the diplomats, I do think they're looking at it in terms of the region.
05:31I think they're looking at it in terms of what does this mean for the stability of the region.
05:35When you have a U.S. which has its positions in Syria, it has its positions in Iraq,
05:40you have issues regarding what is happening in Lebanon and Yemen.
05:44And I think the balance of that is, especially reinforced by statements from the Israeli leadership
05:50and from the Gulf states in the last 24 hours is, don't go in with military action
05:55because you don't know what the repercussions will be inside Iran.
05:59You don't know how much turmoil will be sparked there.
06:02And you don't know if this will spread throughout the region with the prospects
06:06that the regime will retaliate against U.S. positions in the region,
06:10as well as retaliating against America's allies.
06:13All right, Scott Lucas, there's so much to talk about here.
06:16I'm afraid we have run out of time.
06:18Thanks very much for sharing your thoughts this afternoon with France 24.
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