00:00And joining me is a guest from Tehran, Professor Fawad Ezzadi.
00:08He is an associate professor at the University of Tehran.
00:11Thank you so much, Professor Ezzadi, for joining me.
00:13What is the current situation?
00:14Is this a major warning sign for the regime to implement reforms?
00:22The current situation is stable.
00:25In Tehran, for the last four nights, we haven't had any riots.
00:31The riots started as peaceful demonstrations about two weeks ago.
00:39We had some merchants who had difficulty with foreign currency fluctuations.
00:46The demonstrations were peaceful.
00:49The police was taking care of the demonstrators.
00:53There was no clash.
00:55Everything was okay.
00:57Then we had this organized opposition, the monarchists.
01:02The supporters of the former Shah of Iran started doing a regime change operation.
01:09This was a joint Israeli venture.
01:14The Shah's son visited Israel two times in the last year.
01:19And this is not the analysis we have here.
01:22We had Mike Pampo, the former CIA director, the former secretary of state, sending New Year's greetings to Mossad agents.
01:32This is a quote from his tweet.
01:35Mossad agents walking alongside demonstrators.
01:39We had the former defense minister of Israel, Gilad, saying the same thing.
01:43Jerusalem Post, many Israeli media outlets gloating about the idea of Mossad operating in Iran.
01:53And we even had one Israeli Channel 14 expert saying that they are shooting at the supporters of the government.
02:03And they did.
02:04This is a true fact.
02:06So they were shooting at different people.
02:09They wanted to increase the number of people who were killed because Trump had said that he may attack Iran.
02:17He will attack Iran if people are killed.
02:21And they wanted to encourage Trump to attack Iran again.
02:23Professor Ezadi, but there have been sanctions that have been imposed by the United States of America on the one hand.
02:30But on the other hand, Trump recently said that the killings in Iran have stopped and they are reviewing plans.
02:36Is this a step down when it comes to Iran?
02:38Because they are not looking at military option right now.
02:42Should they look at a military option that could turn quite disastrous for Iran, for America?
02:48Yes, it's going to be disastrous for Iran.
02:56It's also going to be disastrous for the United States.
02:59Last time in June, when the U.S. attacked Iran, Iran was surprised because the attacks came in the middle of negotiations.
03:10And today, no one is going to be surprised.
03:15I think the Iranian leaders have decided to hit back hard.
03:18I think at least 500 American soldiers will be killed if the U.S. attacks Iran.
03:23You have about 50,000 soldiers in this part of the world, 10 bases in the Middle East.
03:30And I think all of them or most of them will be hit if the U.S. decides to attack Iran.
03:36The reason Trump changed his mind was because he realized that the regime change operation failed.
03:42And he realized by attacking Iran, the cost to the United States is going to be quite severe.
03:49Right. Professor Izadi, Iran has never been colonized.
03:52But is this an existential threat for the regime itself?
03:55Is the intention here to break Iran into pieces, balkanization of Iran?
04:00Yes, I think this is the ultimate goal that Israelis and Americans have.
04:09They want to balkanize Iran.
04:10They want to disintegrate Iran.
04:12They want to separate the oil-rich areas of Iran, put a puppet government there.
04:18And the other parts of Iran not having access to oil money would become very poor.
04:23And the country would end to exist.
04:27This is the plan they have.
04:29They wanted to reach this goal in June.
04:32They failed.
04:33They wanted to reach this goal again in the last couple of weeks.
04:37They failed.
04:38They will continue to fail because although Iranians may have economic difficulties or have disagreements with the government, they like their country.
04:46Indians like India, Iranians like Iran.
04:50You remember what happened when there was a confrontation between India and Pakistan a few months ago.
04:56When a country is in war, there is this rally around the flag effect.
05:02This is what happened in Iran in June.
05:05This is what happened in Iran in the last couple of weeks.
05:08If Americans think they can end a civilization that is 7,000 years old, a country with a history of 249 years wants to end a civilization that is 7,000 years old, that's a foolish idea.
05:23It's not going to happen.
05:24Professor Izzadi, thank you so much for joining us here on India Today Global.
05:29Indeed, a pleasure.
05:30We'll try to keep coming back to you to get a sense of what's happening in Iran.
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