00:00So you're painting a picture of a very vulnerable leadership in Tehran.
00:05What do you think the U.S. president's desired outcome is here with regards to Iran's future?
00:12Well, I think ultimately the priority for almost all people who, I would say, live in the Middle East,
00:19let alone look at it and observe it and have a deep affection for it in its wider sense, is
00:25stability.
00:26One of the great causes of volatility and instability for decades has been the regime in Iran.
00:33I think all of us in an ideal situation, should I say, other people may have some other ideas,
00:40would be a transition to a much more benign regime there that looks after its own people
00:46and ceases to interfere in other areas of the Middle East.
00:50That might be difficult.
00:52But I think the Iranian regime is very well entrenched.
00:55There are an awful lot of people who believe in it ideologically or religiously or who have vested interests in
01:01it.
01:01So it's a capacity still to deal with any internal dissent remains.
01:09But it is brittle. It is fragile.
01:12It offers absolutely nothing to the people of Iran or the region.
01:15And everybody is trying to find a way that we might get a transition to a more benign regime,
01:22both on behalf of the Iranian people and, as I say, the whole region.
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