In the wake of the US’s assassination of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, many are asking – will Iran actually see regime change, as President Donald Trump has called for? What would that take? And is the real goal to engineer a civil war inside of Iran and leave it as a failed state?
In this ‘Mehdi Unfiltered’ interview, Mehdi gets straight down to the facts with one of the top Iranian-affairs experts, Ali Vaez – who serves as the International Crisis Group’s Iran Project Director. Vaez breaks down how the country’s leadership is handling this crisis and why he worries the US and Israel’s war on Iran may bring the country to state collapse.
The conversation is insightful and wide-ranging, with Vaez bringing his expert-level analysis to all the issues coming out of this war, including:
What would happen if the Trump administration decided to arm Kurdish opposition forces (“Even those who hated the regime are likely to turn against the war effort.”)
What we learned from the last time the US overthrew the Iranian government (“An unstable formula… that is also going to end in grief.”)
Why Khamenei’s assassination is not enough to take down Iran’s current government (“The Islamic Republic was built to absorb shocks.”)
How a deal between Iran and the US would be perceived (“Politically toxic.”)
How long Iran can last against the US (“These people are determined to survive.”)
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