Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons | Lex Fridman Podcast #334

Abbas Amanat 0:00 This is not a nice, Islamic, fatherly regime. Clear signs of fascism. Clear signs of the state control and pay any price to stay in power.

Lex Fridman 0:16 So, even violence?

Abbas Amanat 0:18 Extreme violence.

Lex Fridman 0:22 The following is a conversation with Abbas Amanat, a historian at Yale University specializing in the modern history of Iran. My love and my heart goes out to the Iranian people in their current struggle for freedom. I hope that this conversation helps folks who listen understand the nature and the importance of this struggle. This is the Lex Fridman podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description and now, dear friends, here's Abbas Amanat.

Lex Fridman 0:58 Let's start with the current situation in Iran. On September 16th, protests broke out in Tehran and quickly spread over the death of a 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. Eyewitnesses saw her beaten to death by the morality police. This is a heavy topic, but it's a really important topic. What... Can you explain what happened?

Abbas Amanat 1:21 The protests are now in their, uh, sixth week. The death of that young woman occurred, who was visiting Tehran as a tourist, sparked, uh, something very deep, uh, that particularly concerned the younger generations. That is what you would call the equivalent of the Z generation in this country.

Lex Fridman 1:48 (laughs) Yes.

Abbas Amanat 1:48 They call themselves دحه هشتدي in Persian, because Iran follows the solar calendar of its own. It's an ancient solar calendar. And this... The, the, the time that they were born, they were in the 1380s. That's what they call themselves, هشتدي.

Lex Fridman 2:06 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 2:07 80s, هشتده, for the '80s. And, uh, the... Well, the circumstances that surrounds the, uh, unfortunate death of this young, beautiful, uh, Kurdish woman, uh, is, uh, really tragic. Uh, she was arrested by the, what is referred to as the morality police, morality patrol, called گشت ارشاد, a guidance police, that is. Presumably, there were two women fully clad that is officers serving on that force, and two men. And, mm, nobody exactly knows what had happened. She had been beaten up, and apparently there was no, uh, uh, uh, sign of any wrongdoing on her side. She was fully covered. Uh, it seems that, uh, uh, there was some altercation in the process and, uh, the, the outcome was that she was unconscious. Uh, not necessarily when she was arrested, but in the course of the detention when they take them to a center, presumably to re-educate them.

Lex Fridman 3:27 Yeah.

Abbas Amanat 3:28 And, um, and she apparently collapsed, and maybe my sense is that she must have had some kind of a problem because of the skull being broken or something had happened, and she died in the hospital the next day. And that, through the social media, was widely spread throughout Iran and almost the next day, surprisingly, you could see this outburst of sympathy for her. People are in the streets, uh, weeping because she was seen as such an innocent young woman, 22 years old. And the family, the mother and the father, also mourning for her. Uh, and being a Kurd visiting Tehran, uh, this all added up to really turn her into some kind of a martyr of this cause, and that's what it is. And her, uh, picture, um, uh, uh, graphics that were artistically produced based on her portrait has now dominates basically as the symbol of this protest movement, and the protest movement goes on. Everybody was thinking, or at least the authorities were thinking, that it's going to die out in a matter of a few days. But it became more, uh, intense first in the streets of Tehran by young women, mostly probably between I would say 17, 18, teenagers to 22, 23 or thereabout, and then to university campuses all around the country, and then even to high schools. And that also made it a very remarkable protest movement because first of all it involves the youth and not necessarily the older generations. You see them around, but not as many. Also, you see men and women together, young, uh, uh, girls and boys, and, uh, um, they are adamant, they are desperate in a sense of the tone of their protests, and they are extremely courageous because they stand against the, uh, security forces that were immediately, uh, were sent after to the streets, so... And in full gear, that is.

Lex Fridman 6:02 So, what are the, the currents of pain, emotion...

6:05 ... um, what is this turmoil that rose to the surface that resulted in these big protests? What are the different feelings, ideas that came to the surface here-

Abbas Amanat 6:18 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 6:18 ... that resulted in such quick scaling of this protest?

Abbas Amanat 6:21 Well, if you listen to the, uh, main slogan, which is the message of this movement, it's called "Women, Life, Freedom," "Zan, Zendagi, Azadi," which is a translation of actually the Kurdish equivalent, which is close to Persian being a Indo-European language. And it's apparently initiated, uh, first in the Syrian Kurdistan where they were fighting against the Islamic Daesh forces, uh, because they were attacking the, uh, Yazidis there, and the women were being enslaved. But the message, as it moved... Well, historians are interested in this kind of thing, trends. So it has moved to Kurdistan, and from Kurdistan, now being the message of this movement reflects pretty much, uh, sums up what this movement is all about. Women in the forefront because of all the, one might say, discriminations, the treatment, the humiliation that this younger generation feels. Well, not only the younger generations, but most of the Iranian secular middle classes since 1979 basically-

Lex Fridman 7:45 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 7:46 ... for the, for the past 43 years. And, uh, they would think that, uh, uh, these all basically symbolized or, uh, represented by the wearing, the mandatory wearing of the hijab.

Lex Fridman 8:07 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 8:08 Which is at the core of this protest. You see the young women, and if you look at many of these clips that comes through in the past six weeks, women in streets take off their mandatory, uh, scarves, which is a young shawl, or some kind of a head covering. That's all. And, uh, they throw it into the, uh, uh, bonfire in the middle of the street, and they dance around it-

Lex Fridman 8:35 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 8:35 ... and slogans. So there is a sense of complete rejection of what this regime for 42 years, 43 years have been imposing on women. It's not, as it's sometimes been portrayed, a movement against hijab, uh, through and through, but it's... basically says, you know, there has to be a choice for those who want to wear hijab and those who want to remain without hijab.

Lex Fridman 9:05 Yeah, the hijab is a symbol of something much deeper.

Abbas Amanat 9:08 Much deeper. And actually before we get into that, it's interesting to note that in many of these demonstrations we see in the university campuses or in the streets, you see women with hijab, uh, young women with hijab, or next to those who have removed their hijab, and they're together basically protesting. That's the most interesting feature of this, uh, of these demonstrations. And then men and women together against the segregation that the regime has imposed upon them for all these years. Now, in terms of what it represents, as I pointed out, one is the question of the whole series of, one might say, civil and legal, uh, discriminations against women. You are considered as a kind of a second-class citizen. You depend on your man. There's a kind of a patriarchy-

Lex Fridman 10:06 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 10:06 ... that has been institutionalized in the Islamic republic in a very profound fashion. And that means that, uh, probably y- i- in matters of divorce, uh, uh, marriage and divorce, in matters of custody of your children, in matter of inheritance, in matter of, uh, freedom of movement, you depend on your husband, your father, your brother, a male member of your, uh, family. Your child even, your, your son, could, could be the case. And because of that, obviously a younger generation who is so well-informed through social media, knows about the world as much as an American does, American kid does. Uh, probably sometimes more.

Lex Fridman 10:56 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 10:56 They're very, very curious. It's from what I hear or from them sometimes that I met a few of them outside Iran. You'll see that how they... this, uh, uh, new generation is completely different from what the Islamic republic wanted to create in its social engineering.

Lex Fridman 11:14 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 11:14 It's basically the failure of 43 years of the Islamic republic's act of imposition of a certain so-called Islamic values on m- m- on women. Then it's matter of education. You would see that there is segregation in the schools. Uh, uh, one of the issues that now, right now, is at the heart of these demonstrations is that self-services, uh, in many of the campuses of Iranian universities are segregated- male and female, two different rooms, two different halls. Now they are breaking through the walls...

Lex Fridman 11:53 (laughs)

Abbas Amanat 11:53 ... virtually everywhere and sit together in order to, uh, basically, uh, resist, uh, the authorities who wants to impose segregation.... a- in matters of, uh, a- appearance in the public. Of course, m- it, uh, it may seem to us as a kind of trivial and secondary, but appearance is important. Clothing is important. How you would imagine yourself is important. They don't want to be seen in the way that the authorities would like to impose upon them-

Lex Fridman 12:27 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 12:27 ... as this kind of an idea of a chaste Islamic woman who is c- fully covered and is fully protected. The idea of a male member of the family protects-

Lex Fridman 12:39 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 12:40 ... uh, the female. That is what you will see at the heart of this, uh, uh, rebellion. Uh, and of course, that goes with everything. There's the second part of this message, the idea of life basically means, uh, the, if you like to use the American equivalent of this, the pursuit of the happiness. That's what they want. They want fun.

Lex Fridman 13:04 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 13:04 They want music, they want dancing, they want to be free in the street, they want to have gir- boyfriends and live freely, and, uh, don't be constantly looked by the Big Brother to tell them what to do-

Lex Fridman 13:19 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 13:19 ... and not to do or, or not to do. So, that is, uh, you, that they share with (laughs) virtually with the entire, with the entire Iranian society as a whole. Although, the older generations, that's the big puzzle. What you will see that the older generation don't, so far at least, don't take part as extensively as one might, might imagine. And this is variety of reasons. Perhaps we can get to that later on if you like. Uh, but as far as this younger generation, they don't care. They don't listen even as much to their parents as the older generations did. So all the, or one might say even the nature of the relationship between the parents and the youth has changed. It's not the concept of, again, a ma- a patriarchy-

Lex Fridman 14:12 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 14:12 ... that a father or even a mother would tell the, uh, daughter or son what to do.

Lex Fridman 14:19 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 14:20 That's basically they have to negotiate.

Lex Fridman 14:22 It's fundamentally a rejection of the power of authority. Parents, government-

Abbas Amanat 14:29 Yes.

Lex Fridman 14:29 Uh, it's that every person can decide their own fate.

Abbas Amanat 14:33 Yes.

Lex Fridman 14:33 And there's no, uh, lessening of value of the wisdom of old age and old institutions.

Abbas Amanat 14:39 Precisely, that's what it is.

Lex Fridman 14:41 Yeah.

Abbas Amanat 14:41 And they are surprisingly aware that where they are as a g- generation. So it's a sense of pride, as we are different from the older generation.

Lex Fridman 14:54 Yeah.

Abbas Amanat 14:54 From your parents who compromised and lived with the restrictions that the Islamic regime put on you. Your grandfat- your, their grandparents was the generation that actually involved in the revolution of '79, the parents which were the middle generation, and these are the third generation after the revolution of 1979. And th- therefore, they differentiate themselves in terms of their identity from the older generation. So, that's the life part of it. A- and one can go m- more and more they want to access. And they see on social media what happens in the rest of the world.

Lex Fridman 15:31 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 15:31 They're well aware. They are much better digitally skilled than (laughs) my generation, for instance. Uh, and, and they know about all the personalities, they know about all the celebrities, they know about all the trends that goes out outside Iran. So tha- that's a second part of this message. And then of course, the third part is the word azadi, meaning f- freedom or liberty, which is this longstanding demand of the Iranians, I would say, for the whole century. Ever since the constitutional revolution of 1906-

Lex Fridman 16:12 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 16:12 ... Iran has witnessed this problem of, uh, uh, authorities that usually emerge at the end of a revolution, uh, to basically impose its own image on the, uh, population and the youth, and create, uh, authoritarian, uh, regimes of which, over the course of time, I would say that the Islamic republic is the worst in the sense that it's, uh, i- its intrusion is not only in the political sense, in the f- for instance, banning the freedom of speech, you know, meddling with the e- e- elections, uh, uh, banning political parties, all kinds of that things which are the political or civil freedoms, but its intrusion into the personal life of the individual, which is the worst kind in a sense, as you would see that there is always that authority that basically, uh, dominates your life or monitors your life. So I, I, a- and they, they do it i- in a kind of a very consistent fashion, which makes this idea of freedom so important as part of the message of this new movement. Um, you would see that, uh, in today's Iran, there are no independent political parties. There is v- very little, uh, probably pr- freedom of the press. I wouldn't say that it's entirely gone, but it's fairly limited. There's enormous amount of propaganda machine which dominates the entire, uh, uh, uh, radio and TV system in Iran. It's completely in the hands of the government. And of course, you would see this variety of other tools for trying to indoctrinate...... uh, Iranian population across the board. So that's another sign of this kind of a sense of, um, sense of, uh, being, uh, totally left out. You're not belonging to, to what's going on in terms of pow- power, empowerment and disempowerment. So, that's, that's the situation as far as the idea of a freedom ƒ concept. And there's three somewhat miraculously and perhaps unintentionally, the three parts of this message, uh, compliment each, each other. Because perhaps for the first time, we see that women are in the forefront of a, of a movement. I hesitate to say revolution, because I'm not particularly happy with revolutions. (laughs) Revolutions worldwide and in Iran have always been so miserable in terms of their outcome that we have to be careful not to use the word-

Lex Fridman 19:11 Yes.

Abbas Amanat 19:11 ... revolutionary. Yeah. So that's where, where it stands now.

Abbas Amanat 19:15 And the regime was thinking that, "Well, these are kids. Uh, they're going to go away." And then, of course, they're completely conspiratorial in their thinking.

Lex Fridman 19:26 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 19:28 They constantly think that these are all the, uh, instigations and provocations of foreign powers. These are the great Satan, the United States, this is Israel, or these are the ch- A- actually, the supreme leader says in so many words, h- his only response so far that he had in the pas- past six weeks with regard to this demonstrations is that, "These are the children of the SAVAK." SAVAK being the security forces of the Shah's time. That's 43 years later. He claims that the children, 17, 16, 17 years, 20 years old, kids in the street are the grandchildren or children of some imaginary survival of the Shah's security forces.

Lex Fridman 20:19 So there's, uh, the idea is that these protests are internal, and external saboteurs, so people trying to sabotage the government-

Abbas Amanat 20:31 Yes.

Lex Fridman 20:32 ... and-

Abbas Amanat 20:33 And they are misled.

Lex Fridman 20:34 Misled.

Abbas Amanat 20:34 That's as far as they can go.

Lex Fridman 20:36 And then there's the great Satan, United States, and other places, are, uh, controlling sort of, uh, either controlling the narrative, feeding propaganda, or literally, uh, sending people to-

Abbas Amanat 20:51 I don't think that they have-

Lex Fridman 20:53 ... instigate.

Abbas Amanat 20:53 I don't think even they have that kind of imagination, precise to say what you have said.

Lex Fridman 20:59 Yeah.

Abbas Amanat 20:59 That they would say that they are controlling the narrative. They basically say, "No, these are agents-"

Lex Fridman 21:06 Yeah.

Abbas Amanat 21:06 ... of, of the foreign powers. And their families are all sold out, and they are basically lost their loyalties to the great Islamic Republic. And, uh, therefore, uh, th- they can be treated so brutally. They can be suppressed so brutally, which I haven't actually said what they are doing, because I thought perhaps first we should talk about who these kids are in the streets before we move on in the, about the response of the government. But, uh, one major factor which seems to add to the anxiety of... Well, uh, the regime is extremely anxious now-

Lex Fridman 21:44 Yeah.

Abbas Amanat 21:44 ... because they're in a position... This shows that they don't have... The lack of confidence, in a sense, that they would see them, uh, reacting in a very forceful way. Because basically they don't seem to have that kind of a confidence to allow this, uh, uh, th- this message or the movement to air, to be aired.

Lex Fridman 22:05 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 22:06 But the one element which corresponds to that is that there is a, uh, expatriate population of Iranians worldwide. There are probably now, according to some estimates, close to four million, even more Iranians abroad. And they're all over the world, from Australia and New Zealand, Japan, Western Europe, uh, uh, Turkey, and United States and Canada.

Lex Fridman 22:34 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 22:35 So just to give you one example, last, uh, uh, last f- uh, Saturday, there was a mass demonstrations in Berlin-

Lex Fridman 22:44 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 22:45 ... by the Iranians from Germany and all, all over Europe, Western Europe. And it was at least, I think probably the conservative estimate was about 100,000. So 100,000 Iranians showed up-

Lex Fridman 22:59 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 22:59 ... in Berlin demonstrating against the treatment of the, uh, uh, women in Iran or the movement in Iran. The government thinks obviously this must have been some instigation by foreign powers, and they want to destroy the Islamic Republic. And not only that, but their propaganda is kind of ridiculous. Because, uh, I listened actually to how they portrayed it in the newspapers. I listened to the, uh, Iranian news that is officially controlled, government-controlled news. And, and in the papers, the, the, um, much of the papers that are in the control of the government, uh, one of them, or actually, uh, the, the m- major news program portrayed the demonstrations that 10,000 people showed up in Berlin and protested against the rising prices or rising rates for gas and oil-

Lex Fridman 24:02 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 24:02 ... in Germany.

Lex Fridman 24:03 Yes.

Abbas Amanat 24:03 So that's how they mislead in a very rath- just stupid fashion. Because probably 95% if not 100% of the Iranians are listening.... to Persian-speaking media outside Iran, so it's the BBC, uh, Persian. There is Iran International. There are at least five or six of them.

Lex Fridman 24:27 That's probably really important to highlight, that Iran is a very modern and tech-savvy nation.

Abbas Amanat 24:36 They might

Lex Fridman 24:36 Yeah.

Abbas Amanat 24:36 ... be to all.

Lex Fridman 24:36 Not just the young people.

Abbas Amanat 24:37 Probably more than (laughs) more than I feel sometimes when I compare myself to what they are doing.

Lex Fridman 24:43 Yeah.

Abbas Amanat 24:44 Since 1979, the earlier years, for a decade or two, they tried in a very crude fashion to restrict ac-, uh, access to, uh, media outside Iran.

Lex Fridman 24:58 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 24:59 Because it's all through dishes, okay? And satellite dishes are everywhere, you know. If you look at the, uh, you know, uh, buildings, uh, you know, small house, uh, small towns and villages in Iran, there, there's always a, uh, a dish. And they watch all kinds of things through this, and particularly because of what's happening now, they listen to all the news, um, uh, uh, broadcasts from all this media under extremely active.

Lex Fridman 25:30 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 25:31 They are, um, probably some of them even 24 hours or close, uh, very extensive coverage of every clip that comes through. So, what the government is doing now, the Islamic republic, is that they restrict the entire internet.

Lex Fridman 25:50 They shut down the internet.

Abbas Amanat 25:51 They shut down the internet, but they cannot afford shutting down the internet because much of the business, much of the everyday life, much of the government affairs depends on the internet, like everywhere else.

Lex Fridman 26:05 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 26:06 And E- Iran is extremely... If, uh, you, uh, if I hear from, uh, many of the colleagues and friends, you know, it's like in certain respects, it's like Sweden.

Lex Fridman 26:17 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 26:18 Uh, where you go there, there's no more currency, and for a very good reason, because there's so much inflation that the, that the, that the bank notes are worthless in a sense. So everything is through, you know, uh, swiping your card.

Lex Fridman 26:32 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 26:33 And, uh, and that entire system is in standstill because people cannot buy food. They can... You, you go to the supermarket. That's how you would do it. You, you, uh, order food to come to your house, which Iranians will, uh, at least the middle classes, the more prosperous middle classes doing all the time.

Lex Fridman 26:52 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 26:53 So they deliver everything and because of the COVID, it became even more.

Lex Fridman 26:58 Hm.

Abbas Amanat 26:58 And they have to pay all through this system. Um, so what happens is that now they're estimating that every day, $50 million, the Iranian government or the Iranian economy is losing because of slowing the internet.

Lex Fridman 27:13 Plus the frustration is growing.

Abbas Amanat 27:15 Of course.

Lex Fridman 27:15 Because you can't order food.

Abbas Amanat 27:18 (laughs) Among other things.

Lex Fridman 27:20 Right.

Abbas Amanat 27:20 I mean, they are, they are in touch with n- I mean, WhatsApp.

Lex Fridman 27:26 Yeah.

Abbas Amanat 27:26 Every Iranian, uh, virtually every Iranian-

Lex Fridman 27:31 Yeah.

Abbas Amanat 27:31 ... uh, uh, that has education, and education in the sense that has gone through the, the high schools and universities, knows how to use the WhatsApp.

Lex Fridman 27:42 So, there's a big middle class, like you said, secular middle class-

Abbas Amanat 27:45 Yes.

Lex Fridman 27:45 ... in Iran.

Abbas Amanat 27:46 Yes.

Lex Fridman 27:46 And there, there's a lot of at least capacity for, if not revolution, then, um, political ideological, uh, turmoil.

Abbas Amanat 27:59 And a huge amount of hatred.

Lex Fridman 28:02 So the hatred is growing.

Abbas Amanat 28:03 Yes, hatred of the, of the policies, uh, of the regime, of isolation. That's a huge point that you hear a great deal about, that, "We don't want to be isolated. We don't want to be humiliated. Iran is not about this mis- this miserable regime that is, uh, ruling, uh, over us. We have a great culture." So there's a sense of pride in their own, uh, culture. Some of it's, uh, you know, Islamic, some of it pre-Islamic. So they, there's a huge, um, uh, uh, sense of pride in that. And they see that they cannot communicate with the outside world. They, they want to travel abroad, which they do. I mean, uh, for one thing, the Iranian regime never actually, uh, for majority of the population, never r- uh, put, uh, restrictions. It's not like, uh, Soviet Union where you have to have a, uh, you used to have a permission to move from one place to another. Uh, and then, of course, the, uh, the Islamic regime since 1979 basically, uh, chased away or destroyed the old middle class. That's my generation basically-

Lex Fridman 29:22 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 29:22 ... or my parents generation. These are the secular middle class of the Pahlavi era, in the hope that they can do this social engineering and create this Islamic, uh, uh, society of their own. The bad news for them was that, that didn't happen. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 29:40 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 29:41 And that memory persisted and the middle class that was created since past 40 years is much larger in size than what it was because there was, of course, the demographic revolution. That's the very, uh, that's the very foundation of it is the demographic revolution. Population in Iran... I've written an article about it actually. Uh, population in Iran since, uh, the turn of the century, last century, the 20th century, population of Iran was about nine million or so. Is now 83 million.... and that is since 1979, the population was 35 million. Between the past 40 years, it's basically doubled, so it's 83 million. Although, uh, one of the great successes, I don't want to, uh, uh, bore you with the details about the demography, but it's important, and-

Lex Fridman 30:42 Please. (laughs) Demographics is not boring.

Abbas Amanat 30:45 This demogra- ... You will. You, you can see that, uh, the birth rate was very high, otherwise you wouldn't have doubled your population in matter of four decades.

Lex Fridman 30:54 Yeah.

Abbas Amanat 30:55 But Iranians, because of the urban, uh, shift to an urban population, because of the growth of the middle class, because of the education, they basically, the pattern of the, uh, of, of growth, population growth changed. Iran used to be 2.8 or 3%, uh, birthrate in around 1980s, I would say, 1970s, 1980s. Now, it is 1.1.

Lex Fridman 31:30 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 31:31 And it's one, probably the most successful country in the M- Middle East in terms of the population control despite the government's, uh, consistent, uh, attempt to try to encourage people to have more kids. Middle class refuses to do that. And this middle class, not only anymore in the capital, but this is, uh, very smaller towns and cities, places that used to be villages. Now, you look at them, they have a decent population, 50,000, 100,000, and they live a l- l- urban life, and they don't want to be subjected to that old pattern of e- agrarian society when you had 10 children or eight children. And of course, it's much more advanced in s- terms of, uh, uh, uh, in terms of, uh, uh, health and medicine, so you don't lose, lose children as they used to. The antibiotics, there's always of, uh, kids to survive. And therefore, if you have 10 kids, you stick with 10 kids.

Lex Fridman 32:37 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 32:38 You don't end up with four as it used to be in the past.

Lex Fridman 32:41 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 32:41 Of the, um, six of them would have died in the-

Lex Fridman 32:45 Yeah, yeah.

Abbas Amanat 32:45 ... in the pre- ... Uh, up to the age of five actually. But now because of that, you see that this, uh, urban population in the cities have completely different demands. And of course, the education is important. That's another area of how the social engineering of the Islamic republic went awry because they were thinking that, you know, the growth of the population, the growth of the educated, higher educated middle classes in their benefit, or they could not even control it in a sense. Now, Iran, in my time, uh, probably had in the 1970s probably by the time of the revolution had 10, 12 universities. Now, it has 56 universities all across the country, and there is an, something referred to as the Free University, Azad, which has campuses all over the country. It has 321 campuses all around Iran. What does that mean? In many respects, this youth that were brought up in these families-

Lex Fridman 33:58 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 33:59 ... even in the small towns in very traditional families, in families that belong to that kind of a more religious, loyal to the clergy or to the clerical classes, their children can now move on, which particularly women-

Lex Fridman 34:18 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 34:18 ... 'cause in, in my times, it would have been unheard of that you would have a young woman of 18 or 17, 18, 19, uh, from a traditional city such as, for instance, Yazd or in, in, in, in, uh, uh, southeastern Iran, uh, to move on elsewhere for education as you do in this country. Okay? Now, it's completely accepted that a woman wears hijab because she's forced to wear hijab to go to a university completely on the other side of the country. And this movement of the population not only because of the universities, but in general, if you now visit Iran, you hear accents, local accents, I mean, provincial accents all over the country. Uh, that is a Azerbaijani-Turkish accent from the northwest of the country. You can hear it in the Fars Province in the south and vice versa. So, and Kurdish, for instance, or e- even more marginal regions such as Sistan Province in the, uh, southeast of Iran, uh, which has been the subject of this recent massacre when they actually attacked the population when demonstrating and killed a fair number, at least 60 people.

Lex Fridman 35:50 (sighs)

Abbas Amanat 35:50 So, uh, this movement of the population, uh, it, this creation of a larger middle class, the better educated middle class, much better educated. Iran has 86%, uh, uh, uh, literacy, uh, which I think probably, I haven't checked that, but probably is better than Turkey even, is probably better than anywhere else in the Middle East.

Lex Fridman 36:16 And it sounds like there's a, that's quickly increasing.

Abbas Amanat 36:20 Yes.

Lex Fridman 36:20 So because, because of the movement, because of the growth, the education system, that's-

Abbas Amanat 36:24 Precisely. Iran has one million school teachers.... which may not seem as much if you are in the United States, but it's a fairly big number, actually.

Lex Fridman 36:36 Can you linger on the massacre? What happened there?

Abbas Amanat 36:39 Well, the Sistan Province is a Baloch, uh, ethnicity, of Baloch ethnicity. Baloch is a particular ethnic group in Southern Iran which is Sunni rather than Shi'i, majority.

Lex Fridman 36:54 And we should say that most of Iran-

Abbas Amanat 36:57 Is Shi'i.

Lex Fridman 36:57 ... is Shi'i, and those are, that's a branch of Islam.

Abbas Amanat 37:01 Shi'ism, yes.

Lex Fridman 37:03 Let's maybe just briefly linger Shi'ism and, and Sunni. What-

Abbas Amanat 37:07 What?

Lex Fridman 37:08 Ju- just, w- let's not get into it.

Abbas Amanat 37:10 (laughs) Yeah, I don't want to.

Lex Fridman 37:11 Let's do a, let's do a, let's do a one sentence summary, uh, and that maybe which, which is what most of Iran is.

Abbas Amanat 37:18 Majority of the population of the Muslim world are Sunnis.

Lex Fridman 37:23 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 37:24 That are, these are mainstream, if you like to call that. Actually, Sunnah means that kind of a mainstream.

Lex Fridman 37:31 Can you actually linger on the, the Sunni, Sunnah, Shi- Shi'a?

Abbas Amanat 37:36 Shi'a means a party, means those that belongs to a party of Ali, which was, goes back to the early Islamic history of seventh century.

Lex Fridman 37:47 I, um, I mean, I'm almost lingering to the silly notion of pronunciation and stuff like that. So, A-

Abbas Amanat 37:51 Yeah. Yeah.

Lex Fridman 37:52 A, A me- A means par- Like, what, (laughs) what does the extra I at the end do?

Abbas Amanat 37:57 Yeah. Shi'i means belonging to the Shi'i community.

Lex Fridman 38:02 Yeah.

Abbas Amanat 38:03 Shi'a means a person of Shi'a.

Lex Fridman 38:06 That belongs to that community.

Abbas Amanat 38:06 If you say, "Are you a Shi'a?" "Yes, I am a Shi'a."

Lex Fridman 38:09 Yeah. And Shi'i is the community.

Abbas Amanat 38:11 Is the community. And in English, when it was Anglicized, it becomes Shiite. So if you say Shiite in today-

Lex Fridman 38:18 Yeah.

Abbas Amanat 38:18 ... it's perfectly acceptable. And of course, I myself in my writings, I always, um, switch between one and the other. One of my books is always Shiite. The other book is always Shi'i.

Lex Fridman 38:31 Okay.

Abbas Amanat 38:31 (laughs) And that hasn't been settled. But the Shi'i population is the smaller compared to the Sunni population in the world.

Lex Fridman 38:39 In the world?

Abbas Amanat 38:40 In the world.

Lex Fridman 38:41 But in Iran, it's the opposite.

Abbas Amanat 38:42 The Iran and Iraq, and possibly now Lebanon, are the three countries who barely... I- Iraq and, uh, Lebanon have barely majority Shi'i population. Whereas, uh, Iran is, uh, large Shi'i population due to its history of conversion to Shi'ism. That by itself is another story. But, uh, uh, in the sense that the m- uh, i- the way that historically it evolved, the center became more Shi'i, and the peripheries remained Sunni.

Lex Fridman 39:22 Yeah.

Abbas Amanat 39:22 So you have communities of the Baloch in the southeast. You have the Kurds. A large portion of the Kurds are Sunnis. They have Shi'is as well. And they have the in- indigenous religion of their own, Aliul, uh, what's called Ahl al-Haq, which is the religion of indigenous to Kurdistan. There are Turcomans in the northeast of Iran who are also Sunnis. There are other communities in Khorasan region, in the, in the peripheries of Afghanistan, they are also Sunnis. And you have some Arab population, Arab-speaking population, in the Khuzestan Province in the southwest of Iran, which is also, or across the Persian Gulf.

Lex Fridman 40:04 Is there a lot of conflict between these regions? And also, like, if I, uh, blindfolded you and dropped you off in one of the regions, would you quickly recognize the region, like by the food, by the music, by the-

Abbas Amanat 40:17 Yes.

Lex Fridman 40:18 ... accents, by so on?

Abbas Amanat 40:20 Yeah. The answer to your-

Lex Fridman 40:22 (laughs)

Abbas Amanat 40:22 ... lovely question, which I think, I hope it would have happened to me-

Lex Fridman 40:25 (laughs)

Abbas Amanat 40:26 ... is that, yes, you would see different cultures.

Lex Fridman 40:29 Yes.

Abbas Amanat 40:30 Yeah. But, uh, different food, most important, different accents-

Lex Fridman 40:35 Yeah.

Abbas Amanat 40:35 ... or different languages, since they have dialects. There's Baloches that different language altogether. But, uh, or s- so for that matter, Kurdish, which is closer to Persian because they're all Indo-European languages. Uh, but Turkish, Azeri Turkish, which is probably closer to the Turkish of Turkey, uh, Republic of Turkey or to the Republic of Azerbaijan in the north-

Lex Fridman 41:00 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 41:01 ... 'cause they're, they are the same, basically. Actually, if you would have looked... That's a fascinating picture. If you have looked at the, let's say, even 19th century or early 20th century-

Lex Fridman 41:13 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 41:13 ... linguistic map of Iran, you would have been amazed in the number of dialects and the number of languages that has survived. An- this is an ancient country. This is an ancient land. And it's a lot of mountains all around it.

Lex Fridman 41:27 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 41:28 Or big deserts. So there's a sense of isolation. So you would say here and there you see a different community that speaks differently. Uh-

Lex Fridman 41:37 All ancient-

Abbas Amanat 41:38 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 41:38 ... traditions and languages.

Abbas Amanat 41:40 Yes, yeah. And because of the great number of invasions that Iran witnessed over more than two and a half, uh, uh, millennia, of course there are all kinds of cultures were introduced into Iran. There are all k- Ethnicities were introduced to Iran, mostly coming from the northeast of Iran, from, from the, uh, lowlands of Central Asia and beyond, uh, and, and continued into Iran proper. Uh, so but now what has happened, that's what my point that I wanted to make, uh, century of modernity or modernization has produced a national culture of great len- great strength, in a sense, I would say. I ch- ended my book...... uh, the, the book on Iran, Iran: A Modern History. Uh, basically saying that despite everything else that has created so much trouble for today's Iran-

Lex Fridman 42:40 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 42:40 ... there is a sense of a cultural, uh, identity that is very strong. And I think I can say, uh, with, with some confidence that despite this, uh, d- despite these regional identities that are still there, and they're great, and they should be celebrated, uh, the s- today, if you go to, uh, to Kurdistan, or if you go to, uh, Sistan, they all can speak Persian.

Lex Fridman 43:15 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 43:15 They all have an education in Persian. So they all basically are becoming part of, whether they like it, whether they like the regime in power or not, they have a sense of belonging to a culture and an i- identity with the center. And of course, the idea of a center ver- versus periphery in Iran is very old. It goes back to ancient times because even the name of the country was the guarded domains of Iran. This is the, this is the official name. (foreign language) . Namely that it was recognized that this is not just one, uh, entity, but it's the, it's the collection of entities within-

Lex Fridman 44:00 Like the United States of America.

Abbas Amanat 44:02 Exactly. Exactly. But the United States of America, in a sense, you can say that it was a very successful... Well, it remains to be seen how successful. But-

Lex Fridman 44:13 To be continued.

Abbas Amanat 44:14 (laughs) To be, to-

Lex Fridman 44:16 (laughs)

Abbas Amanat 44:16 ... that, that was basically invented-

Lex Fridman 44:18 Yeah.

Abbas Amanat 44:18 ... created that you would have this sense of a... In, in the case of an old nation, which has been on the map of the world for 3,000 years, 2,500 years, there's... This is not an exaggeration. I am not a, um, a nationalist per se. But I mean, if you look Persia on the map of the world in ancient times, it's still there-

Lex Fridman 44:40 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 44:40 ... as it is today. Very few countries in the world are like that.

Lex Fridman 44:43 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 44:44 That they would have that kind of a continuity over a course of time. And that's not without a reason, because there was this sense of a, uh, a center versus periphery that had formed. Some... Is that there is a huge amount of tension, but there is also a sense of belonging to something. And state is very much at the center of it.

Lex Fridman 45:05 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 45:05 I mean, that's why the concept of a state matters for the creation, for the shaping of, of this culture. What happened is therefore, you can see that today in answer to your, uh, point about traveling, uh, blindfolded-

Lex Fridman 45:22 (laughs)

Abbas Amanat 45:23 ... (laughs) is that you would be surprised to see how much, uh, people share in, in terms of... I, I just give you one anecdote. Uh, in 1968, I believe must have been, I traveled to Azerbaijan. I, I used to travel and actually photograph.

Lex Fridman 45:47 Not blindfolded.

Abbas Amanat 45:49 No. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 45:49 Mostly.

Abbas Amanat 45:50 Well, uh, yeah.

Lex Fridman 45:51 Sometimes.

Abbas Amanat 45:51 Not blindfolded. No, no.

Lex Fridman 45:52 (laughs)

Abbas Amanat 45:52 Not blindfolded.

Lex Fridman 45:54 Yeah.

Abbas Amanat 45:54 So I went to a bazaar-

Lex Fridman 45:56 Yes.

Abbas Amanat 45:56 ... in the city of Khoy, which is in the Northwestern Iran, uh, on the border with what is today the, uh, Republic of Turkey. Uh, and I went to the bazaar, and I was interested in the kind of leather work that they produce. Uh, so I tried to buy some stuff, and I was surprised to see that how few people knew Persian.

Lex Fridman 46:21 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 46:22 So they could not communicate in Persian with you. Either they have to ask somebody from some other store to come and translate for you.

Lex Fridman 46:31 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 46:32 This is 1968.

Lex Fridman 46:34 1960... So even though it's the official language-

Abbas Amanat 46:38 Was Persian, yes.

Lex Fridman 46:40 ... o- of the country, they're still-

Abbas Amanat 46:42 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 46:42 So what do they teach in school? So it doesn't matter.

Abbas Amanat 46:44 That it was Persian. But this guy-

Lex Fridman 46:46 He doesn't go to school.

Abbas Amanat 46:48 ... that was... He hasn't been to the school, or he was not fully exposed to it. And because-

Lex Fridman 46:52 Or forgot it.

Abbas Amanat 46:52 ... usually are very conservative places.

Lex Fridman 46:55 Right.

Abbas Amanat 46:55 So it stuck in my mind.

Lex Fridman 46:57 Yeah.

Abbas Amanat 46:57 Now, in, recently in 2004, I was traveling to the same area. Not to the same city, but to the same area. And I was amazed to see how the youth, as soon as they would know that you're coming from somewhere, so opening conversation with you, talking about the latest movies-

Lex Fridman 47:19 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 47:19 ... that was produced in the West, and it's not only Hollywood. Of course there's a huge amount of fascination with Hollywood and Western cinema. Cinema is a major thing. Filmmaking is a major thing.

Lex Fridman 47:31 Yeah.

Abbas Amanat 47:31 So this kids in the city of Ahar were asking me, we're having lunch, they're asking me, "Okay then, what do you think about this producer?" Not producer, this director or that actor.

Lex Fridman 47:45 American?

Abbas Amanat 47:45 American, European as well, but mostly American.

Lex Fridman 47:49 Were they speaking Persian or English?

Abbas Amanat 47:50 It was a complete Persian that I would converse with them. Uh-

Lex Fridman 47:55 Do they speak English too? Interesting.

Abbas Amanat 47:56 Yes, actually you would be surprised to see what percentage of the Iranian youth, at least in big cities, are fascinated with learning language, and for a reason. Because they think that's the way to get access either on social media or eventually leave Iran-

Lex Fridman 48:13 Yeah.

Abbas Amanat 48:14 ... unfortunately. And, and because they don't see a future for themselves in the country. Either you have to be part of this, part of this regime, or if you hate them and you don't like the way of their life, you look up outside, you know. I was having, uh, drivers to drive me around the country, in the cities around Tehran.... and the guy was a young, extremely well-educated, well-dressed. I mean, we would have looked at him, we could have found him in any street-

Lex Fridman 48:46 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 48:46 ... in any country in the western world.

Lex Fridman 48:48 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 48:48 And his major concern, knowing that I'm from outside, major concern is, "Well, tell me which would be a better place for me to go?"

Lex Fridman 48:58 Huh.

Abbas Amanat 48:58 I said, "Well, what's wrong with the place that you are in right now?"

Lex Fridman 49:01 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 49:01 "You are in your own country, you speak your own language." "No, this is no good. I have to have a better future. This is no future for me."

Lex Fridman 49:09 Well, it's, uh, it's really interesting because the thing I feel about the protests right now is, um, there's a large number of people that instead of giving into cynicism-

Abbas Amanat 49:21 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 49:22 ... about, you know, this government is no good-

Abbas Amanat 49:25 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 49:26 ... they're actually getting this, like, uh, energy, this desire to, for revolution, uh, in, in a sort of non-violent sort of, in the, in the democratic sense of that. Let's, let's actually find the ideas. Let's, let's build a great nation here. This is a great nation, this is my nation. Let's build something great here.

Abbas Amanat 49:47 Well-

Lex Fridman 49:48 That's my hope. That's from the outside.

Abbas Amanat 49:49 Well, as I, uh, yeah, yeah.

Lex Fridman 49:51 That's what or I'm s- hoping for it.

Abbas Amanat 49:53 I share your, uh, aspiration. But I'm fearing that, I hope it's not a wishful thinking. Certainly, that's what they want. Certainly, that's what they want to create. But a historian always tells you from where they start to where they finish, there is going to be a huge, uh, kind of a change. And in this m- particular case, I wouldn't be... I, I would very much hope that it's not going to be a revolution like the 1979 Islamic Revolution. And I have my hopes in that. For one thing, this is a revolution that doesn't have a leader.

Lex Fridman 50:37 Okay.

Abbas Amanat 50:38 And it seems that they're comfortable with that, uh, at least so far. Because we are, we're at the sixth week of this movement, and I hope it's not going to be actually a revolution, as I pointed out before.

Lex Fridman 50:49 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 50:49 I hope it's going to be more of a sense of trying to come to some compromise and gradually move t- toward change rather than collapse of this s- regime and replacement with what?

Lex Fridman 51:07 So, the anxiety of the regime, you hope, will turn into a kind of a realization that you have to, you have to modernize, you have to make progress, you actually have to make certain compromises-

Abbas Amanat 51:20 Yes.

Lex Fridman 51:20 ... or constitutional changes, all those kinda stuff. So, the basic-

Abbas Amanat 51:24 Yes.

Lex Fridman 51:24 ... uh, process of government and law-making.

Abbas Amanat 51:28 The problem is that they say, "We have it all." You know? "We have our parliament, we have our constitution, we have our elections," which has all been, of course, fake. But they claim they have all of that. But the problem for them is that they, uh, try to superimpose a certain ideology, like all other ideological, uh, autocracies or autarkies, as in this case, that tend to dominate, uh, all these, uh, institution buildings that they have and they, they constantly claim, "We have this, we have that." And there's a co- of course, there's a generational thing. The upper echelons of this regime are mostly older people. Turbaned, they are the clergy, that are afraid of the fact that they may lose their control over their whole system, that it was a sophisticated, huge system of government. And they rely on certain tools of control, which is the Revolutionary Guards and other, other institutions that are loyal to, to the state.

Lex Fridman 52:57 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 52:58 And they spend enormous amount of funds that is available to them, at least before the sanctions-

Lex Fridman 53:04 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 53:04 ... but even during the sanctions, they still have enough funds to do so, and in order to remain in power.

Lex Fridman 53:12 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 53:13 And they're extremely ruthless in that regard. This is not a nice, Islamic, fatherly regime. This is a regime that I would see easily in it, uh, clear signs of fascism. Clear signs of the state control and pay any price to stay in power.

Lex Fridman 53:38 So, even violence?

Abbas Amanat 53:39 Extreme violence.

Lex Fridman 53:41 To return to the massacre,

Lex Fridman 53:43 what, what were the uses of violence to suppress protests?

Abbas Amanat 53:47 Well, yes. It was actually quite remarkable to see that from the first or the second day of the protest, you see out in the streets this riot police, okay? Which comes out in large numbers.

Lex Fridman 54:02 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 54:03 Uh, fully geared up. Their appearance are rather terrifying, like any other riot police. Probably more than any other riot police. They are violent, and they, uh, stand in the streets when the stu- students are demonstrating, even in smaller number. 'Cause before I go to that, I should point this point, this out to, uh, you as well, that, uh, that these demonstrations are not large ones in one place. You see, you don't see 100,000 people in, in one place. But you see in every neighborhood, couple of thousand of kids are-... uh, demonstrating.

Lex Fridman 54:46 All over Iran?

Abbas Amanat 54:47 All over Iran.

Lex Fridman 54:48 N- now all over the world in different parts?

Abbas Amanat 54:49 Yes, yes, yes. Actually, during the demonstrations th- three weeks ago, they've, as I said, they had people in, um, Sydney, Australia, New Zealand, Tokyo, all over the world.

Lex Fridman 55:04 All protesting high gas prices. It's funny.

Abbas Amanat 55:07 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 55:08 Everywhere.

Abbas Amanat 55:09 Everywhere. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 55:11 (laughs)

Abbas Amanat 55:11 To the extent that they could be ignored-

Lex Fridman 55:14 Yeah. (laughs)

Abbas Amanat 55:14 ... nothing, but if they could not be ignored-

Lex Fridman 55:17 Yeah.

Abbas Amanat 55:17 ... and it's actually s- quite remarkable that this is very embarrassing to them.

Lex Fridman 55:21 Yeah.

Abbas Amanat 55:21 But somehow, they think that this propaganda machine of them is working.

Lex Fridman 55:26 Oh, so you think they don't have a good even sense... I mean, it's just so there's an incompetence within the propaganda machine?

Abbas Amanat 55:32 Yes, it is.

Lex Fridman 55:32 Yeah.

Abbas Amanat 55:32 There's an incompetence across the board.

Lex Fridman 55:35 Yeah.

Abbas Amanat 55:35 I mean, despite all of this massive government a- administration, or whatever you would call it, all these various components of it, there is a sense of, there is a sense of inefficiency and incompetence that is associated with... in every action that you see, even in their suppression of this street movement.

Lex Fridman 55:57 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 55:58 Uh, but i- in answer to that question, you would see that their, this, uh, uh, riot police, uh, vary, uh, m- uh, it's quite obvious that they were trained for the purpose, so this, their appearance, everything. These are not just regular army forces or soldiers, s- conscripts. They are professional forces. And they come not only i- on foot, uh, l- uh, number, but they come on motorbikes. So there are, you would see it, any of these demonstrations, there are 10, 12, 15, 20 motorbikes with two passengers, one in front riding, the one in the back fully equipped with a baton, with paint guns, with pellet guns, and with bullets. Uh, so they are very fully, uh, equipped, and they're terrifying. They go through the demonstrations and hit and beat people-

Lex Fridman 56:59 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 56:59 ... uh, and then the, the arrests. And then you see behind the first line of these riot police, you would see all this latest models of this, uh, special, uh, uh, armored trucks for moving through the demonstrations, and, uh, arresting people, throwing them into this, and then behind that, water, uh, water cannons, you see? And I was looking at that was like, "Okay, this is Tehran, probably they have this." But then you look at the smallest cities, they still have the same thing. So all over the country, one thing that they had managed to produce extensively, irrespective of the fact that whether they are effective or not, but we see them everywhere. So this just shows that how afraid this regime is.

Lex Fridman 57:56 But that also shows that there's an in- infrastructure that can implement violence at scale.

Abbas Amanat 58:02 Yes, very much so. And it's probably part and parcel of this regime from day one. The number of prisons that they have, according to perhaps an exaggerated version, they said that about 12,000 or so arrested that are in, in jails today since past six weeks. They were 230 or 40 people were killed, including children, uh, under 18. They are, uh, they beat up women in the street, which is extremely actually, uh, uh, disturbing when you see these scenes of-

Lex Fridman 58:51 So there's a lot of, this is on video too, right?

Abbas Amanat 58:54 Everything is on video. Everybody has a camera, uh, and everybody sends to major news, uh, outlets outside Iran.

Lex Fridman 59:05 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 59:06 And th- they immediately showed every night, you, if you look at BBC Persian or, uh, Iran International or few o- for the, I think it is six of them actually. All over the, in England, they are in Deutsche Welle in Germany, uh, which has a particular interest in the Iranian, uh, BBC World Service and so forth in London, and Voice of America Persian here in this country. There is another one, Radio Farda, which is also funded by the American government, uh, also fully covers all of these events. So there is no way that these people can, uh, that the Iran can miss what's going on in the streets of this demonstrations and the scenes of beating up women, which in Iranian culture, as I presume in most cultures in the world, there is a certain sanctity that you don't attack women. But they do. And this is an Islamic regime that supposedly have to have a certain sense of concern and, uh, and protection.

Lex Fridman 1:00:15 Well, like a protection, like a, like a deep respect for women grounded in a, a tradition of protecting them. But instead, this kind of idea that was instilled in law has turned into a deep disrespect of women.

Abbas Amanat 1:00:32 Exactly. Or fear that these women are not any longer the girls that we thought we are bringing up in this society.

Lex Fridman 1:00:43 The source of you losing your power will be these, these women.

Abbas Amanat 1:00:47 Yes.

Lex Fridman 1:00:47 That's the fear.

Abbas Amanat 1:00:48 Yeah. And you see, of course, this government do have a-... support base. I mean, it would be, uh, totally wrong to think that the Islamic Republic has not created its, its own power base. It does. Uh, but it's probably if... There's no way, there are no statistics that we can... Uh, well, I'm not aware of any statistics that I can give you numbers what's the percentage of support for the regime in, in Iran. But quite frankly, I don't think it's more than probably 10% of the population-

Lex Fridman 1:01:22 I, I, I-

Abbas Amanat 1:01:23 ... to be very generous.

Lex Fridman 1:01:24 I, I would be surprised if it's that low. I, I would say-

Abbas Amanat 1:01:27 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:01:27 So if my understanding because I've been very deeply paying attention to the war in Ukraine and to, uh, Ukraine, to Russia, and, uh, to support in Russia for Putin-

Abbas Amanat 1:01:41 Yes.

Lex Fridman 1:01:41 ... I think without knowing the details, without even considering the effects of propaganda and stuff like that, is there's probably a large number of people in Iran that don't see this as a battle of human rights, but see it as a, as a battle of, uh, conservatism like tradition versus modernization, and they value tradition. That, that what they fear from the throwing away of the hijab is not the loss of power and like the women-

Abbas Amanat 1:02:13 Uh-huh.

Lex Fridman 1:02:13 ... getting human rights. What they fear is, is the same stuff you fear when you're sitting on a porch and saying, "Kids these days have no respect." Basically that they... There's a large number of Iranians that probably value tradition and, uh, the beauty of the culture, and like they, they fear that kids with their internet and their videos and their revolution will throw away everything that made this country, uh, hold together for millennia, right?

Abbas Amanat 1:02:44 Yes, I know. I would... I agree with you in the sense that probably like everywhere else in the world, this is a generational thing, you know. Every generation thinks differently about the younger generation, no doubt. And in Iran is the same. But the- there is another factor here is involved. Those that you would consider most traditional no longer seem to have their loyalties to this regime.

Lex Fridman 1:03:10 That's powerful.

Abbas Amanat 1:03:12 Meaning that they... This... They, they consider this a brutal regime that is prepared to kill children in the streets.

Lex Fridman 1:03:21 Yeah.

Abbas Amanat 1:03:22 And does a lot of things wrong. Of course, it tries to take care of the... Its own power base. It is a very strong sense of... If we start here, there's a very strong sense in this regime that there are people that is theirs and there are others which are not theirs. There's a word for it, if I'm impressed. They call it ǧhūdī, one of us. Okay?

Lex Fridman 1:03:50 Oh, so it's a... Well, it's very... That's very fascistic. It's like, uh-

Abbas Amanat 1:03:54 Yes, yes. It's... Or for that matter, I, I suppose Soviet Union would have... If you were a member of the party-

Lex Fridman 1:04:01 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:04:02 ... and, like, you know, your children would have received this special kind of treatment, yourself as well. Um, this sense of us versus them, um, for a while worked, because the younger people coming from the countryside to the cities certain fact- certain sector of them would have found, uh, would have found protection and support-

Lex Fridman 1:04:30 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:04:30 ... from the government. They, they, they wanted to belong to something, and the mosques and the mornings, uh, uh, morning associations in the, uh, neighborhoods and so forth would have given them. There's actually a term for it, it's called Bassij. Those, those have been recruited-

Lex Fridman 1:04:51 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:04:52 ... by the state. And this is the youth kind of, um, vigilante, if you like, that, that you can see the most in these demonstrations. Um, sometimes thugs, they're called the civi- civil cloth.

Lex Fridman 1:05:08 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:05:08 So the people that, that comes to these demonstrations that start beating up these young people and they, they are not in, uh, uh, in, uh, security police, um, uniforms, but they, they are just regular cloth. And these people, yes, they still support and they still benefit 'cause they get jobs, they get privileges. And these are very important for a... for a c- for a, uh, state that basically monopolizes most of the resources.

Lex Fridman 1:05:46 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:05:47 You see? Even b- bef- even during the sanction, let alone before the sanction, the oil revenue of Iran, which is the major source of the state government was the monopoly of the state.

Lex Fridman 1:05:59 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:05:59 It was monopoly of the state during the Pahlavi era from the start, basically. So what does that mean? That mean that the regime in power is not... no longer is particularly accountable to the majority population 'cause the... it extracts wealth from underground. And it uses this for its own purposes in order to make it more powerful, in order to make it more repressive. That's what it is the regime today. So it feeds a small, or I wouldn't say, but a fair number of its own supporters. I mean, the Revolutionary Guard in Iran is probably about 350,000 or something like that. It's a very big force. And this is not the regular army. The Revolutionary Guards are independent from the, from the army.

Lex Fridman 1:06:51 The Revolutionary Guard is armed forces controlled by the state?

Abbas Amanat 1:06:56 Yes, the same as the army, but these are more ideologically...... tied up with the state.

Lex Fridman 1:07:04 And they're also in- internal-facing?

Abbas Amanat 1:07:08 Right.

Lex Fridman 1:07:08 What's their purp- what's their stated, what's the stated purpose of the Revolutionary Guard?

Abbas Amanat 1:07:12 Well, from day one, when the revolution succeeded, the regime in power, the Islamic regime in power, was vulnerable to all kinds of forces of opposition-

Lex Fridman 1:07:22 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:07:22 ... within Iran itself during the revolution.

Lex Fridman 1:07:25 Prevents further revolution.

Abbas Amanat 1:07:25 Yeah, that's the r- Revolutionary Guards, and their job was to try to make sure that the regime stays in power. And, of course, over the force of, over the course of 40 years, they became more powerful, more organized, better funded, better trained. Well, at least we think they're better trained, but we don't know because the l- the level of incompetence perhaps can be seen through the rank and file as well.

Lex Fridman 1:07:53 Right.

Abbas Amanat 1:07:53 But, you know, they developed their own, uh, indus- military industry. I mean, those, uh, uh, uh, drones that you see now Putin's regime are throwing on Ukrainians, poor Ukrainians, those are all built by the Revolutionary Guards, by the military industry under the control of the Revolutionary Guards. Unlike similar regimes in the Middle East at least, these are military-industrial complexes. You can find them in Egypt, of course, which is very powerful, very traditionally has been in power and still is in power. You'll find them in Pakistan, which is e- is extremely powerful, and they can change the prime ministers as they did in the case of the last one. Uh, you can find them, uh, probably in, uh, Myanmar is the same phenomenon. Uh, and I can... If you look around, you can find quite a number of them. And the Revolutionary Guards is the equivalent of that. S- This is a powerful, um, uh, e- establishment force which militarily is powerful, industrially is powerful, and since the start of the revolution, they have been given projects. So we want to build dams, which they did a major disaster, environmental disaster. They built a hundred and something dams all across the country. This is the Revolutionary Guard who does it. So they have all kinds of, uh, tentacles all around the country controlling various things.

Lex Fridman 1:09:41 And because it's their job, and they have power, they have prestige, there's a huge incentive to...

Abbas Amanat 1:09:47 Join them.

Lex Fridman 1:09:48 Yeah, to join them and to stay. So, like, they, you know, when they're having dinner at home with their families, there's not an incentive to, uh, to join the protests sort of.

Abbas Amanat 1:09:59 Well, that is the point. I think, a- and Revolutionary Guards may be an extreme, but many of the people who depend on the state-

Lex Fridman 1:10:10 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:10:11 ... for their support, now the younger generation are telling their parents, "You were wrong. You don't provide for us. This society, this state does not provide what we want."

Lex Fridman 1:10:25 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:10:25 So there is a dissent within the family, it seems to me. I hope it's not a wishful thinking. You know, there is a kind of a joke going around. You see these turbaned guys, the clergy, bearded, m- the traditional clerical appearance. When you see them, uh, talking about women, they are very, of course, politically incorrect. They are very looking down towards women. As, uh, as I said, you know, they have to be inside, they have to be protected, they have not to be seen, and so forth. But if they have a young person, a young daughter in their family-

Lex Fridman 1:11:10 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:11:10 ... you see that their, uh, discourse changes. They no longer seem to be referring to women as second-class citizen.

Lex Fridman 1:11:21 Yeah.

Abbas Amanat 1:11:21 E- So that's very important, that's, uh, precisely that point-

Lex Fridman 1:11:25 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:11:25 ... that when you have this younger generation, no matter how privileged they are, and many of them are privileged, you know? And there is also, the regime has created its own, uh, privileged class that are not necessarily directly paid by the regime, but they benefit from contractors, certain professions that, that benefit from what the state provides for them. And Iran is a... I mean, the past 40 years, you can see Iran has developed in terms of material culture remarkably. Iran has good communication, has roads all over the place. It's not like a, um, it's, it's more like, uh, I don't know whether you have ever visited Turkey, for instance.

Lex Fridman 1:12:21 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:12:22 In certain respects, even more advanced than Turkey, but it's closer to that rather than if you travel, I don't want to bring particular names, in North Africa or parts of the Middle East or other parts of the Islamic world. It's much, much different. So in this respect, you would see, uh, certain contrasts or paradoxes here. On the certain respect, there's the growth, uh, there is urbanization, there is modern economy. On the other hand, you see this superimposed ideological, doctrinal aspect that has driven the regime over all these years, and they cannot get rid of it.... they can not, in this respect, they can not modernize themselves. They think that they are already perfect in ideological sense, this is the best solution for the world. Not for, only for Iran, but for the Muslim world and for the world as a whole. We are anti-imperialist, we have managed to survive either under sanctions, this is all part of their rhetoric.

Lex Fridman 1:13:34 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:13:35 Uh, but of course, at the h- huge expense. Uh, the huge expense for their own population. And the point that you have raised is the fact that we now witness there is a, not only a generation gap between the youth and their parents, but there is a, a break in a sense from the older generations. And they are very distinctly the youth that has a different view of the world, uh, and does not want to compromise. Whether they would be able to succeed or not remains to be seen. Whether this regime is going to suppress it, maybe. Uh, but it actually brought to surface many of aspects of the weaknesses of this regime in power.

Lex Fridman 1:14:33 Well, I hear from a lot of people that are in these protests now, and so, uh, my love goes to them and stay strong because, um, it's inspiring to see people fighting for those things, the women, life and freedom, especially freedom.

Abbas Amanat 1:14:50 Yes.

Lex Fridman 1:14:51 Um, because that can only lead to a good thing in the long term at least. And if possible to avoid a violent revolution. Of course that is something that-

Abbas Amanat 1:15:03 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 1:15:03 ... we all want to see. Before we return to the present, let's jump around, let's go to the past. We mentioned 1979.

Lex Fridman 1:15:12 What happened in 1979 in Iran?

Abbas Amanat 1:15:15 Well, in 1979, there was a revolution that eventually came to be known as the Islamic Revolution, and even up to this day, many of the observers or those who have strong views would not like to refer to it as the Islamic Revolution or even a revolution. The, the, because the nature of it in the earlier stages of it started really probably around 1977, it took two years, was much more, uh, all embracing. It was not Islamic in a particular fashion or at all in a sense. It started with a kind of a very liberal democrat, um, agenda which required, uh, which demanded mostly by people who were the veterans of the older generations of Iranian liberal nationalists that were left out in the Pahlavi period, is the period of the Shah, uh, became increasingly, um, authoritarian, increasingly suppressive, and, uh, therefore basically leaving no space or no political space open for any kind of a give and take, any kind of a conversation or participation.

Lex Fridman 1:16:45 That was in the '70s?

Abbas Amanat 1:16:47 '70s, '70s, particularly in the '70s.

Lex Fridman 1:16:49 Can we actually even like just do a, a whirlwind review from 1906 to 1979?

Abbas Amanat 1:16:58 Yes. Okay, sure. In 1906, there was a period ac- actually as you might know, the first decade or the... so of, uh, of the 20th century witnessed numerous what referred to as constitutional revolutions, including Russia in 1905, the first revolution, including the Chinese Revolution in 19... Constitution Revolution in 1910, the Young Turks Revolution in 1908, and the Iranian Revolution in 1906.

Lex Fridman 1:17:28 Do you understand why the synchronicity of all of it? Why in so many different places, very different cultures-

Abbas Amanat 1:17:34 'Cause-

Lex Fridman 1:17:34 ... very different governments-

Abbas Amanat 1:17:34 Very different cultures, but all of them in a sense were coming out of, um, the, regimes that became, uh, uh, uh, progressively powerful-

Lex Fridman 1:17:48 Yeah.

Abbas Amanat 1:17:49 ... without having any kind of a legal system that would protect the individual vis-a-vis the state. So the idea of law and the constitution according to which there should be a certain protection, a certain civil society, became very common.

Lex Fridman 1:18:07 Yeah, but I wonder where that... 'cause that's been that way for, for a very-

Abbas Amanat 1:18:11 For very long time.

Lex Fridman 1:18:12 ... long time.

Abbas Amanat 1:18:12 Yes.

Lex Fridman 1:18:12 And so I wonder, you know, it's, it's funny, (laughs) certain ideas just their time comes.

Abbas Amanat 1:18:21 Exactly. It's like 1848 when you would see that there's a whole range of revolutions-

Lex Fridman 1:18:26 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:18:27 ... a- across Europe.

Lex Fridman 1:18:28 Yeah.

Abbas Amanat 1:18:28 Uh, or you would see for instance the, uh, Arab Spring, you see all these revolutions in the Arab world which unfortunately nearly all of them failed. So yes, these are very contagious ideas that moves across frontiers from one culture to another, and I presume we can add to that there are two elements with, uh, which one can say there is, was a greater communication, there is a greater sense of a world economy.

Lex Fridman 1:18:57 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:18:57 And the turn of the century witnessed, the first decade of the century witnessed a period of, uh, volatility, particularly in, uh, in currency. So many of the countries of the world, particularly non-west-

Lex Fridman 1:19:13 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:19:14 ... uh, suffered-... in, and, uh, eh, eh, particularly the businesses suffered. And, uh, not surprisingly, the business class were in the forefront of many of these constitutional movements requiring the state to give the, uh, kind of, uh, created the right kind of institutions to listen to their voices, to their concerns, and the creation of a democratic system, parliamentary and system with which there would be representation, popular representation, proper elections, and so forth, and constitutions. And this very much is a kind of a, uh, French idea of the constitution going back all the way perhaps to 1789 revolution, uh, Montesquieu-

Lex Fridman 1:20:05 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:20:06 ... all these kind of philosophe, uh, were greatly appreciated, particularly the French system.

Lex Fridman 1:20:12 So what were the ideas in the 1906 Iranian Constitution?

Abbas Amanat 1:20:16 They ... Precisely the same. They were demanding a creation of a legal system with division of power between the three executive, legislative, and the judiciary-

Lex Fridman 1:20:31 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:20:31 Not unlike the American system. And, uh, they requested, um, basically, a certain, uh, public space to be created between the two sources of power.

Lex Fridman 1:20:45 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:20:45 The state, which had this kind of a control over the, if you like, the secular aspect of life in the society, and the religious establishment that had a, uh, full control over the religious aspects. And both of them, from the perspective of the constitutionalist c- considered as repressive, and therefore there has to be a new space opened between these two. And that was the idea of a constitutional revolution. By, by its very nature, it was an idea of modernity. They wanted a modern society. They wanted a better material life. They, they wanted more representation and, and so forth. The constitutional revolution, as I always would say is a mu- m- much more of a innocent revolution. It's a revolution that did not particularly have much violence in it-

Lex Fridman 1:21:42 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:21:42 ... contrary to many other revolutions. It did not have a centralized leadership, per se. That's why actually I'm getting ... I mean, besides this, the parenthesis, I'm getting a lot of requests for interviews to compare what's happening now with the revolution of 1906-

Lex Fridman 1:22:01 Hm.

Abbas Amanat 1:22:01 ... 19- 1909.

Lex Fridman 1:22:02 Are there any echoes?

Abbas Amanat 1:22:04 Yes, yes, there are.

Lex Fridman 1:22:05 Any comparisons?

Abbas Amanat 1:22:05 There are, because that was a movement that started without a, uh, without a, uh, centralized leadership-

Lex Fridman 1:22:13 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:22:14 ... but actually various voices that emerged in various ... among the merchants or the businessmen in the e- e- economic community, among, uh, the representatives who came to the first parliament, the press, the new generation of the privileged aristocracy who were educated and, uh, believed in the constitutional values. All of these voices emerged at the same time, and somehow they managed to, uh, to co-exist in the first and the second, uh, uh, parliaments that were created, uh, between 1906 and 1910 or 1911.

Lex Fridman 1:23:03 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:23:04 But they all faced huge problems in the sense that Iran was in a dire economic situation. This is before the days of the discovery of oil, which actually coincides with the discov- There are two important coi- coincidences. One is that the oil was discovered in the South in 1909 during the course of the constitutional revolution.

Lex Fridman 1:23:28 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:23:28 The second is that in 1907, the two great powers of the time, the Russian Empire and the British Empire, who always honored Iran as being a buffer state between them 'cause they didn't want to get too close with one another, basically came to an agreement f- facing the fear of the rise of the German Empire.

Lex Fridman 1:23:52 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:23:52 So, this is the period of entente, as you might know, in European history, whereby the Fran- the French, the British, and the Russians all create a alliance that ultimately leads to the First World War against Germany.

Lex Fridman 1:24:10 And at the same time, the discovery of oil that the oil industry being a, a very powerful defining factor of the 20th century for Iran.

Abbas Amanat 1:24:19 Exactly.

Lex Fridman 1:24:20 Source of a lot of money.

Abbas Amanat 1:24:22 Lot of money, but not all of it in the hands of the Iranians. Only one-fifth of it by way of royalties came to Iran, the re- much of it went to the Anglo-Persian, uh, oil company which they actually discovered the oil in the province, Khuzestan Province in the southwest of Iran where is the major oil industries today right now. And, um, uh, this was an extremely profitable, uh, enterprise for that company and for the British government. It actually purchased by the British government. Churchill purchased Anglo-Iranian Oil Company for the British government. So it was not anymore a private company. It was a British interest, as a matter of fact. And in the course of the 20th century, although it helped the modernization in Iran, but it also helped the creation of a more authoritat- theory and more s- strong state, if you like to call it.... that it does, that 19th century Iran never had that kind of a power, never had that kind of resources. Is the 20th century, even that one-fifth of the income that reached the Iranian state gave it a greater power.

Lex Fridman 1:25:36 That's another coincidence. So, yes, yes, you could say that oil was one of the catalysts for absolute power. But the 20th century saw quite a few countries, um, have dictators with power unlike anything else in human history.

Abbas Amanat 1:25:55 Yes.

Lex Fridman 1:25:56 That's weird too.

Abbas Amanat 1:25:57 Precisely.

Lex Fridman 1:25:58 (laughs)

Abbas Amanat 1:25:59 And, you know, you can name them from the beginning of the century with people like, um, I don't know, Lenin or Stalin. Of course, Hitler. Even-

Lex Fridman 1:26:10 Mao.

Abbas Amanat 1:26:11 Mao, of course, o- okay? You can name them and, uh, probably, as I would say, is the last of them is Khomeini in that century, that you would see this strong man with a sense of a... either a- a- a- a- a artificial or real or, uh, uh, sense of so-called charisma.

Lex Fridman 1:26:29 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:26:29 And with this total power over the regime that they create. Uh, in the... Some of them do. Nasser, he didn't have much of an oil resources in Egypt, but he was also one of these strong men, okay? In the 20th century. Loved by some, hated by others. Uh, so, uh, it necessarily does not tie up to, uh, to, uh, resource... economic resources on the ground. But in the Iranian case, unfortunately, it did. And it was a, uh, it was, uh, uh, more than... It created more than one issue for Iran. It's created a strong state, which is the Pahlavi state, from 1921 onward. 'Cause in 1921, at the end of the First World War, Iran was in a... almost a state of total bankruptcy. And, uh, the British had a desire to try to bring Iran to the system that they created in the Middle East in the post-war era, the mandate system. Palestine, Iraq, and then of course, French mandate of Lebanon and Syria, all of this. And Iran was separate because Iran was an independent country, it wasn't part of the Ottoman Empire that collapsed. So they had to somehow handle it.

Lex Fridman 1:27:52 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:27:53 All right? And what they tried to do didn't work. As a result, partly domestic, partly international issues, brought about a regime which is headed by the founder of the Pahlavi dynasty, Reza Shah, okay? Re- at first, a military officer called Reza Khan, actually a military officer of the Cossack Forces. And the Cossack Forces was the force that was created in the 19th century model of the Russian Cossacks-

Lex Fridman 1:28:24 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:28:25 ... when the ruler in the 19th century visited Russia as... in a royal tour and the tsar showed the great, uh, Cossack Forces is that I like this.

Lex Fridman 1:28:38 (laughs)

Abbas Amanat 1:28:38 And he created one for himself with Russian officers, actually.

Lex Fridman 1:28:42 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:28:43 So the Russian officers served in Iran from around 1880s up to the revolution of 1917, the collapse of the-

Lex Fridman 1:28:51 Yes.

Abbas Amanat 1:28:51 ... tsarist regime.

Lex Fridman 1:28:52 So many revolutions.

Abbas Amanat 1:28:53 So many revolutions. And Reza Shah was an officer in that... Reza Khan-

Lex Fridman 1:28:58 Yeah.

Abbas Amanat 1:28:58 ... was an officer in that force, and he created a new monarchy for reasons that we need not to go to it. And this called the Pahlavi regime. Pahlavi regime was a modernizing regime, okay? That brought a comp- a... that in- in effect, uh, fulfilled many of the ambitions of the constitution, many of the aspirations of the constitutional revolution. Better communication, be-, uh, secular education, um, centralized state, cent- uh, centralized army, um, uh, better, uh, contact with the outside world, greater urbanization. That's what a modern state is all about.

Lex Fridman 1:29:41 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:29:42 And in that regard, in a sense, for the first 20 years up to the Second World War, was successful, uh, despite... And more significant of all, it managed to keep the European powers, which was always interfering in the local affairs of Iran, in an arm's length. So they were there in an arm's length, um, but they were also re- respecting the power of the state-

Lex Fridman 1:30:12 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:30:13 ... power of the Pahlavi state. During the sec- Second World War, the same phenomenon as, uh, f- uh, e- earlier interference led to the occupation of Iran by the allied forces. The British from the South, the Russians from the North. The Red Army-

Lex Fridman 1:30:33 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:30:33 ... they took over Iran, and of course they said to-

Lex Fridman 1:30:36 This is during World War...

Abbas Amanat 1:30:37 Yes. From 1941 up to 1945, and of course when the... when the Red Army refused to, uh, withdraw from Iranian Azerbaijan, um, and with some thought of possible annexation of that province, there was a big issue in the post-war Iran.

Lex Fridman 1:31:03 So after 1945?

Abbas Amanat 1:31:05 Yes. 1945 to 1946, there was a big-

Lex Fridman 1:31:10 Soviet Union getting greedy.

Abbas Amanat 1:31:11 Yes. But eventually they agreed. Eventually, Stalin agreed to leave, uh, the Azerbaijan province in the hope that it would get some concessions from Iran, which in- in the oil of the-... Caspian era, area, which didn't work and it's a different story altogether. But what happened is that in the post-war era, between 1944, '45 and 1953 is a period of greater, uh, democratization, because that Reza Shah's dictatorship basically disappeared. And this is where you would see political parties, free press, a lot of chaotic really, uh, as, as democracies often are.

Lex Fridman 1:32:04 So something like, was it, was it officially a democracy?

Abbas Amanat 1:32:07 Yes, it was a democracy.

Lex Fridman 1:32:08 Was there elections?

Abbas Amanat 1:32:10 There were elections, yes, of course. Yes, of course.

Lex Fridman 1:32:13 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:32:13 And there were, very diverse political tendencies came to the picture, including the Tudeh Party of Iran, which is Communist Party of Iran. This Communist Party of Iran is probably the biggest, uh, communist party of the whole of the Middle East, and one of the biggest in the world actually, at that time.

Lex Fridman 1:32:34 Did the Soviet Union have a significant-

Abbas Amanat 1:32:35 Of course.

Lex Fridman 1:32:36 ... influence on the-

Abbas Amanat 1:32:37 Of course.

Lex Fridman 1:32:38 (laughs)

Abbas Amanat 1:32:38 They were basically following orders from the Soviets, although they deny it, but they, in reality that's the case.

Lex Fridman 1:32:45 Yeah.

Abbas Amanat 1:32:45 But what happened, they were seen by the Americans during the Cold War as a f- as a threat. And,

Abbas Amanat 1:32:54 uh, Iran was going through a period of demanding nationalization of its oil resources. That's a very important episode with Mosaddegh, whom you might have heard about his name. Dr. Mohammad Mosaddegh was the prime minister and the national charismatic leader from 1951 to 1953. Prior to that, he was a famous parliamentarian. But this period, he was the prime minister of Iran. And he nationalized the Iranian oil industry, and the British didn't like it at all. And eventually resulted in a famous coup, which at least partly was supported, uh, by the funding and by the moral support of the British and the Americans, particularly by the Americans. It was always, uh, seen as one of the earliest and the most successful CIA operations during the Cold War.

Lex Fridman 1:33:54 So CIA had something to do with it?

Abbas Amanat 1:33:55 Yes, of course. That's one of the earliest operations of the CIA.

Lex Fridman 1:33:58 Wait a minute. What, what was ... (laughs) Yes, of course. What was the CIA, what was the CIA doing in-

Abbas Amanat 1:34:04 CIA, this is the time at the post-war era.

Lex Fridman 1:34:06 In the '50s.

Abbas Amanat 1:34:07 In the '50s, '40s, and the '50s.

Lex Fridman 1:34:10 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:34:11 The British Empire, which was really the major superpower of the region after the collapse of the Tsarist empire, gradually took the second seat to the Americans who were the newcomers, and the great powers, and the victors of the Second World War. And Americans viewed Iran as an important, uh, uh, as an important, uh, country since it has the largest, uh, common borders with the Soviet Union.

Lex Fridman 1:34:45 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:34:46 And it was, uh, in the south was the Persian Gulf, which at the time was the greatest s- uh, uh, uh, supplier of, uh, oil to the outside world. Uh, and therefore the Americans, uh, had a particular interest in Iran. And in the earlier stages, their interest was in the interest of the Iranian government, because they wanted to get rid of both, uh, the Soviet Union, which ma- which made a return in the post-war era, and of course the British that were gradually withdrawing from Iran. But they, they had a full control over the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. They changed the name to Anglo-Iranian Oil Company when the name of the country officially changed from Persia to Iran-

Lex Fridman 1:35:37 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:35:38 ... uh, in the West. Um, the name of the company changed. And they got into a huge dispute with the Mosaddegh government that eventually led to the coup of 1953, which eventually created a very, uh, very distrustful memory in the minds of many of the Iranian nationalists, that this was the betrayal of the great powers, the British and Americans. Yes, CIA played a part, because CIA feared, contrary to the British, that they were afraid of their own oil in Iran. The CIA was afraid of the, uh, Soviet penetration in, uh, in the south, and particularly because there was a very powerful political, uh, uh, very powerful communist party in Iran, the Tudeh Party of Iran. So they gradually shifted between the Truman administration and our Eisenhower administration. These are early days of the CIA.

Lex Fridman 1:36:41 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:36:41 And then they actually did participate, uh, to s- send their agents. There's a long story to that. And, uh, it eventually resulted in a successful coup that removed Mosaddegh from power.

Lex Fridman 1:36:57 What's the United States' interest here? Why are they using CIA? Are they trying to make sure there's not too much centralization of power in this region?

Abbas Amanat 1:37:06 No. They were afraid of the fact that the, uh, that, of the Soviet Union and during-

Lex Fridman 1:37:12 Yeah.

Abbas Amanat 1:37:12 ... the Cold War. That was their concern, the only concern.

Lex Fridman 1:37:15 So like they, they actually almost want to protect Iran and its own sovereign processes from-

Abbas Amanat 1:37:20 Yes.

Lex Fridman 1:37:20 ... influence of the Soviets?

Abbas Amanat 1:37:21 Yes. 'Cause they were afraid of the fact...... if Iran, or at least this is part of the, um, I'm simplifying a very complex picture. But the, but, but the Americans basically were thinking that if Iran is going to be lost to Soviet influence, then eventually basically the, all the oil resources in the Persian Gulf are going to be threatened.

Lex Fridman 1:37:47 Yeah.

Abbas Amanat 1:37:48 And if, and this would basically is the national security of the United States and all of the Western allies, European allies. So in a sense, this was the long arm of the CIA to try to, to try to make sure that that's not going to happen. And then of course, they were persuaded by the British, because British were the old hand, which were in Iran since the beginning of the 19th century. They always had relations with Iran and so forth. So they gradually replaced-

Lex Fridman 1:38:22 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:38:23 ... uh, the, and, uh, of course I don't want to give them this kind of a satanic view that American was a bad influence because they had also some very good influences in Iran. But this particular episode somehow shed a dark light on the American presence and was used and abused time and again, particularly the revolution in 1979, which was this great Satan idea that Khomeini created, basically was based on the fact his 1953, "You were responsible for the downfall of a national government in Iran." Which as a matter of fact, he had no respect for it. Khomeini had no respect for the national, secular national li- liberals, including Mo- Mohammad Mosaddegh. But he was using it as a, as a rhetorical tool for his own purposes. But what happened is that after 1953... We see again the rise of authoritarian Mohammad Reza Shah's power.

Lex Fridman 1:39:31 And that he is, that's the Shah?

Abbas Amanat 1:39:33 That's the Shah that we know as Shah. This is son of Reza Shah.

Lex Fridman 1:39:37 And, uh, technically, what, what is Shah? Is it-

Abbas Amanat 1:39:41 Well, a shah is an old term in Persia, uh, that comes from a pre-Islamic Persian of ancient times.

Lex Fridman 1:39:49 So in the context of democracy, should it be seen as like a supreme leader, king?

Abbas Amanat 1:39:54 Is the head of the executive power according to the Constitution of 1906.

Lex Fridman 1:40:01 Oh, that's in the constitution, the actual term shah.

Abbas Amanat 1:40:02 Of course, he has a place in the constitution.

Lex Fridman 1:40:04 But the actual term shah, okay, interesting.

Abbas Amanat 1:40:06 But the shah is an very old term, as I-

Lex Fridman 1:40:08 Yeah, it's almost like a monarchic term, like a-

Abbas Amanat 1:40:11 It is.

Lex Fridman 1:40:12 ... like a king.

Abbas Amanat 1:40:13 Yeah, it is, actually is a term peculiar to Iran. I've written about it somewhere. But because the term that the Western world in the ancient times has been Rex-

Lex Fridman 1:40:24 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:40:24 ... for royalty and the king.

Lex Fridman 1:40:26 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:40:26 In the Eastern world, in India is Raj, is the same origin.

Lex Fridman 1:40:31 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:40:31 The same root. Iran never shared that. They had the idea of ... Because Rex and Raj, I don't want to get into the too much of a etymology, but this is an interesting one.

Lex Fridman 1:40:42 Yeah.

Abbas Amanat 1:40:42 Uh, Rex and Raj both means the one that opens the road for basically enforcer of religion.

Lex Fridman 1:40:50 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:40:50 Okay? Um, in, uh, enforcer of the right religion because Rex and Raj both have the, uh, of the etymological origin of right, you see? And right means the right religion, basically.

Lex Fridman 1:41:07 By the way, there's so much beautiful language here. I'm just looking at the, the Persian Constitution of 1906 and it says it's the constitution of the sublime state of Persia.

Abbas Amanat 1:41:19 (laughs) Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:41:19 Qajar Iran. I mean, just, just the extra adjectives on top of this stuff is beautiful. I mean, the-

Abbas Amanat 1:41:25 Yeah. Because that was actually the change that came about, I don't want to go in, too much into it, but it was called, as I pointed out before, the Guarded Domains of Iran.

Lex Fridman 1:41:36 Yes,

1:41:36 the Republic of Iran.

Abbas Amanat 1:41:36 They changed that to the Sublime State of Iran during the Constitutional Revolution because they wanted to give a greater sense of centrality of the state.

Lex Fridman 1:41:46 Yeah.

Abbas Amanat 1:41:47 And s- sublime was the term was used there.

Lex Fridman 1:41:48 But also what permeates all of this is a, is a poetic, I mean, there is a history of poetry-

Abbas Amanat 1:41:55 Of course, very strong.

Lex Fridman 1:41:56 ... to the culture-

Abbas Amanat 1:41:57 Very strong.

Lex Fridman 1:41:57 ... which is fascinating. So I mean, it's, I, I of course I don't speak the language, but even in, in Russian there's also a music to the soul of the people that represents itself, that presents itself in the form of poetry and literature in the way that it doesn't in the, in the English-speaking world. I don't know what that is. There's, um-

Abbas Amanat 1:42:19 Yes, there's a romantic side-

Lex Fridman 1:42:20 Romantic side.

Abbas Amanat 1:42:21 ... to it almost, yes.

Lex Fridman 1:42:21 Romantic side, that's right.

Abbas Amanat 1:42:22 Yeah, I agree with you. In Iran, of course, you know, there's a time of, the Constitutional Revolution is a time of great poetry. This kind of a, uh, patriotic sentiments that comes through poetry was, plays a very important part.

Lex Fridman 1:42:39 Yeah.

Abbas Amanat 1:42:40 Uh, of course, these days poetry has kind of declined, and instead you see the visual image that is at the center. That's why cinema is so important.

Lex Fridman 1:42:52 Kids these days with their TikTok.

Abbas Amanat 1:42:54 (laughs) Yeah, let me finish this-

Lex Fridman 1:42:56 Yes.

Abbas Amanat 1:42:56 ... about this period of Mohammad Reza Shah. He built up because he received a greater income from the oil revenue, and he built up a very strong state with a strong security force, a- a strong security apparatus, which is the SAVAK, is a, uh, which is a acronym for the security force in security organization. And he, of course, unfortunately in the 1960s and '70s, particularly in 1970s, basically suppressed the voices-... of, or the possibility of any s- uh, kind of a mass participation in the political, uh, process. It became very much an authoritarian regime with its own technocrats, very much a modernist vision of- of- of- of Iran's future. And almost kind of messianic that he was hoping that Iran in a decade would become the fifth most powerful state in the world, and reaches, as he would have said, the gates of the great civilization, very much in the mind had this image of ancient Iran of the Achaemenid Empire. And we want to go back to that greatness of the Achaemenid Empire. Somewhat rather naive and very nationalistic in a crude fashion. And what happened is that as a result there was built up some kind of a resistance from the intellectuals, from the left, eventually resulting in a kind of a protest movement, as I said, by 1977, 1979. Then, of course, the question that comes to mind, and they're probably, it's, you ha- you- you would like to know about is the fact that why it becomes religious, why it become Islamic, if it's the popular, you know, nationalist, liberal tendency of opening up the, uh, political, uh- uh, space and allowing greater participation going back to the constitution, uh, of 1906, 1907. Why it's all of a sudden it becomes Khomeini? Where does he come from?

Lex Fridman 1:45:17 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:45:18 The reason for that, at least in a concise fashion, is the fact that on one area that, uh, after the greatest suppression of all the other voices remained open was religion. Mosques, the mullahs on the pulpit, and the message that gradually shifted from the older traditional message of the Sharia of Islam, I mean all the rules and regulations of how one has to live, into something very political.

Lex Fridman 1:46:00 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:46:01 And not only political but also radical political.

Lex Fridman 1:46:05 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:46:06 So, in the whole period from the Constitutional Revolution to the Revolution of 1979 basically the religious establishment gradually was pushed to the opposition. They were not originally, they were very conservative supporters of state, as the Catholic Church, for instance, was supportive of majority of the authoritarian governments around the world. But the politicization was the result of isolation, because they were left out of the system. And while in isolation they did, they did not, they were not successful in trying to reform themselves, to try to become, to try to find answers to many of the questions of modern times. What happens to women? What happens to civil rights? What happens to, uh, civil society?

Lex Fridman 1:47:04 Mm-hmm.

Abbas Amanat 1:47:05 How modern law and individual freedoms have to be defined in Islamic terms.

Lex Fridman 1:47:13 And how to separate, uh, religion and state.

Abbas Amanat 1:47:16 Or how to separate the religion and state. These issues were never addressed. What happened is that there was this bypass through pol- political, uh, Islam, and revolutionary Islam, as it gradually they learned, you know, that this is the bypass, bypass to power, basically, to become again a voice in the society and eventually a prominent voice, and eventually a monolithic voice in the society. That's the process that led into the revolution of 1979, basically. This