Iran Needs Nukes

0:06 It's time for you and me to stand up for ourselves. It takes it takes money to kill bad guys. Welcome to unwashed and unruly, where we're never neutral, just accurate. Today we're talking about why Iran needs nukes and why it should win against the sadist sociopaths of the US and Israel. I'm your host Lola Michaels, joined by the mad historian Ezra Saeed. Hey, Lola. Hi, everybody. Our vibes regulator Cam Cruise. What's up, guys? And today, we're joined by our friend Armand Peruzzi, a Marxist and earth scientist who knows a lot more than we do. Thank you for joining us, Armand.

0:47 Humble and great to be here. Joining this wonderful podcast is. And if you haven't listened to any of our previous 18 episodes, go ahead and find one that interests you. Then hit that follow button and leave a comment. If you have a question or something to share, you can also e-mail us at contact at unwashedun-ruly.com. The war against Iran was never about preventing a nuclear threat. It was about crushing a country that refused to kneel completely. To US and Israeli interests, Washington and Tel Aviv are the aggressors, threatening nuclear Armageddon while carrying out another cynical regime change.

1:29 Iran has shown tremendous restraint after decades of provocation and murderous sanctions. If Iran has the upper hand in this war, we think that's good. The bourgeois media lies about a fanatic enemy in Tehran, but who's really buying it? The true nuclear crazies are steering the American war machine. The most murderous and destructive force on the planet after the 199192 collapse of the Soviet Union got rid of the main counterweight to US hegemony. Possessing nukes has become the only way a country can protect its own sovereignty. The consequences of this unprovoked war are huge. We first saw the Tomahawk missile strike on a Iranian girls school, killing at least 175 people.

2:12 Masses of civilians slaughtered, cities carpet bombed, infrastructure destroyed in Lebanon. Israel has killed thousands, displaced over 1,000,000, which is around 20% of the population. And with Iran sitting on 10% of the world's oil reserves, everyone knows this war is going to blow up the entire global economy, sending prices for gas, food, fertilizer and everything else through the roof, hitting every single one of us where it hurts. This nightmare could cost hundreds of billions of dollars. And the people paying the bill aren't the billionaires or the politicians. It's everyday working people here and across the globe. If you haven't guessed already, in today's episode we'll be discussing how the real enemies are the tyrants and madmen who run the system.

2:53 The fight for Iran's survival and for the future of humanity means a defeat for US imperialism and the Zionist state. Let's get this off the agenda. For decades, Iran's nuclear program has been framed as some kind of near imminent threat, and the Iranian regime has consistently said its enrichment efforts are not aimed at building a bomb. The International Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA, reported no credible evidence of an active weapons program. So what's really behind the imperialist lies here? I want to make it clear that this isn't just Trump. The Democrats and the Republicans might disagree on the means, but the end goal is the same, which is total supremacy in the oil rich region. Both parties are hawkish on this, and basically since the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, they've carried out another kind of warfare against Iran. That's economic warfare in the way of crippling sanctions. The sanctions date back to Jimmy Carter, and they've cost hundreds of billions of dollars, starved and destroyed industry, medicine.

4:03 So if we know that the claim about nuclear weapons is a smokescreen here, kind of a blueprint to destroy Iran, we know that Israel, the ruthless Zionist state with the goal of completely annihilating the Palestinian people, they're the only new nuclear armed state in the region. Meanwhile, the US rulers have enough nuclear firepower to destroy humanity many times over, and they're the ones who have used nuclear weapons against Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 45. So I would actually argue that Iran needs nukes as a deterrent in this case. What do you guys think? Historically, revolutionary Marxists have taken the position that Iran has the right to nuclear weapons and the necessary means of transporting the nuclear warhead in an effort to secure its sovereignty.

5:02 So the political question here is that nuclear weapons are essential to ensure the country's sovereignty against hostile imperialist powers that historically have ruled over your land. So the struggle against the imperialist rule is just as old as the imperialist rule itself. It goes back to the history of Britain ruling over Iran and prior to that was to the north. It was Czars army that occupied the Iranian north and then the British occupied South and prior to that it was the Portuguese that controlled the Gulf about 400 years ago. So the imperialist rule and subjugation has 400 years old history and resistance to that also goes to 400 years. So to answer your question, now there are voices from inside of Iran in regards to the sanctions. They point out that Iran has become self-sufficient and they've had their own industrial revolution in terms of missiles, technology, drone technology.

6:15 They've made significant advances despite the sanctions. So that is the crux that that has created these conditions where people have to take sides. And this is one of those questions that how you reply to it shows whose side you are. And I've actually posed this question to several groups of Iranians in diaspora. The first group laughed at it. So these people obviously do not understand the sentiments of Iranians for independence. They see imperialism as superior and Islamic regime as like this heinous thing, the most heinous thing on earth. Their attitude is almost pathological to the point of going and asking for the country to be bombed. And and if I could just ask Arman, are these people you're talking about, are they young people who grew up in the US? Are they people who moved from Iran as like older people? Like what is?

7:18 What is their generation above all of the above? So for example, one of my close relatives who is a recent immigrant, she has the same position as if like they speak the same language politically. Like they all said, well, the worst thing that can happen in this war is the Islamic regime stays in power. That's the worst thing for them, right? And then I posed it to another group of people, one who is more of Iranian and, and has a more of a historical viewpoint. She was like, hell, yo, they need nuclear weapons because it's a matter of sovereignty. So this war has polarized everybody. This other woman was telling me that they had a gathering of 40 Iranian women. And after half hour, the whole thing broke into a huge brawl between the monarchy supporters.

8:10 And they had to actually, like, physically intervene and separate them from, like, a first. Oh my gosh. But we can talk a little bit more about the the monarchists and like where they come from and stuff. But I'm curious to get Ezra's take also on this. Well, I think I would begin with a quote from the Bolshevik leader Lenin at the beginning of the First World War where he wrote if tomorrow Morocco were to declare war on France, India on England, Persia or China and Russia and so forth, those would be just defensive wars irrespective of who attacked first. And every socialist would sympathize with the victory of the oppressed, dependent, unequal states against the oppressing, slave owning, predatory great powers.

8:56 And I think that for anybody who styles themselves as an opponent of American imperialism, that has to be the starting point. So as you pointed out, Lola, the collapse of the USSR through capitalist restoration has really meant that the only thing left for sovereignty is nuclear weapons. When Gaddafi gave up his nuclear weapons program, he ended up with a bayonet up his ass. Quite literally. Saddam Hussein and Iraq were invaded and overthrown precisely because they didn't have weapons of mass destruction. But nobody fucks with North Korea because they have nuclear weapons. This is, to me, not only a polemic against the United States and the Western imperialist powers, but also the Iranian government.

9:43 If Iran wants to sustain its sovereignty, it needs nuclear weapons so that this insanity can stop. And they say they're not developing nuclear weapons. I think I believe them because they haven't for more than 20 years. If there's one thing that comes out of the assassination of Khamenei, who issued that fatwa against the development of nuclear weapons, it's that I hope the fatwa has died with him. Because Iran needs nukes not to attack anybody, but to simply maintain its sovereignty against both the Americans and the sociopath who run the state of Israel. I wanted to listen to some of the the smokescreen, the pretext for for this war. And the first clip that we have is Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

10:31 And this was him addressing the press. This is on February through 25th, so it was a couple days before the US and Israel launched this year's attack. And so reporter basically asks, what do you expect in terms of negotiations, right? Because we're told that it was Iran, not the US, that was negotiating in bad faith. And you'll see basically that it's full of contradictions. What he says, like Iran's program was obliterated, but they're close to bombing us. And, you know, kind of like they said Iran was a week away from from attacking the US. Like for the last 20 years, they've been saying that. Yeah, exactly. So let's just take a listen and then we can comment. But I want you to understand and everyone should know that Iran poses a very great threat to the United States and asked for a very long time.

11:16 They are in possession that first and foremost, after their nuclear program was obliterated, they were told not to try to restart it. And here they are. You can see them always trying to rebuild elements of it. They're not enriching right now, but they're trying to get to the point where they ultimately can. The other thing I would point you to, however, is that Iran possesses a very large number of ballistic missiles, particularly short range ballistic missiles that threaten the United States and our bases in the region and our partners in the region and all of our bases in the UAE, Qatar, and Bahrain. And they also possess naval assets that threaten shipping and try to threaten the US Navy. So I want everybody to understand that.

11:56 And beyond just the nuclear program, they possess these conventional weapons that are solely designed to attack America and attack Americans. If they so. Choose to do so. These things have to be addressed. You like that he like missed his talking point there. He was like they're developing nuclear weapon. I mean, I mean we destroyed it. We just. Keeping up with Trump's pronouncements is a very difficult job. That's very true. It's notable that basically what they're talking about is disarmament. To disarm Iran, make it defenseless. But the problem is that Iran moved its country toward U.S. military bases. I was actually confused about that, like when he was saying that they were built specifically to target America and like, we built all these bases like around them. What is he talking about?

12:49 He's not completely wrong. Here's what I mean by that. the US built all these bases. The Sunni Arab Gulf regimes, who are ashamed to the human race, allowed their countries to to house all these bases. And Iran knew what that meant. And so they developed a missile program to do what you were seeing them doing. But it's a purely defensive missile program. It's really interesting too that all of these countries cozy it up to the US under the idea that the US is going to protect them and now having the bases just has made them targets and done the exact opposite of what the intention. Was. You know, these things would make sense if we make some historical connections. For example, during the Iran Iraq war, Iraq has had this Soviet May missiles.

13:39 These were like huge missiles with no guiding systems. So they would just fire this up. This is before the age of digital technology. Everything was analog, not precise, and the Iraqis used it against Iran. So the missile technology has evolved. You know, Iranians have had good 20 years. Once they realize that they'll be attacked. That was just about 20 years ago post Iraq invasion, that it was made clear that they'd be the next target. So Iranians have had more than 20 years of developing this missile technology in the digital age, where some of the intelligence is fed to them by the Chinese or the Russians.

14:24 You know, they've taking all of the radar installations. And so that's a reference to these bases that Americans have built in the past 20 years. Going back to how we kicked off the episode talking about the nuclear program, where it usually gets talked about only in terms of weapons. But as you pointed out, the nuclear program is completely tied up with national identity and pride, you know, building scientific and technological capacity. There's an element of proof that a country can, can have this kind of technology despite sanctions, despite isolation. And the scientists, the nuclear scientists who have been targeted and assassinated, they're on the front lines of this in terms of promoting self-sufficiency.

15:13 And then there's the other question of what nuclear tech is used for, which is like mapping underground resources, finding oil, gas and mineral deposits, and then in terms of nuclear power, stabilizing electricity, reducing reliance on fossil fuels. So I just think some of that stuff is really important to know about in terms of what this nuclear program is really about, what what it means not only politically and historically, but practically. They've had developed nuclear technology in medicine where you send these isotopes to have an internal view of various organs.

15:54 So this nuclear technology in medicine is quite advanced in Iran. Then there is the nuclear power plant in Boucher, which ironically, Americans sort of initiated it to build this nuclear technology well back then. I think is this a part of the Atoms For Peace project? I think that that they reached. Yeah, right. Yeah, The Atoms For Peace. And now all of that is out the door because it really lost its whole historical context after the collapse of Soviet Union. None of these things really matter because the imperialists now they have every hand and doing whatever, you know, there was like No Fear of military or political retaliation by the Soviets. So it's a whole different period where they're right. Sovereignty is closely tied to your right to develop these technologies and ensuring the military means to be a sovereign nation in the face of imperialist domination, both presently and historically.

17:04 So the Iranians have proved that they can defend themselves effectively, and that's a win for the for the oppressed all over the world. Just a point of caution. I mean, the war is not over. I mean, let me start by saying playing big ass hats off to Iran. They are facing the world's most powerful military and it's rabid dog, the USS Israel aircraft carrier. They are facing a bunch of demented, fusillanimous, despicable Arab regimes in the Persian Gulf. And they have not only held their own, there's a quality where you watch them and they're playing three-dimensional chess while the Trump administration is just learning to play. Shoot some ladders, you know, so big ass.

17:48 Hats off. Having said that, I find it very hard to imagine the US winning this war. But I also find it very hard to imagine the US just saying we lost the war and that's where the danger lies. You're talking about two nuclear armed powers. I can imagine in particular that the Tel Aviv regime is telephoning the Washington regime on a daily basis, saying can we just drop a tactical nuclear strike and take care of this, or the US might come up with it on their own. The American military is very powerful. What it really comes down to in the end is a question of how much is the US willing to take in terms of losses and in terms of the destruction of the world economy and the American economy in turn. So we will see.

18:36 But having said all that, God damn Iran, they have shown that these beasts are not invincible and can be stopped. I think that also points to, to the extent that there have been some quote, UN quote, divisions in the administration about this war, that a lot of it is about whether or not they actually thought they could win, right? Nothing succeeds like success and they were really really ecstatic after their operational success in Venezuela and I believe they thought of that if they murder 86 year old man with cancer and a few other leading. That's by the. Way, yes, who, by the way, clearly sacrificed himself as a martyr because he knew everybody knew he was the next target. And, and, and it's very funny reading all these articles about all the massive intelligence to track him down. The guy was in his house.

19:32 Anyway, I believe they believed that they would have a Venezuela operation where if they would assassinate or cut off the head, they could either replace it, that was somebody they like, or find somebody they like or somebody who's willing to work with them. What they miscalculated on, which I cannot believe that American intelligence doesn't know this was Iran is not Venezuela. It is not cursed by being in the Western Hemisphere. This in the same hemisphere as the US. They have been preparing for this forever. To be perfectly fair, the Iranians before the war started said exactly what they were going to do in response to the war and have carried it out to the tee. So if you know. It has not been a mystery.

20:15 I remember Trump saying everybody was surprised. Oh, all you had to do was listen to what the Iranians said they were going to do. Well, you saw those fissures in U.S. intelligence when they questioned Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard in those hearings, the worldwide threats hearing. And Senator John Ossoff says, can you, what is your take on Iran being an imminent nuclear threat? And she basically gives up the game here because she tries completely to distance herself from the administration. Was it the assessment of the intelligence community that there was an imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime? The intelligence community assessed that Iran maintained the intention to rebuild and to continue to grow their nuclear enrichment cable. Was it the assessment of the intelligence community that there was a, quote, imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime, Yes or no?

21:06 Senator, the only person who can determine and what is and is not an imminent threat is the president. False. This is the worldwide, This is the worldwide threats hearing where you present to Congress national intelligence timely, objective, and independent of political considerations. You've stated today that the intelligence community's assessment is that Iran's nuclear enrichment program was obliterated and that, quote, there had been no efforts since then to try to rebuild their enrichment capability. Was it the intelligence community's assessment that nevertheless, despite this obliteration, there was a, quote, imminent nuclear threat posed by the Iranian regime? Yes or no? It is not the intelligence community's responsibility to determine what is and is not an imminent threat.

21:51 I just want to say for the record that I hate the term intelligence community. Well, politically speaking, this just shows that they just had no strategic plan other than thinking that they're going to have a regime change. You know, they probably listen to some bozo from Beverly Hills who convinced them that the average Iranian wants to overthrow the regime. Once you go in there and take out the harmony, then people will rise up and. It's really wild, too, to think that America is going to come in and liberate people when we look at the last, what, 30 or 40 years of regime change in the Middle East where things just get worse after we leave and totally destroy everything.

22:36 So that we have a little bit of a background on these, the Iranian expat population, these reactionary monarchists who want to be BFF's with the West. We had to subject Ezra to looking for a clip. I mean I wasn't going to send Ezra out to these pro monarchist protests. No, you stay away. If you are a decent reporter, no, I'm just kidding. But he did find a clip of a Grey Zone reporter talking to some of the folks at a rally full of monarchist US and Israeli flags. Well, if you don't mind, since I had to go through this torture, I actually want to play both clips. So the first clip is actually not the protesters. It's the king and waiting Reza Pahlavi. It's some kind of Fox News interview begins by thanking the US for murdering Iranian people.

23:28 So we'll start with that one. Well, first of all, it's so good to be back with you on the program. I would like to first say that I joined millions of my compatriots at home and abroad who thanked President Trump from this much needed intervention that brings us so much closer than ever to final victory and liberation. There was that school in Iran that was bombed, 150 dead. But you see this all as worth it. I mean, you think we should go to the end? Yes, Yes, it's worth it. And that's why we are here. We are going to protest. Even if it was not an Islamic regime missile, it was worth it. Very, very worthy.

24:13 You would support Donald Trump's, for example, sending troops or sending more air strikes to Iran. Yeah, whatever Trump is doing, it is helping us, of course, 100%. There was also a report today that he was considering sending troops to Iran. And you would support that? Yes, I would support that. Yes, because I believe he's doing the right thing. Donald Trump has been looking at more options, air strikes, but also sending troops to Iran. Would you guys be supporting that? Yes, we will. He's considering sending troops in as well. Is that something you'd support? Actually, that's, that's what we bond, yeah. And I also see a lot of Israeli flags. Here. I mean, this is also to protect Israel from Iran as well.

24:53 Yes, exactly. Exactly. Thank you to President Trump and Netanyahu for standing with people. If you had Donald Trump's ear right now, you're in the Oval Office private room. What would you tell him to do? Please, please finish the job. Just finish it. Whatever it takes. Honestly, I, I haven't been back to my country over 20 years. I'm not planning to go back. This is my country now. America is my country. And I know this is the best for Americans and for Iranians. In Iran, you're you. You're not planning on going back to no? I mean, it takes a special kind of sociopathic creep to thank a foreign country for killing their countrymen.

25:40 But you know, that is that is the Iranian monarchist. And these are the type of things that I hear normally not from online, and these are the type of things that I have to fight against. The pathological anti Islam obsession to equated with fascism is truly sickening. It has blinded these people to the atrocities committed by the imperialist, by the Zionist regime. They see those as justified and being anti Islam. So anti Islam, in their minds is is is the ultimate thing that Islam is more dangerous than all of these other things combined.

26:21 These things are delusions. None of it is actually true. It disregards a lot of factual things like the right of Iran to self-defense. Another important part is the self loading that they see in perilous as superior to their backwardness. It's their economic interest too, isn't? It and it's their economic interest, but not for all of them. And most of them are parasites anyways. And it is a whole spectrum. There's like their missions and they're on side of Trump. So for them, they don't have an economical gain. But then they come and say, well, laws, they've destroyed Iran. They're against science. And I have more scientific freedom here, and therefore I'm a side of Trump, which is crazy because Trump in no way supports science.

27:10 Exactly. I I don't know man, those those rockets landing where they're supposed to land is a pretty good implication of really good science. Yeah, look like good science. They have a lot of good scientists, you know exactly. You know, the US likes to go on and on about how these people are run by a bunch of crazy Islamic fanatics and and all that stuff with leaving aside that the US and Israel are both have a lot of crazy Christian and Jewish fanatics. Theocratic regimes. Yeah, in in the government in Iran, more than 50% of all university students are women. And Iran is one of the leading countries, if not the leading country in the world of having women in STEM. Remember, we're in the US, where Obama's former economic adviser Larry Summers, and the former head of Harvard University was going around just 1520 years ago saying there aren't enough women in STEM because women's brains don't allow for that. Meanwhile, in Iran, that's where you're going to find women in STEM.

28:12 I was going to just point out that Larry Summers is also in the Epstein files. Yeah, I mean, what they're pointing to is that supposedly that supposedly under the Shah, women were more free. Now, if you are part of a thin elite of middle class urban women, that's probably true. However, for the vast majority of women in Iran under the shop before the 1979 revolution, they were covered, barefoot, pregnant, stuck in the villages and illiterate. So here's the statistic. In the mid 1970s, approximately 30% of Iranian women were literate. Today, since 1979, that number stands at over 90%.

28:54 And when you look at women in the ages of 18 to 25, it's 99, 9 point something percent. In other words, they have conquered illiteracy. And I mean, are women oppressed in Iran? Of course they are. But it's a contradictory situation. This is not like Saudi Arabia. This is not a place where women need permission to go to school or to drive, or this is not like Afghanistan and the Taliban. This is a fairly intelligent government in terms of how they've managed to organize the society in such a way where they can maintain a popular base. Second of all, it really takes a, well, to use our mom's words, pathological sort of animal to look at your country and say vomit. Yeah, the task of any class conscious worker in Iran is to make sure their guns are aimed at the foreign invaders right now to defend their sovereignty and their country from the Americans and the Israelis.

29:57 That is the first duty of every class conscious worker, not only in Iran but throughout the world. And these people are the enemies not only if the Iranian masses, but also of the American and international working class and oppress because they want to strengthen the hand of the most oppressive, degenerate, disgusting ruling class on the planet. Since you mentioned the question of the Shah and the installation of the Shah, let's take a little detour into that question. And this hit job that was orchestrated by the CIA and British intelligence when Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh basically decided that Iranian oil profits should actually benefit Iranians instead of patting the pockets of the Anglo Iranian Oil Company, which is now known as British Petroleum. And the West responded with a coup and they installed the Shah and that habit regime spent 25 years running a blood drenched regime enforced by the SAVAK.

31:00 Is that what it was called? The, the, the secret police, Right. Yeah. And that still really permeates and haunts the Iranian psyche. So yeah, let's let's talk a little bit about Mossadegh and, and some of that and why it was such a direct ancestor to the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Well before Mossadegh, the imperialist, the British particularly, they had installed Shaw's father, Rizal Shaw as the puppet regime that came to power in a coupling against the democracy movement. The root of the Manolink goes back to actually 1917 and 18, where there was a coup by Rizal Shaw that overthrew the parliament. The British came in and he stopped that whole impetus for bourgeois democratic revolution in Iran to ensure that the British Anglo Iranian Oil Company has access to all Iranian oil.

32:05 So the struggle for independence goes back to 1917 all the way to 1953, where it was in the context of the Cold War, in the context of primary Americans spearheading political and military attack against the Soviet Union, and Iran having the longest border within the Soviet Union was directly impacted. Why the existence of the Soviet Union in terms of the upsurge of nationalist movement? So these bourgeois nationalists, Sadaf himself, he was a descendant of the last dynasty. Well, John, he was like one of the aristocrats. He was landlord, he was the leader of the National Front, a front of bourgeoisie, you know, whatever bourgeoisie it was, which was mostly merchant, you know, not even financial or industrial.

33:05 So they came from a weak political or economical stand, but because the Soviet Union, they had this kind of like the opposite of nationalism to nationalize the oil industry. And if there was a head on collision with British rule, they imposed heavy sanctions on him, crippled the economy, caused a lot of political turmoil. It seems like Mossadegh was part of that. Also. I'm glad you put in the context of the Soviet Union that he was part of that kind of post World War Two wave of nationalist leaders like Nasser in Egypt. You know, we're like, try to like, claw back some independence for the colonial masses. And ironically Mossad, he was pro America.

33:49 He was seeing British as the downfall of an empire in demise and America as a voice of freedom and he genuinely believed it. Well, what a mistake. Was it that? Yeah, he learned the hard way, but. He learned the hard way. Was it also that his National Front kind of saw that the US might be like fair, a fair ally against Yeah, exactly. The British and French, Okay. Right. It was definitely an ideological bend toward imperialism, which always proves fatal. And Mossad there made that fatal mistake, and that mistake basically made him defenseless. I mean, most of that believed that, like Armand said that the British were a declining empire, the Americans were arising one for decades or years rather, before he even took power.

34:38 Iranian nationalists were trying to get a better deal, just a better deal with the British in terms of the oil. What set this off in a in a lot of ways was Mossadegh saying he's going to open the books of what became British Petroleum, because everybody knew that they were cheating the Iranian government out of massive funds. And then when you go look at Saudi Arabia, he saw that Aramco, the Arab American oil company, was sharing profits at a 5050 basis with the Saudi government, something that the British were absolutely opposed to doing. So what you had was a situation where the British were trying to get the Americans to either carry out a war or carry out a coup to get rid of Mossadegh, especially after he nationalized the oil industry.

35:22 And at that time, under the Harry Truman administration, Truman was not going for it. He was afraid that if you did a coup or something like that, it would strengthen the hand of the Soviet Union and their ability to intervene. When Eisenhower came into power in 1953 in the US and around the same time Winston Churchill became the Prime Minister, both of them upped the ante. And Eisenhower had the opposite view, that if you don't overthrow this guy, it will strengthen the hands of the Communists. So for everybody, the measuring stick was what will strengthen the Communists and the Soviet Union and what will weaken them. The British wanted the coup badly, argued for it, but they couldn't do it on their own and and it was the US who did it and it wasn't like a one time thing, it took about a week or several days because it initially failed.

36:15 When and when they could have actually defended and defeated the coup because they had the political momentum. They had the numbers. The Tudor party closely affiliated with the Soviet Union, they had a large number of cadre in the officers corps of the Iranian army. They had a huge working class base. So they could have easily mobilized and defended. But they didn't. They basically stood still. Arman was referring to the Tudor Party, which was the Communist Party in Iran, had a fairly large base in the working class and actually was in the officer corps and in some ways one of the pillars of the Mosaddek government, including even having ministers in there. Leaving aside the Communists shouldn't be in capitals governments, but they did.

37:07 And for that week when the coup initially failed, before it succeeded, everybody, including the Americans and the Brits were wondering why, like thought there was some kind of big trick happening. Why isn't Tuda on the streets taking over things? And it turns out what Tuta's leadership was doing was telegramming the Soviet Union, asking for direction and getting stonewalled. Because at that point, the Soviet Union was in the phase of what you would call peaceful coexistence, which meant that they didn't want to challenge capitalist rule anywhere, and they thought it would be detrimental to their interest to do so. And so they didn't want to upset that balance and basically left Tuda to hang.

37:49 And Tuda did, and Mosaddek was overthrown and the Shah was reinstalled into power. And then you spoke to the rest. A brutal regime for about 1/4 century that just annihilated all forms of opposition. I will say one other thing. The mullahs who took power in 1979 did not cover themselves in glory in 1953. They were a bit split, but the bulk of them were opponents of Mosaddek. The National Front included mullahs, but many actually abandoned it because they never really cared about that stuff too much, and a few actually aided the efforts of the coup, so they. Were in the pocket of British.

38:34 Yeah, yeah, the British. There were, there were splits within the mullahs, yeah. The the ones who went by the coup, they were beefed up by the. I was just going to say one of the things that people listening to this should bear in mind is everything that's Islamic is today painted as pure evil. However, there was a period in time in the not too distant past when the US actively worked with Islamic political forces and Islamic fundamentalists because they thought and not unjustifiably believed that they could ally with them against godless communists as well as secular nationalists. And you will find examples like this all over the Middle East and the Far East.

39:16 Afghanistan. Afghanistan in the 80s, Indonesia in 1965. It happens over and over and over again throughout the 20th century. Actually, most of the time the US and the Islamic fundamentalists were much more allied than not allied. They were the USS Freedom fighters quote UN quote. In Afghanistan, yeah. It should be also highlighted and emphasized that the imperialist create these conditions for backwardness where they impede any type of progress in culture and technology. They keep these societies backwards.

39:57 So obviously both the oppressors, internal oppressors and imperialists benefit directly from backwardness. Because the imperialists create the conditions for this political slum to exist. They ferment it, they popularize it. But it's a double edged sword. You know, you make it strong and then then it becomes historically the voice of the Iranian nationalism. Now war has created this condition where the imperialists are at the losing end of the stick and Iran is on the winning part because politically what what the imperialists were hoping for was to overthrow the regime.

40:41 It's getting stronger. It seems like it's. Getting stronger, so the Islamic regime is not going to go away. So we can talk about the Islamic regime. And I also know, Armand, from your history as a Marxist, that you have a lot to say about 1979, particularly the working class aspirations for social liberation, that there was a defeat for the Iranian masses and that workers and women and oppressed minorities were crushed by the clerical caste under Khomeini and the mullahs. Yeah, absolutely. It's essential in the mass uprising, in this reactionary mass uprisings that was led by the mosque.

41:22 Their slogan was independence, freedom, Islamic Republic, and the left went along with it. They didn't oppose it. The program of the left was the two stage revolution. So they didn't want to fight for the proletariats to take power. Instead they wanted to make popular fronts with the Islamists, with the national bourgeoisie, basically national bourgeoisie to come to power. And then there'll be a period of democracy, then there'll be a socialist revolution. So they actually acted on that. And so that goes against that whole theory that you hear it from everybody that the mullahs hijacked the revolution. No, the two stage revolution tailed the mosque. And then when the Shah was overthrown, the state was handed over to the National Front, not the Islamists. Prime Minister Mazargon of National Front became the 1st Prime Minister.

42:27 The national bourgeoisie is so weak politically they couldn't contain the class struggle, but the left betrayed it at every turn. The left betrayed the struggle of women to defend their democratic rights. The left labeled it as not necessary as a sidestep that would weaken the anti imperialist struggle. So the mosque was the main anti imperialist force and the left tailed it. So to answer your question, in 1979, the left instead of mobilizing the independent all workers at building the party for workers government. But because of the two stage revolution, they had no program for the working class to be mobilized independently and subsequently was left defenseless and that created the condition for the treat of the working class and strengthening of political slaw. In my mind, yeah, I think you could summarize it. 1979 posed the potential of one of three outcomes, either mass bloodshed and the Shah remaining in power.

43:32 The other possibility was actually a working class revolution because it was on the agenda, particularly with the oil workers in the South. And the third option, which is what transpired, was the mullahs coming to power. And I think any revolutionary in Iran at the time with the program they should have fought for is obviously beginning with opposition to the Shah, but also opposition to the mullahs and instead fighting for working class power. The problem was that was not the left's program, and the mullahs offered the answer that the left was incapable of offering. And the left, instead of counterposing its own answer, tailed the mullahs. And, yeah, the first Prime Minister was a Mossadegh Arab National Front Prime Minister.

44:14 But that was a period of consolidation by the Islamic government. And once they consolidated, you know, they purged their opponents, including by shooting them, whether they be nationalist Mossadegh types or communists or in some cases, depending on the circumstances, ethnic and national minorities within Iran, like the Kurds. The mosque is very strong, both in terms of having these actual institutions that provide a solid ground for recording, networking, mass gatherings, and also historically they've been the strength has been in land, owning a lot of land gardens, pistachio production, while the national bourgeoisie has been both politically and economically weak.

45:01 The mosque on the other hand, it did have the answer to hold the whole state apparatus together in in creating a armed force, the Revolutionary Guards. So Revolutionary Guards have their fingers in all of these aspects of society. That's another thing, what the left does, Iranian left more so they equate this Islamic theocracy rule where imperialism like they're both equally responsible or somehow they're equal in politics or be and and that's just not. So yeah, we'll say that the Islamic regime will be overtrown, but perilism will still stays intact.

45:42 You know, the Shah went, imperialism stayed. So Yep, imperialist nomination precedes your demand to overthrow the Iranian regime. So I wanted to address next something that a lot of people have been raising and it actually goes back to our very first episode of this podcast, US or Israel, Who's daddy? And that's basically the idea that Israel strong armed the US into this war. You know, who's is Israel, the dog or the tail? And it came up when Joe Kent, who was the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, he resigned, said that Iran posed no imminent threat to the US And in his resignation letter, he said, quote, it is clear that we started this war due to pressure from Israel and its powerful American lobby.

46:28 So basically you have one side of this idea that the tail wagging the dog theory is basically Israel's in charge. You get this argument from like the MAGA types who are using it to bolster their idea of, you know, America first, not Israel first. You're also getting it from leftists, who I think are kind of falling in the trap that the US is this victim of Israeli manipulation. And then I think there's an argument that we've made on this podcast before, which is that the US is still very much in charge and Israel is a very effective tool. And that doesn't deny the fact that the Zionist lobby is very powerful, but we're basically arguing that Israel is not tricking the US. The American imperialists have always wanted a weakened Iran to make sure that there's not a challenge to US hegemony. Some of the reason why this debate frustrates me is because it feels like it comes down to whatever you think is supposed to be the correct US imperialist strategic interest. And I just think there's not one wing of the bourgeoisie, like they share the same common class interests, but they often have different angles or ways to achieve their goals. So this came up particularly in our interview with John Mearsheimer, who is a very well respected professor from the University of Chicago.

47:50 He did an interview with Max Blumenthal on the Gray Zone. I have a lot of respect for both of them. I don't always agree with them. But the background to this clip that we're going to listen to from this interview is that Professor Mearsheimer co-authored a book 20 years ago about the Zionist lobby called The Israel Lobby on the US Foreign Policy. It was very controversial at the time, not so much anymore. And I thought that this clip kind of captured something. Mearsheimer is arguing that US support for Israel is unrealist, meaning it doesn't help U.S. National interest, but that it's only driven by political pressure from the lobby. And that's what he's attributing this current Iran war to, is basically pressure from from the Israel lobby. So let's take a listen.

48:37 But if you think about it, the argument that Steve and I are making is that our relationship with Israel is not in our strategic interest. Remember, I said before, Israel is an albatross around their neck. That. Contradicts the basic thesis of my book and my writings more generally on great power politics and Steve's as well. But it just goes to show you how enormously. Powerful. The lobby. Is, I mean, just Max and Aaron, just think about the fact that the United States recognizes that if it has a peer competitor in the international system that it should worry about it's China, right?

49:21 And This is why Hillary Clinton enunciated in 2011 that we were going to pivot to Asia. China is seen as the most important threat to the United States inside of the national security community. Well, if you look at these various wars that we're fighting in the Middle East, and the first one of course was the 12 day war last June, and now you look at this conflict, it is seriously eroding our capability to contain China in East Asia. We're pulling fads and patriots out of South Korea and Japan. This is truly remarkable. We have been shortchanging East Asia, we have been shortchanging our containment policy in East Asia for quite a while now because of Israel, and the situation is now only getting worse. From a strategic point of view, from a realist point of view, which of course is what Steve and I purvey in our writings, this makes no sense at all.

50:25 So our relationship with Israel is a really cockamamie relationship that is not in the American National interest. Look, it's so egregious that this guy is actually prone war against China. I do want to clarify that he's not so basically Mearsheimer. He's known for this realist theory. And So what he's saying, he's not arguing that China should be contained, but he's saying that the ruling class is in agreement entirely with the desire to contain China and that this war is contrary to that. That's what he says. It's not exactly. And that. Yeah. So tell me about that. Well, it's not contrary to that at many levels. One, China is already involved because it has interests in protecting sovereignty of Iran.

51:12 For energy reasons, for transportation reasons, Iran can have a continuous railroad, if you will, to China, bypassing the whole city. So China is a fact in all kinds of equations about Iran. You cannot say, Oh yeah, this has nothing to do with it. So factually it's incorrect. And then another fact is the control that the imperialists want to exercise over the flow of oil, pretty much like what they did in Venezuela and Cuba to choke Cuba off the Venezuela oil, to cripple the economy, destroy their power grid and, you know, make imperialist comeback to Cuba.

51:58 So that's the scenario that ideally they wanted to have for Iran, overthrow the regime, control the flow of oil. To what end? To control China? Because China's oil, a great percentage of it, is supplied by Iran. And this war is exactly that, is a war against China as well. There's 2 levels to this. One is what is the effect of this argument, and the other one is the argument on its own merits. In terms of the effect of this argument, it very conveniently alibis US imperialism. And it very conveniently alibis specifically the Trump administration, including for those leftists and others who bought the kool-aid, that somehow Trump was not going to carry out the sort of regime change wars that the neocons of both the Democratic and Republican persuasion are infamous for.

52:51 So the argument becomes, oh, Israel tricked him into it. I'm sorry. I, I, I, I have very little to say on that because I think it's a pipe dream. I mean, you know, 3,000,000 dead Vietnamese and 2 million dead Koreans and a million dead Iraqis would like to have a word with you if you believe that. Then there's the argument on its own merit. And I thought Arman captured it very well. So let's do a thought experiment here. So the US carried out this kidnapping of Maduro in Venezuela. It cut off the oil from Cuba and it also cut off that oil from China because China was also buying Venezuelan oil. Now let's play the mind game where it actually worked in Iran, the decapitation of and the murder of the heads of the government and the state. Now let's pretend let's say the Iranian government was overthrown and a pro US force came to power. However it came to power, whether it's through the Shah or someone else, that would be a victory for the US, not only in relation to Iran, but in relation to China. You've now cut off China from Venezuelan oil and from Iranian oil, and you've basically left China with nothing but Russian oil.

54:04 And then you can turn around and make a deal with Russia. Hey, let's get you out of this Ukraine war. We'll unsanction your oil. We'll unsanction everything. And, you know, all you got to do is throw off China. It's just incredible that someone as intelligent as Mearsheimer would think that China has no connection to this war. And my biggest proof in some ways that China and Russia have connections to this war is that China and Russia are aiding Iran in this war through intelligence because they understand where they fit in this equation. I think the main argument is he thinks this is irrational analogical on the part of the US and that basically the US is wasting blood and money on a fake threat.

54:52 But I think the main problem I have with this, whatever angle you have, whether you're a maggot type or, you know, you're a leftist or even some radical leftist who are making this argument, I just feel like it comes down to like, if America could just be freed from Israel, then it would be, you know. America the good. Yeah, There's another side to this. He talks about Israel as an albatross on the US I would beg to differ. Israel is a powerful regional power. There's no question about that, and I will not dispute the power of the Israel lobby and nor will I dispute the fact that Israel tries to influence the US and in some cases does. We just went through talking about the 1953 coup in Iran against the Mosaddegh government, where you could very much argue that Britain very much influenced the US to carry out that coup. In neither case does that mean that either Britain or Israel runs American foreign policy.

55:51 In fact, Israel is crucial to American foreign policy in the Middle East because it is the lynch point for control of the oil flow and of maintaining American hegemony in the Middle East. And that could mean that could mean signing peace deals with Egypt and Jordan like they did in the past. Or it could mean the so-called Abrahamic Accords like they have now. Or it could mean you just puzzle the living daylights out of anybody that doesn't abide by your rules. It does not change the yes, of course Israel and the US don't have the exactly the same interests. I think the US would have liked to have seen a regime change. I think Israel wants to do to Iran what the US and Israel did to Syria, which is just utter destruction and chaos and collapse and let it break into its constituent parts so that it basically poses no threat to anybody.

56:41 That is pivotal for American interests in this oil rich region. And it really matters not one bit that the US produces its own oil and doesn't need the oil the Middle East for its own internal consumption because power abhors a vacuum. If the US is not in control of that oil, it means someone else is going to be in control of that oil, which is probably going to be the Chinese right now. And I'll give you one last point on that. the US has basically been driven out of its military bases in the Middle East through the Iranian bombing. God bless Iran, but you know where they cannot be driven out of The USS Zionist State of Israel. That is a permanent military base stationed in the Middle East. Military bases in Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia can come, can come and go, but that one stays. That's why it's not an albatross. Just to add to what Israel said about these American bases being destroyed, it then again proves that Israel is a military outpost for the imperialists that would not possibly exist without the American bombs, without the American dollars, without the American direct A to that country. As Joe Biden famously said, if Israel didn't exist, we'd have to invent one to protect US interests. And if the US or the Trump administration allowed itself to be influenced by Israel into this war, if we just take that argument on its face value, that

58:13 doesn't change anything. You're influenced by those you want to be influenced by. You accept that influence because you share the program of getting rid of the Iranian government and humbling Iran. So this idea that the US is carrying out Israel's war for Israel, the US is carrying out a joint war where they are in charge. I think Trump talked about it in The Art of the Deal. The thing is, Iran is inside of Iran for anti war. They see it as an imperialist war against them. They don't see it as Israeli war. They truly see it as an imperialist war.

58:54 I want to talk a little bit about the consequences of this. I think everyone has heard Pete Headsets asking for another $200 billion because it takes money to kill bad guys. You can't make this up. So we're already seeing gas prices. We're seeing crude hovering around 120 a barrel now every dollar that this goes up, we, you know, everyone's going to see a jump at the gas station. I'd like to say so much for the energy independence narrative that some MAGA types bought into food system, not just fuel, but there's hit in petroleum in the food system, like in terms of fertilizer interest rates, given the risk of inflation, we probably won't see interest rate cuts.

59:39 So that means borrowing costs are going to stay high for things like mortgages, credit card debt, things going to get more expensive. And the people who profit, of course, are the weapons manufacturers, defense companies, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, and the oil giants. We're going to get all their war profits. Everyone is saying this is going to be a full blown economic crisis. But the way that the media, these loyal stenographers for the ruling class have been talking about it is there's going to be, you know, for American short term pain, for long term gain. And Cam found this clip from Fox News, which is just golden because it's basically like, OK, all you people at the bottom, you know, just be patient. Like it's not as bad as the OPEC crisis. Like OPEC crisis was so much worse. So.

1:00:27 Just be glad it's not 1973. Yeah, she specifically says in this clip people have a short memory. And I'm like the people who lived through that are now in their 70s. Like what you been talking about, man. It's ridiculous. And it just really speaks to the desperation to support Trump no matter what by the MAGA base. But yeah, just crazy stuff to go with this short term pain, long term game. Thing is, is such a joke when people see gas prices start to go up, they start to think how long is this going to go on? How bad could it get? You know, one of the things that you notice when you look at this story is how short people's attention span is for any form of pain, right? And you look back, we talked a lot about the historical perspective, and you brought up with me this morning the issue of 1973 and what that oil embargo was like.

1:01:15 And, you know, people waited on lines for two hours in the morning. And at that point, the United States had been completely cut off from oil by OPEC. We are in a totally different environment now. We're the most dominant energy producer in the world. So, you know, I think that people just sort of need to take a breath and wait a minute for some of this to shake out. Take a breath you babies. There's not even 2 hour gas lines. You guys are wimps. Suffer more you fucking intervention. Suffer. That's exactly what it's like. Oh God, so grotesque. So grotesque. What was the OPEC crisis? The long lines.

1:01:58 It was it was the crisis in the 1970s when the Gulf states cut off the US from oil in response to. The Yom Kippur, Yeah. So I have no idea whether it'll be like as bad as the OPEC crisis might actually might not be as bad, might be worse, but in a different way in the sense that it might trigger the AI bubble to finally burst. You know, I mean, that's what the Financial Times was was worried about. So I have no idea how bad or not bad it's going to get, but the starting point for the American populace today is far worse than what it was in the early 1970s in terms. And people are barely making it before this deranged war was launched. And and people are already basically paycheck to paycheck if if they can even be that. So when you're in such a precarious position, even minor increases, and I don't think this will be minor, can have profound impacts.

1:02:50 But there's also another side to this, which is, as Iran keeps pointing out, the Strait of Hormuz is not closed. It's simply closed to the US and its allies. Other ships are going through just fine, but you have to pay to go through, and you have to pay not in the in U.S. dollars, but in Chinese currency in yuan. I love that. That's such AG move right there. It it it is because I don't know that it what the long term impact of it is going to be, but it's a direct challenge to the petrodollar. And if you take the petrodollar out of the equation, economic conditions for the US are going to get a hell of a lot worse because the American currency is artificially floated throughout the world through the fact that two countries that are not the US are buying oil, 1 selling one buying have to do it in the US dollar. So I don't know what's going to happen. I generally find that economists can't predict 100 mile an hour train when it's 10 feet away from them, but it isn't going to be good the longer this continues. Even if you're measuring it by the the metrics that economists use, which is always a stock market, which has nothing to do with what people's actual economic day-to-day existence is.

1:03:58 But even if you were to measure it by the stock market you're talking about, guess what? The Dow isn't at what Pam Bondi was saying it was a few weeks ago. It's well below the 50,000 that she was so happy about. The impact of this war is also global. It's not just how it's impacting negatively America, it's it's impacting Asia directly. There were fuel shortages in Thailand that they were they were already experiencing long wines. It has exposed the whole food production in terms of its dependency on oil. So all of this has global impacts that this war has exposed that how interdependent and how fragile this system is.

1:04:46 And Iran has not been blind to any of these. You know, they've positioned themselves to fully take advantage of the global supply that has to go through straight of Orbos. That's where their leverage is, yeah. Right. They've had the upper hand knowing what the impacts would be on the global economy and the Gulf region. You know, these UEA and the Saudis and and Kuwaitis, that minority of Sunni rulers who oppressed their own people, who exploit migrant labor to enrich themselves. There have been all artificially created too, and now it's exposed all of these fallacies, vulnerabilities in the region and it shows that Iranians, how they picked up targets has been very much calculated. Notably, they haven't bombed any schools or hospitals. Exactly.

1:05:42 They've shown a lot of restraint in how they respond. Yeah, just as a small factual point on that, both Saudi Arabia and Jordan are deploying troops to Bahrain to shore up the monarchy there because it's a Sunni monarchy installed by the British that rules up majority Shia population. Ironically, one of the first countries that has the potential for regime change is Bahrain, so the impacts of the war has not gone the way that the imperialists have imagined it to be. Last night when we were preparing for the podcast, we were talking a little bit about the impact and the global repercussions, which we obviously can't predict, but they're going to be bad.

1:06:23 And then we were talking a little bit about the worst case scenario being the potential for nuclear war. And I think this goes back to like the first part that I was mentioning about what you brought up Armand, about the Cold War and that period, because during the Cold War, the US and the Soviet Union were enemies. There was an understanding that nuclear weapons were like civilization ending. So in even in 471947, you had this, the Doomsday Clock. And the Doomsday Clock was set to 7 minutes to midnight in January of 2026.

1:07:03 This is even before the Iran war, scientists set that clock to 85 seconds to midnight, which is the closest that it's ever been to total annihilation. And I don't know how real that is. And I'm not saying like, oh, we judge everything based on the Doomsday Clock or something like that. But I think the main point is that the US and Israel are playing with fire and they are have proven to be the crazed lunatics in the region that are capable of using nukes. And particularly in terms of Israel, which has the Samson Option, which is this standing policy of basically, instead of facing military defeat, Israel will plunge the entire region into nuclear Holocaust.

1:07:50 How real is this? Like, what do you this is how we always end on optimism in this show. It's very important. So US has put in place the doomsday airplane for such an attack night watch. The Doomsday plane has been deployed by Americans to the region that has the nuclear launch codes necessary for the operators of these missiles to receive and launch these missiles. The very fact that the impedance directly or indirectly hint to it is a testament to the barbarism, to the level of dehumanization, militarism, the tendency of the imperialist toward militarism, genocide, the ongoing wars, and now this threat of nuclear war is taken as Oh, well, that's just a part of it, right?

1:08:47 Yeah, it's really scary. And I think one of the things that makes it even scarier is the atomic bomb is nothing compared to the level of nuclear weapons that exist today, what modern nuclear weapons are like. It makes what happened in Japan seem like small. The horror that regenerates. When the very courageous and heroic Israeli nuclear scientist Mordechai Benuno revealed to the world the extent of Israel's nuclear arsenal, something for which he suffered 18 years in prison, most of them in solitary confinement, where I believe his mind is gone and he's still not allowed to leave Israel to this day, even though he was released from prison. When he issued that release, it was in 1986.

1:09:29 And at that time, he said Israel had about 200 nuclear nuclear warheads. I see journals that I very much respect still quote that number of 200. You got to be really dumb to believe Israel only still has 200 nuclear warheads between 1986 and the present. Their nuclear arsenal must be significantly more than that. So whether or not you are scared of nuclear war, people are definitely seeing the effects of this. There's have been a lot of studies and surveys showing that the majority of the population is against this war and thinks it's futile. They're opposed to ground troops being sent in, but we haven't seen a level of opposition in the same way that we have in previous wars.

1:10:15 I haven't seen massive protests in the last few weeks. I think a bigger part of that might be the economic reality, like that the working class is drowning and their livelihood is at stake and stuff. But I'm also curious about some of the political reasons. I know Ezra, you and I were talking about some of the possible reasons like hostility to the Iranian regime, people scared of the repression against protesters over the last period, kind of crushing defeatism. You know what? So what is your take on why, if there is so much anti war sentiment, why haven't we seen this manifesting itself in massive demonstrations outpouring against US imperialism?

1:10:55 I think there are 4 overlapping reasons, some of which you mentioned. I think within the American populace, there is still a degree of hostility to the Iranian government, even among people opposed to the war. The second reason is, I think the massive repression initially unleashed by Biden but then intensified under Trump against pro Palestine protesters. I think that repression has taken a toll. There is fear because to go out against this war on the streets to show your face, it means you're going to go against the holy state of Israel. And you've already seen the repercussions of that. Three, I think there's a widespread feeling in the US that protesting isn't going to do anything both structurally and in relation to the specific administration.

1:11:41 Orange Caligula isn't going to listen to what liberal minded opponents of the war think, and disgruntled Trump supporters aren't going to protest. So I think people are just trying to get by and are generally afraid mainly for their livelihoods. And 4th and probably or perhaps most importantly, the Democrats support the war, or at the very least they support its regime change aims, if not the particular bumbling ways this government is doing it. It's true that there are Democrats against the war, but no one who is prominent or capable of bringing out large numbers. And I would also say those Democrats who say they oppose the war begin every statement by denouncing the Iranian government, which reinforces the first point, which is you're supposed to hate this government. And so rinse and repeat.

1:12:32 Those are the, I think the main reasons why you're not seeing those big protests. Only thing that I can add is in case of defeat body use imperialists would have consequences I don't want to predict but defeat increased conditions for more discontent. Because, you know, when the roller class is weak, when they lose their narrative, especially the political narrative, then there's other voices for the platform to emerge. And we should be prepared for that. Having a correct analysis of the present situation, which I think we do, in terms of defending the right of Iran to defend itself, the right of Iran to have access to nuclear weapons and the means to carry those out, the right of Iran to develop nuclear energy, nuclear technology, the right of Iran to be a sovereign country. These would weaken the imperialists regionally and globally and at home that would create conditions for class trouble in Iran.

1:13:36 We would be in favor of independent working class action to assist in war efforts to defend their factories against imperialist domination, and in America to actually ask for the defeat of US imperialism. Because it's the US imperialists who are exploiting the American workers, the American people. So no matter how it pans out, it will have a profound impact on class and world politics. I very much agree, and I want to just very explicitly say that it is in the interests of American workers for the American ruling class to be defeated in its vicious war against Iran. The same ruling class that kills little babies and little girls in Iran and civilians and just wants to annihilate that country is the one that is starving you, depressing your wages, not allowing you to raise your family or to have the means to have a decent life.

1:14:40 It is not Iran that's doing that. It's not Putin that's doing that. It's not China that's doing that. It is your our ruling class, and that's what needs to be defeated. And with that in mind, I'd like to close by giving the last word to Rosa Luxembourg, who wrote this amid the First World War. Because I think even though it's a different situation, it perfectly captures the system of capitalist imperialism that we are living through today. Shamed, dishonored, waiting in blood and dripping in filth. Thus capitalist society stands not, as we usually see it, playing the roles of peace and righteousness, of order, of philosophy, of ethics, but as a roaring beast, as an orgy of anarchy, as a pistolinial breath, devastating culture and humanity. So it appears in all it's hideous nakedness. But we don't love anybody who doesn't love us. We do appreciate you listening to Unwashed and Unruly. If you hate this, something's probably working. Thank you to our friend Armand for joining us. And make sure to tap that follow button so you remember to listen to our 20th episode.