What is Happening Right Now Inside the Islamic Republic of Iran Transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript is an edited version of a transcript created using AI technology and may not reflect 100% accuracy.

The video can be found here.

Interviewer: Thank you. Good afternoon. As you’re joining us today, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is on his 7th trip to the United States to have a discussion with President Donald Trump concerning, at the very top of his list, the Islamic Republic of Iran. What is at stake here today is the Iranian response to a potential conflict with the United States and the state of Israel. The fate of 19 US military bases across the Middle East in Bahrain, Qatar, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Jordan, the UAE, and Oman, and of course that of the state of Israel, hangs in the balance. Of course, we all know that these demonstrations began in the marketplace on December 28, 2025, when the real had been profoundly devalued. It is said that perhaps 1.5 to 2 million reals is now equal to $1 US. When the Iranian people turn on the tap, no water comes out. However, the real reason the protesters were demonstrating was because they are thirsty for freedom from the Islamist theocratic regime. Millions and millions of protesters took to the streets in almost every single province of [inaudible]. The regime claims to have rounded up and murdered 5,000 protesters, but that is simply a base [inaudible]. Estimates are much, much higher in the tens and tens of thousands, with estimates as high as 40,000. This was the greatest crackdown against the protesters in the Islamic Republic’s 47-year-old history.

Of course, President Trump, in the midst of the protest, had encouraged protesters to keep demonstrating and to take on their institutions. He said, “Very strong action would be involved if Iran executes one protester.” Today, the Iranians are commemorating the forty-seventh year of the takeover of the Islamic Republic, but they continue to round up reformers and protesters. Many of the Iranian people are feeling a sense of betrayal and abandonment by the United States. The United States is now weighing whether to send a second aircraft carrier into the Middle East to join the US armada. The US has now deployed dozens of aircraft and assembled about a dozen more ships, including the USS Abraham Lincoln.

Here to discuss all this is Khosro Isfahani. Khosro Isfahani is NUFDI’s research director. He’s a journalist and open source investigator working on all things Iranian with a focus on human rights, security, and the Iranian armed forces. Between 2009 and 2021, he worked in Iran as a frontline human rights defender in addition to his journalistic work, delivering rapid aid to at-risk communities while documenting human rights violations.

Khosro left Iran in 2021 for a position at BBC monitoring where he was a lead analyst and reporter on Iran until 2023. At BBC monitoring, he covered state killings and violence against protesters, along with military and security developments linked to Iran. In 2023, he moved to the US for teaching position at Colby College, where he serves as professor and the human rights fellow with the Oak Institute, and he taught courses on human rights in the modern history of Iran. After his time with Colby, Khosro joined the Atlantic Council in 2024, leading the organization’s open source investigation on international law violations committed by individuals within and linked to the Islamic Republic of Iran. His work has been aired at the Atlantic Council, Iran source, BBC World Service, and many, many other places.

So, first of all, Khosro, I would like to ask you, what is the mood like in Iran today among the vast majority of the population?

Khosro: It’s a combination of anxiety and resilience and rage. On one side, Iranians are anxious where the promised aid is. They watch every movement that the US armada is making. As you mentioned, they are stationed across the Middle East and ready to go, but they haven’t made the final move yet. So many Iranians are still waiting for the aid to arrive. Earlier when we were chatting I told you that I talked with friends, people inside the country, and they tell us that they don’t go to sleep until dawn because they expect the strikes against the regime to arrive before sunrise. So that’s one side of it.

Many text us in diaspora who are involved with this type of work asking, “What’s happening? Is Trump going to deliver on his promise or not?” Some of them are exhausted. You mentioned that since December 28, Iranians have been fighting in this final battle against the regime, and it’s painful. The other element is the pain. When you look at the number of the people who have been killed during January 8th and 9th, the regime at least killed 36,500 people. We are talking of a nation of 90 million people. Almost 40,000 people killed in 2 days. That’s absolutely staggering. What does that do to a community? Whoever you talk with inside Iran, they have at least lost one person. I know friends, family members who have lost 3, 5 people in their extended family during this uprising, killed on the streets in absolute cold blood, with machine guns and sniper shots to the head. This is the level of brutality that this nation has faced.

We have received reports of dead bodies being decapitated on the streets. We have received reports of women and girls and men even being raped by security forces in custody. We have received reports of abhorrent levels of torture. And the killing machine has not stopped. The other day the regime executed a young protester. They have sentenced another one, 19-year-old, on bogus charges, using forced confessions against him and not even accepting his alibi. He has witnesses that he was not on the streets the night they accused him of being on the street. They are going to hang him in public. The killing machine has not stopped and it’s not limited to executions. They are giving injections to detainees leading to their death a few days after. We have seen all the ugly things that we had seen in the past.

But at the same time, people in Iran are showing a level of resilience and courage that keeps us going. A nation that has lost 40,000 of its youth, of its best, of its brightest, is still protesting. Every funeral, every burial has turned into a protest hop with mothers dancing and singing and cheering their children who have sacrificed their lives for their homeland. That’s where Iranians are today.

Interviewer: So how do you get your news? I know there’s been an internet blackout. Can you reveal some of your sources and methods to see what’s actually going on inside the streets of Iran?

Khosro: So the total internet shutdown lasted for almost 2 weeks. That period was insane. Not being able to contact loved ones in the country, imagine that in itself is a psychological war against the whole population. But even during that period, activists, different groups, had smuggled in advance Starlink devices into the country and those handful of devices were used in networks to smuggle information out of the country. We were receiving videos of the atrocities that the regime committed even during the blackout. But with the internet, even this current trickle of it being reinstated, that social media has been flooded with footage of atrocities that I had never thought I would see.

And I have, as you were going through my bio, I have done this type of work since 2009. I have verified deaths. One part of the work I did for BBC monitoring was watching hours of family members washing the dead bodies of protesters to catch a glimpse of a face to compare that to an ID card and announce that person is dead. I have worked on war crimes in Syria on Yarmouk camp where the Islamic Republic and the Syrian regime killed thousands of people. And what we are seeing coming out of Iran, the atrocities have reached a degree that my Syrian friends are reaching out checking on us how we are holding to our sanity. I had seen too many dead bodies in the past. I have buried many, but now we are seeing infants hit by bullets.

The level of atrocities that are coming out of Iran done by this regime and unrelenting in the evil that they are doling out, it’s insane. It’s unparalleled compared to whatever I had seen. We have seen wars around the world that didn’t claim this many lives. The regime killed tens of thousands of people in a few days. That’s absolutely insane.

Interviewer: So, the regime has limited the scope of the talks to the nuclear portfolio. They’ve totally ignored the human rights travesties and the terror proxy issue. Do you think that President Trump will be able to negotiate? Also the missiles there, they have at least 2,000 missiles that they could aim at US military bases and at the state of Israel. Do you think that the president can negotiate these things back into the portfolio?

Khosro: So there are three key pillars to Islamic Republic security doctrine, the nuclear program, the missile program, and the proxies. The regime, the nuclear program, its nuclear weapons program, is already buried under rubble thanks to Israel and the United States. They are trying to sell the war that they might make some concessions about the nuclear activities. From going between, we are going to dilute the highly enriched uranium to refusing to do anything about it, to not even agreeing to reduce the level of enrichment. That’s one element. But the message that has come out of President Trump’s administration has been very clear. He wants the regime’s threats to be contained. Last night he said that if the regime doesn’t make any concessions about the nuclear program, the answer would be fast and immediate, and if they don’t make concessions about the missile program, he is going to deliver answers and he is going to at least let Israel strike those targets. But the threat of the Islamic Republic is not limited to its nuclear activity or missiles. The terror threats around the world, how many lives it has claimed, how many American lives, how many Israeli lives, and not even, let’s put that aside, how many Afghans have been killed, how many Syrians, how many Lebanese people, how many Yemenis have been killed by this regime?

The Islamic Republic and its patrons and its supporters around the world march on the streets talking against colonialism. The Islamic Republic is the embodiment of a colonial fascist state that is exporting terrorism around the world, killing thousands of people. How many more should be killed until the world wake up and come to our aid to overthrow this regime? One thing that we hear a lot from people outside Iran when we talk about toppling this regime is that we don’t want to deploy troops to Iran. We have seen what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan. 2 points: 1, Iran is not Iraq. Iran is not Afghanistan. I love my brothers in Iraq and Afghanistan who have been killed by Islamists and fascists but Iran’s context is fundamentally different. Look at the average education level, look at the role of women in public life. That’s point 1. Point 2, Iranians have been on the front line of fighting the Islamic Republic for almost five decades. Since the inception of the Islamic Republic in 1979, women took to the streets of Iran and marched against Sharia law. No one came to our aid. We have built an army of Iranians. The boots are on the grounds. We are ready to fight this regime to the bitter end because it’s either them or us.

A nation under Islamist occupation has been fighting this regime with empty hands. The slightest amount of aid coming from outside would not only embolden us, would empower us to end the job of reclaiming Iran and reinstating liberty and security to the Middle East. It’s going to be a turning point for the whole region.

Interviewer: So you have still not given up hope. The people inside Iran, most of them have still not given up hope that there is some way to eradicate this regime. So just geostrategically, how does one eliminate the IRGC and the Basij and all of the goons and thugs that have the guns on the streets of Iran?

Khosro: It’s got to be a combination of targeted military strikes against military bases and the arms of oppression of the Islamic Republic and the decapitation of the regime’s political leadership. During the 12-day war, Israel took out the Islamic Republic’s top military echelon during a few hours. The glory of that operation in itself is baffling to anyone who understands anything about military campaigns. The United States, a nation of 350 million people with the strongest military force on the face of the earth can do way more compared to Israel, a country, a small country that is the size of the DMV area in the US. So the US can pull what it needs to be done in a span of hours and the boots are on the ground. Iranians are ready to fight. We see them. We see them prepared.

Before this recent uprising started, many criticized both the diaspora and people inside Iran for not having clear plans, for not being prepared. When this uprising started, people in my motherland took to the streets with the true flag of Iran, the lion and the sun, and people were like, “What? Where these flags came from? How’d they produced them? This flag has been banned by the regime.” I have videos, videos posted back in November, as early as November, that women were sewing these flags at their homes. The same type of preparedness is there. We are ready to go. We need a slight amount of aid and it can be delivered very easily. The assets are already in the region. The president can make a slight tweak of his hand and we can see the course of history changing in the Middle East.

Interviewer: So when President Trump was campaigning, he said he was going to end long wars, particularly in the Middle East. And we had a met spent a great deal of time on Capitol Hill. And we do hear a lot of complaints from members of Congress that we don’t want another Iraq or Afghanistan. Do you believe that this can be over quickly or do you think it will involve a long war?

Khosro: It can be absolutely over quickly. The difference, the fundamental difference is that 1, as I said earlier, Iran is not Iraq or Afghanistan. The context is fundamentally different. We have a unified opposition behind a singular leader who wants Iran to be reintegrated in the world community. Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi has publicly talked about this, has a very clear vision for Iran’s role in the future of the Middle East. It’s going to benefit everyone. That’s point 1. Point 2, everyone is worried about deployment of US troops to another country. Iranians are not asking for troops. We don’t need troops. The boots are already on the ground, we have a nation, a proud nation that has given up thousands of lives, 40,000, tens of thousands were killed during a few days and they are still ready to go back on the streets if the slightest amount of aid is delivered from the sky. And President Trump has that power to deliver the aid.

Interviewer: Okay, so is there a pro-democracy lobby that has been able to work with the administration to communicate these ideas?

Khosro: NUFDI is a bipartisan NGO that is highlighting these demands and this message constantly. We have been around for years. We have been raising the voice of the people inside Iran for years. That our seed, the start of this organization was created to fight against the Islamic Republic’s lobbying in the west that has had the ear of especially democratic administrations. We are here, thousands and thousands of Iranians, educated Iranians who had to flee our homeland, who have built major businesses in the US and around the world, are talking with the administration, have a clear plan, have a clear leader, and have a flag. We are a united fist ready to take the Islamic Republic down. And we have a clear message. We hope that the US would hear our message.

Interviewer: The Islamic Republic is said to possess about 2,000 ballistic missiles. If for some horrific reason, Israel is left to its own devices by President Trump to do the job on its own, do they have the capability, as far as you know, to avert this quantity of incoming missiles?

Khosro: To the extent of my knowledge, yes. And I’m not saying this just from the safety of Washington DC. I have told this to my Israeli friends that in case there are strikes against the Islamic Republic, my hope and dream is that I could be by your side in Israel in the same shelters. My Israeli friends, our brothers and sisters in IDF and other armed forces have been by our side for the past 5 decades. My brothers and sisters in Israeli security forces have bled by our side in the fight against this Islamist fascist system. We know that we are united, we know our friends, we know who has stood by us and we are going to stand by the side of Israel for whatever may come. Israel has proved that it has our interests at heart. We are fighting a common enemy. We are fighting fascism. We are on the front line of the fight for humanity. So Israel definitely, in my opinion, technologically, militarily, compared to firecrackers that the Islamic Republic might fire against Israel, I think Israel can take care of those.

Interviewer: Okay. Now the European Union has evoked sanctions against the Islamic Republic. Do you think the regime might strike out against the EU?

Khosro: So the thing with the Islamic Republic is we are dealing with lunatics, fundamentalist lunatics, but they are not stupid. They are conniving psychopaths that calculate every move. Look at the current negotiations with the US administration. They have a very smart playbook on how to buy time, how to drag on the negotiations or whatever. The same applies to Europe. For years the Islamic Republic conducted terror operations on European soil with European governments stomaching it. What would stop the Islamic Republic from making a dirty nuclear bomb and blowing it up in a European capital? Nothing. We are dealing with lunatics, with fundamentalists, with terrorists. There is no way in between for containing this regime. When we talk about talks with the Islamic Republic, it always reminds me of Lord Chamberlain who flew to Nazi Germany and tried to hammer a deal with the Nazis. He flew back to London, held a piece of paper thinking that that’s going to contain Nazis. It didn’t. How many thousands, how many millions of lives were crushed because of that miscalculation?

Europe is catching up with where Israel and Iranians have been. We have always had absolute clarity that the Islamic Republic, as long as it takes breath, as long as it exists, it’s going to be a threat to the world. We have had that clarity. The world is catching up with us. I hope that it happens sooner rather than later. Because Iranians and Israelis are in this fight for good. We cannot live with the Islamic Republic because Islamic Republic is bent on our destruction. We are going to win this fight whatever may come. Multiple empires have rose across the history vowing to erase the nation of Israel. Where are they? From the Nazi Germany to the others. We are still here. They are gone. The Islamic Republic will go as well.

Interviewer: So I’m so encouraged by your words. A great deal of time has gone by, however, since President Trump uttered the words that were locked and loaded and ready to intervene. With almost a month since those words were uttered, do the Iranian protesters have any real hope and faith in the United States to come to their aid? Or with the lag of time, have their hopes been dashed?

Khosro: Our hope was never rooted in foreign aid. We hoped for it, we prayed for it, but our hope is rooted in our civilization. A millennia-old civilization that has been around, that has been a pillar of stability in the world, a pillar of culture and progress and science and development. We have faith in our people, the same people that have died in thousands on the streets. My faith is in my people, in mothers, in mothers who when they are burying their children they are dancing the dance of death. The other night, mother of a slain protester said, “The Islamic Republic once again killed our children. Come kill more of us. Even if one is left, she is going to dance on your grave.” That’s where Iranians are standing. We are going to continue this fight to the bitter end, and we have allies. Our only ally in the region has been the state of Israel. You have stood by our side, we have been in the trenches together. We are going to continue the fight. The US President can come to our aid, cut the human losses, decrease the number of Iranians and Israelis that are going to be killed in this fight for humanity, for light, for all the principles that the United States stands for. And he can ignore our call in our time of need and people will remember that as well.

Interviewer: All right, so we have a number of questions that have come in from the audience. Is it okay if I ask you some of these?

Khosro: Of course, absolutely.

Interviewer: Okay. Is there a majority of support for attack on Iran if it comes from Israel alone?

Khosro: Absolutely. When you talk with Iranians, literally last night I was on a call with a good friend and people are raising funds for different purposes in relation to the current protests. And literally those who are sending the donations, they are telling the people receiving them, ‘If you have leftovers, send them to the IDF.’ That’s where Iranians are standing on. I have talked with Iranians in diaspora and inside the country that are literally telling me, how can we join the IDF? Iranians are at that point. IDF have stood by us, it decapitated the Islamic Republic’s military force during that glorious operation, the Lion Rising operation, the 12-day war, we know our friends, who they are and who have stood by our side. The only reason that the Islamic Republic was able to pull this massacre was that the 12-day war was cut short and Israel was forced to stop the strikes. The planes were forced to return. The Islamic Republic could have been hit more. We know where Israel is standing. Israel doesn’t owe us anything. You already have given us more than any nation can ask another nation. But if aid arrives from Israel, we would be utterly grateful, historically in debt to the people of Israel.

Interviewer: I know that Israel is not gonna sit silently by if the regime attacks. If the regime collapses, what would the next day look like? Do you have any vision for that?

Khosro: I mean, I have friends, old friends, women in their 70s and 60s that they have promised to dance across the town on that glorious day. We have been dreaming that day for 4 decades. We have lost friends, we have lost loved ones, we have buried too many, but all of it has been for reaching that glorious day. There are actual plans built by Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi based on his vision for the future of Iran, for a secular democracy in Iran, where human rights are recognized for all, where Iran’s territorial integrity is preserved and the form of the government is determined in a referendum. Four principles, easy and simple and there are actual plans about how to contain the government, different branches of it from falling apart during the transition period, how to deal with marriage and divorce, how to buy and sell cars. We don’t want a vacuum after the fall of the Islamic Republic. There are actual plans for the day after.

Interviewer: Okay. How do you explain the lack of news coverage since the riots? The protests erupted in December 28. It reached that horrible height on January 8th when the regime massacred thousands and thousands of people. And now there’s relative quiet on this front. How could you explain that?

Khosro: Especially this silence is coming from the left-leaning media and activists. The thing is, when you look at the Iranian population, we are everything that this outlet’s deny exists. Iranians constitute the most pro-American population in the Middle East outside Israel. We constitute the most pro-Israel in the Middle East, period. And these outlets cannot stomach the truth. They don’t want to see a nation, a proud Middle Eastern nation who is aligned with US values, with Israel, who wants to live in peace and prosperity with their neighbors. Their minds blow up when they see this reality and they would rather stay silent on the sidelines when we are being massacred on the streets. And then we have the influencers, the so-called human right defenders, the bleeding hearts that were on the streets for 2 years after October 7th, repeating the chants of Hamas and other terrorist groups. They are useful idiots. They don’t want to see humanity of my people or Israelis. They don’t see us as human. We are just collateral damage in their fight against the so-called empire. We are not human in their eyes. And we don’t need their help. We have the solidarity of those who matter.

Interviewer: So have guns actually arrived to the protesters? Do they have the weapons to fight the besiege in the IRGC and the whole militia surrounding the regime?

Khosro: The Iranian protesters have been on the streets with empty hands. All the protests have been civil, unarmed, and peaceful. The violence that we have seen, every video of it, you see women, men, children on the streets, children. A lot of the people who have been killed by the regime were teenagers, unarmed teenagers. And no, Iranians are unarmed, as always. We have been fighting this fight with our bodies and our souls.

Interviewer: Okay, but of course the regime has all the weapons. So, without the help of the United States, how can they take on this huge infrastructure and this huge militia?

Khosro: If aid doesn’t arrive from outside, Iranians are going to keep marching. We are 90 million people. As I said earlier, even if one is left of us, we are going to keep marching until we reclaim our homeland. We hope that aid arrives. Iranians don’t need to pick up arms to overthrow the Islamic Republic. We are the majority. You cannot kill the majority of a nation. Khamenei can have the dream of ruling over a graveyard, but he’s going to take that dream to his dirty grave himself.

Interviewer: Okay. Can you explain the different segments, the different populations and the fascination with Pahlavi?

Khosro: So from across Iran, from Azerbaijan to Kurdish regions to Baluchistan to Tehran to Shiraz to Isfahan, literally across the country, millions of people took to the streets, faced guns and bullets, and they had a simple chant, Javid Shah, long live the king. And others, people inside the Iran, joke that those who want a republic were chanting, how louder Khamenei, because Pahlavi is returning. What Iranians remember of the Pahlavi era is progress, prosperity, peace. We had a monarch, a system that was pushing for modernization of Iran. Where we are today, it’s on the backbones of what Pahlavi’s built. Iranians are catching up with the Pahlavi dynasty. This dynasty have been ahead of the majority of the population that rose up, some of them in 1979 and led to that Islamist occupation. Iranians have caught up with Pahlavis. We see their vision for future, for a secular democratic Iran that is leaving in peace and prosperity with its neighbors.

Interviewer: So are there any members of the police force, the IRGC, the Basij who actually can switch sides and help the protesters? Have you heard any talk of that?

Khosro: The crown prince Reza Pahlavi has had a very clear message on defections. Anyone who doesn’t have blood of innocent Iranians on their hand, are welcome to join us. Whatever your position was, defect. Come to the side of the people. And there are active efforts for facilitating these defections. There are multiple secure channels and they are active and they’re attracting the world. But when you are dealing with a brutal force like the IRGC, people are scared to risk their lives, especially if those lives are cushioned and comfortable. So when push comes to shove, when US intervention arrives, when aid arrives from US or Israel, there will be defections. The cookie will start crumbling.

Interviewer: What about the Gulf states? There’s been intensive lobbying for them not to get involved. I mean, this is not their fight. Why do they prefer the status quo?

Khosro: There is one actor in the region that was lobbying for Hamas as well. The same actor is lobbying for the Islamic Republic, trying to keep the regime in place because they have vested financial interests. But that’s efforts. Also, the same efforts coming from other actors in the region is very short-sighted. They are used to the status quo and they believe that the Islamic Republic is providing stability, stability. What this regime has done over the past 5 decades, does that wreak of stability to you? That’s mind boggling. And also something that all of these actors ignore. The Islamic Republic is going to fall. Eventually it’s going to fall and Iran’s economy is going to open up. Imagine the economic and financial opportunities for reconstructing this nation, this country. How many malls, how many towers, how many airports we are going to need? Without sanctions, without the Islamic Republic fascist, without the threat of Islamic Republic, threats to shipping across the Persian Gulf, remove all of that, remove all of that and the sky is going to be the limit.

Interviewer: All right, so we are totally standing with you. I was just in Israel for about a month. I was in Israel during the 12 days of war in June. I was in the October attack in the April attack. And we all ran into our sealed rooms. I know that the people of Israel would look nothing more than a strong alliance between Iranians and Israelis. And the whole geostrategic globe would be different without the Iranian support of Russia providing the oil that gets the drones, you know, for them to bomb Ukraine without the support of Red China. I think the Iranian people could be free of the struggling theocracy that’s been choking them to death. And we could go back to the wonderful way it was before the 1979 Islamic revolution. So let’s hope that Prime Minister Netanyahu will be successful in his talks today and that this huge display of force around the Iranian regime right now can’t be for nothing.

Khosro: Yes. Yes.

Interviewer: Let’s hope that they will.

Khosro: We are two civilizations, Israel and Persians. We have been around for millennia. Kings and despots come and go. Presidents come and go. We have been around. We are going to be around. The friendship, the ties between Israel and Iran date back millennia. It’s going to continue and last. Our enemies are going to turn into dust the same way our old enemies turned into dust. We are going to be victorious.

Interviewer: Thank you so much. It was a pleasure having you on and we hope to have you on again.

Khosro: Thanks for having me.

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