Protests Reverberate Across 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.

Sarah: Good afternoon and good evening here in Jerusalem. We’re honored to have with us today once again, Benham Ben Taleblu. Benham is really an expert on everything Iranian. He directs the Iranian program at the foundation for defensive democracies, he has been seen and heard on multiple news stations including CNN, Fox, PBS, CNN International, C-SPAN, France 24 and Deutsche Welle. He has authored and contributed to articles in the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Reuters, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Fox News, Newsweek, the National Interest, AP, Agence France, Politico and Axios. Additionally, Benham has tested before the US Congress, the Canadian Parliament and the British House of Commons. Benham got his bachelor’s at the Elliot School of Foreign Affairs at George Washington University and his masters at the University of Chicago. Benham how and why are these protests different from so many others that have occurred so frequently in the past?

Behnam Ben Taleblu: Well, Sarah, it’s always a pleasure to be with you and our friends at Emet. Thank you for that very warm and kind introduction. Let me just begin with a note of similarity because it’s important to know that this current round of protests now in day nine hitting countless cities, towns, and villages in Iran, at least 22 of the countries, 31 different provinces with almost 1000 arrested and they reported 20 killed, mirrors the pattern that we’ve seen in the past eight years. If you string along the boom and bust cycle of protests we’ve seen in the past eight years, they actually make a lot more sense as nationwide anti regime uprising rather than a mere protest and a mere demonstration. Unlike major previous periods of political protest in Iranian modern history like 1999 or 2009, these protests are not triggered by political events. The reason is the street has pushed away from the state when it comes to politics. There’s been a divorce between state and society. The Islamic Republic is broadly believed to be illegitimate across broad swaths of society. They have either been disconnected or turn people into dissidents due to their policies.

Fundamentally, you have an Islamist autocracy that is graying running a young secular nationalist population. These two things don’t mix. So it’s important to see it in the context of the most recent period of protests, which is the boom and bust cycle of anti regime uprisings we’ve seen over the past eight years. The most recent one of which was the Woman Life Freedom Movement from 2022 to 23 that at its peak touched 150 different cities, towns, and villages across Iran during 2022 and 2023. But then that brings us to now, how is this different now if this is the shared heritage? The first is that many didn’t expect this. Many thought that after the violent suppression of 2022, 2023, plus forgive me, the botched opposition politics abroad in 2023 that the Iranian people would not organize on the street again. The exact opposite has proven to be true. Despite the sheer violence the state has leveled against the street, despite the intimidation, despite the fact that there had been a chemical campaign impacting over 2000 school girls by the regime as they engage in this repression, despite the cyber repression, despite the fact that in 2025 alone over 21,000 people have been arrested, over 2000 people have been killed since the 12 day war between Israel and Iran, just this past June.

Their population is still turning out. And they’re actually turning out chanting slogans in favor of a particular opposition leader. So all of the expectations that the botch diaspora politics plus the fact that the 2022 23 protests were so violently suppressed ended up being poor peedod[?] which proves the resiliency of the Iranian population’s demand for representative government and demand to push past the Islamic Republic in its entirety. That’s one major difference we have to keep in mind and one major reason why it’s important. The second major reason why it’s important is because it’s follows the 12 day War. Already in 2025 the regime was experiencing economic shocks, political dissatisfaction in an environmental crisis leading to environmental collapse. You heard the Iranian president Pezeshkian even talking about trying to move Iran’s capital. Fundamentally you had a lot going on and a lot in the negative. Then when you layer on the fact that basically the regime had its clock cleaned militarily by Israel and by America during the 12 day War, fundamentally it looked like, and given the fact that there was a week and a half long strike, I think it was by trucker strike in the late spring, early summer before the 12 Day War that looked like it was interrupted by some of the darkening political climates in Iran plus the fact that there was an overshooting war between Israel and Iran.

It looked like that the Iranian street would not come out again, but yet again expectations by so-called experts in the West that, oh no, Israel and America have short circuited Iran’s democratic movement have short circuited the regime change movement in Iran also proved shortsighted because in less than six months Iranians came out onto the street again. And they proved that they will come out not in response to politics because they couldn’t give a damn about which Ayatollah is up and which Ayatollah is down, they care about the things that impact them. And this was triggered by a relative low of the Iranian rial, a 1.43 million rial to $1 exchange rate that sparked this. And then that larger political grievance is what sustained it and has sustained it for two days. So the sheer expectation defying resilience of the Iranian people. Both against the crackdown of 2022/’23, as well as following the 12 Day War shows that this protest movement, this national anti regime uprising framing, is so much more resilient than we thought and is deserving of support.

Sarah: Tehran as you know people turn on the taps and there’s no water, and it’s what? 0.00024 rials to the dollar. So like the 1979 Islamic Revolution, this began in the marketplace. But as you say, it’s the resiliency of the Iranian people that are protesting against the entire ideology of the theocracy. And it spread to how many provinces and how many states throughout Iran?

Behnam: Right now of Iran’s, 31 provinces you have at least 22 protesting or having experienced some type of unrest anti regime protest activity. I should just make a small plug for FDD here. We, since the women life Freedom Movement of 2022, 20 23, have had a live tracker crawling and scraping English and Persian language, social media vetting this data by us and our experts getting it out there. And we have documented in the past nine days, 377 instances of small, medium, and large protests across the country and all this stuff there is clickable, accessible, open source online for you and your viewers and hopefully for policymakers to look at as well.

Sarah: That is amazing. We all read President Trump’s quote that if the protestors are killed violently we are locked and loaded and ready to go. And now you’ve said there have been 20 protestors who’ve been murdered, probably more that we don’t know about. Do you take President Trump at his word?

Behnam: Thankfully I’m not this job, but if I had the job of Supreme leader of the Islamic Republic or Commander in chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, very undesirable jobs given A, how much the population hates them. B, how much the regime poorly performs, and C, how poorly they performed against adversaries like Israel and America abroad. But pushing past that, if I was them I would be taking President Trump at his word. This is a guy who six years ago this month did what two previous presidents were afraid to do, which was to target the regime’s chief terrorist Qasem Soleimani, and with a single drone strike removed from the battlefield the Mastermind of Tehran’s transnational terrorist apparatus. Sarah, think for a second with me, how much worse the Middle East would’ve looked in the cycle of violence after the October seven terrorist attack against Israel had Qasem Soleimani been at the helm of the Iranian proxy response. So this is someone who, six years ago this month took out Soleimani. This is someone who six months ago was willing to authorize a strike that at least four US previous presidents were not willing to authorize and have achieved something that Un Security Council resolutions from 2006 to 2010 were trying to do but failed, that diplomacy tried to do but failed, that deal making tried to do that failed that even covert action sabotage tried to do and failed, and he was willing to overtly and kinetically bomb Iran’s enrichment facilities and go after the crown jewel of the regime’s nuclear program. The cherry on top of the icing is Donald Trump just kicked out the legs from under the stool of the Islamic Republic by taking out its sole state partner in Latin America.

You just saw very clearly when the president has a will to do something, he will find a way to do something. He just showed the world very clearly that because Maduro was not negotiating with him because of the success of his sanctions and his gunboat diplomacy because of the real pain and suffering that both Chavez and Maduro had wrought into Venezuela, the fact that Venezuela had become a forward operating base for Russia, China, and Iran in the Western hemisphere, that stuff was not going to be tolerated. And the cherry on that Sunday was his involvement in narco trafficking and the drug trade more generally, that the president was going to use force. So what I believe as an American citizen, as an independent think tank analyst here is much, much less relevant than what the Iranian government needs to believe. The Iranian government needs to look at that record very, very seriously. Particularly after they are bloodied and weakened after the 12 day war. There’s still lethal. No doubt they’re still lethal. You see what they’re doing, trying to build back their missile program. You see what they’re doing repressing street protests. But I would think very, very seriously about doubting that statement.

Especially given the fact that two days after President Trump on Air Force One via audio said that the US would intervene. A lot of reason not to be skeptical. Let me just add one reason of skepticism if you want me to put on my super clear-eyed vision, cold-hearted think tank analysis hat on which is president Trump is the Teflon Don. Things don’t stick to him. He can say something, he can issue a red line, he can issue a deadline, and he can walk away from it. And unlike previous US presidents or politicians, he doesn’t really pay a domestic price. That’s something particularly unique to his style, unique to his brand. So he can make a threat and then he can override that threat. He can walk back that threat. You know the president loves and covets flexibility. Most commanders in Chief Duke, Donald Trump is no exception, but he is really turned that flexibility up to an 11. But I would say this, the fact that Trump so wholeheartedly talk about using military force to support Iranian protestors, that statement alone is worth its weight in gold. That statement alone proves to you that contrary to what so many experts in DC and around the world believe that this kind of stuff would be the kiss of death for protesters, protests were sustained throughout the time, the past two and a half, three days, that Donald Trump has made and reiterated his willingness to use force. So the fact that no other western liberal democratic leader has offered this kind of wholehearted support just shows you how important this is coming from the most important country on planet Earth, even if only just rhetoric.

Sarah: Since the 12 day war of last June, the International Atomic Energy Administration has been denied access to most nuclear sites, if not all of them. However, we have received information that Iran has been rebuilding its missile structure and aerial photos seem to indicate that they are also rebuilding their nuclear defense technologies. Do these activities constitute a CASAS belly?

Behnam: It depends a great deal on who you are. You heard President Trump again offer remarkable clarity here in a meeting alongside Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu just late in December before these protests were touched off. When he said that he would support an Israeli strike against Iran’s ballistic missile program which as you are right, is rebuilding and he would support a strike definitely against the regime’s nuclear program. I would distinguish though between certain features of the regime’s nuclear program. Thus far, most conventional open source, mainstream satellite imagery does not show the regime taking out or digging out that which was entuned by the successful US military operation against Isfahan, Natanz, and Fordo. But looking at other sites potentially past weaponization sites, research facilities, centrifuge manufacturing there does seem to be a little bit of movement there. And for here, I would point you guys to another friend and partner organization in Washington, DC, ISIS or the good ISIS, the Institute for Science and International Security and they have had access to a lot of the satellite imagery. They’ve bought it, they’ve analyzed it. This stuff is commercially and conveniently available and they have done, I think, the best job in terms of translating what even minor level movements mean.

Now, is it a CASAS belly is more of, in my view, a political question than a legal question, given the fact that in my view rhetorically President Trump has given Bibi a pale green light to go after the nuclear and the missile program if there is reconstitution, and certainly on the missile program there is the matter of an Israeli strike becomes a matter of when, not if.

Sarah: Cracus the word is that the taking out of Maduro was a Zionist plot. Does that give you any pause for having Israel lead the strike?

Behnam: The only reason I would say it gives me pause and I’m not talking about leading the strike or not, I’m just going to focus on the language here for a second. Is this to show you how global the spread of antisemitism truly is. Sometimes it might be caricatured as something limited to the Middle East or to the Muslim world. But the fact that there are states and state leaders and state institutions in the Western hemisphere right here in America’s backyard that are actually parroting talking points that could be written by Hamas, that could be written by the government of the Islamic Republic, really are in my view cause for concern. This is as much a philosophical fight as it is a political fight, as it is a military fight. So I just want to stress that the bad guys increasingly, as they get together it’s not just about the economic cooperation, the military cooperation, the tech, the domestic repression, because there is this authoritarian anti-American axis of revisionist states but that they also begin to think alike even though they have different ideologies.
You have the Milita Putin regime, you have the Islamist jihadist authoritarian Islamic Republic. You have the Bolivarian Socialist Venezuela. They all look different. The CCP in China, ideologically these are very different. But in practicality, you see that the connective tissue it becomes very much the same. What shame, really what a shame that the baseline there is that baseline grotesque antisemitism.

Sarah: One other, looking at the Middle East you’re seeing that Iran has still been providing Hezbollah with weapons and finance and the Houthis certainly get a lot from Iran. How will this reshape the map of the Middle East if these protestors are successful?

Behnam: If these protestors are successful, and unfortunately that is still a big if, but we can’t rob them of hope. We have to make sure that they have not just wind beneath their wings but that major world powers behind them. Because I can guarantee you the guys at the helm today in Tehran with the guns are not the previous regime. Now, you briefly mentioned 1979 in the previous question, the late year[?] yes there were some issues in terms of domestic governance and soft authoritarianism, but that was a soft authoritarianism during the Cold War from a pivotal American ally. I think the Middle East has been incredibly tumultuous since 1979. I think we have been with immense respect incredibly unfair to his legacy given the bridges that he built. And given the fact that I think what we saw back then was Iran actually be able to play a constructive role in the region rather than a destructive role. As a feature, not a bug of these past eight years of this national uprising, the string of anti regime protests is an increasing wish for a more nationalist, a more secular future. And you’ve seen in slogans, actually even going back to 2009 the slogan [foreign language] Iran, or not Gaza, not Lebanon, my life only for Iran.

If we are able to support the street against the state and you actually get a government in Tehran that actually respects the views, values, and interests of its own people, that is akin to going to the axis of resistance. Which thanks so much again to Israel and America is basically like a patient on life support right now, that is akin to walking over to the wall and pulling the plug on the axis of resistance and the axis of terror. That’s why I always say this line, I love this line from Henry Kissinger, foreign policy is not missionary work. We don’t just do things, we don’t just keep lists of things of bad guys. Yes, it’s important to have for our values. Sometimes it’s important for our domestic politics, it’s important for our actions broadly to mirror our values. But when you have a marriage between strategy and values, that’s where you need to act and you need to act quickly. So for the purely strategic interest alone, pulling the plug on Tehran’s transnational apparatus means first supporting the street against the state. So if you actually get a flipping of the script, you would get actually the rolling back of many of those conflicts. That’s why Tehran is insistent right now under the auspices of the Islamic Republic to keep fighting on.

That’s why just post 12 Day War, they shipped a bunch of missile and drone components to the Houthis in Yemen post 12 Day War they are diversifying how they are trying to get guns and money to Hezbollah. Whether that’s an air route rather than a land route through Syria. Whether that’s a naval route, whether that’s through Houla and elicit financial networks via Turkey rather than other states. They are looking to deepen and change the footprint so they don’t get caught because again, what these guys are doing is both statecraft and soulcraft. This is strategy and ideology by the Islamic Republic, so we have to have a strategy that beats them in the region and that beats them ideologically. And standing with the secular nationalist population is the one.

Sarah: Do you think as a last act the Islamic Republic might attack the state of Israel?

Behnam: There are some who are debating that right now. There are some analysts outside of of Iran who think that to distract from things at home they’ll point a finger abroad, and that again, is a classic tried and true playbook. For example, during the mass time e protest in 2022, Iran attacked Kurdish positions with ballistic missiles two or three times from September to November of 2022. People forget that even a US citizen died in one of those ballistic missiles strikes. The Biden administration unfortunately didn’t really bat an eye. But to the heart of your question here I think it’s a little bit if I may in reverse I think the regime already lost a war abroad. I had long fear that they would come home and crack skulls and they had been cracking skulls again based on the 2000 plus people executed this year based on the fact that since the 12 day war 21,000 arrested and based on the numbers of arrested and killed in this current protest. So it’s not the domestic distraction to go abroad. They already lost something abroad and they’ve come home to try to crack skulls and now the resiliency of Iranian protests is trying to make it harder. So in essence, I think it is unlikely because they know they would be outmatched and overmatched again quite quickly by Israel and Uncle Sam.

Sarah: Who are the revolutionaries by name? Are there, I know Reza Pahlavi’s
name keeps coming up, but of course there’s not a democratic system right now. So are there future leaders of the Iranian regime by now that might take the place of the Islamic Republic?

Behnam: Let me tell you this way and this might sound like a tour de divorce going in the wrong direction. I have just been told in Iceland there is a statue of just a guy in a suit, but with a can on his head. So you don’t see the face, you just see the bottom half of the torso and you see like a can on his head. That’s supposed to represent the nameless faceless bureaucrat. There are tons of Iranian protestors that are not named, that are not faceless. Twenty of them at least reported and confirmed killed thus far in this current uprising. What those people are is exactly the R word that you said, which is revolutionaries. They are not individual political leaders. They are revolutionaries. They are leading the charge and paying the ultimate cost with their life because they were inside and because it was their country and they’re trying to take their country back. Now, how does this connect to Mr. Pahlavi, which I believe actually has by far the biggest support, not just within the diaspora but most importantly within Iran. There has been one family name that has been consistently chanted from December, 2017 to present, and it’s been his name. And guess what, in this most recent protest, it’s been so chanted so many times so all over the place, particularly calling him out, not just his father or grandfather or his the Monarchial family legacy but him in particular.

That’s because I think despite a lot of the opposition drama and diaspora politics, they see his vision as the one that contrasts the most sharply with the reality of Iran. So if you’re talking about political leaders, I do not think so long as this regime which is armed to the teeth, which unlike Reza Pahlavi’s father unlike the Crown Prince’s father, the late Shah of Iran, unlike him is not willing to get up and go as I respect the street even though I disagree with the streets. In this case you can’t have political leaders come up in that system because they’ll be met with the same faith that political leaders or so-called political leaders or attempted opposition forces have been met with in the past, which is to be jailed, to be tortured, to be killed, to be exiled, to be subject to house arrest and all of that. So I think if we’re talking about political leadership, we’re going to have to start from abroad. But if we’re talking about lay revolutionaries and people who live and breathe the fight, it’s the people at home. The art of the deal for America is to help connect the dots between these two and again, get the ball rolling to roll out the Islamic Republic.

Sarah: Amazing. I’ve read a theory that many, many of the young people are in the street idolize the period of the Shah Reza Pahlavi because they don’t know and they’re looking upon it as some sort of ideological solution. And it is a solution. It is a real solution. And there is somebody there with an outstretched arm waiting to embrace the people. But there were certain problems with the Shah that maybe his son does not have.

Behnam: I don’t mean to wash them away, but a lot of those issues could be significantly contextualized given the fact that most, not all, but most of his opposition was not democratic and was not secular. If you look at the groups that opposed him it was the communist two day party or the Mujahedin khal, the crazy amalgamation of Islamism and Marxism stuff that you see in New York now, unfortunately, or other places. I think history has been kind and will continue to get kinder to the late Shah. But let me just say this, that the sun is fitting as far as I know and can kind of tell from a distance isn’t himself calling for monarchy. I think the most urgent thing that he’s trying to do is to be a bridgehead to a system, to whatever the Iranian people want. I think that’s where Uncle Sam has an interest. It’s to what can we get to help us push past the Islamic Republic to get those lay revolutionaries, those people who continue to turn out Iran, not to have to go to the street but in a post Islamic Republic system to get those people to come to the ballot box and they can pick Republic or monarchy or whatever other form of government they desire. And fortunately, that is a view that the Crown Prince shares and holds. In that sense, I’m not worried about democratic sliding or slippage. I think that we have to want to find the best bridge to get to the best post Islamic Republic future.

Sarah: Throughout Latin America there are many, many Hezbollah cells. What is going to happen to them if the regime falls?

Behnam: Well, it depends a great deal on where those cells are. Whether you’re talking about cultural centers, mosques or even embassies and consulates that are directly funded by the government of the Islamic Republic. If that government is no longer there or if that government pulls the plug ultimately what you’re going to have to do what ultimately what you’re going to see is those networks wither away. Now, let me also say that you’re going to need good governance in those countries to make sure that whoever those populations are, and it’s not just the Lebanese or Palestinian diaspora, it’s also locals as well don’t fall prey to another kind of third world is ideology. So you need good governance in those places. But let me tell you, a lot of the problems just like in the Middle East, if you pull the plug on the state sponsorship it makes it imminently more manageable if not outright and directly solvable.

Sarah: The Farce News Agency that reach the people on the streets and throughout Iran, is there Star Links, is there a way for them to get information about what’s being said on the outside world?

Sarah: Well, as you know the Farce News Agency is, we like to joke the false news agencies, is a semi-official hard line close to the IRGC in security Services online news agency. I think the Iranian people have come up with plenty of enough jokes about both Farce News and IRIB, which is the state broadcaster translates the voice and vision. Sometimes the Iranian state, we don’t like their voice and they don’t have a vision. But nonetheless state broadcasting is not popular in Iran. Iranians are on social media, Iranians are following dissident and diaspora television stations. Particularly Iran International has been one that I would say in the media space and the digital space has been killing it. So that’s where they get a lot of their news. I would say social media and satellite television. There are plenty of satellites. The regime lost the war on satellite television in the mid two thousands it used to have to confiscate them, but now I just figured it can confiscate and sell you back the satellite. So it knows it lost that ideological war there and it kind of became a mercantilist materialist operation rather than an ideological operation. But with respect to internet that’s how we can really in a period of non-pro in between rounds of protests, that’s how we can get the pieces on the chess board ready for the next round of protests.

Had, for example, VPN funding, virtual private network funding, not been cut by the State Department in 2025, I do think that Iranians would be in a better position today to share more videos, to show more imagery, to show more audio, both with each other and with the outside world. So these are the
important things in the pre-pro period. During a protest period I think we’re going to have to talk very seriously about what does cyber support look like? How can you non kinetically or even if you wish like the president potentially kinetically target in a very specific way the regimes layered apparatus of oppression. Can you blind the besiege? Can you disable IRGC command and control? Can you give wrong coordinates to Iran’s police services? Can you help geographically and with GPS potentially change the nature of the fight between the street and the state?

Sarah: Wonderful. So Behnam Ben Taleblu I know you are in very, very popular demand right now. I hope that Ali Khamenei will meet his friend Bashar al-Assad in Moscow very shortly and that the valiant courageous protestors on the street will have their way and that there will be a counter revolution once again in our end. Thank you so much, Behnam.

Behnam: Pleasure. Thank you, Sarah. Great to be with you.

Sarah: Thank you. Bye-bye.
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