Iran: Operation Purge Intransigence

0:00 Okay, so Iran, everyone wanted me to talk about Iran, although I I felt that I have spoken fairly extensively about Iran. Uh, and I have talked about it quite a bit on on other platforms, but you know, you have the war going on. You have American bombs, Israeli bombs. The straight of Horm was closed uh or was closed, might be closed again, maybe is closed. No one's quite sure. Missiles, Iranian missiles striking US bases in nine different countries simultaneously. uh drone strikes and so forth. At least 1,200 or two 2,000 Iranians killed so far. Uh so yes, I understand. I understand. Uh it's a very hot situation. Everyone wants to know what's going on. There's a succession crisis in terms of their leadership with Kame's son uh being pushed as the new so-called supreme leader, which is interesting given that the sort of founding logic of

0:47 the Islamic Republic socalled was that you don't do dynasties. But okay, he's been placed there as the so-called supreme leader. Um, for now, um, I mean, he might he might have actually been placed there specifically so that you could end a dynasty because who knows what his fate will be. Okay. So, what have I said all along with regards to Iran and the region? I mean, since before October 7th, what have I been saying? I said that at least three things have to be dismantled. Three things have to be dismantled in the region in order for the regional transition to take place. You have to dismantle the militant groups. You have to dismantle the sectarian posture of Iran and the Zionists because these are the three pillars of the whole regional management system uh that has persisted since the uh for the last 50 years and

1:35 it was uh the operating system or the management system for the region within the context of the post World War II global order and that global order is being dismantled. So the uh pillars of the management system in the region have to be dismantled. All of these elements have been the sort of uh um organizational paradigm uh for keeping the region destabilized and all of those need to be dismantled and and as I say I think that is what's happening. I don't want to minimize what is happening. I don't want to minimize what has happened. The deaths are real. The destruction is real. The what you can call the humiliation optics are real. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that none of that matters. Of course it matters. Uh but I think that the frame through which most people are reading this I think that the frame is wrong. I think it's a misunderstanding.

2:22 Iran itself is not under existential threat. Iran as a nation a faction within the political structure of Iran is under existential threat. But that faction in reality that faction itself posed a threat to the future of Iran because Iran's future rests upon regional integration. Now the dominant frame from the western media and from uh even Muslim commentators in the west uh their framework for this whole thing is regime change. America and Israel attacked Iran to destroy the so-called Islamic Republic. Full stop. Okay. Yes and no. And look, I get it. I I I I know how it looks on the surface. I obviously I know what it looks like on the surface. Trump declared regime change as the objective of their operation on 2:30 in the morning on Truth Social because of course he did. The strikes were

3:08 massive. I think 2,000 targets hit within five days. Is dead. The nuclear program is dead. So, uh, from the outside, yes, it looks like the United States just did to Iran, uh, what they tried to do to Iraq in 2003, but this time they maybe with better targeting and without the ground troops, at least so far. But I think what what that framework misses or that understanding misses is that the officials who've been killed in Iran were not defenders of Iranian sovereignty. These were the people who were standing in the way. They were standing in the way of Iran's own government's strategic direction. You understand Iran has had a an internal power struggle going on for years at least since 2023. At least since the Saudi Iran normalization,

3:54 since Iran joined bricks and so forth, there has been a very real, very active and very serious effort uh by Iranian pragmatists, pragmatist elements within the government, within the regime to reorient the country to try to integrate Iran uh into the emerging regional architecture, vision 2030, Gulf investment, actual economic development instead of just revolutionary posturing, sectarian posturing. We're talking about a real future uh instead of Iran just being in an endless state of siege. And standing in the way of that has been the IRGC hardliners. The entire apparatus uh uh built around maintaining a certain kind of or a very specific peculiar kind of leverage. Proxies in Lebanon, proxies in Yemen, proxies in Iraq and so forth.

4:41 This gave them power and this gave them money and it gave them re uh uh relevance. But this was becoming for them for Iran increasingly a liability not a strategic asset. It became a liability. So the proxies were being wound down. Uh Hezbollah has been significantly degraded significantly more or less you can say abandoned and the whole proxy architecture was being dismantled. Uh and this was by design it was by uh uh demand. This was partly because the pragmatists were pushing for it within Iran because they understand the necessity of it, the logic of it, the the uh reasonleness of it, the the the uh strategicness of it. But see, there's a difference between and the IRGC was going along with that. But there's a difference between uh giving up your proxies and giving up your own power. The hardliners were

5:28 willing to sacrifice the proxies because they're already they're expendable anyway by nature, by definition, but they're not willing to sacrifice themselves in their position. So you had this internal standoff in Iran. You had a government that was trying to move forward towards integration and you had a security apparatus, an intelligence apparatus refusing to let go. And this has been going on for years. It's been going on for years and it was not resolving itself. Okay? And then someone decided to resolve it externally. You understand? And this was most likely what was being discussed in Geneva with Arachi and the Americans and so forth alongside of the nuclear talks and probably more than the nuclear talks. I think the strikes on Iran were more or less contracted. There's not not not in a in a conspiracy theory sort of a

6:14 sense. Not like there was some secret meeting where Arachi told the Americans or NBS or whatever told uh uh the Americans or handed Trump a list of names and said, "Kill these people. Assassinate these people. Take these people out." It doesn't work like that. It doesn't need to work like that. That's not what I'm talking about. What I'm saying is that the the strategic interests of all parties aligned. The Iranian pragmatists and the Gulf states both uh needed the hardliners the hardline uh the hardliner obstacle to be removed. And then in in Washington, you have an administration that is ideologically willing and militarily capable of removing it. And Donald Trump anyway is completely beholden to the Gulf, to the Khaled, to the GCC. Israel, well, they have their own reasons and everybody knows, everybody understands what their reasons are. And the combination of all of those things,

7:00 those aligned interests, the uh uh willing actor and the uh military capability, all of this, in my opinion, produces operation epic fury. It's operation uh intrigence purge. Purge intransigence. That's what this operation is. It's an internal coup uh being carried out by external actors. This is not regime change. Understand me, this is not regime change, not in the classic sense. This is an externally enforced conclusion to an internal coup that the pragmatists couldn't finish on their own. This is not a this is not a a regime uh toppling. It's a regime uh reshuffleling. I mean, think about it. They didn't they didn't bomb the Iranian parliament. They didn't bomb uh Peshkan's office.

7:46 They didn't go after the um the institutions of the system. They went after the command structure of the IRGC. They went after Kame who had been a a political patron of the hardline faction for decades. They hit the assembly of what do they call the assembly of experts. They hit their building allegedly while it was in session right in the middle of of a succession vote supposedly as if to say the old succession path is closed now. Something new has to happen. That's a very specific kind of targeting. You should you should take note of that. Like I say, this is not the targeting of regime change. That's a that's faction removal targeting. Like I say, is less of a regime change operation than it is a regime reshuffle operation. Now, does that make it

8:31 acceptable? Of course not. Does that make it acceptable that, you know, over a thousand, maybe 2,000 Iranians have died? Obviously not. The method is brutal. The method is criminal. The civilian cost is real and it has to be accounted for. And the the the pretext this nuclear threat narrative is obviously rubbish. We had to act before they could build a bomb. All of this this this framing is lying. The IAEA confirmed that there was no weapons grade material. The Iranian foreign minister Arai uh had literally announced 3 days before 3 days before the strikes that the that there was a deal within reach 3 days and then the the missiles started firing, the bombs started following. Okay, that's not a a security operation. That's narrative laundering and for us that's a red line. You have

9:17 to tell the truth. You have to call it what it is. This is obviously a war crime. What's being what's being done to Iran? But the question of what happened uh and the question of whether it was justified or not. These are two different questions. Two completely different questions. And let's stay focused. I want to stay focused on uh what actually happened because uh what actually happened can give you an idea of what uh potentially comes next. And here's the part that I think most of most people are misreading. In almost anything that I've seen, people are misreading. Iran's response, the attacks on the Gulf States, for example, the closure of Hormuz, for example, some 500 missiles and 2,000 drones hitting US bases across nine countries simultaneously. Okay, everyone is uh reading that as Iran in power. You

10:02 know, FAFO, Iran is demonstrating that they have teeth. The IRGC is showing the world that you can't just bomb us without consequences. Okay, that's how it looks. But I'm I I see the opposite personally. I'm I I see this as the behavior of a cornered animal because this is an existential crisis for the hardliners. So, they launched everything they had. They launched everything they had because they knew that their time is up. They knew that they're losing, not just uh militarily, but politically. That's the most important thing. The strikes decapitated their leadership uh and exposed the fragility of everything they had built for the last 50 years, 40ome years. the closure of Hormuz, the drone strikes and everything. This is an existential move by people who understand uh that their era is over. Uh and they're trying to prove otherwise. They're fighting again just

10:48 like Netanyahu, just like Netanyahu, just like the Zionists. uh they know that they they no longer have a place. their framework for power, their framework for the for the justification of their position uh no longer has a place in the um the new order that is being developed that's being built in the region and globally uh post the dismantling of the postw World War II order because their position and their uh their power structure has only made sense and their posturing and their their um uh their position in the region only made sense within the postw World War II order And uh when that order is dismantled, you have to pivot. You have to transition. You have to change. And you

11:34 and uh they're finding it very difficult to change. And they cannot change. So they know that their time is up. And they're fighting against the future. They're they're fighting to hold on to the past. They're fighting to try to pretend that it's still the '9s or the early 2000s. And Netanyahu is the same. And the Zionists are the same. They want to pretend that the world is still in 1990s. And the same thing that you're seeing happening in Iran, I predicted that you're going to see something very similar happening in Israel. I'm not talking about literally, but in terms of this struggle and in terms of this uh gradual uh removal of the hardline elements, the same thing is going to have to happen in Israel. So, they're trying to prove otherwise. They're trying to prove that they have staying power, that the IRGC is trying to prove that they have staying power. But here's

12:19 the thing. For example, with the Homus, uh, closing the Homus specifically, this move, in my opinion, reveals the fundamental weakness of the entire hardline strategic model, the hardliner strategic model. Because look, the the the closing the straight of home moves amounts to inflicting collective punishment against the whole world. Against the whole world, countries that have nothing to do with the conflict, countries that have nothing to do with it Vietnam Indonesia Philippines Brazil, on and on. It means that you are now endangering the food security, the energy security, delivery of medicines, fertilizer, and so forth uh to all of these countries. This is indiscriminate punishment of everybody. And you don't get to come back from that. There's no way to come back from that. I mean, the threat to close the straight of Hormuz

13:05 has only ever worked as a threat. Once you do it, uh well, you've permanently lost credibility. No one can ever trust you with that power ever again. Any rational mind can see that. Any rational strategic mind can understand that you're putting the hardliner factions uh power interests above the interest of 8 billion people including people who have good relations with you. You understand? Okay. So they close Hormuz and within hours who's on the phone demanding for it to be reopened? China. Not America, not Saudi Arabia, not UAE. China. Because 20% of global oil supply goes through the strait and a significant portion of that oil goes to China. And China has been the lifeline for Iran through the sanctions. China's economic

13:51 relationship with Iran is how they survived the sanctions. The whole sanction architecture as long as they did, China has been giving Iran uh a lifeline and they have been helping them to uh normalize themselves within the region and to give them uh a kind of an architecture through bricks that gives them options. And now you do this, you close the straight of Hoos and like I say, it's not only everyone always focuses on the energy. Everyone always focuses on the the uh oil shipments, but we're talking about global trade moving through there. You're talking about food, you're talking about medicine, you're talking about all sorts of equipment and supplies, construction equipment and so forth. Uh upon which the delivery of which uh entire economies rests and now you're throwing all of that under the bus for the sake of preserving your regime, preserving

14:36 your regime, not saving your country. These are two very different things. And you have to be very careful to make that distinction because like I said before, Iran is not facing an existential crisis. The hardline faction in Iran is facing an existential crisis. And these two things cannot be equated. They're not synonymous with one another. So, China calls Iran and uh uh Saudi Arabia and the UAE, I think, or at least Saudi Arabia asked China to send uh an envoy to the region and they're going to do it. Beijing called Tyrron and said, "This needs to stop. We need shipping guarantees." Do you understand what that means? Do you understand what that reveals about the IRGC? What it means about the hardliners? It means that your single most powerful strategic lever,

15:23 the ability to hold the global energy market and global trade hostage through Hormuz, you couldn't actually use that against your adversary, the adversary that you were supposed to deter by doing that because it hurts China more than it hurts Washington. at least in the short term. And subhan Allah, China immediately asserted their uh interest in having that reopen. So the hardliners, in other words, the hardliner's greatest weapon ended up being hostage to someone else's interest. That's not sovereignty. That's the illusion of sovereignty. That's what happens when you build your whole leverage architecture around assets that you do not actually control. And as for the Gulf States, okay, they were getting uh uh missiles shot at them from Iran at the US bases. They were trying to intercept those missiles, using up the

16:09 supplies that they have of their air defense systems uh that were supplied by uh the United States. Using all of that up. So now they're asking for replenishment uh from China and from Russia. They're going to diversify their their um procurement. They absorbed the Iranian missile attacks. They took the hits on their territory. And I would argue uh and this is part that this is a part that requires you to think long term because the Gulf states are thinking very long term in my opinion. They predicted this. They knew that once the strikes by the American strikes on Iran began, the IRGC would lash out at everyone within range. They knew that. Of course they knew that and they tolerated it because attacks on Gulf soil against US bases in Gulf countries.

16:55 Uh now that gives them a justification for something that the Gulf States have actually wanted for quite some time. What they've wanted for quite some time, a managed, dignified reduction uh of American military presence in the region. That gives both sides actually a justification. The US bases are a problem. They're a problem for the Gulf States in more ways than one. It's not necessarily because they dislike America. I mean, they have obviously they have extensive economic relationships with America. They generally don't like to have any sort of hostility uh in their foreign policies. They try to get along with everybody. But a large permanent American military presence in your region in the Gulf is a political liability because it signals dependence. It signals that the Gulf cannot defend themselves, that they can't defend themselves. It signals subordination.

17:42 And with the BRICS architecture being built uh with China as a genuine economic partner and security partner and intelligence partner with Russia as a security uh uh uh partner as well, the Gulf States have been uh trying to renegotiate their relationship with the United States for a long time with regards to those military bases and that military presence and now the IRGC has just handed them the justification that they need. We were attacked by Iran while American forces were here and they didn't stop the attacks. So maybe we need a different security architecture. That's all we're saying. That argument is now publicly available in a way that it never was before. I tweeted something about it several days ago. I tweeted something just like this several days ago and this has now become

18:29 the official position being artic uh articulated by diplomats in the Gulf. Now, I said in my in my last video on Iran uh before the war started that one of the factors that would likely determine what happens next would be the extent to which all of the actors involved saw uh war with Iran as an opportunity for Iran to attack Israel. The degradation of Israeli unilateral military dominance. You understand? So, look what's actually happening uh to Israel with regards to this conflict. They launched a massive air campaign. They uh ostensively achieved their objectives on the Iranian side. Nuclear program is gone. The IRGC command structure has been largely decapitated. Kamei is dead and so forth. So

19:15 tactically, this looks like uh an Israeli military success. But strategically, what has really been happening? What's the cost, shall we say? Israel has just spent an enormous amount of military capacity, uh, political capital and economic resources on a campaign that the entire global majority, China, Russia, Bricks, the global south, even European public opinion views as illegitimate and that illegitimacy has economic consequences. Not to mention the fact that a narrative is developing uh among right-wingers in America and even among leftwingers and on both sides and among the Arab populations in the

20:02 Gulf on an official level. A narrative is developing of Netanyahu pulled America into this war that that Israel is actually responsible. Netanyahu is responsible. Israel is responsible for what's going on now. Israel is responsible for the attacks uh on the uh uh Arab states by Iran. Uh Israel is responsible for the uh deaths of American soldiers. Uh Israel is responsible for uh bringing the region into a a regionwide conflict and America has been pulled into this. Israel is responsible. This is a a narrative that is developing that is also predictable. It's predictable. should have been predictable that this would have been u that this narrative

20:48 would have been developed that this narrative would have been put forward. It was already being prepared before the war started and this is something that I've talked about for a long time. America itself is uh preparing the groundwork for their own pivot away from Israel. And again, this is something that I've talked about literally now for years. So, Israel is very happy about what they've done uh because they don't have any sort of a long-term vision. They don't have any understanding. Look, the Israeli economy uh was already under very serious stress as a result of the genocide. Now, this what they're doing now just extends that. The investment uh uh investment risk profile of Israel is off the charts. Export is down by 25%. Tens of thousands of Israelis have fled. Tourism is at zero. It has cost the the Israelis

21:34 at least 3 to4 billion every week of this conflict. at least10 billion dollars in infrastructure damage alone by the Iranian strikes. They stopped exporting uh natural gas. The whole uh so-called normalization track, the Abraham Accords expansion idea and so forth. The Saudi Israel normalization plan and so forth that was supposedly supposedly was close to happening in October 2023. Well, that's not happening now, at least not on the old terms. Not after this. Israel's position is drastically degraded uh militarily, economically, and politically. And here's what vision 2030 actually requires. They require Israel to be integrated into the regional economy on terms that are set by the Gulf States. Not on terms set by Washington, not on terms that are set by

22:20 the Israeli uh security establishment and so forth. No, on the terms of the Gulf as a participant in a regional economic order subordinate, not as a military hgeimon uh that that that everyone else has to accommodate. No. And for that to happen, Israel's unilateral military capability has to be constrained. It has to be reduced to the point that Israel has to calculate the economic uh consequences of any action that they take. And this conflict is helping to do that. So now you have basically two spoilers, regional spoilers, spoiler actors that are being processed simultaneously. the Iranian hardliners uh that have blocked regional integration from one direction and the Israeli military hijgemony which blocked it from another direction. Both of them are being compressed towards the same

23:07 outcome. the same outcome which is a regional order uh where neither can dictate the terms not Israel not Iran but where the Gulf states operating through the emerging multipolar architecture with China with Russia bricks and so forth as the counterweights are actually managing the region collective sovereignty what I keep talking about okay understand this is what I'm telling you now this is a I'm I'm giving you a directional reading the guarantee isn't there's no guaranteed outcome um anything could go wrong, but this is the trajectory and it has been the trajectory for quite some time. It has been a plan for quite some time. It's not accidental or coincidental. Now, I'm not saying that what happened is something good. I'm not saying that the deaths are acceptable, that the

23:52 destruction is acceptable. I'm not saying that America and Israel had a right to do what they've done. Obviously, the pretext was a lie. The IAEA data is there. The diplomatic track was active and the bombs fell anyway. The attack came anyway. This is a war crime. No matter how you look at it, what the Americans have done, what the Israelis have done is a war crime, no matter how you look at it. None of the civilians in Iran who have died deserve to die. It's absolutely a war crime. And everyone from the uh Trump administration and everyone obviously from the Israeli administration should be uh on trial at the Hague. I mean, the Israelis already should have been on trial at the Hague. They should have already been arrested. So, I'm not saying that we have to be grateful to America and Israel for what they've done. That's not the argument. The argument is about trying to understand

24:38 the trajectory that all of this is taking us. And and the fact that the trajectory that we were on before is the same trajectory that we're on now. This has not disrupted that trajectory. In fact, it has uh accelerated the movement of the region down uh uh in the direction of that trajectory. We've moved on down the road uh in a positive direction. That's what I'm saying. And I'm telling you that the officials in Iran who died were not martyrs for Muslim sovereignty. No, the fact is that they were obstacles to Muslim sovereignty. And the trajectory of what comes after their removal, if we read it correctly and if we act correctly, is better than the trajectory that we were on before that happened. I know that's a hard thing to say. It's a hard thing to listen to. It's uncomfortable. But I think it's true. And I think that

25:25 pretending otherwise, you know, just reading this as purely a catastrophe, as as purely a defeat, as proof that the West can do whatever they want to Muslim countries, I think that that reading produces the wrong action, a wrong understanding. It produces demoralization. It produces the kind of paralysis that serves nobody except for the people who want us to be paralyzed. And crucially, and I've said this many, many times, that sort of a reading relies upon a very obsolete paradigm. Iran is not Iraq and 2026 is not 2003. And look, the Muslim world's power base is not Iran. It never was Iran. Iran was a strategic partner in certain context, but the so-called axis of resistance served imperialist functions. And if you don't understand that, if you don't understand that the

26:12 so-called axis of resistance was an axis of assistance, if you don't grasp that, then you simply do not understand the region whatsoever. Nor do you understand how Western imperialism works. Hezbollah was never about Palestine. Never. It was about controlling Lebanon. Bashar al-Assad was never about Palestine. It was domination of Syria. Israel knew that Syria was not a threat until Bashar al-Assad was gone. And Iran was never about Palestine. No, it was not. Their posture fueled Zionist ration for decades. No, the real power base of the Muslim world is in the Gulf. That's just an objective reading. You can like it or dislike it, but it is the way it is. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, these are the states that are building

26:58 the new architecture. These are the states that have the capital, that have the sovereign wealth funds, that have the energy leverage, uh that have the institutional relationship with China, uh with Russia, with the emerging multipolar institutions, with bricks and so forth. These are the states that are actually building uh vision 2030 not as an American client project but as a genuine regional sovereign project. I mean, if you run the numbers on the the the the emerging regional order of you you take the Gulf States, you take Gulf States, Egypt plus uh China, Russia, Turkey, uh China and Russia sort of as a composite actor. Their functional power rivals the United States and Israel coalition. That's not rhetoric. That's that's what the analysis actually

27:44 produces when you score it properly. When you actually look at it objectively, the Muslim world is not weak. Not at all. You've just been looking in the wrong place. and and using the wrong definition of what strength is. If you think that, see, you've been listening to narratives. You've been listening to Western pundits who tell you that the only Muslims that you're supposed to recognize and the only Muslims you're supposed to identify with are the poor and the oppressed and the ones who have guns and bombs and balaclavas and whatnot. So-called, you know, these these idealized rebels, the the resistance fighters and so forth. You're not you're not supposed to like you're supposed to malign uh prosperous Muslims. You're supposed to malign stable Muslim countries, responsible Muslim states. You're supposed to despise uh actual exercise of Muslim

28:32 sovereignty. And you do. And it's incredibly foolish. The IRGC's economic empire was enormous. You understand? Tens of billions of dollars flowing through IRGC controlled companies. It's a business. The sanctions regime that was primarily the justification for the hardliner uh posture was also the primary mechanism keeping Iran dependent on IRGC economic structures. It was circular. It was self-s serving and it was preventing the Iranian people from being able to participate in what the rest of the region was building. You understand? Okay. The Gulf States are not perfect. When I point out, look, when I point out the objective reality that these countries, the Gulf States, are incredibly savvy politically and

29:18 incredibly savvy political and economic players, people reflexively think and accuse me of making propaganda on their behalf. This is your own bias. This is your own bias. Objectivity looks like bias when you are biased. Now, I know more about unfairness and the injustice in the Gulf than most of these people, than almost any of these people. But I'm making an honest assessment, an objective assessment. They are building something very impressive. Now, I still have my own concerns, my own personal concerns about how this is going to develop specifically, and this is for me, this is a non-negotiable for me, uh any post-war regional architecture that does not include a very concrete accountability mechanism for Gaza that normalizes the situation without forcing a genuine reckoning for

30:06 what happened there. For me personally, this is a red line. We don't move past that. We don't move past that. We don't integrate with Israel or integrate Israel into a regional economic order and leave Gaza's status as an open wound that everyone politely chooses not to discuss. That's not acceptable. That's not acceptable at all. And also, you cannot make agreements with Israel that will be asymmetrical in their favor. you can't let them become embedded in your intelligence, in your security apparatus, and in your tech, your development, your tech development and so forth, your companies, your AI companies and whatnot. So, these are real concerns that I have uh about what's being built moving forward. But, but having these concerns does not mean

30:51 refusing to see what is actually being built. You understand me? And what's being built uh imperfect as it may be is still more promising than what was in place before. Okay? Okay. So practically what does all this mean for us? So first I would say that the the ramifications of everything that I'm saying you need a counternarrative and the best counternarrative that we have uh is the single fact that on February 25th 3 days before the bombs started falling the Iranian foreign minister announced that a nuclear deal was within reach 3 days. 3 days before and then the strikes began. And as I say the IAEA had already confirmed that there is no weapons grade material in Iran. So again, the entire pretext the entire pretext that that that America had to act because Iran was just about

31:37 to build a nuclear weapon is exposed as completely false by the timeline of events. So you need to put that um you need to put that fact in front of as many people as possible and don't let it disappear. That's the primary counternarrative task that you have. That and the fact that the uh that the American military presence in the Gulf only endangered the Gulf States and they have to go. Uh second, I would say that we need to introduce the the reality that the hardliner pragmatist distinction exists. You need to talk about that in every conversation about Iran because Iran isn't isn't a monolith. And if you use this sort of monolithic language where where you're actually talking about a a particular faction and pretending like it represents the entire nation, okay, you're collapsing a very complex

32:22 internal political struggle into a very simple uh uh single enemy language and it prevents anyone from understanding it prevents people from understanding the actual dynamics that are at play. uh which then means that it prevents people from acting on those dynamics productively uh and from telling the truth because the truth of the matter is the hardliners are not Iran and Iran is not the hardliners. And then the third thing like I say is Gaza. I already said it but it is it needs to be said in every context. any post-war normalization framework uh any regional integration architecture any Gulf Israel economic relationship which will soon become an Iran Issrael relationship it has to include Gaza accountability not as a symbolic gesture but as a structural mechanism we need to be

33:08 inserting that condition into every conversation about what comes next every conversation about what comes next before the architecture is set before uh so-called normalization deals get written. And then I would say also longer term work, we need to start trying to build uh the relationships that position us to engage with the Iranian pragmatist network that is now going to be running the country, the Peskan, the Araki circle and so forth. the BRICS integration architects, these people uh these are the ones who are going to be making the decisions about Iran's role in the regional order for the next decade. So, we should know them. And next, I think that we need to pay attention to the Israeli factor

33:56 uh specifically to the economic distress signals. Israel's military is being their military dominance is being degraded. that creates an opening, alhamdulillah, for regional integration negotiations on different terms, uh, different terms than were previously possible. That window won't stay open forever. So, we need to be thinking about how to use that window. Look, I know that that that everything that I'm saying is going to be again unpopular. There's no way that I can say anything about Iran and have it not be unpopular with some faction. And I know it would be more emotionally satisfying to just read this as a straightforward attack on the Muslim world and that you honor the valiant victims and so forth. Uh and to reassert that America can do whatever they want, the West can do whatever they want. And we just add this to another,

34:41 you know, uh uh the long list of humiliations that we're supposed to try to resist. And there are some elements of that that are true. Obviously, the civilian deaths are a catastrophe. The pretext was a lie. The unilateral use of military force without any legal authority, without any international legitimacy is an outrage and that should be named as such. Uh but the full picture is more complex and the full picture in my opinion is actually more hopeful. Uh that's not to minimize any of the suffering. Uh but the direction the direction of events if read correctly and if acted upon correctly is towards the regional architecture that we've been trying to build for years that the Muslims have been trying to build for years that the Gulf has been trying to build for years. The hardliner obstacle is gone or going.

35:28 The Israeli uh uh military is being degraded. Their e economy is suffering. The US is going to be uh facing uh uh an unsustainable their presence in the Gulf region is going to be unsustainable. The Gulf states are pivoting towards a genuine multipolarity. China and Russia are now embedded in the region as uh stakeholders that they have a stake and that means that they have a say. China is going to have a say. Uh so I'm not saying that this is a victory necessarily, but this is a transition and transitions cost something. The question is whether the cost that is being paid is buying something real. It's buying something real. And I think it is. The Muslim world strength is not in proxies and

36:14 missiles and in the posture of permanent siege. The Muslim world's power is in capital. It's in energy. It's in geography. It's in demography. It's in the institutional architecture uh architecture that's being built through bricks and the Gulf development projects and the realignment of the global south, the organization of the global south. That's the power. That's where our power lies and that's where we're going. And I think that what we have seen in the last several days is a step in that direction. As difficult as it may be, as hard as it may be, uh as upsetting as it may be, ultimately the region is moving in the right direction. And no one is actually being helped more by this, more by what's happening. No one is being helped uh by this more than the pragmatist factions in Iran. Like I said, it's not a regime

37:01 change, it's a regime reshuffle. And the the power is going to be handed over to people uh who are interested in integration, regional integration, and actually bringing inshallah uh prosperity and stability to Iran.