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So it turns out that the speaker, the parliamentary speaker, is the one speaking with Pakistan and Egypt and Turkey emissaries, the foreign minister in Turkey taking the lead in order to talk to the US, Israel, mostly the US, about ending the violence. And by between the two countries. But judging by the rhetoric, I don't think we're close unless they said to us, okay. No more ballistic missiles. We're not going to make 'em.
We'll let you take down. The manufacturing. All right. And then we're going to let you go get the uranium. Out of those two sites, 450 kilograms.
We'll bring in the heavy equipment. We'll watch you do it, or you can watch us do it. And then don't touch the straight. Internationalize it right away. Unless those things are done and still I have trouble taking them at their word.
I don't know if you stopped this. Because you have to, you're never going to get Israel and the U.S. at this time without an election, with the right president. to take this action of our perennial enemy. Khusro Isfahani joins us now, Research Director for the National Union for Democracy in Iran.
Kosro, thanks so much for joining us. Hi, thanks for having me. More people rise up in the streets, especially this weekend when you were celebrating Persian New Year. There are two sides to that story. One, President Trump, Prime Minister Netanyahu, and the leader of the opposition, Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, has repeatedly called on the people to remain in their homes safe while the bombs are falling around.
That message has been repeated multiple times by President Trump. And Iranians are good at listening to the leader of the free world. Maybe some people elsewhere don't listen to him. We do. That's one.
Two, you mentioned Nowruz. Last week we also celebrated Char Shambesuri, the Persian Fire Festival. After a call from Reza Pahlavi, people celebrated this festival in their neighborhoods, chanting, shouting against the Islamic Republic, despite threats from the regime that if they do, they will be killed. And they did that because we have absolute trust in the help that has arrived, the help that the United States President promised us has arrived. When the regime dispatched militias to kill the people, they were hit by drone strikes from Israel.
They never got to these neighborhoods to kill and name and torture and rape my people.
So people are back on the streets.
So is uh the internet up? On and off, there is limited access. The nationwide Internet shutdown is still in place. But by paying hefty sums of money, people can get special VPNs that help them get around the blockade. There are also a ton of satellite Internet devices smuggled into the country by dissidents that are being used for operational activity rather than normal communication.
How much of the Basra do you the are you in contact with people in Iran?
Sounds like you are. Yeah.
So Is the plainclothes police, the Basra, how close are they? I mean, how many are there? Are they still out in the streets showing enforcement?
So two parts about the Basij militia. When the war was starting, they started setting up checkpoints across the country, intimidating people, shooting at them, issuing threats, and then Israel started mowing the lawn with targeted drone strikes. At least 300 Basij militia members have been taken out already, at least. Many more have been injured, and many, many more are not showing up to their posts because they are scared of these drone strikes.
Some of them move the checkpoints under the bridges, but the beauty of a drone is that it can fly under a bridge as well.
So those checkpoints were also taken out.
So a lot of them are scared. And even when they show up, they cannot access food and water because the regime has no means to deliver these basic services to its killing machine.
So they are sleeping hungry on the street. Wow, so that's good news. How big is that force? He said 300 have gone. Is there like a hundred?
Tens of thousands of them? Yes, there are tens of thousands of them, but the thing is, all of them were in this game not because of ideology, but for an easy paycheck. When you face this increasing, rising, terrifying cost, a paycheck is not that valuable. And they know that. And many of them have stopped showing up because the paycheck is not even arriving.
The banking system is collapsing. The regime doesn't have money to pay these TOGs. And they have family. Their family doesn't want them dead. At least I hope so.
A side effect of this fear, these strikes, is that actively they are defecting, not just from the bottom of the Food chain, these besieged militiamen, but also from the top, military and security personnel are defecting. The United States has documented it. Secretary of War Hexet has talked about it. The diaspora has been pushing for it for years. It's happening.
Oh, uh which part of it you would like to know. What is your heritage and where where were your parents born?
So my parents both were born and raised in Tehran, same as me. They were both activists. After the revolution, my dad was jailed for four years for involvement in campaigns against the Islamic Republic. He randomly survived mass executions because he got out of jail because his prison sentence was up six months before the regime killed tens of thousands of political prisoners and dumped their bodies in mass graves. I grew up with stories of these brave young men and women who tried to make Iran into a better place and they were killed in cold blood without even having a court hearing.
I grew up with those stories. And my parents trained me, trained me to fight this fight from an early age, from teaching me urban warfare to how to navigate urban spaces in face of security. Forces and surveillance. I got involved more and more with politics. The first rally I went to, I was nine.
My dad thought it's a good idea to take his son to a protest despite seeing all the atrocities that this regime commits. But properly, I got involved with politics in Iran in 2009 when I was 19 years old. And the green movement was happening in Iran in response to a fraudulent election. And after that, it has been just escalation after escalation. I have put my hand in too many cookie jars that the Islamic Republic didn't like, from documenting the Quds force activities to its missile program, to atrocities it has committed against people in my homeland and elsewhere.
I made my way into secretive missile bases without the right credentials, with someone else's ID card. I have done interesting things in Iran until 2021 when I had to. to leave the country because The heat was rising, and the last interrogation I was called in was with a deputy minister, not a random interrogator.
So I left the country. and kept going at the regime. And you're young you look like a young guy.
So you took tremendous risk in country.
So would you say you're in touch with how many people in Iran? Uh uh as much as possible. Would you say fifty people? Would you say twenty? Way more than that.
More than that. The issue is I have a public profile with clear political stances aligned with the United States and Israel. I'm an outspoken person that supports President Trump and this military operation for taking out the Islamic Republic. What I do is I have an active network in the United States, in Europe, of collectives of activists who have a mesh in country and are pulling information constantly out for me. It's not a single man job.
When you are the research director at an Iranian-American institution like NUFTI, you build a structure that can be resilient even when you face an Internet shutdown, even when you lose a single person, a single source.
So when you so I know President Trump said wait, you know, be ready when it's time, but I feel without guns, you're always going to be outgunned. Is there a is there a mission to arm? People that want freedom to be able to fight for it in a fair way. Right now it's you got your body, your will, your determination, and they got the guns. Yeah.
There is two parts to my answer to your question.
Some parts I cannot delve deep into because of operational security. But first part. We are watching one of the most advanced technologically equipped revolutions in humans' history. The type of technologies that have been deployed in Iran, hopefully someday after this revolution succeeds, I can sit down with you and actually give you the details. The technologies that we have deployed, our allies have deployed in Iran, are not just drones, are way more sophisticated and are mind-boggling for the Islamic Republic.
They don't know even these technologies exist. They don't know. And that's the beauty of it. Two, Help is being delivered from the sky consistently. The arms of oppression of this regime has been dismantled to great extent.
Its leadership has been weakened. It is acting on muscle memory instead of acting using a brain right now. With leadership removed, this is muscle memory of the Islamic Republic behaving. No strategy, no tactic, just repeating the past patterns. With the strikes from the sky, with the willingness of the people in Iran who have been trained, who have received training in advance and are prepared to take to the streets, big things are going to happen in that country.
When the January uprising happened, when millions of people took to the streets with a clear chant repeating the name of Crown Prince Reza Paulavi, One thing that happened in Iran was the Lion and Sun flag in hundreds were displayed on the streets. Those flags don't grow on trees. I have videos from a year ago of women sewing those flags in their homes. Is that the shog flag? Is that the shog flag?
Yes, that's the easiest part. Many more things like that have been happening over the past year. Iranians are ready. We are the boots on the ground. And many of us in diaspora are also ready to be dispatched to the front line for the final battle for dismantling the Islamic Republic and reclaiming our homes.
So we know about the jacking up of the prices. By the way, they're getting reports now that people are paying extortion, two mil countries, $2 million in order to pass through the Strait of Hermuz. And it looks like many ships are beginning to pass through, up to $2 million. I'm glad they're passing through, but to pay extortion helps the regime. But just to know what the President's up against, he's worried about the economic headwinds.
And also Democrats with this attitude, cut five, RoConna. This has been the biggest blunder in American foreign policy in the 21st century, and that's saying something. What have we achieved? Iran still has enriched uranium that's buried underneath. They've replaced Khamenei with Khamenei Jr.
By the way, Khamenei, the older one, had a fuckwa saying, I don't want to build nuclear weapons. The younger son doesn't have that fatwa. We have gas shooting up to almost $7 where I am in California, but across the country, 30% up. They didn't plan that Iran would shoot ships in the Strait of Hormuz. Like who who is planning this?
So they have created utter chaos, and the American people see that. What is your thought about that? Congressman from California. Two parts. One, Rokana is absolutely arrogant, ill-informed, and out of his depth.
He talks about the fatwa that the supreme leader has issued. I have studied Khamenei for over a decade. I have documented everything that that man has done. That fatwa doesn't exist. That was a lie.
I have written extensively about it. You can check up the article on Atlantic Council, the fatwa that didn't exist. It didn't exist. How many times these Democrats are going to repeat a single lie to sell a horrible deal that President Obama side with this genocidal terrorist state? That's point one.
Two, it takes a lot of gall for people like RoConna to criticize President Trump when they backed an auto pen. Get over yourself. President Trump has put where United States should have always been. He is defending the United States' national interests and has this stomach to weather the storms that are coming his way. Yes, the Islamic Republic is a threat, but it has always been a threat.
And there is one way to deal with this threat. Absolute annihilation or total surrender. Anything in between will be another absolute Obama move, another Biden mistake, and it will lead to more American lives lost, more American benefits lost, and many more disasters. I hope people understand you. You've done your work.
is the story on the ground which we don't get enough of. Khosrow Isfahani, thanks so much. Research Director for the National Union for Democracy in Iran. I hope to talk to you from Tehran one day, a peaceful Tehran that's a friend to the country. Thanks so much.
This is Ainsley Earhart. Thank you for joining me for the 52-episode podcast series, The Life of Jesus. A listening experience that will provide hope, comfort, and understanding of the greatest story ever told. Listen and follow now at FoxNewsPodcasts.com or wherever you listen to podcasts.
