America's Gamble: Regime Change, Retreat, or State Collapse in Iran | Hamidreza Azizi

0:00Demetri Kofinas:What's up, everybody? My name is Demetri Kofinas, and you're listening to Hidden Forces, a podcast that inspires investors, entrepreneurs, and everyday citizens to challenge consensus narratives and learn how to think critically about the systems of power shaping our world. My guest in this episode of Hidden Forces is Hamidreza Azizi, an Iranian scholar based in Europe with a PhD in religious studies from the University of Tehran, who has lectured at several Iranian universities and serves as a visiting fellow at the German Institute for International Security Affairs and as a non-resident fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs in Doha.

0:38Demetri Kofinas:He's also the author of a forthcoming book titled The Axis of Resistance, Iran, Israel, and the Struggle for the Middle East. This is the third episode in an ongoing series of conversations I've been hosting to track the US and Israeli military campaign against Iran as it unfolds in real time. In this conversation, Hamid Reza and I discuss how the war has evolved over the first three weeks, examining the competing objectives driving US and Israeli strategy, where those objectives may be incompatible, and what the continued assassinations of large swaths of the Iranian leadership structure, including the most recent killing of Ali El-Arijani, the Secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, means for the Islamic Republic's ability to manage both the military and political dimensions of the conflict.

1:26Demetri Kofinas:We also discussed the nuclear question, specifically whether the war has now made a nuclear-armed Iran more likely rather than less, the divergent positions of the Gulf states, and what Hamidreza sees as the key variables to watch if you want to understand where this conflict goes from here. If you want access to the transcripts and intelligence reports for this and other episodes, which includes summary sections with key takeaways, you can access those by subscribing to our super nerd tier at hiddenforces.io slash subscribe, where you can also join in on the conversation by becoming a member of the Hidden Forces Genius Community, which includes Q &A calls with guests, discounted access to third-party research and analysis, and in-person events like our intimate dinners and weekend retreats.

2:12Demetri Kofinas:And if you still have questions, feel free to send an email to info at hiddenforces.io, and I or someone from our team will get right back to you. And with that, please enjoy this extremely timely and highly informative conversation about the unfolding war in the greater Middle East with my guest, Hamidreza Azizi.

2:36Demetri Kofinas:Hamidreza Azizi, welcome to Hidden Forces. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. The pleasure is all mine. I mentioned this to the audience last week in our episodes with Bruno Massaich and Joshua Landis, that I'm doing something very unusual these days, which is I'm hosting these one hour long conversations or shorter that are meant essentially to update myself and keep the audience updated as this conflict between the US, Israel and Iran keeps rolling along. And so this is the third in those series of ongoing conversations. You've actually never been on the podcast before, so this is different in that sense.

3:15Demetri Kofinas:So why don't we begin first just with a basic sense of your background. Tell us who you are, what your background is, and what your expertise is as it relates to Iran and the Middle East. Well, I'm Iranian myself, living in Germany, working with the German Institute for International on Security Affairs, or SWP, as the German acronym goes. As a visiting fellow, I also work with Klingendal Institute in the Netherlands, and also as a non-resident fellow with the Middle East Council on Global Affairs, which is based in Doha. So my work focuses primarily on Iran's regional policy, but also Iran's foreign and security decision-making.

3:59I have a book coming out in May on the axis of resistance, the network of Iran's non-state allies and partners. So it is called The Axis of Resistance, Iran-Israel and the Struggle for the Middle East, which was the project I've been working on in the past four years, actually. But before moving to Germany in 2019, I was assistant professor at Shahid Beheshti University or the Iranian National University in Tehran. I did my PhD there in Eurasian studies. Back then, my work was primarily on Iran-Russia, Iran-China, and Iran-Central Asia relations. I have a book in Persian on China and Central Asia, which was based on my PhD dissertation.

4:44So this is the sort of a complex way, if I want to say about my background, actually.

4:51Demetri Kofinas:So we're recording this on Tuesday, March 17th. the episode will come out either the day after or two days after. The conflict will have, by that point, been going on for almost three weeks. What is important for us to understand about how it's evolved in the last two and a half weeks? Well, of course, as you know, there have been a lot of developments and a lot of dimensions, also a lot of surprises in this war. I think the single most important factor to analyze this war from my point of view is that it probably has not gone the way that especially President Trump expected and planned in the beginning, because all indications like the type of military reinforcement that the United States brought to the region on one hand, so the facts on the ground, also on the other hand, the statements by U.S.

5:45officials, especially President Trump himself, suggested that it was supposed to be a short-term, very limited campaign, maybe aimed at a decapitation to, you know, initiate either some sort of a Venezuela-style regime transformation in Iran, and to bring to power some factions or people from within the system that would be more accommodative of the U.S. demands and be willing and often to give some concessions on different issues, especially the nuclear, which has been the main focus of the United States, or to incentivize people to pour to the streets and bring the regime down, especially because this war is happening two months after the mass protest, public protest in Iran, which resulted in the killing of thousands of people by the regime's security forces.

6:40So there was this expectation that even if the kind of short decapitation leading to regime transformation scenario doesn't happen, there is the potential of regime weakening, incentivizing people to come to the streets. But as we are in the third week of the war, none of these have happened, as some people, myself included, had expected. And it has to do with a lot of dynamics that we can delve into further. But I think it has already become some sort of a war of attrition, which was, to my view, something that the Iranian special military planners, or better to say strategic planners, wanted and had planned for after the 12-day war last June that they had.

7:26So what I hear, what I see coming out from Iran, from official statements and also between the lines, as well as expert commentary and so on, is that Iran had prepared itself for a longer war. I hear things like at least two to three months. And if we look at the pattern of evolution of the operational strategy of Iran in this war, it also somehow confirms that. Because they started by targeting U.S. interests and assets in the region. They went for energy infrastructure in the region. Then they started disrupting the Strait of Hormuz. And now they are already talking about the potential next phase, which can involve the Houthis joining in, disrupting the Bab al-Mandab Strait and the Red Sea as well.

8:13So that's the way we can explain what has happened so far in these past 17, 18 days.

8:20Demetri Kofinas:So the US has given many different, the White House has given many different reasons for this war. As you mentioned, one of those was Iran's nuclear program. Another was regime change. Yet another was to protect Israel, which derives from impromptu comments made by the Secretary of State a few days into the conflict that he immediately walked back. What is your sense of what the actual reasons are that explain the decision by the US to escalate its war with Iran so dramatically? Well, honestly, I really don't think that there was any clear objective. There were a set of optimum options that were discussed, as you mentioned, but none of them constituted something that would be considered as a strategic goal from this campaign.

9:08There were some hopes, it seems, that, as I said, either a regime change or a regime transformation would lead to, I think, less influence on China, and on that matter, also Russia in Iran. So China being the single most important issue for President Trump, connecting each and every foreign policy move to that, even what happened in Venezuela, in terms of kind of how to say a shrinking Chinese-seferial influence. So that logic applied to some extent to Iran as well. But that was very vague and kind of ill-informed in terms of the actual dynamics in Iran, because the Islamic Republic, although relied on China significantly, and China actually in the past several years has become the economic lifeline of the Islamic Republic system, but it was never as an ally, for example, for China.

10:04So that's one thing to keep in mind. The argument that I really don't believe this was the U.S. war. This was very much Israel's war. And Israel had and still has clear plans, not only for Iran, but for the broader Middle East, in which Iran is only one piece, maybe the biggest and most important piece, but one piece of a puzzle of the Israeli attempt to reshape the regional order after the October 7th Hamas attack and the war that came in the aftermath. So for the Israeli leaders, as much as a catastrophe and the human disaster the October 7th was, which I think everybody admits it was a human catastrophe, but it provided a strategic opportunity for Israel to go step by step.

10:56First, to weaken what they saw as the regional arms of the Islamic Republic, Hezbollah, Hamas, I don't know, also to some extent in a different way, Iraqi militias and so on. And then to hit the, as they call it, the head of the snake, which is the Islamic Republic itself. And it happened in the June War. So the June War, to some extent, I think, dealt with the most immediate threat that Israel felt from the Islamic Republic, which was its nuclear program. So it was deactivated effectively afterwards, but it didn't end the threats from the Islamic Republic in the sense that Israel wanted, especially given the missile program and also the continuation of its regional influence.

11:39So they wanted to get rid of this. And this brings me to the point that this war was very much based on an opportunity assessment, not a threat assessment by Israel, which was also somehow relayed to President Trump and the Trump administration, which led to this campaign in the sense that, okay, the Islamic Republic is in its weakest state in decades since its establishment. external pressure, domestic pressure. So now is the time to get the job done. So that was how I think Israel managed to bring Trump on board. But they do have different objectives, I think. As much as President Trump wants to end this war, maybe in a kind of in a manner that wouldn't disrupt global economy.

12:27And also more importantly, of course, for him, the US economy, Israel is ready to go as far as it takes in order to initiate either some regime change or maybe better for Israel, a state collapse. A chaos, prolonged chaos that would guarantee that Iran is in the foreseeable future, maybe for decades, is not going to be able to pose any threat to Israel. Okay.

12:51Demetri Kofinas:This is great. Let's dig in here. So do you think that Israel communicated what the range of objectives that it would be satisfied with honestly to the White House? In other words, the possibility that Iran could turn into Syria post-2012 is something that the White House would be okay with? Or was this war sold, do you think, in a way that was more amenable to what you would consider to be valid US strategic objectives in the Middle East? Well, I don't know. And I think there's no way to know that. But we can, of course, have some informed guesses, right? And my informed guess would be that maybe the objective of a state collapse or chaos was not something that was presented as an option to, as a possibility, better to say to President Trump, because that is certainly not something that President Trump wants.

13:46Because if we assume that what President Trump wants in a kind of bigger picture and in the broader perspective is a stable Iran allied with the United States out of Chinese orbit that can help the United States in a longer term to contain the growing influence of China, That is not something that would be achievable with a fragmented Iran and the way that may satisfy Israel. This is one thing. Second, just yesterday, I saw the comments by President Trump himself basically saying that nobody would expect Iran to target its Gulf neighbors. So in a way, as if he's rather surprised by the turn of events, which really surprises me because many experts, myself included, of course, I'm based in Europe.

14:38I don't expect my work to impact as much the U.S. policymaking, but there were a lot of people very well-informed, very well-positioned to comment on these issues who had warned us because the moment is seen by the Islamic Republic as existential and the threat is felt beyond whatever they have felt over these past decades. they may really go to the extreme, which would include closing the straits as they did, targeting their neighbors as they did. So I would really, let's say like this, I have a difficult time imagining that President Trump would endorse this military operation if he knew that it's going to lead to the kind of regional chaos that it has already led to, especially that's, I mean, one that involves its Gulf allies.

15:30So I'm really doubtful that the actual objectives, or better to say maybe the whole range of consequences, possible consequences, was relayed to President Trump to make a better and more informed decision here.

15:44Demetri Kofinas:So again, I mentioned at the start that we're recording this on Tuesday, March 17th. Israel reported this morning that it killed Ali Larijani, who was the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran. He's someone who has spent decades at the center of the Islamic Republic's power structure, and up until now has played an important role in helping to manage the political and strategic dimensions of the war with the US and Israel. What significance, if any, does this have on the conflict? And more importantly, who is in charge of Iran right now? Do we know? Well, that's the million-dollar question, because there's two layers.

16:23One is the public one, of which Larry Jani and also Mohamed Bagher-Ghalibov, the Speaker of Parliament, the faces. And on the other hand, there's a deeper layer, which also consists of military and security elites. But the actual composition of those who are right now in charge, we don't know exactly. Exactly. And we should keep in mind that decapitation operations continue as we speak. So we don't know when this episode is finished, whether some other officials have been targeted, right? But let's start with the significance of Larijani. He was a true insider of the Islamic Republic, and not just any insider, one that had kind of the experience of working at the core strategic decision-making circles at both military and political levels.

17:21So he was high-ranking commander in the IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. He was, for a long time, the chief of the state TVE. He was, for some time, the secretary of the National Security Council before he was reappointed recently. and at the time he was also the chief nuclear negotiator of the country so he was in a sense also a diplomat and he also comes from a very powerful family his brother Sadegh Amalil Arijani is a senior cleric and the former chief justice of the country and also his brother is an influential political figure so I would say nobody currently has the same background in terms of you familiar connection to the security apparatus, military apparatus, diplomatic structure of the country, everything.

18:15And by the way, what made his role even more significant was that he was reappointed by Khamenei as the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council. So this is the main body in charge of coordinating strategic decision-making, especially at the security and foreign policy issues, but also domestic. So after the 12-day war, he was appointed as the head of that council. And then there was another council which was established, which was Defense Council, the head of which was Ali Champani, who was also killed on the very first day of the U.S. and Israeli strikes recently. So these councils are supposed to be in charge of decision making sure that there's going to be regime continuity, even if the capitation happens at the top.

19:05And they did actually, because we saw that after Khamenei, the system continued to function and still continues to function. But here's an important distinction we need to make. Some people, and I saw that Israeli officials also refer to Larijani as the de facto leader of the country after Ali Khamenei. So this was not entirely correct, because he was in charge of, I mean, he was taking care mostly of the political strategic side of things, but the military side of things was very much in the hands of Mohamed Baagir Ghalibov. So officially, he is the Speaker of Parliament, but he's a former IRGC commander, who was also the police chief for some time.

19:49He's a very powerful figure within the IRGC. So Ghalibaf together with Ahmad Wahidi, who's an ultra-hardline figure currently working as the acting chief of the IRGC. So these guys have been in charge of military planning. So in that sense, the short-term impact is, especially when we speak about the war planning and war strategy, I think the short-term impact is going to be limited. the actual impact would be on how to end the war. Because Arijani also had a very significant, I mean, kind of a unique characteristic that he was able to connect the military side of the Islamic Republic to the political.

20:31So that would be essential if and then the Islamic Republic would decide to go for negotiated settlement, negotiated end of this war. So now what has happened, I think, immediately after his death, if he was confirmed, is that the military elite, the hardline military elite, take charge of the politics of the war as well. And that's going to make things much more complicated. So this is a short-term impact. In the longer term, of course, it's more difficult to say given the pace of the developments. But one can imagine that, I mean, two scenarios. One would be the consolidation of the military elites to continue further and lead to a full-fledged military security state in Iran in the aftermath of the war.

21:18The other one would be some sort of fragmentation, especially this second scenario would be more probable if the cavitation continues, to include also people like Qalibov, those who are primarily military-oriented but at the same time have played political roles as well. So at some point, we may end up with only military commanders, those who are only capable of, those who only know how to fight, not how to make peace or go for settlement. So that's going to complicate, I think, the end of the war. And also, as I said, in the longer term, that might lead to some more elite fragmentation, especially a divide somehow, maybe, between the political and the military elite.

22:05afternoon.

22:06Demetri Kofinas:So there's an ongoing massacre of the leadership within the IRGC. And of course, now they're targeting Ali Khamenei's son, who is the new supreme leader. Apparently, in recent reports, he almost escaped death. Again, I don't know how credible all the stuff that's coming out is. What do you interpret the objective of the US and Israel? As we already established, there may be competing objectives here, but to the extent that the United States is coming along for this ride, what do you interpret the objective of the United States to be in continuing to degrade its leadership? Does that suggest that they're not really interested in a final negotiated settlement?

22:46Demetri Kofinas:Do they think that eventually there'll be so much attrition that whatever remaining elements are in Iran, they will just come to the bargaining table because they'll just cry uncle that they cannot continue to take any more pain? What is the operating logic here that's informing these policymaking decisions? I think the Trump administration, President Trump himself, absolutely wants a negotiating settlement. But what they see as a negotiating settlement and agreements to end the war, I think looks very different than what the Iranian leaders have in mind and can see as an acceptable outcome. So that can explain why we see the continuation strategy.

23:31Because look, it happened on the very first day of war, right? Something like 40 key military and political figures, Ali Khamenei, the former Supreme Leader included, they were targeted and eliminated. And yes, that's what I also understand, that his son escaped death. His condition is unknown. But in any case, so that happened on the first day. We didn't have that until today. Even when people like Glarajani himself, like Masoud Pazeshkian, the president, like Abbas Arakhi, the foreign minister, just on Friday, they went to this Goatswurst rally in Sehran among the supporters. So they went out in the public, but nothing happened.

24:19So I think here, again, the distinction that we have to make between the goals and objectives of the United States and Israel matters. Because for Israel, I think decapitation and removing these layers and layers of leadership in Iran has been the objective all along. But maybe for President Trump, again, if we assume that his primary objective, as he has indicated a few times, actually, was for the current leadership, or now we can say former leadership, to be eliminated in order for the path to be paved for more pragmatic people to come and take over and make a settlement with the United States.

25:04So that didn't happen. So maybe President Trump expected someone like Larijani, who's known to be pragmatic, of course, by the Islamic Republic standards, but more pragmatic, of course, than various figures within the IRGC. So maybe President Trump expected him to kind of facilitate some sort of negotiated agreement, and he waited for that. But that didn't happen. Maybe he simply gave the green lights to Israel to do what they wanted to do all along. And so this is the way I understand it at the moment.

25:37Demetri Kofinas:Do you think there's a factional distinction between factual as in factions, not factual as in facts, distinction between the regular armed forces, the Artej and the IRGC? Because much of what I'm seeing in terms of news stories is that they're targeting members of the IRGC. is there a possibility that that's intentional and that they're trying to somehow leave what they would perceive to be more moderate elements within the leadership structure that they can negotiate with? Look, the army or the Artej, as the Persian name goes, has been traditionally seen, but I would say not correctly, as more being on the side of the people, let's say, than the IRGC, because IRGC, as the name suggests, is a revolutionary, like, back to the, I mean, derived from this Islamic Revolution of 1979.

26:30So, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Force. And actually, the actual translation of the Persian name is not Islamic Revolutionary Guard Force. It is the guardians of the revolution, the corpse of the guardians of the revolution. So, the name is quite clear. They are designed to protect this system, but the army is seen more as nationalist. But over the years, this distinction has, to a great extent, been eroded, I would say. Because I know for a fact that, especially at the higher command levels in the army, the requirements in terms of ideological purity, let's say, ideological commitment to the system are as strict, if not more, as those within the IRGC.

27:20And now, although, of course, we see more reports of IRGC headquarters and bases, etc., being targeted, but on the other side, the army is very much involved, actually, in targeting Israel and also the Gulf of States. Just a couple hours before this episode, I read the statement by the army, by Arteche, that they had conducted drone attacks against different positions in Israel. So it's still very difficult. There has been this idea of, how to say, eroding, undermining the IRGC in order to pave the way for a more nationalist force to come. As an Iranian, I hope, but as an expert, I'm skeptical.