"Khomeini Became A MONSTER" - Islamic Revolutionary Guard Founder CONFESSES How They Destroyed Iran | PBD Podcast | Ep. 548

The founder of Iran’s most feared military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard (IRGC), sits down with Patrick Bet-David to EXPOSE what really happened behind closed doors during the 1979 Iranian revolution. Mohsen Sazegara, a former insider, reveals how the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps transformed from its original mission into a global power player—linked to Hezbollah, Hamas, and international conflicts. ------ 📺 VOTE ON TRUMP'S FIRST 100 DAYS: ⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4gXLioq⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4gXLioq 👕 GET THE LATEST VT MERCH: ⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3BZbD6l⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/3BZbD6l 📕 PBD'S BOOK "THE ACADEMY": ⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/41rtEV4⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/41rtEV4 📰 VTNEWS. AI: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3OExClZ⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/3OExClZ 🎙️ FOLLOW THE PODCAST ON SPOTIFY: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4g57zR2⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4g57zR2 🎙️ FOLLOW THE PODCAST ON ITUNES: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4g1bXAh⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4g1bXAh 🎙️ FOLLOW THE PODCAST ON ALL PLATFORMS: ⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4eXQl6A⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4eXQl6A 📱 CONNECT ON MINNECT: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4ikyEkC⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4ikyEkC 👔 BET-DAVID CONSULTING: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3ZjWhB7⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/3ZjWhB7 🎓 VALUETAINMENT UNIVERSITY: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/3BfA5Qw⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/3BfA5Qw 📺 JOIN THE CHANNEL: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://bit.ly/4g5C6Or⁠⁠⁠ https://bit.ly/4g5C6Or 💬 TEXT US: Text “PODCAST” to 310-340-1132 to get the latest updates in real-time! ABOUT US: Patrick Bet-David is the founder and CEO of Valuetainment Media. He is the author of the #1 Wall Street Journal Bestseller “Your Next Five Moves” (Simon & Schuster) and a father of 2 boys and 2 girls. He currently resides in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 0:58Speaker 03

  First of all, this IRGC is a monster.

• 1:04Patrick Bet-David?

  You're the co-founder of it with Khomeini. How many people think it's directly and indirectly killed?

• 1:10Speaker 03

  My weapon is teaching the students,

• 1:14Speaker 03

  talking about the constitution of Islamic revolution, mobilizing the people, sending to war fronts to help the classic army of Iran. Everybody believed that Khomeini is a man of God.

• 1:28Patrick Bet-David?

  Killing after killing after killing after killing after killing. You should have seen glimpses earlier, no?

• 1:35Speaker 03

  This is not what we want. Gradually, I think that he became a monster too. If they can catch me, definitely they will kill me.

• 1:44Patrick Bet-David?

  One of the guys that reported to you killed your boss.

• 1:48Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:50Patrick Bet-David?

  Do you know what this sounds like? Sounds a little fishy.

• 1:53Speaker 03

  Conspiracy theory is attractive because it's like a story, and you don't think to any fact. When a problem is solved, then you think it's easy.

• 2:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Their brain box?

• 2:04Speaker 03

  Yes. How can it happen?

• 2:07Patrick Bet-David?

  No sense. No sense. That smile on your face is cracking. You may be a good poker player.

• 2:13Speaker 03

  No, I'm not.

• 2:13Patrick Bet-David?

  That smile is cracking. I got like so many questions. I think two hours is not enough. But let me ask this question for you.

• 2:25Patrick Bet-David?

  If you know the name Mohsen Sazegara, today's interview is gonna upset you a lot because you're probably Iranian and you know the fact that he's the founder of IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. He started in 1979 with Khomeini. Never done a two-hour long-form podcast, finally agreed to do this interview. When you're talking about Hezbollah, Houthis, Hamas, any of those proxy wars, any of those proxy troops that they have in the Middle East that's causing chaos all over the place, he's the founder of that organization. And the conversation today, the first hour, is super necessary for you to watch because it gives you the backstory, the history of what he did. And at one point, when he's working there in the floor

• 3:09Patrick Bet-David?

  where the president and prime minister were killed by a man that reported directly to him, he was in that building when Masoud Kashmiri, who reported to him, he was one of the guys that worked for him, ends up killing the president of Iran at the time, Raji, and kills the prime minister at the time, Mohammad Javad Bahonar. His direct report killed his boss. So imagine he, founder of IRGC, is reporting to the president, prime minister, his direct report killed them. And then afterwards, he said that the person who killed them is dead. They even did a funeral, and later on, they found out he was never dead. That was not a true story. He had to go to jail for it. He talks about that. It was a little bit contentious when I brought that up.

• 3:53Patrick Bet-David?

  And when we talked about the Shah and some of the stories he told about, the fact that he was the voice, like in all the tapes in Iran, this was one of the greatest campaigns ever to cause a country to fall, a regime to fall. Khomeini was in France, recording the tapes, sending them to Iran to be able to play it for people to hear on what he was saying. And the first voice you would hear on those tapes was the gentleman that's here today as a guest. I had him on for many different reasons. Obviously, I'm a child born in the revolution. I'm a revolution baby. I was born three months before the revolution. So to me... These are things that I'm very much tied to. Events that I saw and as a father, I'd like to one day go back and show my kids and say, "Your father was born here."

• 4:38Patrick Bet-David?

  That's not possible in today's regime. We talked about sanctions, we talked about Israel, we talked about why the fall happened in 1979. Like I said, the second half is extremely heated. I think 45 minutes of the second half is extremely heated, that we actually get to things. One of the parts was about the fact that Trump came up, brainwashing came up. He was not a fan of me using the word "brainwashing", but I respect the fact that he was willing to sit down and have a long-form interview. Nothing was off the table. There was nothing he said you can't talk about, nothing. I asked any and every question I wanted to ask. And if the issue of Iran and the Middle East is something you're interested in,

• 5:23Patrick Bet-David?

  you're about to hear it from the founder of the organization called IRGC that's caused all the chaos in the Middle East since 1979. With that being said, enjoy this podcast, this interview with Mohsen Sazaghar.

• 6:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, so I have a very interesting guest with me here today. If you were to go online, Rob, and you just type in on Google "IRGC", the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, if you type that on Google, you will see to the right where it says "Founders", and if you go to "Founders", you'll see Khomeini, and you will see my guest, who's sitting in our podcast set right now, Mohsen Sazaghar. Mohsen, it's great to have you on the podcast today.

• 6:41Speaker 03

  Thank you, Pat, for having me.

• 6:44Patrick Bet-David?

  Of course. So now when you look at this... And you see, you know, around the world, when people think about Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and you're the founder of it. And when we think about being a founder of something that, you know, tied to funding, you know, starting Hezbollah, tied to supporting Houthis, tied to jihad, tied to, we can go so many different places. Like, the average person goes to a place of saying, this start of this organization, 1979, right after the revolution in February, three months later with, you know, you and Khomeini, potentially it could be the cost of millions of people's lives. That's, the average person says, that's what happened.

• 7:30Patrick Bet-David?

  For you, what is the backstory to you and Khomeini starting IRGC?

• 7:39Speaker 03

  First of all, this IRGC is a monster. And when I look at it, it's, it looks like that you have a child, and when he or she grows up, become a killer, a murderer, or a thug, and somebody that you didn't expect it.

• 8:06Speaker 03

  IRGC idea actually was the idea of making a people army, like the army of Switzerland, or Israel, or National Guard in the US. And it started from the days in Nouvelle Chateau, Paris, France, about 110 days, Khomeini was over there, and I was one of the member of his staff over there.

• 8:36Speaker 03

  At those days, we thought that we will have a long battle with regime of Shah, and especially US, who backed Shah.

• 8:45Patrick Bet-David?

  What year is that? Seventy-seven, seventy-eight?

• 8:47Speaker 03

  Seventy-eight.

• 8:48Patrick Bet-David?

  Seventy-eight, okay.

• 8:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, the autumn of, fall of seventy-eight,

• 8:54Speaker 03

  from October to January, that, second of February, that Khomeini were over there. I joined him after a week, and I was one of the members of the team of the press, because he had more than 200 interviews during those days. And some other jobs that I did in that house. But on those days, we felt that we will have a long battle with regime of Shah, like Vietnam War or Algeria. So, and we had no understanding of civil resistance, peaceful resistance.

• 9:38Speaker 03

  Although Islamic Revolution succeeded with civil resistance tactics like strikes, like demonstrations, peaceful demonstrations, like giving flower to the soldiers in the streets. But we thought that, okay, we should mobilize the people for a long battle. But after victory of revolution, nobody expected, by the way, that just in three months, Shah will leave Iran and the revolution succeeds.

• 10:15Patrick Bet-David?

  What do you think was the tipping point for you guys succeeding? Was it Sinamore Rex? What was the tipping point?

• 10:21Speaker 03

  The tipping point was those huge demonstration of the people in Tehran and other cities, more than a million and a half. On those days, we claimed two million and a half out of four million population of Tehran came to streets on Taswa and Ashura to holidays, Shia holidays. And very peacefully, people said that, okay, we don't want Shah. And we said, okay, that's a referendum. Everybody says that we don't want him.

• 10:58Speaker 03

  And right after the day of victory, I mean, because at the last scene, last days of fighting with regime of Shah, two days, people attacked to garrisons, to police stations, took their guns. And the day after victory of revolution, everybody had gone. And the first priority for the country was how to keep it safe.

• 11:30Speaker 03

  For this reason, the idea of a people army for fighting with regime was converted to making a people army, first of all, to secure the country, collect the weapons from the hands of the people. Second, to...

• 11:49Patrick Bet-David?

  To take the guns away from the people.

• 11:52Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, from the people.

• 11:53Patrick Bet-David?

  Because during the Shah, people had guns.

• 11:54Speaker 03

  No, no. People attacked to garrisons. It was prohibited during the Shah, like right now in Iran. It's not like the US.

• 12:04Patrick Bet-David?

  The Second Amendment does not exist in Iran.

• 12:07Speaker 03

  No, there is no Second Amendment.

• 12:09Patrick Bet-David?

  So who are you guys trying to take weapons away from? The soldiers that were under the Shahs?

• 12:15Speaker 03

  No.

• 12:16Patrick Bet-David?

  Military or...

• 12:16Speaker 03

  The soldiers were in garrisons. No, the ordinary people, even the old women, old men. There were some ridiculous scenes. You could see an old woman that taking a machine gun with lots of bullets taken out of a garrison.

• 12:34Patrick Bet-David?

  Why did you guys want to take the weapons away from citizens?

• 12:39Speaker 03

  Because, first of all, we had no idea that we can make it legalized like the US. Second, the security of the country, there were lots of... Because police was absent. They went to their houses and it took time that bring them back to their duties. And many of the, you know, Thak people, many of the armed groups, many of the guerrilla groups, communists.

• 13:12Patrick Bet-David?

  Like two-day party?

• 13:14Speaker 03

  Fatahyan Party, Fatahyan Majority, Minority, there were some Maoists and some separatists, everybody had gone and...

• 13:26Patrick Bet-David?

  But you guys chose to take it away from everybody. So it doesn't matter whether you were from a group or not? Let's get the guns away from people.

• 13:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, from the people and make the country secure. And second idea was to defend the country if we will be under attack by a foreign country. In those days, we thought that the US will attack to Iran. We were wrong. But a year and a half later, Saddam Hussein from Iraq invaded Iran. And that idea worked, mobilizing the people, sending to our France to help the classic army of Iran, to defend the country. And the third idea was, if, if we have two armed forces,

• 14:16Speaker 03

  then there will be, there, there will not be the danger of coup, military coup against the new board regime. Why? Because we had the bitter experience of coup against nationalist government of Dr. Mossadegh in 1953. Because we knew that as soon as possible, we should, you know, rebuild the army and keep, keep it for the country, to defend the country. But at the same time, we thought that we will be in danger if we don't have, you know, any idea how to prevent any coup.

• 14:57Speaker 03

  Anyway, these three ideas altogether ended to write a charter. I was one of the writers of the charter. I, I, I, and provisional board of commanders were elected by the government of Bazargan, provisional government of Bazargan, and the Conseil of Revolution that acted on those days like the Parliament of Iran. They allocated about $2 million as the first budget and-

• 15:39Patrick Bet-David?

  This is for IRGC?

• 15:40Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:41Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay.

• 15:41Speaker 03

  Yeah, to start IRGC.

• 15:46Speaker 03

  I was with the guard only three months. Because in that three months, first of all, I thought that, okay, it has been established. And second, I found out that I don't like these types of jobs. I I I was not the man of military and intelligence.

• 16:02Patrick Bet-David?

  It was more journalism for you.

• 16:04Speaker 03

  Yeah, so I left the guard after three months on May nineteen seventy nine. And I went to to national radio and television of Iran, the job that I liked that. And after a while, I became head of national radio of Iran.

• 16:19Patrick Bet-David?

  Is that kind of like VOA, not VOA, but NPR? Would that would that be comparable to NPR in the US?

• 16:26Speaker 03

  Uh, um, no, uh, that's governmental. I I mean, that it's owned by the government.

• 16:33Patrick Bet-David?

  Yours wasn't owned by the government? Or you were working with somebody that was owned by the government?

• 16:37Speaker 03

  No, no, no. The national radio and television of Iran during the Shah was the exclusive uh, TV and radio station that owned by the government like right now. Right now, IRIB, Islamic Republic, uh, uh, broadcast of Iran. Uh, uh, this, uh, this is an exclusive state run. National radio and television of Iran. So nobody is permitted to have a, a, the independent, an independent TV station.

• 17:15Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah. So so you're there, uh, and technically you would be, uh, while you're there and you guys are creating IRGC. How much time are you spending with Khomeini?

• 17:27Speaker 03

  Uh, with Khomeini during those days in Nofla Shattou, one hundred ten days totally. I was with him with totally, I can say in that house about twenty other people working in different jobs.

• 17:41Patrick Bet-David?

  Who were someone, some of the higher ups in the room that later on became leaders? Who were some of the people in the room with you and Khomeini?

• 17:49Speaker 03

  First of all, Dr. Yazdi, Ibrahim Yazdi. Ibrahim Yazdi was a pharmacologist, a professor of Baylor University. Uh, and one of the founders of LMI, Liberation Movement of Iran Abroad. The, uh, political party of Bazargan. It was founded on nineteen sixties. But out of Iran, there were three prominent figure for LMI.

• 18:18Speaker 03

  Yazdi, Sadeh Qotzadeh and Mustafa Chamran. Mustafa Chamran was in Lebanon on those days. He founded Harekatul Mahromin with Musasadr and Amal Afaj Magawamet Lubnaniyah, the Armed Forces of

• 18:42Speaker 03

  Harekatul Mahromin. Qotzadeh lived in France and Yazdi lived in Houston, Texas. Actually, that was, I was a member of LMI, besides to Muslim Student Association.

• 18:57Patrick Bet-David?

  With Ibrahim Yazdi?

• 18:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 18:58Patrick Bet-David?

  Got it.

• 18:59Speaker 03

  LMI was a secret organization because in Iran it was illegal. And we had about, totally in, in the US and in Europe, maybe 20 members at most. And when I Yazdi, actually, that was Ibrahim Yazdi who brought Khomeini to Paris from Najaf. When Saddam Hussein forced him that you should leave Iraq. You can't stay here and invite the people against Shah. Because Saddam actually signed a peace agreement with Shah in 1975. And so you should leave.

• 19:43Speaker 03

  And that was Yazdi who joined him and helped him to come to Paris. A free country, France. And when they reached over there, he called me. I, I was studying in Chicago, Illinois. And told me that Mosen, we have brought the Ayatollah here and we need you. I remember it was four o'clock in the afternoon, Chicago. I borrowed 250 dollars from one of the Iranian doctors and bought a ticket, on those days was only 200 dollars. And to Chicago and 1 o'clock at night, I was in the plane and the day after I was in France. And I joined the team.

• 20:28Speaker 03

  Yazdi later became the Foreign Minister of Iran and Qotzadeh was over there too. He became Foreign Minister of Iran as well, but he was executed by the order of Khomeini.

• 20:42Patrick Bet-David?

  This is who?

• 20:43Speaker 03

  Sadeh Qotzadeh.

• 20:45Patrick Bet-David?

  Qotzadeh, so he was executed by Khomeini. So who else was in that room with 20 people? Was Qassem Soleimani a player yet or not yet?

• 20:52Speaker 03

  No, no, no. Qassem Soleimani, maybe later during the war between Iran and Iraq.

• 20:58Patrick Bet-David?

  That's when he became a figure.

• 21:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:01Patrick Bet-David?

  Rafsan Jani, is he in the room or no?

• 21:03Speaker 03

  No, Rafsan Jani was in Iran.

• 21:05Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay.

• 21:06Speaker 03

  But he was a key figure for Khomeini. He was almost amongst the clergy, he was almost the closest person to Khomeini.

• 21:17Patrick Bet-David?

  Rafsan Jani was the closest person to Khomeini?

• 21:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, in Iran and later during the revolution and after victory, he was famous that amongst Khomeini's friends that he's the favorite of Khomeini and whatever he says to Khomeini, Khomeini doesn't listen and doesn't say no.

• 21:37Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay. So he was an EF Hutton, he was an influencer in Khomeini's life, Rafsan Jani at that time. Now, at the time, who is Khomeini to you? And now looking back, at this age, who is Khomeini to you? So first impression, because you were not a person supporting Shah, you were one of the students that was out there doing whatever you could to prevent the Shah from staying there. You wanted to get rid of the Shah, you were not a fan of his. And then he leaves, you go to support him. In your eyes, who was Khomeini then?

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• 23:10Speaker 03

  First of all, I was a Muslim and, you know, in Shiism, we have source of immolation. Grand Ayatollah that you follow the religious orders from one of the Grand Ayatollahs. So I followed Khomeini as a source of immolation. Second, everybody believed, including me, that Khomeini is a man of God. He is very pious. He has been with God and, you know, practiced mysticism and he's a divine person somehow.

• 23:54Speaker 03

  Third, I can say that while I was with him in Nofle Shattu, he was very smart, very smart.

• 24:06Patrick Bet-David?

  In what way? Like when you say very smart?

• 24:09Speaker 03

  When you talk to him, you know, especially with, when you talk about some subjects that are new for somebody, from his questions and understanding and get the idea that you are talking, you find out that how smart is that guy. He was very clever and first of all, listened very carefully, took his hand, looked down and listened very carefully to whatever you wanted to talk to him about. And then he asked very good questions and absorbed whatever you said. And he was very decisive.

• 24:54Speaker 03

  He could make decision just in 10 minutes and stand for that.

• 25:02Speaker 03

  And in personal relationship, he was very kind. On the contrary to his face in the world, that was a grumpy person and that looked very tough at everybody, but against the US, against the Shah. But in personal relationship, he was very kind. Very, to a person like me, twenty-two, twenty-three years old, like younger student, he was talking very mild, very, very kind. Or especially to children, when some of the people who came to meet him at small children, he was very kind to them.

• 25:44Speaker 03

  But later, when we returned to Iran, very seldom I saw him. Once when I was at the head of radio, and maybe one more time, if I'm not wrong, when I was in heavy industries of Iran. No, two times more. But gradually, I think that he became a monster too. Because he ordered killing the people, execution of the political prisoners in nineteen eighty-eight. Four thousand political prisoners were executed by his order just in three months. That's a crime.

• 26:28Patrick Bet-David?

  Why did he do that? What was his intentions when he did that?

• 26:32Speaker 03

  I think that there is a very, very, I have to say horrible, statement from him that says that these guys are the members of the organizations that are against Islam and should be executed. I don't know really that how he made such a decision. There are many gestures about that. Maybe his son Ahmad wanted to do that, maybe Minister of Intelligence. By the way, the members of MKO, Mujahidine Kahl, and communist prisoners were massacred in Iran prisons in nineteen eighty-eight, and several other things.

• 27:16Speaker 03

  He made big mistakes. You know, this is how despotism works. He became a despot, and...

• 27:26Speaker 03

  I think that I can say three big mistakes. While he was at the top for ten years, then he passed away. First was hostage-taking. Supporting the students who attacked to American Embassy. Instead of kicking them out of the embassy, he supported them for hostage-taking. And that was against any international regulation. And changed, you know, started a fight with the US that is still going on. And second, the war between Iran and Iraq.

• 28:09Speaker 03

  Although Saddam attacked to Iran, but after one year and a half, he succeeded to kick his forces out of Iran and liberate our lands. That was the time that he could go for a peace ceasefire. But he continued the war six years and a half more. And we lost 235,000 more lives in the second period of the war. At the first period, we lost about 30,000 lives and we liberated our lands. But at the second part, he continued a useless war.

• 28:51Speaker 03

  And third is that massacre in prisons and suppressing the opposition very brutally. I can say that leftists of Iran, communists and other leftists and other groups actually were massacred by the hands of Khomeini and the Islamists who took power. By the way, yeah, like IRGC, I can say that this IRGC is not that IRGC that we thought that we are creating something in the benefit of the people and defending the country.

• 29:27Patrick Bet-David?

  When you guys started it and you were there at the beginning, okay? It's not hard to see, right off the bat, people were getting killed left and right under Khomeini, right? Military leaders, many of them that were under the Shah who were loyal to him. You know, the one guy that, you know, they cut his arm because he shook hands with, uh, he didn't salute him, so they ended up cutting his arm. Do you know who I'm talking about? You, you, I'll pull this up and give you the name here in a minute. Bahawi people who were afraid to be there, they were running away left and right. He was killing Bahawis left and right. There was fear in that community. Wouldn't you ask somebody that's there early on realizing that they're killing everybody

• 30:09Patrick Bet-David?

  they can get their hands on that disagrees with them early on to realize this is not a good regime? Because you said the first time you realized that it was bad was in eighty-eight when it was the four thousand political prisoners. But you should have seen glimpses earlier, no?

• 30:24Speaker 03

  Yes. I can't say that first time that I found out that something is wrong. It's not what we wanted. You know, at the first two years of Victory of Revolution, I was so busy with the country and, you know, bomb blasting in prime minister office, for instance, by MCO. I was working with Rajoy, the prime minister, and he became president. And, but after two, three years, I went to industries of Iran. I became head of IDRO, Industrial Development and Renovation Organization.

• 31:06Speaker 03

  The biggest industrial complex of Iran, owned one hundred forty huge manufacturing companies. In industries of Iran, that was nineteen eighty-two and nineteen eighty-three, for the first time I found out that, okay, this is not, this is not what we wanted. We didn't expect, we didn't know, better to say, we didn't know that... A revolution is how wild, how wild is a revolution? And brutality in, in, in the nature of revolutions.

• 31:49Speaker 03

  Especially an Islamic revolution that thinks that it's the hand of the god. So they can put themselves in the state of god and do whatever they want and do any crime. Um, so on nineteen eighty three, nineteen eighty four, I resigned from my position.

• 32:17Patrick Bet-David?

  Eighty four.

• 32:17Speaker 03

  Eighty four.

• 32:19Patrick Bet-David?

  And. Resigned from what? Resigned from IRGC?

• 32:23Speaker 03

  No, no, IRGC, I left it after three months. From Industries of Iran. I was the head of IEDRO. And promised to myself that I should re-study, reread the books of the founders of this revolution to see what we wanted, why we were against Shah and why, why it's going in this way. It took about a year that at last I resigned and started to reread. The first book that I reread was Khomeini's book about the rulership of the Farisi.

• 33:07Speaker 03

  And this time, I was thirty years old. Now I was, you know, not an emotionally young revolutionary, leftist young revolutionary.

• 33:20Patrick Bet-David?

  You are or you're not?

• 33:22Speaker 03

  When I was thirty years old.

• 33:24Patrick Bet-David?

  You are.

• 33:25Speaker 03

  I was not, I was not.

• 33:28Patrick Bet-David?

  You were not?

• 33:29Speaker 03

  No.

• 33:30Patrick Bet-David?

  You were when you were younger?

• 33:31Speaker 03

  Yeah, when I was twenty-two years old, like many younger students on those days, the dominant, you know.

• 33:38Patrick Bet-David?

  Not like in the Shah, he's the rich guy, he was, you know, he did the big party, you should never done this, he doesn't care about us.

• 33:45Speaker 03

  The dominant discourse is leftist revolutionary ideological aspect of the world just by some.

• 33:57Speaker 03

  You know, simple lines, you try to draw everything. To refuse, for instance, all the western civilization. We will have a, you know, new way in front of the humanity by Islamic regime and blah, blah. But then I was thirty years old. This time, when I started to reread the books of the founders of revolution, like Khomeini, like Dr. Shariatiy, actually, the teacher of the revolution. And the others, this time, I found out that, wow, the problem of this revolution is not accidental.

• 34:40Speaker 03

  It's essential. It's in the theory of this regime.

• 34:43Patrick Bet-David?

  Essential or intentional?

• 34:48Speaker 03

  No, it's in the theory of this regime. When you are Islamist, when you put yourself in the foot of the, in the shoe of the god, then you can do any crime. Intentionally, you can do any crime. And nothing is, you don't care about human rights.

• 35:17Speaker 03

  Rights, human rights is something that comes from the modern world. The modern people, after Jean-Luc and the other thinkers, gradually, people, instead of duties in religion, now the people have rights. But in that type of thinking, I mean Islamism,

• 35:44Speaker 03

  revolutionary ideological version of Shiism, there is no room for rights of the people. People should obey the leaders, the religion, the religion that is represented by a person at the top.

• 36:06Speaker 03

  So this time, when I found out that, okay, this is something that, I don't like it. For this reason, I started to, I found out the answer of my question. Why it went wrong? Why it started to kill the people? Why so much brutality? So when I found out the answer that, okay, it goes back to the essence of this revolution. And the people, gradually, the brutal people, ruthless people, will take the power, including Khomeini himself. That kind person, religious man, became a monster.

• 36:49Speaker 03

  So I said to myself that, first of all, I should test my, examine my idea. So I started to study history. Because history is the laboratory of social sciences theories.

• 37:10Speaker 03

  Because my major field was mechanical engineering and physics. But I started to study history. And I tested that idea. And I saw that, yes, it has been repeated in other countries, and even in Iran. When we have running the, when we ran the country with religious theories,

• 37:33Speaker 03

  give and take, we had the same results, somehow. Or Middle Ages in Europe. When it was, you know, the Catholic Church actually running and had power. So in 1988, when the war between Iran and Iraq was finished. And from 1986, I was not in key positions, just advisor to some of my friends that were in the cabinet. But after 1988, I said to myself that, okay, enough is enough. I don't work with this regime anymore, in any way.

• 38:16Speaker 03

  So I left any position, didn't accept any position. And I went to, started publishing.

• 38:28Speaker 03

  magazines, newspapers, and starting a publishing company. All of them were shut down, by the way, by the regime after a while. And gradually, they were, I became a tough opposition. I was imprisoned four times, totally, by the regime.

• 38:53Patrick Bet-David?

  In Iran.

• 38:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, in Iran.

• 38:54Patrick Bet-David?

  And one, one time you were even imprisoned without being there, right? There's a name for it for six years. I don't know what the name of that is. When you're absentia, absentia, you were. But, but the time that you were arrested there, did they not prevent you from eating for seventy days? Where you lost fifty pounds?

• 39:11Speaker 03

  No, I, I, I went on a hunger strike.

• 39:14Patrick Bet-David?

  While you were in prison?

• 39:15Speaker 03

  Yeah. Last time that I was arrested, you know, they come to your apartment, suddenly, you know, disconnect the telephones and keep you over there and show you just a piece of paper. You are under arrest. And in that piece of paper, I saw that they have the order to arrest my son. He was a.

• 39:40Patrick Bet-David?

  Vahid or?

• 39:41Speaker 03

  Vahid, yeah, University of Tehran student. He was studying economics. My second son was in England. So if he was in Iran, I think that he was arrested too. But this time, they searched the house for four hours everywhere, take every paper, even the electricity bills. I said that, I told the guys that, why do you take the electricity bills? What's inside that? By the way, from that time, I said that, okay, as a protest for arresting me, I go on hunger strike.

• 40:22Patrick Bet-David?

  Why were you trying to? Were you trying to kill yourself so that could be a statement to the world on how much you're standing up against them?

• 40:30Speaker 03

  Yeah, I wanted to.

• 40:33Speaker 03

  Honestly, I didn't want to be to be killed or to die. But I wanted to resist in front of them and have something in interrogation to bargain. Because I was almost famous and many students knew me. They arrested eight hundred students, including my son, with me at the same time.

• 40:57Patrick Bet-David?

  Because they were tied to you?

• 40:59Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:59Patrick Bet-David?

  Eight hundred students?

• 41:00Speaker 03

  Eight hundred students.

• 41:01Patrick Bet-David?

  How long did they stay in jail?

• 41:04Speaker 03

  Some of them, one month, like my son. Some of them, three months, one hundred days. Or some of them, longer, six months.

• 41:15Patrick Bet-David?

  While they had you and you're not eating, are they abusing you? Are they trying to embarrass you? Are they doing any public humiliation ritual? Are they doing anything to you?

• 41:24Speaker 03

  No, no. Because they knew this time, and if they arrest me right now, definitely they will not be polite. They torture.

• 41:35Patrick Bet-David?

  Now, if they arrest you.

• 41:36Speaker 03

  If they can catch me, definitely they will kill me. But in those days, because that, anyway, I was a person that came to Iran with Khomeini. And I was one of the founders of IRGC. I was deputy prime minister for a while at the first decade of revolution. And many of the top people in Islamic Republic knew me. Many of the members of the parliament and many people in the society. So they knew that at last they should release me after ten years, say. But so they didn't torture me. But

• 42:24Speaker 03

  Some, I can't say psychological pressure, yes. For instance, one day, they said that you're

• 42:33Speaker 03

  Son is in the room. Because you are blindfolded when they take you to interrogation and sit you in front of the wall and you can't see the room. But they said that your son is here. And he has become very slim. We may release him. And they wanted to show to my son that I'm not on hunger strike. Because my, I told to my wife, my wife is a doctor. When they arrested me, I told her that from now on, I go on hunger strike and announce it to

• 43:15Speaker 03

  the world that I'm on hunger strike and day by day count it.

• 43:21Speaker 03

  So they wanted to anyway, you know, say that this is, I have broken my hunger strike. So when they said that your son is in the room, I thought to myself that, okay, if I said that I'm on hunger strike, they may not release him. Because they wanna send him out to say that my dad is not on hunger strike. And if I say send anything and I say, no, I'm not on hunger strike, they, I have given a false fact to him. Anyway, I just kept silent.

• 44:07Speaker 03

  Or one day they told me that we have arrested your wife as well.

• 44:11Patrick Bet-David?

  While you're in there, they're saying this to you?

• 44:14Speaker 03

  You know, they wanted to, I had six accusations according to what they put pressure on me.

• 44:24Speaker 03

  They wanted to tell me that, okay, you have been an agent of the United States. You have been, because that some of the top senators in the US have supported you after arrest, you are an agent of the United States. Second, they wanted to tell me that, okay.

• 44:50Speaker 03

  One day, one of those two interrogators told me that, that is, we know that you are a good entrepreneur and you can make hundreds of factories. Why don't you go for that? We can support you if you agree not to oppose the regime and go out of politics.

• 45:14Speaker 03

  I said, no, thank you.

• 45:18Patrick Bet-David?

  Is this at the Evan Prison when you were at? Can you pull up Evan Prison? Can you, to the audience, explain what Evan Prison is? Like Evan Prison, if you just pull it up and I'll just read it. So zoom in a little bit. Prison located in Evan neighborhood of Tehran, Iran. The prison has been primary site for the housing of Iranian political prisoners since 72, before and after the Iranian revolution and a purpose-built wing named Evan University. Due to the high number of students and intellectuals detained there, Evan Prison has been accused of committing serious human rights abuses against its political dissidents and critics of the government. That's what this was built for.

• 45:53Speaker 03

  Evan Prison actually was built in the 60s by regime of Shah. And before that, it was a garrison, if I'm not wrong. It was converted to a prison during the Shah. It's the most notorious prison in Iran.

• 46:14Patrick Bet-David?

  Is this what the Savak used?

• 46:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:16Patrick Bet-David?

  Right?

• 46:16Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:18Patrick Bet-David?

  So the 3,000 political prisoners that Jimmy Carter was talking about with the Shah was at this prison, Evan Prison?

• 46:23Speaker 03

  Mostly.

• 46:24Patrick Bet-David?

  Mostly were here?

• 46:25Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:25Patrick Bet-David?

  When he was talking about human rights, you have to let those political prisoners go.

• 46:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 46:29Patrick Bet-David?

  It was people like you. And the Shah was holding a lot of people from the today in the Communist Party because his fear was-

• 46:35Speaker 03

  And Muslims as well.

• 46:36Patrick Bet-David?

  And Muslims as well, right?

• 46:38Speaker 03

  Some clerics, some-

• 46:39Patrick Bet-David?

  Which some of them ended up being extremists later on, to be fair, with the Shah, right? That what happened. So some of the people he held was actually, he could have prevented, you know, it was actually a good move to hold some of them, that later on they ended up causing some havoc around the world.

• 46:57Speaker 00

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• 47:52Speaker 03

  Some of them were members of guerrilla groups, yes.

• 47:55Patrick Bet-David?

  Right.

• 47:55Speaker 03

  Definitely. I think that in, on those days, they were heroes of guerrilla wars, but today, they are called terrorists. Maybe he was right, but not torturing them, because he was torturing, torturing the political prisoners as well.

• 48:14Speaker 03

  By Sabak. But, no.

• 48:16Patrick Bet-David?

  He stopped doing it. He said in the one interview with Wallace.

• 48:19Speaker 03

  But some of them were not, were not, you know, fighting with, with arms. Some of them were writers.

• 48:26Patrick Bet-David?

  Right.

• 48:26Speaker 03

  Some of them were just opposition. Like Bazergan, for instance. Or some of those clerics that were in prison, were just only against the Shah. This is what I said to Islamic Republic as well, that I have nothing but my, my, my interviews and my, my voice and writing the articles. Why, why, why should I be arrested? Okay, I'm in opposition of this regime. I'm against Velayat Fari. I'm against the leader. But I don't do anything violently, and my weapon is teaching the students.

• 49:09Speaker 03

  Talking about the constitution of Islamic revolution, that is wrong. It should be changed. Why should I be arrested?

• 49:17Patrick Bet-David?

  It's a pretty heavy statement, though, to try to change the constitution. And you're teaching that. You're a menace to society. You're a menace to the regime. But the part I want to go back to is, when you're in, you're seeing it. And you're saying you were at one point deputy minister, right? That was your job. And you said, for how many years? How long did you have that job as a?

• 49:41Speaker 03

  Totally in different positions in Islamic Republic in one decade. I was in different positions like head of radio or deputy prime minister or deputy minister of heavy industries, head of IDRO or vice minister of planning and budget.

• 49:59Patrick Bet-David?

  Who are you reporting to? Who are you reporting to?

• 50:04Speaker 03

  To my boss, for instance, when I was deputy prime minister, I worked with Rajoyi, the prime minister.

• 50:10Patrick Bet-David?

  Rajoyi got assassinated by, with the bomb in his room by... That's an interesting story because, what's his name who assassinated him with the bomb that he put in the room?

• 50:23Speaker 03

  Masood Kashmiri.

• 50:25Patrick Bet-David?

  Masood Kashmiri. And I have an impression of what happened there. But so he was your boss. And Masood Kashmiri, who is a friend of yours at the time, I believe, based on what reporting I've read about.

• 50:40Speaker 03

  He was working in our office first, the, you know, office of political deputy. But then he was transferred to another office in prime minister office. He was, he was with the intelligence deputy of Rajoyi office.

• 51:03Patrick Bet-David?

  So this is Masood Kashmiri, right? And he assassinated President Rajoyi and Prime Minister Bahonar. And again, what is your impression of what happened? Did you have knowledge of this taking place, this assassination attempt?

• 51:24Speaker 03

  No, definitely no. I remember that I was in my office at the fourth floor. I heard a bomb blasting, a big noise. And I was talking on phone, I hanged up and I went to the opposite office that had a window to the garden. And I saw that wow, fire is coming and the smoke is coming up out of the room that I knew was the high national conceal of, security conceal of the country that president and prime minister and minister of

• 52:03Patrick Bet-David?

  I actually found the clip from Associated Press, Rob, if you want to pull it up, there's a clip I just sent you. But please continue, I'm

• 52:09Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 52:10Patrick Bet-David?

  So you're on the fourth floor, you're on the phone, you hear the explosion, you go in, cannot believe what's going on, I'm going to give you a visual. So, so the audience can also see what it looks like, please continue.

• 52:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I knew that Rajhi and Bahonar are, because Rajhi became president after the first president of Islamic Republic that left Iran, Banisad, Rajhi was elected as the president. It was only one, one

• 52:37Patrick Bet-David?

  This is it, right, this is the

• 52:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah, exactly. And this is

• 52:41Patrick Bet-David?

  How far are you away from that room when the bombing happened?

• 52:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, I knew that these guys are, are in that room, so I used the stairs coming down to the first floor that that room was to approach the room, maybe I can rescue

• 53:00Patrick Bet-David?

  You're in the same building on fourth floor?

• 53:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 53:02Patrick Bet-David?

  While this explosion, while the bomb is dropped by a colleague of yours?

• 53:05Speaker 03

  Yeah. And I, when I entered the first floor, there was everything because the electricity was disconnected, it was dark and lots of smoke. I tried to reach the room at the end of the hall, but I couldn't breathe. Later I, I found out that you, I could sit down because the smoke goes up. Anyway, I didn't reach that room and I came out and went to the level, to the, to the streets, maybe I can approach the room from the window from the street. But again, it was not doable and, you know, the fire department reached over there.

• 53:48Speaker 03

  By the way, Rajhi and Bahonar were killed and

• 53:55Speaker 03

  Some other people, I remember that the head of the police was killed as well. Because he was in elevator and suffocated. Anyway, yeah.

• 54:12Patrick Bet-David?

  So I called a few people.

• 54:15Patrick Bet-David?

  Because from my end, you know, I've interviewed and spoken to a lot of people from the Iranian side. And I wrote a fiction book called The Academy. And in the story, The Academy, a lot of the Iranian revolution is depicted in the book. It's a story about a secret society that recruits young kids and develops them into leaders. Anyways, this is a part of my life that I lived in Iran. So, you know, some of it is in there from a kid that's Assyrian and Armenian. But when I called these different people, you know, people who were there at the time. People who send me clips and articles quoted by you. They said, when this happened, you claimed that your friend who got killed,

• 54:59Patrick Bet-David?

  who killed the president and the prime minister. We're talking Kashmiri, Masood, who killed Raji and Bahonar. You came out and said, he's dead. And there's even some articles that said you put ashes to say he's dead, he's no longer there. And that was falsifying your friend's death, that he died. And then later on, they found out that he was alive and you had to go to prison for it. Is that all true?

• 55:27Speaker 03

  Yeah, not that time. It was the explosion happened at 3:20 in the afternoon. I remember because the clock has stopped, electrical clocks everywhere.

• 55:44Speaker 03

  But the day after, and that time, until late at night, that night, nobody knew that how many people were in that room? How many were alive? How many were wounded and how many were killed? It took about eight hours, nine hours, that at last, the list of the people attending that meeting, how many people were seen alive, how many were in hospital? And at the end of the night said that, okay, we have three absent and two bodies. That are not recognized because they have been burnt.

• 56:26Speaker 03

  These three people were Rajei, Bahonar, the President, Prime Minister, and Kashmiri, who was actually the secretary of those meetings. The day after, when the people gathered in front of the Parliament of Iran at the, you know, end of the alley that the Prime Minister's office was, at the beginning of that alley, at the end of that alley was the Parliament of Iran, and on the other side of the Parliament was Sepah Street, that people gathering, thousands of people mourning their bodies.

• 57:04Speaker 03

  We thought, I have said that we were foolish, we thought that, okay, Kashmiri, nobody doubted about him. He was not a suspect person for us on that time.

• 57:18Speaker 03

  Because he was one of the honest people, working in that office, and very good, very good staff. Everybody thought that, okay, these three people are killed, and that night, at last, with the dentist and their family, they recognized that these two bodies are for Rajei and Bahonar. But the third person, we didn't find anything. So we thought that he has been killed.

• 57:53Patrick Bet-David?

  But you didn't know?

• 57:54Speaker 03

  No. We thought that he has been burnt so badly that didn't find anything. So we asked some of the clergy in, when I say "we", I mean not only me, a group of workers in a Prime Minister's office, that we thought that, okay,

• 58:15Speaker 03

  we can collect the ashes and a part of his body will be over there. So it can be his body and be mourned by the people and transferring to, for a funeral and transferring to cemetery.

• 58:33Speaker 03

  That was the day after, at night, when I went to...

• 58:39Speaker 03

  A group of our friends. We had gathering together once a week. I was very sad. And when I talked about bomb blasting yesterday and what happened, why, how Kashmiri was, you know, burnt, nothing was earned. I remember one of my friends in that meeting said that, Mohsen, what are you talking about? Didn't he have any belt, ring, some metal things? I said, yes. He said that, OK, why didn't you find them? And besides, he was a, you know, biologist,

• 59:23Speaker 03

  said that a person, say, 140 pounds, if he's burnt, even in very, very high temperature, at least 15, 30 pounds will remain, especially the bones. So it's not possible that you didn't find anything. I said that, yes, you are right. He said that, he laughed and said that maybe he was the guy that put the bomb and fled the room. So the day after, I remember that when I went to Prime Minister's office and the committee in that division of Intelligence Division of the office

• 1:00:06Speaker 03

  started to investigating the bomb blasting. I went early in the morning, that was 7 o'clock in the morning. I knocked the door that they were talking and investigating. One of them came out and I told him that it seems that Kashmiri, we were wrong. Kashmiri can be the guy. He said that, oh, don't say anything because we have reached the same result and same idea because we didn't find his car.

• 1:00:38Speaker 03

  Around in any street.

• 1:00:39Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, but why are you so.

• 1:00:41Speaker 03

  And his family is not at his home.

• 1:00:42Patrick Bet-David?

  I get that, but why are you so swift to say he's also dead, here's his ashes? You're a pretty smart man, you're, you're, you're, you know, so what this makes me think about, because I, I pulled up to kind of see, because what I want to know is who benefited from this, right? That's what everybody wants to know. So who benefited from it? Khomeini benefited from it, okay? Khomeini long term benefited from it, right? IRGC benefited from it, right? There's quite a few people that benefited from it. So if you're on the inside and this happened in eighty-one, you're twenty-four, twenty-five years old at the time, you're still supporter of what they're doing, you haven't yet flipped and turned out. It almost gives me the vibes of the Italian mob when

• 1:01:27Patrick Bet-David?

  somebody is taking out the boss to get a promotion and get a job, because it's going to be a lot of favors and everybody keeps your mouth shut and don't say anything. And let's just say, yeah, he was also killed, he's no longer here. Sounds a little fishy to the average person listening to this. It makes it seem like maybe you knew and maybe you were being a loyalist and maybe you wanted to defend to not say anything and then you went away and you got arrested.

• 1:01:58Speaker 03

  You know, in Farisi we say that the ma'amachu halgast asan shabad. When a problem is solved, then you think it's easy.

• 1:02:11Speaker 03

  On that day, the day after explosion, and nobody first of all was suspicious to Kashmiri. Later was found out that, oh, he was a secret member of MKO, Mujahidine Khalkh that, you know, penetrated in the offices. And.

• 1:02:36Speaker 03

  We were, you know, the emotion-

• 1:02:37Patrick Bet-David?

  When you're saying M K O, this is the People's Mujahideen of Iran, M E K, a militant opposition group, which they claim they were the beneficiaries of this taking place.

• 1:02:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, they were fighting with the regime.

• 1:02:50Patrick Bet-David?

  But you're friends with this guy, right? You've spent time with this guy. Is that fair? Like, have you spent a hundred plus hours with-

• 1:02:56Speaker 03

  For two months, I was boss of this guy. He worked for one of the offices that was under my-

• 1:03:02Patrick Bet-David?

  So, one of your, one of the guys that reported to you killed your boss?

• 1:03:07Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:03:09Patrick Bet-David?

  Do you know what this sounds like?

• 1:03:10Speaker 03

  This is the reason that, you know, because there was, you know, internal competition in, you know, powerless, better to say powerless struggle inside the new board regime.

• 1:03:24Patrick Bet-David?

  Were you very ambitious at the time?

• 1:03:26Speaker 03

  No. No, I prefer to leave every, every job to go to, you know, start a political party and publishing papers, but I went to industries. That was one of the reasons that I decided not to be in political positions.

• 1:03:44Patrick Bet-David?

  Well, let's stay here. So, I want to finalize the story and move on from this. So, they, some reporters told me that there was actually a funeral for the guy.

• 1:03:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:03:54Patrick Bet-David?

  And they actually thought he was dead. So, this is like Kaiser Sose type of a situation, that the guy disappeared.

• 1:03:58Speaker 03

  Not only us, we thought that he's killed and that ashes from the room is, that contains a part of that. But millions of people who, you know, mourned those two bodies and that-

• 1:04:11Patrick Bet-David?

  But during that time, while his funeral is being held, have you spoken to him? Have you met with him? Have you talked to him at all?

• 1:04:17Speaker 03

  Late, before that?

• 1:04:18Patrick Bet-David?

  No, while everybody is thinking he's dead, did you and him at all have an interaction or talk?

• 1:04:24Speaker 03

  No, just my colleagues, because we were busy with our colleagues and making, we wanted to make sure that funeral is going very well. And let me tell you something worse, that we, we thought that, oh, this poor Kashmiri is not a top person. Those two guys are very top people. So, we should pay attention that he will be respected like those two president and prime minister as well.

• 1:04:58Speaker 03

  And you know, these types of scenes are very-

• 1:05:01Patrick Bet-David?

  Did you ever see him again? Did you ever meet him, see him again at all?

• 1:05:04Speaker 03

  No, no, he's, I think, definitely protected by MKO. Nobody has seen him.

• 1:05:10Patrick Bet-David?

  Since then?

• 1:05:10Speaker 03

  Since then, yeah.

• 1:05:11Patrick Bet-David?

  And some are saying that he died last year, 2023, or he died two years ago in 2023.

• 1:05:16Speaker 03

  I don't think so.

• 1:05:17Patrick Bet-David?

  You think he's still alive?

• 1:05:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:05:19Patrick Bet-David?

  But you haven't spoken to him?

• 1:05:20Speaker 03

  No, nobody. I think that if regime of Iran finds him, definitely will kill him. You know, because two years ago, I think that you are pointing to another person. His name was Kohlahe. Kohlahe was the person who was in charge of, a member of MEK or MKO. He was the person who carried the bomb and bomb blasting in the headquarters of Islamic Republic Political Party. Behesti, head of judiciary power, and 72 people were killed.

• 1:06:00Speaker 03

  Some ministers, some members of cabinet, some top officials were killed in that bomb blasting. Kohlahe was not found until two years ago. I'm not sure yet that a person was famous as no-name person with another name was assassinated in Netherlands. And I read that everybody said that, yes, he was Kohlahe, that at last regime of Iran found him and killed him in Netherlands. And I think that if regime of Iran finds Masood Keshmari, any place in the world-

• 1:06:44Patrick Bet-David?

  How does this guy stay alive for 44 years? I mean, it's not hard. You have to eat something. You have to live somewhere. You have to be seen.

• 1:06:51Speaker 03

  No, maybe, you know, they have changed his-

• 1:06:53Patrick Bet-David?

  Name and surgery and all that stuff?

• 1:06:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, under protection and-

• 1:06:57Patrick Bet-David?

  Behesti, what was Behesti's connection to KGB?

• 1:07:02Speaker 03

  Oh, no, I don't think so.

• 1:07:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay.

• 1:07:04Speaker 03

  He had any, any relation to KGB. Bechtel was one of the top clergy and educated not only in seminary schools, but in Germany as well.

• 1:07:16Patrick Bet-David?

  When you're, when you're with Khomeini at the beginning stages of IRGC, from the moment you're helping found IRGC, how many people were you in rooms or talks where you know they're being killed left and right? What was the first instance where you're like, oh my God, we're killing a lot of people right now? It should have been pretty quickly, no?

• 1:07:36Speaker 03

  IRGC at the beginning was a very small organization. For instance, totally I brought about sixty people. Most of them were well-educated, not only in University of Aria Me, Sharif University today, but from my friends from that university, but some of the members of the MSA, Muslim Student Association, from Europe and the United States. And at the beginning, IRGC was a very weak organization that was not able to keep his headquarters.

• 1:08:20Speaker 03

  Totally, I can say maybe one hundred, one hundred twenty people were working in IRGC. And the idea of IRGC was to keep it small, at most five hundred people, professional people, and fifty thousand people as the, you know, semi-professional, and mobilizing, you know, training the people for defending the country, maybe twenty million of the people. That was the idea of that people army. When I left the guard, as I say, it was about maybe one hundred twenty people.

• 1:09:02Speaker 03

  So was not in, was not powerful enough to fight in different parts of Iran. Many, you know, some people make mistake between IRGC at the beginning with comité in every mosque. Because...

• 1:09:23Speaker 03

  After the victory of revolution, people in every neighborhood, in every city, they gathered their weapons and made a garrison, better to say, in every mosque. They called them Komite Emam. And when the name of Passdar was invented by Sepah Passdaran, by IRGC, they called themselves Passdar as well. They were the guys that actually attacked to the people's houses or get that, you know, capture everything. After a while, after a few years,

• 1:10:02Speaker 03

  those committees were dissolved in the police of Iran. And they don't exist anymore.

• 1:10:11Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah, I guess, and by the way, for the average person that's watching this, this is now a organization that's got 190,000 soldiers, give or take, army, navy, Hezbollah. They indirectly fund, you know, Houthis, they fund Hamas, they fund, who else can I say?

• 1:10:30Speaker 03

  Oh, many other things. Right now, I can say that IRGC, as I said, is a monster, like a dragon with seven heads.

• 1:10:40Patrick Bet-David?

  How many people think it's directly and indirectly killed?

• 1:10:44Speaker 03

  By IRGC or?

• 1:10:45Patrick Bet-David?

  Directly and indirectly, so directly themselves as well.

• 1:10:50Speaker 03

  If you say that Ghosn Force, for instance, one of those heads is Ghosn Force, a terrorist organization. If you count the people who have been killed in Syria, for instance, half a million people were killed in Syria. So 500,000 people.

• 1:11:11Patrick Bet-David?

  That's just one.

• 1:11:12Speaker 03

  One. They were killed by regime of Assad and help of Ghosn Force and IRGC and Russia altogether. Or maybe in Lebanon or in Israel. The last thing that IRGC was supporting was October 7.

• 1:11:35Speaker 03

  You know, what Hamas did in Israel and the consequences of that. Totally about fifty thousand people were killed from both sides. So, I mean, yes, this IRGC is, I can't say that a unique organization. Why? Because it's like a classic army right now. Air Force, Navy and Ground Force. It's like at the same time, a terrorist organization, a branch force outside Iraq. It's like a KGB now, IRGC Intelligence. That is two times bigger than Minister of Intelligence of Iran.

• 1:12:20Speaker 03

  Last time, by the way, I was arrested by IRGC Intelligence. At the same time, it's in mafia types of activities. Production of capta gun, which is famous as jihadist pills. And heroin and smuggling the drugs from Kabul to Karakas. And at the same time, IRGC is involved in economy of Iran. They are in several huge projects of Iran. In the business of smuggling of the oil of Iran to bypassing the sanctions.

• 1:13:02Speaker 03

  And at the same time, they are in atomic project of Iran. And this is why I say that this is a monster. That maybe, you know, we don't have such an organization in any other country to be like a Western, you know, cartel or KGB at the same time, Red Army at the same time. Terrorist organization, Al Qaeda at the same time, and blah, blah, blah. This is a monster that is working. And, and you know, the leader of Iran, the present leader of Iran, Khamenei.

• 1:13:45Speaker 03

  Runs this organization dependent to himself. This is not a unified organization. Every part does and report to Khomeini directly. I mean IRGC Intelligence is not reporting to the Chief Commander of IRGC. Anyway, this is something that I have to say that is not only a danger for the world, but is a danger to Iran as well. Because as soon as they feel that they don't benefit anymore, they may get their gun and fight with the people or with each other.

• 1:14:25Patrick Bet-David?

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• 1:15:10Patrick Bet-David?

  quality lighter cutter and a holder for the cigars. We got sweaters with the ValueTainment logo on it. We got mugs, we got a bunch of different things. But if you believe the future looks bright, if you follow our content and what we represent with ValueTainment, with PBD Podcast, go to VTmerch.com. And by the way, if you order right now, there's going to be a special VT gift inside just for you. So again, go to VTmerch.com, place your order, tell the world that you believe the future looks bright. And by the way, you're the co-founder of it with Khomeini. Like this is something that started from there to where it's at now. And obviously, you said you did not see it getting this big, as big as it is today. But there's a, I got like so many questions.

• 1:15:55Patrick Bet-David?

  I think two hours is not enough, but let me ask this question from you. So.

• 1:16:00Patrick Bet-David?

  Say, looking back when you were a young leftist, you want to do right, you're thinking noble and money people are all they greed and all they care about is money and the Shah and all this stuff, how evil he is and Maribad Omriqal and all this stuff that's going on, right? Do you now regret? And are you at a point where you're able to say, if the revolution didn't happen and the Shah stayed there, the Middle East would not only be more at peace, but millions of other people would still be alive? Are you comfortable saying that if the Shah stayed and they still ruled, not allowing the revolution happen with Khomeini?

• 1:16:43Patrick Bet-David?

  It'd be a lot more peaceful place?

• 1:16:46Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:16:46Patrick Bet-David?

  You can say that?

• 1:16:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, I can say that. You know, I believe in democracy right now. And Shah was a military dictator, yes, but he was secular. And he was like the other dictators in Middle East right now. Look at Mohammed bin Salman or King Abdullah or the others in that, in that region of the world. But by the way, he was working, he believed in modern world, in modernity, in, you know, running the country in the way of the, joining the modern world.

• 1:17:31Speaker 03

  But this regime, I mean Islamic Republic, is a regime that is against modern world. This is one of the main reasons that now Iran has gone backward. And a revolutionary regime is, and totalitarian regime, I have to say, is much...

• 1:17:58Speaker 03

  More brutal than a simple dictatorship. So, yes, you're right. Let me put it on this way. I believe in democracy. But if you tell me that, okay, you have only two choices. Forget about democracy, you can't switch democracy. But you have only two choices. First, a military dictator like Shah that is toward the modern world, or an Islamic regime like Islamic Republic of Iran against modern world. Which one do you choose? Definitely, I choose the first one.

• 1:18:33Patrick Bet-David?

  How many people died, directly or indirectly, while the Shah was in charge? And he was developing Iran and making it more modernized, making it more industrialized, you know? The relationships he was creating with Israel, with Saudi, with Iraq. Even you said yourself that Saddam Hussein said, "Hey, you gotta leave my country, Khomeini, because I have a treaty with the Shah and we have a good treaty here, so we're good." How many people did he kill? Like, if you're saying, you know, the Shah did what he did, what were the worst events that took place in the Middle East under Mohammed Azhar Shah Pahlavi?

• 1:19:14Speaker 03

  Inside Iran, in the region, fortunately, we did not have any war during the Shah.

• 1:19:23Patrick Bet-David?

  That's very powerful, what you just said right there.

• 1:19:25Speaker 03

  Yeah, unless that Shah intervened in Oman, sent the troops to Oman to suppress the communist rebels in Oman. Army of the Shah was fighting over there. But, no, Iran was not involved in any war during Mohammed Azhar Shah.

• 1:19:50Speaker 03

  But his father, Reza Shah, came to power after World War I. That Iran was invaded by foreign troops, Russians, Ottomans, British troops. And in that event, totally about one-third of Iranian population

• 1:20:17Speaker 03

  lost their lives. About, the population of Iran was about 8.5 million on those days. And 2 million lost their lives before Reza Shah. During the period that we had a failed state in Iran, after Constitution Revolution. Because we had a Constitution Revolution 110 years ago. Very similar to French Revolution in Iran.

• 1:20:47Speaker 03

  People died because of many things. Disease, Spanish flu, typhoid.

• 1:20:56Patrick Bet-David?

  That's not what I'm talking about, though.

• 1:20:57Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:20:58Patrick Bet-David?

  That's not what I'm talking about.

• 1:20:59Speaker 03

  Yeah. Anyway, during the Shah, totally, those, Pahlavi dynasty, let's say, father and son, Reza Shah and Mohammad Reza Shah. Estimation shows about 3,500 people maybe were killed. Some people tried to find out that, how many people were executed?

• 1:21:20Patrick Bet-David?

  Think about what you just said.

• 1:21:21Speaker 03

  How many people were killed?

• 1:21:22Patrick Bet-David?

  Think about what you just said. It's very important, because we're talking about from 25 to 79. Okay, give or take, right? If we look at imperial state of Iran, Israels of Srebis to Panj to 1979, 54 years, 3,500, give or take is what you're seeing, right? Keep, and then you think about around...

• 1:21:44Patrick Bet-David?

  The Middle East, what the tensions were like. You know, and you know how they say, you know, Iran is the agent of chaos and they, you know, all this other stuff, IRGC and what they've done, and some of that is true of what took place. But that wasn't the case under the Shah. So when I have a lot of people here like Reza Aslan, I don't know if you, you sure, I'm sure you know who Reza Aslan is. If you don't, he's in, he used to be with CNN and he did a lot of different things. This fellow right here, who is a very educated guy, wrote a book called Zealot, and he's written a lot of good, a lot of books that I've done well. He himself, his family escaped Iran after the Shah, and he still can't stand the Shah, right? But he sits there and says, look, it was a better place under the Shah than it was now.

• 1:22:24Patrick Bet-David?

  I go through this because I'm curious, I'm born October 7th, October 1878. So I'm an October 1870, mehrebi shishom. I'm a, I'm an October 1878 baby. My dad's taking my mother to the hospital, water breaks, curfew, they hold my dad up, what are you doing, it's 10 o'clock at night, you know you can't be outside. My wife is pregnant, baby is due, can you take, they escort my mom to the hospital, and then I'm born, right? At the height of tensions and chaos.

• 1:22:53Speaker 03

  I was born with the revolution.

• 1:22:54Patrick Bet-David?

  I was born with the revolution. I came out with the revolution energy, right? But the reason why I'm saying this to you, this is an aspect of my life that I'm very, very curious about, for my own self. Everybody has certain things they want to get answered, I want to get it answered for myself, this is why I like these debates and discussions. But going back to it, when we're talking about this, everybody benefits from something. Like, I want to know who benefited from Khomeini coming back to Iran. So in my mind, I go through different things. I want to ask you before I give you mine. Because you know the accusations of him being a double agent? You know the accusations of France, uh, media indirectly started giving him so much

• 1:23:36Patrick Bet-David?

  time on TV that other people in Iran could watch him and start liking him, and the way they build him up, and the way they edified him, and he's such an amazing man, and he's such a gentle this, and oh my God, he's so this, and he's so caring, and what if one day he returns back to Iran, and Iranian people are just watching it on French TV, oh, wow, this is such an incredible thing? So who benefited from Khomeini coming back to Iran? Is it France? Is it UK? Is it Russia? Who, who benefited from Khomeini coming to Iran? Khomeini.

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• 1:25:01Speaker 03

  If you're talking about foreign countries, definitely Russia benefited, not Western countries. You know, although Soviet Union on those days, they didn't know the Islamists that were close to get the power. But from November 1978, gradually they found out that, wow, by the hands of the people of Iran, millions of people and leadership of Islamists, the regime of Shah, who was an ally to West, especially the United States, is going to be overthrown. So they changed their tone

• 1:25:46Speaker 03

  and gradually Radio Moscow-Farsi started to talking against Shah because they had a good relationship with regime of Shah on 60s. And based on deterrent policy of Khurshov and I have to say good foreign policy of regime of Shah that had good relationship with West and East at the same time.

• 1:26:14Speaker 03

  They didn't think about overthrowing the Shah. Maybe to the party was in where Eastern Germany wanted, you know, overthrowing Shah, but not that that was not the policy of the Soviet Union government. But on November seventy eight, gradually they found that, wow, it's something big is happening in Iran. So they changed their tone, and I can't say that right after Victory of Revolution, that they found out that, okay, these guys, the Islamists who took the power, they are against communism and Western West at the same time.

• 1:26:57Speaker 03

  We were the generation that we were against communists and Westerns at the same time. You know, people on those days shouted death to US and death to Soviet Union at the same time. They found out that, okay, we should change our policy. They started to approach Iran at the first years of Victory of Revolution by but by the hands of Eastern Germany, that Iranian had no problem with Germany. And after decline of communist regime, that they were not communist anymore, and the Putin

• 1:27:38Speaker 03

  regime, they approached Iran easier and gradually, I think that they penetrated everywhere in Iran. And I can't say that the strategy of Russia, Communist Russia or Putin Russia, during last forty six years was to keep Iran in a distance from Western countries, European countries and the US, so that none of the Western countries can trust Iran, can come to Iran, invest in Iran, and especially in oil and gas industries of Iran, because Iran is the

• 1:28:24Speaker 03

  Only country that gas reservoirs of Iran is second in the world after Russia. Or maybe some people believe that maybe more than Russia. So Iran should be in a distance from Western allies to make sure that is at the hands of Russia. So if you ask about who benefited from Iran revolution, I say that right now Russia has benefited more than any country. Iran, let me put it on this way, especially during Khamenei, the present leader.

• 1:29:05Speaker 03

  Iran has gradually become a member of the incorporation. This is, I borrowed the word from Anna Palbaum's last book. She has written a good book, its name is Autocracy Inc. She explains that there is an incorporation from dictatorships, autocracy regimes, that all of them are kleptocracies. The leadership, there are about thirty-six, thirty-seven countries, including, the leadership are China and Russia.

• 1:29:43Speaker 03

  And the members are Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, say Belarus, Belarusia, and blah, blah, blah. She explains very well that how they unite each other, how they support each other. And how they have only one theory against the liberal democracy of West, especially the United States. And what they do, keeping the dictators in power, helping each other, and they're kleptocracy regimes. Now Iran is in that club. Islamic Republic of Iran is a member of the club of incorporation of kleptocracies or dictatorships

• 1:30:28Speaker 03

  with, under the leadership of Russia and China. And definitely, they are benefited from Iran right now.

• 1:30:38Speaker 03

  China, for instance. Iran smuggles oil to China because of the US sanctions. Sometimes fifty percent under price. And they don't give to Iran any hard currency. They say, oh, no, this is under sanction, US dollar, no. And Iranians should buy Chinese goods with yuan. And even they don't give you their quali- qualified goods. They, they, they say, okay, you should take this one instead of that one. And this is how the Chinese actually milk, milk their cow.

• 1:31:19Patrick Bet-David?

  You ever read the book Committee of Three Hundred? Have you ever read that book?

• 1:31:23Speaker 03

  Three Hundred?

• 1:31:24Patrick Bet-David?

  Committee of Three Hundred. Committee of Three Hundred.

• 1:31:27Speaker 03

  Hmm, no.

• 1:31:30Patrick Bet-David?

  You ever read that book? So in the book Committee of Three Hundred.

• 1:31:32Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:31:33Patrick Bet-David?

  It talks about that Khomeini was the making of MI6. So the same way CIA helped the Shah get in to replace Mossadegh, they say Khomeini was helped by MI6. This is why BBC would put him up, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Now, hang tight before you give your rebuttal. But that's the story you hear about with MI6 and Khomeini. Two, you hear about the US Green Belt theory. That I don't, you're familiar with the Green Belt theory because. Yeah, I've seen it. Uh, uh, what is it? It's Kissinger and what's the guy's name? What's the lady's name who was with MSNBC was married to Joe? What's her last name? Brzezinski? Mika Brzezinski. Brzezinski.

• 1:32:17Patrick Bet-David?

  So the father and Kissinger, they sat there and they were worried about what was going on with Russia and Brezhnev. And they said, hey, you know, if we have the lesser of the two evils, we need somebody to go against them because Russia's getting too powerful and we need a pain in the ass in a Middle East. So let's put Shah, put Khomeini there because we can no longer control the Shah. The Shah has become so powerful that we may no longer be able to do, you know, what we want to do with them, right? So Khomeini is a little bit more of a person that we can control, maybe. We won't be able to control the Shah. Your impression of those two stories that we hear about, claims?

• 1:32:56Speaker 03

  No, but I, I, I call them, you know, conspiracy theory.

• 1:33:05Speaker 03

  It's very common amongst Iranians, by the way, that Kar Kar English British conspiracy everywhere.

• 1:33:13Patrick Bet-David?

  Do you think the Shah came in because of CIA?

• 1:33:17Speaker 03

  Uh, that coup on nineteen fifty-three was designed by British MI6 and CIA together.

• 1:33:29Patrick Bet-David?

  So watch this. So here's the thing, with the leftist Iranians, this is what the left is, because you said it's famous with Iranians. On the leftist Iranians, that maybe they're a little bit more supportive of Najak and that community, they'll typically say, yeah, the CIA was involved with, you know, Mossadegh and preventing him from coming in. But no, when it comes down to, you know, getting rid of the Shah and Khomeini coming in, MI6 was not involved. That's just some of the people that like the Shah say stuff like this. So the liberals want to believe one of them, but say, no, it's a conspiracy on the other side. But God forbid if the others say that, you know, you know, the Shah came in and maybe, you know, it's what the people wanted. No, no, that was actually CIA. So can't both be true?

• 1:34:12Speaker 03

  Let's, no, can't both of them be true. First of all, first of all,

• 1:34:17Patrick Bet-David?

  Come on.

• 1:34:18Speaker 03

  I tell you why. First of all,

• 1:34:21Patrick Bet-David?

  Your young leftist is coming out.

• 1:34:24Speaker 03

  No, I'm not. But let's put it, let's follow your simple rule. Who benefited?

• 1:34:33Patrick Bet-David?

  From what?

• 1:34:34Speaker 03

  From nineteen fifty-three, bringing back Shah to Iran that fled Iran. And nineteen seventy-nine,

• 1:34:42Patrick Bet-David?

  I can't give you my opinion.

• 1:34:44Speaker 03

  Khomeini came to power. The first one, after that, US had very good relationship with Iran.

• 1:34:52Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:53Speaker 03

  British, for instance, British Embassy in Iran had about three hundred staff.

• 1:35:00Patrick Bet-David?

  Yep.

• 1:35:00Speaker 03

  And they had lots of, for instance, in industries of Iran, we had lots of contracts with Western companies and blah, blah, blah.

• 1:35:12Speaker 03

  But in nineteen seventy nine, when Khomeini returned to Iran and Islamic regime gradually, I remember that once while I was in Iran, I talked to one of the British diplomats. He said that we have only twenty seven staff because we don't have any relationship, any commercial relationship with Iran.

• 1:35:33Patrick Bet-David?

  That's kind of like when, but that's kind of like saying.

• 1:35:35Speaker 03

  Who benefits from Islamic Republic, Russia right now?

• 1:35:39Patrick Bet-David?

  No, I'll give you who benefits from the.

• 1:35:41Speaker 03

  What American company have any, any contract with Iran?

• 1:35:45Patrick Bet-David?

  No, it's not about, it's not about the.

• 1:35:47Speaker 03

  What else?

• 1:35:48Patrick Bet-David?

  It's not, it's not, okay, you want me to tell you, I'll give you.

• 1:35:50Speaker 03

  And let me, sorry, to finish that. The other thing are.

• 1:35:54Patrick Bet-David?

  Who benefited?

• 1:35:55Speaker 03

  When, when, when we talk about the

• 1:36:01Speaker 03

  a historical event, we should talk about the facts.

• 1:36:05Patrick Bet-David?

  I'm gonna give you facts and I want you to push back.

• 1:36:07Speaker 03

  So far, from, for nineteen fifty three.

• 1:36:10Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:11Speaker 03

  The, it has been published several documents from foreign ministries, from uh, the, the intelligence services, including the Foreign Minister of the United States. Martin Albright once said that, okay, we apologize from the, the people of Iran for that coup. Uh, top officials, lots of hundreds of documents uh, uh, have been published so far that shows that, yes, British Sixth Service and US Sixth Service were involved in that coup. But nineteen seventy nine, now it's after forty five years, forty six years, several documents have been published.

• 1:36:55Speaker 03

  And several memoirs, including President Carter, including the Prime Ministers of uh, the, the British Government and, and many other documents have been released so far. Uh, and there's no document that they supported, uh, Khomeini. And besides to that, what they got, uh, very wisely, you know, Shah was a very close friends to US, to England, to Western countries. Why should they remove him and replace them, replace him with the guys that they didn't know them? And after a while, they became against them.

• 1:37:37Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, so.

• 1:37:38Speaker 03

  Why should they do that?

• 1:37:39Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, do you remember when you first met Khomeini and you were like, what a gentle, kind, sweet man he was, and then boom, killing after killing after killing after killing after killing? And then you decide to step away in 1988, and you go to jail, they have you in prison, at the Yevon Prison in Tehran, and then you realize, wow, maybe I got spooked. Maybe I got fooled, maybe I got bamboozled by Khomeini, right? Okay, I wanna go a little bit deeper with this thing, on when you said who benefited from 1953 to 1959?

• 1:38:20Patrick Bet-David?

  What major contract and agreement came about between those 26 years? Can you go to 1954 Oil Consortium Agreement? 1954 Oil Consortium Agreement, okay? That was in 1954, do you know how long the contract was?

• 1:38:38Speaker 03

  I don't know how long it was, but 40% the American companies got from that contract for oil of Iran.

• 1:38:47Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, so the 1954 oil-

• 1:38:50Speaker 03

  And after a while, in 60s, I guess that Shah actually, that was expired, and Shah again announced that the oil of Iran is nationalized.

• 1:39:02Patrick Bet-David?

  Right, so the contract was a 25-year contract?

• 1:39:05Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 1:39:07Patrick Bet-David?

  So the 25-year contract expired in 79. And Iran, under the Shah, became so powerful that he was becoming more and more assertive about what they were producing. Iran, education was improving, women had freedom, that they way more than what they have today. The age of marriage for women came down to 9 years old, 10 years old, under the Shah, I think it was 18 or 16 or 15 years old. Now it goes back down to numbers, he's being asked by Wallace, he says in 5 years, we're gonna be what you are right now, Britain, because he was seeing the strength that was coming up. And what happens when, under the Shah, there's no wars for 25 years? Who doesn't make money if there's no wars?

• 1:39:52Patrick Bet-David?

  Who doesn't make money?

• 1:39:53Speaker 03

  You mean that the the western countries removed their allies, brought a regime that they didn't know what they will do and they this regime will go to Russia?

• 1:40:05Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:06Speaker 03

  To power, to make wars in the region.

• 1:40:09Patrick Bet-David?

  The more war there is.

• 1:40:10Speaker 03

  For what?

• 1:40:11Patrick Bet-David?

  For what?

• 1:40:12Speaker 03

  To sell the, to sell equipments, you say.

• 1:40:15Patrick Bet-David?

  So you, so you think Eisenhower was a dummy?

• 1:40:18Speaker 03

  No, he was not.

• 1:40:19Patrick Bet-David?

  So what's, what did Eisenhower say at the end of the?

• 1:40:21Speaker 03

  Let's put it this way, whole, whole the equipments that they have sold to Iran, they have sold nothing.

• 1:40:28Patrick Bet-David?

  No, but, but.

• 1:40:29Speaker 03

  Iran bought about fifteen billion dollars at the last years of Shah from, from the United States only. But to Iran, not Britain, not US, none of them sold anything to Iran or western countries. But to region, say Saudi Arabia, for instance.

• 1:40:50Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:51Speaker 03

  Sixty-five billion dollars a year, totally save five hundred billion dollars. If I'm not, uh, just an estimation. Uh, is it just for, uh, opposing Iran, Islamic Republic of Iran or Saudi Arabia? Uh, because Saudi Arabia is a good ally to the US and western countries as well.

• 1:41:13Patrick Bet-David?

  So I'm gonna give you.

• 1:41:13Speaker 03

  And, and compare it, suppose that's right. Suppose totally the, uh, weapon industries of the United States and western countries benefit from Islamic Republic and the country, you know, to sell the equipments to other countries. Okay, suppose it happened. Compare it to the other opportunities that they lost. Iran is ninety million population. If Iran was an ally to western countries, now the huge amount of car manufacturing companies,

• 1:41:53Speaker 03

  home appliances, especially the, uh, IT information.

• 1:42:00Patrick Bet-David?

  You're speaking to the mic.

• 1:42:01Speaker 03

  And, and many, many other.

• 1:42:04Patrick Bet-David?

  I agree.

• 1:42:05Speaker 03

  Many, many other companies benefited from a relationship with Iran. I think that.

• 1:42:14Speaker 03

  Even if without that, they can't they can't like that.

• 1:42:19Patrick Bet-David?

  Of course, they think like that. You think they played the game like-

• 1:42:22Speaker 03

  I can't say like you, of course, that when when I don't see any documents, this is just-

• 1:42:30Patrick Bet-David?

  Do you think CIA is capable of creating a coup in Iran to replace Mossadegh and put Shah in?

• 1:42:35Speaker 03

  On those days, yes, but not now.

• 1:42:36Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, stop it.

• 1:42:38Speaker 03

  They can't do that now.

• 1:42:39Patrick Bet-David?

  You can't be that naive, because if you go, can you go back to the 1954 oil consortium agreement, Rob? Just go to the link to, oh, nineteen, I just want you to see this here real quick. So this is the agreement. Can you go a little bit lower? Keep going lower, right there, terms. The dispute was finalized with the incorporation of a 25-year international oil consortium agreement. In 1954, 53 is Mossadegh, Shah comes in, 25 plus 1954 is 79, dividing the aforementioned 50% ownership to foreign companies as follows, 40% to be divided equally, 8% each amongst the five major American companies.

• 1:43:21Patrick Bet-David?

  BP to have 40% share, Royal Dutch to have 14% share, CFP, a French company, to receive 6%. A later, year later, 1950, US government ordered the five companies to each transfer 1% of their 8% to several smaller companies, because these companies have been complaining that they were left out. So this is official, that is taking place, okay? So there is nothing, so 1954, 79, in 1954, Iran needs the world. They desperately need the world. In 79, the world needs Iran.

• 1:43:53Patrick Bet-David?

  They're starting to realize this guy is creating a lot of momentum, okay? So now, watch, no wars. So then, can you go pull up Eisenhower when he was president? What years was he president? I think it's somewhere around the same time, 53 to 60, or something like that. What terms?

• 1:44:10Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay, so there you go. So fifty-three to sixty, sixty-one, he's president. What's his last message? Be careful with the military-industrial complex that he's giving the message, hey, you know, you just guys, guys gotta be careful because these guys want a lot of war so they can make a lot of money. Is he naive? Or maybe he knows some things that you and I don't know because he's on the inside. So then, military-industrial complex, you look at the business now, the amount of money that's being made by having to sell weapons and more war. Then, for me, it goes to, let's just say, we're playing three-dimensional chess game.

• 1:44:46Patrick Bet-David?

  What happens if you sit there and US is realizing they can't control Russia because they have a relationship with Iran?

• 1:44:59Patrick Bet-David?

  US is sitting, they can't control some of those countries there that they don't need US, let's just say.

• 1:45:07Patrick Bet-David?

  Sometimes, you're a person that is not asking for help and you want to control them, especially in military types of situations, you have to create chaos for them to call and say, hey, I need your help. Bingo. Now that you need help, now my terms. Ba, ba, ba. This happens in the insurance business when I was working for twenty-something years and companies did this. What happened when Middle East became chaotic again? All the neighbors need America. And guess what, America? We'll come and build a military base, military-industrial complex. All these other guys are making money. I mean, to me, for us to sit here and just play one-dimensional, not two or three,

• 1:45:49Patrick Bet-David?

  but yet assume that the CIA helped get rid of Mossad to bring Shahin, we're assuming the CIA got weaker than they were in nineteen fifty-three. I don't think you're that naive.

• 1:46:02Speaker 03

  You know...

• 1:46:05Speaker 03

  Conspiracy theory is attractive because it's like a story and you don't need to any fact. You don't need to prove it, just a story you make and you don't have any fact for that. This is what I say, you just guess that for instance, the US has benefited from the wars. For instance, spent one trillion dollars in Iraq by taxpayers of the United States.

• 1:46:36Patrick Bet-David?

  Who did that benefit? What did that one trillion go to?

• 1:46:39Speaker 03

  To many companies, not only the...

• 1:46:42Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, bingo!

• 1:46:43Speaker 03

  I understand what you say.

• 1:46:46Patrick Bet-David?

  Don't be a conspiracy theorist here, Mosin. I don't like it. Please don't do that on my show. Don't say that these businesses made a trillion dollars because of the war. Don't do that. I don't like that.

• 1:46:56Speaker 03

  Is it the only... Armed companies are the only companies in the US? Are they the only companies that have so much influence on the government of the United States to do whatever they want?

• 1:47:12Patrick Bet-David?

  You said it costs taxpayers a trillion dollars. Do you really think these politicians that are controlled by these big, you know, military contractors? Do you think they wake up in the morning saying, "Let me think about the taxpayers"? Do you really think they care about the taxpayers? Do you know how much national debt that we have right now? Do you know the fact that Musk and Trump and all these guys are trying to find a way to get us to be a little bit more efficient? You know who's losing their shit? The people that benefit from all this expenditure, wasted expenditure. I mean, if I give you some of the numbers of how dumb expenditure we've done in US, our history of spending money on stupid things. We have a long track record of it, but why did that happen? Because some politician signed off on it. Somebody said this was good.

• 1:47:56Patrick Bet-David?

  Somebody was bought off on the site. Somebody said, "I'll support your campaign if you help us create this thing and if you help us get rid of this guy." For somebody that's been in this space this long and spend time with Khomeini, for you to not think this is possible...

• 1:48:09Speaker 03

  I don't want to go through the, you know, US policy because, you know, talking about the...

• 1:48:18Speaker 03

  Complex of the benefits in Washington and different political parties, different companies. But what I can say, only I can say, that the armed dealers, armed companies, are not the only companies that benefit and they try to intervene in the politics.

• 1:48:39Patrick Bet-David?

  What's your point?

• 1:48:40Speaker 03

  I, I, I wanna say that when you forget about the power of the other companies in the US. For instance, oil companies. Iran exported 5.5 million barrel per day at the last years of Shah. And oil companies benefited from that. They lost it.

• 1:49:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, no, but he was threatening to raise prices because it was gonna be a new contract.

• 1:49:08Speaker 03

  It, it was raised already and they, they, they control it. That was not the only, that was not only Shah, that was OPEC. And they, he was a person that could make deal on the contrary to these guys that got power. That, you know, the oil income of Iran decreased and, for instance, British companies, British Petroleum, actually benefited from oil of Iran. I mean, when you're talking about the benefits in politics, the armed manufacturing companies are not the only companies.

• 1:49:46Speaker 03

  You can look at the, you know, Wall Street 500 and, and Forbes 500 and the others. The biggest companies are not the armed manufacturing companies. There are many other companies. On these days, for instance, a person like Elon Musk is the richest person in the world. And they got lots of money from the car manufacturing company or the, the, the other branches. So if you're talking about the politics of the United States in Washington, don't forget that there are different benefits from different companies.

• 1:50:25Speaker 03

  They have their own lobbies and several other things that at the end of the day make the politics in Washington. Anyway, that's the politics of the United States. But I can talk about Iran, that Iran, after victory of revolution.

• 1:50:44Speaker 03

  gradually went to the side of the Russia and now is manipulated by that incorporation of kleptocracies. And Iran is unfortunately against Western countries and has no relationship with the pioneers of modern technologies. That Iranians need that. We have, you know, 90 million population, young generation.

• 1:51:17Patrick Bet-David?

  So are you for sanctions or you're not for sanctions?

• 1:51:20Speaker 03

  Sanctions and the other things. Even in 60s, Iran was not, in 80s, Iranian 60s, that I was in industry of Iran. Because of the situation of revolutionary regime, none of the companies, Western companies. I was eager to work with Western companies. They didn't come to Iran to invest. For instance, Mercedes, Mercedes-Benz, was the shareholder of Khavar, our truck manufacturing company. They were shareholder of Idem, the company in Tahrir,

• 1:52:00Speaker 03

  that produced the engines, diesel engines of the trucks. And we begged them, we insisted that we want to increase the investment. Please, come and make more investment. At last, they said, no. We don't see any future for industries in Iran and they left Iran. At last.

• 1:52:26Patrick Bet-David?

  But that's a byproduct of the average, when you said 2.5 million out of 4 million people living in Tehran came out to march against the Shah, supporting of Khomeini.

• 1:52:40Speaker 03

  The real figure was about 1 million, 1 million and a half.

• 1:52:43Patrick Bet-David?

  Whatever the number is, they were brainwashed. They were brainwashed. Like, when you remember when Cinema Rex happened and they said, oh, Savak did it. And then afterwards you realize it was one of Khomeini's people that did it.

• 1:52:56Speaker 03

  Hmm.

• 1:52:58Patrick Bet-David?

  You haven't read that story?

• 1:52:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, I have, I have read it, you know.

• 1:53:04Speaker 03

  Can you say that a nation, say thirty million out of thirty-five million, no, twenty-five million people out of thirty-five million people, at least, are brainwashed?

• 1:53:17Patrick Bet-David?

  Yes.

• 1:53:18Speaker 03

  How can it happen?

• 1:53:19Patrick Bet-David?

  What percentage, you got, how many people?

• 1:53:21Speaker 03

  How can it happen?

• 1:53:22Patrick Bet-David?

  What percentage of Americans do you think are brainwashed?

• 1:53:24Speaker 03

  You know, I think that this is an insult to the people of Iran.

• 1:53:29Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, not at all, let me tell you.

• 1:53:30Speaker 03

  You know, look at, look at the era, I mean.

• 1:53:33Patrick Bet-David?

  You asked me a question, let me give you my argument, then I want to hear from you. So you're asking me a question, do I think it's possible to brainwash twenty-five out of thirty-five million people? Really? In, in how many instances do you see when somebody, everybody conspires in America, to say, if I was to ask you in two thousand and sixteen, if Trump was tied to Russia collusion, you probably believed it, did you not? You believed it, you can answer that, you believed he was tied to Russia collusion, yes or no?

• 1:54:07Speaker 03

  I have read in some books, but I need more documents.

• 1:54:11Patrick Bet-David?

  Did you believe it when they first, did you think he was tied to Russia and he was colluding with Russia?

• 1:54:15Speaker 03

  I have read in at least two books about Putin, that Trump was in the business of money laundering.

• 1:54:23Patrick Bet-David?

  Mosin, it's a very basic question, do you think Trump at the beginning, did you believe he was colluding with Russia?

• 1:54:30Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:54:31Patrick Bet-David?

  Mosin. Mosin, that smile on your face is cracking, you may be a good poker player.

• 1:54:38Speaker 03

  No, I'm not.

• 1:54:39Patrick Bet-David?

  That smile is cracking, how many people in America believe that he was colluding with Russia?

• 1:54:44Speaker 03

  I don't know.

• 1:54:45Patrick Bet-David?

  Stop it.

• 1:54:46Speaker 03

  Of course I don't know.

• 1:54:47Patrick Bet-David?

  Rob, can you, can you, can you run a, would you say it's only one percent?

• 1:54:50Speaker 03

  What I have read.

• 1:54:52Patrick Bet-David?

  Would you say it's sixty percent, would you say it's seventy percent? What percentage of Americans in nineteen, in two thousand and sixteen believed that President Trump was colluding with Russia? Can you ask it on ChatGPT? If that doesn't come up here, ask it right here first, let's see what it does. Right there, see if the answer comes up. Because there was a poll. Nearly half of all Americans believe President Trump worked with Russia to interfere in 2016. The most educated country in the world, let's just say. All the Harvard and all the Yale and Columbia and USC and UCLA and Wharton. Half a million people believed that, half of America believed this guy was colluding with Russia.

• 1:55:38Patrick Bet-David?

  What happened a few years later? Thirty-five million dollar dossier by Hillary Clinton. Convinced, and then nobody talked about it anymore. Everybody stopped. So you don't think conspiracy theories work? Look at this, they just fooled half of American people. So for you, now take it back to then. This would have been eighty percent if there was no social media. This would have been ninety percent if there was no social media. If I only have two channels or three channels or four channels to listen to and competition for media wasn't high, eighty percent of Americans would have been brainwashed, including me. A lot of us, we would have been like, holy shit. That's probably what happened. Maybe his son did meet with him, maybe that did take place, maybe this did take place. No, to you, for you to say the twenty-five to thirty-five.

• 1:56:22Patrick Bet-David?

  The power of propaganda is so flipping, if somebody very powerful in a political party that hates you, if they want to put a campaign of propaganda against you to destroy your life, your life is destroyed. Your life is destroyed. They can, if they want to convince the world, you even whisper and said accusations of Mohsen rape in 1989, boom. Hey, accusations of pedophilia, boom. Accusations of Russia collusion, he's tied. Your reputation is tied to being an agent. When I talk to people, some people say you're still dealing with mullahs. Some people tell me you're still tied to Niyak, is that true? I mean, if they want to do it, they can do it like this, maybe it is, maybe it's not.

• 1:57:05Patrick Bet-David?

  All I'm saying to you, for us to sit there and assume that Iranian people...

• 1:57:11Speaker 03

  Can I answer now?

• 1:57:12Patrick Bet-David?

  Of course. You asked me a question, I give you my answer.

• 1:57:15Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:57:18Speaker 03

  When you are talking about brainwashing, definitely you should have the tools for that, propaganda. Especially now, we have social media that can create political turbulence. That is a new era, by the way. And mass media. In Iran, during the Shah, the exclusive state-run TV belonged to Shah. There was no propaganda for the Islamists who wanted to come to power, except the mosques and the mullahs

• 1:58:01Speaker 03

  that they were, you know, preaching and blah blah. I mean, when you look at

• 1:58:11Speaker 03

  a huge event like Islamic Revolution, I believe that revolutions are not produced by one person or a group of people. Revolutions are a big social events that happen. You can go and, so far, it has been written more than 1,000 books in western countries about Islamic Revolution. You can go and find the roots of the idea of Islamism, get the power by Muslims to be for, you know, constitutional revolution of Iran. From this point of view,

• 1:58:54Speaker 03

  Islamic Revolution in Iran is a part of a bigger event in the whole region of the Middle East and Islamic countries. Why? Because after the decline of Ottoman Empire, for the first time, Islamic nations found out that, oh, they are under the power of colonialism. So they started to, and their confrontation with modern world, they started to say that, okay, what can we do? What should we do? And I think that in mid-50s...

• 1:59:34Speaker 03

  Eh, Ehfan al Muslimin, Muslim brother who, that was founded in Egypt. And the famous book written by Sayyidah Quot, or Kotob, they, they, they call him here. Eh, eh, his famous book, Ignor, eh, Twentieth Century Ignorance. In that book, Sayyidah Quot says that, okay, why should we try to reach the Western civilization? We should get rid of that. That's the ignorance. They are brutal. They are criminals. We should go back to genuine Islam, eh, that is Islam of the Prophet and companions.

• 2:00:18Speaker 03

  Or in Shiism, eh, Prophet and Imams. Then, we will have paradise on the earth and we will become powerful again. And we will not be under control of the Western countries. That idea from fifties spread in all the Islamic countries. And so far, that idea of Sayyidah Quot is still the belief of the, all the fundamentalists. Like ISIS, Daesh, or Al Qaeda, or Islamic Republic of Iran. That if we go back to Islamic Sharia, Islamic Fiqh, the Islam of the Prophet and the, eh, eh, eh, the first years of Islam.

• 2:01:03Speaker 03

  Then, not only we, eh, we eh, create paradise on the earth. But we eh, become powerful and we can confront the Western civilization. That's one of the roots of Islamic revolution, gradually from fifties and sixties. It became a dominant idea. The second part that gradually came to Iran was go back to sixties, for instance. And early seventies, ideological revolutionary ideas, leftist ideas. That was dominant in intellectuality of not only Iran, but even in the US.

• 2:01:51Speaker 03

  I was studying in the US from 1975 till 1978. Especially European countries, you were not intellectual if you were not leftists. Ideological leftist ideas became dominant. I can borrow the word from Thomas Kohn, paradigm, the era of some discourses. That was a revolutionary paradigm. Everybody thought that, okay, if we make a revolution, everything will be solved.

• 2:02:27Speaker 03

  That was so powerful idea that Mohamed Reza Shah himself calls his reforms as white revolution. If you read his books, he says that I am the true revolutionary, but my revolution is white. But so acceptable, the idea of revolution and revolutionary, that even Mohamed Reza Shah tries to say that I am the revolutionary.

• 2:02:55Patrick Bet-David?

  But here's how you can.

• 2:02:56Speaker 03

  I mean, these ideas got together, gradually became dominant in intellectuality of the country.

• 2:03:03Patrick Bet-David?

  Right, right.

• 2:03:03Speaker 03

  Amongst the, and a big mistake, I can say by Shah, that closed all the political parties. In 70s, he announced only one political party, his political party, Rastakhis, that was a Farsi translation of Al Baath in Arabic countries, in Iraq and Syria. And he closed any free political activities, but kept the mosques open and gave the way to mullahs. Altogether, I mean, these, besides to many other things. For instance, Shah was ill. He got cancer. Nobody knew about that.

• 2:03:48Patrick Bet-David?

  Seventy-three, seventy-four.

• 2:03:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, and even I asked, when I was in the US in a meeting in Washington City to, I think that, I don't know, I don't remember, some of the officials, I asked them, why didn't you know that Shah had cancer? That was your ally, he said that we didn't know that until nineteen seventy eight. He succeeded to keep it secret. I mean, eh, maybe eh eh.

• 2:04:16Patrick Bet-David?

  What's your point with that though? What's your point?

• 2:04:17Speaker 03

  I wanna say that when you look at a big event like Islamic Revolution.

• 2:04:22Patrick Bet-David?

  Right.

• 2:04:22Speaker 03

  That comes from a whole the society.

• 2:04:24Patrick Bet-David?

  Right.

• 2:04:25Speaker 03

  Simple answer to say that people were brainwashed. Or people were eh, you know, eh, that was a conspiracy of eh, US and eh, eh, intelligence of eh, British MI6. Yeah, I say that such a big event takes decades to grow up and has roots in many eh, events of the society and many other things. For instance, let me tell you, Shah improved the middle class of Iran, definitely. By number and by quality of life.

• 2:05:03Patrick Bet-David?

  Education.

• 2:05:04Speaker 03

  Education and income.

• 2:05:06Patrick Bet-David?

  Right.

• 2:05:07Speaker 03

  Especially in seven.

• 2:05:08Patrick Bet-David?

  Exponentially, like if you, the numbers of people see it, right.

• 2:05:12Speaker 03

  Especially in seventies, after increase of the oil income.

• 2:05:15Patrick Bet-David?

  Right, right.

• 2:05:15Speaker 03

  And he made big mistakes to inject the oil income to the economy of the country without eh, you know, eh eh, and eh, you know, declining eh, eh, value of the money of Iran. Anyway, he created lots of expectations from that middle class. That middle class could be the power base of Shah.

• 2:05:41Patrick Bet-David?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:05:42Speaker 03

  Should be. But why they were dissatisfied on nineteen seventy seven, seventy eight and eh, turned against him? Why? Because he created lots of expectations for them. According to a document that I read from Savak, when I was eh, head of radio, I found that very good note eh eh, that was a small book written by Savak in November nineteen seventy eight that explained that why people are against Shah.

• 2:06:14Speaker 03

  Eh, one of the main reasons it says that that was true, that middle class should support Shah. But we have created, regime of Shah, we have created lots of expectations for them, that no government can satisfy that anymore.

• 2:06:31Patrick Bet-David?

  I think that's a fair, fair assessment, meaning

• 2:06:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, it is.

• 2:06:34Patrick Bet-David?

  overpromise, underdeliver on some of the things.

• 2:06:36Speaker 03

  I say this example, as an example, that how different factors, different facts, different roots.

• 2:06:47Patrick Bet-David?

  Right.

• 2:06:47Speaker 03

  Ideological, social, economic, all together, illness of Shah, blah, blah, blah. Get together, make a revolution. That's not, Khomeini was one person. I, I don't believe that, that, that revolution was created by Khomeini.

• 2:07:04Patrick Bet-David?

  You are underestimating the power of a united front who wants to replace somebody. By the way, you put, the paper you read by Savak, was that a paper written by Nasiri or Parvi Sabati? Or who was it?

• 2:07:17Speaker 03

  Has no author, that was definitely, I think that that was a teamwork. And was written for the-

• 2:07:23Patrick Bet-David?

  Some of the Savak members were also not happy with the Shah not being too aggressive with the two-day party and not too aggressive with Khomeini. So, some of the Savak members were like, we gotta take that guy out. Right? You know those stories where, you know, the Shah didn't think Khomeini could have that much momentum and power until he started seeing all the tapes, the millions of tapes being spread in Iran and those tapes getting people to listen to what Khomeini was saying. They're like, wait a minute. You know, maybe we need this guy over here. The tapes were very effective. The tapes at the time were what social media is today. You know that.

• 2:07:57Speaker 03

  Yeah. That, my voice is at the beginning of the tapes of Khomeini.

• 2:08:02Patrick Bet-David?

  You're kidding me.

• 2:08:03Speaker 03

  You know, whenever he talked, first of all, at the first days, he talked every night. And he started to say bullshit, by the way.

• 2:08:13Patrick Bet-David?

  Like what?

• 2:08:15Speaker 03

  Every night he was talking about, you know, when you wanna talk every night, he did not have so much ideas to talk every night. He was talking about the previous constitution and very boring one. By the way, one of the top calurgi, Mortaza Mutahari, when he came to Nofle Shatoh, he recommended him that, Mesra Ayatollah, talk only once a week. And every Sunday, he talked about an hour or less. And when we took Masood Maniyan, one of my friends over there was in charge of that, taped him, and we took that tape, the mother tape,

• 2:08:58Speaker 03

  and my voice was at the beginning of that Sochanranie Qawed Azam Imam Khumayni.

• 2:09:03Patrick Bet-David?

  On every tape?

• 2:09:04Speaker 03

  Every tape, yeah. I said that the speech of-

• 2:09:08Patrick Bet-David?

  Are you serious? You're the first voice in every tape that caused the revolution?

• 2:09:14Speaker 03

  Yeah, that was not the only cause of the revolution, but that was the, my voice over the, over the, that I said that Sochanranie Qawed Azam Imam Khumayni, Nofle Shato, then the dates. And then that, that one was duplicated, one to three. We had a small box, tool, and produced it, one to three, then sent it to Iran by phone, because one of the engineers, in, two engineers actually, in Telecom of Iran, opened the international line every night for one hour.

• 2:09:53Speaker 03

  And through the, the mullahs sent it to their friends in Rome. And then in Iran, it was duplicated and, you know, distributed amongst the people. Yeah, on those days, the tool was tapes, cassette tapes, and radio, shortwave radio. BBC was listened by the people.

• 2:10:18Patrick Bet-David?

  You just validated my point. Meaning, to be able to get everybody brainwashed, you guys did it successfully. So, you get credit for running one of the best viral campaigns ever.

• 2:10:29Speaker 03

  Really?

• 2:10:31Patrick Bet-David?

  Really? You know what you did? You're laughing, you-

• 2:10:35Speaker 03

  No, I say that-

• 2:10:38Speaker 03

  I don't like the word of brainwash for the nation. This is what I oppose you. I say that.

• 2:10:45Patrick Bet-David?

  Not liking it doesn't mean it's not true.

• 2:10:47Speaker 03

  People, people, people listen to that and make their decision.

• 2:10:50Patrick Bet-David?

  No, no.

• 2:10:52Speaker 03

  When, when you have majority of people, people listen to the documents. Maybe later, you know, about the President Trump that you say. I, I'm a historian.

• 2:11:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Okay.

• 2:11:05Speaker 03

  So, history is nothing but facts.

• 2:11:09Patrick Bet-David?

  Not necessarily, not necessarily.

• 2:11:12Speaker 03

  No, that, that, that, that.

• 2:11:14Patrick Bet-David?

  Not necessarily, it's who's writing the history that controls the power. There's a quote, uh, what is this quote? There is a very, very powerful quote about what you just said. Very, and by the way, continue, I'm gonna find this quote, please, go for it.

• 2:11:29Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean.

• 2:11:31Patrick Bet-David?

  You're a historian, is what you're saying.

• 2:11:32Speaker 03

  When you're a historian.

• 2:11:33Patrick Bet-David?

  Right.

• 2:11:33Speaker 03

  Uh, uh, I know about the philosophy of history, methodology of history. Yes, you, you can, the, the historian can choose the facts and make the, the story of, an event. But when you say something, maybe now I say something and have some facts about that. But after a while, at least thirty-five years later, or fifty years later. Because that's a generation in history, thirty-five years. And fifty years is the time that we historians says that now a historian can go to an event. Uh, join the history.

• 2:12:18Speaker 03

  The, the documents come out, the memoirs come out. They, they, you know, many other things that people don't know about that. When they come out and historians go, collect them, write it down. Then the real event gradually will be appeared. Like a submarine that comes out of the water. So I mean about the, you, you mentioned President Trump. Uh, is close to Russia or have some relationship with Putin oligarchy, maybe.

• 2:12:58Speaker 03

  I have read it in two books, as I said, written by two researchers, that on 2003, 2004, money laundering was done by President Trump through the, you know, housing projects or in Atlantic City or other places. That's just, just it. You ask me, do you believe? I said, no. Why? Because I should wait as a historian. I don't think that right now it's, we don't have, if there were any documents about that, definitely FBI and the other.

• 2:13:41Speaker 00

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• 2:14:38Speaker 03

  You know, agencies could discover that. But if you want to judge, have good judgment and say that, is it true or not? I think that you should wait at least 35 years or 50 years from now to everything will be gradually come out and then the future historians can write about that.

• 2:15:00Patrick Bet-David?

  I found this.

• 2:15:01Speaker 03

  This is what I say about the Islamic Republic as well. Islamic Revolution, now 46 years ago. Now it is going to join the history. Regime of Shah has joined the history too. And many documents have been published. Memoirs of president of the US or prime minister, foreign minister. And, and, and, and On Iranian side. The, the, like Raffsanjani memoirs or Yazdi or the others. And many documents have been published from foreign ministries of these countries. It was released. And a part of the secret services have been released.

• 2:15:45Patrick Bet-David?

  Nobody trust the secret service. Are you kidding me? We had fifty one secret service intelligence officers signed off saying there's nothing in the Hunter Biden laptop. And we find out what it was to the point that Biden had to pardon his entire family and everybody else. No one. So, so to me, where you're going with this. Sometimes people, my experience, people who are such scholars and educators. They are in such a big box that they don't see the three dimension. And that may offend you. I understand it. It was intended to offend scholars. I'm not saying it in a way to try to make friends. Sometimes there's a box. Okay, that people have, they're living in a box. Here's the quote that I was referencing. History is always written by the winners. The two cultures clash.

• 2:16:28Speaker 03

  That's the sentence of Hitler.

• 2:16:30Patrick Bet-David?

  The, the loser is obliterated. And a winner writes the history. Books, books which glorify their own cause and disparage the conquered foe. As Napoleon once said, what is history but a fable agreed upon the Da Vinci Code, right? Here's how simple it was for me. Imagine if Kamala Harris wins. Okay, let's just kind of play this along.

• 2:16:55Speaker 03

  By the way, Napoleon, maybe he thought about himself something else. But now, after two hundred years.

• 2:17:03Patrick Bet-David?

  Well, because he lost at the end.

• 2:17:04Speaker 03

  More than, more than, even the winners. Winston Churchill is the winner of the war. Okay?

• 2:17:10Patrick Bet-David?

  Yeah.

• 2:17:10Speaker 03

  Now we can judge about Churchill, what he has done. Many documents have been published, his weaknesses, what he lost in World War One, what he won in World War Two.

• 2:17:22Patrick Bet-David?

  What I'm saying is if

• 2:17:23Speaker 03

  I I wanna defend the historians by the way.

• 2:17:25Patrick Bet-David?

  You know, I don't, by the way, in respect to the historians, it's very important, but all I'm saying is who are historians reading? Or or but you know, it's selective. If I just sit there and read Karl Marx and all those guys. Okay, am I gonna study the historians based on the facts from a leftist book recommendation? Because both the left and the right can give a top 100 book recommendations to give. And I'm gonna see it on this side. I'm gonna see it on this side. There's some biases there, but all I'm saying is if Kamala Harris would have won in 2024. Let's just say she wins.

• 2:17:56Patrick Bet-David?

  Obama would have been able to come out and say 2016 when Trump was a fluke, he got lucky. And what he says, nobody's interested in what MAGA is interested in, let's just say. And they would have destroyed his legacy is what they would have tried to do, okay? And we would have to sit there and say, no, DEI is, that's that's what we gotta do, Mo Sen. No, no transgender LGBTQ, that's what we have to teach to our kids, right? No, no, no, guess what? We have to do all this other, no, no, no, no, these guys, and they would have had that chokehold on everybody. This was about to be a revolutionary era for us, and all I'm saying to you is. When you go back, and I like what you just said right now, you said if if after 35 years, you're gonna be able to recite history and see what happened.

• 2:18:41Patrick Bet-David?

  You know what we do know between the two? From the person that started IRGC, yourself, with the Khomeini, together.

• 2:18:51Patrick Bet-David?

  An organization that at the time you thought you were helping Khomeini because you thought he was a good guy. Took you less than 10 years to realize this guy's not a good guy because you were in your early 20s. You said that yourself. And you were one of the students that was protesting against the Shah because you wanted to get rid of the Shah. You succeeded. The tapes worked on you. You were in the sounds of those tapes. Tens of millions of people listen to those tapes. Fantastic. Fast forward to 2025. All the shit they said about Mohamed Reza Pahlavi.

• 2:19:25Patrick Bet-David?

  And how noble Khomeini was. Now we have data. Now we can see how chaotic it was in the Middle East under Khomeini and his regime, and Khomeini, and we know how things were under the Shah. There is plenty of data to be able to say only this many people died when he and his father were there. Oh, Reza Khan was a terrible man. He was a dictator and a half, and the enemies feared him, and he was just such a... Fine. I'd much rather have a guy like that on my end if we're somewhat at peace. Oh, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, all he cared about was the money and da-da-da-da-da, and all the, you know, his castle and all this stuff that he built. Education improved, middle income improved. Maybe he was a little bit too ambitious. Maybe you're right.

• 2:20:10Patrick Bet-David?

  Maybe if he had cancer, he needed to expedite the process of replacing himself with somebody else. Maybe he should have done that. I think that's a very good point you're making. With whom? I don't know. His son was a little too young. Maybe he was waiting behind closed doors for a few more years. We don't know that. But the reality of it is right now, Israel, Hamas, Middle East, Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, all of that is with the help of whoever got helped Khomeini to come back in with IRGC and Iran, all that stuff, Iran produced chaos in the Middle East. That part cannot be disputed. Is that fair?

• 2:20:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's fair. So, let me say, first of all, Reza Khan or Reza Shah, in my view, was a genius.

• 2:20:59Patrick Bet-David?

  Which one? Both of them?

• 2:21:01Speaker 03

  Reza Shah, the father.

• 2:21:02Patrick Bet-David?

  The father, yeah.

• 2:21:03Speaker 03

  Yeah. He was a genius. Although he was illiterate and was not educated, but you can see from the history right now that he was a genius. And second, this is what I say about history.

• 2:21:19Speaker 03

  Maybe when you are living right now, you have some judgments about Trump, Harris, or in my era, Khomeini, Shah. But when it passes forty-five years from that era.

• 2:21:33Patrick Bet-David?

  Sure.

• 2:21:34Speaker 03

  And I compare Shah with Khomeini. Let me say my judgment now. That many documents have come out. You know, for instance, on those days, opposition claimed that one hundred thousand political prisoners Shah has. There are one hundred thousand political prisoners in Iran. That was false.

• 2:21:59Patrick Bet-David?

  It was only three thousand, thirty-five hundred.

• 2:22:01Speaker 03

  Three thousand, a few hundred.

• 2:22:04Patrick Bet-David?

  Right.

• 2:22:06Speaker 03

  Now that if I compare Shah with Khomeini, definitely, I already said. First of all, his personality, Shah, was a better guy than Khomeini, first. Second, his, what he did for Iran, because that he believed in, you know, modernization of Iran, was definitely better than Islamic Republic. As I said, that if you tell me that you have only two choices, a military dictator like Shah, but want to modernize Iran, and a religious regime like Islamic Republic,

• 2:22:49Speaker 03

  and a guy like Khomeini or Khomeini, which one do you choose? You have no other option. I say, okay, definitely I choose a military dictator that wants to modernize Iran. But we found out, now that we go back and look at what happened in Iran, I can say that if Shah was more Democrat, if Shah, let me say something, quote you. When I was in Iran and I went to different universities, I had lots of lectures and classrooms for students. That was the reasons, one of the reasons, that they arrested me. Once in University of Kerman,

• 2:23:32Speaker 03

  I said to students in auditorium, maybe one thousand students were over there. I said that if I had my today knowledge.

• 2:23:46Speaker 03

  At the days of Islamic Revolution,

• 2:23:53Speaker 03

  which is impossible, but suppose that I had that knowledge and that wisdom. Then on 1977, when Shah has started a little changes in his regime, I definitely recommended him that, Mr. Shah, now that you are going to remove Hawaida and wanna bring Ammuzegar to power, this is a reform in your regime. Inject some other things in your reform injection.

• 2:24:29Speaker 03

  Open the prisons. Let the political prisoners come out, not the terrorists, but the ordinary opposition. Go for a free election, let them run for a free election, that he already did it on 1960. And because that he knew that had cancer, I said to a student that I was volunteer to write his speech as well, to say to the people that, okay, I'm ill, I wanted to do for you the best, people of Iran. Now, I'm going, I'm dying.

• 2:25:06Speaker 03

  This is my son and the concealer of monarchy, they run the country and so open the doors a little bit, and I said that, do you know what happened if he did that on 1977? Millions of people came to streets and said that, oh, don't go. We forgive you for whatever we have heard about you. But he, even until November 1978, he still was not, you know, thinking that he can, for instance, talk about Basateh

• 2:25:45Speaker 03

  or accept until, you know, December or January 1978. I mean, yes, if you're comparing these two regimes, definitely regime of Shah was more successful and had more benefit for the people of Iran. Why? Because wanted to modernize Iran.

• 2:26:07Speaker 03

  What was the big mistake? I think that democratization. You can't have economic development.

• 2:26:14Patrick Bet-David?

  It's a fair assessment.

• 2:26:16Speaker 03

  If you don't have any political development.

• 2:26:19Patrick Bet-David?

  Right.

• 2:26:19Speaker 03

  Social and cultural development.

• 2:26:21Patrick Bet-David?

  No, that's a fair assessment. I think you you've made a few very good points. If you knew you had cancer seventy three seventy four and the only people that knew, maybe your your wife even didn't know for a while.

• 2:26:33Patrick Bet-David?

  Maybe you had to kind of have a plan. Maybe he had a plan in his mind that didn't happen fast enough. Maybe he was waiting for his sons to be ready for it. I don't know. Maybe he was afraid of opening it up. Those things, you know, Zaheer, he's written about it. Sure, you know who I'm talking about, the ambassador. A lot of people have written about it. By the way, last question before we wrap up. What did Khomeini think about Israel? What was Khomeini's opinion on Israel?

• 2:26:57Speaker 03

  He was against Israel.

• 2:26:58Patrick Bet-David?

  Why?

• 2:27:00Speaker 03

  I think that the Islamic Revolution was born anti-Israeli. Because on those days, again, go back to seventies. To be pro-Palestinians, pro-PLO, pro-anti-Israel was something that you were not intellectual or you were not Muslim if you were not anti-Israel. And everybody believed that Israel should be wiped out from the map even on those days.

• 2:27:33Patrick Bet-David?

  Oh, wow.

• 2:27:33Speaker 03

  Khomeini was not the only person.

• 2:27:36Patrick Bet-David?

  Was it hate, like sheer hate?

• 2:27:39Speaker 03

  Maybe.

• 2:27:40Patrick Bet-David?

  It was. And would you put that at the top or would you put the US above that?

• 2:27:46Speaker 03

  No, US, I think, was.

• 2:27:49Patrick Bet-David?

  Above?

• 2:27:50Speaker 03

  Above that.

• 2:27:51Patrick Bet-David?

  And then who else would you put in the top three?

• 2:27:53Speaker 03

  Top three?

• 2:27:54Patrick Bet-David?

  Top three. So if Israel's one, US is one, who else would you put in top three?

• 2:27:58Speaker 03

  Western Europe.

• 2:27:59Patrick Bet-David?

  Western Europe, got it.

• 2:28:01Speaker 03

  And Western civilization.

• 2:28:03Patrick Bet-David?

  Well, I appreciate you for coming out. By the way, if you're Iranian, if you, if you're Iranian, you know his story. So it's not like you don't know. If you follow, if you, if you've finished this podcast till now, there's a very high likelihood you somehow, some way are interested in Iran. Okay. Whether you agree with him or not, he's got a YouTube channel. Rob, if we can put the link below for the audience to go see. Uh, what I respect is the fact that you came down and you had the conversation with me. And we had a nice little discourse, respectful discourse. And you presented your thoughts. I gave mine and the audience gets to decide and say, Pat, I completely disagree with you. I agree with you. You know, it is what it is, but I appreciate.

• 2:28:43Speaker 03

  Thank you for having me, Pat.

• 2:28:45Patrick Bet-David?

  Anytime.

• 2:28:45Speaker 03

  That was a very good discussion and hope to see you again.

• 2:28:50Patrick Bet-David?

  Thank you so much. Appreciate you. Take care, everybody. Bye bye, bye bye. Nowadays, more than ever, the brand you wear reflects and represents who you are. So for us, if you wear a Future Looks Bright hat or a ValueTainment gear, you're telling the world, I'm optimistic. I'm excited about what's going to be happening, but you're a free thinker. You question things. You like debate. And by the way, last year, a hundred and twenty thousand people got a piece of Future Looks Bright gear with ValueTainment. We have so many new things. The cuff links are here. New Future Looks Bright. This is my favorite, the green one. Just yesterday, somebody placed an order for a hundred of these. If you watch the PBD podcast, you got a bunch to choose from. White ones, black ones.

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