How Can the U.S. Help Iranians Defeat the Regime? | Mehrdad Marty Youssefiani on Ringside Politics

0:00 Very pleased now to bring on a gentleman who's director of the Iran Freedom Project. He's a leading Middle East strategist with over 25 years of experience. Born in Thrron, raised in Japan, he's served as a senior strategic counselor to Iran's crown prince. Mdad Marty Yusfani is with us. And Madd, how are you, sir? Welcome. Uh, great to have you on the program. Thank you, Jeff, for having me. Thank you know, we're five months into this. Mdad uh when the president announced it on February 28th, he said after the bombing, people were going to rise up in Iran and it be it'd be the best opportunity to take back their country.

0:39 Uh it hasn't happened. Uh tell us why. Well, primarily because uh first of all uh people have a difficult time running out to the streets and taking over a regime while bombs are falling. Uh secondly, uh because the regime as it proved uh it did not hesitate to brutally suppress uh thousands of Iranians uh boys and girls, men, women, young and old uh did go out hoping that they could uh express uh to the regime itself and to the world that they reject the regime. However, uh the regime responded by bullets and massive arrests and that is a net result not because the Iranian people are not able or capable or desirous but simply because it's difficult to take on bullets uh while bombs are falling.

1:36 So should we change strategies, stop the war, start getting weapons and funding to the resistance within uh Iran? What what would your advice be to President Trump, Murdan? Well, um, of course, uh, whenever one looks at the option of arming, uh, in our case 92 million people, a a a a massively expansive territory. That's a challenge that is u counterintuitive in all political uh strategists mind. Uh however uh what the war has done is that it has actually projected to the regime itself and to the Iranian people that it's a regime that is on its last leg in spite or despite of its uh huff and puff and projection of stability and power and capacity to send out target and and and destroy uh through its ballistic missiles. Uh the point uh the fact is that it is running on fumes. It has a an

2:42 economy that has collapsed. It is unable to meet the demands of 92 million people. People in Iran have demanded nothing but a better life, jobs, employment, uh a better opportunity. But that is not happening. What so should the war continue? Uh should the bombing continue? Well, um war in itself uh has u kinetic targets that has been achieved but with kinetic targets need to uh be brought into the fold. Political solutions Iran is a diverse uh population of various ethnic groups, political ideologies. I think the west, United States in particular, needs to pay more attention to to the civil society inside Iran and how to actually empower the people themselves to do the job. Now, targeting, decapitating, changing leaders that has only brought us more militancy, but we also stopped uh to

3:46 finish the job when the regime may have been on the verge of actually collapse. So it's a matter of if this promise of epic fury has in fact in mind to target deliberately critical infrastructure if it is going to target additional rounds of uh leadership decapitation. We need to recognize that that may push the regime on the verge of collapse. Are we ready for the day after and the vacuum that that will present? And that is what we worry about and we hope that there is a political solution be being considered by Washington and the western powers looking into Iran today.

4:26 Mad well said. Uh thank you for your