Stolen Revolution: A Conversation with Yeganeh Torbati

Subbasement of the Ministry of Snark in Washington, D.C. and from other undisclosed locations

across America and around the world. Hello and welcome to Need to Know.

“I'm David Roscoff, your host and in this episode, as every episode we're going to talk”

to somebody who we think in shed light, special light, and what's going on in the news. Today we're very fortunate to have with us Yagana Torbati, who is the Iran correspondent for the New York Times, reporting on the country's politics, economy, society, and culture. But importantly, she's also the co-author with Bozort Mayor Sharafadine of stolen revolution, betrayal, and hope, and modern Iran, which is a new book that gives you a look inside

Iran, which is something we don't get a lot of insight into, even as Iran is in the news every single day. Yagana, thank you for joining us. Thank you so much for having me really appreciate it. So let's just start with the news.

I've been calling this on some of our podcasts and another media, the Groundhog Day War, because we sort of relive a cycle, and the state of the cycle we're in now is there were a couple of days of abatement of conflict, and then all of a sudden it flared up, and it flared up in a couple of ways. There were some Iranian missile attacks on US-related facilities.

“There was also, however, and I think more significantly, attacks by the US and for the”

first time by the Saudis, on Iranian-related facilities, I think these were Iranian-backed

militias in Iraq, but it gets to a point that seems significant here, because it's not just a Groundhog Day repetition. There does seem to be a creeping expansion of this conflict, so other countries are getting involved with the US in one way or another, helping them, but you also have the hoosies taking steps to control or influence traffic along the red sea coming out of the Saudi pipeline

that runs across the Arabian Peninsula. I've talked to people who've said, you know, the next step on that will then be people going to the Horn of Africa and starting to compete for that side of control of that. And of course, we have the Lebanon conflict ongoing issues in Israel, and I guess as you -- the Ukrainians --

Yes, and recently we have the Ukrainians and they attacked the Iranian ship and the Iranians according to the times debated whether or not to respond to that attack and decided not to -- my

“question is, do you see this expansion trend as the prevailing one right now?”

And there's a sort of a second sort of subtext that I've seen from several people, which

is that the Iranians look pretty comfortable riding this out for a while because they feel, and again, this is in people imputing thoughts to them, that Trump is going to feel greater and greater pressure that the closer he gets to the election. Yeah, I actually kind of had a story in the print version of today's paper, sort of saying that.

So, yeah, I mean, I think -- as we sort of look at the recent sort of the way the war has gone. And as you mentioned, there has been kind of that groundhog day where President Trump will tweet something, maybe there will be a couple days of attacks, then it kind of -- maybe there's like discussion of talks, although that was really kind of went to bed a few weeks

ago. But it seems like when it comes to just the US and Iran and their dynamic, there is sort of a stalemate where the pressure point that President Trump had wanted to put on Iran just doesn't seem to be working, they've been able to kind of withstand this military damage damage to infrastructure, without kind of making the capitulations and the concessions

And so it seems like that kind of natural progression of this conflict is for it to then bring in sort of other arenas, I guess, in sort of a way for either side to kind of try to pressure the other to stop or to be put into so much pain that eventually they'll give in.

“And I think, you know, from the Iranian side sort of how they're reviewing things right”

now, you know, it's always basically been the case that as long as they survive and the

regime doesn't fall, given the very lofty goals that President Trump sort of launched this war with, they can paint that as a victory, both for themselves internally and also I think, you know, kind of to global opinion. And so, you know, and they just have a much higher pain threshold than President Trump does. And that's, of course, because Iran is not a democratic system, there are no midterms coming

up. The Iranian people have already been suffering under a really terrible economic situation and that's gotten worse and they're very unhappy with how things are going and there is sort of a growing, been inside Iran, kind of against their own war hawks. But that is not, sort of, that pressure of public opinion is not something that the government

really has to take into account, whereas President Trump, you know, and the Republicans, at least, do have to worry about the midterms, they have to worry about the price of gas. And Iran is very keenly aware of those points and, in fact, you know, President Trump

will sign the memorandum of understanding, he basically kind of alluded to that fact.

He's like, I don't want to be another Hoover.

“And so, I think that made very clear that he is really sensitive to these economic forces”

and the potential for economic disaster. And that's something that Iran just doesn't, it doesn't move its decision-makers in the same way. Yeah, there have been reports recently of Trump having temper tantrums with the way the war is going, I suppose that happens if you don't listen to the advice, but it's certainly

isn't going the way that he wanted it to, and yesterday he had beeping that Yahoo, in the White House, almost certainly saying, do more, let's finish this off, let's, you know, let's go after them. And review that's held pretty widely across different political groups in, in Israel. But, but it seems to be falling on deaf ears with Trump, and, you know, part of its

the election, you know, part of it, there are, you know, other theories that circulate out there, you know, Trump is notoriously allergic to bad statistics, you know. And that, you know, if the war expanded, the casualty totals would go up, and that's, that's the kind of thing that he feels would. Price a gas, I mean, that's the one number that every American sees was they're driving

on the highway. It's just like right there, and it's, it's for good reason a huge kind of indicator, you know, in the world. And, and yes, I mean, it was a couple of days ago, it was at a hundred, then it dropped down.

Today, Brent proved went up over 90 again, and so, you know, there, there are these pressure points on, Trump, and, and, and so, you know, I guess the question is, where do Iranian leaders, I'm, you know, and I don't want to put you too much in the position of being a mind reader here, but, but where do you think Iranian leaders, you know, think this is going to go?

What's their game? I mean, you know, and one thing I should add, and I tried to kind of make it clear in the story, as well, is that we just don't have as much transparency into the Iranian system and in their limitations.

So, we do, you know, through my amazing colleagues at the New York Times have some sort

of picture into the pressures on American munitions, for instance, and how that might have been affecting President Trump's decision making, we don't have that same picture into the Iranian missile stockpile and sort of what they might be facing. So, it's possible that a full-on return to war is also not something that Iran wants, because they don't want to have to test those, those stockpiles and to plead them further.

“I think, you know, from the rhetoric that comes from the Iranian side, the straight-of-war”

moves has become a something that they do not feel like they should or can give up. And this is a cross-factions. It's from, you know, the elected government, which is sort of more centrist, moderate, some might say reformist, and it's from revolutionary guards, generals who have been talking about the straight-of-war moves and seizing it for a decade and a half.

So, really, this is something that I think the government feels like it has, it's a deterrent for it, and it doesn't want to give it up.

I think there is a history in Iranian decision making of sometimes overplaying their hand,

even when they have, you know, quite a good one. And staying at the negotiating table too long and trying to extract too many concessions and therefore sort of losing the advantage of the originally had. But if I had to just sort of like from what I can tell of what they're thinking, it's that we've got this straight and we've shown that we can control it and we're going to keep

that or at least get extract of very, very high price for it.

“And then it's a question of like, is President Trump willing to accept that?”

It seems somewhat unlikely. And so then we just sort of stay in this weird, you know, limbo period for a while longer.

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Well, you know, in China there's a term for Trump, which is Empire Builder, and it's a kind of a Rye term because it means that he's building their empire, not our empire.

“But, you know, at the end of the last year, things were looking bad in your run, right?”

They had a bad 2025, and, you know, their proxies had gotten beaten up, and the economy was in bad way, and there were demonstrations in the street. And at some level, they must think, "Oh my gosh, thank goodness for Donald Trump." Because, while they've sustained many blows and there have been thousands of lives lost, and the cost of rebuilding will be huge, all of a sudden their proxies seem to have more

relevance.

They've discovered that they have something more powerful than the nuclear program, which

is their ability to control the straight-of-war moves, or just even influence traffic through the straight-of-war moves, which has an effect on the global economy, which is immense, and, you know, a huge strategic lever. They've also discovered that their drone manufacturing and other kinds of capabilities give them the ability to sort of play out the lawn game here for a kind of a low-cost.

And to employ this, I don't know, whether you're a boxing fan, I'm not really boxing fan either. But this kind of rope-adope strategy, where they just sort of sustain some blows, throw some punches, but they're saying, "We've been here 5,000 years, we can wait." And so, all of a sudden, contrary to what Donald Trump says, "They seem to have the cards,"

“or at least they think that, is that just the IRGC, or do more people think that?”

Yeah, I mean, look, I think it's hard to look at this situation that Iran is in and think, this is a country that's succeeding in the ways that we would normally kind of determine that in terms of prosperity, peace, growth, technological innovation, you know, political influence, all these things. And certainly, I think many, or maybe most of the people of Iran would not see it that way.

But if you're looking at it from like strictly a regime perspective or from even the military aspects of that regime perspective, you know, they, at this point, feel ascendant. But when things, you know, eventually sort of reach some sort of stability point, you know, whenever that might be and whatever that might look like, they're going to have to turn to governments as well.

I mean, we just saw last year water shortages that were reaching Tehran, and that made it so that, you know, they didn't know if they were going to have to evacuate the capital at some point. You know, right now there are power outages, and that's not due to the U.S. hitting power plants.

It's because that's just the normal course of life in Iran is that there are daily power outages in some parts of the country at the height of summer. You know, this is, these are basic governance issues that the government has not been able

And so there's just, there's this very narrow arena of sort of military success and have

and not having the Islamic Republic not having fallen, but I don't know that that necessarily translates into Iran as a whole, the country, or even the full government, really being a successful sort of example.

“Well, you know, I think one of the reasons your book, which has gotten terrific reviews,”

and I'm strongly encouraged people to read it, is so important, is that we don't really get perspectives into the Iranians. And it's important to get the perspectives, because I'm not sure a lot of people who casually engage in these things, or even our listeners who are more engaged in foreign policy recognize just how bad U.S. policy has been towards Iran.

And it has really been, you know, one thing, after another, where it's the installation

of the Shah, the support of the Shah, the efforts to rescue the hostages at the embassy, deciding with Saddam Hussein and a war with Iran, where, you know, we sort of linked and not at the use of chemical weapons against people, you know, to where we are today. And I think a lot of this has to be with the fact that people don't really understand Iran and Iran.

It's as a big, complicated country. It's not Venezuela. It's not, you know, like a lot of other countries in the Middle East, it has a huge historical tradition. And one of the things your book does, looking through the lens of several different individuals,

is sort of take us through the arc of the post-revolutionary period, where when the

revolution came, there was a lot of unhappiness with the Shah and there was a hope that they were going to move in a certain direction. And then not, you know, the direction of what you refer to as a mafia state, where, you know, they, there's been this horrible regime in place.

“The question that I, you know, I have in, is to what extent do those hopes remain alive?”

I mean, clearly, the IRGC and some of the hardliners, you know, they are continuing, you know, the past couple of decades of oppressive policies. But Iranians are sophisticated, cosmopolitan people. They're aware of what's going on in the world. They've been very courageous, periodically, and standing up for their rights, and you write

about that. I'm just wondering how these two elements within Iranian society are fairing right now? Yeah. I mean, you know, I will say just to be totally transparent, we finish this book, and the last kind of scene of the, the epilogue is the, the 2025 is really attacks, is really

an U.S. attacks that last year around this time. So of course, as you know, with the bookwriting process and the publishing industry, we couldn't include all of the events of January, much less, you know, the, the, the recent war this year. But what, what an opening for the updated paper.

“I know, we have to sort of, let's do, and I think it's so, but, but I will say that I”

think what, the, the brutality of what happened in January, you know, we, we called the book betrayal and hope and modern Iran. I think people are still shocked by what happened in January, and there's still kind of emotionally processing it and recovering. You know, the, what I've seen in the, in the month since, you know, forget the war, which

is on its traumatic on its own, but just what happened with the killing of protesters in January, that hope has lessened quite a bit. I think people are sort of like, well, how will we ever go up against a country, a military government that is willing to do this? So, and I think people just felt like with numbers this big on the street certainly something

must change. There's different directions that it could go in, right? I mean, you could see up a path in which Iranians sort of on their own, maybe together, they decide, okay, we've done street protests pretty much, you know, exclusively for a long time for about, you know, a decade, maybe there's another way to resist, maybe there's,

you know, different paths. I don't have those answers, but you could kind of see, you know, people may be faced with what they have gone through and experience and witnessed sort of deciding to sort of take things in a different path and come up with different ways to resist or to fight for change.

moments, Iranians contest kind of what they've been given.

“And I think that often makes it someone unique in, you know, when it comes to societies ruled”

by authoritarian governments. Even today, I mean, just this week, we saw protests over the killing, the public execution of two protesters, there have been, you know, ways that people have spound to shape society and to push the boundaries out even when they're up against the force of the state. And so I don't expect that to change.

It's just the form that it might take, might evolve and I think the state will kind of evolve in response. I mean, look at sort of the effects of the woman life freedom movement from 2022. You still see the impact of that on the street today with the way women dress, which is completely different than what it was, you know, even five years ago, much less ten years

ago. So I expect that will continue.

“I think, you know, earlier, you refer to the elected government as a reformist government.”

And I don't think most Americans understand the degree to which there are different kinds of political colors in Iran. Not to say that, you know, these are Jeffersonian Democrats. But there is something a foot there, how do you think the war ultimately affects them? Yeah, I mean, as you mentioned, you know, Iran's constitution has both sort of democratic

or Republican elements and then kind of the theocratic elements, theocratic elements

have been more powerful and then they kind of the theocracy, the clerics, oversaw, traditionally

the military, but I think what we've seen in this long trend since really the 90s and then it sort of accelerated during the era of Mahmoud Ahmadina Jad in 2005 to 2013 is the military really gaining a lot of power at the expense of the first the elected government.

“And I think even now, you know, even the clerics, I mean, we have not seen the Supreme”

leadership and we're, even if, I mean, like, I'm not trying to start any conspiracy theories, let's accept that he's in power and he's writing these statements and he's, but he is someone who's known for being close to the military. So and and for having played a role in, you know, picking their commanders and things like that.

So even with his elevation, although he is a cleric and he was the son of the former Supreme leader, that in itself also represents an elevation of the military, you know, his father was close to the military, but he was sort of, he was not put in that position, you know, I think I think just sort of the much that was rise is sort of he is more closely linked even to the guards than even his father was.

So, you know, I think the war had that effect, I do think it was, it however, just accelerated a trend that we were already seeing, you know, since really the time when the guards were allowed to get into business and then they showed themselves incapable of allowing their business interests to be limited and therefore they moved into politics in order to make sure that they could protect those interests.

Well, you know, speaking of those interests, we have the so-called MOU, you know, was it a memorandum understanding or memorandum misunderstanding? I think at this point, the latter has a better case, but you know, it was sort of a list of how Iran wanted things to turn out and, you know, if the calculus is correct and the pressure is going to be up on Trump and the pressure is going to be high because of gas

prices or potentially increasing casualties or the approaching election, you know, the question is whether Iran will take gas for an answer because, you know, as we've seen in places like Venezuela, Trump will take a bad deal. I mean, you go into Venezuela, you get rid of one guy, you keep his regime in place, you don't make any steps towards democracy, you just give us a little taste of the oil

revenue and we're okay with it, you know, that's kind of, you know, by the way, I'm

always been kind of a little, you know, I was wondering if the Iranians are paying attention

because I think Iran would have said, okay, you've got a new leader, that's fine and, you know, give us a little bit of, you know, percentage of what you're getting through the straight. Trump will say that's a victory for America and he'll take it, but the question is, does it play better for the goals of those who are in power to sort of ride this out? Or do you

say, well, look, you can say whatever you want, but these are the terms and they actually

get to a deal.

“I think there's, you know, I'm not in Venezuela expert, I think there are so many, but”

you don't have to be. There's so many layers of like, I mean, decades of history between these two countries and enmity stemming from the hostage crisis, you know, the revolution, the Iran-erach war, I mean, the people who are in charge now, often are people who were veterans of that war. And I think we kind of underestimate sometimes how much it shaped the world view towards the West, towards the US, towards kind of the international

global order that like, you all are either neutral on this or in favor of Saddam while, you know, all these crimes are being committed against Iran and their view. So that it doesn't seem ideologically like something that they would accept, especially there is a faction, of course, of hardliners who, we kind of use these terms a lot modern, it's hardliners, but, you know, hardlin really is kind of the accurate term. Like, do not want to deal with

the US at all. Like, they all they want is kind of full capitulation and they believe that Iran is militarily capable of making that happen. You know, they may be entirely wrong about that, but they're willing to kind of expend enormous resources and put Iranians through a lot of attacks and war in order to kind of pursue their goal of, you know, defeating

“the US defeating Israel. And I think, you know, this idea of the MOU, so, you know, when”

it was signed, President, Vice President Vance made a lot of statements about how, you know, we think maybe they're turning over a new leaf. There's kind of, there are people that we're talking to, I think he even said, and might have been in the interview with Ross Douthit or elsewhere, that there's sort of this understanding that maybe 47 years of policy towards America has been an mistake. I was, you know, I think that would be quite a big

change. You know, and we would need to see a lot of evidence before we sort of determined that that was really what was happening. I think the pattern that you see over and over instead and Iran, and this is something that we sort of identify as a strains or throughout

the book, is that the economy is never or economic growth or kind of foreign investments,

all these things that kind of the globalized world sort of has taken part in over the last few decades was not really something they pursued as an end in itself. Economic growth was kind of meant to be a tool to be used for, you know, projecting Iranians strength perhaps, but it was never kind of like, oh, we want to provide prosperity for Iranians. The ideological goals of the revolution were far more important. That was true from the beginning

of the revolution. And then this added layer that I got on top of that, got added on top of that in the early '90s was sort of also this growing accumulation of wealth by regime insiders and control over different sectors of the economy. And that also is threatened by opening up. Because if you really open up, you know, are the guards construction companies going to be able to compete with, I don't know, caterpillar, or name some large construction

company that would come in or is Mohan Air going to be able to compete with some airline coming in or whatever it might be. And so you can see kind of as Iran's history goes forward, the ideological goals really line up quite neatly with the narrow economic interest of

this regime elite. And for those reasons, it was always a bit surprising to me that Vice President

Bans had gotten this impression from his interlocutors. And I was very, you know, curious and

“open-minded as to whether that would play out. And I think we're seeing that, at least”

for the Iranians, they see the state of Hormuz and kind of their own dominance in that region as a far more important. Yeah. Yeah. Now clearly, clearly, the focus has shifted over the course of the past five months. Well, look, you know, I mean, this is going to be in the news, you know, wait, wait, we can't predict how long, but I think he was history suggests forever. So, so it's a sort of surreal history. And in order to deal with that, I think we need

kind of insights that are provided in your book. Again, the book is called Stolen Revolution, Betrayal and Hope in Modern Iran. And I strongly encourage you, there just aren't that many good books about Iran. This is really a superb opportunity to gain the kind of insights through human

time when you must be super busy, to come and to join us. And I wish you luck with the super busy

“aspects of this and the book aspects of it. And also the much longer paperback version, which you're”

going to end up having to produce. It's already too long. Yeah. Well, it's just as the story gets

longer and longer. Maybe it's the sequel in any event. I'm going to thank you very, very much. And

“thanks to all of you for listening and join us again sometime soon. By the way, the deep state radio”

podcasts that we do every week on Wednesday this week with Ed Lewis in general, Doug Luke will also

talk about aspects of this or I view these as kind of companion discussion. So if you haven't listened to that yet, listen to it. And we'll see you soon. Bye bye.