Speaker 1: Now on Overnight, Professor David Flint analyzes the important offense
Speaker 1: of the week. Hello, Professor David Flint, how are you
Speaker 1: this morning?
Speaker 2: Good morning, Tille, How are.
Speaker 1: You good now? I hope there won't be any obscenities
Speaker 1: during this chat that we have here a Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: I mean, you are well known for the invective, but.
Speaker 2: I'll try and control myself on this occasion.
Speaker 1: Phil Okay, Well, it's been a very interesting time with
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. How do you think he's going And do
Speaker 1: you think, and according to your Spectator article that it
Speaker 1: is regime change time?
Speaker 2: Well, I think it is approaching that that may well
Speaker 2: be the reason why they have difficulty having these fire.
Speaker 2: They want disease fire, but they can't. They don't really
Speaker 2: want it, you know what I mean, But they realize
Speaker 2: that that's the only thing they can do to continue,
Speaker 2: and think they desperately need these fire It's probably their
Speaker 2: only chance of surviving. I don't think they have a
Speaker 2: great chance of surviving. The terrible thing would be if
Speaker 2: this regime were replaced by exactly the same people, but
Speaker 2: who are lowered down in the hierarchy, who then continue
Speaker 2: with a similar policy to That's why I think that
Speaker 2: the really good thing would be if the Shah's son
Speaker 2: were able to come in as the head of the
Speaker 2: interim government and do what he says, and that is,
Speaker 2: within one hundred days after a transition, there'd be a
Speaker 2: referendum that the new government, the new system be secular,
Speaker 2: as to say, not religious, and be democratic and the
Speaker 2: form of it be left to the people.
Speaker 1: But people are concerned. People are concerned that regime change
Speaker 1: may bring in more hardliners.
Speaker 2: Well that's the danger, isn't it, That it'll be just
Speaker 2: be just the same sort of people, because there's so
Speaker 2: many of them in the Revolutionary Guard. But I don't
Speaker 2: think it would go along with what the people want.
Speaker 2: I think the people are sick and tired of this
Speaker 2: system and they would really like to go back to
Speaker 2: something like it was under the Shower.
Speaker 1: How much of a say, though, will the people have?
Speaker 1: Do the people have enough power to do that? I mean,
Speaker 1: would they be a little afraid to cause that kind
Speaker 1: of trouble and have that kind of uprising?
Speaker 2: Well, speaking in a country where where the ruling party
Speaker 2: gets a third of the vote and ends up with
Speaker 2: almost two thirds of the seats, I can understand that
Speaker 2: sort of thing. There's a danger, particularly in countries like Iran,
Speaker 2: of the people not being in any way represented. There's
Speaker 2: a great danger of that. Hopefully that with Trump taking
Speaker 2: a leading role, there will be less chance of that.
Speaker 2: I think he will be he will be supervising it.
Speaker 2: I don't think. I think he's not going to be
Speaker 2: closely involved. And that was the big problem in previous cases.
Speaker 2: Certainly when it came to Japan after the war, it
Speaker 2: was MacArthur and Truman who kept the emperor in against
Speaker 2: very strong Australian which is Australian's The Australian government wanted
Speaker 2: hero Hito tried as a war criminal. They probably would
Speaker 2: have liked to have seen him hanged, as the Prime
Speaker 2: Minister was, but that wasn't going to happen because MacArthur
Speaker 2: and Truman realized that if he wanted to rule Japan
Speaker 2: and bring it towards modern democracy, liberate the country and
Speaker 2: turn it into the great economic success as it turned out,
Speaker 2: the only way to do that, the only way to
Speaker 2: the country quiet was to keep the emperor. If you
Speaker 2: got rid of the empers straight where you would have
Speaker 2: lost control over the population. There would have been many
Speaker 2: who would have wanted to fight to the death, and
Speaker 2: they would have fought to the death because we saw
Speaker 2: that during the war.
Speaker 1: I mean, we have seen history like this before. Nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy nine would be a good example, wouldn't that the
Speaker 1: Iranian Revolution?
Speaker 2: Oh yes, oh yes, most definitely. And it was Carter
Speaker 2: who pulled the rug under the shah Shah. The Show
Speaker 2: was leading the country, which was the great ally of
Speaker 2: the West in the Middle East, and a powerful country.
Speaker 2: Made the country much more powerful than it ever was.
Speaker 2: The military was powerful, it was industrializing. Women were liberated
Speaker 2: and if you go back, you just google women in
Speaker 2: Tehran and you'll see that they were glamorous, they were fashionable.
Speaker 2: It was a very interesting place, and they were liberated.
Speaker 2: And the Show had no problems with that and encouraged that.
Speaker 2: It was very much an order society because as you
Speaker 2: mentioned that that coup as it was called in fifty three,
Speaker 2: which the British and the Americans pushed was to get
Speaker 2: rid of the government that had emerged from the parliament Mosadic.
Speaker 2: Mosadic was pushing the government towards the left and to
Speaker 2: take over all of the foreign companies and have a
Speaker 2: much more socialist system. And the British Americans wanted the
Speaker 2: Shah to take over, and they effectively authorized the much
Speaker 2: more authoritarian system, a quasi democracy, which is how the
Speaker 2: Shah rain and it was we got Carter objecting to
Speaker 2: that and dealing with the opposition, including the Mullers, and
Speaker 2: the result was that there was a number of opponents
Speaker 2: to the Shah. Were the ones that stood out with
Speaker 2: the extreme religious group who were in the seventh century
Speaker 2: with seventh century form of the Islamic religion, and they
Speaker 2: wanted twenty first century weapons so that they could deal
Speaker 2: with Islam, so that they could then move on to
Speaker 2: the Sunni Arabs and move on to the Christian areas.
Speaker 2: That they are a really dangerous lot to ones who
Speaker 2: have been running Iran, and it's good that they're getting
Speaker 2: rid of being got rid of. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think the problem being, and you'd be fully aware
Speaker 1: of this too, is that you know, trying to change
Speaker 1: the government through outside forces will just plunge that region
Speaker 1: into more termoil it to.
Speaker 2: I think that's and I think that's something that see.
Speaker 2: I think Club has valuable instincts and common sense. He
Speaker 2: has an interesting way of expressing himself, a blunt wave
Speaker 2: expressing reserves. We just heard which you couldn't play on
Speaker 2: the radio, that you have to be up. But he
Speaker 2: understands human nature and he's quite open about it in
Speaker 2: a way that other leaders are not open about it.
Speaker 2: And as Greg Sheridan said in Australian, Sheridan has previously
Speaker 2: had very little time for Trump, as the whole Australian
Speaker 2: really turned againt well, the whole media has been against
Speaker 2: him in Australia. But he said, of what Netanya Who
Speaker 2: was able to do in Iran, only Trump would have
Speaker 2: allowed Bettanya Who to do that. And that was a
Speaker 2: spectacular operation by Israel, the way they dealt with the
Speaker 2: situation and chopped off the heads of all of the powerful,
Speaker 2: dangerous institutions which were keeping the country under control and
Speaker 2: also pushing this curious foreign policy.
Speaker 1: So we talked about, you know, foreign policy. So Donald
Speaker 1: Trump came in here with his policy of not getting
Speaker 1: involved in overseas wars, and now he's knee deep in
Speaker 1: it again. And as a result of this, it seems
Speaker 1: to be splitting his base down the middle. Where do
Speaker 1: you think this leaves him going forward? Because he's got
Speaker 1: you know, the extreme maga on one side, who seemed
Speaker 1: to be splitting off Marjorie Taylor Green and people like that.
Speaker 1: And then you've got the other side, the Republicans, who
Speaker 1: also seem to be a little concerned about you know
Speaker 1: where this is going, what do you think is going
Speaker 1: to happen.
Speaker 2: Well, the polling is very strongly inv over him. There
Speaker 2: was a couple of pearls which have suggested either eighty
Speaker 2: percent or close to eighty percent of Republicans support him
Speaker 2: and in the high seventies for Maga. He has no
Speaker 2: problems in relation to the numbers. The rank and files
Speaker 2: support him, But he's some individuals who think they know
Speaker 2: more about Mega than he does. And I don't think that.
Speaker 2: I think they're just going to have little effect as
Speaker 2: long as he does what he wants to do and
Speaker 2: he takes the view he understands what Sunzu argued in
Speaker 2: ancient China that the supreme art of the war is
Speaker 2: to subdue the enemy without fighting. That's a brilliant a
Speaker 2: brilliant thesis. But there's a corollary which Truck realizes, sometimes
Speaker 2: you have to fight, but the better thing to do
Speaker 2: if fighting is unavoidable, you have to be as clinical
Speaker 2: and as minimal as possible, you mustn't have you mustn't
Speaker 2: have a land army there Vietnam style. That was wrong,
Speaker 2: So was Afghanistan, so was Iraq. He would never have
Speaker 2: been involved in that. He's never said he wouldn't take
Speaker 2: clinical measures, which he did during his first term. He
Speaker 2: took action to see that some matters didn't continue. But
Speaker 2: they were very quick, very fast. And that is a
Speaker 2: corollary of the doctrine of Sunsu that if fighting is unavoidable,
Speaker 2: do it quickly and do it as clinically as possible,
Speaker 2: which you can do much more now with modern weapons.
Speaker 2: And what he did in relation to the flattening of
Speaker 2: the nuclear power, the nuclear stations or not stations, nuclear
Speaker 2: facilities was to just deal with them so that they
Speaker 2: could never be used again. I can't and see how
Speaker 2: they will be of any use to anybody again with
Speaker 2: what they did to them. I know that some of
Speaker 2: the media and America saying, oh, they could still be
Speaker 2: used or they could still be recuperated, but I have
Speaker 2: grave doubts about that. And if they, if they can be,
Speaker 2: Trump wouldn't be restrained in any way from doing it again,
Speaker 2: and doing it at at a heavy level. And I
Speaker 2: don't think he need. I think they're in such a
Speaker 2: state that they are useless, which doesn't mean it doesn't
Speaker 2: mean that this government wouldn't try and do it again.
Speaker 2: And we've had the Russian former Russian president saying, well,
Speaker 2: one of the one of the Axis powers could sell
Speaker 2: them nuclear weapons, and that's always possible, because that's what
Speaker 2: that's what North Korea did in relation to Pakistan. They're
Speaker 2: probably willing to provide weapons, but think that the United
Speaker 2: States would be on to that and would stop it.
Speaker 1: Well, you would think so, although there's talk of what
Speaker 1: happened to the four hundred kilograms of uranium that may
Speaker 1: or may not have been transported away from four though
Speaker 1: before the bunker busters hit. So if that's the case,
Speaker 1: and I'd heard stories about that, surely they would have
Speaker 1: intelligence to know that that had happened.
Speaker 2: I would have thought so. I don't think that would
Speaker 2: have happened without the Americans knowing, and certainly Mossad knowing.
Speaker 2: I think the Israelis would have been on top of that.
Speaker 2: They were terribly well informed, informed to the extent that
Speaker 2: they were able to penetrate all of the resources, all
Speaker 2: of the subterfugions of the government to get people whom
Speaker 2: they particularly want us to get rid of.
Speaker 1: Do you think this ceasefire is going to hold? I mean,
Speaker 1: and it's barely holding from the outset here. Do you
Speaker 1: think that this will continue to be precarious or do
Speaker 1: you think that somebody eventually will go and hopefully Iran
Speaker 1: will go. Well, okay, you know, let's let's try and
Speaker 1: find a peaceful way out of this.
Speaker 2: My feeling is around will they will go along with
Speaker 2: it reluctantly because they think this is the only way
Speaker 2: that they can survive. I think that they know that
Speaker 2: they are hated by the population. They know that they
Speaker 2: can depend on the Guard, the Revolutionary Guard, but they
Speaker 2: know that the Israel has the measure of them, and
Speaker 2: if necessary get can keep on removing the leadership of
Speaker 2: the Revolutionary Guard, which will make it very difficult for
Speaker 2: them to operate in the way that they have in
Speaker 2: the past. In fact, the next stage of this, if
Speaker 2: the cease fire breaks down, Israel will make sure that
Speaker 2: the regime as it presently is is in a very
Speaker 2: difficult position to preserve itself, which will unleash the forces
Speaker 2: on the ground. Now the Israelis will never have there'll
Speaker 2: never be in a position to be able to dictate
Speaker 2: who the new regime will be, as the Americans did,
Speaker 2: and they did it badly in Afghanistan, and they did
Speaker 2: it badly in Iraq. And I don't think Trump will
Speaker 2: be involved in that either. So there's a hope that
Speaker 2: the son of the Shah would be the ideal person.
Speaker 2: But he certainly has considerable support among the emigrets living
Speaker 2: in the West, but what support he has within the
Speaker 2: Iran at the present time is unknown. There's probably a
Speaker 2: lot of nostalgia for the past. In fact, I've found
Speaker 2: going around using ubers and you find you have an
Speaker 2: Afghanistani driver or you have one from Iran, and you
Speaker 2: just ask them how it used to be, and they
Speaker 2: refer to what their parents said. And I've had both
Speaker 2: in relation to Iran and especially in relation to Afghanistan,
Speaker 2: that under the Shau, under the king, it was a
Speaker 2: golden age, and they compare that to today because under these regimes,
Speaker 2: life is very very strict, very bitter, and particularly for women.
Speaker 1: Yeah, of course, let's just hope there's an appetite to
Speaker 1: acquiesce here and not the usual indoctrination of martyrdom, because
Speaker 1: that's the last direction I think you want to go in,
Speaker 1: especially in the situation.
Speaker 2: Like this, I think you're absolutely right, and the cease
Speaker 2: fires precarious. Donald Trump has injected new strengths into it.
Speaker 2: As we heard tonight, it will. I think Israel will
Speaker 2: observe what he wants. They'll give the Iranians a chance.
Speaker 2: This is not the Iranian people, this is the government,
Speaker 2: and they'll give them a chance, and if they are
Speaker 2: genuine in wanting to retain it will There is obviously
Speaker 2: going to be a problem in getting everybody at the
Speaker 2: beginning to obey, because there would be some people who
Speaker 2: would still want to go ahead and do things which
Speaker 2: are in breach of the sease far. Well, they've got
Speaker 2: to control all of their people to make sure that
Speaker 2: sort of thing doesn't happen.
Speaker 1: Right, Well, let's hope that from America's point of view,
Speaker 1: from Donald Trump's point of view, they can subdue the
Speaker 1: enemy without fighting, and not the other popular sons who quote,
Speaker 1: if you know your enemy and you know yourself, you
Speaker 1: need not fear the result of one hundred battles.
Speaker 2: Yes, but I don't think the Americans want a one
Speaker 2: hundred battles And I'm sure Trump doesn't want that and
Speaker 2: knows that his supporters don't want it. That's it.
Speaker 1: The article will be Thursday in the Spectator Trump's Exceptional
Speaker 1: leadership Regime Change. Time to bring back the Shah, but
Speaker 1: time to say good evening to the good professor until
Speaker 1: next week. Thank you so much again, David, thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you so much too,