WEBVTT - Part One: The First Shah of Iran 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:10.200 Al Zone media, what's illegal, my US invasions of several 0:00:10.280 --> 0:00:15.800 countries actually that have been happening recently, and also my 0:00:16.040 --> 0:00:16.720 entire life. 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:20.280 I'm Robert Evans. This is Behind the Bastards, a podcast 0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:24.920 about bad people, the worst in all of history, several 0:00:24.960 --> 0:00:28.000 of whom are currently in the Trump administration, where they 0:00:28.000 --> 0:00:31.400 have recently orchestrated what is already ramping up to be 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:36.360 a bloody war with Iran. We're covering what's happening in 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:39.200 an ongoing basis on our daily news podcast. It could 0:00:39.200 --> 0:00:42.560 happen here, but you know that's not what we do 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:47.279 overt Behind the Bastards. You know, we're not breaking news here. 0:00:47.320 --> 0:00:51.960 Our specialty is like pieces of shit, and that makes us, 0:00:52.000 --> 0:00:56.360 i think, well suited to talk about why is stuff 0:00:57.240 --> 0:01:01.080 like why is the Western world's relationship with Iran? What 0:01:01.120 --> 0:01:01.480 it is? 0:01:01.840 --> 0:01:01.920 Like? 0:01:02.200 --> 0:01:05.679 How did all of this shit start? Like what was 0:01:05.800 --> 0:01:09.440 going on that kind of led to the present situation? 0:01:10.040 --> 0:01:12.240 And if you want to tell that story, you have 0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:15.920 to start with the seventeen hundreds and the eighteen hundreds 0:01:15.920 --> 0:01:19.880 in the period of like particularly what's called the Great Game, 0:01:20.240 --> 0:01:22.680 which is, you know, kind of this thing that happens 0:01:22.720 --> 0:01:26.840 at the height of British and Russian imperialism, and you 0:01:26.920 --> 0:01:30.080 have to talk about the Shaw, the very first Shah 0:01:30.319 --> 0:01:33.480 of Iran, because it's the Shaws of Iran that lead 0:01:33.560 --> 0:01:35.840 us to the current regime in Iran, and that lead 0:01:35.920 --> 0:01:38.600 us to a lot of things about the current conflict 0:01:38.640 --> 0:01:40.960 and like why it's taken on the dimensions that it's 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:44.320 taken on. So in order to talk about all of this, 0:01:44.520 --> 0:01:48.960 we're bringing on my buddy and doctor Kavejoda also podcaster, 0:01:49.160 --> 0:01:51.440 much more impressive than doctor. I should have led with 0:01:51.480 --> 0:01:53.800 podcaster Kava I'm sorry, welcome to the show. 0:01:53.840 --> 0:01:56.600 And musician, thank you so much. 0:01:56.400 --> 0:02:01.320 And musician many things. You're a multi till apology. 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:03.360 The key is to be bad at all of them. 0:02:03.560 --> 0:02:05.880 That's the key to doing this right. If you want 0:02:05.920 --> 0:02:08.360 to do more, that's a polycraft, not mess. 0:02:08.360 --> 0:02:10.560 But yeah, you want to you want to know what 0:02:10.600 --> 0:02:11.359 you are good at? 0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:11.640 Though? 0:02:12.120 --> 0:02:13.120 What what am I good at? 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:15.440 Being my friend it's. 0:02:15.320 --> 0:02:16.240 My best job. 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:20.200 Also being a doctor and a podcast. 0:02:21.080 --> 0:02:22.640 I'm good at one of those three things. 0:02:23.000 --> 0:02:24.919 Yeah, I'm hoping it's doctor. 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:28.400 That's that's the one that's especially sort of the one 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:30.720 good at. The rest is you're going to find out 0:02:30.919 --> 0:02:34.600 listener and viewer not as much, but you know, give 0:02:34.639 --> 0:02:35.639 it my darnedest. 0:02:36.280 --> 0:02:38.720 Yeah, well, I mean this is obviously like what's going 0:02:38.760 --> 0:02:41.960 on right now the United States is doing. I mean, 0:02:42.000 --> 0:02:44.959 we we've just killed a school full of little girls, 0:02:45.000 --> 0:02:47.880 like a lot of really ugly stuff. But if you 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:50.480 want to like the story of like why did the 0:02:50.560 --> 0:02:54.280 US start fucking around with Iran? Like why why is 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:56.720 the current Iranian regime the way it is, that all 0:02:56.720 --> 0:02:59.480 starts well before the US gets involved, right, that that 0:02:59.600 --> 0:03:03.320 starts with you know, like most of our imperial ambitions, 0:03:03.360 --> 0:03:05.400 we cribbed off the notes of the Brits and the 0:03:05.440 --> 0:03:08.440 Russians from like a century or so ago, and it's 0:03:08.480 --> 0:03:11.120 those imperial powers who made sure that Iran wound up 0:03:11.160 --> 0:03:13.320 with a shah in the first place, which is why 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:16.600 you know, we have a revolution, because the Shaws rule 0:03:16.680 --> 0:03:20.800 so badly that they inspire revolution, which brings us the Ayahtolas. 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:24.200 And all of these are our stories in and of themselves. 0:03:24.240 --> 0:03:26.600 But this week we're going to be talking about like 0:03:26.680 --> 0:03:30.720 the first Shah of Iran, of the Palavi dynasty, right, 0:03:30.800 --> 0:03:34.080 Like that's where we're obviously Iran had previous shaws, but 0:03:34.080 --> 0:03:37.080 we're talking about like the dad of the guy who 0:03:37.200 --> 0:03:41.080 got exiled when the current government of Iran took over, 0:03:41.160 --> 0:03:43.760 And how much do you know about the first about 0:03:43.840 --> 0:03:47.280 Reza Khan, like the first of that line of shaws. 0:03:47.560 --> 0:03:50.400 That's so first of all, the thank you for having 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:51.400 me back on first of all. 0:03:51.440 --> 0:03:53.600 Second, oh shit, I talked right over that. 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:54.880 Yeah, I'm so happy. 0:03:55.560 --> 0:04:00.240 No, I'm so happy that you're covering this topic because 0:04:00.280 --> 0:04:03.240 you're exactly right. There is a long history of involvement 0:04:03.440 --> 0:04:07.320 of Western powers, and as an American, the American powers, 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:10.640 you know, really explicitly in nineteen fifty three, as we're 0:04:10.680 --> 0:04:14.040 gonna I'm sure talk about that really set off a 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:16.680 chain of events that led us to where we are now. 0:04:17.160 --> 0:04:19.640 And you know, you could argue did a lot of 0:04:19.720 --> 0:04:23.960 damage and destabilize the region. So what bothers me the 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:28.000 most is that it's a story that most people in 0:04:28.040 --> 0:04:29.240 the United States. 0:04:28.920 --> 0:04:29.480 Do not know. 0:04:30.120 --> 0:04:34.080 They don't know the real reason why people in Iran 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:37.640 may have taken over that embassy back in seventy nine. 0:04:37.920 --> 0:04:39.960 You don't really know some of the anger, the anti 0:04:40.080 --> 0:04:44.080 American feeling that happened at that time, because before that 0:04:44.120 --> 0:04:46.680 there was great relations you know, for a while between 0:04:46.720 --> 0:04:49.960 the two countries. So I think it's a really important story. 0:04:50.080 --> 0:04:53.600 I do know more or less the basics of it. 0:04:53.960 --> 0:04:57.760 I never was that interested in the Shaws because, like 0:04:57.839 --> 0:05:02.039 I'm just the concept of a monarchy just rubs me 0:05:02.080 --> 0:05:06.120 the wrong way. In general, it seems like a terrible idea. 0:05:06.360 --> 0:05:07.160 I'm not into it. 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:09.440 But there are these characters in there, which I'm sure 0:05:09.440 --> 0:05:11.360 we're going to talk about, like Moza Deech, who are 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:14.840 really interesting people. And there is a story here that 0:05:14.880 --> 0:05:20.520 really explains a lot about what's happening here. The reson 0:05:21.279 --> 0:05:25.320 his son Mohammed Reza Khan and now his son who's 0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:33.520 now a player, and what's happening currently the news. So 0:05:33.760 --> 0:05:35.520 it is, it is, It's something I know a little 0:05:35.560 --> 0:05:37.880 bit about. But part part of the thing is like 0:05:37.920 --> 0:05:40.800 when you grow up Iranian and your parents came over 0:05:40.920 --> 0:05:43.800 after the revolution. A lot of these parents are very 0:05:43.839 --> 0:05:48.040 politically savvy, well read, studied, We're politically active, but getting 0:05:48.480 --> 0:05:51.760 a lot of information from them was hard about what 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:55.080 happened during the revolution, not just because everyone has only 0:05:55.120 --> 0:05:58.359 their side of it, but because Irani's get so upset 0:05:58.400 --> 0:06:01.440 about it. It would just be like, did that bastard 0:06:01.480 --> 0:06:04.440 did this, and that son of a bitch did this, 0:06:04.720 --> 0:06:07.520 and then you're like, you're losing the story here with this, 0:06:07.600 --> 0:06:10.080 and you can't really get the story from your family. 0:06:10.120 --> 0:06:13.120 So it is nice to I think we're going to 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:15.320 go into more depth about what actually happened now. 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:18.200 And I get that in part. I think because if 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:20.520 I had to, if I got exiled and had to 0:06:20.560 --> 0:06:23.640 explain overseas like a bunch of the different infighting around 0:06:23.760 --> 0:06:25.760 leftist movements, or like a bunch of the different right 0:06:25.800 --> 0:06:29.120 wing grifters who got us here, I would probably just 0:06:29.160 --> 0:06:32.600 wind up cursing, like right after a while, right, and 0:06:32.839 --> 0:06:34.640 this son of a bitch and this piece of shit. 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:36.440 There's a lot of that. 0:06:36.640 --> 0:06:39.480 Yeah, Yeah, you have to really work to be and 0:06:39.760 --> 0:06:42.240 I want to clarify we're not even getting past We're 0:06:42.240 --> 0:06:44.360 only gonna up to nineteen forty one in these episodes. 0:06:44.400 --> 0:06:46.440 I wanted to do both shows at once, but there's 0:06:46.480 --> 0:06:49.680 so much behind how the British and the Russians like 0:06:49.920 --> 0:06:53.839 maneuver the situation that leads to this dynasty into being, 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:57.160 and how the oil situation gets started that you have 0:06:57.200 --> 0:06:59.719 to really talk to. So we will come back and 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:03.280 we will do the sequel to these episodes, which we'll 0:07:03.279 --> 0:07:05.320 talk more about Mozada as well. We're going to talk 0:07:05.360 --> 0:07:08.600 about him some of these episodes, but he's like it 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:10.560 becomes the prime Minister, I think at fifty one, so 0:07:10.600 --> 0:07:12.840 that's even a little past the era we're talking about. 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:15.480 But this, this is really important because this is what 0:07:15.640 --> 0:07:19.840 sets this is what starts like everything into motion that 0:07:19.880 --> 0:07:23.800 we're seeing, unfortunately come to very like a very bloody 0:07:23.840 --> 0:07:33.600 head right now. Right, So we're going to start these 0:07:33.640 --> 0:07:36.200 episodes talking about a period of time. This is going 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:38.160 to be kind of over to the to the US. 0:07:38.240 --> 0:07:41.960 This is like happening in like the Civil War reconstruction era, right, 0:07:42.440 --> 0:07:45.000 and in Europe that's also a time of great change 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:48.679 and of war. You know, not only is Europe industrializing 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:52.560 rapidly in the eighteen seventies, Germans beat France in eighteen 0:07:52.600 --> 0:07:55.440 seventy in the Franco Prussian War, and the British Empire, 0:07:55.600 --> 0:07:59.080 you know, is kind of watching this. They're seeing Germany 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:02.560 become a major world power because Germany becomes a country 0:08:02.600 --> 0:08:04.720 in eighteen seventy one as the result of that war, 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:09.080 and very suddenly France isn't the primary land power in 0:08:09.120 --> 0:08:13.040 Western Europe. Anymore. Germany is and so Britain, which had 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:17.040 primarily been worried about France previously, has two growing and 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:21.280 major concerns in this period after eighteen seventy. One is 0:08:21.320 --> 0:08:25.160 that you've got this Kaiser and he seems really interested 0:08:25.240 --> 0:08:30.600 in expanding Germany's military capacity, right, And the Brits are 0:08:30.640 --> 0:08:32.360 kind of fine with the fact that Germany's got the 0:08:32.400 --> 0:08:35.600 most powerful army in Europe. You're like, Uprussians can have 0:08:35.720 --> 0:08:38.319 your big army, right that that's fine as long as 0:08:38.320 --> 0:08:41.520 they stay on the continent. But once you start building boats, 0:08:41.800 --> 0:08:45.959 that's when the Brits are not happy with you. Right, Yeah, 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:48.560 no one else is allowed to have a navy. That's 0:08:48.600 --> 0:08:53.400 really the British Empire's primary like foreign policy during this period, 0:08:53.520 --> 0:08:55.920 vise of the Europe is like other people want boats? 0:08:55.960 --> 0:08:58.520 Wait a second, like, hold the fuck up? 0:09:00.160 --> 0:09:00.679 Can I can? 0:09:00.760 --> 0:09:03.559 I also make a quick note, I love the way 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:05.319 when you say the Germans. I don't know if you've 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:07.760 been meant to do this. You slipped into cid Germans. 0:09:08.200 --> 0:09:09.480 Germans. It's very good. 0:09:09.559 --> 0:09:12.800 And there's a beautiful, beautiful case of a small town 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:15.080 German Man who went to New York City recently and 0:09:15.160 --> 0:09:17.880 had some salsa verde on a taco and is suing 0:09:17.960 --> 0:09:22.400 because like the spice like destroyed his body and like said, 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:26.719 like for days made him ill. It was like New 0:09:26.800 --> 0:09:30.720 York City Salsa Verde. I was just thinking, motherfucker, I 0:09:30.800 --> 0:09:33.480 canned some Barbera CoA last week that could wipe out 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:36.600 all of Germany. If that's if that's really the level 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:39.160 of spice tolerance over there. I know this guy's just 0:09:39.600 --> 0:09:42.160 a hay seed grifter from a small town. Sorry, my 0:09:42.200 --> 0:09:44.080 German friends, I know you can handle spices. 0:09:44.240 --> 0:09:46.839 No, no, listen. We had a whole series of commercials 0:09:46.840 --> 0:09:49.400 in the eighties, remember where they're like pace made in 0:09:49.480 --> 0:09:50.280 New York. 0:09:50.080 --> 0:09:51.960 City, New York City, got a road New. 0:09:51.920 --> 0:09:52.920 York City salsa. 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:53.720 Yeah yeah. 0:09:53.720 --> 0:09:56.679 It was like a whole fairy offensive to me. Yeah, 0:09:56.920 --> 0:09:58.600 I don't think it would be allowed to have salsa. 0:09:59.000 --> 0:09:59.280 Yeah. 0:09:59.360 --> 0:10:03.720 So anyway, Yeah, so the Brits are looking at the 0:10:03.880 --> 0:10:06.679 at the Germans start to expand their navy and they're like, 0:10:06.840 --> 0:10:10.920 well fuck, Like if Britannia doesn't rule the waves, like 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:13.720 what do we really have right? We can't the home 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:15.760 islands are in danger if we can't keep if we 0:10:15.760 --> 0:10:17.960 can't keep control of the sea. So that's one of 0:10:17.960 --> 0:10:21.000 Great Britain's major concerns in this period. The other thing 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:24.760 that's really freaking them out is India, right, protecting India. 0:10:24.880 --> 0:10:27.800 That is the jewel in the British Empire's crown. It's 0:10:27.800 --> 0:10:31.400 their most valuable possession, right and the Germans are nowhere 0:10:31.400 --> 0:10:33.960 near India, thank god. But over the course of the 0:10:34.040 --> 0:10:39.880 nineteenth century, Imperial Russia starts expanding troublingly close to India. 0:10:40.080 --> 0:10:42.600 Right like they start, there's a couple of different fits 0:10:42.600 --> 0:10:46.040 and starts where the Russians will you know, expand their 0:10:46.160 --> 0:10:49.640 territory and they keep getting closer to the British raj 0:10:50.160 --> 0:10:52.360 I want to quote from the article a very British 0:10:52.400 --> 0:10:55.720 Coup in the World Policy Journal by Sharen Brisik, quote, 0:10:56.280 --> 0:10:58.880 the British watch nervously is the distance between the Russian 0:10:58.880 --> 0:11:01.079 Empire and India, too, thousand miles at the beginning of 0:11:01.120 --> 0:11:04.120 the nineteenth century, shrank so much that by centuries end, 0:11:04.120 --> 0:11:07.199 as the Russian Empire expanded eastward at the amazing average 0:11:07.200 --> 0:11:09.839 of fifty five square miles per day, as little as 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:13.600 twenty miles separated the two empires in Central Asia's premieres 0:11:14.080 --> 0:11:17.840 squeeze between these expanding powers was Persia, described by George 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:22.000 Nathan Curzon, one time Viceroy of India and subsequent Foreign Secretary, 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:25.000 as one of the pieces on a chessboard upon which 0:11:25.040 --> 0:11:27.280 is being played out a game for the domination of 0:11:27.320 --> 0:11:27.800 the world. 0:11:28.960 --> 0:11:31.440 We're real proud of being upon, real proud of that one. 0:11:31.960 --> 0:11:35.400 Great thanks for calling us pieces on a chessboard. 0:11:36.120 --> 0:11:36.840 Fantastic. 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:41.160 Purson Is We're talking about him a lot in these episodes. 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:43.600 I should do an episode on just him. He's one 0:11:43.640 --> 0:11:46.480 of these, like when we talk about British imperialists, he 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:50.200 is like one of the imperialists of imperialists in the 0:11:50.200 --> 0:11:54.640 British Empire's history. And this is why Curzon's comment is 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:59.320 why participants came to call this struggle in what's often 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:02.880 I referred to as like the Near East right between 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:05.720 Russia and Great Britain, as the Great Game. 0:12:05.840 --> 0:12:06.000 Right. 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:10.320 This is a diplomatic, propagandistic, and sometimes military struggle between 0:12:10.360 --> 0:12:13.600 the British and Russian empires over Central Asia. One part 0:12:13.640 --> 0:12:16.720 of the Great Game is that the Great Britain invades 0:12:16.760 --> 0:12:21.160 and occupies Afghanistan for a while. Doesn't work well, right, 0:12:21.280 --> 0:12:23.319 But that's part of why that happens, right, is it's 0:12:23.320 --> 0:12:25.680 part of the stupid game they're playing with the Russians, 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:28.080 and it's all in the name of keeping India safe. 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:28.400 Right. 0:12:28.559 --> 0:12:31.040 They don't want Russia to get Afghanistan and they don't 0:12:31.040 --> 0:12:32.040 want Russia to get. 0:12:31.920 --> 0:12:34.120 Persia, right. Perfect. 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:38.080 Yeah. The actual name the Great Game, I think comes 0:12:38.320 --> 0:12:41.080 in eighteen forty, is the invention of a British spy 0:12:41.200 --> 0:12:45.680 named Arthur Connolly who was corresponding with a colleague in Kandahar, Afghanistan, 0:12:45.720 --> 0:12:49.240 and wrote, you've a great game, a noble game before you. 0:12:50.040 --> 0:12:53.080 Now obviously again everyone dies, like a lot of the 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:55.960 British Expeditionary Force dies, So I don't know how great 0:12:55.960 --> 0:12:57.959 a game they thought that was. By the end there, 0:12:58.880 --> 0:12:59.480 this is the thing. 0:13:00.000 --> 0:13:01.520 This is the thing that bothers me. I don't know 0:13:01.600 --> 0:13:03.320 much about this time period, so this is really interesting 0:13:03.320 --> 0:13:05.360 to hear. I do know a little bit more about 0:13:05.520 --> 0:13:07.719 the coup, as we mentioned that you'll get to at 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:13.080 some point in the future. In One nauseating fact about 0:13:13.080 --> 0:13:17.480 that is the callous nature in which these like British 0:13:17.840 --> 0:13:23.199 and American spies and propagandists, how they talk about it afterwards, 0:13:23.280 --> 0:13:25.839 like how much fun it was to overlay great game. 0:13:26.559 --> 0:13:27.040 It was a game. 0:13:27.080 --> 0:13:28.720 It's so much fun, and they were good at it 0:13:28.920 --> 0:13:33.000 and we won. It's just the it drives me a baddie. 0:13:33.080 --> 0:13:36.520 Yeah, then the millions of people's lives, and I take 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:39.840 some satisfaction that. Connolly in eighteen forty writes his colleague, 0:13:39.840 --> 0:13:41.840 you have a great game, a noble game before you 0:13:42.080 --> 0:13:45.360 in eighteen forty two, like the shattered remnants of the 0:13:45.840 --> 0:13:48.559 army that had marched into the first angle Tic Couple 0:13:48.720 --> 0:13:51.840 during the First Anglo Afghan War, like flee because you know, 0:13:52.120 --> 0:13:55.800 they get massacred, like very badly. So at least a 0:13:55.840 --> 0:13:58.400 lot of times these guys got shot, but not nearly 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:01.400 an often enough cava, that is to be, not nearly 0:14:01.440 --> 0:14:01.960 often enough. 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:02.839 It's a recurring theme. 0:14:03.280 --> 0:14:05.280 A lot of people get shot this story, but not 0:14:05.400 --> 0:14:09.040 the right ones. Generally, usually some teenagers who got drafted 0:14:09.040 --> 0:14:10.079 from farms. 0:14:10.160 --> 0:14:11.079 So always the kids. 0:14:11.640 --> 0:14:11.840 Yeah. 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:15.480 Yeah, Now, before that term was invented, the great Game, 0:14:15.559 --> 0:14:17.600 the Russians did have one of their own. They called 0:14:17.640 --> 0:14:21.080 it the Tournament of Shadows, which is objectively cooler, Like 0:14:21.400 --> 0:14:23.080 that is a cooler name. 0:14:23.200 --> 0:14:25.640 That sounds like a fantasy novel that I would probably read. 0:14:25.800 --> 0:14:28.320 Yeah, a tournament of shadows. Right, it's a great name 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:31.440 for like a prestige TV show, right, that will really 0:14:31.480 --> 0:14:34.520 disappoint you in maybe like the seventh season, and it's 0:14:34.520 --> 0:14:38.280 gonna get weird. Yeah. So for the British again, the 0:14:38.280 --> 0:14:40.440 whole goal of this stupid game is to protect their 0:14:40.960 --> 0:14:42.760 territory in India. And the whole name of the game 0:14:42.800 --> 0:14:45.600 for the Russians was for the Tzar, each subsequent zar 0:14:45.680 --> 0:14:48.200 to prove himself a good ruler. And the main thing 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:49.720 you had to do as Tzar to be a good 0:14:49.800 --> 0:14:52.840 ruler is expand the borders of the empire. That's why 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:56.360 people forget this because of how weak Russia seems entering 0:14:56.360 --> 0:14:59.360 World War One and is. But through the eighteen hundreds, 0:14:59.360 --> 0:15:02.680 again fifty five miles a day, the Russian Empire expands 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:07.040 over the course of like years. It's crazy how fast 0:15:07.080 --> 0:15:09.000 this I mean. And you look at the size of 0:15:09.040 --> 0:15:12.080 the Russian Empire at its maximum extent, it's not that weird. 0:15:12.160 --> 0:15:15.600 So the Brits have a hard line of how close 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:18.400 they want anyone, any European power to get to the 0:15:18.480 --> 0:15:21.800 Raj and the Russians feel like we have to expand constantly, 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:25.680 and it ultimately Persia winds up standing in between both empires. 0:15:26.160 --> 0:15:30.360 So in Persia in seventeen eighty five, you're gonna help 0:15:30.400 --> 0:15:32.560 me with the pronunciation here. I think it's the the 0:15:32.840 --> 0:15:35.640 Quahar dynasty or Qajar dynasty. 0:15:35.360 --> 0:15:36.720 Qaj j Ar. 0:15:36.880 --> 0:15:38.360 I think it's Kajar Kajar. 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:41.840 I think it's an actual j I'm going to preface 0:15:41.880 --> 0:15:45.960 this by apologizing to how many of our actual Iranian 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:49.320 listeners you have that my Parsi is only nominally better 0:15:49.360 --> 0:15:53.320 than Roberts. I mean, it's better, but not as good 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:56.200 as yours. And I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I was born 0:15:56.240 --> 0:16:00.160 in Indiana. You're lucky I speak English much less Farcia. 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:02.280 So just so sorry. 0:16:03.160 --> 0:16:06.120 Yeah, the Qujar dynasty took power seventeen eighty five, and 0:16:06.160 --> 0:16:09.960 they are the descendants of Turkomen from Central Asia and 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:13.280 aren't seen as authentically Persian by a lot of people, right, Like, 0:16:13.360 --> 0:16:16.880 authentically they're not seen is belonging in what's called Persia, 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:20.240 right because there's a lot of different ethnic groups there. Now, 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:23.640 because the first Kajar king doesn't have like a really 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:26.560 solid hold on power, he decides he has to put 0:16:26.560 --> 0:16:29.280 on a show in order to convince everyone he belongs 0:16:29.320 --> 0:16:31.360 in the job, right. You know, a lot of people 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:33.800 don't think I should be in Tehran at all. I 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:37.800 have to really like make everyone believe i'm legitimately like 0:16:37.920 --> 0:16:41.160 God wants me here, right. And so this first Kujar 0:16:41.280 --> 0:16:45.240 king is Fathali Shah and he's known his nickname is 0:16:45.560 --> 0:16:49.200 the super procreant because he has a lot of kids. 0:16:49.320 --> 0:16:51.360 But by the way, and just just so it's if 0:16:51.400 --> 0:16:56.280 it's not obvious, the word shaw translates to like emperor, ruler, king, right, 0:16:56.960 --> 0:17:00.800 just in case people weren't aware of that. Somebody asked 0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:02.920 me that question like a few years ago, and I 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:04.240 was like, that's what I mean. 0:17:04.359 --> 0:17:05.440 So just a case. 0:17:05.480 --> 0:17:07.480 And it often in these names it will come as 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:09.560 like a last name, but that is his title, right, 0:17:09.560 --> 0:17:12.520 He's fath Aly Shah, is faf Al is the Shah. Right, 0:17:13.400 --> 0:17:17.200 Reza Khan will become Resis Shah like when he becomes 0:17:17.240 --> 0:17:18.840 the Shah. 0:17:19.160 --> 0:17:20.480 And he gave the name Paula Vi. 0:17:20.800 --> 0:17:22.760 They because it was like the I think it was 0:17:22.800 --> 0:17:25.040 like the ancient Lang written word Persian. 0:17:25.200 --> 0:17:26.679 Yeah, I think it was. Yeah, things like that. 0:17:26.800 --> 0:17:29.160 Yeah, and we'll talk about that because that's that's important 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:32.200 to this. There's a lot of ethnic groups in Persia 0:17:32.240 --> 0:17:34.000 at the time, and he's only really the sha is 0:17:34.040 --> 0:17:36.160 only going to be really interested in one right, and 0:17:36.200 --> 0:17:38.120 that's kind of a big part of like what occurs 0:17:38.119 --> 0:17:42.240 in his reign. But so the first Kajar king is 0:17:42.480 --> 0:17:45.920 known as the super procreant because he's he's fucking constantly. 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:48.879 And that's also why the throne of the Shahs of 0:17:48.880 --> 0:17:51.679 Iran gets its name, because it's called the peacock Throne. 0:17:52.200 --> 0:17:54.960 Now for an explanation of why it's called the peacock Throne, 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:57.440 I'm going to quote from a Boss Milani, the author 0:17:57.480 --> 0:17:59.959 of a book called the Sha Here's how they describe it. 0:18:00.680 --> 0:18:04.119 That superb and barbarous devon of enamel and precious stones, 0:18:04.119 --> 0:18:07.280 with its airbesque designs wrought of twenty six thousand gyms 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:09.960 brought back from India as spoils of war. It uses 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:13.320 bright red rubies, deep blue sapphires, and verdant greened emeralds, 0:18:13.359 --> 0:18:16.160 and is flanked by two golden snakes, each peering from 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:19.600 one side. In the beginning, the peacock Throne was called 0:18:19.640 --> 0:18:22.520 the sun Throne. Its name was changed because the Shah, 0:18:22.560 --> 0:18:25.600 who had close to one thousand wives of quote diverse 0:18:25.680 --> 0:18:30.480 origin had a favorite concubine. This concubine was named Taboo, 0:18:31.280 --> 0:18:34.560 and that name literally means peacock in Persian. And so 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:39.040 this throne the sun throne. They fuck on it the 0:18:39.200 --> 0:18:41.760 night they get married, and he starts calling it the 0:18:41.760 --> 0:18:45.640 peacock throne because he has sex with this lady whose 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:49.840 name is peacock on it. That's why it's the peacock throne. Hey, guys, 0:18:49.880 --> 0:18:51.960 I just want to clarify. This is one explanation I 0:18:51.960 --> 0:18:54.080 found in one book for why it's called the peacock throne. 0:18:54.119 --> 0:18:57.199 And this represents like a popular story more than it 0:18:57.200 --> 0:19:00.320 does kind of the literal truth, because you know, there's 0:19:00.320 --> 0:19:02.600 peacocks carved into the throne. There's some I think I've 0:19:02.600 --> 0:19:05.800 heard some other stories as to like why it's called that, right, 0:19:05.840 --> 0:19:08.280 and Iran is called the peacock Kingdom or Perge is 0:19:08.280 --> 0:19:11.040 called the pincock Kingdom at around this time too. This 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:13.600 should be viewed as kind of a story that a 0:19:13.640 --> 0:19:16.040 lot of people told as to why the throne got 0:19:16.080 --> 0:19:21.320 its name, as opposed to like the absolute reason. Pretty 0:19:21.320 --> 0:19:23.360 cool name for a story for a throne's name. 0:19:23.359 --> 0:19:25.520 Actually, that is pretty. 0:19:25.200 --> 0:19:27.640 That is real game of Thrones. E that is very game. 0:19:29.119 --> 0:19:31.000 I like it better than the Iron Throne. It's a 0:19:31.119 --> 0:19:33.679 nicer story than a bunch of swords getting a meltzed 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:35.040 together a fun night. 0:19:35.440 --> 0:19:39.280 Yeah, the Peacock Throne sounds better. The reality of these 0:19:39.400 --> 0:19:43.440 thousand women actually being into this guy pretty low, probably 0:19:43.480 --> 0:19:44.960 not great, so it makes it a little bit less 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:45.679 charming for me. 0:19:45.760 --> 0:19:47.800 But yeah, yeah, it's a great name. 0:19:47.640 --> 0:19:50.680 When you think about Yeah, the relationship dynamics, it's less fun, 0:19:50.760 --> 0:19:53.960 but yeah, it's probably more comfortable than the Iron Throne. 0:19:54.119 --> 0:19:55.399 Way better than the Iron Throne. 0:19:55.440 --> 0:19:57.359 You wouldn't want to have sex on the Iron Throne, 0:19:57.400 --> 0:20:00.399 like you'd get like tetanus pretty badly, I think. I 0:20:00.520 --> 0:20:03.040 don't think wester Ros has vaccines for that. 0:20:03.280 --> 0:20:06.720 And it's really cold, I think to be I think 0:20:06.720 --> 0:20:08.920 if you were naked, I think it would be really cold. 0:20:09.040 --> 0:20:11.680 I mean, there are things to hold on to, which 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:12.000 is nice. 0:20:12.040 --> 0:20:13.679 There's a lot of a lot of grips. That's a 0:20:13.680 --> 0:20:14.240 good side. 0:20:14.320 --> 0:20:15.320 There's a lot of bricks. 0:20:15.520 --> 0:20:18.440 Did either of you watch the Night of a Seven 0:20:18.520 --> 0:20:19.920 Kingdoms Game of Thrones show. 0:20:20.560 --> 0:20:21.080 I did. 0:20:21.160 --> 0:20:23.560 It's my first time venturing back into the world of 0:20:23.600 --> 0:20:26.399 west ROAs since the original series. 0:20:26.800 --> 0:20:28.520 Do I need to watch it? What's the vibe? 0:20:28.920 --> 0:20:32.440 It's fun, it's good. I mean, it's a much lighter 0:20:32.600 --> 0:20:34.399 I think they kind of read the room and they're like, 0:20:34.640 --> 0:20:40.000 people don't want so much rape and incest and all that, 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:41.879 and they kind of like they tried to mix it 0:20:41.960 --> 0:20:43.919 up a little bit, a little bit less castration in 0:20:43.960 --> 0:20:45.760 this one, which is a big plus for me. 0:20:46.359 --> 0:20:47.879 I was trying. 0:20:48.000 --> 0:20:50.000 We could talk about this for hours. We were talking 0:20:50.000 --> 0:20:50.400 about the. 0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:55.680 Sorry sorry, sorry, my friend, my friends are here, We're 0:20:55.720 --> 0:20:57.679 going to talk about game of Throws. 0:20:57.880 --> 0:20:59.960 I could totally do that for like an hour, because 0:21:00.000 --> 0:21:01.879 sat speaking, I have a lot of thoughts about it. 0:21:01.880 --> 0:21:06.680 But yeah, oh yeah, solidly an hour. So we've got 0:21:06.680 --> 0:21:10.439 this new king. He's incredibly horny, famously horny, so horny 0:21:10.480 --> 0:21:13.199 that the throne is named for his horniness, which is 0:21:13.200 --> 0:21:16.400 again the coolest anyone will be in these episodes. 0:21:17.720 --> 0:21:18.400 Sorry, guys. 0:21:20.760 --> 0:21:24.280 From there, it's all downhill from the peacock throne getting named. 0:21:24.680 --> 0:21:27.919 One of fath Ali Shah's most consequent little decisions was 0:21:27.920 --> 0:21:30.040 that he signs a treaty in eighteen twenty eight that 0:21:30.200 --> 0:21:32.840 gives a big chunk of Persia away to the Russian 0:21:32.840 --> 0:21:37.080 Czar in exchange for protection. Persia is not a strong country. 0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:40.040 It doesn't really have a functional military. Like the military 0:21:40.119 --> 0:21:43.120 is kind of capable of keeping like the people from 0:21:43.200 --> 0:21:47.160 rebelling against the Shah, but it can't defend the country 0:21:47.200 --> 0:21:51.240 from other countries, right, And a lot of critics complain 0:21:51.359 --> 0:21:53.719 that this eighteen twenty eight treaty makes Persia a virtual 0:21:53.760 --> 0:21:57.239 satrap of the Tzar. Right, basically, Persia's just like a 0:21:57.320 --> 0:22:01.560 satellite state of the Russian Empire now, and so subsequent 0:22:01.720 --> 0:22:05.360 rulers in the Shaw's line would veer towards the British 0:22:05.359 --> 0:22:07.480 whenever they get worried that like the Russians are getting 0:22:07.520 --> 0:22:09.960 too much power, and part because they're getting criticized by 0:22:10.000 --> 0:22:12.360 the people, Like the people are pissed that, like you're 0:22:12.359 --> 0:22:14.720 giving everything away to the Russians. So they'd be like, well, 0:22:14.720 --> 0:22:17.160 maybe i'll make friends with the British and then you know, 0:22:17.440 --> 0:22:19.960 the Russians will have to kind of fight for my 0:22:20.040 --> 0:22:22.720 affection with the British and maybe we can gain a 0:22:22.720 --> 0:22:23.800 little more power that way. 0:22:23.960 --> 0:22:24.120 Right. 0:22:24.440 --> 0:22:26.560 Really, with the Shah and their success, they just are 0:22:26.560 --> 0:22:29.400 getting bribes from both these sides, right, and they're getting 0:22:29.440 --> 0:22:32.080 a shitload of bribes from the British, who are gained 0:22:32.080 --> 0:22:34.280 more and more power over the Persian Court over the 0:22:34.280 --> 0:22:37.160 course of the eighteen hundreds, basically by being like, hey, 0:22:37.160 --> 0:22:39.320 those Russians, I don't think they're going to stop at 0:22:39.320 --> 0:22:41.560 the stuff they got in that treaty. But you know, 0:22:41.840 --> 0:22:44.800 we've got British guns, and we've got we can send 0:22:44.840 --> 0:22:47.840 some suppoies over from the colonies, and you know, we 0:22:47.880 --> 0:22:51.199 can really keep an eye on your back fellow. You 0:22:51.240 --> 0:22:54.040 know if you just give us this little bit of 0:22:54.480 --> 0:22:56.399 some mineral rights here and there, that just build a 0:22:56.400 --> 0:23:00.600 factory here and then you know, expose these these raw materials. 0:23:00.760 --> 0:23:03.040 You never regret your dealings with the British Empire. That's 0:23:03.080 --> 0:23:06.000 kind of what's going on over like the seventy year period. 0:23:06.119 --> 0:23:07.679 You like G, we like G. 0:23:08.160 --> 0:23:10.560 There's no harms that could come out of this relationship. 0:23:10.640 --> 0:23:13.560 Ever, two groups of people who like tea could never 0:23:14.040 --> 0:23:14.840 hob one another. 0:23:16.240 --> 0:23:16.720 You will say. 0:23:16.760 --> 0:23:20.680 Actually, fun fact, Iran is known famously for its tea consumption, 0:23:21.080 --> 0:23:24.160 like an insane amount of tea consumption. But we were 0:23:24.200 --> 0:23:27.040 the old school coffee like all we used to be 0:23:27.200 --> 0:23:30.320 all about coffee. I blame the British for becoming a 0:23:30.400 --> 0:23:33.840 tea country, which is in my mind something I'm not 0:23:33.880 --> 0:23:35.720 proud of. I want to go back to being a 0:23:35.760 --> 0:23:38.040 coffee country. I don't want to be a tea country. 0:23:38.119 --> 0:23:38.840 He must return. 0:23:39.000 --> 0:23:41.040 God, it really bothers me, I know, I know. 0:23:41.280 --> 0:23:44.840 No, because because Syria, the Syrians are really like kicking 0:23:44.920 --> 0:23:46.359 y'all's asses in the coffee department. 0:23:46.400 --> 0:23:48.119 Right, Oh, no, we lost our coffee. 0:23:48.200 --> 0:23:51.399 Must return, I know. Well, they have hipster coffee shops 0:23:51.400 --> 0:23:53.119 now in Iran. You can go to Iran. They'll do 0:23:53.280 --> 0:23:55.959 like the the hipster latte sort of art and stuff. 0:23:56.320 --> 0:23:56.960 They have that. 0:23:57.359 --> 0:23:59.280 But I mean, we used to it used to be 0:23:59.400 --> 0:24:00.960 like our thing, one of our things. 0:24:00.880 --> 0:24:05.480 Right, yeah. So the situation going on between these British 0:24:05.480 --> 0:24:08.399 agents and these Russian agents all competing with these various 0:24:08.440 --> 0:24:11.199 shaws is complicated by the fact that this isn't just 0:24:11.240 --> 0:24:14.760 a contest for influence between England and Russia. Within the 0:24:14.800 --> 0:24:18.479 British Empire, there are two sets of competing envoys that 0:24:18.520 --> 0:24:21.600 are in Persia and are fighting with each other as 0:24:21.640 --> 0:24:24.719 well as with the Russians. One set of British envoys 0:24:24.760 --> 0:24:27.560 are answering to the Foreign Office back in London, and 0:24:27.640 --> 0:24:30.000 another set are sent by the government of the British 0:24:30.040 --> 0:24:35.440 Raujian Calcutta and these guys, so they're like representing British 0:24:35.440 --> 0:24:38.480 India in Persia, and they have this huge office on 0:24:38.520 --> 0:24:42.280 the Gulf coast in a place called Boucher. And here's 0:24:42.359 --> 0:24:47.359 Sharen Brysak describing, like the ministry from Calcutta. The Government 0:24:47.400 --> 0:24:51.159 of India preferred a highly decentralized Persian regime that means weak. 0:24:51.440 --> 0:24:55.040 So from the outset, successive residents, including Major supercy Cox 0:24:55.080 --> 0:24:59.879 and Lieutenant Colonel A. T. Wilson, cultivated ties with nearby Shakedoms. Kurzon, 0:25:00.080 --> 0:25:02.840 an eventual Viceroy of India, visiting in eighteen eighty nine, 0:25:02.920 --> 0:25:05.359 spotted the Union jack fluttering from the summit of the 0:25:05.359 --> 0:25:08.240 residency flag staff and wrote that it was no vain 0:25:08.359 --> 0:25:11.720 symbol of British ascendancy. The British resident is to this 0:25:11.800 --> 0:25:15.000 hour the umpire to whom all parties appeal, having at 0:25:15.000 --> 0:25:17.679 his command an effective naval force imposed it will he 0:25:17.800 --> 0:25:20.840 may be entitled the uncrowned King of the Persian Gulf. 0:25:21.480 --> 0:25:26.320 So basically Kurzon realizes that like, because we've like we're 0:25:26.440 --> 0:25:29.719 running the show by eighteen eighty nine in Persia outside 0:25:29.720 --> 0:25:32.360 of the areas the Russians have like literally taken over 0:25:32.440 --> 0:25:35.680 by treaty. We are governing the country in all but name, 0:25:35.760 --> 0:25:37.840 because we have all of the weapons here, right, That's 0:25:37.840 --> 0:25:38.879 what he's bragging about. 0:25:39.200 --> 0:25:41.360 Yeah, so you do. 0:25:41.359 --> 0:25:44.159 That to show that really well. And it's weird, like 0:25:44.359 --> 0:25:47.760 you you like get into that British character. It's not 0:25:47.840 --> 0:25:51.639 just the voice, it's the you. You can get that 0:25:51.880 --> 0:25:53.040 entitlement like. 0:25:52.960 --> 0:25:55.520 You're channeling, you channel it. 0:25:55.520 --> 0:25:56.720 It's yeah, brilliant. 0:25:58.280 --> 0:26:02.600 So the Shah benefits from having a close relationship with 0:26:02.600 --> 0:26:06.680 Great Britain because British naval power is effectively his as 0:26:06.680 --> 0:26:09.320 long as he does whatever they asked, right. As one 0:26:09.359 --> 0:26:11.480 such envoy wrote of the Shaw quote, he and his 0:26:11.520 --> 0:26:14.399 Prime Minister were worried by the Russian threat to Persian independence. 0:26:14.560 --> 0:26:16.480 They believed or hoped that by giving the British a 0:26:16.560 --> 0:26:19.199 large economic stake in the country, they would become committed 0:26:19.240 --> 0:26:23.359 to defending that independence. Basically, if we make it, if 0:26:23.400 --> 0:26:25.760 Great Britain feels like we're an important part of their 0:26:25.800 --> 0:26:28.760 security and economic apparatus, they won't let us get taken 0:26:28.800 --> 0:26:32.480 over by the Russians right now. The Russians, meanwhile, are 0:26:32.520 --> 0:26:36.280 stoking unrest within Persia, often by bribing or otherwise encouraging 0:26:36.359 --> 0:26:40.920 Shia clergy to preach against foreign involvement, basically to be like, hey, 0:26:41.520 --> 0:26:44.919 these Brits are taken over your country, guys, and they're heathens, 0:26:45.000 --> 0:26:47.800 you know, Like aren't you should be angrier about this? 0:26:48.040 --> 0:26:50.240 Why is the Shaw letting them get away with that? 0:26:50.840 --> 0:26:51.119 Right? 0:26:51.359 --> 0:26:54.520 So, the Russians are operating a very effective propaganda. Like 0:26:54.560 --> 0:26:58.280 it's propaganda, but it's also accurate. Great Britain is running 0:26:58.320 --> 0:27:02.000 things in Persia that is pretty messed up. Now the 0:27:02.119 --> 0:27:04.840 Russians also want to run things in Persia. They're not 0:27:04.920 --> 0:27:09.000 any like better people here, really, but like this is 0:27:09.040 --> 0:27:11.640 how they're choosing to kind of like it's actually kind 0:27:11.640 --> 0:27:14.720 of similar to what Iran does in Iraq when the 0:27:14.800 --> 0:27:18.760 US invades with Shia clergy and like Baghdad. Interestingly enough, 0:27:18.760 --> 0:27:21.240 where they're they're realizing, like this group of people are 0:27:21.280 --> 0:27:25.240 particularly unhappy with the foreign power that's occupying the territory. 0:27:25.440 --> 0:27:28.359 So I'm going to like basically fund them to build 0:27:28.440 --> 0:27:31.720 support for insurrections and like rebel movements within the country. 0:27:31.840 --> 0:27:33.520 Yeah, we learn how to play the Great game. 0:27:34.560 --> 0:27:39.720 Learn playing the Great Game. Yeah, yeah right, Unfortunately, Yeah, 0:27:39.760 --> 0:27:42.439 it's it's never been that great a game and always 0:27:42.760 --> 0:27:46.760 gets a lot more people killed than anything else. So 0:27:47.480 --> 0:27:52.200 these like Russian propaganda, like instruments and whatnot within Persia, 0:27:52.240 --> 0:27:55.159 these attempts to stroke unrest within the clergy succeed in 0:27:55.200 --> 0:27:57.679 getting the Shot to cancel a number of projects, including 0:27:57.680 --> 0:28:00.000 a railway project that he'd taken on that was support 0:28:00.280 --> 0:28:04.080 by British interests. However, they failed to stop a British 0:28:04.119 --> 0:28:08.680 agent from creating the Imperial Bank of Persia. In fact, 0:28:08.720 --> 0:28:11.400 the Russians are so jealous of the British Imperial Bank 0:28:11.480 --> 0:28:14.120 that they create a bank of their own in Persia, 0:28:14.200 --> 0:28:17.879 subsidized by the Tsarist state, where the Imperial Bank was 0:28:18.080 --> 0:28:21.199 actually a functional banking institution that you could trust. That 0:28:21.280 --> 0:28:23.439 was the upside of it is the British do know 0:28:23.480 --> 0:28:26.080 how to run a bank that doesn't like go bust 0:28:26.200 --> 0:28:30.159 every ten seconds. The Russians are not as good about 0:28:30.240 --> 0:28:34.960 running like a legitimate bank, and the Russian Bank of 0:28:35.000 --> 0:28:38.760 Persia its primary purpose is to bribe the Shah's top officials, 0:28:38.960 --> 0:28:40.880 like it's not a real bank for people to use, 0:28:41.120 --> 0:28:44.800 it's a bank to issue loans to members of the governments. 0:28:44.880 --> 0:28:46.840 That they do what the Tzar wants them to do. 0:28:47.400 --> 0:28:50.880 So basically, what you've got here is great Britain's holding 0:28:50.960 --> 0:28:53.520 kind of the whole country hostage by running the bank 0:28:53.600 --> 0:28:57.000 that the people who have money use, and the Tzar 0:28:57.440 --> 0:29:00.680 is influencing shit within the country by using the bank 0:29:00.720 --> 0:29:04.600 that he's created to bribe government officials. So this is 0:29:04.640 --> 0:29:05.920 what we've got going on here. 0:29:07.120 --> 0:29:11.800 This is like where the sort of Archie being courted 0:29:11.920 --> 0:29:16.600 by Betty I think and Veronica, where they're two people 0:29:16.600 --> 0:29:20.320 are fighting for Iran is like nice. This is like 0:29:20.360 --> 0:29:23.080 so far, yeah, not so bad, but I also know 0:29:23.160 --> 0:29:25.400 that it just it gets worse and worse, So like 0:29:25.680 --> 0:29:27.000 right now, it's almost kind of cute. 0:29:27.040 --> 0:29:29.680 It's gonna get worse than banks. Yeah, it's gonna get 0:29:29.720 --> 0:29:33.640 a lot worse than banks. So Russia's fortunes in the 0:29:33.680 --> 0:29:35.800 area EBB and flow on a daily basis, and they 0:29:35.800 --> 0:29:38.960 depended largely in the attitude of the reigning sha. For example, 0:29:38.960 --> 0:29:41.640 in eighteen seventy nine, Naser al Din, who's the show 0:29:41.640 --> 0:29:44.400 at the time, visited Czar Alexander the Second in Russia. 0:29:45.120 --> 0:29:47.720 Alexander the Second, intent on staging a good show for 0:29:47.760 --> 0:29:50.680 his neighbor, ensured that the Shaw was wowed by a 0:29:50.720 --> 0:29:55.680 mass presentation of Cossacks. The elite cavalry unit who had Cossacks. 0:29:55.760 --> 0:29:58.600 I mean, they're also like an ethnic group, right, but 0:29:58.640 --> 0:30:01.880 they primarily known as like a military unit or a 0:30:01.920 --> 0:30:04.840 series of military units. They'd started out for a long time, 0:30:04.960 --> 0:30:08.040 had been enemies of the Tsar, right like Cossacks had 0:30:08.080 --> 0:30:10.040 fought the Tsars for a very there had been a 0:30:10.080 --> 0:30:12.680 rebellion not all that long ago, and they had been 0:30:12.720 --> 0:30:16.160 converted over time into the Tsar's red right hand. And 0:30:16.400 --> 0:30:17.920 we're going to talk a little bit more about that. 0:30:18.120 --> 0:30:23.080 But first, my red right hand these sponsors of our podcast, 0:30:29.600 --> 0:30:33.440 and we're back, yay. So I want to quote from 0:30:33.440 --> 0:30:35.800 an article and seeing in world news about the evolution 0:30:36.000 --> 0:30:39.160 of the Cossacks within Russia. During the fourteenth, fifteenth, and 0:30:39.240 --> 0:30:41.920 sixteenth centuries, the Cossacks fought for the Russian crown in 0:30:42.000 --> 0:30:45.280 regional wars against the Russian people, garnering a reputation as 0:30:45.320 --> 0:30:48.080 the Tsar's henchmen. Acting on behalf of the Russian Empire, 0:30:48.120 --> 0:30:51.000 the Cossacks carried out pagrams or massacres of the Jews 0:30:51.040 --> 0:30:55.000 in nineteenth century Russia. The Cossacks go from these people 0:30:55.000 --> 0:30:57.960 who were these like nomadic horse warriors and didn't want 0:30:57.960 --> 0:31:01.000 to be governed to the government being like, but what 0:31:01.040 --> 0:31:04.720 if we give you money in exchange for murdering anyone 0:31:04.720 --> 0:31:08.000 who stands up against the czar? And the Cossacks eventually 0:31:08.080 --> 0:31:10.200 are fine with this, right, and they do a lot 0:31:10.280 --> 0:31:13.120 of there's a lot of genocide done by the Cossacks 0:31:13.160 --> 0:31:15.360 on behalf of the Russian Empire in this period, right, 0:31:15.440 --> 0:31:18.680 Like these pegroms are very ugly. There's there's one that 0:31:18.800 --> 0:31:21.440 kills something like a million people in the eighteen hundreds, 0:31:21.480 --> 0:31:25.120 like seven hundred thousand or something like that. Pretty hideous stuff. Now, 0:31:25.160 --> 0:31:27.640 there had been a Cossack rebellion led by a dude 0:31:27.680 --> 0:31:31.400 named Pugachev in the late eighteenth century, and in general, 0:31:31.480 --> 0:31:34.000 any expert on Russian history would have told you that 0:31:34.080 --> 0:31:38.680 a powerful, autonomous cadra of warriors with zero accountability sometimes 0:31:38.680 --> 0:31:40.800 rebel against It's not always a good idea for the 0:31:40.800 --> 0:31:44.240 government right to have like this group of warriors that 0:31:44.440 --> 0:31:46.760 you can't really tell what to do. Yes, it seems 0:31:46.760 --> 0:31:50.840 like idea, right, And the Cossacks had always been a 0:31:50.880 --> 0:31:53.720 double edged sword, even for the czars. But Naser al Din, 0:31:54.120 --> 0:31:56.760 the Shah at the time sees all these Russian Cossacks 0:31:56.760 --> 0:31:58.640 and he's like, these guys look cool as hell. I 0:31:58.760 --> 0:32:02.760 want some Cossacks. And so he founds his own Persian 0:32:02.840 --> 0:32:05.360 Cossack legion. This is kind of in the late eighteen 0:32:05.520 --> 0:32:07.840 or the yeah, the late eighteen hundreds. He founds the 0:32:07.880 --> 0:32:12.480 Persian Cossack Brigade. I had not known there were Persian Cossacks. 0:32:12.920 --> 0:32:15.200 I thought that was just like a because like Cossacks 0:32:15.200 --> 0:32:17.520 are like from like Ukraine is where a lot of 0:32:17.560 --> 0:32:20.320 like Cossacks origidate from. So the fact that there's a 0:32:20.360 --> 0:32:22.520 Persian Cossack brigade is kind of wild. 0:32:23.600 --> 0:32:26.600 We think we will take any concept and then we'll 0:32:26.640 --> 0:32:28.840 take it to an extreme. That's sort of what we 0:32:29.000 --> 0:32:32.520 do as a people culturally. If you've been to Los Angeles, 0:32:32.600 --> 0:32:33.360 you'll see that. 0:32:33.840 --> 0:32:34.040 Yeah. 0:32:34.720 --> 0:32:38.240 But this Kajar dynasty, what's interesting about is I know 0:32:38.360 --> 0:32:42.120 very little about it other than the way they are presented. 0:32:42.160 --> 0:32:45.200 The narrative is that they were just an incompetent, ridiculous 0:32:45.720 --> 0:32:49.280 group of like people who are only interested in, you know, 0:32:49.360 --> 0:32:52.719 pro creating and spent wasting money on things. And Naser 0:32:52.760 --> 0:32:56.120 el Din is like the one name I recognize as 0:32:56.200 --> 0:32:59.320 like the epitome of that that this is the most wasteful, 0:32:59.520 --> 0:33:03.680 terrible Dinoshras saying something for all the other dynasties that 0:33:04.040 --> 0:33:05.280 have been around and went on. 0:33:06.080 --> 0:33:08.200 And it's important to note that they are this terrible 0:33:08.400 --> 0:33:12.080 because they're all from the entire time this dynasty exists, 0:33:12.280 --> 0:33:16.240 they're not. They're always puppets of two different competing powers, right, 0:33:16.560 --> 0:33:18.920 Like they're never like from the beginning, any of these 0:33:19.000 --> 0:33:21.680 For one thing, anyone who might be a decent ruler 0:33:21.920 --> 0:33:24.400 is not going to be allowed by the Russians or 0:33:24.440 --> 0:33:27.160 the Brits to do fuck all, right, so they're going 0:33:27.200 --> 0:33:29.320 to make sure that guy never gets close to power 0:33:29.360 --> 0:33:32.520 in the first place, because they're orchestrating who is in power, 0:33:32.560 --> 0:33:34.600 and they're doing that based on their own interest, not 0:33:34.640 --> 0:33:36.160 what's good for Persia and. 0:33:36.560 --> 0:33:39.160 Not time and time again, this is the story. This 0:33:39.320 --> 0:33:41.640 is how it's laid out from time time thereon. 0:33:42.520 --> 0:33:46.160 Yeah, And obviously like these individual shaws and their officials 0:33:46.280 --> 0:33:49.240 suck too. These are all really corrupt bad people. But 0:33:49.280 --> 0:33:52.360 they're corrupt bad people who are being bribed by someone, 0:33:52.520 --> 0:33:55.720 and that is completely dominating the course of politics in 0:33:55.760 --> 0:33:59.720 Persia during this period of time. And it's not entirely 0:33:59.800 --> 0:34:02.840 on the regime, right, like these two foreign powers have 0:34:02.920 --> 0:34:07.240 a lot to do with it. So the Czar Alexander 0:34:07.280 --> 0:34:09.480 the Second had had the Shaw over and impressed him 0:34:09.480 --> 0:34:12.200 with these Cossacks because he wanted something like this to happen. 0:34:12.239 --> 0:34:15.880 He wants Persia to have a Cossack brigade because the 0:34:15.920 --> 0:34:19.520 point of having Cossacks is that they're supposed to directly 0:34:19.560 --> 0:34:23.040 support the ruler, like these are your I've had a rebellion. 0:34:23.080 --> 0:34:24.960 I need someone to go in and massacre them. That's 0:34:25.000 --> 0:34:27.680 why you have an elite group of horse guards like 0:34:27.719 --> 0:34:31.120 the Cossacks. And so the Shaw is buying these Cossacks 0:34:31.160 --> 0:34:34.480 thinking like, shit, this will help me anytime there's unrest, 0:34:34.520 --> 0:34:36.560 I'll be able to have these guys just murder my enemies. 0:34:36.560 --> 0:34:38.960 And Persia does in fact pay handsomely to equip, train, 0:34:39.000 --> 0:34:42.759 and maintain a brigade. And this brigade is pretty much, 0:34:42.800 --> 0:34:44.960 for a lot of this period, the only effective military 0:34:45.040 --> 0:34:49.160 unit Persia has, and it's led by Russian officers. Right, 0:34:49.200 --> 0:34:51.799 the Russians are kind of subsidizing this effort, and they're 0:34:51.840 --> 0:34:55.640 sending their own military officers who report directly to Russia's 0:34:55.640 --> 0:34:58.600 Minister of War So if you're Russia, what you've done 0:34:58.600 --> 0:35:02.240 as soon as the sha Ah starts adopt this idea, 0:35:02.320 --> 0:35:07.880 starts hiring Cossacks, You've ensured the Shaw's bodyguard unit basically 0:35:08.360 --> 0:35:11.719 is in controlled by your guys. That's a big win 0:35:12.120 --> 0:35:14.200 if you're Russia in this period, right. 0:35:14.440 --> 0:35:17.040 No, I think this is it's so interesting to learn 0:35:17.080 --> 0:35:20.000 about this. I'd heard about the Cossack Brigade and yeah, 0:35:20.440 --> 0:35:23.879 a little bit of the connection to the Polavi family. 0:35:23.960 --> 0:35:26.000 But it's a big don't. Yes, I don't. 0:35:26.080 --> 0:35:28.960 I don't entirely understand, Like the constant. Is it like 0:35:29.239 --> 0:35:32.040 the Hessian soldiers that were in America that came over 0:35:32.040 --> 0:35:34.680 from Germany, Like they're kind of a mercenary force or 0:35:34.719 --> 0:35:37.080 is it more of like a yes, but it's a 0:35:37.120 --> 0:35:39.959 formal like oh, what are the bad guys in Dune? 0:35:39.760 --> 0:35:41.960 The member like the one, they're. 0:35:41.719 --> 0:35:47.360 More like kind of more startokar. Well, the because Cossacks 0:35:47.360 --> 0:35:50.000 are there is like kind of an ethnic group like 0:35:50.200 --> 0:35:52.920 these are basically these start out as like tribal groups 0:35:52.920 --> 0:35:55.239 of where Cossacks come from. Is you know how through 0:35:55.280 --> 0:35:58.800 most of human history you have like your settled civilizations 0:35:59.120 --> 0:36:01.719 and then these groups of like nomads on horses who 0:36:02.120 --> 0:36:05.560 periodically take over everything. Right, Well, Cossacks are one of 0:36:05.560 --> 0:36:08.000 those groups of people. They just happen to be around 0:36:08.120 --> 0:36:10.480 at the time that the modern world comes into being, 0:36:10.960 --> 0:36:13.480 and so they're those guys. But instead of like bows 0:36:13.480 --> 0:36:16.840 and arrows, they've got like rifles and eventually machine guns. 0:36:17.320 --> 0:36:19.959 And as a general rule in this period of time, 0:36:20.320 --> 0:36:23.440 if you're going to brutalize a protest, you're going to 0:36:23.520 --> 0:36:26.160 use guys on horseback, because horses are really good at 0:36:26.160 --> 0:36:29.759 breaking up mobs. It's very scary to be charged by 0:36:29.800 --> 0:36:34.080 a bunch of guys with sabers on horseback. And that's 0:36:34.080 --> 0:36:36.640 the real the Russian Cossacks, that's what they do. These 0:36:36.680 --> 0:36:39.160 are the guys you send in when these villagers are rebelling, 0:36:39.440 --> 0:36:42.840 kill them, or we've decided we're going to ethnically cleanse 0:36:42.880 --> 0:36:45.520 this area of this group of people, send in the Cossacks, 0:36:45.600 --> 0:36:48.560 right and once the Shah gets his Cossacks, that's what 0:36:48.600 --> 0:36:51.239 they're going to be used for, is brutalizing peasants to 0:36:51.320 --> 0:36:55.239 scare them away from doing disorder. Right now, they're not 0:36:55.320 --> 0:36:58.000 much good for much else. They're supposed to be bodyguards 0:36:58.000 --> 0:37:00.919 to In eighteen ninety six, Nasa is a assassinated while 0:37:00.920 --> 0:37:03.839 at a shrine, and his Cossack bodyguards failed to protect him. 0:37:04.200 --> 0:37:06.399 As a general rule, they're not great at that part 0:37:06.400 --> 0:37:07.000 of the job. 0:37:08.000 --> 0:37:09.319 We don't protect, we hurt. 0:37:11.320 --> 0:37:14.280 Oh no, all it cuts tot. Was that a hit people? 0:37:14.600 --> 0:37:17.360 We're a more offensive thing, less defense. 0:37:17.560 --> 0:37:18.440 Yeah. 0:37:18.480 --> 0:37:20.919 But once you've got these guys, you've got this unit 0:37:20.960 --> 0:37:23.880 of powerful horse guards that are close to the Shah, 0:37:23.920 --> 0:37:26.480 they're going to remain a powerful force in Persian politics, 0:37:26.480 --> 0:37:28.760 which by the turn of the century, once the nineteen 0:37:28.840 --> 0:37:31.879 hundred start going, are in a chaotic place, to say 0:37:31.960 --> 0:37:35.040 the least. Sharen Breysak describes the country during this time 0:37:35.080 --> 0:37:38.640 as a playground of Russian and British spies. Tehran is 0:37:38.760 --> 0:37:41.120 very much the way Berlin is going to be during 0:37:41.120 --> 0:37:43.360 the height of the Cold War. Right, It's this city 0:37:43.600 --> 0:37:46.920 where all like spooks from all over the world are 0:37:46.960 --> 0:37:49.919 coming and executing plots as part of these different great 0:37:49.960 --> 0:37:54.560 power games. And neither Russia or Great Britain trusted the 0:37:54.600 --> 0:37:57.239 local state security forces as far as they could throw them, 0:37:57.239 --> 0:37:59.239 so they brought in their own troops to protect their 0:37:59.280 --> 0:38:02.160 own agents in the country. The Russians brought in their 0:38:02.200 --> 0:38:05.279 own Cossack guards right, or used Persian Cossack guards which 0:38:05.320 --> 0:38:08.680 were led by Russians right, whereas British consuls in the 0:38:08.680 --> 0:38:12.280 country brought sapois in Bengal lancers from India to protect 0:38:12.320 --> 0:38:15.440 their guys. At the start of the twentieth century, Russia 0:38:15.480 --> 0:38:18.279 and England had reached an accord which Brysac writes was 0:38:18.320 --> 0:38:23.280 settled without informing, much less consulting the leaders of Persia. 0:38:23.320 --> 0:38:26.480 They split the country up into three spheres of influence. 0:38:26.760 --> 0:38:30.560 The British control southeast Persia, Russia runs the north, and 0:38:30.600 --> 0:38:33.600 the Southwest is like a neutral zone where they're both 0:38:33.640 --> 0:38:36.040 allowed to do like certain things as long as they 0:38:36.040 --> 0:38:40.080 don't like cross other certain lines. And again no one 0:38:40.120 --> 0:38:43.759 asks anyone in the Persian government about this. They're not consulted. 0:38:44.080 --> 0:38:48.279 Their consent does not matter. Russia's chunk of Persia is 0:38:48.360 --> 0:38:50.520 most valuable during this period of time. They seem to 0:38:50.520 --> 0:38:53.480 get off better like the best of this treaty, right, 0:38:53.520 --> 0:38:56.640 because they get the chunk of Persia with the largest cities, 0:38:56.680 --> 0:39:00.960 including Tehran. But here's the thing. In nineteen oh one, 0:39:01.040 --> 0:39:04.120 when this agreement gets kind of inked, neither power is 0:39:04.120 --> 0:39:07.120 really interested in Persia's oil fields. There's not a lot 0:39:07.160 --> 0:39:10.279 that's known about them. We'd only really figured out there 0:39:10.280 --> 0:39:13.759 were oil deposits in southwest Persia in like eighteen ninety two. 0:39:14.360 --> 0:39:16.440 That gets discovered thanks to the work of a French 0:39:16.560 --> 0:39:20.239 archaeologist whose findings are brought to This French guy who's 0:39:20.280 --> 0:39:24.880 digging for evidence of earlier societies finds oil and he 0:39:25.200 --> 0:39:28.000 his findings get sent on to the Commissioner General of Persia, 0:39:28.120 --> 0:39:30.880 so an actual Persian government official, and this says a 0:39:30.960 --> 0:39:33.840 lot about who was bribing the Commissioner General of Persia. 0:39:33.920 --> 0:39:36.320 He goes straight to Sir Henry Drummond Wolf, who's a 0:39:36.360 --> 0:39:39.920 Conservative parliamentarian in London, and he says, hey, we found 0:39:39.960 --> 0:39:43.520 oil in our country. I figured i'd go to London first, 0:39:44.040 --> 0:39:47.479 and Wolf introduces the Persian Commissioner to a guy named 0:39:47.520 --> 0:39:52.520 William Knox D'Arcy. I assume he's an actual descendant of 0:39:52.560 --> 0:39:56.640 mister Darcy from Pride and Prejudice. 0:39:56.360 --> 0:39:57.200 Much less lovable. 0:39:57.239 --> 0:40:00.719 Honestly, he probably is, because William Knox Darcy is a 0:40:00.719 --> 0:40:03.680 millionaire who's gotten rich speculating on gold in Australia. He 0:40:03.719 --> 0:40:05.240 sounds like that guy's kid or something. 0:40:05.280 --> 0:40:08.439 Still blows my mind. That mister Darcy's also Tom Loan 0:40:08.560 --> 0:40:12.799 scams from Succession Blows by Subsession. 0:40:12.920 --> 0:40:14.160 I don't know that show. 0:40:13.960 --> 0:40:16.719 But they're apparently doing a new Pride and Prejudice and 0:40:16.760 --> 0:40:17.759 it looks like, I. 0:40:17.719 --> 0:40:21.600 Know, women love mister Darcy, and I don't entirely understand. 0:40:21.200 --> 0:40:22.760 Why I love mister Darcy. 0:40:23.040 --> 0:40:25.560 They love that scene where he like she brushes his 0:40:25.600 --> 0:40:29.840 hand and he like twitches like crazy, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:40:29.960 --> 0:40:35.880 big scene. So William Darcy gets introduced to the Persian Commissioner, 0:40:36.480 --> 0:40:39.520 and you know this guy loves speculating, so he decides 0:40:39.560 --> 0:40:41.920 he's going to branch out in oil speculation as well. 0:40:42.160 --> 0:40:44.400 In nineteen oh one, he offers the rulers of Iran 0:40:44.520 --> 0:40:48.280 twenty thousand British pounds and sixteen percent of annual profits 0:40:48.320 --> 0:40:52.520 gained from exploding their oil reserves. This draws little initial 0:40:52.520 --> 0:40:55.200 outrage within Persia, as regular people have a lot bigger 0:40:55.239 --> 0:40:57.640 fish to fry, right, and nobody's thinking about oil as 0:40:57.680 --> 0:41:00.880 a huge industry. Yet it's nineteen oh one. The number 0:41:00.920 --> 0:41:04.279 of people who have like used gasoline for anything is 0:41:04.440 --> 0:41:07.880 very small. The vast majority it's horses are walking for 0:41:08.000 --> 0:41:13.399 most people, right, and trains are a thing obviously. So yeah, 0:41:13.440 --> 0:41:16.000 you've got this guy Darcy who gets involved and he 0:41:16.239 --> 0:41:19.919 basically bribes the rulers of Iran with twenty pounds and 0:41:20.080 --> 0:41:23.360 a chunk of annual profits to exploit as much oil 0:41:23.400 --> 0:41:25.879 as he can find there. And nobody cares because oil 0:41:25.920 --> 0:41:27.960 is not worth all that much yet. In fact, Darcy 0:41:28.040 --> 0:41:31.400 nearly bankrupts himself paying for the deal and trying to 0:41:31.440 --> 0:41:34.120 build the infrastructure to start taking Persian oil to market 0:41:34.160 --> 0:41:36.680 because there's nothing there. Nobody's been digging or ext like, 0:41:36.680 --> 0:41:38.719 nobody's been drilling or anything. He has to do all 0:41:38.760 --> 0:41:41.960 of that, like from the ground up. It's very costly 0:41:42.320 --> 0:41:45.080 and even a very rich dude like Darcy can't bankroll 0:41:45.120 --> 0:41:47.000 the project on his own, so he partners with a 0:41:47.000 --> 0:41:50.840 company called Burma Oil, which is, despite the name, based 0:41:50.880 --> 0:41:55.440 in Glasgow, and Burma Oil has the capital necessary to 0:41:55.480 --> 0:41:58.279 make Darcy's rooms reality. So Darcy's now in business with 0:41:58.640 --> 0:42:01.719 this Glasgow based company, starting to build oil wells and 0:42:01.760 --> 0:42:06.600 whatnot and drill in Persia. And at the time, this 0:42:06.719 --> 0:42:09.319 is one of a bunch of innumerable deals by which 0:42:09.400 --> 0:42:12.160 Persia's natural resources are being sold off for the benefit 0:42:12.239 --> 0:42:14.760 of foreigners. This is not just happening with oil. Everything 0:42:14.840 --> 0:42:17.680 valuable in the country is being sold to Russia or Germany, 0:42:17.880 --> 0:42:20.719 right like, that's the way it's working for everything. So 0:42:20.880 --> 0:42:23.880 regular people in the country know they're being fleeced. They 0:42:23.920 --> 0:42:26.440 are not unaware of that. There's actually a very because 0:42:26.480 --> 0:42:30.640 the press is starting to become an increasingly significant thing 0:42:30.719 --> 0:42:33.279 in this period of time, and literacy is fairly high 0:42:33.320 --> 0:42:36.960 in the cities. Regular people are very aware that they're 0:42:37.000 --> 0:42:40.160 being robbed by both the British and the Russians, and 0:42:40.280 --> 0:42:42.680 that their leaders are selling the country out for what 0:42:42.760 --> 0:42:47.560 amounts to middling bribes. The current rulers the dynasty had 0:42:47.600 --> 0:42:50.600 their origins in a tribe of Turkomen warriors who served 0:42:50.640 --> 0:42:55.239 as the bulk of the Safavid military, and the Qajars 0:42:55.239 --> 0:42:59.120 had a Russian branch, which, again, because these are Turkubin people, 0:42:59.160 --> 0:43:03.920 this is all very compplicated ethnic stuff. But the ruling 0:43:04.080 --> 0:43:08.879 dynasty in Persia at the time are Turkomen, which means 0:43:08.920 --> 0:43:12.560 they have Russian cousins who are nobility in the Russian Empire, 0:43:12.920 --> 0:43:17.160 which means the Shahs of Persia are related to the Tsar, 0:43:17.680 --> 0:43:20.760 which endears them to the Tsar. Right, they're not directly 0:43:20.840 --> 0:43:23.359 related to the Czar, but they're directly related to other 0:43:23.480 --> 0:43:27.320 royals within the Tsar's empire, right, and this so a 0:43:27.360 --> 0:43:28.759 lot That's part of why a lot of people don't 0:43:28.760 --> 0:43:31.440 trust them, right, is they're both stooges of the British, 0:43:31.440 --> 0:43:34.080 and well, you don't you're not really like at least 0:43:34.080 --> 0:43:35.960 a lot of Persians feel like you're not really Persian. 0:43:35.960 --> 0:43:38.680 You're more Russian. Unlike, you're much more aligned with the 0:43:38.760 --> 0:43:42.080 Russian government. So there's a lot of reasons why people 0:43:42.120 --> 0:43:45.160 are getting increasingly pissed off at their rulers at this 0:43:45.239 --> 0:43:48.120 period of time. They're selling off the entire country, and 0:43:48.160 --> 0:43:51.600 they're doing it as if they're agents of other countries. Right, 0:43:51.640 --> 0:43:55.479 That's increasingly how this dynasty is seen. As shariir Kia 0:43:55.560 --> 0:43:58.239 wrote in an article for the National Council of Resistance 0:43:58.239 --> 0:44:02.600 on Iran or in CRI, the Quajar crisis, influenced by 0:44:02.640 --> 0:44:05.279 Russia and Britain, had led Iran the financial ruin and 0:44:05.280 --> 0:44:08.040 a political crisis. They were weak against foreign influence and 0:44:08.040 --> 0:44:13.080 oppressive of citizens. So by nineteen oh five people are sick. 0:44:13.239 --> 0:44:16.480 They are fed up with this shitty ass dynasty and 0:44:16.840 --> 0:44:20.640 the king is because Nasar had gotten assassinated, and his 0:44:20.719 --> 0:44:24.080 successor by this point is aging and ill, and there's 0:44:24.200 --> 0:44:28.520 enough unrest with elites in the capital that they form 0:44:28.880 --> 0:44:31.719 a parliament. Right, there's this like national assembly formed in 0:44:31.760 --> 0:44:34.399 Persia called the Mazles, as the result of a lot 0:44:34.440 --> 0:44:37.680 of work by a lot of different activists within the country, 0:44:37.719 --> 0:44:41.400 a lot of differently very brave people who want the 0:44:41.440 --> 0:44:43.879 government that the people of the country deserve, that will 0:44:43.880 --> 0:44:48.640 actually functionally govern and modernize the country and won't be 0:44:48.719 --> 0:44:52.439 taken advantage of as hideously as the Shas regime had. 0:44:52.880 --> 0:44:56.879 And the Mazles draft a constitution which was approved regretfully 0:44:56.880 --> 0:44:59.440 by the Shah right before he died, and the Shaws 0:44:59.520 --> 0:45:01.320 kind of in this position of like, if I don't 0:45:01.360 --> 0:45:05.480 approve this, it's it's allow this bit of democracy or 0:45:05.520 --> 0:45:09.040 have a rebellion, right, That's that's the dire situation he 0:45:09.080 --> 0:45:13.279 sees himself in. So once this parliament gets going and 0:45:13.640 --> 0:45:16.400 starts passing a constitution, the Russians are like, well, we 0:45:16.480 --> 0:45:19.880 can't have this. These guys aren't working for our best interests. 0:45:19.880 --> 0:45:22.680 They're working for their own best interest. That's not great. 0:45:22.719 --> 0:45:25.239 So they immediately set to work pushing their allies in 0:45:25.280 --> 0:45:28.800 the Shia clergy to sabotage this new experiment and functional 0:45:28.800 --> 0:45:33.440 self governance. Historian Ruhola Ramazani writes that they quote destroyed 0:45:33.480 --> 0:45:37.759 the foundations of this new government twice in about four years. Right, 0:45:37.840 --> 0:45:42.120 So the Majlis keep trying to install functional parliamentary governments, 0:45:42.400 --> 0:45:45.480 and these clerics and other agents of the Russians that 0:45:45.480 --> 0:45:48.600 are working with in Persian society keep sabotaging these efforts 0:45:48.920 --> 0:45:51.200 because they don't want this to happen. 0:45:51.560 --> 0:45:54.080 And this is the same thing. This is the same 0:45:54.080 --> 0:45:56.200 thing that happens with the National Front later. 0:45:56.360 --> 0:45:56.560 Yep. 0:45:56.680 --> 0:45:59.360 Yeah, same sort of dynamics they use to play against 0:45:59.360 --> 0:46:03.279 the second more secular elements, the religious elements. They use 0:46:03.360 --> 0:46:05.759 them the same exact manner. God, Yes, in such an 0:46:05.800 --> 0:46:06.680 easy playbook. 0:46:06.680 --> 0:46:11.880 It's always so, it's really frustrating when you lay it 0:46:11.920 --> 0:46:16.200 all out like this. So in nineteen oh eight, Russian 0:46:16.239 --> 0:46:20.640 interests install a new shaw on the throne Mohammad Ali Shah, 0:46:20.680 --> 0:46:23.560 and he celebrates his newfound power by imprisoning his own 0:46:23.600 --> 0:46:27.120 prime minister, who had been semi democratically elected by the Mashli. 0:46:27.560 --> 0:46:30.880 Per Sheren Brysac's article with a loan underwritten by the 0:46:30.960 --> 0:46:33.719 Russian Bank and with his own crown jewels of security, 0:46:33.800 --> 0:46:36.800 the Shah hired rioters to storm the Mazle's. When the 0:46:36.840 --> 0:46:41.000 assembly successfully resisted, the Russian Officered Persian Cossack brigade moved 0:46:41.080 --> 0:46:44.360 rapidly to dissolve parliament and to impose martial law. The 0:46:44.400 --> 0:46:48.040 Cossacks shelled the parliament building, igniting a blaze that destroyed 0:46:48.040 --> 0:46:51.360 its records and killed eight people. The Russian commander proclaimed 0:46:51.400 --> 0:46:56.319 himself military Governor of Tehran. That's fucking nuts. So the 0:46:56.560 --> 0:47:01.280 new Shah hires rioters and the parliament fights off the rioters, 0:47:01.320 --> 0:47:03.200 so they have to blow up the building with our 0:47:03.360 --> 0:47:06.400 It's fucking nuts. It's insane and obviously very sad. 0:47:06.520 --> 0:47:10.319 Yeah, and the the Masli's. I mean, I don't know 0:47:10.320 --> 0:47:13.560 if you know this, but like, so there are parliaments, 0:47:13.640 --> 0:47:15.080 because I know that. I always thought they're like a 0:47:15.120 --> 0:47:17.759 senate or something, but I don't entirely understand they were 0:47:17.800 --> 0:47:19.000 like the parliamentary force. 0:47:19.760 --> 0:47:21.640 It's partly like I don't think any of these are 0:47:21.680 --> 0:47:24.719 like quite perfect term, but it's like a national assembly 0:47:24.800 --> 0:47:29.120 type deal, right, Like it's a semi democratic body basically. 0:47:29.400 --> 0:47:35.000 Yeah, yeah, okay, but doesn't translate perfectly to senators and 0:47:35.040 --> 0:47:36.160 senate and that sort of thing. 0:47:37.040 --> 0:47:39.000 Not I mean, it's kind of its own like thing. 0:47:39.120 --> 0:47:41.200 Like I think the word literally means like like a 0:47:41.280 --> 0:47:44.600 place to sit basically, and it comes out of tribal councils. 0:47:46.120 --> 0:47:47.759 But yeah, it's like a it's a it's a type 0:47:47.760 --> 0:47:51.160 of parliament basically, it's that's that's close enough for our purposes. Right, 0:47:52.920 --> 0:47:56.719 So the Russians have massacred a bunch of people and 0:47:56.960 --> 0:48:01.200 shelled the parliament building and installed Asian military commander as 0:48:01.280 --> 0:48:04.080 governor of Tehran, and this is not popular. In fact, 0:48:04.160 --> 0:48:07.080 it inspires a mass uprising. And this is one of 0:48:07.120 --> 0:48:11.600 these beautiful moments where regular people in Tehran and in 0:48:11.600 --> 0:48:13.919 the areas outside of it are so fucking pissed off 0:48:13.920 --> 0:48:16.600 at what the Russians have done that all of these different, 0:48:16.840 --> 0:48:21.600 normally normally opposed political groups unite together in resistance of 0:48:21.680 --> 0:48:25.480 Russian domination. And there's this mass uprising that pushes the 0:48:25.520 --> 0:48:28.920 Cossack guards out of the capital, and Muhammad Ali Shah 0:48:28.960 --> 0:48:34.080 becomes one of the shortest reigned shaws in history. He 0:48:34.160 --> 0:48:38.520 is not around much longer now because feudalism is a 0:48:38.560 --> 0:48:41.000 really bad system at the best of times. He is 0:48:41.080 --> 0:48:44.720 succeeded by his son, Ahmed, when Ahmed is twelve years old. 0:48:45.120 --> 0:48:47.919 The reason why this is generally seen as good by 0:48:48.120 --> 0:48:52.000 the power that's backing this succession, the British, is that 0:48:52.400 --> 0:48:55.000 Ahmed is too young to rule on his own. That 0:48:55.120 --> 0:48:57.919 means he needs a regent, and the regent who gets 0:48:57.960 --> 0:49:00.400 picked to rule in his stead is a very close 0:49:00.440 --> 0:49:05.040 friend of British Foreign Secretary Nathan Kurzon. So we have 0:49:05.120 --> 0:49:09.560 gone from haha. The Russians took over and basically this 0:49:09.719 --> 0:49:12.840 mass movement forces them out of power and forces the 0:49:12.880 --> 0:49:16.319 shot to abdicate. But then the guy who takes over 0:49:16.680 --> 0:49:19.880 is a stooge for the British government again, right, it's this. 0:49:20.239 --> 0:49:21.880 They can't get out of this, you know. 0:49:22.480 --> 0:49:25.920 And in the movie, the regent is played by Ben Kingsley. 0:49:26.440 --> 0:49:31.080 That's exactly who plays that that character. He's half Indian, 0:49:31.600 --> 0:49:34.640 half white to my understanding, and he has played an 0:49:34.640 --> 0:49:37.000 Iranian in like four movies and. 0:49:39.040 --> 0:49:39.760 They're never good. 0:49:39.800 --> 0:49:42.480 They're never good characters, never No. 0:49:44.040 --> 0:49:48.240 So what you've got now is a fucking regent who's 0:49:48.280 --> 0:49:51.200 running things in Tehran and everybody's tired because they've just 0:49:51.280 --> 0:49:53.239 thrown the Russians out and the British are kind of 0:49:54.360 --> 0:49:57.040 come in as the winners, and this this round of 0:49:57.080 --> 0:49:59.520 blows in the Great Game and shit like this. The 0:49:59.560 --> 0:50:02.280 fact that Great Britain kind of sits back while Russia 0:50:02.320 --> 0:50:04.440 commits a bunch of horrible war crimes and then winds 0:50:04.520 --> 0:50:06.799 up in charge is why England. Part of why they 0:50:06.800 --> 0:50:09.799 get their reputation being perfidious Albion is everyone's like, how 0:50:09.800 --> 0:50:11.920 the fuck did you wind up winning? Wait a second, 0:50:12.160 --> 0:50:15.200 like we were fighting them, how are how did you win? 0:50:15.320 --> 0:50:15.960 What the fuck? 0:50:16.440 --> 0:50:16.520 Like? 0:50:16.680 --> 0:50:19.880 That's that's that's that's the way the British place stuff 0:50:19.480 --> 0:50:20.200 per time. 0:50:20.880 --> 0:50:22.040 Yeah. 0:50:22.160 --> 0:50:25.440 Now, one reason why you had this popular uprising against 0:50:25.480 --> 0:50:28.839 the Russians and why like the Mazles are able to 0:50:28.880 --> 0:50:31.840 gain and maintain a degree of power is that regular 0:50:31.920 --> 0:50:34.880 Persians are fairly well informed about what's happening in their 0:50:34.880 --> 0:50:38.160 country or starting to be in this period, because especially 0:50:38.239 --> 0:50:42.560 once the Majlis come like into power, Persia has a 0:50:42.600 --> 0:50:45.279 shockingly free press. During this whole period of time, from 0:50:45.280 --> 0:50:48.200 like the about this point in the story forward up 0:50:48.280 --> 0:50:51.680 until we get the last dynasty of Shaws, there's like 0:50:51.760 --> 0:50:57.320 a really vibrant media ecosystem, particularly in Tehran. The first 0:50:57.360 --> 0:50:59.520 Mazles had put an end to the stifling controlled the 0:50:59.719 --> 0:51:03.239 erastocracy had exerted on media, and so even when the 0:51:03.280 --> 0:51:05.759 Persian people lacked the power to stop Great Britain or 0:51:05.800 --> 0:51:08.080 Russian from doing something, they at least knew that they 0:51:08.080 --> 0:51:10.320 were being fucked right. That's an important dimension of the 0:51:10.360 --> 0:51:12.720 story is that people are not in the dark because 0:51:12.719 --> 0:51:15.080 there's a pretty good media at the time, which I 0:51:15.120 --> 0:51:20.040 was also unaware of. So folks are especially aware of 0:51:20.080 --> 0:51:23.440 the rampant corruption within the Shaws Court. Public opinion of 0:51:23.440 --> 0:51:26.680 it is so negative that the regent's foreign minister sends 0:51:26.719 --> 0:51:30.440 men out to find him a disinterested American expert to 0:51:30.520 --> 0:51:34.200 come to Tehran and fix the Persian economy. Now, that 0:51:34.239 --> 0:51:36.160 fact alone should give you an idea of the very 0:51:36.200 --> 0:51:39.319 different regard Americans were held in during this time. That 0:51:39.480 --> 0:51:43.560 like foreigners who are meddling in still other foreign countries 0:51:43.600 --> 0:51:47.520 economic system are like, we need someone reliable, trustworthy and 0:51:47.920 --> 0:51:53.719 unbiased to fix this economy. Let's find it American. The 0:51:53.800 --> 0:51:58.040 fact that that's the way things work back then is crazy. 0:51:57.920 --> 0:52:00.440 It is wild, But I will say, you know, until 0:52:00.640 --> 0:52:04.440 the whole nineteen fifty three coup, like the there was 0:52:04.440 --> 0:52:07.600 a real there was and then afterwards, you know, if 0:52:07.600 --> 0:52:10.520 you talk to your rank and file Iranian now they 0:52:10.600 --> 0:52:13.799 do and they have for many years now loved Americans. 0:52:14.160 --> 0:52:17.759 But before this they used to have a lot of 0:52:17.800 --> 0:52:20.239 contempt for the British. They used to have a lot 0:52:20.280 --> 0:52:22.680 contemp for the Russians, and they used to always sort 0:52:22.680 --> 0:52:24.520 of know that they are meddling. But there was like 0:52:24.560 --> 0:52:27.760 a real warm spot for Americans because of the Americans 0:52:27.800 --> 0:52:29.760 that would come over and help them with the finance stuff. 0:52:30.000 --> 0:52:33.839 Mcluskey Afrigat's name, But like there's a there's a few, yeah, yeah. 0:52:33.880 --> 0:52:36.760 So then there was a real like, you know, warmth. 0:52:37.520 --> 0:52:39.879 And this guy, this guy isn't bad at his job. 0:52:39.920 --> 0:52:42.719 I don't think. His name is W. Morgan Schuster. He's 0:52:42.760 --> 0:52:44.960 a middle aged lawyer who had worked and he'd been 0:52:45.000 --> 0:52:47.880 like a customs guy after the US had taken Cuba 0:52:47.920 --> 0:52:50.840 from the Spanish, and he basically rebuilt the tax system 0:52:50.880 --> 0:52:54.680 for the Philippines after the United States took over the Philippines. H. 0:52:54.800 --> 0:52:57.319 Schuster is the first American that I'm aware of who 0:52:57.360 --> 0:53:00.239 has a significant political impact in the Persian government, and 0:53:00.320 --> 0:53:02.920 his experience couldn't have been more different. From the Americans 0:53:02.920 --> 0:53:05.600 who would follow. For one thing, Shuster seems to have 0:53:05.640 --> 0:53:08.920 been genuinely welcome and desired by many Persians because the 0:53:08.960 --> 0:53:13.040 economy is completely fucked up right, and he's as popular 0:53:13.200 --> 0:53:15.200 with like the local people as much as he is 0:53:15.239 --> 0:53:18.839 hated by European expats living in Tehran, who rightly see 0:53:18.880 --> 0:53:22.080 his crusade for financial solvency as something that's going to 0:53:22.120 --> 0:53:25.520 cut into their graft. Because Shuster actually wants the Iranian 0:53:25.520 --> 0:53:28.200 people to have a functional economy, and when he realizes 0:53:28.239 --> 0:53:31.440 they're being robbed blind, he's pissed about it. He's like, well, 0:53:31.719 --> 0:53:34.000 they're never going to have like you're never going to 0:53:34.040 --> 0:53:36.840 have a happy country with a good economy if you 0:53:36.960 --> 0:53:39.520 rob them blind like this. If the goal is for 0:53:39.600 --> 0:53:41.960 the like the Persia to be a functional country, you're 0:53:41.960 --> 0:53:46.359 screwing them. In nineteen eleven, Shuster, who's now the Treasury Secretary, 0:53:46.760 --> 0:53:49.959 sparks outrage with the Russians when he confiscates the home 0:53:50.040 --> 0:53:52.920 of the former Shaw's brother, who was a Russian citizen. 0:53:53.520 --> 0:53:56.960 Shuster was in the right by any rational observation. The 0:53:57.040 --> 0:54:00.280 exiled Shaw's brother had not been paying taxes for years, 0:54:00.520 --> 0:54:03.680 but the British and the Russians file formal complaints against 0:54:03.719 --> 0:54:06.520 this guy with the Mazles, who ignore the complaint to 0:54:06.560 --> 0:54:09.560 their peril. The Czar sends his army in and he 0:54:09.760 --> 0:54:13.600 shells Tehran, killing many pro independence liberals and clergy members. 0:54:13.880 --> 0:54:17.280 They shell the capital and kill a bunch of people 0:54:17.360 --> 0:54:21.040 because this guy Shuster takes one dude's house for not 0:54:21.080 --> 0:54:25.320 paying taxes. The Russian army also shlls Shia holy sites 0:54:25.480 --> 0:54:28.759 as the British look on but avoid direct intervention themselves. 0:54:29.280 --> 0:54:33.160 On Christmas Day nineteen eleven, Shuster is forced to leave Persia. 0:54:33.239 --> 0:54:35.200 He goes back to the United States and he writes 0:54:35.239 --> 0:54:38.040 a book called The Strangling of Persia, which is all 0:54:38.080 --> 0:54:41.040 about how European powers are robbing the country blind and 0:54:41.120 --> 0:54:44.160 murdering any chance of it having a functional government. Like he's, 0:54:44.480 --> 0:54:46.360 as far as I can tell, he seems to genuinely 0:54:46.400 --> 0:54:49.080 be like offended on behalf of the Persian people. 0:54:49.440 --> 0:54:51.560 Yeah, and there are I mean, in this whole story 0:54:51.560 --> 0:54:55.080 of all these terrible people, Like it's there's not a 0:54:55.080 --> 0:54:57.640 lot of heroes, but there were a couple on the 0:54:57.719 --> 0:55:00.480 end they were I mean nice guys. Yeah, yeah, there 0:55:00.480 --> 0:55:03.640 was a couple yeah, yeah, right at the end of 0:55:03.680 --> 0:55:06.040 the day, most of them couldn't affect things in a 0:55:06.080 --> 0:55:08.120 positive way. But there were a couple of Americans that 0:55:08.920 --> 0:55:10.120 did try to do the right thing. 0:55:10.680 --> 0:55:13.080 They tried to do the right thing, like the Spike 0:55:13.160 --> 0:55:14.759 Lee movie. And you know what else is like a 0:55:14.840 --> 0:55:15.880 Spike Lee movie. 0:55:16.760 --> 0:55:21.520 It's these It's probably and you know, I'm a good 0:55:21.520 --> 0:55:23.960 test taker. I learned that in medical school. Probably the 0:55:23.960 --> 0:55:28.400 ads and services that are going to be presented in 0:55:28.640 --> 0:55:39.800 these commercials bingo manga and we're back. 0:55:40.719 --> 0:55:44.000 So while all this is going on, and while Persia 0:55:44.040 --> 0:55:47.120 is both finding itself split between British and Russian influence 0:55:47.160 --> 0:55:50.200 and fighting for its own autonomy, a boy was born 0:55:50.360 --> 0:55:53.760 and starts growing into a man. His name was Reza 0:55:53.880 --> 0:55:57.880 Khan Mirpanji, and he came into the world on March fifteenth, 0:55:57.960 --> 0:56:00.960 eighteen seventy eight, in a town called Alasht in the 0:56:00.960 --> 0:56:05.359 province of Mazandaran. His father, Abbasali, was a Persian man 0:56:05.400 --> 0:56:09.200 and a major in the army. His mother, nush Afarin, 0:56:09.360 --> 0:56:13.080 had immigrated from either Georgia or part of Armenia. Both 0:56:13.080 --> 0:56:14.920 were owned by the Russian Empire at that point, but 0:56:15.000 --> 0:56:19.759 she's Caucasian like literally from the Caucuses region. We don't 0:56:19.800 --> 0:56:22.240 know exactly where she's from, because paperwork is in anybody's 0:56:22.200 --> 0:56:25.440 strong suit. But Reza from the beginning is like an 0:56:25.440 --> 0:56:28.560 example of how mixed Persia is at this point in time. Right, 0:56:28.600 --> 0:56:31.080 he is himself mixed, and that's interesting because he is 0:56:31.160 --> 0:56:34.560 not going to govern in that way. Res's dad is 0:56:34.600 --> 0:56:36.720 a war hero, but he's the kind of war hero 0:56:36.960 --> 0:56:40.399 who dies when his son is eight months old. After this, 0:56:40.640 --> 0:56:43.280 Nush moves the family to Tehran to live with her brother. 0:56:43.640 --> 0:56:46.360 When she remarries in eighteen seventy nine, Res is a 0:56:46.440 --> 0:56:49.120 year old and she abandons him to start a new 0:56:49.160 --> 0:56:51.680 family and leaves her firstborn son in the care of 0:56:51.719 --> 0:56:55.319 her uncle. This is not a wildly uncommon thing for 0:56:55.360 --> 0:56:57.480 a lot of people to do at the time all 0:56:57.520 --> 0:56:59.880 over the world. I've read a bunch of stories like this, 0:57:00.040 --> 0:57:03.040 but it is pretty fucked up, right. She's basically like, 0:57:03.400 --> 0:57:06.000 I gotta try with a new family kid. Sorry, here's 0:57:06.120 --> 0:57:08.520 an uncle you know, hopefully he'll take care of you. 0:57:08.840 --> 0:57:09.799 Explains a lot. 0:57:10.400 --> 0:57:12.120 Yeah, my goodness, it's not great. 0:57:12.800 --> 0:57:12.960 Now. 0:57:13.000 --> 0:57:15.759 From what little detail we get about his early life, 0:57:15.760 --> 0:57:18.080 we can conclude that Resa's family saw him as an 0:57:18.080 --> 0:57:21.480 opportunity to increase their fortunes in little else. In eighteen 0:57:21.520 --> 0:57:23.440 eighty two, his uncle sent him off to live with 0:57:23.480 --> 0:57:26.240 a family friend who was a rare Persian officer in 0:57:26.280 --> 0:57:30.240 the Cossack Brigade. This helped him get entrance to the 0:57:30.240 --> 0:57:34.120 Cossack Brigade when he's well, not an adult. It's unclear 0:57:34.160 --> 0:57:37.080 exactly how old Resa is when he joins the military. 0:57:37.360 --> 0:57:41.840 I've heard both fourteen and sixteen, and either is really plausible. 0:57:42.240 --> 0:57:44.560 You can get a hint of why by looking at 0:57:44.560 --> 0:57:47.000 this nineteen oh nine photo of a unit from the 0:57:47.040 --> 0:57:51.920 brigade and look at the differing ages of those soldiers, 0:57:52.000 --> 0:57:56.840 because one of those things much that is clearly in 0:57:56.960 --> 0:57:59.479 like their fifties, and there's like a nine year old 0:58:01.240 --> 0:58:03.240 people who look like kids. 0:58:04.480 --> 0:58:05.440 Straight up. Boy. 0:58:05.760 --> 0:58:08.919 Yeah, that seems to have medals, which is pretty cool. 0:58:09.040 --> 0:58:09.880 There's a story there. 0:58:09.880 --> 0:58:10.360 I'd like to hear. 0:58:10.520 --> 0:58:12.880 Nine year old kills has killed a lot of men. 0:58:13.720 --> 0:58:14.720 He's seen some things. 0:58:15.240 --> 0:58:20.800 He's a hard nine. So Rezzo was illiterate as a 0:58:20.800 --> 0:58:23.440 young man. He had basically no formal education, and his 0:58:23.480 --> 0:58:26.200 first job in the Cossacks was as a stable boy. 0:58:26.560 --> 0:58:30.440 He was, however, tall and handsome and extremely charismatic. He 0:58:30.520 --> 0:58:33.720 is very good at making the right friends, which assures 0:58:33.800 --> 0:58:36.480 that he eventually rises to have a cushy job guarding 0:58:36.520 --> 0:58:40.280 the Dutch console General. He does fight in a couple 0:58:40.240 --> 0:58:42.960 of wars. He's a good soldier. He's particularly good with 0:58:43.000 --> 0:58:46.560 the machine gun, and he becomes like his unit's machine gunner. 0:58:46.640 --> 0:58:49.680 They call him machine gun Reza. That's his nickname, which 0:58:49.760 --> 0:58:50.800 is pretty cool. 0:58:51.560 --> 0:58:54.240 Tang clan, so right right. 0:58:55.320 --> 0:58:58.560 He rose rapidly through the ranks, and by the nineteen 0:58:58.640 --> 0:59:01.000 teens he's one of the highest dranking officers in the 0:59:01.000 --> 0:59:01.920 Cossack Brigade. 0:59:02.280 --> 0:59:02.720 Shari A. 0:59:02.800 --> 0:59:05.240 Kiah writes that he was also quote known for his 0:59:05.360 --> 0:59:07.600 role as a leader of religious bands and as a 0:59:07.640 --> 0:59:12.200 community enforcer in religious ceremonies. In her article, Sharen Brysac 0:59:12.280 --> 0:59:15.160 ads he earned a reputation of being a fireman, someone 0:59:15.200 --> 0:59:17.840 who was sent to quell disturbances or round up thieves. 0:59:18.400 --> 0:59:21.520 So basically, this guy's kind of stupid, but he's well 0:59:21.680 --> 0:59:24.760 liked by his peers, which are the most functional military 0:59:24.800 --> 0:59:28.160 unit in the country. And he's also he's also kind 0:59:28.160 --> 0:59:31.840 of like known as being a religious hardliner, like he's 0:59:31.840 --> 0:59:33.880 in very good with the clerics. He spends a lot 0:59:33.880 --> 0:59:37.560 of time like making sure other people are doing the 0:59:37.560 --> 0:59:41.040 things they're supposed to do, like religiously in his community, 0:59:41.320 --> 0:59:44.240 so that the clerics like him, and he just generally 0:59:44.360 --> 0:59:47.520 he's the guy who if people are breaking the rules, 0:59:47.560 --> 0:59:51.240 he'll kick their asses. Like that's that's who this heavy is, 0:59:51.280 --> 0:59:53.840 and that's the reputation. He's the heavy, right, he's the 0:59:53.880 --> 0:59:58.400 tough that you send in r So basically he was 0:59:58.440 --> 1:00:00.280 cooked up in a lab to become a we Western 1:00:00.320 --> 1:00:03.440 back dictator. Right, all that was needed was the proper impetus. 1:00:04.120 --> 1:00:07.120 And this brings us back to William Darcy and the 1:00:07.240 --> 1:00:11.640 question of Iran's fast oil reserves. Anglo Persian oil. The 1:00:11.680 --> 1:00:16.680 company Darcy eventually establishes enjoyed a monopoly on Persian crude 1:00:16.680 --> 1:00:19.440 oil for years, but it's not until nineteen fourteen that 1:00:19.480 --> 1:00:22.400 the world gets a good look at just how big 1:00:22.440 --> 1:00:24.760 a deal this is going to be, because in the 1:00:24.880 --> 1:00:27.520 lead up to World War One, Great Britain is hungry 1:00:27.560 --> 1:00:30.120 for any advantage they can get over the rising power 1:00:30.120 --> 1:00:32.360 of Imperial Germany. I talked about that at the start 1:00:32.400 --> 1:00:35.880 of the episode. Right, Germany's building a fleet that can 1:00:36.000 --> 1:00:39.680 compete with the British Royal Navy, and so Great Britain 1:00:39.760 --> 1:00:44.000 needs an advantage. This enters into the picture Admiral Sir 1:00:44.080 --> 1:00:47.440 John Fisher. He was described by the press and in 1:00:47.480 --> 1:00:51.360 his time as Britain's primary naval oil maniac. This means 1:00:51.360 --> 1:00:54.520 he was the first admiral with power in Britain to 1:00:54.560 --> 1:00:57.919 be like, we should switch to oil from coal. Right, 1:00:58.040 --> 1:01:01.520 that's a good idea to become an oil based navy. 1:01:01.600 --> 1:01:04.200 There's benefits to doing this, right. Your ships can go 1:01:04.360 --> 1:01:07.120 further on oil than they can on coal without needing 1:01:07.120 --> 1:01:09.400 to refuel. They can go faster. There's a number of 1:01:09.400 --> 1:01:12.400 like logistical benefits to eventually doing this, but it's a 1:01:12.480 --> 1:01:15.280 hideous cost. When you're thinking of the whole moving the 1:01:15.360 --> 1:01:18.200 whole navy over, you're spending a shitload of money. And 1:01:18.280 --> 1:01:21.080 there's not a lot of oil exploitation yet right either, 1:01:21.120 --> 1:01:24.400 So Great Britain doesn't necessarily have it on oil to exploit. 1:01:25.200 --> 1:01:28.080 Darcy seeks out and befriends the admiral in nineteen oh 1:01:28.080 --> 1:01:31.280 three at a Bohemian spa where Fisher engaged in his 1:01:31.360 --> 1:01:34.320 main pleasure outside of being an oil maniac, which was dancing. 1:01:34.680 --> 1:01:39.120 So Darcy basically is that something or is it legitimately dancing. 1:01:39.280 --> 1:01:41.520 I think he's just a dancer, and I think Darcy 1:01:41.600 --> 1:01:45.880 befriends him dancing at this spa saw and they've begun buddies. Yeah, 1:01:45.920 --> 1:01:46.520 straight buddies. 1:01:46.560 --> 1:01:48.919 I'm sure I've been to a lot of spas. Don't 1:01:48.960 --> 1:01:51.360 remember or anything about dancing, just saying. 1:01:51.160 --> 1:01:53.520 A lot of dancing at spas. They were different back then. 1:01:53.560 --> 1:01:56.920 So let's be real. That sounds pretty fun, like a 1:01:56.960 --> 1:01:59.280 spa where you just like relax in the hot tub, 1:01:59.640 --> 1:02:00.560 dance a dance. 1:02:00.800 --> 1:02:05.320 I think that's what dirty dancing is pretty much about. 1:02:05.520 --> 1:02:07.720 Right. It's a dance spot, it's a dance spot. 1:02:08.560 --> 1:02:11.480 So there's a dirty dancing scenario, right, that's very integral 1:02:11.560 --> 1:02:13.440 to this story. 1:02:12.440 --> 1:02:16.040 And he had the time of his life, Yeah. 1:02:16.000 --> 1:02:19.440 At the time of his life, and Darcy's this is 1:02:19.680 --> 1:02:22.439 Darcy And I'm sorry, who's a person again that he 1:02:22.760 --> 1:02:23.960 is recording. 1:02:23.640 --> 1:02:25.160 His Admiral Fisher. 1:02:25.240 --> 1:02:28.040 Yeah, Admiral Fisher, Admiral Fisher, the oil maniac. 1:02:28.320 --> 1:02:28.640 Yeah. 1:02:28.760 --> 1:02:31.360 And in nineteen oh four, after he and Darcy become friends, 1:02:31.400 --> 1:02:34.320 Fisher becomes the first Sea Lord, which is a real 1:02:34.440 --> 1:02:35.680 job in the British military. 1:02:35.760 --> 1:02:38.600 Higher oil maniac to sea lord. That's not bad, that's right. 1:02:38.720 --> 1:02:41.440 He's the first sea lord. That's crazy. I thought was 1:02:41.480 --> 1:02:42.560 a job for aquaman. 1:02:42.680 --> 1:02:47.360 But okayaking l Ron Hubbard, it's the commander. 1:02:48.240 --> 1:02:48.600 Yeah. 1:02:49.040 --> 1:02:52.320 So Fisher keeps on talking up this idea, and by 1:02:52.960 --> 1:02:55.640 nineteen eleven or so, Winston Churchill has come around and 1:02:55.760 --> 1:02:58.120 Churchill is like, we need to switch the navy over 1:02:58.160 --> 1:03:01.320 to oil, right, And so Darcy has by nineteen eleven 1:03:01.360 --> 1:03:05.800 successfully gotten this idea that primarily financially benefits him because 1:03:05.800 --> 1:03:08.400 he bought access to all of Persia's oil into the 1:03:08.400 --> 1:03:11.080 halls of British power. In nineteen fourteen, the House of 1:03:11.120 --> 1:03:14.520 Commons supports a proposal to switch the Navy over to oil. 1:03:14.840 --> 1:03:17.240 Per an article in The Fair Observer, the goal was 1:03:17.280 --> 1:03:19.760 to ensure energy security for Great Britain, where the Royal 1:03:19.880 --> 1:03:22.200 Navy switched from coal to oil to compete against the 1:03:22.200 --> 1:03:25.280 fast rising German navy. After World War One broke out, 1:03:25.320 --> 1:03:28.360 Persia remained neutral but supplied oil to Britain. In fact, 1:03:28.400 --> 1:03:31.960 Persian oil arguably led to Allied victory. The conversion of 1:03:32.000 --> 1:03:34.480 the British fleet to oil gave them advantages over the 1:03:34.520 --> 1:03:37.520 German fleet powered by a coal greater range and speed 1:03:37.560 --> 1:03:40.920 and greater refueling and keeping with their imperial tradition, Britain 1:03:40.960 --> 1:03:44.240 paid a pittance to Persia for oil. So that's fucked 1:03:44.360 --> 1:03:47.880 It plays a role in their victory. I wouldn't say 1:03:47.880 --> 1:03:50.080 it led to it because but it's certainly not an 1:03:50.120 --> 1:03:53.880 insignificant factor in the efficacy of the British fleet. The 1:03:53.880 --> 1:03:56.800 fact that they've switched over to oil and again Great 1:03:56.840 --> 1:04:00.880 Britain is fucking Persia. They're bribing the Shaw. The Persian 1:04:00.920 --> 1:04:03.400 people are getting very little for their resources. 1:04:03.720 --> 1:04:07.439 Again, something real the pattern that will play out many 1:04:07.560 --> 1:04:08.760 for a long time. 1:04:09.480 --> 1:04:12.080 This is fucked up, but the real fuckery is still 1:04:12.120 --> 1:04:15.280 to come. During the war World War one, Persian territory 1:04:15.360 --> 1:04:19.240 is a battleground between Ottoman forces and Russian and British forces, right, 1:04:19.560 --> 1:04:22.080 and Russian and British are on the same side this time, 1:04:22.120 --> 1:04:25.000 so they go from competing to being on the same side. 1:04:25.000 --> 1:04:28.040 But they're fighting the Ottomans in parts of Persia right now. 1:04:28.080 --> 1:04:32.200 The realities of the war massively disrupt agriculture in Persia 1:04:32.200 --> 1:04:35.480 because farmers are constantating dudes fight over their fields and 1:04:35.520 --> 1:04:38.000 shell them so they can't grow as much food. And 1:04:38.080 --> 1:04:42.080 also all of you have three different armies in the area. 1:04:42.200 --> 1:04:45.920 They're not growing their own food, they're confiscating it from 1:04:45.920 --> 1:04:48.680 the people who live there to feed their own soldiers. 1:04:49.120 --> 1:04:52.200 So people in Persia start to starve in huge numbers, 1:04:52.440 --> 1:04:55.320 as Zara at A Latti and Majide Imani write in 1:04:55.360 --> 1:04:59.640 an article for Third World Quarterly. Ain Old Sultana, a 1:04:59.680 --> 1:05:02.120 well known o An Iranian chronicler, wrote in a newspaper 1:05:02.200 --> 1:05:05.240 entry of nineteenth April nineteen seventeen that famine and hunger 1:05:05.320 --> 1:05:08.080 prevail in all parts of Iran. Muslims and people of 1:05:08.120 --> 1:05:10.640 all faiths are dying and kum in the center of Iran. 1:05:10.720 --> 1:05:14.080 Currently fifty die each day. In Hammadan, thirty thousand have 1:05:14.160 --> 1:05:17.280 registered as destitute and this heart renting description. He further 1:05:17.320 --> 1:05:20.000 stated that people in Tehron were taking sheep's blood from 1:05:20.000 --> 1:05:23.240 the slaughterhouse to feed themselves in their children. In fact, 1:05:23.320 --> 1:05:26.720 several Iranian newspaper reports in nineteen seventeen to nineteen nineteen 1:05:26.920 --> 1:05:30.280 highlighted the occupying forces attempts to seize food and grains 1:05:30.320 --> 1:05:34.040 and block people's access to food. So no one really 1:05:34.040 --> 1:05:37.880 debates that what happens next is a human engineered or 1:05:37.920 --> 1:05:41.560 at least a human influenced famine. Right, is this intentional 1:05:41.680 --> 1:05:44.320 or is this just a byproduct of armies being armies? Right, 1:05:44.320 --> 1:05:47.439 there's debate over that, but it's caused by the fact 1:05:47.480 --> 1:05:50.720 that these foreign forces are in the country right now. 1:05:50.720 --> 1:05:53.160 There is a huge debate as to who is more 1:05:53.200 --> 1:05:56.760 at fault. Given the similarities between the Great Persian Famine 1:05:56.760 --> 1:05:58.880 and the Bengal Famine of nineteen forty three, a lot 1:05:58.920 --> 1:06:01.479 of people understand and blame the British From that same 1:06:01.520 --> 1:06:04.840 paper quote highlighting the role of the occupying powers and 1:06:04.880 --> 1:06:07.680 the Great Persian Famine, Some scholars have pointed to the 1:06:07.680 --> 1:06:10.960 issue of oil capitalism during the twentieth century the financial 1:06:10.960 --> 1:06:13.760 policies adopted by Britain, For instance, their refusal to pay 1:06:13.760 --> 1:06:15.880 oil revenues to Iran in the middle of the Great 1:06:15.920 --> 1:06:19.760 Persian Famine indicates their lack of concern for ron starving people. 1:06:20.000 --> 1:06:23.400 For the occupying powers, Iran was mainly a strategic military asset. 1:06:23.640 --> 1:06:26.000 The dominant consequence was a lack of access to food 1:06:26.040 --> 1:06:28.960 among large parts of the population and what a Martsian 1:06:29.400 --> 1:06:35.200 called entitlement failure. Thus, besides natural factors, pandemics, sociohistorical context, 1:06:35.200 --> 1:06:38.000 and the incapability of the central government. The Great Persian 1:06:38.040 --> 1:06:40.880 Famine was also caused by the occupying forces that pursued 1:06:40.880 --> 1:06:43.240 the war at the expense of the lives of many Iranians. 1:06:44.040 --> 1:06:46.919 And there's a lot of people involved in this catastrophe again, 1:06:46.960 --> 1:06:49.320 as well as some stuff that is just happening at 1:06:49.320 --> 1:06:51.880 the time. There's disease which is still related to the war, 1:06:51.920 --> 1:06:55.080 and there's some environmental concerns. It's important I emphasized that 1:06:55.280 --> 1:06:58.000 the Russians are also hugely involved here too. At the 1:06:58.040 --> 1:07:01.040 early stages of the Russian Civil War. Once that kicks off, 1:07:01.440 --> 1:07:05.480 various Russian forces start seizing like housing materials, roofing and 1:07:05.560 --> 1:07:09.720 firewood and other basic supplies for their bases. And these 1:07:09.760 --> 1:07:12.200 are things that thousands of Persians need to keep their 1:07:12.240 --> 1:07:15.160 homes habitable. And like one hundred thousand Persians are made 1:07:15.160 --> 1:07:19.200 effectively homeless just by this. Ten thousand villages are abandoned, 1:07:19.280 --> 1:07:23.280 largely because Russian forces are seizing everything that makes them habitable. 1:07:23.600 --> 1:07:25.640 Ten thousand villages abandoned. 1:07:26.520 --> 1:07:29.320 I'm just I've never heard. I'm sure there's a listener 1:07:29.400 --> 1:07:32.720 right now, some auntie who's going to be yelling at 1:07:32.760 --> 1:07:34.480 me right now because I didn't know this, But I 1:07:34.600 --> 1:07:36.360 never I never knew about this. 1:07:36.520 --> 1:07:41.040 Oh wait till you hear the scale of this disaster. 1:07:41.520 --> 1:07:44.920 So British diplomat Herold Dickolson wrote, quote, Persia had been 1:07:44.920 --> 1:07:48.280 exposed to violations and suffering not endured by any other 1:07:48.360 --> 1:07:51.160 neutral country and World War One, and it's hard to 1:07:51.240 --> 1:07:54.720 argue with that point. Eight to ten million people, roughly 1:07:54.760 --> 1:07:57.840 half the pre war population of Persia perish in the 1:07:57.840 --> 1:07:59.120 Great Persian Famine. 1:07:59.280 --> 1:07:59.600 Wow. 1:08:00.520 --> 1:08:04.200 About forty percent of the pre war population die over 1:08:04.240 --> 1:08:06.200 the course of like World War One up to like 1:08:06.320 --> 1:08:07.080 nineteen nineteen. 1:08:07.480 --> 1:08:07.760 Wow. 1:08:08.360 --> 1:08:11.160 As a result of all this, Hey, guys, I just 1:08:11.160 --> 1:08:13.600 want to let you know, the Great Persian Famine is 1:08:14.000 --> 1:08:17.560 vastly understudied, and there's a wide range of scholarly disagreement 1:08:17.680 --> 1:08:20.640 over the death toll. At the time and for a 1:08:20.680 --> 1:08:23.360 very long time, contemporary reporting suggested two to two and 1:08:23.400 --> 1:08:28.120 a half million dead was a very reasonable, you know range, 1:08:28.160 --> 1:08:31.960 But there's also scholars who are arguing with that more 1:08:32.000 --> 1:08:34.680 like eight to ten million is very likely. So this 1:08:34.800 --> 1:08:37.360 is not a kind of thing where because of sort 1:08:37.360 --> 1:08:40.120 of the paucity of the scholarship on this at the moment, 1:08:40.160 --> 1:08:43.280 I don't feel comfortable saying like one is definitely right. 1:08:43.400 --> 1:08:45.600 I do kind of tend just on other because of 1:08:45.600 --> 1:08:48.280 other famines i've read about, to lean towards the larger numbers, 1:08:48.520 --> 1:08:52.839 but we don't really know perfectly. I did not realize 1:08:52.880 --> 1:08:55.519 the scale of this. We don't talk about this because 1:08:55.560 --> 1:08:58.360 it's a very complicated famine. It's not as simple as 1:08:58.680 --> 1:09:02.040 just Russia or Great Britain starved iron. There were a 1:09:02.120 --> 1:09:05.559 lot of factors, including some environmental ones and aspects of 1:09:05.600 --> 1:09:08.880 local government. But like Russia and Great Britain and the 1:09:08.880 --> 1:09:12.080 Ottomans play huge role in why eight to ten million, 1:09:12.439 --> 1:09:15.519 half a fucking Persian nearly starves to death and nobody 1:09:15.520 --> 1:09:16.639 talks about it anymore. 1:09:18.200 --> 1:09:21.080 It's not yeah, wow. 1:09:21.920 --> 1:09:25.600 I have to say, I really appreciate this is a 1:09:25.600 --> 1:09:27.320 total This is the kind of thing I'm supposed to 1:09:27.320 --> 1:09:28.880 say at the end when we're off air. But I 1:09:28.960 --> 1:09:33.560 really appreciate how you synthesize all this information. This is 1:09:33.600 --> 1:09:34.120 not easy. 1:09:34.160 --> 1:09:34.960 There's so many. 1:09:36.479 --> 1:09:38.160 It's a lot of stuff. 1:09:38.520 --> 1:09:40.880 I know I've left stuff out, and obviously, like we're 1:09:40.880 --> 1:09:44.080 only going up to like nineteen forty one, but like 1:09:44.160 --> 1:09:46.759 this is like when we're we're looking at the hideous, 1:09:46.760 --> 1:09:49.639 the heinous death toll of US actions already in Iran. 1:09:51.200 --> 1:09:54.280 It's also important to just like know like this is 1:09:54.360 --> 1:09:58.439 the latest in a long string of of just like 1:09:58.600 --> 1:10:01.920 the horrific human concept quinses to imperialists fucking around in 1:10:01.920 --> 1:10:05.840 that part of the world. It's all bad stuff. So 1:10:06.560 --> 1:10:08.880 it is not until nineteen twenty one that Britain and 1:10:08.960 --> 1:10:12.640 Russia fully withdraw their forces from Persia, given that the 1:10:12.680 --> 1:10:16.120 Tsarisk or largely given that the Tsarisk government had collapsed 1:10:16.160 --> 1:10:19.000 by this point, leading to civil war in Russia throughout 1:10:19.120 --> 1:10:22.000 most of the worst of the famine. Educated Persians blame 1:10:22.080 --> 1:10:24.080 the British for it, because they saw the British as 1:10:24.080 --> 1:10:26.759 being the controlling power in their lives. And there's an element, 1:10:26.800 --> 1:10:30.599 a sizeable degree to which this is fair. The British, 1:10:30.680 --> 1:10:32.880 for their own part, are less concerned with Persia for 1:10:32.960 --> 1:10:36.000 its own sake and more worried about something else, which 1:10:36.080 --> 1:10:39.240 is that the Bolsheviks are now in charge of a 1:10:39.240 --> 1:10:42.080 lot of Russia. They're fighting a civil war for control 1:10:42.240 --> 1:10:45.800 of what had been the Russian Empire, and it sure 1:10:45.800 --> 1:10:50.000 does look like Persia might become communists too, and that 1:10:50.680 --> 1:10:52.760 is going to tee up Part two. Gom it well, 1:10:52.840 --> 1:10:53.439 how do you feeling. 1:10:54.600 --> 1:10:56.559 I can't wait. I want to hear it now. 1:10:57.400 --> 1:10:59.200 Oh well, you'll hear it in the second. You'll hear it, 1:10:59.280 --> 1:11:03.320 yes a minute, but first let's hear your pluggables. 1:11:03.360 --> 1:11:06.960 So my podcast is called The House of Pod. It 1:11:07.120 --> 1:11:11.920 is a medical science podcast. It is a look at 1:11:12.040 --> 1:11:16.280 the world of science and health through an approachable manner. 1:11:16.560 --> 1:11:17.439 We've tried to make. 1:11:17.320 --> 1:11:22.599 Things as fun and as less scary, if if that's 1:11:22.600 --> 1:11:24.000 a word that I can use. Them do a terrible 1:11:24.080 --> 1:11:26.280 job explaining my show. You think after five years of 1:11:26.320 --> 1:11:28.120 doing this, I'd be much better at it. I'm not. 1:11:28.560 --> 1:11:31.439 But the show is actually fun. If you like this show, 1:11:31.720 --> 1:11:34.559 you're gonna like the podcast The House of Pod because 1:11:34.560 --> 1:11:37.639 we also take a look at medical grifters, and we 1:11:37.680 --> 1:11:40.800 look at all kinds of different medical malarchy that's out there, 1:11:41.040 --> 1:11:42.880 try and present you the science in a way that 1:11:43.120 --> 1:11:48.600 is I think honest and nuanced and clear. So I 1:11:48.640 --> 1:11:50.640 think you will enjoy it. You should listen to it, 1:11:50.720 --> 1:11:52.960 and you will hear some episodes with both of these 1:11:53.000 --> 1:11:55.599 lovely people on that podcast, The House of Pod. 1:11:55.640 --> 1:11:58.000 You can find it anywhere you find podcasts. 1:11:58.920 --> 1:12:01.960 All right, excellent, Well, listen to the House of Pod. 1:12:02.240 --> 1:12:06.559 And you know, do something nice in your own house 1:12:07.560 --> 1:12:10.920 or not. I don't control your life, neither do you? 1:12:10.960 --> 1:12:13.920 Probably wall did any of us? Are we all just 1:12:14.000 --> 1:12:17.440 flocks them floating through cosmic debris? 1:12:18.080 --> 1:12:24.640 Yes, goodbye, maybe, but I'm definitely in control here bye. 1:12:25.240 --> 1:12:27.840 Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media. 1:12:27.960 --> 1:12:31.200 For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia 1:12:31.200 --> 1:12:33.880 dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, 1:12:33.920 --> 1:12:37.840 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Full video 1:12:37.840 --> 1:12:40.559 episodes that Behind the Bastards are now streaming on Netflix, 1:12:40.640 --> 1:12:43.719 dropping every Tuesday and Thursday. Kit remind me on Netflix 1:12:43.800 --> 1:12:46.519 you don't miss an episode. For clips in our older 1:12:46.520 --> 1:12:50.160 episode catalog, continue to subscribe to our YouTube channel YouTube 1:12:50.160 --> 1:12:54.120 dot com slash at behind the Bastards. We love about 1:12:54.160 --> 1:12:56.200 forty percent of you, statistically speaking,