>> From WXXI News.

This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson.

Our connection this hour was made yesterday in President Trump's hastily convened afternoon news conference.

Hours earlier, the president had gotten on the phone with CBS news and delivered a surprising message.

He thought the war was almost over in Iran.

The objectives were nearly complete.

Things were moving faster than Trump had expected.

As a result of that statement, the oil and stock markets stabilized on hopes that the U.S.

and Israel's military campaign could soon end.

Fast forward several hours.

At the news conference, President Trump said that while the war was nearly over, it's also possible that it's only just beginning.

He mixed up his messages.

He offered conflicting ideas of what the United States wants and how long it expects to take.

Now imagine how the Iranian people feel.

President Trump says he has no idea who might lead Iran in the future.

Weeks ago, he promised Iranian protesters that help was on the way.

Now he's telling them that they are largely on their own to choose new leaders if they possibly can.

Last week on Connections, we sat down with Iranian Americans who celebrated the assassination of Ayatollah Khomeini and who are hopeful that this war will bring about needed change.

Today we hear from Iranian Americans who oppose the war and offer a different view.

And my guest today includes Shahin Monshipour, an Iranian American who's back on the program.

Thank you for being with us.

>> Thank you for having me.

>> And Ghazal Dehghani, who is an Iranian American as well.

Thank you for being with us, gazelle.

Shaheen, when we spoke during the protests and you talked about how difficult it was to see protesters killed in the streets, a regime that was blacking out communications, but also the uncertain nature of a promise from an American president when he said help will be on the way if the Iranian regime targets the protesters.

Is this the help that you and envisioned?

What do you see happening here?

>> Absolutely not.

This is not the kind of help that people of Iran were expecting.

And I am totally against everything is done.

And yeah, I go back to saying that I predicted that it would be worse if he starts this kind of activity in Iran, or even if in such a rush and without a plan.

he wants to do so-called coup d'etat.

So I'm saying Iran is in much better, much worse situation.

And so is America.

I think America has a lot to lose in this to.

>> What did what did you think on the morning that you heard that Ayatollah Khamenei had been assassinated?

>> Well, like everybody else in Iran, it was a sigh of relief.

And maybe it was a little bit of hope that they're going to do something else.

But we didn't know that they were only trying to do something that Israel and United States will not.

United States, the Trump administration, Trump and Netanyahu would love, but something that Iranians would hate.

the family of Khamenei, the top echelon of officers of Khamenei, are alive and well, and one of them is being agreed upon.

I think behind the closed doors by Israel.

they they love to have more chaos.

And this son of Khamenei has not been touched.

And we are even seriously thinking about him as a new leader, one despot to replace another one.

And so this is what I think.

>> It's not progress.

>> No, not at all.

This is a progress.

Like the kind of progress we United States made in Vietnam, in Guatemala, in Cuba, in Panama, in Afghanistan, twice in the Gulf, and now by Trump.

What kind of progress is that?

What did we learn from the history of our interventions?

>> Well, President Trump says if the Iranian people want to choose a different leader, they ought to rise up and do it themselves.

>> Now rise up and do it themselves.

They did rise up.

And you jumped in.

Mr.

Trump.

They did rise up in large, large numbers.

And you and Israel jumped in, redirecting it towards your own aims.

People of Iran are capable of choosing their own when they ask for help.

Foolishly, foolishly, I must say we should have never said we want American intervention.

We wanted help.

But help by these guys.

This way.

The question of regime change is for sure.

Every Iranian wants that.

They had hope when Khomeini was downed, but they didn't know it was a trick.

It was a pure trick and a trap for years to come to devastate Iran.

The infrastructure has been pounded now, within a short time, so many hospitals, schools, food storages, as I can tell you firsthand about some of these infrastructure that's been damaged, wealth of the whole country has been damaged.

Everything we have is being obliterated.

Obliterated on purpose because apparently Trump and Netanyahu want a second Palestine in their control.

>> Gazelle.

Can you tell me what it was like on the morning you found out that the Ayatollah had been killed?

>> Yeah.

So first is my personal feeling about a dictator who caused so many suffering and damage and cruelty to people of Iran.

And as Shaheen said, there is a sigh of relief.

But I also knew that this the autotrax, you know, the authoritarian in the charge.

They are so complex.

So it's not just led by one single person.

And so I knew it's just that the solution wouldn't be just, you know, removing one person or even, you know, a series of you know, their officials and then thinking that it would be good.

and so, as I feared from the beginning, I actually thought that this kind of, you know, force majeure, kinetic military intervention would cause the civil movement would cause the to weaken the civil movement.

And then nowadays we are actually witnessing, you know you know, what's happening and the things that, you know, many people in Iran who were openly rejecting the government, who were criticizing the government, has also warned about the consequences of war.

So on first day of the war a school in southern provinces of Iran were shot by U.S.

missiles and more than 160 kids, mostly girls, were victims of this and then there were oil infrastructures, oil reservoirs that have been bombed and result of explosion some toxic clouds were formed all over the city.

Big populated cities like Tehran, Karaj, Bushehr, and I know as an engineer who teach and know and read, you know, constantly about these chemicals.

I know how toxic, how damaging this could be to just ordinary innocent people, especially kids.

Babies.

They are carcinogens.

They they have long effects and they remain in soil and water.

Water resources have been targeted in southern Iran, in a country where the water is already scarce and people are struggling, you know, to find water resources for the food.

some of these reservoirs provided water for so many, you know, several villages.

So a large population have been impacted.

the world heritage cultural sites in Isfahan, in Tehran, places like Aleppo places like Golestan Palace, Aflak Castle.

And these have been damaged.

The artwork.

The ceilings, the so many you know, important, important, important history of Iranian people for long generations have been there and they have been all damaged.

I just want to, you know, express my feeling about that.

In the recent history, we have seen I.S.I.S.

and Taliban who actually damaged cultural heritage sites.

So this was really, really sad for me and for many other friends or Iranians, at least those who I talked and, you know, talked about that.

so I just want to so we already knew that is not, you know you know, I should tell that I, I never think, you know, very kinetic, short term solution ever worked to stabilize any country, to stabilize any situation like that, and already knew that from the beginning.

But we are actually now witnessing what's what's happening and what are the consequences?

>> Let me ask both of you, then I'll start with you.

gazelle, when it comes to what you would have wanted the United States to do, especially in light of the fact that there was this protest demonstration and the number gets disputed.

But certainly thousands of Iranians were killed by the regime in the protests just a month, two months ago.

What should the United States have done?

What did you want to see?

>> I can give you let me start with that.

So one of the reasons I came here to talk today is that Iran is not a binary community.

in the media, we see that they try to simplify Iran as if there are some people who are mourning for the death of the Supreme leader, and there are those who are very, extremely happy, and they are dancing in the street regardless of the consequences of war.

I would say Iran has 93 million population, and it's actually quite a diverse country.

Many of the people are majority are those who are in the middle sitting and watching this, you know, news, and they are worried about the consequences the war already has brought to them.

So why I'm talking about this?

Because I think ignoring this lack of diversity would undermine that.

Iranian people actually have a good history of resistance against this ruling faction, against this authoritarian government as well, of resistance, against concentration of power in hands of monarchs, Iranian you know history is full with, you know, all of these resistances.

And in recent years, I can give you an example.

In recent years Iranian could you know, work together to shape some civil disobedience and to force the ruling faction to as de facto accepting some of the meaningful changes people wanted as an example, the mandatory hijab.

So I just want to say those helps could be towards, for example, the the internet is right now shut down.

People are already suffering due to the sanctions.

They already have been suffering due to the economical the situation due to the sanctions.

And then with this situation, many businesses are frozen, people lost their jobs, they are suffering for their daily living.

So I can give you an example of a successful relationship, right?

For example, I think J. Cpoa have been working, it has been working and it was not towards trust, it was towards verification.

we were so hopeful as those days because we, we actually see those days.

More moderate groups were in charge.

Now, what's the result of this kind of innovation?

I should say I see very dark days in, you know, towards, you know, after this, because those who are now in charge, I feel they are really hardliners who can be even worse.

So I don't think there is any short term fast food solution for this.

This condition, like Iran.

And there are actually good patterns of that.

We can see in Afghanistan.

We can see in Iraq with, you know, lots of money, billions of dollars.

went to, you know consumed for this wars and then Afghanistan, Taliban went back with almost no resistance after 20 years in Iraq.

The groups who are towards or in line with Iranian government became very popular, you know, got influence after those military intervention.

So I don't think there is any solution for the, you know, unstable situations like that towards the war, towards something that you can do fast in one week, two weeks, one month, and then you see, oh, everything is all set.

>> well, on that point, Shaheen, one of the things that I have heard from those who are proponents of this war say that, yes, Libya.

Yes.

Afghanistan.

Yes.

Iraq.

However, Iran is different.

Iran is a generally more well populace.

Iran has more of the conditions that would perhaps lead to stability in an effort for regime change.

Do you not see it that way?

>> No, I do not see it that way.

Iran.

This phrase that Iran is different is thrown around so sloppily and without any responsibility.

No, Iran is not.

Libya, and Iran is very educated population, but Iran is exactly in the same situation in its relations with the United States is exactly what you as is doing to Iran is not different from these countries.

And Iran, no matter how different it is.

if anything, Iran would be a hassle and a more challenging country.

It will survive.

But back to your question of what could we do?

>> Yeah.

What could the United States have done?

>> Okay, first of all, it is not fair to ask any citizen of Iran right now, average person like me, give us a quick answer of what should we do?

I do have practical suggestions to make as a person, but I think think about it, $1 million a day expense by United States in the region.

>> A billion, $1 billion.

>> I'm sorry.

I meant a billion.

>> Yeah, that's right, $1 billion.

>> A day.

$1 billion a day.

Massive, massive military size, brilliant military strategists, all of those.

Are capabilities of United States.

If and the vast intelligence and free media could United States with all of these not come up with a better solution than this?

>> I'm sure if U.S.

had its heart in place, they could do it.

Now.

My examples.

What works as Arjun said, J o was working.

Obama made an agreement with the government with this criminal government.

But we did make an agreement.

>> And the Trump administration says it wasn't working.

>> Trump administration shredded the agreement and said, no, we don't want to make agreement.

Trump is the reason it doesn't work.

I told you about the failures of the past, and we don't have any reason to expect that this time will be doing better because we are.

Iranians are good.

Iranians are fine.

They're intelligent people.

But this time it's not even comparable to the skills of the past presidents who had engaged foolishly in those interventions.

What works is steps like JCPoA.

After World War Two, we had the Marshall Plan.

What did we do?

We invested massive amounts of money.

In the development of those nations that we had hurt, we brought them back into the world economy.

We supported peace and freedom with financial support, not more sanctions.

I think if you the least thing American people could do, anybody could do, is to read a few books.

It doesn't take long.

Read a few books about what brought the revolution of 1979.

What?

Where did it start?

Why did Islamic Republic take over?

My advice to fellow Americans is please read a book or two about what happens in these countries that you allow your regimes, your regimes, like your dictator, Mr.

Trump, to jump in and devastate a whole country.

And I think Iranians as as smart as they are, they thought maybe we'll bribe him.

They tried, but they failed because their what they offered was probably not good enough.

As he has said it.

He says, no, we haven't won enough.

They didn't offer him enough of a lucrative opportunity to fill his own pockets to pull out.

And now we have an Israel that it seems like it has promised itself, is dedicated and committed to destroying the whole of the country, not the regime.

The regime is fine.

Khamenei was a hope that the head of the snake is gone.

It reminds me of Hydra, of Greek mythology.

They cut.

They had a poisonous multi-headed snake that each time you cut a head, two heads would regenerate it.

It took Hercules to come and say, you have to cauterize those stumps, or it will have more heads coming out.

The Islamic regime is exactly fitting that, analogy, and this is what we have done.

>> Okay, so before in our second half hour, we're going to talk about where some of the disagreement, perhaps in the Iranian street is regarding people like and we've talked about Reza Pahlavi and others.

We'll talk about that coming up.

But before then, let me just ask, so, Shaheen, when you saw the protests a couple months ago?

>> Yes.

>> Was it your view that this regime could have been taken down without a bombing campaign, without the United States military and the Israeli military?

Could this have been achieved without what we are seeing now?

>> It it could have.

It would have taken time, patience, lives to do that.

We hurried and said, that takes too long.

We want something fast and quick.

So many people are killed.

Let's send Pahlavi there to fix it.

Let's bombard and fix it in two weeks.

No, no, no.

Excuse me, not two weeks.

I mean by tomorrow.

No no, no, I mean, it may take months.

This is Mr.

Trump talking.

No, sir.

No no no, it Iranian people if you give them time and you give them help.

But what kind of help sanction after sanction after sanction punishing the whole of a country, destroying its economy for 46 years.

And then saying, oh, we're going to change the regime now and you're not.

We don't trust you, Mr.

Trump.

We don't trust anybody who says these things.

We have practical experience with our regimes of the past.

And now, yes, Iranian people are totally capable.

They need outside help badly, but they don't need bombardment of their schools, their hospitals, destroying of all their wealth, even their nuclear weapons.

>> Gazelle, do you think that this protest movement that was flowering a couple of months ago before the US-Israel war campaign, could it have led to actual regime change and the installation of democratic reforms?

>> Yes.

So let me explain that.

Yes.

And the answer is not in short term.

Let me explain to, you know, examples, you know, with examples that we have seen through these years in, three, about three years ago, a girl have been killed in Iran due to varying what they you know, expressed as a perfect hijab.

So they describe she she didn't have that, you know, condition.

And then as a result women in Iran bravely gathered together and shape civil disobedience.

And they forced the ruling government to de accept some meaningful changes.

That was women life freedom movement.

And we have seen we witness that it achieved some meaningful changes.

Right.

Even during this protest.

At the beginning, people were at streets and we could see signs that you know, at the beginning it was mostly about the, you know, economic situation.

And again, I have to tell that, again, people are suffering.

They had been suffering due to the sanctions, but also due to mismanaging the economy by the government.

So, you know, that's how the protest, you know, started.

But we could see so many, you know, empowering, critical movement by the people in Abdanan in different places that shape and form a coalition between different political parties in Iran to support that.

But at a moment where you know the internet was shut down, people couldn't receive news.

And then, you know some people try to take over this to, to use to, to you know, use their propaganda for the people.

And I think government actually exploit that to, to suppress, you know, cruelty with, with so much cruelty on people.

So I think that as long as this movement was trying to minimize the you know I would say any con, you know, very, you know direct confrontation with the government, but to spread out the voices throughout different people, different groups of people.

It used to be successful.

And once some sort of messages outside of Iran sent to people that, okay, helps are on the way.

go to the street while again, I have to say internet were down.

People couldn't anticipate how risky this can be to the to the to their life with, you know, the government we have that they are willing to do any, any type of, you know massacre and things like that.

So this, this was a moment of, I think, catastrophe and chaos and you know, we know what was was the result.

So I have never been, you know, pro sharp.

type of movement with again, one day, two day, one week uprising.

But I think long term uprising for people of Iran have worked and have helped him.

>> All right.

After we take our only break of the hour, we're going to read some feedback from the audience.

Listeners, if you want to email the program, the email address for the show is Connections at wxxi.org.

You can call the program toll free.

844295 Khork.

It's 8442958255263 WXXI.

If you call from Rochester 2639994.

If you're watching on the WXXI News YouTube channel, you can join the chat there.

We're talking to Ghazal Dehghani Shahin Monshipour, who are Iranian Americans, talking about their opposition to this war.

We'll come right back on Connections.

Coming up in our second hour, it is a very challenging time in American education.

Gen Z is not doing well.

They're struggling on standardized tests.

They're doing worse than their parents did.

Things are going backwards in a lot of ways.

So what can be done to reignite kids love of learning, not just outsourcing their learning to technology, but using Stem and becoming passionate?

We're going to talk to the team from the Rochester Education Foundation about it next hour.

>> Support for your public radio station comes from our members and from Mary Cariola, center, proud supporter of Connections with Evan Dawson.

Believing an informed and engaged community is a connected one.

Mary Cariola.

>> This is Connections.

I'm Evan Dawson Mary rights to the program and says thank you for taking Trump's war of choice on Rochester.

Visibility banners are happening this week on the Ames and Child pedestrian overpass and on Tryon Park.

Mary sends a picture of some of the banners they are hanging there.

Mary, thank you for the email.

And this morning in advance of the program, got an email from David.

He said, glad you'll be hosting the Iranian viewpoint that is consistent with all of my Iranian friends, he said.

I was pretty disturbed by what seemed to me a position that could be held only by people who didn't think about what Trump actually does, and how much death and destruction is at stake in your first program.

On this, I spoke with several of my friends and former colleagues here afterwards, and they were unanimous that the attack was highly unlikely to work and would kill many innocent people just to stoke Trump's ego.

That is, from from David Alex writes in to say, I'm really saddened by Congressman Morelli's recent statements on Iran.

My impression is that he supports the Trump administration's bombings, just not the way he went about it, as he ultimately supported the most recent defense appropriations bill.

I'm surprised he hasn't spoken up about U.S.

forces bombing a school, multiple news outlets have confirmed it was a Tomahawk munition, and that public sources show it's been used as a school for more than a decade.

Textbook definition of breaking international human law.

so that is from Alex.

I have not spoken to Congressman Morelli about this, but I, I, we hope to do that soon on this program.

So that's just a smattering of feedback.

And now let me read an email we have from an Iranian American who asked not to be named.

And this person said, quote, years ago, I was threatened multiple times by besieged forces in Iran when I was a student activist for more than a decade after I left Iran, my friends and relatives were repeatedly interrogated by government security forces because I was studying in the United States and because of my continued efforts to support and enable the political participation of women and minorities.

For these and other reasons, I have not even been able to visit my family and beloved homeland for years now.

I find myself being threatened and harassed in the United States by Iranian the monarchists for speaking out in favor of sustainable democracy and against military intervention.

I do not believe that overthrowing a government once every 50 years is a solution.

It is simply the repetition of the same cycle.

And this is happening even before they hold any power.

In that sense, they are the other side of the same coin as the besiege, replacing one authoritarian mindset with another is not a transition.

It is a failure.

Installing a puppet through external intervention would only repeat the mistakes of history, just as the Iranian government has not been able to eliminate its critics and opposition through force.

Polytheists will not be able to silence their critics and opposition through intimidation.

It's from an Iranian American who asked not to be named.

So I'm going to ask our guests in the studio about this, but let me reset this just for the audience who's maybe not following as closely on this.

The question of what comes next in Iran is obviously uncertain.

Israel has said they're going to kill the new the son of Ayatollah Khomeini, the new Ayatollah Khomeini.

Israel says he'll be dead soon.

Well, we'll we'll see.

but Trump said yesterday they have no idea who will lead.

Trump did not say it was Reza Pahlavi.

Reza Pahlavi is the son of the Shah who was deposed in the late 1970s.

Pahlavi went to the United States, studied and is sort of styling himself as a very pro-Western transition possible figure.

He did an interview with 60 minutes over the weekend.

He has been talking to the Trump administration.

Trump says he seems like a nice guy.

I don't know if he has the support of the people.

He might be a possibility.

Pahlavi says he doesn't want to be king.

He wants to be a transition leader to new democratic norms.

The email we just read is from an Iranian American who doesn't buy it and says that simply installing a puppet, he believes that Pahlavi would be a puppet of the United States and Israel, and that that would not serve the Iranian people well, either.

Shaheen, I'll start with you.

You were on this program during the protests, and you spoke out against Pahlavi.

Some of the other Iranian Americans in Rochester I've spoken to have spoken in favor of Pahlavi.

I don't know what the actual polling would look like on this.

I really don't know.

I know there are Iranians in Iran who support Pahlavi.

I know there are Iranians who do not.

I know they're in the diaspora.

I know there's a split.

I don't know if it's 50, 50, 60, 40, 80, 20.

I have no idea.

But why do you think Pahlavi can't be a transition figure to a more democratic norm?

Why not.

>> Transition figures?

In my opinion, looking at the history of all these revolutions around the world, have to be more homemade and homegrown than somebody who has been away from his country for 46 years and done nothing for the people of Iran other than starting kind of.

>> Has an office that he runs for propaganda for these 40 years of monarchists.

He hasn't done anything beneficial to any Iranian in the last 46 years.

And he would.

What do you mean by bringing somebody by force from outside?

We have people in United States, Harvard educated, Princeton educated professors all over America who are Iranian and have written books and talked about regime change.

I am so sad.

I must say, my critique of our intellectuals is that they didn't form a coalition against this.

Pahlavi.

Pahlavi is he like his followers?

He is just a nostalgic person who loves the times that his father ruled.

He has a following that I was recently in San Diego and witnessed some of the things that were going on.

The big demonstration of monarchists organized by the monarchists in L.A.

They would, on one hand hold a sign that would say death to dictatorship, and in the other hand, long live Shah.

Monarchs.

So we want a king to live forever, but we don't want dictatorship.

They are disillusioned.

It's very sad that a number of Iranians, especially the generation who has grown under the regime, have not seen or experienced or read about.

What was that revolution all about?

Why did it bring such a brutal regime to power under Islam?

It's a good question.

They have to study and see what happened.

They only hear from their parents good things about that era.

People didn't wear hijab.

We had some westernization, lack of deep modernization.

They don't address that.

But Westernization.

And they say that was much better.

And yes, yes, in some ways it was much better.

In other ways.

In in terms of repression, show how Iran was repressive.

People wanted freedom.

They didn't start with asking for a job or Islamic.

The only reason people poured in the streets was because this Khamenei Khamenei was saying, I will only lead a transition to democracy.

Exact sentence that Pahlavi is using.

People were not crazy about Islam.

People had slogans under Khomeini in the streets that said neither East nor west.

We have Islam.

And he claimed from from novel chateau in France that I would only see a transition.

I'm addressing immorality of the King.

We have in spending our oil on frivolous things and lack of participation in government and lack of freedom of speech.

And we he fooled us, and now we are based on our experience.

We're not ready to be filled by fooled by this one.

He is no different from Khomeini, in my view.

>> Okay.

What do you think?

>> Okay, so why Pahlavi could not lead as a good transitional leader?

as I said, Iran has a diverse population.

There are about 20% according to 2024 election results, who support hard liners.

There are those who are willing to openly reject and criticize the government, and they are willing to pay the price.

They are already in prison in Iran they are those who are not much willing to you know, openly go against the norms or rules, but they show this dissatisfaction.

If you know, there are coalitions or there are some, you know, disobedience movement that are shaped and there are the monarchists.

so Pahlavi has never shown through these 3 or 4 years.

It's just, you know through these three, four years, this, you know, social movements have been more active.

So we see here and we see more voices from different groups of opposition, never worked with other groups, other parties.

We haven't seen any one single successful experience.

A coalition has been you know, shaped three years ago.

And he was the first person who came out and caused the fracture of the coalition.

We haven't seen that he is working towards other people.

There are other important groups and parties in Iran.

so I don't hear they are supporting or these groups, these monarchs are supporting the diverse group of Iranians.

So that's why I don't think he's not a good leader.

>> Okay.

Go ahead.

Shaheen.

Yeah.

>> May I add to what Rasoul said?

Pahlavi recently has heard that people have this criticism about Iran as a diverse population.

What does he do?

He goes on his video he publishes a video that shows him with a circus of 12 people, eight of them strange looking men with thick, thick mustaches in various styles.

And for women and claims these guys are representatives of ethnic groups of Iran.

And I'm all for diversity.

And none of these guys talks except him.

None of them utters a word about whether they are Baluchis Iraqi.

What is just doing?

It's like sometimes we in America claim we want to learn about our culture.

And I've gotten those invitations before where people say, can you bring some people in costumes?

This was just like that.

It's just so, so shallow to stage a group that in American's view, they must.

We couldn't guess which one was from where, what they were missing was more costume.

It was it really, really sad to see.

>> let me read a little more feedback from YouTube viewer there says China needs a lot of oil to grow its industrial base.

I think there could be a great alliance between Saudi Arabia, Iran and the People's Republic of China to work together to rebuild.

Shaheen, what do you think.

>> It might the way we are going, the way we are going, the way we are making enemies for United States, it's going to make some people so angry, so devastated, so starved that they would turn to China.

Of course they will.

And that is something we have to be worried about.

I care about America.

I actually worry about America as much as I worry about the bombardments in Iran.

We're bombarded by the bombardment of lawbreaking by Mr.

Trump.

He is not leaving anything that will look like an America that we used to have.

If he goes down this path, if we allow them to go down this path.

>> gazelle, do you want to respond to the idea that maybe China and Saudi Arabia and Iran could ally here?

>> Okay.

Can I give you an example?

Because I'm not really expert on those regions policy or those countries, but I can I always, you know, learn from the history so I can give you some historical examples.

So let me give you an example of relationship between us and Iran.

In 1953.

U.S.

backed with British operated you know, some something like a coup in Iran against Mohammad Mossadegh, who was the prime minister elected prime minister.

Mossadegh aimed to move towards nationalizing the oil infrastructure, oil, industry in Iran.

At that time, these were most mostly under control of Britain.

And by agenda by, you know, shaping specific agenda, by bribing, by shaping a staged protest, the intelligence services of us and Britain tried to weaken and destabilize the Mossadegh government.

As a result, Mossadegh was arrested and Shah, who fled the country returned to power and gave 40% of the oil you know power or control of the oil back to the United States.

so what was the result?

I want to talk about emphasize about that.

What was the result of this kind of intervention?

And untie, this, untie.

sentiment grew among young generations of Iranians and 25l contributed to 1975 revolution.

I would like to describe this as something like a boomerang effect, something that yes, if if they feel if the people feel that they are being bombed or they are being in a way that you know kind of this, this sort of intervening without asking what what people are really looking for.

it can actually have an opposite effect.

It can be.

And one of the things you mentioned, it can be going towards some countries like China, and it can grow, you know, anti-west anti-US sentiment or the idea ideologies which even, you know, makes the country going towards the hardliner.

So I can anticipate both ways.

>> Back to your email.

Cathy.

And Kylie says Iran is no different than any other country.

Look at Cuba.

Some Cubans are dancing and salivating in the streets at the idea that the U.S.

might overthrow that government and put a capitalist dictator like Batista back in, but there are many Cubans who will never give up their ideal of a society dedicated to the betterment of everyone.

The highest rate of literacy in Central America, better hospitals and medicines and roads.

Obama made treaties there too, using soft power and normalization of relations to promote more interaction between our countries.

Trump has trashed all that to please Marco Rubio and has blockaded Cuba again, contributing to the suffering of citizens of a country is not a good way to change their minds.

Iran won't change because the U.S.

tries to force them to change.

Iran will change when there is less pressure, no pressure on them.

Their citizens can freely interact with the rest of the world and make their own comparisons and decisions as to what kind of life and government they wish to have.

That's Cathy and Charlie.

What do you think, Shaheen?

>> I would say thank you, Catherine.

You said it right.

>> Okay.

do you agree with that?

Yeah I agree.

Okay.

Thank you.

Cathy Derek writes in and asked, is this Pahlavi guy the next Karzai?

So, you know, Iran is not Afghanistan, but I understand what Derek is asking.

Hamid Karzai was installed by the United States after the United States went into Afghanistan after 9/11.

So Karzai assumes the presidency of Afghanistan for almost 15 years.

During that time, the presidency of Afghanistan is marked as one of the most corrupt governments in the world.

Karzai cuts deals with regional warlords.

There's still a lot of oppression happening regionally.

The Taliban is sort of laying in wait to come back.

So Karzai himself, I don't think, went down in a scandal.

But it wasn't the transformational person that the United States hoped.

Derek.

That was followed by Ghani, who, if you remember, in the last days when the Taliban was marching back into power, Ghani got on a plane out of Kabul and took a bunch of bags of cash and left.

That's what the president of Afghanistan did.

I am not saying, Derek, that I know anything about Pahlavi.

I don't know if he is that way.

I don't know if Pahlavi is a true reformer.

Our guests in studio don't believe it, but Derek is asking, is Pahlavi the Karzai or is he going to be a disappointment who's just an installation of a Western government?

What do you think?

>> Shaheen yes.

but let me say that even the monarchists who showed up in the streets of L.A.

and Munich and elsewhere for Pahlavi they are not saying that he will take the rule of a leader.

He has set himself.

And I watched Pahlavi a lot, all of his interviews.

He says his aim is not to rule the country, to be the head, to be the monarch.

He just wants to go for a period of time to lead.

Iranians to.

transition.

Transitional.

Yeah.

He's going to be transitional.

Well we saw the transitional Khamenei, which is ideal.

That was truly to be only a moral leader.

And once he got to Iran, he got surrounded by more men.

of turbans and switched and became the ruler, first of all, there's that likelihood that he will become the next corrupt despot.

But he doesn't want that.

He loves his life in Washington and in California.

He will.

He wants to take, like a six month period of time with fame.

He's very much like Trump.

He's narcissist, he's incompetent.

They both are the same way.

Incompetent leaders, narcissist and shallow thinkers.

He wants to go to Iran and disturb some things and get fame and come back and live here.

So I don't see I don't take him seriously, but you never know.

With people like Trump in power, anything could happen.

Anything.

>> Well, let's close the hour with this.

We're only about 2.5 minutes left here.

I asked our guests, especially in light of what happened with the protests two months ago in Iran.

What did you want the American government to do?

Now?

I'll ask you a different question, Shaheen.

What would you like the American people to be doing and saying, in this moment.

>> I want the American people to please, please, I beg you, my fellow Americans, please write to your congressmen, to your senators, to your just mentioned morality.

write to these people and say, stop this war.

Unless you have a definite plan.

You can tell us what and don't bombard Iran, get Israel out of Iran.

Metaphorically, Iranians use the metaphor of cutting somebody's hand over something.

They mean eliminate their power, cut the hands of Israel out of Iran.

They are daily bombarding and their appetite is not, satisfied they're going to keep doing this.

And Trump is going to follow the reason Trump always, often doesn't know what he wants to do next is because he's waiting for orders from Nice and Yahoo.

What to do next?

And he hasn't answered yet.

And he hasn't bombarded enough places and he wants to make a Palestine.

So I would beg American people, don't vote for this guy again, ever again.

It's bad for you.

It's bad for all of us.

It's bad for the world.

This is what I would do.

>> About one minute left.

What would you say?

>> Okay, so one thing I have been as I was following the news these days, I saw and it it was really heartbreaking for me.

with regards to the elementary school who was shot.

And again, many of the kids were girls.

I saw in the comments, for example, specifically, I would say under the the comments, under the Tucker Carlson's program, I saw many people said, oh is there any are they are girls allowed to go to school or is Islam allowed, you know, allowing us to go to school?

So I would ask, you know, maybe, maybe I, you know, you know, as someone who once I got admitted in university and from since then for decades, 50% of the population in high university, high level universities, Stem and field, where women, women are Iran are highly educated.

They know their rights.

But I see through the media they are framing this war as a holy war, or as if they are bringing civilization to an uncivilized country.

This is not true.

Please educate yourself about Iranian culture.

I can recommend some books in in comment section later.

>> Thank you for being here and I want to thank our guests for sharing their thoughts.

Ghazal Dehghani.

An Iranian American, thank you for taking the time.

Shahin Monshipour.

Nice to see you.

Thank you for being here.

And again, for those who have asked about last week's program, today's program, we don't seek to censor voices.

Iranian Americans like Iranians in Iran are going through a lot right now and their voices are welcome no matter their position on these issues.

And we're glad that they're here.

More Connections coming up in a moment.

>> This program is a production of WXXI Public Radio.

The views expressed do not necessarily represent those of this station.

Its staff, management or underwriters.

The broadcast is meant for the private use of our audience.

Any rebroadcast or use in another medium, without expressed written consent of WXXI is strictly prohibited.

Connections with Evan Dawson is available as a podcast.

Just click on the Connections link at wxxinews.org.

>> And the interest is actually killing the animals, so it's going to be less of that species.

>> That's right.

So I already sponsored that across all fifth grade schools in the district.

and then there was last year, I know you did.

They read the life size whale came into the school and I said, what?

They'll do?

>> The deal that.

>> Comes to.

>> Us between 4 and 6 schools every year.

And last and next year will be like, we have completed the loop so that all the schools have gotten it.

When they start again, because there's nothing like being inside a whale right now.

>> This one was like, okay, what do you think?

Cool.

Those are my favorite.

I know we're not going to totally invite you to come in.

Just the size of a gym.

That's amazing.

Absolutely amazing.

okay.

I mean some of the things I would love to talk about too is how do you teach students?

How do hands on sometimes, sometimes and sometimes out of the classroom at a time when we've spent the last couple of decades in this country moving a lot of education to a tech based platform, and probably for a lot of reasons, I mean, there's a debate about the effect of it, but one of the great things in terms of how this generation is being mental health, educational results and schools, which and but it's giving kids passionate and fired up to learn, not just outsourcing thinking to whatever type of thing that thing and that is that it's not just about I that's about Tessa Janecke.

So I'm not going to protect them.

I'm just saying this is a diverse approach to, you.

Another Bessette education.

>> And this program plays into.

>> The.

>> Greatness that.

>> okay.

Everybody, grab your microphones.

I'm going to just go with you've got to be real close for me because, you know, everybody here wants to know when if you were to give away, hum.

Right, right.

Okay.

So just a little bit.

I want to make sure I'm Hellebuyck.

Tyzik Joyride minus four.

Right?

Yes.

Thanks for Daniel Noboa.

Anderson Academy School No.

16.

Correct.

Okay.

Harmony Davis Hess.

Thanks to Sean Coffey education.

Director of Science and Department of Teaching and Learning at RCSD.

Okay.

Executive.

Right.

Okay.

All right.

So this moment.

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