2026-01-14
1 小时 4 分钟I'm Dan Kurtz-Valen, and this is the Foreign Affairs interview.
In my view, if we look ahead five years from now, and there's another strongman ruling Iran,
one prediction I would feel fairly confident making is that that strongman will not be wearing a turban.
I'm Qanish Tharur, deputy editor of Foreign Affairs.
Dan is away this week.
At the end of December, protests erupted across Iran.
The government has since cracked down hard, with potentially thousands of Iranians killed.
It now seems possible that the United States might intervene.
Via social media, President Donald Trump has told Iranian protesters that help is on the way.
We do not know yet what, if anything, Washington will do.
But the repressive regime of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is being pushed to the brink after punishing years of war and sanctions.
Few observers of Iranian politics have thought more deeply about the regime and its future than Karim Sajatpur.
He is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
and he is the author of a recent essay in Foreign Affairs in which he underlines the fragility of the Ayatollah's regime and explores what might happen after its fall.
I spoke to Sajatpur on the morning of January 12th about the upheaval in Iran,
the weakness and brutality of the regime,
what US intervention can and cannot achieve,
and about what kind of political order might emerge in the coming years.
Karim, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast.
Wonderful to be with you.