Hosted by Kate McCann and Sir Richard Dearlove
Key takeaways
- Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment argues that Iran is no longer a clerical regime but a military government dominated by the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC). By his estimate, about 90% of Iran’s 20 most powerful men are not clerics.
- Mojtaba Khamenei is nominally Supreme Leader but has not been seen or heard from in seven months. Sadjadpour says people who know him describe him as focused on revenge, not governance.
- He sees four core US-Iran disputes: the Strait of Hormuz, the nuclear program, missiles and drones, and regional proxies.
- He doesn’t expect major decisions before the US midterms, but says both sides will have to rethink strategy afterward.
- His “One Decision” to watch: whether Iran’s leaders accept the loss of mandatory hijab enforcement, which he calls a possible Gorbachev-style turning point.
Guest
Karim Sadjadpour
Karim Sadjadpour is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he focuses on Iran and U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East. He regularly advises senior U.S., European, and Asian officials and has testified numerous times before the U.S. Congress as a witness for both Republican and Democratic leadership. He is also an advisor to the Aspen Institute’s Congressional Program on the Middle East and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.
Episode Summary
Eight months into the US-Iran war, the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) have taken control of Iran, the Strait of Hormuz remains a flashpoint, and Trump faces a decision — before and after the midterms: escalate or negotiate?
Carnegie Endowment senior fellow Karim Sadjadpour — a leading Western expert on Iranian politics — joins Kate McCann and former MI6 Chief Sir Richard Dearlove to explain the war from inside Tehran: why the clerics have been replaced by military hardliners, what Mojtaba Khamenei's personal losses mean for any peace deal, how Netanyahu pushed Trump into the conflict, and the one domestic decision that could be Iran's Gorbachev moment. They also discuss the legacy of Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran's nuclear program, and whether US sanctions can force a deal.
In this episode:
(00:00) Iran's Gangster Regime and Revenge
(00:52) US-Iran War Eight Months In
(02:49) Trump's Military Decision on Iran
(04:43) Who Really Runs Iran Now
(07:13) Trump's Legacy and Regime Change
(14:55) Four Key Contention Points With Iran
(16:20) Hardliners vs Pragmatists in Iran
(19:04) How Netanyahu Pushed Trump to War
(22:38) Axis of Resistance and the Houthis
(27:53) Strait of Hormuz Crisis Explained
(32:36) Finding a Solution to Iran Conflict
(40:27) Gulf States React to Iran Conflict
(46:40) The One Decision: Mandatory Hijab
Hosted by Sir Richard Dearlove (former MI6 Chief) and guest co-host Kate McCann (Political Editor at Times Radio).
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Transcript
2026-10-22
Cold Open
SADJADPOUR [00:00:00]
If you're Mojtaba Khamenei, not only was your father killed in this war, but your wife was also killed in the war. When I speak to people in Tehran who've known Mojtaba Khamenei a long time, what they say is he doesn't wake up in the morning thinking about governance. You know, how can I improve the quality of life of Iranians?
He's thinking about revenge. Before this war began, I used to think of the Islamic Republic of Iran as a zombie regime because I believed it had a dying ideology, dying legitimacy, and it was ruled by an 86-year-old supreme leader. Today, if I had to use one word to describe the regime, it would be a gangster regime, and that it's a regime which its first instinct is force and threat, whether it's gangstering its own population, its neighbors, or the global economy.
Introduction
MCCANN [00:00:52]
Hello and welcome to One Decision conversations about intelligence, statecraft, and the forces that drive world politics with people who've been in the room and on the ground. I'm your co-host Kate McCann.
DEARLOVE [00:01:04]
And I'm Sir Richard Dearlove, former head of MI6, one of the people who's been in the room. Hi, Kate.
MCCANN
Hi, Richard. And on the ground, pretty much.
DEARLOVE
And on the ground, yeah, pretty much. All over the place.
MCCANN [00:01:18]
Well, it's great to see you. And I know we've got a great conversation coming up today.
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We read all of them, so do keep those coming in. This week we are returning to the Iran conflict. We're now eight months into this war. The US-Iranian negotiations have stalled, energy prices remain high, and there is a new Houthi-Saudi front. What's the Iranian end game at this stage? And is there further escalation on the horizon? Karim Sadjadpour joins us to grapple with these questions and to help us understand the war from Tehran's perspective. Sadjadpour is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, an expert on Iranian politics, and a frequent advisor to US policymakers. Karim, welcome to One Decision.
SADJADPOUR [00:02:31]
Thank you so much for inviting me.
MCCANN
Well, it's the perfect time to talk to you about Iran because it enters so many different conversations at the moment. We should probably start with an update. Where are we now in terms of the conflict and what you think is happening right now?
Where the War Stands
SADJADPOUR [00:02:46]
I still think we're in a hot conflict right now, Kate. President Trump has an important decision to make in the coming weeks, which he himself has telegraphed. Is he planning to take more military action against Iran in the hopes that doing so will force the regime to compromise or capitulate? The Iranian government has a similar decision to make.
Do they want to keep resisting against the United States, or is this economic pressure too difficult to sustain and should they think about compromise? I think the date everyone has been focused on the last several months are the midterm elections in the United States. I don't suspect we will see any major decisions or resolutions before then. But after the midterm results, I think both sides will have to rethink their strategies.
Who Is Running Iran
MCCANN [00:03:37]
And when we talk about they, who are we talking about, especially from the Iranian side?
SADJADPOUR
So when we start in Washington, your listeners who have read Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan's great book, Regime Change would know. This decision to go to war was not a whole-of-government decision in the United States. It was really President Trump and five, six key advisors that were in the room. This administration, as most of your listeners know, is very difficult, different than previous administrations, where you would have deliberations among the Pentagon and obviously the National Security Council and the State Department and the CIA thinking about strategy.
I really think that this is President Trump and a few key aides, whether that's Secretary Bessent right now is perhaps in the lead, the Treasury secretary, and that the real US strategy right now is to squeeze Iran economically, an economic blockade and pressure and the hopes that it's going to economically coerce the regime into a compromise. Now, on the Iranian side, we really don't have an answer to the most fundamental of questions, and that is who is the most powerful man today in Iran? For 37 years, the answer to that question was Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the former Supreme Leader who was killed in the early days of this conflict.
And his son on paper succeeded him, Mojtaba Khamenei as Supreme Leader, but no one has seen or heard from him over the last seven months. I think there's a general consensus that Iran is now no longer a clerical regime ruled by clerics. It's really a more of a military government ruled by the Revolutionary Guards. If you look at, let's say, the top 20 men, top 20 most powerful men today in Iran, I would say, you know, 90% of them perhaps are not wearing turbans. They're not clerics, they're alumnus of the Revolutionary Guards, but the Revolutionary Guards are not a monolithic institution either.
There's real power battles amongst them. And I think the fundamental decision, as I said, that the Iranian regime has to answer is, you know, how long can they sustain this level of economic pressure, which is significant? You know, the country suffers from as high as 70% inflation, triple digit inflation on food. That's not something they can sustain for years to come.
The Gangster Regime
MCCANN [00:06:07]
Does it matter when it comes to the fact that we're not talking about clerics anymore? What difference does that make when you're talking about calculations about how the regime may react?
SADJADPOUR
So before this war began, I used to think of the Islamic Republic of Iran as a zombie regime, because I believed it had a dying ideology, dying legitimacy, and it was ruled by an 86-year-old supreme leader. Today, if I had to use one word to describe the regime, it would be a gangster regime, and that it's a regime which its first instinct is force and threat, whether it's gangstering its own population, its neighbors, or the global economy.
And so you now have, as I said, this group of military men who learn the wrong lesson from this war, which is that you don't reap concessions by compromise, you reap concessions by fighting back, by punching back hard, again by attacking your neighbors, closing the Strait of Hormuz. And I think that that is going to be their instinct for the foreseeable future.
Compromise and Revolutionary Identity
DEARLOVE [00:07:13]
Karim, it seems to me now that the stakes are really high. If Trump does succeed in getting the Iranian regime to compromise, negotiate and let's say change their disposition, particularly towards the West generally. I mean, this could be seen for him a big achievement.
And let me just follow that through a bit more. Let's say he loses the midterms, and then you know, we have a foreign policy outcome, which could be Trump's legacy of having changed the regimes in Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran, which is pretty significant if that were to be the outcome. Now, I'm not suggesting it is going to be the outcome, but it seems to me that Iran, given the present sanctions, is in really a really tough place.
I certainly don't agree with the media analysis that Iran's coming out of this ahead of the game. I mean, I'd be keen to know how you see that overall scenario.
SADJADPOUR [00:08:15]
So it's a great question, Sir Richard. And certainly if we were having this conversation in the very early days of the war or before the war was launched, I think it was an open question. You know, could this conflict actually hasten the demise of the regime or implode the regime? But I think so far the result has been the opposite. It didn't cause the security elite of this regime to fracture.
It caused them to cohere. And so I think at the moment there is virtually no chance that the regime decides to change its revolutionary identity. If anything, they've doubled down on revolutionary identity. But I think you're right that there's a difficult decision, which I suspect that they're pondering in real time right now, which is does it behoove them to make what I would describe as not a strategic compromise to change their revolutionary identity and opposition to America and Israel, but a tactical compromise in order to continue fighting? Ayatollah Khamenei, the late Supreme Leader in 2015 made that decision with President Obama when he signed the JCPOA. But when he telegraphed he was going to compromise, he used the metaphor of a wrestler.
He said sometimes when you're a wrestler fighting an adversary, you have to take a step back in order to regroup and to rebuild your strength in order to keep fighting. So I think that would be the way in which they would compromise, would be a temporary tactical compromise. But the revolutionary identity and opposition to America and Israel will continue, in my view.
MCCANN [00:10:05]
Has it hardened, do you think?
SADJADPOUR
Has the revolutionary identity hardened?
MCCANN
And against America. Has it now become even more difficult to see a way out of this that's negotiated?
SADJADPOUR
Certainly in the near term, 100% that enmity toward the United States has hardened. What has been done over the last seven, eight months has, you know, confirmed all of the suspicions and animosity and mistrust of Iran's revolutionary elite towards the United States. When the president of Iran, Mr. Pezeshkian came to the United Nations last month, he complained. He said, you know, on two occasions we're in the middle of negotiations and the United States attacked us.
So how can we possibly trust the United States? If you're Mojtaba Khamenei, you know, not only was your father killed in this war, but your wife was also killed in the war. And so when I speak to people in Tehran who've known Mojtaba Khamenei a long time, what they say is he doesn't wake up in the morning thinking about governance, you know, how can I improve the quality of life of Iranians?
He's thinking about revenge. And so certainly I think their revolutionary animosity toward the United States has hardened. And if I could here, Kate, just kind of in parentheses, say something which I think is counterintuitive about revolutionary regimes. There's a terrific book by two political scientists, Levitsky and Way about revolutionary regimes. And what's counterintuitive about them is that they actually tend to last around three times as long as your conventional dictatorships. And that is in part because that external adversary is useful for them for their internal legitimacy, in part because it helps to maintain the cohesion of their security forces.
It helps prevent against defections and military coups. And that is what we've seen in Iran surprisingly over the last seven, eight months is that I don't think we've seen a single high-level defection within the security forces. I believe it's a deeply unpopular regime, perhaps no more than 15, 20% popular support. It's largely despised by much of the Iranian population, but it remains highly united and armed and organized, and it's willing to inflict mass violence on its population, and the population is, you know, is unarmed, unorganized, and they've experienced firsthand last January that they're up against a regime which is willing to potentially kill tens of thousands of its own citizens to stay in power.
America’s Next Step and the Four Points of Contention
DEARLOVE [00:12:49]
Karim if the conflict continues, and I agree with you that it's still hot. What would be America's next step? Is it possible that they would try to take out Kharg Island? Because it seems to me that you've got to somehow deliver a fatal blow to the economy if you're getting to expect any sort of result. And they're certainly not going to put American boots on the ground. So this is going to continue to be a kinetic war. What strategic move have they got to make other than attacking Kharg Island?
SADJADPOUR
You know, let me start so with Sir Richard with the basic dilemma, which is that I don't think President Trump has a clear idea in his head what he's actually trying to achieve.
I don't think he has a clear idea about his own endgame, which is a challenge because if you don't know where exactly you want to go, then it's difficult to know, difficult to devise a strategy for that. I do think we now have a 47, almost 48-year case study of the Islamic Republic of Iran. And this is a regime which is really only agreed to meaningful compromise on two, perhaps three occasions since 1979. And the formula under which it compromises is pretty clear. It's when it faces what I would describe as existential pressure, existential economic pressure. But that pressure is in pursuit of what I would call kind of a defined limited outcome. The 2015 Obama nuclear deal, the JCPOA is an example of that. The Obama administration wasn't calling for regime change in Iran. They weren't calling for Iran to give up all of its regional proxies or its missile and drone programs. It was a narrow nuclear deal.
I think this time around, that significant pressure needs to be coupled with what I would describe as a somewhat more limited end game. If your goal, if your ask of Iran is change who you are, change your revolutionary identity, in my view, that's not likely to work. But I do think there are really four major points of contention with Iran. One is the Strait of Hormuz, the future of the Strait of Hormuz. I believe that Iranian leaders no longer believe the Strait of Hormuz is an international waterway.
They believe it is an Iranian waterway. You know, that's not something you can ignore. Second, obviously, is their nuclear program. A third issue are their missiles and drones, and the fourth issue are their regional proxies. You're not going to get ten out of ten on all of those things. But in my view, you shouldn't, you can't ignore any of those things because they're all very consequential issues. And the final thing I'll say here is that I know in President Trump's head, his number one priority of those four issues is nuclear, I believe.
I'm not sure that's the right priority right now. Because if you talk to regional countries, they will tell you listen, we're not worried that Iran is going to nuke us. Their nuclear program is under rubble right now. It's going to take them some time to reconstitute their program. But they're attacking us with missiles and drones on an almost daily basis. And that's not something you can ignore.
The Top 20
MCCANN [00:16:13]
In at least one interview, you have mentioned an unpublished study of yours that profiles the top 20 figures in the Iranian regime. What have you found? And what do your findings suggest about the character and the durability of the regime? And we've talked a little bit about this, about who's running it and the different expectations that people have. But what have you found in your piece of research?
SADJADPOUR
If you kind of separate Iran's top officials into two different categories. One category, we call them hardliners, but they call themselves principalists because they say they're loyal to the principles of the 1979 revolution. And then if you create another category, which we could call pragmatists, those who are committed to the Islamic Republic of Iran, but they believe that in order to sustain the regime, to sustain the revolution, you have to start to put economic interest before revolutionary ideology, much like what Deng Xiaoping did in China. When I look at what I would call, you know, my assessment of, let's say, the top 20 most powerful men now in Iran, and unfortunately, they're all men, I would say perhaps 17 to 18 of them are what we would call principalists, hardliners, you know, committed to the status quo hostility toward America and Israel. And perhaps only two or three men like the current president, Pezeshkian, are more pragmatic in their outlook.
And so I think that based on that, these assessments that Iran is simply going to naturally transform like China did, or you know, the people have written about Iran transforming to a more nationalist system like Kemalist Turkey or Nasser's Egypt. That is not born out of the personalities of these men who are currently running the country. Their takeaway from the year 2026, you know, both the January uprising in Iran and this war has not been that revolutionary ideology has been an albatross sinking the regime.
It's actually been the opposite. They view it as something which has been a life preserver that has helped to sustain them despite a massive popular uprising and then a war from America and Israel, because that revolutionary ideology has helped to maintain the cohesion of the security forces.
How Trump Got Here
MCCANN [00:18:47]
Karim, I want to come back to talk about the Strait of Hormuz, because I do think it's a really important point in this conflict, and we should talk more about it. But I just want to pick up on where we started really, which was how America has ended up where it is, and specifically President Trump. And we hear a lot of the time Israel was very influential. You know, Benjamin Netanyahu called Trump up, said it was an easy win, you know, give it a go, you'll get all the glory. What do you make of those reports?
SADJADPOUR
I do think Prime Minister Netanyahu played an incredibly consequential role in persuading President Trump to launch this attack on Iran. But I think it's useful for your listeners to rewind and think about the context of President Trump and Iran over the course of the last decade. So if we rewind to 2018, that was Trump's first term, and he hated the Obama nuclear deal. And so eventually he pulls out of the Obama nuclear deal.
He says that was the worst deal in history. Now, many, even of his advisors tried to dissuade him from doing that. They said this is going to have terrible consequences. And Trump made that decision, and he felt like he was able to get away with it.
The consequences weren't too drastic. So two years later, January 2020, President Trump decides to kill Iran's top military commander, Qassem Soleimani. Again, many of his aides tried to dissuade him from doing that. They said this could trigger a regional war. He did it, and the consequences weren't too drastic. In fact, it was something he was very proud of.
Now, fast forward to Trump's second term. Last summer, Israel initially launched these attacks on Iran. Iranians woke up and suddenly dozens of their top military leaders had been assassinated overnight, either in their bedrooms or in bunkers. And initially the United States in the first hours of that war distanced themselves from the war. President Trump's instincts were to try to resolve the Iran challenge diplomatically. What happened is that when Prime Minister Netanyahu started to get great publicity for the war on conservative media outlets like Fox News, I think President Trump wanted to associate himself with the conflict. And that's when he made the decision to drop those bunker-buster bombs on Iran, which became the 12-day war.
Again, people said don't do that. The could start World War III. He did it. There wasn't much of an Iranian air action. So that's three times he's put his hands on a hot stove and got away with it, wasn't much reaction. Now, fast forward to January of this year. What happens in January of this year, the operation against Maduro and Venezuela, you know, plucking a foreign autocrat out of his capital, bringing him to New York City. I think it was the combination of those four events which President Trump, you know, gambled majorly on all four occasions. Each four occasions he believed it worked out for him, which set up the context for this war.
And yes, Prime Minister Netanyahu was egging him on and persuading him all the way, but obviously this is a consequence and a decision made by the president of the United States.
The Axis of Resistance and the Saudi-Iranian Rivalry
DEARLOVE [00:22:20]
One of the issues connected with the JCPOA, which I always felt was its fundamental weakness, was that I would say there's a direct line from the JCPOA to the, as it were, strengthening and creation in the longer term of the axis of resistance. It almost gave Iran a let's say pass to misbehave across the Middle East through the Axis, through arm's length proxies. We now see that you know, Hezbollah that was meant to be the jewel in the crown has largely been, let's say, neutered militarily. And the third member of the axis of resistance, which is the one that was, as it were, least controlled, but also strategically important because of its position are the Houthis. So we're now in a strange position where you know Hamas and Hezbollah, I wouldn't say taken out of the equation, but they're not strategically so consequential.
Suddenly, the Houthis are the key element. And you've got this confrontation and escalation, which for me is the sort of profound conflict in the Middle East between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran. And it looks to me as though the conflict has acquired a more sort of profound direction in terms of the future of the Middle East and who is going to emerge from this as the dominant power. I mean, logically, one would expect it to be Saudi Arabia, but the Saudis don't even seem to be able to deal with the Houthis at the moment. I mean, how do you interpret this as it were miasma of conflict, which goes back, you know, to the earlier attack on Iran?
SADJADPOUR [00:24:08]
It's a great question, Sir Richard. And I think you put your finger on it at the beginning that Iran cannot only be defined as a nuclear challenge. It's a much broader challenge than that.
There is the regional challenge, the missiles and drones. And I don't think it's wise for US policy or Western policy toward Iran to only attempt to address one of those issues. As you said, once they got the major financial windfall as a result of the nuclear deal, they poured that money into their proxies. Now, the battle between Saudi Arabia and Iran is, in my view, it's actually broader than just a sectarian battle of Sunnis and Shiites. It's in my view, kind of really an ideological battle between what I call Saudi Vision 2030 and Iran Vision 1979. You know, the major advantage, asymmetric advantage which Iran has had over Saudi Arabia is that Iran is able to mobilize militias and radical groups from the Houthis to Hezbollah, as you said, and in order to effectively fill power vacuums throughout the Middle East, and virtually all of these Sunni radical groups, like ISIS and Al Qaeda want to overthrow the government of Saudi Arabia. So, in a region in which there's been great instability, a lot of power vacuums as a result of both the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and then the Arab uprisings of 2011. You know, look at the places that Iran was dominating Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Gaza, essentially five failing states.
So that is what the Islamic Republic has done well. Now, in the current context of this war and this battle with the Houthis, the metaphor I think about are two kinds of actors in the Persian Gulf. You have what I call Falcons that aspire to build soaring cities, economies, societies, like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, and then you have what I call the vultures who actually are very effective and kind of feeding off the chaos and the misery, and that's the Islamic Republic and its proxies. It's so much easier to be a vulture than a falcon, because, you know, I did a Fulbright in Beirut many years ago, and my one big takeaway from that yeah is it takes decades to build things, it takes weeks to destroy things. And this is what we've witnessed over the last six, seven months that stability, you know, becoming a hub for international transportation, technology finance, that takes decades of building, and it's very costly. Instability can come very quickly and with $30,000 drones. And so between Iran, the Houthis, the Shia militias and Iraq, they're very effective at destruction. But there's also huge asymmetry as you both know, in terms of the costs of being a vulture versus a falcon.
You know, our defense systems to shoot down these $30,000 drones cost perhaps 10x, 20x the cost of those drones. So it's been a much less costly fight for Iran and its proxies.
The Strait of Hormuz
MCCANN [00:27:39]
A question linked to that, and you sort of opened it up before for us, really, by saying that you think Iran, the regime inside Iran now view the Strait of Hormuz as Iranian, and that is a shift, quite a significant one. And also, you know, a lot of ground loss quite quickly. What does that mean in terms of where we go forward from here?
SADJADPOUR
I'll tell you, I think that really creates a dilemma because you know, at the moment, the Trump administration would say that traffic going through the Strait of Hormuz, you know, the energy flows through that strait are getting back towards status quo ante, what they were before the war. I'm not sure that's quite true, but in any case, the reason why that's happened is because the US Navy has been escorting those ships through. That's not a sustainable strategy for years to come that US Navy escorts traffic through that strait.
That's very costly. My fear is that it's a reason why, in my view, there's probably not going to be any quick resolution to this war, because even if there is some type of a ceasefire or tactical compromise, I'm not persuaded that six months from now, a year from now, two years from now, Iran won't attempt to close down the strait again in reaction to something that they don't like, whether it's a provocation from Israel against them, you know, on Iranian soil, or it's a provocation against one of their regional proxies. This is something which they've now proven they could do before this war, it was theoretical. Could they close the strait? They've now proven they can do. And my sense is they will attempt to do it again in the future.
DEARLOVE [00:29:25]
As a follow-up to that question, which I think is you know specific to Hormuz, what about the state of play between Oman and Iran at the moment? I mean, you know, if you take, you know, the borderline, there is still the Omani passage. How many attacks have the Iranians made on ships going down the Omani side of the channel?
Or is the Omani side? I mean, I'm not tightly familiar with the navigational characteristics, but I know the Iranian side is meant to be better, but would it be possible to develop the Omani side in terms of getting around this problem or not.
SADJADPOUR
I've oftentimes thought that two of the most important external actors in this conflict who are not combatants in this war are Oman and China. Because for the Islamic Republic of Iran, it needs, in some ways, Oman's cooperation to come up with a plan in which they can say, okay, there's a new plan, administrative plan for the Strait of Hormuz. And if the government of Oman comes out very definitively and says we reject a new model for the strait, our position is that it should go back to status quo ante. It's much more difficult for Iran to legitimize their ambitions to control the strait. Over the last several months, I think the Omani position has been pushed closer to the GCC and US position, but you know, they also don't want to totally alienate Iran. And the reality is that Iran still you know has the ability to launch attacks on ships passing closer to the Omani side.
Now, right now, when you have a massive US naval presence in that region, it helps to deter and prevent those kinds of attacks. But as I said, in my view, that's not a sustainable solution for years to come. I also mentioned China, because as many of your listeners already know, the bulk of the energy that goes through that strait is bound for China. And Iran's case, 90% of its oil exports are bound for China.
And even though China and Russia are commonly lumped together when it comes to their interests, I think they actually have very divergent interests here. I think Russia does benefit from regional insecurity. They benefit from risk premium of energy going up and staying up, given they're a massive energy producer and exporter themselves. But in my view, China doesn't benefit from that over the long term. You know, their energy security is better insured when there isn't a constant war and conflict and insecurity in that region and the risk premium aren't high. So I think that's something which for the Gulf countries who are most threatened by Iran's closure of the strait, I think Oman and China are really key.
Is There a Way Out?
MCCANN [00:32:23]
So what do we do here? Because, you know, as you say, it's not sustainable for the US Navy to be acting as a protector for people trying to travel through the strait, for ships and vessels trying to travel through the strait. It's not just having an impact on China, it's having a huge impact on the whole of the European Union, on America, pretty much the entire globe. And the domestic politics of that is really, really difficult.
I mean, here in the UK, it's evident, but it's evident across France and Germany and Italy and everywhere else. What's the solution? What do you see as the end point here?
SADJADPOUR
You know, Kate, there's unfortunately, in my view, not a silver bullet solution. Generally, I think the debate in America, given how polarized it is, tends to assume that, you know, if only we're nicer to Iran and offer them you know more concessions, we can resolve our conflict with them. And you know, folks on the right would say, if only we pressure them more or bomb them more, then we can either, you know, implode them or force them to capitulate.
And that hasn't been the history of the last 47, 48 years. In my view, this is not obviously a global power like the Soviet Union, but it's a deeply ideological revolutionary regime which is prepared to inflict massive suffering on its own population rather than compromise. I think we can increase the costs for its conduct and sharpen the choices it has to make. But you know, ultimately, my view is that the 47, 48-year cold war or cold slash hot war between America and Iran is not going to be fully resolved until you have a government in Iran whose ethos whose identity is not revolutionary ideology but national interests.
You know, the slogan should be long live Iran rather than death to America and death to Israel. In my view, that is not, we don't see signs of that transformation happening in the near term. So I think what needs to happen is, as I said earlier, I think President Trump needs to have a clear strategy in his head of what he's hoping to achieve. In my view, a ten out of ten ambition would be great if you can get Iran to abandon entirely its proxies, its missiles, its nuclear program, its control over the strait.
But I don't think that's achievable. You have to couple the pressure, the coercion with a clear diplomatic strategy. So far, I think we have one part of that strategy right now, which is that the coercive strategy has been successful in and really inflicting enormous economic pain on the Iranian regime, but it's not been coupled in my view with the clear diplomatic endgame.
The Midterms and the Israeli Election
DEARLOVE [00:35:20]
Karim, we've got two crucial elections coming out. We've mentioned one, which of course is the midterms. You could have an angry and wounded Trump after the midterms, who might just lash out, you know, to sort of compensate for political defeat in Congress and in the Senate. And of course, within a short time we have this election in Israel. I mean, have you considered what the outcome might be if Netanyahu can't put a coalition together? Okay, it's going to be a very close-run thing. Israeli politics are pretty opaque because of the number of small parties and the need for coalitions. But it does look possible that Netanyahu won't make 61 votes in the Knesset, and that as it were, a more moderate Israeli government might at least try before him to put together a coalition. So this could be a very, very significant political change, which could lead to a strategic change. I mean, I'd love to hear your comments on that.
SADJADPOUR
So what's quite remarkable, Sir Richard, is that going back to Netanyahu's first election when he became prime minister in 1996, I would say that the Islamic Republic has long been a political gift to Prime Minister Netanyahu, and that he was polling behind the incumbent in that election, Shimon Peres, and it was a wave of Iranian-backed suicide bombings, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which helped Prime Minister Netanyahu defeat Shimon Peres in 1996. And ever since then, Iran has been the top item on his agenda. So I think Iran's death to Israel campaign has been far more beneficial to the Israeli right than it has been to Palestinians or certainly to the people of Iran. The impact of the Israeli elections, I do agree it will be significant because if Prime Minister Netanyahu manages to hold on, I think he will obviously continue to prioritize the war with Iran. I think if Mr. Eisenkot manages to prevail, I don't think that Iran necessarily stays the top priority for Israel. It could be, you know, inquiries about what happened with the security failure of October 7th, addressing the Palestinian issue in the hopes that, you know, that can facilitate what would be significant for Israel, which is a normalization with Saudi Arabia, and perhaps above all, repairing of the US-Israel relationship and Israel's global brand. I saw a poll from a few days ago which showed that countries around the world, citizens around the world were asked to rate their favorability and unfavorability of nations.
And I was, you know, quite shocked. Israel was the very bottom of that list, even lower than North Korea. So I think that becomes a priority for an Eisenkot government. And on President Trump, you're right that I think the Iranians were hoping that if he loses both the House and the Senate, that will be a massive humiliation, which will restrain him and force him to end the war. But it could actually have the opposite impact that electoral defeat rather than restraining Trump, it unleashes him to focus more and on external matters rather than internal matters, and you know, continue a kinetic response to Iran. So these things could be counterintuitive.
Attacks on Western Soil
MCCANN [00:39:11]
Does that mean then there is also a risk that the types of attacks that we've seen, for example, RAF Fafid in this country and there have been many others, that attacks on domestic soil could well continue, maybe even increase.
SADJADPOUR
I believe unfortunately that is going to be our new reality for a while, because you have a regime in Iran, which, as I said, is bent on revenge. It oftentimes is probing, you know, what is the low-hanging fruit, what are places that are significant and impactful, but perhaps less well defended. And what we know about this Iranian regime is that it operates through proxies and cutouts. You know, it hires oftentimes criminal gangs to carry out its dirty work. And I think that's something we should all expect to continue.
And what, you know, has made them far more lethal now is the advent of artificial intelligence, which, you know, they're going to be employing to carry out these revenge attacks.
The Gulf States
DEARLOVE [00:40:13]
Karim, what do you think the sort of state now is of the Gulf nations? I mean, all of them to a greater or lesser extent have been attacked, attacked quite severely by Iran. All of them had some sort of relationship with the Iranian theocracy and we're in some sort of dialogue. But this business was spreading the conflict. The Iranian strategy of doing that has caused huge resentment. It's sort of upended, as you mentioned, economic models.
It's made them look unattractive places for retirement or investment, particularly if you take somewhere like Dubai, where you've got lots of sort of expats living in comfortable apartments, living a sort of really sort of in the what they thought would be a relaxed environment. What do you think that the leaderships of the Gulf states now? I mean, what do they want to compromise? Are they so angry they want the conflict to continue? Are they prepared, let's say, to align themselves very closely, and you know there are tensions there with Saudi Arabia. If Saudi Arabia now, you know, is determined to pursue this conflict with the Houthis and by extension directly with Iran itself. What's their attitude to the next steps?
SADJADPOUR [00:41:35]
It's a great question, Sir Richard. And this war has been existential for those Gulf countries because you cannot have a forward-looking vision to be hubs for global transportation, trade, finance and technology in the middle of an active war zone. And so every, you know, all the major plans to build data centers and international conferences have been put on hold right now. And counterintuitively, many of those countries, perhaps almost all of the Gulf countries, didn't wish this war. It's true that they obviously view the Iranian regime, many of them view the Iranian regime as an existential threat, but they were worried about what happens if you kick this hornet's nest. And so there is disappointment in the United States, but the idea that this war is going to facilitate a post-American Middle East, I think is wrong because if anything, these countries now need to double down on their security relationship with the United States to protect themselves against Iran. What they've seen is that certainly China and Russia cannot fill the role of the United States. China has actually been providing not only Iran military technology, but the Houthis military technology, which has been used against civilian outposts in Saudi Arabia and throughout the Gulf. And so I think that their defense relationships, their security relationships with the United States double down.
And they've all been impacted to varying degrees. I think perhaps economically, the country which has taken the most significant hit is the one which has among the best relationships with Iran, which is Qatar, because whereas, you know, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, you can come up with alternative pipelines to transport your oil. But in the case of Qatar, you know, almost the entirety of its economy comes from liquefied natural gas, which is that you can't come up quickly with alternative pipelines for that.
And so Qatar has been deeply impacted. I think these countries are all looking to de-conflict with Iran. They're not interested in fighting this war with Iran, but there's obviously no trust between them and Iran, and I think that's going to be the state of the Gulf region for many years to come.
Ahmadinejad and Israeli Intelligence
DEARLOVE [00:44:07]
I want to ask you one last question, which is do we really believe that Ahmadinejad had this relationship with Israeli intelligence? Or do you think this was under Iranian control all the time?
I mean, I'll tell you immediately my view is it was under the control of the Iranians and that you know they led the Israelis by the nose, but I'm not, of course, it's only an informed guess. I'd like to know what you think.
SADJADPOUR
Well, yeah, I can only speculate as well, Sir Richard. One of your successors at MI6, I won't say who, but I once asked him this question, and I'd be curious for your take on it. I asked them a question of which kinds of individuals are you most likely to be able to recruit as defectors? You know, what are their motivations? Is it ideological?
Is it financial? And you know, you said something that stayed with me. He said oftentimes it's people who have grievances against their own government. They feel like they've been, you know, wronged, humiliated, they have an axe to grind. And that is the case of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He's someone who had a grievance with his own regime because he'd been very much sidelined over the last decade.
Now, does that mean that he actually went so far? This is something like you couldn't have written it in a Hollywood script because Ahmadinejad is most people will remember was the most vociferous opponent of Israel when he was president of Iran denying the Holocaust constantly. I've spoken to folks in the intelligence community here who do believe that he did have those types of contacts with the Mossad. My own suspicion is that it may have been that he was one of several bets that the Israelis were putting money on of potential officials more friendly to them that could come to power in the aftermath of a military conflict. I don't think the entirety of their strategy was resting on him. But you're also right to question whether the Iranians were playing a double game.
DEARLOVE
Well, you're right on the grievances issue.
One Decision to Watch
MCCANN [00:46:35]
Karim, we always end every podcast with one question. What is the one decision you're watching for from Tehran or from Washington that will shape the direction of this conflict? Or maybe it comes from neither of those places.
SADJADPOUR
So the obvious answer, Kate, is whether President Trump is going to continue military action or pursue a more conciliatory approach. And you could say that on the Iranian end as well. Is Iran going to continue to be defiant and pursue confrontation or compromise?
But I don't want to say the obvious answer. I think the less obvious answer, which I'm thinking about, and it's really in the context of Iran internally, is the decision that the Iranian regime will have to make about the mandatory hijab in Iran. Because from 1979 to the present, I think there have been kind of three ideological pillars of this revolutionary regime. It's been death to America, death to Israel, and the mandatory veiling of women, which Ayatollah Khomeini once called the flag of the Islamic revolution. What has happened over the last two, three years in Iran has really been a social revolution. They're no longer able to control the mandatory veiling of women. If you see images from Tehran and throughout the country now, many, if not most women are now defying that. And the danger which Ayatollah Khamenei always feared is that once you give up something so fundamental to you, it could unravel the entire ball of yarn, as what happened when Gorbachev tried to pursue reform in the Soviet Union.
It didn't prolong the shelf life of the Soviet Union, it hastened its collapse. So I think that is going to be the key decision that Iran's leadership will have to make in the coming months and years. Are they just going to accept the fact that they've lost the mandatory veiling of women, which was, as I said, one of the key pillars of the Islamic Republic? Or are they going to try to reverse what's happened and it will require enormous brutality and repression in order to do that?
MCCANN [00:48:52]
That is such an interesting answer to that question, and one I really didn't expect. Karim, thank you very much for joining us on One Decision. It's been really fascinating to have you with us. Thank you.
SADJADPOUR
It's my pleasure.
DEARLOVE
Thank you very much, Karim. Great discussion.
SADJADPOUR
Thank you both.
Post-Interview Discussion
MCCANN [00:49:07]
Well, so Richard, I learned so much in that conversation. And I was really surprised actually by Karim's answer to our question, what's the one decision you're looking out for? Perhaps I should have expected it, really, because you know, so much of what goes on in a country is dictated by its people. But the, you know, the idea that so much of this comes down to how the regime sees itself and its citizens and what role women play in that or don't, is such an interesting notion, isn't it?
DEARLOVE
Yeah, I think there's a fundamental historical lesson there that when revolutionary regimes reform, they're in deep trouble. And generally speaking, revolutionary regimes, you know, don't reform, they continue to occupy their extreme positions.
And of course, if you think about the treatment of women in Iran, they are inevitably hugely influential. And we don't measure that. We don't see that. We've seen evidence of it in some of the recent sort of uprisings.
But they clearly are going to play a crucial role in the future of the country. And if he's right about that, maybe in terms of the durability of the regime, we're sometimes looking in the wrong direction. Anyway, I thought he just gave a brilliant tour d'horizon of all of the key issues. And I think anybody listening now will have a much better understanding of the variables, the complexities. And there are so many issues which can impact on this relationship, on this conflict.
You know, whether it's the midterm elections, the elections in Israel, let's say the lack of strategy that he attributes to Trump. It's so complex. It's so complex. We covered the ground really thoroughly because of his expertise, and I think asking him many of the key questions to bring out those interpretations.
MCCANN
Well, hopefully our listeners feel the same. And you can let us know, share your thoughts, leave us a comment on YouTube. You can email us at hello@onedecision.com. We read all of them and we really do enjoy your feedback. That is it for this episode. Thank you for listening. You can join us every Thursday for new episodes and subscribe to One Decision on YouTube so you don't miss out on any of them. And you can also check out onedecision.com for commentaries and explainers that you might have missed. Thanks very much. We'll see you next time.
FAQ
Who is running Iran now?
According to Karim Sadjadpour, the answer is unclear at the very top. Mojtaba Khamenei succeeded his father as Supreme Leader on paper, but no one has seen or heard from him in seven months. Sadjadpour says there is a general consensus that Iran is now run less by clerics and more by Revolutionary Guards alumni, though the IRGC itself is not monolithic and has internal power battles.
Why does Sadjadpour call Iran a “gangster regime”?
Before the war he thought of the Islamic Republic as a “zombie regime” with a dying ideology and an aging supreme leader. Now he says its first instinct is force and threat, directed at its own population, its neighbors, and the global economy. He argues its leaders have learned that concessions come from fighting back, not from compromise.
What are the main points of contention between the US and Iran?
Sadjadpour identifies four: the future of the Strait of Hormuz, Iran’s nuclear program, its missiles and drones, and its regional proxies. He says President Trump prioritizes the nuclear issue, but that Gulf countries are more worried about daily missile and drone attacks.
Can the US keep the Strait of Hormuz open?
Sadjadpour says the Trump administration reports energy flows returning toward pre-war levels, largely because the US Navy is escorting ships. He doesn’t think that’s sustainable for years, and he believes Iran, having shown it can close the strait, will try again. He names Oman and China as the key outside actors.
Will the US-Iran war end after the midterms?
Sadjadpour doesn’t expect major decisions or resolutions before the midterms, and says both sides will have to rethink their strategies afterward. He warns the outcome could be counterintuitive: a Republican defeat might unleash Trump to focus on foreign matters rather than restrain him. He says there is no “silver bullet” solution.
What does Sadjadpour mean by Iran’s “Gorbachev moment”?
He points to mandatory hijab, which he calls one of the regime’s three ideological pillars alongside “death to America” and “death to Israel.” Many Iranian women now defy it openly. He says the regime must either accept that loss, which risks unraveling its ideology as Soviet reform did, or reverse it through enormous repression.
