Behnam Ben Taleblu

But it's not like all the other paths have not been tried.

So, how will this end?

In the short to medium term, it'll be a regime that courses.

I liken this to the analogy, you take a wet hand on a beach and you pick up sand and you squeeze and that sand which is loose and diffuse and slips through, it becomes cohesive.

It becomes kind of like a muddy thing and it becomes one.

And that's what we're seeing with the national security deep state.

It's not capable, but now it's united.

Whatever is left of it, it's sink together or swim together.

But if you keep squeezing...

If you keep the pressure up, that sand, that mud will slip through each piece of the finger and you will have actually choked it off.

We are in that process of choking.

It's a bad analogy, but it just goes to show you that those systems that don't bend

inevitably do break.

And we are right now in the hardening position.

You know, some will say, oh, but now some of these political institutions like the Supreme National Security Council are run by IRGC veterans.

To which I say, yes, that's unfortunate.

That's a reality.

But it's not like pre-war and for the past decade, the past three secretaries of that institution have also not been IRGC veterans.

The war has expedited the phenomenon that we have been seeing in slow motion for Iran for three decades, which is the military ascendancy into so many of these institutions.

You know, the Islamic Republic, as was said by somebody who was supposed to be a future Supreme Leader, and then he died under house arrest, he said, Islamic Republic is neither Islamic nor a republic.