David McCloskey

And the Syrian opposition began to call for exactly the same thing in Syria.

there was some interesting academic research that some members of our team did back in 2011.

And one of the most significant variables in determining the length of a civil war is the extent of foreign involvement.

And you'd be unsurprised to hear that the more foreign involvement there is, the longer the civil war goes on, right?

And so I think in this case at Iran, I would wager a guess that

that more foreign involvement is going to sort of tip us in that direction of a kind of civil conflict between the regime and the opposition.

I'm not making a statement on whether that's a good thing or a bad thing.

I'm just saying that that's probably the direction it tips us in.

The other dynamic that I think is an interesting parallel is

That political change is kind of usually a long-term game in these situations.

In Syria, the first year of unrest was marked by waves of protest, but then, you know, and they would sort of wax and wane too.

I mean, that's another piece of this.

We're recording this.

on the 18th of January.

And we're in this period where it kind of looks like the regime has suppressed the unrest.

And yet in Syria, there were these moments where protests dwindled and died down and then they came back.

Or what came back a couple of weeks later might have been a pocket of armed opposition to the regime.

that they were then unable to suppress.

And so there's this kind of waxing and waning of the opposition.

And a lot of the really important developments in the Syrian crisis were also happening out of the public eye as you had opposition, even very local opposition,