Gordon Carrera

But I think even in some of those cases, a bit like people, those people may not be willing to express, even within those circles, or even if they were your source and your agent.

what they really think and what they might do inside a crisis.

I think that could be quite hard to predict.

You know, will those people, when it comes to giving the order to shoot, will they want to do it?

How will they react?

What will happen?

Those are very hard things to collect on as an intelligence agency and to predict.

And I think in some cases, the people inside there don't always know how they're going to operate.

So I think all of that, I think, does help explain why it is quite challenging to know not just when a kind of revolutionary moment is coming,

but also how the authorities exactly are going to react and what they're going to do about it and whether they're going to be able to crush it.

But also, if you think about the subject you know well, Bashar al-Assad, he has this challenge in 2011.

A lot of people would say the pillars have weakened for him, but it takes, what, 13?

How many years was it before he actually was overthrown?

So the ability to kind of understand that just because those pillars are weakened, that it's going to mean the end soon, I think that is also really difficult.

Yeah, and I think that might be a great place to leave it for the moment, because in episode two, we're going to come back to this subject and look a bit deeper, I think, into how intelligence agencies have, you know, managed to, or sometimes not managed to, predict

the the course of some of these uprisings or revolutions and then apply that to what it can tell us about iran today and how likely the regime is to survive and a reminder if you want to get that episode before anyone else then do join the declassified club at the rest is classified.com you'll also get an access to that interview on the situation in iran which is going to come out for club members on friday but otherwise do join us for the next episode and we'll see you next time we'll see you next time

For exclusive interviews, bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, first look at live show tickets, a weekly newsletter, and discounted books, join the Declassified Club at therestisclassified.com.

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