John Bickley

Thank you for having me.

So we obviously have a rapidly developing situation on the ground in Iran, but we wanted to talk to you about specifically Trump calling on the Iranian people to rise up and overthrow this tyrannical regime.

That's an exciting, incredible call, but there are a lot of questions, of course, about how this might actually play out.

First of all, in terms of what we know about the Iranian people at large and how they feel about this regime, we've seen these sustained protests.

Is there a sense that they really are poised now to fully overthrow this regime and create a new government?

So you said, look, you were on the ground back in 2009.

You saw the beginnings of an uprising that was ultimately squelched.

There's been other protest movements since that have also died.

Is there a lot of residual fear that this is going to happen again?

Or is there more concrete hope this time?

Now, the Crown Prince, you mentioned him being central to this new wave of resistance.

Can you give us some more background on him for those not familiar with his claims to legitimacy?

So do we expect the necessity of the U.S.

to help facilitate spinning up elections and tamping down these potential Islamist groups?

If so, how is that going to be perceived?

Obviously, that's a difficult process in terms of making sure that the Iranian public doesn't feel like this is a takeover by the U.S.,

One quick follow-up to that, what role do you see the Crown Prince playing in that process?

Do you have a sense of which way they would lean?

Maybe constitutional monarchy?

Well, this is an exciting moment.