Karim Sadjadpour

But you have a regime which essentially views its diaspora as adversaries, and rather than enlisting their support, its hostage-taking has become a business for this regime.

And so...

you know, for the foreseeable future, certainly as long as this regime is in power, you know, I'm not going to be visiting Iran.

100%, Scott.

This is probably the most secular society now in the Middle East.

And that's what 47 years of theocracy, that's the legacy it's left for Iran, that you have a population desperate to separate mosque and state rather than join it.

It's the most anti-American regime probably in the world.

It's probably the most pro-American population in the Middle East.

I think everyone in Iran or the vast majority of young people recognize that Iran will never fulfill its enormous potential as a nation so long as their official slogan is death to America.

But I say there's kind of two kinds of actors in the Middle East to go to your mentioning of the Gulf countries.

You have countries like the UAE and Saudi Arabia, and they have forward-looking visions, Vision 2030, Vision 2031.

The vision of the Islamic Republic of Iran is Vision 1979.

It's a backward-looking vision.

The Gulf visions are appealing to people's aspirations and hopes.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is trying to appeal to people's grievances.

I call them falcons and vultures.

The falcons want to build soaring

societies and cities and companies.

The vultures are just trying to feed off the misery of others.

And that model has been totally proven bankrupt inside Iran.