Karim Sadjadpour

At the top of that pyramid is Ayatollah Khamenei.

His turban is at the top of that pyramid.

All the powerful people below him are not wearing turbans.

They're the military commanders.

And in some ways, I think the future of Iran will be shaped in part by the battles between these men.

Because some of them are ideologues who want to continue with the culture of the revolution and death to America and what I call Vision 1979.

But there are others among them who are not Democrats.

I'm not arguing that they're Democrats, but they recognize, they appreciate power.

And they believe that in order to entrench their power and even enrich themselves, it behooves them to...

throw out Shiite nationalism and anti-imperialism and replace it with Iranian nationalism.

And again, they're not Democrats, but they're nationalists.

And so I think that is going to be one of the determining fights for Iran's future.

Yeah, so I think one thing that is important for people to understand about why the Islamic Republic is so despised by such a large percentage of its population is that it's not only politically authoritarian, but it's also economically and socially authoritarian.

It tries to micromanage every aspect of people's lives, what you're wearing, what you drink, what you eat, what movies you watch, what music you listen to.

And for that reason, the grievances against this regime are so widespread.

And so in this particular instance, the trigger was economic.

It was rapidly depreciating currency.

It's remarkable when you compare Iran's currency now to 1979.

It's depreciated more than 99% since the 1979 revolution.

And so what we saw with these protests was the trigger was economic.