Mirzad Borujerdi

I think we have to keep in mind that for a regime to collapse, you need to have a serious opposition force that is able to play the role of a rival government and take over, etc.

At this moment, as we speak, there is really no organized opposition inside the country.

No part of the Iranian territory is under the control of an opposition force.

And even though there is general popular discontent,

This is not organized or sustained opposition.

It has been very episodic over the last 40 years.

That's right.

The son of the former Shah has a lot of sympathy both outside and inside the country.

He has, of course, a symbolic capital as the inheritor of that thousands of years of monarchy in Iran.

But at least so far, we have not really seen that he has the organizational muscle to

to be able to change the facts on the ground or try to unify the opposition.

So that seems to be a liability.

Furthermore, there are concerns as to whether we might see more or less a repeat of the Venezuelan scenario, meaning the Trump administration reaching to one of those members of the Revolutionary Guards, etc., and trying to come to terms with

rather than, you know, see the country really go into a chaos, considering that it's a country of 90 million people and geographically larger than Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

Thanks for having me.