Rory Stewart

I think it's going to end very soon.

When?

Well, you know.

We haven't won enough yet.

We've won, but we haven't won enough yet.

Which means I think at some point we should get onto a very interesting question, which is that even if the war ended tomorrow, my reckoning is the consequences of this are going to be with us for a very long time.

This is a shattered region now.

Just to finish up with Lorkhan on what's happening on the ground in Iran, you talked about the different leadership candidates.

You raised last week Ali Laranjani, who's the National Security Advisor.

We could have talked about Mohammad Bakr Ghalibat, who's the Speaker of the Parliament.

Those were the two securocrats that people thought really were at the key of this regime, running it day to day.

Now we've had Khamenei's son, Mustafa Khamenei, take over.

Thank you.

The bottom line on these three figures is they are regimes through and through and through.

I mean, anyone who hoped that this is the beginning of a new reform and a new pragmatism, this is instead people who I think absolutely buy into Hameni's fundamental position.

And Hameni's position is the same as Xi Jinping's position.

They both looked at what happened to the Soviet Union, and they thought what happened is Gorbachev was too soft.

The biggest moment of danger for regimes

is when you reform.

Khamenei has another Iranian wrestling statement where he used to say that when your opponent is pushing you hard, what you must never do is step back because they just occupy that space and push you further back.