Sam Faddis

I don't know to what extent they will respond.

How deep is the discontent?

It is massive.

It is real.

I have no doubt that the majority of people in Iran would welcome and cheer and dance in the streets if the Ayatollahs were gone.

But wanting that and making it happen are two different things.

These guys, the regime just killed, as far as I can tell, somewhere around 30,000 of their own citizens.

in the streets to crush the demonstrations that happened recently.

There is no limit to the amount of force and brutality they will use.

So to overthrow a regime like that, you really need organization and planning and assistance.

It's not as simple as just saying, everybody go out in the street and take over.

Now, I hope to God that happens, because that would be wonderful for the Persian people to be free.

But wishing it is so and making it so are two totally different things.

No, I don't think there's been enough infiltration.

When people think about Iraq and the efforts we went to to ultimately convince the Iraqis to essentially give up Saddam Hussein, okay, but still it came down to us having to put troops on the ground.

And look, I was inside Iraq with a team for a year in advance of that invasion, but I was already building on efforts that the CIA had been sustaining for many years.

We never walked away from the Kurds, never walked away.

So we had been working that problem

for year after year after year to build that do we have that inside iran we do not if if this regime falls if there is this collapse my estimation it will be because some guys who are in power at the top

effectively stage what amounts to a coup and say, enough of this, we got to change course.