Sohrab Ahmari

Even that assumes a heavy degree of U.S.

investment in reconstruction, security, etc., to try to hold that outcome up.

If you really want a fully unified Iran to hold together, then you do need those hundreds of thousands of U.S.

troops to build a new country.

But I was pretty sure I didn't vote for...

nation building.

They might call it something else.

There is there is a secular population.

I'm not sure they're small D Democrats.

I think from what I've learned about studying Iranian political history and political culture is that fundamentally it's an authoritarian culture.

I'll be on.

People will say.

That's an unpopular thing to say on my part or I'm being, you know, not all.

You can't just say that about a whole culture.

But everything I've learned about Iranian political history tells me that Iran, in order to keep together, requires a strong central authority embodied in a kind of a person, a visible principle of unity, like a living, breathing principle of unity for most of its history.

2,500 years, 3,000 years, that's been a shah or a king.

The Islamic Republic essentially is in part a monarchy, except instead of a king, instead of someone who wears a crown, it's someone who wears a turban.

And so, I mean, I think so.

That's the if you want to keep it together as a cohesive state.

And then the question falls back to who do you whom do we have who could serve that role?