Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ali Safavi. I appreciate you taking the time to come on.
An associate of Alarisa, Jeff Arceda, He's been on before,
Deputy director of the Washington Office of the National Council
of Resistance of Iran. I have to be perfectly honest
with you, it was really interesting to receive the information
(00:20):
on the baby Shah. You know, as a fifty eight
year old, I remember the Shah of Iran quite vividly,
and if I'm remembering correctly, was it not the Shah
of Iran's his Was it not the baby Shah's father's passing?
That was kind of the beginning of the hostage crisis
(00:43):
and that whole year where the US and Iran were
wildly at odds.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Well, first all again, thank you for having me on
the show, of course, and good morning to all of
your listeners. Well, if you recall, this whole hostage crisis
and the taking of fifty four American diplomats for hostage
for four hundred and forty four days was participated by Hormone,
(01:14):
who obviously a cleric, who stole the leadership of the
Popular Revolution to ferment anti American sentiment, and of course
a lot of that existed in Iran because of what
happened in nineteen fifty three when a popularly elected government,
(01:35):
the Nationalist government of doctor Morsdek, was overthrown by a
coup engineered by MI six and the CIA, And of
course the Shah basically auctioned of the country to foreign powers,
and the Iranians were poor, they were suffering. While Evan
(01:58):
sat on the sea of oil. You had people living
in chanty towns. But of course more important than that,
the shot secret police Savak was quite brutal in his
treatment of dissidence. There were reports of hundreds of people
killed on the torture by the Shah Savak, and the
(02:18):
Shah himself declared the one party system. He said, anybody
who doesn't want to be part of my party, they
can leave Iran. And so in that context, Harmiani exploited
that under current of opposition to foreign involvement in Iran
to consolidate his power. And so this whole episode, the
(02:38):
unfortunate episode of taking Americans hostage, basically was designed by
Hormioni to consolidate power and root out the democratic opposition.
So when you talk about the son of the Shah,
now the Iranian people have that memory. And yes, of
course the current regime has been brutal and has been
(03:00):
a thousand times worse than the previous regime. But Iranians
are not nostalgic about the past, and they don't want
to one party system, one man rule. They want a
democratic form of government like you have in the United
States or in countries in Europe, where you know, they
could have the right to self dissemination and choose their
own leaders. And so I think the issue of the
(03:24):
son of the Shah now making rounds in some media
and making some noise after being silent for forty some
years after he left Iran at the age of seventeen,
really doesn't wash much with those inside Iran, nor with
the Runi diaspora, because people, as you have, people have
(03:46):
a very vivid memory of how life was in Iran.
I remember those days, you know. I was a young
eighteen year old when I left Iran and came to
the United States and studies at UCLA and later in
Michigan for my postgraduate work, and we were all involved
in the anti shop movement, and we remember the excesses
(04:06):
of the show. And I don't think there really people
have forgotten those years. So that's why you see, like
in the latest round of uprising in Iran in twenty
twenty two, one of the most prevalent chants by Iranians
was down with the oppfessor, be it the Shaw or
the leader reference to the current leader Ali comedy. And
(04:30):
of course, as you know, most of those who took
part in the protest in twenty two and two were
young people, people who were not even born when the
show was in power, but yet their resentment and rejection
of monarchy is very, very strong, and they wanted democratic
form of government, a republican form of government where people's
(04:54):
volt is the only criteria for holding office and for
public political legitimacy.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
So much well said, and just so much there I
want to sink my teeth into. So you mentioned leaving
around at eighteen or no, you had said that, I
feels silly saying this, But he goes by baby Shah
or at the very least he's referred to as baby Shah.
He left at eighteen where four? And how old is
(05:21):
he now?
Speaker 2 (05:22):
In sixty four? Now, okay, he left at the age
of seventeen, you know, when the show was kicked out
of the country, yes, sir. Just before the revolution, they
first came to the United States, and of course that
the Iranian regime took the American diplomat hostage, and so
he was basically just sent to Egypt, where Shaw's father
(05:48):
when Shan's son, his father, Muhammad Reza Plevi, died in Egypt.
Actually they were first came to the US and they
were sent to Panama. He spent some time in a
hospital in Panama, and then from Panama he went to Egypt,
and that's where he died. And so Charles Son was
now to be found. But any time you'd see some
(06:08):
undressed inside Iran and thinking that perhaps this time this
regime will fall, he enters into the scene and makes
a comment here and there and does this for that interview.
But in reality, when you talk about changing Iran, naturally
you must have the bodies underground, You must have people
underground who would be willing to fight and die for
(06:31):
your cause. And when it comes to chasn first of all,
he doesn't have a cause. Secondly, he doesn't have anybody
on the street to be Iran. After all, his strategy
is based on cultivating the support of the criminal Islamic
Revolutionary Cards, which is a designated foreign terms organization in
(06:54):
the United States, and it's the very entity that suppresses
dere people. And so he doesn't have anybody underground in Iran.
Outside Iran, he doesn't have that many supporters. Just to
give you an idea, they mobilized with great fans for
a rally outside the White House on April thirteenth in Washington,
(07:17):
and no more than four hundred showed up. Where you
have at least five to six hundred thousand Iranians living
in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, DC. So it doesn't have
a base of support, neither inside nor outside. And his strategy,
as I said, is reliant on the IGC. And of
(07:38):
course he calls for civil disobedience and that type of
a struggle, but that you know, the regime arm to
his teeth, a regime that shows no scruples in killing
and massacring protesters like they did in twenty twenty two
seven hundred and fifty were killed in twenty nineteen when
fifteen hundred were killed. That kind of way, if you
(07:59):
were prescription or roadmap for change just is not going
to pan out. You've got to have an organization within
Iran is structured opposition within Iran. You've got to have
a specific plan for the future. What happens did they after?
Is it going to be democracy? Is it going to
be uh free elections? And he doesn't offer any of that.
(08:22):
And even now some of his supporters are chanting in
some of the small rallies. They hold that the god
of every Iranian is King Razora. What is this? I mean,
you know, if Iranians are infants and that that that
the shell of the saw is their god. So in
this context he's really a non entity, and he is.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
With all due respect, then why worry about I know
you said baby Shah is not an option replacing the Mulahs.
It's necessary now it's happening, But baby Shah is not
an option. If there's if he has no support, why worry?
Is it a power he can just claim.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
No, nobody is worried about him. It's not us who
are worried about him. But the problem is that in
many respects he's a divisive figure. Wherever others hold rally,
some of his hooligan supporters go unattacked and beat up people. Secondly,
and more importantly, the Iranian regime uses him in a
(09:29):
sense as propaganda to insinuate that, look, all of those
who calling for regime change actually want to have the
return of the monarchy, and that naturally demoralizes Deigin. In
the street, people would say, why would we protests against
this regime if it's going to be replacedful with another
(09:50):
you know, dictator. And so in this sense, his his
his activity, as limited as it is, is counterproductive. But
when it comes like to the NCRI and our activities,
of course we're doing what we have been doing for
the past forty six years. And of course the network
that supports us within Iran has expanded tremendously. They carried
(10:13):
out some three thousand acts of resistance against the IRGC
in all thirty one provinces of Iran. There have been
like hundreds of rallies and protests held outside of Iran,
like on March eighth that we had like thousands of
people here in Washington marching from the US capital to
(10:34):
the White House and calling for a free and democratic Iran,
gender equality, abolition of death penalty, and non nuclear Iran.
And as you may know, and perhaps Adereza has talked
to you, our movement has been at the forefront of
revealing the Iran's nuclear weapons program for the past twenty years.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
And that's what I wanted to ask you, and again
with with Ali Safavi in his Steed, his associates steed,
you say regime change, and that's at play here in
a lot of ways because talks between Iran and the
US they began, I think it was kind of hush
hush with Biden about a year and a half ago.
(11:21):
They were stalled and now dealing with Trump and there's
a changing of the guard in Iran. How can you
describe what the sentiment is, what the feeling is with
that there. I know Tehran's response to Trump's ultimatum hasn't
been great.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Yes, well that's a good question. First two things I
think need to be said. You want when you talk
about regime change, nobody's talking about boots on the ground,
none of that. That experience has been a total failure.
Iranians can bring about change themselves. They're ready, they're willing,
and the will to pay the price for it. There's
(12:01):
a structure, as I said, organization within Iran that is fighting,
taking the fight to the regime inside of Iran. So
we as Arenian opposition do not seek any financial support
nor military support from any government, including the US. That said,
when you talk about the negotiation, I think the president
(12:22):
the other day I saw his interview with NBC News.
He was spot on when he said, when you talk
about the nuclear program, there should be a total dismantlement
of the nuclear program. This talk about maybe we let
it run in which at the low level of three
point sixty seven percent, that's in a sense what the
region wants. Because when we first revealed the nuclear program
(12:45):
of Iran in twenty two thousand and two, the Europeans
had a chance to kill that program right there and then,
but they kept negotiating the regime. Of course, being very smart,
they dragged down the negotiations, kicked the can down the road,
and now you have them en reaching at sixty percent,
and so this regime cannot be trusted. They are masters
(13:08):
at deception, denial, and duplicity, and they cheat all the
while that the JCPOA did one nuclear deal that Obama
as signed with the regime. What's going on in twenty fifteen?
They were cheating and we have since then made several
key revelations of how their weaponization aspect of the nuclear
(13:29):
program has been advancing. So I think the president and
also Sexivice said Marco Rubio were spot on when they said,
when you talk about the nuclear program, they cannot have
a nuclear weapon, they cannot have any sort of enrichment.
Their missile program needs to be dismantled because just look
what they did recently. You know that all of the
(13:50):
missiles that they have been given to hooties, and of
course the hooties have been wreaking havoc in commercial shipping
in the Red Sea, and so in this cartext, I
think the idea of killing around Noolfield program is a
very important, I think initiative, and if it succeeds through negotiations,
(14:12):
all the better. But if history is a judge, these
models use negotiations to extract concessions from their foreign interlocutors,
as was the case over twenty years of negotiations with
the Europeans,
Ali Safavi. I appreciate you taking the time to come on.
An associate of Alarisa, Jeff Arceda, He's been on before,
Deputy director of the Washington Office of the National Council
of Resistance of Iran. I have to be perfectly honest
with you, it was really interesting to receive the information
(00:20):
on the baby Shah. You know, as a fifty eight
year old, I remember the Shah of Iran quite vividly,
and if I'm remembering correctly, was it not the Shah
of Iran's his Was it not the baby Shah's father's passing?
That was kind of the beginning of the hostage crisis
(00:43):
and that whole year where the US and Iran were
wildly at odds.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Well, first all again, thank you for having me on
the show, of course, and good morning to all of
your listeners. Well, if you recall, this whole hostage crisis
and the taking of fifty four American diplomats for hostage
for four hundred and forty four days was participated by Hormone,
(01:14):
who obviously a cleric, who stole the leadership of the
Popular Revolution to ferment anti American sentiment, and of course
a lot of that existed in Iran because of what
happened in nineteen fifty three when a popularly elected government,
(01:35):
the Nationalist government of doctor Morsdek, was overthrown by a
coup engineered by MI six and the CIA, And of
course the Shah basically auctioned of the country to foreign powers,
and the Iranians were poor, they were suffering. While Evan
(01:58):
sat on the sea of oil. You had people living
in chanty towns. But of course more important than that,
the shot secret police Savak was quite brutal in his
treatment of dissidence. There were reports of hundreds of people
killed on the torture by the Shah Savak, and the
(02:18):
Shah himself declared the one party system. He said, anybody
who doesn't want to be part of my party, they
can leave Iran. And so in that context, Harmiani exploited
that under current of opposition to foreign involvement in Iran
to consolidate his power. And so this whole episode, the
(02:38):
unfortunate episode of taking Americans hostage, basically was designed by
Hormioni to consolidate power and root out the democratic opposition.
So when you talk about the son of the Shah,
now the Iranian people have that memory. And yes, of
course the current regime has been brutal and has been
(03:00):
a thousand times worse than the previous regime. But Iranians
are not nostalgic about the past, and they don't want
to one party system, one man rule. They want a
democratic form of government like you have in the United
States or in countries in Europe, where you know, they
could have the right to self dissemination and choose their
own leaders. And so I think the issue of the
(03:24):
son of the Shah now making rounds in some media
and making some noise after being silent for forty some
years after he left Iran at the age of seventeen,
really doesn't wash much with those inside Iran, nor with
the Runi diaspora, because people, as you have, people have
(03:46):
a very vivid memory of how life was in Iran.
I remember those days, you know. I was a young
eighteen year old when I left Iran and came to
the United States and studies at UCLA and later in
Michigan for my postgraduate work, and we were all involved
in the anti shop movement, and we remember the excesses
(04:06):
of the show. And I don't think there really people
have forgotten those years. So that's why you see, like
in the latest round of uprising in Iran in twenty
twenty two, one of the most prevalent chants by Iranians
was down with the oppfessor, be it the Shaw or
the leader reference to the current leader Ali comedy. And
(04:30):
of course, as you know, most of those who took
part in the protest in twenty two and two were
young people, people who were not even born when the
show was in power, but yet their resentment and rejection
of monarchy is very, very strong, and they wanted democratic
form of government, a republican form of government where people's
(04:54):
volt is the only criteria for holding office and for
public political legitimacy.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
So much well said, and just so much there I
want to sink my teeth into. So you mentioned leaving
around at eighteen or no, you had said that, I
feels silly saying this, But he goes by baby Shah
or at the very least he's referred to as baby Shah.
He left at eighteen where four? And how old is
(05:21):
he now?
Speaker 2 (05:22):
In sixty four? Now, okay, he left at the age
of seventeen, you know, when the show was kicked out
of the country, yes, sir. Just before the revolution, they
first came to the United States, and of course that
the Iranian regime took the American diplomat hostage, and so
he was basically just sent to Egypt, where Shaw's father
(05:48):
when Shan's son, his father, Muhammad Reza Plevi, died in Egypt.
Actually they were first came to the US and they
were sent to Panama. He spent some time in a
hospital in Panama, and then from Panama he went to Egypt,
and that's where he died. And so Charles Son was
now to be found. But any time you'd see some
(06:08):
undressed inside Iran and thinking that perhaps this time this
regime will fall, he enters into the scene and makes
a comment here and there and does this for that interview.
But in reality, when you talk about changing Iran, naturally
you must have the bodies underground, You must have people
underground who would be willing to fight and die for
(06:31):
your cause. And when it comes to chasn first of all,
he doesn't have a cause. Secondly, he doesn't have anybody
on the street to be Iran. After all, his strategy
is based on cultivating the support of the criminal Islamic
Revolutionary Cards, which is a designated foreign terms organization in
(06:54):
the United States, and it's the very entity that suppresses
dere people. And so he doesn't have anybody underground in Iran.
Outside Iran, he doesn't have that many supporters. Just to
give you an idea, they mobilized with great fans for
a rally outside the White House on April thirteenth in Washington,
(07:17):
and no more than four hundred showed up. Where you
have at least five to six hundred thousand Iranians living
in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, DC. So it doesn't have
a base of support, neither inside nor outside. And his strategy,
as I said, is reliant on the IGC. And of
(07:38):
course he calls for civil disobedience and that type of
a struggle, but that you know, the regime arm to
his teeth, a regime that shows no scruples in killing
and massacring protesters like they did in twenty twenty two
seven hundred and fifty were killed in twenty nineteen when
fifteen hundred were killed. That kind of way, if you
(07:59):
were prescription or roadmap for change just is not going
to pan out. You've got to have an organization within
Iran is structured opposition within Iran. You've got to have
a specific plan for the future. What happens did they after?
Is it going to be democracy? Is it going to
be uh free elections? And he doesn't offer any of that.
(08:22):
And even now some of his supporters are chanting in
some of the small rallies. They hold that the god
of every Iranian is King Razora. What is this? I mean,
you know, if Iranians are infants and that that that
the shell of the saw is their god. So in
this context he's really a non entity, and he is.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
With all due respect, then why worry about I know
you said baby Shah is not an option replacing the Mulahs.
It's necessary now it's happening, But baby Shah is not
an option. If there's if he has no support, why worry?
Is it a power he can just claim.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
No, nobody is worried about him. It's not us who
are worried about him. But the problem is that in
many respects he's a divisive figure. Wherever others hold rally,
some of his hooligan supporters go unattacked and beat up people. Secondly,
and more importantly, the Iranian regime uses him in a
(09:29):
sense as propaganda to insinuate that, look, all of those
who calling for regime change actually want to have the
return of the monarchy, and that naturally demoralizes Deigin. In
the street, people would say, why would we protests against
this regime if it's going to be replacedful with another
(09:50):
you know, dictator. And so in this sense, his his
his activity, as limited as it is, is counterproductive. But
when it comes like to the NCRI and our activities,
of course we're doing what we have been doing for
the past forty six years. And of course the network
that supports us within Iran has expanded tremendously. They carried
(10:13):
out some three thousand acts of resistance against the IRGC
in all thirty one provinces of Iran. There have been
like hundreds of rallies and protests held outside of Iran,
like on March eighth that we had like thousands of
people here in Washington marching from the US capital to
(10:34):
the White House and calling for a free and democratic Iran,
gender equality, abolition of death penalty, and non nuclear Iran.
And as you may know, and perhaps Adereza has talked
to you, our movement has been at the forefront of
revealing the Iran's nuclear weapons program for the past twenty years.
Speaker 1 (10:57):
And that's what I wanted to ask you, and again
with with Ali Safavi in his Steed, his associates steed,
you say regime change, and that's at play here in
a lot of ways because talks between Iran and the
US they began, I think it was kind of hush
hush with Biden about a year and a half ago.
(11:21):
They were stalled and now dealing with Trump and there's
a changing of the guard in Iran. How can you
describe what the sentiment is, what the feeling is with
that there. I know Tehran's response to Trump's ultimatum hasn't
been great.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Yes, well that's a good question. First two things I
think need to be said. You want when you talk
about regime change, nobody's talking about boots on the ground,
none of that. That experience has been a total failure.
Iranians can bring about change themselves. They're ready, they're willing,
and the will to pay the price for it. There's
(12:01):
a structure, as I said, organization within Iran that is fighting,
taking the fight to the regime inside of Iran. So
we as Arenian opposition do not seek any financial support
nor military support from any government, including the US. That said,
when you talk about the negotiation, I think the president
(12:22):
the other day I saw his interview with NBC News.
He was spot on when he said, when you talk
about the nuclear program, there should be a total dismantlement
of the nuclear program. This talk about maybe we let
it run in which at the low level of three
point sixty seven percent, that's in a sense what the
region wants. Because when we first revealed the nuclear program
(12:45):
of Iran in twenty two thousand and two, the Europeans
had a chance to kill that program right there and then,
but they kept negotiating the regime. Of course, being very smart,
they dragged down the negotiations, kicked the can down the road,
and now you have them en reaching at sixty percent,
and so this regime cannot be trusted. They are masters
(13:08):
at deception, denial, and duplicity, and they cheat all the
while that the JCPOA did one nuclear deal that Obama
as signed with the regime. What's going on in twenty fifteen?
They were cheating and we have since then made several
key revelations of how their weaponization aspect of the nuclear
(13:29):
program has been advancing. So I think the president and
also Sexivice said Marco Rubio were spot on when they said,
when you talk about the nuclear program, they cannot have
a nuclear weapon, they cannot have any sort of enrichment.
Their missile program needs to be dismantled because just look
what they did recently. You know that all of the
(13:50):
missiles that they have been given to hooties, and of
course the hooties have been wreaking havoc in commercial shipping
in the Red Sea, and so in this cartext, I
think the idea of killing around Noolfield program is a
very important, I think initiative, and if it succeeds through negotiations,
(14:12):
all the better. But if history is a judge, these
models use negotiations to extract concessions from their foreign interlocutors,
as was the case over twenty years of negotiations with
the Europeans,
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