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Anni Cyrus - Unpacking the Political, Historical and Religious Background of the Iran Israel Clash

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Show Notes and Transcript

A warm welcome for the return of Anni Cyrus, host of "Live Up to Freedom" to provide a detailed analysis of Iran's history and its impact on the Middle East.
She traces Iran's journey from Zoroastrianism to the Islamic Revolution of 1979, highlighting the societal changes and challenges faced under the Islamic regime.
Anni explores Iran's relationships with neighbouring countries like Saudi Arabia and Turkey, shedding light on power struggles and religious divisions in the region.
She also discusses Iran's media censorship, political landscape, and foreign policy towards Israel, emphasizing the use of proxies for influence.
We end with reflections on the possibilities for change in Iran and its implications for regional stability.

Aynaz “Anni” Cyrus is the founder of ‘Live Up To Freedom’, she was born in 1983 into an Islamic family in Iran, after the Islamic Revolution removed the Shah and turned the “mini-America” of the Middle East into an Islamic tyranny. Given no choice, Aynaz was labeled as a Muslim by birth. Under Sharia (Islamic Law) she grew up under total Islamic dominance by her father, a Sheikh, and her mother, a Quran teacher.
At age nine, Aynaz rejected Islam completely in her heart and mind. It happened on her 9th birthday when the Islamic state, in a public ceremony, declared the absurdity that she would be, from that day forward by law, an adult woman.
Over the next six years, Aynaz suffered terrible, but legal by Islamic Law, abuses and punishments at the hands of many Islamic males of Iran. After being forcibly sold by her own father into an extremely violent marriage, Aynaz desperately sought escape from her hell as a child bride. Even after being visibly battered one last time, the Islamic courts denied her a divorce from the man who was clearly bound to beat her to death.
So at age 15, facing death by one way or the other, Aynaz got herself smuggled out of Iran, to save her own life. Knowing nothing of the life of freedom for women and girls outside of Iran or Islam, she ran into what she calls “The Unknown.” But her running was a crime, for which, to this day, she stands condemned to death by stoning under Sharia.
Aynaz then gained asylum in Turkey through the United Nations. But, as an unaccompanied minor, she was obligated to wait three more years. Finally, at age 18 her petition to become an American citizen was approved. After a further delay following 9/11, Anyaz was allowed entry into the United States on August 8, 2002. She became a naturalized and proud American citizen in 2010.
Since 2011, Aynaz has produced the popular Internet video series, “The Glazov Gang”, hosted by renowned author in the counter-jihad movement, Dr. Jamie Glazov. Aynaz also appears in many of the show’s hundreds of segments. Years of her media appearances are found in public speaking venues, interviews, videos, and articles, published in affiliation with The David Horowitz Freedom Center, Jihad Watch, Breitbart, American Thinker, Worldview Weekend, and American Truth Project, to mention a few.

Connect with Anni…..
WEBSITE liveuptofreedom.com
GETTR: gettr.com/user/AnniCyrus
X x.com/LiveUpToFreedom
INSTAGRAM instagram.com/aynazcyrus
TELEGRAM t.me/Liveuptofreedom

Interview recorded 19.4.24

Connect with Hearts of Oak...
WEBSITE heartsofoak.org
PODCASTS heartsofoak.podbean.com
SOCIAL MEDIA heartsofoak.org/connect
SHOP heartsofoak.org/shop

*Special thanks to Bosch Fawstin for recording our intro/outro on this podcast.

Check out his art theboschfawstinstore.blogspot.com and follow him on X twitter.com/TheBoschFawstin

Transcript

(Hearts of Oak)

And I'm delighted to have Anni Cyrus back with us again. Anni, thank you so much for your time today.

(Anni Cyrus)

Absolutely. My pleasure. It's been a while.

It has. That's exactly what I was thinking. It has been a while.

And current events bring us together with the madness and chaos over in the Middle East.

And who better, I thought, than asking on is Anni Cyrus.

But first, people can find you @LiveUpToFreedom.

Tell us about your show. Just give people, give the viewers, if they don't follow you, give them a taster of what they can find and what you put out.

Absolutely. So Live Up to Freedom, which is also the name of my show, we produce two shows a week at the moment, hoping to somehow get to five days a week.

But the majority of information that is produced on Live Up to Freedom is related to Middle East, Islamization, Sharia, and the dangers of red-green axis.

90% of the time, this is the type of educational programming.

I mean, I don't force my opinion, but I will give you evidence from the Quran, from the Sira, from the Sura, every single one evidence coming from their own word, proving the fact that the possibility of us coexisting, not really possible.

I'm with you 100%. And I do want your opinion, full force.

So, yeah, I'm looking forward to getting your thoughts. But maybe I can ask you, we have watched what has happened with Israel, obviously, and then watched what has happened with Iran responding.

Most of the viewers, whether they're US-based or UK-based, have zero concept of how Iran fits in the Middle East. They may have an understanding of, if they know history, of the Persian Empire.

So it is a history that stretches back thousands of years.

But today, few people in the West have an idea, I guess, of how Iran fits in.

But obviously, you're Iranian-born.

You live in the States at the moment.

Maybe just touch on that about Iran and how it fits in with that, I guess, illustrious history over the thousands of years?

How does Iran kind of fit in to the Middle East jigsaw?

Sure. So let me start from here. Since you brought up the Persian Empire, let me just set the record straight about Persians versus Persian Empire.

There's this thing going on lately that Persians don't exist because Persia doesn't exist.

I want to make it very clear. Iran, as you know it today, is what was of Persia.

So by nationality, we are Iranians. By race, we are Persians. Why is this important?

Because there's a difference between nationality and race.

And that's where actually we get all confused between racism, if you're criticized Islam, because a lot of nations now carry Islam.

If you say something against Islam, they're racism Islam.

Their race could be Persian, could be Indian, could be Arab.

Now, Arab race has a breakdown. Again, Syrian Arabs have their own DNA.

Saudi Arabian Arabs have their own DNA. However, there's one group of Arabs that don't have DNA, Peter, and that is Palestinians.

The reason it's important to say we're Persians, nationality Iranian, is because we can make the point of there is no such a race as Palestinians.

If you would do a DNA test on anyone in Palestine claiming to be Palestinian, you would find the DNAs of Syrian Arabs.

You would find Iraqi Arabs.

You would find even Egyptian blood.

But you wouldn't find a Palestinian race blood because it doesn't exist.

Now, I'm going to pull a leftist here and say, if you're willing to call them Palestinian by race, well, I identify as a Persian, so you're going to call me a Persian.

That being said, Persian Empire down to a smaller size, down to a smaller size to today, which is a tiny bit of Islamic Republic of Iran, has always been the heart of Middle East.

Literally the heart. Depending on how Iran beats, Middle East operates.

That's why it's the heart. You go back, we're not going to even go 2,700 years ago. Let's not do that. We could.

Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, freed the Jews in Babylon, told them you're free, and there you go. Temple Mount is there.

That's how much Persia or Iran has been the heart. But recent, 45 years ago, 47, 50 years ago, when Iran was under the kingdom of Shah Pahlavi, you look at Middle East, there was peace.

Prosperity, lots and lots of import and export financially, economy of Middle East was in good shape.

Every neighbour country was also in good shape as far as culture, freedom, education goes.

Islamic regime took over in a matter of 45 years.

Not only Iran itself with all the resources Iran has, and I'm just going to name a few.

Iran is number one land of making saffron.

We have the second top quality pistachio.

I'm not going to even go into the oil industry because everybody's aware of that.

And then considering between Afghanistan and Iran, you have the two only countries producing opium.

Well, I know some people misuse it, but it still is important material we need.

So with all the resources, Iranian people, more than 82% are living life under the line of poverty by international standards.

Same thing with the neighbours. You got the Turkey, you got Pakistan, you got Afghanistan, Azerbaijan.

That is how much Iran's operation has affected not only Middle East, but over here with Western countries.

I hope that answered the question.

Oh, it does. I want to go back because we look at Islamic connection with Iran.

But if you go, I mean, long time prior to the Islamic revolution in, it was 79, you've got from different breakups of the kingdom.

And before that, you had from, I think, from the 20s, the Iranian state.

So Islam was not in it. Tell us kind of how Iran kind of fits into that, where it's now known as the Islamic Republic of Iran.

But before that, Islam wasn't in the name. Does that mean Islam was not part of the culture?

Sure.

Yes. So if we go back way back, way back, about 2,700 years ago, all the way to about 1,800 years ago, that period of time, majority of Iranians were known as Zoroastrians.

There were some other atheists, there were Jews, there were Christians, all that.

But then the Battle of Mohammed started 1,400 years ago. Now, what was the Battle of Muhammad?

Muhammad started from Mecca, then went to Medina, then conquered Saudi Arabia.

Now, who was the competition? Who was the biggest challenge? Persian Empire.

Persia was standing up. They even sent messengers to the king of that time saying, have your people convert to Islam and we'll leave you alone.

The king was like, no, we're good.

We're not going to force anybody. So the very first time, the very first attack of Islamic attack, which in history books, you read them as Arab attacks.

Yes, there were Saudi Arabians, but the attack wasn't about race.

It had nothing to do with land versus land or people versus people.

It was Mohammed continuing to conquer of Islamization to basically, you know, the global caliphate, which then global was just that area.

The first attack happened. They couldn't conquer. The second one couldn't conquer on and on and on and on for a long time.

In meantime, some of the Iranians or Persians decided to convert by choice, by choice, until one of the Iranians who by choice converted decided to become a traitor and basically start cooperating with the Arabs.

That was the first time I want to say about probably 800, 700 years ago is when the first time of conquering people of Persia happened. A lot of Zoroastrians escaped.

They went to India. That's why you see somewhat the biggest population of Zoroastrians are found in India. They took refuge in India.

Some converted, some were killed, some became dhimmis and gradually either converted or died and fast forward all the way to almost, I want to say, 90, 92 years ago, when one of the kingdoms of Iran on the Qajar, or you guys pronounce it Qajar dynasty, they actually ruled under Islam.

The king in the kingdom decided we will rule under, the full hijab came to the country.

The full mosque building started.

And then Pahlavi dynasty returned that. They didn't get rid of Islam, but they did return the country into America, freedom of religion.

If you want to be a Muslim, be a Muslim. If you want to be Christian, be a Christian, anything.

Until the first king, Pahlavi, decided to actually ban Sharia in Iran.

Nobody was allowed to wear hijab, mosques were shut down.

And surprise, surprise, England and France got involved and told him that you're going to lose power if you don't give them their freedom back.

So the decision was the father will step down, the son will take over.

And they will allow Sharia to continue.

On top of that, they will allow one representative of Islam or Muslim community of Iran to step into Congress.

The rest is history. Literally 20 years later, Islamic revolution happened and it has never gone back.

But it's not just Iran, I guess, has a history. Think Egypt having a long history.

Lebanon, I know, reading the Bible and you hear about the cedars of Lebanon.

And then you think of Saudi Arabia and you think of the House of Saud.

But a long time before that, there were different emirates in that area.

And some of those countries have been artificially created, maybe like Jordan.

But other countries actually have got a history of thousands of years.

How does that work? Because as a Brit, I think of Europe and the struggle with the nations in Europe for dominance with France, Spain, with the UK.

What is that kind of struggle like in the Middle East with those countries that have a long history?

Well, another country we can name is Afghanistan.

If you look, Afghanistan is a pretty recent conqueror of Islamization.

Right around 1979 when Iran was conquered, very shortly before that, Afghanistan was conquered.

Afghanistan has a long history of battling back and forth and by the way I sometimes feel like people of Afghanistan are not getting the credit they deserve they have such a long and pure history, cultural music involved in art involved they have some of the most unique musical instrument you find out there that is now westernized and used but nobody knows because everybody thinks Afghanistan was, you know, Islamic country from day one, and Afghans were all Muslim. That is not what it is.

Now, that battle, with Saudi Arabia, you need to realize when Mohammed, you know, came up and said, I am the prophet, the majority of people in Saudi Arabia were.

I can't pronounce the English, when you believe in more than one god, polygamous?

Is that the word?

Polytheism?

There you go, polytheism.

So with Saudi Arabia, there is a much deeper root of Islam.

It was literally the first introduced religion that unified the country.

It did, or nation. But the rest of Middle Eastern countries those who are not as you said artificial those that existed they were none of them has any roots, none of them, that's the thing sometimes we have this saying in Middle East is like, oh you're just a Muslim born, meaning you're not really Muslim and I'm like, that doesn't exist, it doesn't because nobody the root, except of Saudi Arabia, there is no other race or nation that was the start.

So that the struggle for every single Middle Eastern country back and forth between this.

Now, again, I even during the Pahlavi kingdom, Peter, nobody minded Muslims.

Nobody did because it wasn't the constitution.

You wanted to be a Muslim, be a Muslim. But then on the other end of the city, you would find, you know, restaurants and bars and concerts.

And women with short skirts. The struggle in Middle East even as recent as two years ago in Afghanistan. It's the matter of literally forcing this Islam into the country rather than allowing it, which is one of my main arguments. if this religion is such a religion of peace, why is it that wherever it goes it's forced, feared, blood involved. If it's so peaceful why can't they get people to convert on their own, but rather have to force them to do it.

So that has been the struggle of last literally 1400 years.

Today, you find people from Saudi Arabia who reject Sharia.

They don't want their constitution to be Sharia anymore. Now, do we have Sharia-based constitution in Western countries?

No. But are many of them already living life under Sharia?

I would say, for example, London is a great city to name.

I have not been to London because they won't let me come to England.

But the last time I left London was January of 2011.

And sometimes when I look at some of the videos or live feeds coming from London, like that's not where I was. That's not what I remember of London.

So not to make it even longer than I did, if Western countries don't realize that there needs to be an absolute cap and limitation, the struggle of Middle East will start coming here, where you constantly have the battle of Islamization, de-Islamization, Islamization, de-Islamization, and gradually the culture will disappear.

I hate to say it, when I look at my fellow Iranians today, there isn't much of Persian culture left anymore. it's something of a confused

Arab versus Persian, versus Sharia, versus Western.

It's a very mixed up where, sadly, you can't really pinpoint anything left of that land or country or culture and behaviour of the people.

Half of the Farsi they speak, I don't even understand. I'm like, what is that?

Any of the leaders, they started talking. I'm like, okay, you're not a speaking Farsi. It's full on Arabic at this point.

Tell me, when I talk, and I want to get up to the current day where we are, but I'm curious because I talk to a lot of my African friends, especially in church, and you realize that African nations are tribal-based and there is more allegiance to the tribe than there is to the nation.

We look at Nigeria and it's completely separated on tribal lines.

What is it like for a country like Iran? Iran is a large country, nearly 90 million, so it has influence in that regard.

How does it work when people call themselves Iranian or me? How has it worked prior to the Islamic Revolution in 1979?

Where is that kind of identity and connection for Iranians who lived there prior to the revolution?

That's actually an interesting question. One of the top things I did a few years ago, one of the things I mentioned about Iran that many people are not aware of is the majority of Iranians are actually bilingual by about age 9 or 10.

Because Iran, as of today still, it has, if you look at the map, the south versus northeast versus west.

They are tribes, not the African style of tribe, but they do have their own tribes where you have the Kurds who are still within their own culture.

Their customs are still the old school, traditional Kurdish.

They speak the Kurdish language at home and then they speak the Farsi language, which is the country's language.

And then you have the Turks in Tabriz and some of those areas.

Again, the food and the music and the language is the Turkish.

And again, this is because you shrunk this huge empire down into the small size of the country.

A lot of tribes are still in there.

You have the Fars, literally, who are the pure Persians, the only non-bilingual people of Iran who only speak Farsi, have the traditional customs of Persia, the way they do their Norse versus the rest of the provinces.

Says it's different however somehow for some reason it has always been united regardless of who's from which side or which background, doesn't matter if you're the Arab of the south or if you're the Kurd or you're the Turk or you're the Fars it has always been united until the Islamic revolution, where the country became divided based on Muslims versus non-Muslims.

And when I say non-Muslim, Peter, I don't mean Christian or Jew.

No, I mean non-Muslims in eyes of the government.

Those like Mahsa Amini, who don't wear the proper hijab. Those who don't do the prayer the right way.

Those who wear the makeup. Those who have boyfriend or girlfriends, which is against Sharia. Those are the secondary group of people.

Tell me about when you think 45 years ago, the revolution, what does that mean for freedom within the country?

I know it's claimed to be 99% Muslim, but not just religious, but general freedom within the country.

What is it like to live in the current, I guess regime or government in Iran?

I'm so glad you asked that I was having a discussion with a friend of mine literally yesterday about this, that it has come to a point where the the lack of freedom isn't, isn't just about your, what you say or what you wear or what you eat anymore.

The lack of freedom has gotten to a point where a majority of Iranians, especially the younger generation have lost absolute motivation, that the answer always is, well, so what?

Like, why don't you go get a job? It's like, then what?

Why don't you go to school? Do what with it?

You literally have Uber drivers it's not Uber, it's called a snap I think in Iran, when they pick you up snap, you sit in the car and by the way for those of you, yes I have not been back to Iran but I do have people who are in Iran or just came back from Iran so the information comes from there, now I'm not smuggling myself back. You start talking to the driver and he will tell you that he holds a darn PhD, Peter, but there's no job for him, either because he doesn't belong to IRGC or SEPA or this group of Islam or that group of Islam, or it's the fact that somewhere somehow when he was younger, got arrested and has some sort of morality police stamp on his resume.

So he won't be hired or it's the matter of, he is not a Muslim.

He's a Baha'i. He can't admit he's a Baha'i. They're going to kill him, so he'd rather drive his own taxi than go get killed.

It's just literally there is zero motivation to do anything with your life because one way or another, you'll be blocked by this regime.

Genuinely, they wake up in the morning, change their mind about the latest law, and there's nothing to stop them.

There is nothing that could stop them from changing the laws every hour.

Every house supreme leader can literally wake up this morning and say colour red is forbidden for women, I dare you wear red, They will arrest you. They will probably put you in detention centre.

They will drag you to Sharia court and then probably, I don't know, lash you a couple of lashes and you home.

Make an example out of you. Nobody else can avoid a wreck.

Now, I'm making this up as an example, but to that, the small detail of life is being controlled.

Tell us how, within the country, what does it mean for the media?

What does it mean for, I mean, some countries like Dubai want to be outward.

Focused but still want to be Islamic where other countries like Saudi it's maybe less, so it's wanting to have that pure Islam and there is a less focus on being outward looking, when you think of Iran you think of something which is a closed box because of the devotion to Islam and that cuts off the West so what does that mean within, for education, for media?

Okay, so we need to explain something before we even answer that question. By we, I mean me.

I identify as... Media in Iran. There is no... private or alternative media. There's just one type of media, which is owned by government, ran by government, approved by government, everything government.

There are, I believe six channels of cable, only six.

One is dedicated to news.

One is dedicated to sports.

And the other three, one is dedicated to religion actually. Most of the time, it's like some Mullah sitting there dissecting and fat buzz and Corona and stuff.

And then there are two, that is a combination movies, TV series, commercial news, a little bit, things like that.

Now, why am I breaking it down is because it is so extremely controlled that it's only six, Only six.

For example, the sport channel, you'll never find any kind of female competition inside or outside of Iran out there.

You just don't. They cover all of the European leagues, right?

The soccer leagues. And you literally see that if they pass by a female audience in a stadium who is wearing makeup or open hair, you literally see them blurred out and then you come back to zoom back in.

To that extent what is being aired inside the country's control You can make a movie in Iran, but before you make a movie you got to take your script and your crew names to this department that's going to read the script, either approve it or tweak it then approve it or reject it, if you get approved on your script then you go make the movie, but before you air the movie Peter they will watch how you make this script.

If they find one scene, just one scene that they don't like, they'll have you go either redo it, edit it, come back again.

A movie can take seven years to be released or two minutes to be rejected.

Doesn't matter how much you spend on your movie.

It's done. Won't never come out.

So that's the internal. Now, they have one, Tenseem is the name of it.

I actually report from it a lot.

They have one, let's say, kind of like an article or text formatting website that is tied to the regime.

And then they have their own Islamic Republic of Iran's broadcasting website.

Those are the ones that are being fed propaganda and lies to be published because we outside have access to that.

We read that where it makes it look like the country is flawless and people are super happy and the elections are going fantastic, that is the one for external use that is mainly filled with propaganda

And how does politics work? How does, are there elections, were there elections before, how does that work in the country?

Yes there are, there are selections. There are selection election however it's in your best interest to show up for this election, because one they can create a lot of propaganda video and put it out, number two, now in Iran when you vote they actually stamp like you use your index on a stamp and they you put it on your birth certificate which Iranian birth certificates are like a lot of booklets, now if you have that a printer means you voted.

And for example, at the end of the year, when they're giving away coupon for chicken or egg or oil or whatever it is, if you have that fingerprint, you get your coupon.

If you don't, well, good luck, go buy it out of your own pocket.

So it's a selection coordinated to look like an election. And if you don't show up, well, there are consequences.

[Hmm tell me how it, is the focus with Iran with the leadership, is it for dominance within the region and then you're clashing with the other Islamic nations or is it with the destruction of Israel because Iran and Israel don't border, think isn't Iraq between them if I my middle eastern geography is bad so feel free to correct me, but how does it fit in, what is the goal?

Is it regional stability and power within the region, or is it focused on hatred towards Israel?

Can I go with all of the above? Is that an option?

Internally, the regime or the mullahs, internally, main focus is to re-establish a stability.

Because literally from 2009 and the Green Movement, on and on and on, they have lost that stability. Every time there's an uprising, it's becoming a stronger, longer, stronger, more planned.

So they're trying to gain that stability they had for the first, I don't know, 27 years of their power.

That's number one internally. Now, how do they gain that is by creating some sort of dilemma or war for the people of Iran to stand down because they're, at the end of the day, if you look at the history of Iran-Iraq war for eight years, eight years, people of Iran fought.

And I can tell you, I have heard directly from the soldiers or from children of those soldiers that they have always said, we didn't fight for the mullahs.

We fought for our country.

Okay. So with that, if there is a war going on, even if it's a small, even if it's not a major, it doesn't have to be an eight years war, but the regime can reestablish that stability inside.

They do have hatred for Israel. I repeat, when Khomeini arrived in Tehran in 1979, he was driven from the plane airport to the biggest and most, I don't know why it's famous, but famous cemetery in Tehran.

They put a chair, he sat on it, and he started talking.

The very first thing that came out of his mouth was, let the plan begin.

We're going to take down the great Satan and wipe Israel off the map.

Now, 47 years ago, they already said what they're planning to do. So that's that.

They want to wipe Israel off the map. Is it mainly religious beliefs?

Yes. But also, it's the fact that they know that as long as Israel exists, Iran will not be able, in any shape or form, or the government of Iran, rest easy knowing they have the land forever.

But you've got a, I mean, you could have countries coming together with a focus on a common enemy, which is Israel for everyone.

But then you've got, you've got obviously Lebanon and Syria basically failed states, but then you've got Turkey and Saudi and Egypt and the Emirate, Dubai wanting to assert themselves.

So is there no coming together against a common enemy?

Because Iran seems to be very much still out in the cold in regards to relations with other nations around it.

That's a good question. I highly doubt that Iran and Saudi Arabia would ever come together.

Again, going back to 1400 years ago, this battle didn't start yesterday and it's not going to end tomorrow. That Saudi Arabia versus Iran, or better yet, Arabs versus Persians war, a battle has been going on for a long time.

And is Saudi Arabia targeting Israel enough to put themselves in this scenario? I doubt it.

As far as Turkey is concerned, right now, Erdogan is doing a lot of talking.

But remember, Erdogan needs to be very careful because they don't want to be kicked out of EU.

This much of the country is in Europe. The rest is in Middle East.

They worked so hard to squeeze themselves into EU.

He's going to have to be very careful because he won't have the allies he has today.

If he's kicked back into full on Middle East, that's when Iran is going to come after him.

Iran and Turkey on paper, it might seem all good, but Iran and Turkey don't get along either.

All the way from the Caliph of Sunnis until today, the Sunni versus Shia scenario has been going on between Turkey and Iran. So I know Erdogan does a lot of talking.

I don't believe unless Russia gets involved, Turkey won't get involved.

That's the only time Turkey will get involved because now Turkey has the approval of Russia to get involved and back Iran.

So let me jump up to the present day.

And if my research serves me correct, I don't think Iran has actually struck at Israel since the revolution.

And this seems to be from what I've understood knowing little about Iranian politics but it seems to be the the first attack on Israel. Is that correct and how does what Iran have done, the attack on Israel, how does that change things in the region?

You are correct. Yes since 79 until today there has never been a direct, a strike or attack from Iran toward Israel.

But I go back to the fact that we need to acknowledge they are playing it this way, but we need to remember this attack directly was by IRGC.

IRGC is Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. It is not Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Were they put together by Khomeini? Absolutely. Do they belong to the government of Iran?

No, there are their own entity freely guarding all Islamic nations.

That's why you have their children such as Hezbollah and Houthis and Hamas out there.

That being said, I don't, this is not going to be pleasant to a lot of your audience, but I'll say it.

Iran's strike or IRGC's strike or Israel's airstrike. Neither one of them were strikes. This just doesn't look like anybody's planning to do anything major. Both Iran and Israel have the military needs, means, sorry, wrong word. To do real damage if they wanted to, This whole, in Farsi, we laugh and say, you know, they knock at each other's door and run and hide.

Seems like that's what they're doing. They send a couple of missiles, yeah, 300, lots of missiles and drones, but then they call and say, heads up, in about an hour, hour and a half, fix up your iron dome so we're about to arrive.

When was the last time Hamas gave a heads up? Right? October 7th happened, catching everybody off guard.

And they left a mark. You know what I mean?

This Iran Saturday strike and this Israel striking back, which by the way, Iran is absolutely denying the existence of this attack back.

And that's what you need to look at. Iran goes saying, okay, we attack, this is it.

If you attack back, we're going to be in a split second, we're going to destroy Israel.

Israel attack back and Iran denies it. It ignores it, never happened.

Does that look like something is about to change in the Middle East? No.

This is all tied back to Western countries. In America, we're in election year. We're in election year.

Whatever happens over there can definitely help Biden over here.

Europe is in pretty much a lot of chaos.

The tests run up. Are they going to sit back and let us do whatever we want to do?

Or are they going to dare try to rescue and get attacked in their own countries with our sleeper cells?

That's all there is to this I'm not downplaying anything but I know both countries, I've heard and I've seen the capability of both ends, this doesn't look like something that's going to turn into world war three, that's not going to happen

No you're right when I read the reports a day before, 100 rockets are going to be fired over and talking to people and they said seriously who gives their enemy that much notice and then the next day 100 came over to the number.

So you've got that a show of strength and I get that as a show of strength, especially drones taking three to four hours and it shows you what you can do, but with Iran having so many proxies, I mean Hezbollah are a serious threat to the region and seemingly much more dangerous than Hamas are and they're embedded in Lebanon and Syria.

How does that play and does Iran not just use a proxy like Hezbollah to attack Israel instead of firing over what, drones that take four hours?

That's not a serious attack, but Hezbollah do seem to be serious.

Yes, exactly. And that's where I put my thought process.

I'm like, OK, you have Hezbollah and you have Hamas. And again, I go back to October 7.

It shocked all of us.

Not because we weren't expecting Hamas to be so barbaric. No, it was the fact that nobody called anybody to say, okay, so tomorrow at your music festival, we're coming.

That's how you do serious damage. You have Hezbollah, you have Hamas.

And I'll go back to what I've said many times, and I've been accused of many things.

Israel is not going to take on Iran. You know why?

Israel has what it takes to take on Hamas, and they never did. They haven't.

I was looking on my Facebook page, and last year, this week, is exactly when this Hamas-Israeli situation was going on, and Biden was on the phone asking for a ceasefire, which Israel ended up doing the ceasefire.

Every year. It's a pattern. It just happens.

But for anybody to either get excited or get nervous that something's going to come out of this, no.

Hezbollah is regrouping, yes.

Israel is talking about possibly going into Lebanon, yes.

Is any of this going to put an end to this back and forth? I highly doubt it. I do.

In no shape or form is it in benefit of anyone involved with globalist groups or elite or deep state.

None of whom have any interest in ending this conflict in Middle East.

So it's not going to end one way or another, and it's not going to even start.

Again, it's that time of the year where everybody needs to get a little dusty in Middle East, and then everybody's going to go home and next year we'll repeat.

That's just the way things go. Unfortunately, as much as I wish somebody would finally put their foot down and say enough is enough, nobody's going to do that.

They are just giving a break to Hamas for now. While Hezbollah is regrouping IRGC is doing a lot of manoeuvring, And that's it. Now, why is Israel not standing up? Well, that one is a question for Netanyahu.

It's interesting watching because, obviously, Israel didn't deal with Hamas before.

It's now been forced to deal with Hamas.

And Israel are going to do what it takes.

That's how it seems. And whatever force is needed for them to secure their security, they will go for.

But I guess the Islamic nations have been happy for Hamas to be a thorn in the side and for the Palestinians to be a thorn in the side of Israel because that keeps Israel's defence spending high, it keeps their a threat level high, it keeps that fear, it's perfect to kind of keep Israel nervous and not let them kind of relax a constant state of war I guess. What does it mean if Hamas are removed to a degree?

Does it then, do those nations around think, what's next? Does Hezbollah then have to come in and provide that?

What does that mean for stability? Because it does seem the country has been happy to sit back and let Hamas do the, let's piss off Israel role.

Well actually to emphasize on your point, Hamas and Palestinians were put there exactly for that purpose, now I brought this up a couple of times that we call, I don't, but Western countries you call them Palestinians but if you talk to them, talk to Rashida Talib, for example, and listen to their chants on the streets of UK, France,

US, Canada, anywhere, you don't hear Palestine, you hear Philistine. It's Philistine.

The enemies of Jews, Philistine.

They were picked. This name wasn't specifically picked. Their location wasn't specifically picked.

That's one of the reasons when it comes to the argument of Palestinians versus Israel or the Gaza border.

I just opened this up. First of all, you don't find an Arab-speaking person who can say Palestine.

Again, my mother tongue of Farsi was not Farsi. It's Parsi.

Parsi, the language of the Pars people of Persia.

It turned into Farsi because in Arabic language there is no character as P they don't say Pepsi they say Bepsi, how do you expect them to say Palestine, no we have turned that into Palestine so we hide the fact that they are the Philistinians the enemies of Jews, so they are put in place and named specifically for that reason. Now, if Israel for any reason would finally come to realize that let's just take him out once and for all, and yes, taking out Hamas is very much doable.

And that way, they will force the hands of IRGC and Hezbollah of Lebanon to actually take action.

That's when Israel will have what they need legally by international law to actually overthrow the regime of Iran.

But they won't.

Yeah, and with the Palestinian, we've had Robert Spencer on maybe a month or six weeks ago, and I enjoyed his Palestinian myth book.

So 100% with you that it is a made-up terminology.

Can I just finish off on Iran and you've been great at giving us a broad sweep I think to help us understand, because many of us are completely unaware of not only where the countries fit in together but where Iran fits in, but what does it mean for Iran and freedom because you want individuals to be able to choose where they live, how they live and to decide they don't want the constant state of tension with their neighbours.

What does it mean for Iran going forward?

Is there a chance of a revolution in Iran from the people to overthrow the regime and have something which cares about people's rights and freedoms?

Or do you not have any great hope for that happening in the near future?

This might come as a surprise if...

Lord willing, comes November, and we get President Trump back in the office.

Within months, there will be an uprising in Iran.

The last two times people of Iran tried, unfortunately, once was during Hussein Obama, once was Biden, they couldn't get the help they needed.

They couldn't get the Biden regime or Obama regime to put sanctions and pressure on the regime. So they ended up losing a lot of lives, either by being killed or being imprisoned and tortured daily. So they went home.

I know for a fact, if President Trump is back in office, people of Iran will try again. Will they be successful?

That's when the Israeli government comes to picture.

Again, Iran by itself, people of Iran, first of all, remember, they don't have a Second Amendment.

Not only that, there are no illegal guns to be bought either.

The borders are extremely protected in Iran. You can't even smuggle them into the country. So they're always empty handed.

Secondly, the very first thing that happened is the regime cut down, cuts off the internet access to the people, which adds the agony of now what?

How do we get the message out?

How do we get the people to put pressure on the government?

So Israel and America's government play a huge role of what will happen internally in Islamic Republic of Iran next.

We need all these sanctions back. We need a lot of economic pressure back on Iran, and we need Israel to keep pushing back.

Then people of Iran will have what it takes to finally overthrow these people.

Am I hopeful? Always. There's always hope. As Robert Spencer said, it's not over until it's over, and it's not over yet.

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Show Notes and Transcript

A warm welcome for the return of Anni Cyrus, host of "Live Up to Freedom" to provide a detailed analysis of Iran's history and its impact on the Middle East.
She traces Iran's journey from Zoroastrianism to the Islamic Revolution of 1979, highlighting the societal changes and challenges faced under the Islamic regime.
Anni explores Iran's relationships with neighbouring countries like Saudi Arabia and Turkey, shedding light on power struggles and religious divisions in the region.
She also discusses Iran's media censorship, political landscape, and foreign policy towards Israel, emphasizing the use of proxies for influence.
We end with reflections on the possibilities for change in Iran and its implications for regional stability.

Aynaz “Anni” Cyrus is the founder of ‘Live Up To Freedom’, she was born in 1983 into an Islamic family in Iran, after the Islamic Revolution removed the Shah and turned the “mini-America” of the Middle East into an Islamic tyranny. Given no choice, Aynaz was labeled as a Muslim by birth. Under Sharia (Islamic Law) she grew up under total Islamic dominance by her father, a Sheikh, and her mother, a Quran teacher.
At age nine, Aynaz rejected Islam completely in her heart and mind. It happened on her 9th birthday when the Islamic state, in a public ceremony, declared the absurdity that she would be, from that day forward by law, an adult woman.
Over the next six years, Aynaz suffered terrible, but legal by Islamic Law, abuses and punishments at the hands of many Islamic males of Iran. After being forcibly sold by her own father into an extremely violent marriage, Aynaz desperately sought escape from her hell as a child bride. Even after being visibly battered one last time, the Islamic courts denied her a divorce from the man who was clearly bound to beat her to death.
So at age 15, facing death by one way or the other, Aynaz got herself smuggled out of Iran, to save her own life. Knowing nothing of the life of freedom for women and girls outside of Iran or Islam, she ran into what she calls “The Unknown.” But her running was a crime, for which, to this day, she stands condemned to death by stoning under Sharia.
Aynaz then gained asylum in Turkey through the United Nations. But, as an unaccompanied minor, she was obligated to wait three more years. Finally, at age 18 her petition to become an American citizen was approved. After a further delay following 9/11, Anyaz was allowed entry into the United States on August 8, 2002. She became a naturalized and proud American citizen in 2010.
Since 2011, Aynaz has produced the popular Internet video series, “The Glazov Gang”, hosted by renowned author in the counter-jihad movement, Dr. Jamie Glazov. Aynaz also appears in many of the show’s hundreds of segments. Years of her media appearances are found in public speaking venues, interviews, videos, and articles, published in affiliation with The David Horowitz Freedom Center, Jihad Watch, Breitbart, American Thinker, Worldview Weekend, and American Truth Project, to mention a few.

Connect with Anni…..
WEBSITE liveuptofreedom.com
GETTR: gettr.com/user/AnniCyrus
X x.com/LiveUpToFreedom
INSTAGRAM instagram.com/aynazcyrus
TELEGRAM t.me/Liveuptofreedom

Interview recorded 19.4.24

Connect with Hearts of Oak...
WEBSITE heartsofoak.org
PODCASTS heartsofoak.podbean.com
SOCIAL MEDIA heartsofoak.org/connect
SHOP heartsofoak.org/shop

*Special thanks to Bosch Fawstin for recording our intro/outro on this podcast.

Check out his art theboschfawstinstore.blogspot.com and follow him on X twitter.com/TheBoschFawstin

Transcript

(Hearts of Oak)

And I'm delighted to have Anni Cyrus back with us again. Anni, thank you so much for your time today.

(Anni Cyrus)

Absolutely. My pleasure. It's been a while.

It has. That's exactly what I was thinking. It has been a while.

And current events bring us together with the madness and chaos over in the Middle East.

And who better, I thought, than asking on is Anni Cyrus.

But first, people can find you @LiveUpToFreedom.

Tell us about your show. Just give people, give the viewers, if they don't follow you, give them a taster of what they can find and what you put out.

Absolutely. So Live Up to Freedom, which is also the name of my show, we produce two shows a week at the moment, hoping to somehow get to five days a week.

But the majority of information that is produced on Live Up to Freedom is related to Middle East, Islamization, Sharia, and the dangers of red-green axis.

90% of the time, this is the type of educational programming.

I mean, I don't force my opinion, but I will give you evidence from the Quran, from the Sira, from the Sura, every single one evidence coming from their own word, proving the fact that the possibility of us coexisting, not really possible.

I'm with you 100%. And I do want your opinion, full force.

So, yeah, I'm looking forward to getting your thoughts. But maybe I can ask you, we have watched what has happened with Israel, obviously, and then watched what has happened with Iran responding.

Most of the viewers, whether they're US-based or UK-based, have zero concept of how Iran fits in the Middle East. They may have an understanding of, if they know history, of the Persian Empire.

So it is a history that stretches back thousands of years.

But today, few people in the West have an idea, I guess, of how Iran fits in.

But obviously, you're Iranian-born.

You live in the States at the moment.

Maybe just touch on that about Iran and how it fits in with that, I guess, illustrious history over the thousands of years?

How does Iran kind of fit in to the Middle East jigsaw?

Sure. So let me start from here. Since you brought up the Persian Empire, let me just set the record straight about Persians versus Persian Empire.

There's this thing going on lately that Persians don't exist because Persia doesn't exist.

I want to make it very clear. Iran, as you know it today, is what was of Persia.

So by nationality, we are Iranians. By race, we are Persians. Why is this important?

Because there's a difference between nationality and race.

And that's where actually we get all confused between racism, if you're criticized Islam, because a lot of nations now carry Islam.

If you say something against Islam, they're racism Islam.

Their race could be Persian, could be Indian, could be Arab.

Now, Arab race has a breakdown. Again, Syrian Arabs have their own DNA.

Saudi Arabian Arabs have their own DNA. However, there's one group of Arabs that don't have DNA, Peter, and that is Palestinians.

The reason it's important to say we're Persians, nationality Iranian, is because we can make the point of there is no such a race as Palestinians.

If you would do a DNA test on anyone in Palestine claiming to be Palestinian, you would find the DNAs of Syrian Arabs.

You would find Iraqi Arabs.

You would find even Egyptian blood.

But you wouldn't find a Palestinian race blood because it doesn't exist.

Now, I'm going to pull a leftist here and say, if you're willing to call them Palestinian by race, well, I identify as a Persian, so you're going to call me a Persian.

That being said, Persian Empire down to a smaller size, down to a smaller size to today, which is a tiny bit of Islamic Republic of Iran, has always been the heart of Middle East.

Literally the heart. Depending on how Iran beats, Middle East operates.

That's why it's the heart. You go back, we're not going to even go 2,700 years ago. Let's not do that. We could.

Cyrus the Great, king of Persia, freed the Jews in Babylon, told them you're free, and there you go. Temple Mount is there.

That's how much Persia or Iran has been the heart. But recent, 45 years ago, 47, 50 years ago, when Iran was under the kingdom of Shah Pahlavi, you look at Middle East, there was peace.

Prosperity, lots and lots of import and export financially, economy of Middle East was in good shape.

Every neighbour country was also in good shape as far as culture, freedom, education goes.

Islamic regime took over in a matter of 45 years.

Not only Iran itself with all the resources Iran has, and I'm just going to name a few.

Iran is number one land of making saffron.

We have the second top quality pistachio.

I'm not going to even go into the oil industry because everybody's aware of that.

And then considering between Afghanistan and Iran, you have the two only countries producing opium.

Well, I know some people misuse it, but it still is important material we need.

So with all the resources, Iranian people, more than 82% are living life under the line of poverty by international standards.

Same thing with the neighbours. You got the Turkey, you got Pakistan, you got Afghanistan, Azerbaijan.

That is how much Iran's operation has affected not only Middle East, but over here with Western countries.

I hope that answered the question.

Oh, it does. I want to go back because we look at Islamic connection with Iran.

But if you go, I mean, long time prior to the Islamic revolution in, it was 79, you've got from different breakups of the kingdom.

And before that, you had from, I think, from the 20s, the Iranian state.

So Islam was not in it. Tell us kind of how Iran kind of fits into that, where it's now known as the Islamic Republic of Iran.

But before that, Islam wasn't in the name. Does that mean Islam was not part of the culture?

Sure.

Yes. So if we go back way back, way back, about 2,700 years ago, all the way to about 1,800 years ago, that period of time, majority of Iranians were known as Zoroastrians.

There were some other atheists, there were Jews, there were Christians, all that.

But then the Battle of Mohammed started 1,400 years ago. Now, what was the Battle of Muhammad?

Muhammad started from Mecca, then went to Medina, then conquered Saudi Arabia.

Now, who was the competition? Who was the biggest challenge? Persian Empire.

Persia was standing up. They even sent messengers to the king of that time saying, have your people convert to Islam and we'll leave you alone.

The king was like, no, we're good.

We're not going to force anybody. So the very first time, the very first attack of Islamic attack, which in history books, you read them as Arab attacks.

Yes, there were Saudi Arabians, but the attack wasn't about race.

It had nothing to do with land versus land or people versus people.

It was Mohammed continuing to conquer of Islamization to basically, you know, the global caliphate, which then global was just that area.

The first attack happened. They couldn't conquer. The second one couldn't conquer on and on and on and on for a long time.

In meantime, some of the Iranians or Persians decided to convert by choice, by choice, until one of the Iranians who by choice converted decided to become a traitor and basically start cooperating with the Arabs.

That was the first time I want to say about probably 800, 700 years ago is when the first time of conquering people of Persia happened. A lot of Zoroastrians escaped.

They went to India. That's why you see somewhat the biggest population of Zoroastrians are found in India. They took refuge in India.

Some converted, some were killed, some became dhimmis and gradually either converted or died and fast forward all the way to almost, I want to say, 90, 92 years ago, when one of the kingdoms of Iran on the Qajar, or you guys pronounce it Qajar dynasty, they actually ruled under Islam.

The king in the kingdom decided we will rule under, the full hijab came to the country.

The full mosque building started.

And then Pahlavi dynasty returned that. They didn't get rid of Islam, but they did return the country into America, freedom of religion.

If you want to be a Muslim, be a Muslim. If you want to be Christian, be a Christian, anything.

Until the first king, Pahlavi, decided to actually ban Sharia in Iran.

Nobody was allowed to wear hijab, mosques were shut down.

And surprise, surprise, England and France got involved and told him that you're going to lose power if you don't give them their freedom back.

So the decision was the father will step down, the son will take over.

And they will allow Sharia to continue.

On top of that, they will allow one representative of Islam or Muslim community of Iran to step into Congress.

The rest is history. Literally 20 years later, Islamic revolution happened and it has never gone back.

But it's not just Iran, I guess, has a history. Think Egypt having a long history.

Lebanon, I know, reading the Bible and you hear about the cedars of Lebanon.

And then you think of Saudi Arabia and you think of the House of Saud.

But a long time before that, there were different emirates in that area.

And some of those countries have been artificially created, maybe like Jordan.

But other countries actually have got a history of thousands of years.

How does that work? Because as a Brit, I think of Europe and the struggle with the nations in Europe for dominance with France, Spain, with the UK.

What is that kind of struggle like in the Middle East with those countries that have a long history?

Well, another country we can name is Afghanistan.

If you look, Afghanistan is a pretty recent conqueror of Islamization.

Right around 1979 when Iran was conquered, very shortly before that, Afghanistan was conquered.

Afghanistan has a long history of battling back and forth and by the way I sometimes feel like people of Afghanistan are not getting the credit they deserve they have such a long and pure history, cultural music involved in art involved they have some of the most unique musical instrument you find out there that is now westernized and used but nobody knows because everybody thinks Afghanistan was, you know, Islamic country from day one, and Afghans were all Muslim. That is not what it is.

Now, that battle, with Saudi Arabia, you need to realize when Mohammed, you know, came up and said, I am the prophet, the majority of people in Saudi Arabia were.

I can't pronounce the English, when you believe in more than one god, polygamous?

Is that the word?

Polytheism?

There you go, polytheism.

So with Saudi Arabia, there is a much deeper root of Islam.

It was literally the first introduced religion that unified the country.

It did, or nation. But the rest of Middle Eastern countries those who are not as you said artificial those that existed they were none of them has any roots, none of them, that's the thing sometimes we have this saying in Middle East is like, oh you're just a Muslim born, meaning you're not really Muslim and I'm like, that doesn't exist, it doesn't because nobody the root, except of Saudi Arabia, there is no other race or nation that was the start.

So that the struggle for every single Middle Eastern country back and forth between this.

Now, again, I even during the Pahlavi kingdom, Peter, nobody minded Muslims.

Nobody did because it wasn't the constitution.

You wanted to be a Muslim, be a Muslim. But then on the other end of the city, you would find, you know, restaurants and bars and concerts.

And women with short skirts. The struggle in Middle East even as recent as two years ago in Afghanistan. It's the matter of literally forcing this Islam into the country rather than allowing it, which is one of my main arguments. if this religion is such a religion of peace, why is it that wherever it goes it's forced, feared, blood involved. If it's so peaceful why can't they get people to convert on their own, but rather have to force them to do it.

So that has been the struggle of last literally 1400 years.

Today, you find people from Saudi Arabia who reject Sharia.

They don't want their constitution to be Sharia anymore. Now, do we have Sharia-based constitution in Western countries?

No. But are many of them already living life under Sharia?

I would say, for example, London is a great city to name.

I have not been to London because they won't let me come to England.

But the last time I left London was January of 2011.

And sometimes when I look at some of the videos or live feeds coming from London, like that's not where I was. That's not what I remember of London.

So not to make it even longer than I did, if Western countries don't realize that there needs to be an absolute cap and limitation, the struggle of Middle East will start coming here, where you constantly have the battle of Islamization, de-Islamization, Islamization, de-Islamization, and gradually the culture will disappear.

I hate to say it, when I look at my fellow Iranians today, there isn't much of Persian culture left anymore. it's something of a confused

Arab versus Persian, versus Sharia, versus Western.

It's a very mixed up where, sadly, you can't really pinpoint anything left of that land or country or culture and behaviour of the people.

Half of the Farsi they speak, I don't even understand. I'm like, what is that?

Any of the leaders, they started talking. I'm like, okay, you're not a speaking Farsi. It's full on Arabic at this point.

Tell me, when I talk, and I want to get up to the current day where we are, but I'm curious because I talk to a lot of my African friends, especially in church, and you realize that African nations are tribal-based and there is more allegiance to the tribe than there is to the nation.

We look at Nigeria and it's completely separated on tribal lines.

What is it like for a country like Iran? Iran is a large country, nearly 90 million, so it has influence in that regard.

How does it work when people call themselves Iranian or me? How has it worked prior to the Islamic Revolution in 1979?

Where is that kind of identity and connection for Iranians who lived there prior to the revolution?

That's actually an interesting question. One of the top things I did a few years ago, one of the things I mentioned about Iran that many people are not aware of is the majority of Iranians are actually bilingual by about age 9 or 10.

Because Iran, as of today still, it has, if you look at the map, the south versus northeast versus west.

They are tribes, not the African style of tribe, but they do have their own tribes where you have the Kurds who are still within their own culture.

Their customs are still the old school, traditional Kurdish.

They speak the Kurdish language at home and then they speak the Farsi language, which is the country's language.

And then you have the Turks in Tabriz and some of those areas.

Again, the food and the music and the language is the Turkish.

And again, this is because you shrunk this huge empire down into the small size of the country.

A lot of tribes are still in there.

You have the Fars, literally, who are the pure Persians, the only non-bilingual people of Iran who only speak Farsi, have the traditional customs of Persia, the way they do their Norse versus the rest of the provinces.

Says it's different however somehow for some reason it has always been united regardless of who's from which side or which background, doesn't matter if you're the Arab of the south or if you're the Kurd or you're the Turk or you're the Fars it has always been united until the Islamic revolution, where the country became divided based on Muslims versus non-Muslims.

And when I say non-Muslim, Peter, I don't mean Christian or Jew.

No, I mean non-Muslims in eyes of the government.

Those like Mahsa Amini, who don't wear the proper hijab. Those who don't do the prayer the right way.

Those who wear the makeup. Those who have boyfriend or girlfriends, which is against Sharia. Those are the secondary group of people.

Tell me about when you think 45 years ago, the revolution, what does that mean for freedom within the country?

I know it's claimed to be 99% Muslim, but not just religious, but general freedom within the country.

What is it like to live in the current, I guess regime or government in Iran?

I'm so glad you asked that I was having a discussion with a friend of mine literally yesterday about this, that it has come to a point where the the lack of freedom isn't, isn't just about your, what you say or what you wear or what you eat anymore.

The lack of freedom has gotten to a point where a majority of Iranians, especially the younger generation have lost absolute motivation, that the answer always is, well, so what?

Like, why don't you go get a job? It's like, then what?

Why don't you go to school? Do what with it?

You literally have Uber drivers it's not Uber, it's called a snap I think in Iran, when they pick you up snap, you sit in the car and by the way for those of you, yes I have not been back to Iran but I do have people who are in Iran or just came back from Iran so the information comes from there, now I'm not smuggling myself back. You start talking to the driver and he will tell you that he holds a darn PhD, Peter, but there's no job for him, either because he doesn't belong to IRGC or SEPA or this group of Islam or that group of Islam, or it's the fact that somewhere somehow when he was younger, got arrested and has some sort of morality police stamp on his resume.

So he won't be hired or it's the matter of, he is not a Muslim.

He's a Baha'i. He can't admit he's a Baha'i. They're going to kill him, so he'd rather drive his own taxi than go get killed.

It's just literally there is zero motivation to do anything with your life because one way or another, you'll be blocked by this regime.

Genuinely, they wake up in the morning, change their mind about the latest law, and there's nothing to stop them.

There is nothing that could stop them from changing the laws every hour.

Every house supreme leader can literally wake up this morning and say colour red is forbidden for women, I dare you wear red, They will arrest you. They will probably put you in detention centre.

They will drag you to Sharia court and then probably, I don't know, lash you a couple of lashes and you home.

Make an example out of you. Nobody else can avoid a wreck.

Now, I'm making this up as an example, but to that, the small detail of life is being controlled.

Tell us how, within the country, what does it mean for the media?

What does it mean for, I mean, some countries like Dubai want to be outward.

Focused but still want to be Islamic where other countries like Saudi it's maybe less, so it's wanting to have that pure Islam and there is a less focus on being outward looking, when you think of Iran you think of something which is a closed box because of the devotion to Islam and that cuts off the West so what does that mean within, for education, for media?

Okay, so we need to explain something before we even answer that question. By we, I mean me.

I identify as... Media in Iran. There is no... private or alternative media. There's just one type of media, which is owned by government, ran by government, approved by government, everything government.

There are, I believe six channels of cable, only six.

One is dedicated to news.

One is dedicated to sports.

And the other three, one is dedicated to religion actually. Most of the time, it's like some Mullah sitting there dissecting and fat buzz and Corona and stuff.

And then there are two, that is a combination movies, TV series, commercial news, a little bit, things like that.

Now, why am I breaking it down is because it is so extremely controlled that it's only six, Only six.

For example, the sport channel, you'll never find any kind of female competition inside or outside of Iran out there.

You just don't. They cover all of the European leagues, right?

The soccer leagues. And you literally see that if they pass by a female audience in a stadium who is wearing makeup or open hair, you literally see them blurred out and then you come back to zoom back in.

To that extent what is being aired inside the country's control You can make a movie in Iran, but before you make a movie you got to take your script and your crew names to this department that's going to read the script, either approve it or tweak it then approve it or reject it, if you get approved on your script then you go make the movie, but before you air the movie Peter they will watch how you make this script.

If they find one scene, just one scene that they don't like, they'll have you go either redo it, edit it, come back again.

A movie can take seven years to be released or two minutes to be rejected.

Doesn't matter how much you spend on your movie.

It's done. Won't never come out.

So that's the internal. Now, they have one, Tenseem is the name of it.

I actually report from it a lot.

They have one, let's say, kind of like an article or text formatting website that is tied to the regime.

And then they have their own Islamic Republic of Iran's broadcasting website.

Those are the ones that are being fed propaganda and lies to be published because we outside have access to that.

We read that where it makes it look like the country is flawless and people are super happy and the elections are going fantastic, that is the one for external use that is mainly filled with propaganda

And how does politics work? How does, are there elections, were there elections before, how does that work in the country?

Yes there are, there are selections. There are selection election however it's in your best interest to show up for this election, because one they can create a lot of propaganda video and put it out, number two, now in Iran when you vote they actually stamp like you use your index on a stamp and they you put it on your birth certificate which Iranian birth certificates are like a lot of booklets, now if you have that a printer means you voted.

And for example, at the end of the year, when they're giving away coupon for chicken or egg or oil or whatever it is, if you have that fingerprint, you get your coupon.

If you don't, well, good luck, go buy it out of your own pocket.

So it's a selection coordinated to look like an election. And if you don't show up, well, there are consequences.

[Hmm tell me how it, is the focus with Iran with the leadership, is it for dominance within the region and then you're clashing with the other Islamic nations or is it with the destruction of Israel because Iran and Israel don't border, think isn't Iraq between them if I my middle eastern geography is bad so feel free to correct me, but how does it fit in, what is the goal?

Is it regional stability and power within the region, or is it focused on hatred towards Israel?

Can I go with all of the above? Is that an option?

Internally, the regime or the mullahs, internally, main focus is to re-establish a stability.

Because literally from 2009 and the Green Movement, on and on and on, they have lost that stability. Every time there's an uprising, it's becoming a stronger, longer, stronger, more planned.

So they're trying to gain that stability they had for the first, I don't know, 27 years of their power.

That's number one internally. Now, how do they gain that is by creating some sort of dilemma or war for the people of Iran to stand down because they're, at the end of the day, if you look at the history of Iran-Iraq war for eight years, eight years, people of Iran fought.

And I can tell you, I have heard directly from the soldiers or from children of those soldiers that they have always said, we didn't fight for the mullahs.

We fought for our country.

Okay. So with that, if there is a war going on, even if it's a small, even if it's not a major, it doesn't have to be an eight years war, but the regime can reestablish that stability inside.

They do have hatred for Israel. I repeat, when Khomeini arrived in Tehran in 1979, he was driven from the plane airport to the biggest and most, I don't know why it's famous, but famous cemetery in Tehran.

They put a chair, he sat on it, and he started talking.

The very first thing that came out of his mouth was, let the plan begin.

We're going to take down the great Satan and wipe Israel off the map.

Now, 47 years ago, they already said what they're planning to do. So that's that.

They want to wipe Israel off the map. Is it mainly religious beliefs?

Yes. But also, it's the fact that they know that as long as Israel exists, Iran will not be able, in any shape or form, or the government of Iran, rest easy knowing they have the land forever.

But you've got a, I mean, you could have countries coming together with a focus on a common enemy, which is Israel for everyone.

But then you've got, you've got obviously Lebanon and Syria basically failed states, but then you've got Turkey and Saudi and Egypt and the Emirate, Dubai wanting to assert themselves.

So is there no coming together against a common enemy?

Because Iran seems to be very much still out in the cold in regards to relations with other nations around it.

That's a good question. I highly doubt that Iran and Saudi Arabia would ever come together.

Again, going back to 1400 years ago, this battle didn't start yesterday and it's not going to end tomorrow. That Saudi Arabia versus Iran, or better yet, Arabs versus Persians war, a battle has been going on for a long time.

And is Saudi Arabia targeting Israel enough to put themselves in this scenario? I doubt it.

As far as Turkey is concerned, right now, Erdogan is doing a lot of talking.

But remember, Erdogan needs to be very careful because they don't want to be kicked out of EU.

This much of the country is in Europe. The rest is in Middle East.

They worked so hard to squeeze themselves into EU.

He's going to have to be very careful because he won't have the allies he has today.

If he's kicked back into full on Middle East, that's when Iran is going to come after him.

Iran and Turkey on paper, it might seem all good, but Iran and Turkey don't get along either.

All the way from the Caliph of Sunnis until today, the Sunni versus Shia scenario has been going on between Turkey and Iran. So I know Erdogan does a lot of talking.

I don't believe unless Russia gets involved, Turkey won't get involved.

That's the only time Turkey will get involved because now Turkey has the approval of Russia to get involved and back Iran.

So let me jump up to the present day.

And if my research serves me correct, I don't think Iran has actually struck at Israel since the revolution.

And this seems to be from what I've understood knowing little about Iranian politics but it seems to be the the first attack on Israel. Is that correct and how does what Iran have done, the attack on Israel, how does that change things in the region?

You are correct. Yes since 79 until today there has never been a direct, a strike or attack from Iran toward Israel.

But I go back to the fact that we need to acknowledge they are playing it this way, but we need to remember this attack directly was by IRGC.

IRGC is Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. It is not Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Were they put together by Khomeini? Absolutely. Do they belong to the government of Iran?

No, there are their own entity freely guarding all Islamic nations.

That's why you have their children such as Hezbollah and Houthis and Hamas out there.

That being said, I don't, this is not going to be pleasant to a lot of your audience, but I'll say it.

Iran's strike or IRGC's strike or Israel's airstrike. Neither one of them were strikes. This just doesn't look like anybody's planning to do anything major. Both Iran and Israel have the military needs, means, sorry, wrong word. To do real damage if they wanted to, This whole, in Farsi, we laugh and say, you know, they knock at each other's door and run and hide.

Seems like that's what they're doing. They send a couple of missiles, yeah, 300, lots of missiles and drones, but then they call and say, heads up, in about an hour, hour and a half, fix up your iron dome so we're about to arrive.

When was the last time Hamas gave a heads up? Right? October 7th happened, catching everybody off guard.

And they left a mark. You know what I mean?

This Iran Saturday strike and this Israel striking back, which by the way, Iran is absolutely denying the existence of this attack back.

And that's what you need to look at. Iran goes saying, okay, we attack, this is it.

If you attack back, we're going to be in a split second, we're going to destroy Israel.

Israel attack back and Iran denies it. It ignores it, never happened.

Does that look like something is about to change in the Middle East? No.

This is all tied back to Western countries. In America, we're in election year. We're in election year.

Whatever happens over there can definitely help Biden over here.

Europe is in pretty much a lot of chaos.

The tests run up. Are they going to sit back and let us do whatever we want to do?

Or are they going to dare try to rescue and get attacked in their own countries with our sleeper cells?

That's all there is to this I'm not downplaying anything but I know both countries, I've heard and I've seen the capability of both ends, this doesn't look like something that's going to turn into world war three, that's not going to happen

No you're right when I read the reports a day before, 100 rockets are going to be fired over and talking to people and they said seriously who gives their enemy that much notice and then the next day 100 came over to the number.

So you've got that a show of strength and I get that as a show of strength, especially drones taking three to four hours and it shows you what you can do, but with Iran having so many proxies, I mean Hezbollah are a serious threat to the region and seemingly much more dangerous than Hamas are and they're embedded in Lebanon and Syria.

How does that play and does Iran not just use a proxy like Hezbollah to attack Israel instead of firing over what, drones that take four hours?

That's not a serious attack, but Hezbollah do seem to be serious.

Yes, exactly. And that's where I put my thought process.

I'm like, OK, you have Hezbollah and you have Hamas. And again, I go back to October 7.

It shocked all of us.

Not because we weren't expecting Hamas to be so barbaric. No, it was the fact that nobody called anybody to say, okay, so tomorrow at your music festival, we're coming.

That's how you do serious damage. You have Hezbollah, you have Hamas.

And I'll go back to what I've said many times, and I've been accused of many things.

Israel is not going to take on Iran. You know why?

Israel has what it takes to take on Hamas, and they never did. They haven't.

I was looking on my Facebook page, and last year, this week, is exactly when this Hamas-Israeli situation was going on, and Biden was on the phone asking for a ceasefire, which Israel ended up doing the ceasefire.

Every year. It's a pattern. It just happens.

But for anybody to either get excited or get nervous that something's going to come out of this, no.

Hezbollah is regrouping, yes.

Israel is talking about possibly going into Lebanon, yes.

Is any of this going to put an end to this back and forth? I highly doubt it. I do.

In no shape or form is it in benefit of anyone involved with globalist groups or elite or deep state.

None of whom have any interest in ending this conflict in Middle East.

So it's not going to end one way or another, and it's not going to even start.

Again, it's that time of the year where everybody needs to get a little dusty in Middle East, and then everybody's going to go home and next year we'll repeat.

That's just the way things go. Unfortunately, as much as I wish somebody would finally put their foot down and say enough is enough, nobody's going to do that.

They are just giving a break to Hamas for now. While Hezbollah is regrouping IRGC is doing a lot of manoeuvring, And that's it. Now, why is Israel not standing up? Well, that one is a question for Netanyahu.

It's interesting watching because, obviously, Israel didn't deal with Hamas before.

It's now been forced to deal with Hamas.

And Israel are going to do what it takes.

That's how it seems. And whatever force is needed for them to secure their security, they will go for.

But I guess the Islamic nations have been happy for Hamas to be a thorn in the side and for the Palestinians to be a thorn in the side of Israel because that keeps Israel's defence spending high, it keeps their a threat level high, it keeps that fear, it's perfect to kind of keep Israel nervous and not let them kind of relax a constant state of war I guess. What does it mean if Hamas are removed to a degree?

Does it then, do those nations around think, what's next? Does Hezbollah then have to come in and provide that?

What does that mean for stability? Because it does seem the country has been happy to sit back and let Hamas do the, let's piss off Israel role.

Well actually to emphasize on your point, Hamas and Palestinians were put there exactly for that purpose, now I brought this up a couple of times that we call, I don't, but Western countries you call them Palestinians but if you talk to them, talk to Rashida Talib, for example, and listen to their chants on the streets of UK, France,

US, Canada, anywhere, you don't hear Palestine, you hear Philistine. It's Philistine.

The enemies of Jews, Philistine.

They were picked. This name wasn't specifically picked. Their location wasn't specifically picked.

That's one of the reasons when it comes to the argument of Palestinians versus Israel or the Gaza border.

I just opened this up. First of all, you don't find an Arab-speaking person who can say Palestine.

Again, my mother tongue of Farsi was not Farsi. It's Parsi.

Parsi, the language of the Pars people of Persia.

It turned into Farsi because in Arabic language there is no character as P they don't say Pepsi they say Bepsi, how do you expect them to say Palestine, no we have turned that into Palestine so we hide the fact that they are the Philistinians the enemies of Jews, so they are put in place and named specifically for that reason. Now, if Israel for any reason would finally come to realize that let's just take him out once and for all, and yes, taking out Hamas is very much doable.

And that way, they will force the hands of IRGC and Hezbollah of Lebanon to actually take action.

That's when Israel will have what they need legally by international law to actually overthrow the regime of Iran.

But they won't.

Yeah, and with the Palestinian, we've had Robert Spencer on maybe a month or six weeks ago, and I enjoyed his Palestinian myth book.

So 100% with you that it is a made-up terminology.

Can I just finish off on Iran and you've been great at giving us a broad sweep I think to help us understand, because many of us are completely unaware of not only where the countries fit in together but where Iran fits in, but what does it mean for Iran and freedom because you want individuals to be able to choose where they live, how they live and to decide they don't want the constant state of tension with their neighbours.

What does it mean for Iran going forward?

Is there a chance of a revolution in Iran from the people to overthrow the regime and have something which cares about people's rights and freedoms?

Or do you not have any great hope for that happening in the near future?

This might come as a surprise if...

Lord willing, comes November, and we get President Trump back in the office.

Within months, there will be an uprising in Iran.

The last two times people of Iran tried, unfortunately, once was during Hussein Obama, once was Biden, they couldn't get the help they needed.

They couldn't get the Biden regime or Obama regime to put sanctions and pressure on the regime. So they ended up losing a lot of lives, either by being killed or being imprisoned and tortured daily. So they went home.

I know for a fact, if President Trump is back in office, people of Iran will try again. Will they be successful?

That's when the Israeli government comes to picture.

Again, Iran by itself, people of Iran, first of all, remember, they don't have a Second Amendment.

Not only that, there are no illegal guns to be bought either.

The borders are extremely protected in Iran. You can't even smuggle them into the country. So they're always empty handed.

Secondly, the very first thing that happened is the regime cut down, cuts off the internet access to the people, which adds the agony of now what?

How do we get the message out?

How do we get the people to put pressure on the government?

So Israel and America's government play a huge role of what will happen internally in Islamic Republic of Iran next.

We need all these sanctions back. We need a lot of economic pressure back on Iran, and we need Israel to keep pushing back.

Then people of Iran will have what it takes to finally overthrow these people.

Am I hopeful? Always. There's always hope. As Robert Spencer said, it's not over until it's over, and it's not over yet.

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