Iran-US historian: Strikes will fuel Iranian patriotism

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00:00So, John, that leads me into my next question, because Israel's defense minister says the

00:05military would have killed Khamenei during the war if the opportunity had presented itself.

00:12So has this weakened the authority of the supreme leader? And is there any possibility of a direct

00:19challenge to his rule inside of Iran? That possibility is always there. I mean,

00:26there are two schools of thought on this, right? There's the sort of regime change

00:29school of thought, the hardliner, the neoconservative, the Israeli school of thought,

00:33the school of thought that is adopted by certain segments of the Iranian diaspora,

00:38as well as elements within Iran, which is that simply with enough pressure, with enough

00:43outside intervention, there are ways to make the regime implode under its own unpopularity,

00:50that you just need to kind of keep pressing your case. There is another school of thought on this

00:55that says that actually, in moments of foreign assault, foreign intervention, the Iranians,

01:01for the most part, are going to rally around the flag, and are less likely to want to be seen

01:06joining in opposition efforts or efforts to undermine the regime that might come across as if they are,

01:12either inadvertently or not, as if they are somehow allied to Israeli or American interests.

01:17I think both of those have a grain of truth to them. But I think that the center of gravity in Iran

01:24is still going to be towards a sense of patriotism and self-defense and nationalism. I think that,

01:29of course, the regime is far less popular than it has been probably in any point in its history.