America's Gamble: Regime Change, Retreat, or State Collapse in Iran | Hamidreza Azizi

What's up, everybody? My name is Demetri Kofinas, and you're listening to Hidden Forces, a podcast that inspires investors, entrepreneurs, and everyday citizens to challenge consensus narratives and learn how to think critically about the systems of power shaping our world. My guest in this episode of Hidden Forces is Hamidreza Azizi, an Iranian scholar based in Europe with a PhD in religious studies from the University of Tehran, who has lectured at several Iranian universities, and serves as a visiting fellow at the German Institute for International Security Affairs, and as a non resident fellow at The Middle East Council On Global Affairs in Doha. He's also the author of a forthcoming book titled The Axis of Resistance, Iran, Israel, and the Struggle for the Middle East. This is the third episode in an ongoing series of conversations I've been hosting to track The US and Israeli military campaign against Iran as it unfolds in real time. In this conversation, Hamidreza and I discuss how the war has evolved over the first three weeks, examining the competing objectives driving US and Israeli strategy, where those objectives may be incompatible, and what the continued assassinations of large swaths of the Iranian leadership structure, including the most recent killing of Ali Alarijani, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, means for the Islamic Republic's ability to manage both the military and political dimensions of the conflict. We also discussed the nuclear question, specifically whether the war has now made a nuclear armed Iran more likely rather than less, the divergent positions of the Gulf States, and what Hamidreza sees as the key variables to watch if you want to understand where this conflict goes from here. If you want access to the transcripts and intelligence reports for this and other episodes, which include summary sections with key takeaways, you can access those by subscribing to our super nerd tier at hiddenforces.io/subscribe, where you can also join in on the conversation by becoming a member of the Hidden Forces genius community, which includes calls with guests, discounted access to third party research and analysis, and in person events like our intimate dinners and weekend retreats. And if you still have questions, feel free to send an email to info@hiddenforces.io, and I or someone from our team will get right back to you. And with that, please enjoy this extremely timely and highly informative conversation about the unfolding war in the Greater Middle East with my guest, Hamidreza Azizi. Hamidreza Azizi, welcome to Hidden Forces. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. The pleasure is all mine. I mentioned this to the audience last week in our episodes with Bruno Masaes and Joshua Landis, that I'm doing something very unusual these days, which is I'm hosting these one hour long conversations or shorter that are meant essentially essentially to update myself and keep the audience updated as this conflict between The US, Israel, and Iran keeps rolling along. And so this …