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Abbas Amanat

lines on the record: 188
first: 2022-11-02
most recent: 2022-11-02
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“And to acquire himself the position of the guardian jurist. That was something completely new. Didn't ever exist before. As a matter of fact, as you might know, The model of government that a religious establishment takes over the states Is unprecedented throughout the course of Iranian history, throughout the course of the Islamic history, I would say. This is the first example and probably the only example of a regime That religious establishment that has always in the course of Iranian history ever since I would say probably artist 16th century if not earlier has been always Separate from this state And always kind of collaborating with this state with certain tensions in between the two of them. There were two, basically, as they would call themselves the two pillars of stability in the society”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“All the modernity that we see around ourselves has enormous sinister features into it. And it has taken away from us our authenticity. That was the thing, that there is something authentic that should be protected. And therefore, a man in that kind of garb and appearance seemed as a source for return to this originality of their own culture, authenticity of their own culture. And he perfectly took advantage of that, that is Khomeini, took advantage of it and the circular animal at the expense of everybody else, which he managed in the course of 1979 to 1989, which he died in the 10 years during this period, managed to basically transform Onions society to create institutions of the Islamic Republic.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“At all. People had very little sense that what Islamic law is all about because the secular education has left that into the old religious schools. This is not something that ordinary educated Iranian goes to the universities is going to learn. Therefore, there is a sense of idealization that there is something great there. And there were quite a number of intellectuals who also view this kind of an idea of they would refer to as this toxication that is this civilization of the West. That has brought with it”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And that's what he did basically, as more the political space opened, the weaknesses of the Shah's government became more evident. His indecision became more evident. His lack of confidence became more evident. Khomeini managed to move further into the center of the movement because he was the only authority that had this network of support through the mosques, through the people who paid homage to him, who followed him because there's a sense of following of the religious leader in Shiza. You are a follower of this authority, a follower of that authority. And he's basically created An environment in which people looked upon him as a kind of a messianic figure. That came to save Iran from what they considered at the time the problems of dictatorship under the Shah.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's an important factor. And he was a kind of adamant And very severe. His own positions. He could appear very uncompromising. And he had this sense of confidence, self-confidence, that virtually everybody else lacked. He was a man of opportunity. Soon as you would see that. Chance and opportunity would open up, he would jump on it.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it depends who would call what do you call charismatic, the long beard, it was kind of a man in turban and the gown, which was a very unusual leadership for people who were much more accustomed to the civilian clothing or to the equipments of the Shah's military uniforms. You used to”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Start sending cassette messages, that was his mean of communication, sending cassettes and cassettes were sent through the country by his network. So, or declarations and saying first that we would like to see a greater democratization and the shah has to abide by the Constitution of 1907. This is a constitution, this is a democratic system and so forth.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Martyr, he was probably even forgotten to some extent. But it was forgotten for the secular middle class, but not to those supporters of his who were paying him their dues because in Islam you would pay dues to religious leaders. There's religious dues and alms that you would pay to the Claykar authorities and they redistribute them among their own students and so forth. So they built actually a network of loyalty based on these donations. And these donations that received by Atola Khomeini was very effectively through his network was distributed even if he was in exile at Sadira. So the 1977, 1978, when the situation changed and there was a little bit of opening in the political climate, Then you saw that Ayatollah Khomeini.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Picture. He in the 1963, there was a period of uprising of the supporters of Ayatollah Khomeini. That was a turning point, in a sense, to try to politicize the religious supporters of Ayatollah, who were loyal to Ayatollah Khomeini. And in a sense, all the community of more religiously orientated against the secular policies of the Shah and against, of course, the dictatorship of the Shah.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Becoming under an umbrella of a more codified system of Islamic law. Because they were outside the state, in a sense, civil law was in the hand of the religious establishment. They had their own courts independent of the state. But other matters of legal matters was in the hand of the government. There was a kind of de facto division between these two institutions, state versus the religious establishment. Therefore, it was not codified. So he could declare that this is unofficial according to the Islamic law, that you distribute land to the peasants. And another mujahid or another religious authority would say, no, no, it is perfectly fine. Because he has a different reading of the law. So that being in mind, that adds to the complexity of the”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It's a good term. That's another issue, not only the hierarchy was unofficial and informal, but also Islamic law, particularly Shi'i law. Did not have any. Codified system because these religious authorities always resisted.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“people who are killing the land. So that was a major issue. Shaw also gave the right of vote to women And that also, he objected, is that women should not have a right.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“When he was residing in Tehran and gradually becoming more important, he became a voice of opposition against the Shah. And the reason for opposition in the early 1960s was the fact that the Shah carried through a series of extensive modernization policies of which the most important was the land reform So, in effect, the land distribution that took place in the early 60s removed or weakened greatly that class of landowners from the 19th century. And Khomeini saw himself as a voice of that old class that felt that actually declared that this land distribution is unislamic according to the Islamic law, property is honored, and you cannot just no matter how much and how large are these estates that the landowning class has, the government has no right to redistribute it, even among the peasants, among the”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“No, no, no, not at all. The Ayatollahs were before him ever since the beginning of the century. But he was eventually recognized as an ayatollah. And if I want to study it this way, Ayatollah Khomeini was born in 1900. And in a sense, all tremendous change that Iran witnessed in the course of the 20th century was in a sense materializing this person. He became a mullah of a lower rank, went to the traditional madrasses, to the traditional centers for the education of the seminarians never had a secular education. Had a very complex Islamic education on this one hand jurisprudence, on the other hand, probably a little bit of Islamic philosophy and mysticism, which is unusual for the faqhi, as they call them, this religious scholars or legal scholars of Islam. And then he In the 1960s”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“More adjectives, more grant titles such as Ayatollah that became a kind of a highest rank of the religious hierarchy. Incidentally, unofficial hierarchy. It was not. It's not like Catholic church that you have bishops and feather up. It was a very unofficial mother. And he was an Ayatollah, was eventually recognized as an Ayatollah.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, Ayatollah means the sign of God. In the course of the 19th century or early 20th century, as the religious establishment gradually lost its Greater presence in the society and this prominent places in society, they had some kind of an inflation in titles. So they gave themselves more grand titles.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They are the people who basically went against the suppression of the Pahlavi regime. And Khomeini became a leader, a symbol of that. Nobody ever thought in the earlier stages. And Bangkok, this very excited multitudes that came to the streets of the Iranian cities in 1979, or 1978 actually, thought that this old mola in the 70s, that all of a sudden has appeared from the Najaf through Paris to Tehran is going to take over and create autocracy, a religious autocracy.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“How to separate the religion and state these issues were never addressed What happened is that there was this bypass through political Islam and revolutionary Islam as it gradually they learned that this is the bypass bypass to power basically to become again a voice in the society and eventually a prominent voice and eventually monolithic voice in the society. That's the process that led into the revolution of 1979 basically this period greater attention was paid to religion even among the secular middle classes who were alienated for a very long time because of this extensive modernization of the Pahlavi period they had they didn't have a sense of that old mullahs with their turbans but they became they had a kind of Aura in this period. Yes, they are those who remain not corrupted.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“The whole period from the Constitutional Revolution to the Revolution of 1979, basically the religious establishment gradually was pushed to the opposition. They were not originally, they were very conservative, supported us of state as the Catholic Church, for instance, was supportive of majority of the authoritarian governments around the world. The politicization was the result of isolation because they were left out of the system. And while in isolation, they did not, they were not successful in trying to reform themselves, to try to become answers to many of the questions of modern times, what happens to women, what happens to civil rights, what happens to civil society, how modern law and individual freedoms have to be defined in Islamic terms.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Participation going back to the Constitution of 1906-1907, why all of a sudden it becomes Khomeini, where does he come from? The reason for that, at least in a concise fashion, is the fact that in one area After the greater suppression of all the other voices remained open was religion. Mosques. The molars on the pulpit And the message that gradually shifted. from the old traditional message of the sharia of Islam i mean all the rules and regulations of how one has to live into something very political and not only political but also radical political”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Had this image of ancient Iran of the Achaean Empire. And we want to go back to that greatness of the Achaemenid Empire somewhat rather naive and very nationalistic in a crude fashion. And what happened is that as a result, there was built up some kind of a resistance from the intellectuals, from the left, eventually resulting in a kind of a protest movement, as I said, by 1977, 1978. Then, of course, the question that comes to mind, and probably you would like to know about, is the fact that why it becomes religious, why it becomes Islamic if it's the popular nationalist, liberal tendency of opening up the political space and allowing great”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Let me finish this about the period of Mahamad Resha. He built up because he received a greater income from the oil revenue and he built up a very strong state with a strong security force, a strong security apparatus, which is the Slavak, which is an acronym for the security force in security organization. He, of course, unfortunately in the 1960s and 70s, particularly 1970s, basically suppressed the voices of or possibility of any kind of mass participation in the political process. It became very much an authoritarian regime with its own technocrats. Very much a modernist vision of Iran's future and almost kind of messianic that he was hoping that Iran in a decade would become the fifth most powerful state in the world and riches, as he would have said, the gates of the great civilization, very much in the mind.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“There's a romantic side, that's right. Yeah, I agree with you. Iran, of course, you know, there's a time of the constitutional revolution, it's a time of great poetry. This kind of a patriotic sentiment that comes through poetry plays a very important part. Of course, these days poetry has kind of declined. And instead you see the visual image that it's at the center. That's why cinema is so important.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They changed that to the sublime state of Iran during the constitutional revolution because they wanted to give a greater sense of centrality of the state. Sublime was the term”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Because that was actually the change that came about. I don't want to go too much into it, but it was called, as I pointed out before, the guarded domains of Iran.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Like a king. Yeah, it is actually the term peculiar to Iran. I've written about it somewhere. But because the term that the Western word in the ancient times has been rex for royalty and the king. In the Eastern world in India is Raj, it's the same origin, the same root. Iran never shared that. They had the idea of because Rex and Raj, I don't want to get into too much of an etymology, but this is an interesting one. Rex and Raj both means the one that opens the road. For basically enforcer of religion, enforcer of the right religion, because Rex and Raj both have the etymological origin of right, you see, and right means the right religion, basically.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And of course, I don't want to give them this kind of a satanic view that Americans was a bad influence because they had also some very good influences in Iraq. But this particular episode somehow shed a dark light on the American presence and was used that abused time and again, particularly the Revolution 1979, which was this great Satan idea that Khomeini created, basically was based on the fact is 1953 you were responsible for the downfall of a national government in Iran, which as a matter of fact, he had no respect for it. Khomeini had no respect for the secular national liberals, including Mohammed Musadiyah. But he was using it as a rhetorical tool for his own purposes. But what happened is that after 1953, We see again the rise of authoritarian Muhammad's power.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They were afraid of the fact if Iran, or at least this is part of the, I'm simplifying a very complex picture. But the Americans basically were thinking that if Iran is going to be lost Two Soviet influence. Then eventually basically all the oil resources in the Persian Gulf are going to be threatened And this would basically use the national security of the United States and all of the Western allies, European allies. So in a sense, this was the long arm of the CIA to try to. Try to make sure that that's not going to happen. And then, of course, they were persuaded by the British. British were the old hand between Iran since the beginning of the 19th century. They always had relations with Iran and so forth. So they gradually replaced”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then they actually did participate to send their agents. There's a long story to that. And it eventually resulted in a successful coup that removed Mossadegh from power.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In the West, the name of the company changed. And they got into a huge dispute with the Mozadi government that eventually led to the coup of 1953, which eventually created a very distressful memory in the minds of many of the Iranian nationalists that this was the betrayal of the great powers. The British and Americans. Yes, CIA played a part because CIA feared, contrary to the British, that they were afraid of their own oil in Iran, the CIA was afraid of the Soviet penetration in the south, and particularly because there was a very powerful communist party in the Tu-Departy of Iran. Gradually shifted between the Truman administration and our Eisenhower administration. These are early days of the CIA.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I did the South was the Persian Gulf, which at the time was the greatest supplier of oil to the outside world. And therefore, the Americans had a particular interest in Iran. And in the earlier stages, their interest was in the interest of the Iranian government, because they wanted to get rid of both the Soviet Union, which made a return in the post-war era, and of course the British that were gradually withdrawing from Iraq. But they had a full control over the Anglo-Iranian oil company. They changed the name to Anglo-Iranian oil company. When the name of the country officially changed from Persia to Iran,”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In the 50s, 40s, and the 50s, the British Empire, which was really the major superpower of the region after the collapse of the Tsarist Empire, gradually took the second seat to the Americans where the newcomers and the great powers and the victors of the Second World War. And Americans viewed Iran as an important country since it has the largest common borders with the Soviet Union.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Which at least partly was supported by the funding and by the moral support of the British and the Americans, particularly by the Americans. It was always seen as one of the earliest and the most successful CIA operations during the Cold War.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“We were basically following orders from the Soviets, although they deny it, but in reality that's the case. But what happened, they were seen by the Americans during the Cold War as a threat. And Iran was going through a period of demanding nationalization of its oil resources. That's a very important episode with Mossadegh, whom you might have heard about his name. Dr. Mohammad Mossadeh, who was the prime minister and the national charismatic leader from 1951 to 1953. Prior to that, he was a famous parliamentarian. But this period was the prime minister of Iran. And he nationalized the Iranian oil industry. And the British didn't like it at all. And eventually resulted in a famous coup.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Were elections, yes, of course, yes, of course, and there were very diverse political tendencies came to the picture, including the two-thirds of Iran, which is Communist Party of Iran. This Communist Party of Iran is probably the biggest communist party of the whole of the Middle East. And one of the biggest in the world, actually, at that time.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, but eventually they agreed. Eventually Stalin agreed to leave the Azerbaijan province in the hope that it would get some concessions from Iran, which in the oil of the Caspian era, which didn't work and it's a different story altogether. But what happened is that in the post-war era, between 1944-45 and 1953 is a period of greater democratization, was that Reza Shah's dictatorship basically Disappeared. And this is where you would see political parties, free press, a lot of chaotic really, as democracies often are.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, from 1941 up to 1945. And of course, when the When the Red Army refused to. Withdrew from Iran and Azerbaijan and with some Thought of possible annexation of that province. There was a big issue in the post-war Iran.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Despite and more significant of all, it managed to keep the European powers, which was always interfering in the local affairs of Iran in an arm length. So they were there in an arm length, but they were also respecting the power of the state. Part of the Pallavi state. During the Second World War, the same phenomenon as earlier interference led to the occupation of Iran by the Allied forces, the British from the south, the Russians from the north, the Red Army. They took over Iran and of course they said”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Many revolutions and Razor Shop was an officer in that reso And obviously in that verse, and he created a new monarchy for reasons that we need not to go to and it's called the Pahlavi regime. Pahlavi regime was a modernizing regime that in effect fulfilled many of the ambitions of the aspirations of the constitutional revolution better communication better secular education centralized state centralized army better contact with the outside world greater urbanization that's what modern state is all about And in that regard, in a sense, for the first 20 years up to the Second World War, was successful.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“As a result, partly domestic, partly international issues brought about a regime which is headed by the founder of the Pahlavi dynasty, Reza Shah, a military officer called Reza Khan, actually a military officer of the Cossack forces. And the Cossack forces was the force that was created in the 19th century model of the Russian Cossacks when the ruler in the 19th century visited Russia in a royal tour and the desire showed the great Cossack forces. I like this. And he created one for himself with Russian officers, actually. So Russian officers served in Iran from around 1880s up to the revolution of 1917. The collapse of the...”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And it was more than, it created more than one issue for Iran. It's created a strong state, which is the Pahlavi state, from 1921 onward. Because in 1921, at the end of the First World War, Iran was in almost a state of total bankruptcy. And the British had a desire to try to bring Iran to the system that they created in the Middle East in the post-war era, the mandate system, Palestine, Iraq, and then, of course, French mandate of Lebanon and Syria, all of this. And Iran was separate because Iran was an independent country. It wasn't part of the Ottoman Empire that collapsed. So they had to somehow handle it. And what they tried to do didn't work.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Precisely. And you know, you can name them from the beginning of the century with people like, I don't know, Lenin or Stalin, of course, Hitler Mau, of course, you can name them, and probably, as I would say, is the last of them is Khomeini in that century. That you would see this strong man with a sense of either artificial or real or so-called charisma. And with this total power over the regime that they create. Some of them do Nasser. He didn't have much of an oil resources in Egypt, but he was also one of these strong men in the 20th century, loved by some, hated by others. So it necessarily does not tie up to resource economic resources underground. But in the Iranian case, unfortunately it did.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That 19th century never had that kind of a power. Never had that kind of resources. Is it 20th century even that one-fifth of the income that reached the Iranian state gave it a greater power?”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Lot of money, but not all of it in the hands of the Iranians. Only one fifth of it by way of royalties came to Iran. Much of it went to the Anglo-Persian oil company, which they actually discovered the oil in the province, Khazistan province in the southwest of Iran, raised the major oil industries today right now. This was an extremely profitable enterprise for that company and for the British government actually purchased by the British government Churchill purchased Anglo-Iranian oil company for the British government. So it was not anymore a private company. It was a British interest as a matter of fact. And in the course of the 20th century, although it helped the... But it also helped the creation of a more authoritarian, more strong state, if you like to call it.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“During the course of the Constitutional Revolut Second is that in 1907, the two great powers of the time, the Russian Empire and the British Empire, who always honored Iran as being a buffer state between them because they didn't want to get too close to one another. Basically came to an agreement facing the fear of the rise of the German Empire. So this is the period of Entente, as you might know in European history, whereby the French, the British, and the Russians all create an alliance that ultimately leads to the First World War against Germany.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yes, yes, there are. There are because that was a movement that started without a centralized leadership, but actually various voices that emerged among the merchants or the businessmen in the economic community among the representatives who came to the first parliament, the press, the new generation of the privileged aristocracy who were educated and believed in the constitutional values. All of these voices emerged at the same time and somehow they managed to coexist in the first and the second parliaments that were created between 1990. Six and 1910 or 1911. But they all faced huge problems. The sense that Iran was in a dire economic situation, this is before the days of the discovery of oil, which actually coincides with the discovery. There are two important coincidences. One is that the oil was discovered in the south in 1909.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“These two, and that was the idea of a constitutional revolution, but its very nature, it was an idea of modernity. They wanted the modern society. They wanted a better material life. They wanted a more representation and so forth. The constitutional revolution, as I always would say, is much more of an innocent revolution. It's a revolution that did not particularly have much violence in it. Contrary to many other revolutions Did not have a centralized leadership per se. That's why actually I'm getting besides the apprentices, I'm getting a lot of requests for interviews to compare what's happening now with the revolution of 1906. 1909.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Precisely the same. They were demanding a creation of a legal system with division of power between the three executive, legislative and the judiciary, not unlike the American system. And they requested basically a certain public space to be created between the two sources of power, the state which had this kind of a control over the, if you like, the secular aspect of life in the society and the religious establishment that had a full control over the religious aspects. And both of them from the perspective of the constitution is considered as repressive. And therefore there has to be a new space open.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Suffered and particularly the businesses suffered. And not surprisingly, the business class were in the forefront of many of these constitutional movements requiring the state to give the kind of the right kind of institutions to listen to their voices, to their concerns and the creation of a democratic system, parliamentary system with which there would be representation, popular representation, proper elections and so forth, and constitutions. And this very much is a kind of a French idea of the Constitution going back all the way perhaps to 1789 revolution, Montesquieu, all this kind of philosophy. Appreciate it, particularly the freight system.”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Exactly, it's like 1848 when you would see that there's a whole range of revolutions across Europe. Or you would see, for instance, the Arab Spring. You see all this revolutions in the Arab world, which unfortunately nearly all of them failed. So yes, these are very contagious ideas that moves across frontiers from one culture to another. And I presume we can add to that there are two elements which one can say. There was a greater communication, there is a greater sense of a world economy. And the third of the century witnessed the first decade of the century, witnessed a period of volatility, particularly in currency. So many of the countries of the world, particularly non-West,”
2022-11-02 · Lex Fridman Podcast · #334 – Abbas Amanat: Iran Protests, Mahsa Amini, History, CIA & Nuclear Weapons · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source