Iran's Gambit

"Iran's Gambit" is a daily podcast produced by Ali Alfoneh, on Iranian politics, and Iran's national security strategy.

S1/E74: Tehran Positions Itself for Renewed Talks with Washington 03/30/2025

S1/E73: Iran Celebrates 1404: New Year, Old Problems 03/27/2025

S1/E72: In the Shadow of War & Negotiation 03/19/2025

S1/E71: Iran's Other Problems: Seismic Vulnerability, Energy and Water Crises 03/15/2025

S1/E70: Trump's Letter & Preconditions For Negotiations 03/14/2025

S1/E69: Khamenei's Distrust of Trump 03/13/2025

S1/E68: To Negotiate Or Not To Negotiate? 03/10/2025

S1/E67: Russian Mediation Offer a Nonstarter 03/06/2025

S1/E66: Pezeshkian Blames Khamenei For Lack of Negotiations With the U.S. 03/03/2025

S1/E65: No Direct Talks with the U.S. as Long as Maximum Pressure Persists 02/26/2025

S1/E64: Khamenei Nixes U.S. Negotiations, Rumors of Pezeshkian’s Resignation 02/09/2025

S1/E63: Collective Leadership in the Face of Internal and External Threats? 02/04/2025

S1/E63: Collective Leadership in the Face of Internal and External Threats? The Islamic Republic operated under a system of collective leadership throughout the 1980s. At the time, this governance structure remained largely unrecognized by external observers, but those with insight into Iran’s political dynamics understood that supreme authority did not rest solely with Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Instead, the Islamic Republic’s decision-making and policy implementation were effectively managed by a quadrumvirate comprising key institutional figures: the head of the legislative branch, Parliamentary Speaker Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani; the head of the executive branch, President Ali Khamenei; and the head of the judiciary, Mr. Abdol-Karim Mousavi Ardabili. The fourth figure in this arrangement was Mr. Ahmad Khomeini, son of the Grand Ayatollah, who wielded significant procedural power by controlling access to his father’s seal, thereby formalizing state decrees in his father’s name. This oligarchic configuration not only ensured the continuity of state functions but also reinforced regime legitimacy and facilitated the enforcement of policy decisions. I perceive that the Islamic Republic is once again reverting to a form of collective leadership. While Ayatollah Ali Khamenei may not be physically incapacitated, he appears increasingly insulated from both internal political realities and the broader geopolitical landscape. The heads of the three branches of government, cognizant of Khamenei’s evolving role, seem to be consolidating authority in response to both domestic instability and external strategic pressures. This emergent political arrangement suggests a recalibration of power within the regime, potentially signaling a return to coordinated elite decision-making as a mechanism for regime preservation. Should the Revolutionary Guard cooperate with the heads of three branches of the government, they regime may significantly improve its chances of survival. However, should Ayatollah Khamenei, feel left out by the president, the parliamentary speaker and the judiciary chief, he may use the Revolutionary Guard to counter balance the civilians and thereby undermine the regime. /episode/index/show/ce601e90-c6c7-4263-96b7-d3d643686977/id/35148855

S1/E62: Renewed Trump Optimism in Tehran 02/02/2025

S1/E61: Khamenei Greenlights Iran-U.S. Talks, Will Trump? 01/30/2025

S1/E60: Consequences of a Potential Withdrawal of U.S. Forces From Syria 01/18/2025

S1/E59: Leadership Succession & Negotiation with the U.S. 01/16/2025

S1/E58: Mashayekhi on Maladministration 01/12/2025

S1/E58: Mashayekhi on Maladministration The central government in Iran, whether under the Pahlavi regime or the Islamic Republic, has historically provided institutionalized spaces for experts to engage in debates on technical—and occasionally political—issues aligned with state interests. These platforms, often manifesting as think tanks, policy research centers, and other quasi-official institutions, fulfill several critical functions: First, they channel dissent by allowing critics of government policies to articulate their objections within controlled environments, thus preventing such dissent from escalating into mass mobilizations or street protests against the regime. Second, they serve as a mechanism for the state to gauge the prevailing intellectual currents among elite circles, potentially co-opting and incorporating ideas that align with state priorities. Third, these fora can act as a tool for the regime to coopt members of oppositional elites by integrating them into the bureaucratic or executive apparatus. With the advent of the internet, both opposition groups and the regime have utilized digital spaces to establish new platforms for discourse. Alongside entertainment content such as cooking shows, pet videos, and pornography, these digital spaces occasionally host serious and substantive debates. Notably, the Islamic Republic has refrained from censoring these discussions, likely because entertainment content overwhelmingly dominates viewer attention. From a political strategy standpoint, this ensures that the regime can extract value from these debates without risking significant political activation or mobilization among the broader Iranian public. A pertinent example is the January 11 debate between Dr. Ali-Naqi Mashayekhi, Professor Emeritus at Sharif Institute of Technology (often referred to as Iran’s MIT), who holds a Ph.D. in management, and Seyyed Ehsan Khandouzi from Allameh Tabatabaei University. The two scholars engaged in a critical discussion on the structural and institutional factors underlying the stagnation of Iran’s development, with a particular focus on economic development. /episode/index/show/ce601e90-c6c7-4263-96b7-d3d643686977/id/34828010

S1/E57: IRGC Commander on Assad's Ineptitude and Putin's Treachery 01/09/2025

S1/E56: Iranians Connect to the Internet by Starlink 01/06/2025

S1/E56: Iranians Connect to the Internet by Starlink There has always been a correlation, if not causality, between technological innovation and sociopolitical transformation: Gutenberg’s printing press catalyzed the Protestant Reformation, and from his exile in Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini famously utilized cassette tape recordings of his sermons to galvanize the Iranian populace against the Pahlavi regime during the 1970s. BBC Persian's radio service too aided the Iranian revolutionaries. The Internet similarly embodies revolutionary potential, a reality that underscores the Islamic Republic’s systematic strategies to regulate and suppress it since Iran's initial connection in 1993. Following Israel, Iran became the second nation in the Middle East to gain access to the World Wide Web in 1993. However, during this nascent stage, Internet usage in Iran was confined to academic research within universities, rendering it inaccessible to the broader public sphere. Concurrently, an increasing number of Iranians began to adopt satellite television as an alternative information ecosystem. In 1994, the Iranian parliament enacted legislation criminalizing the ownership and use of satellite receivers—colloquially referred to as "dishes"—which facilitated access to transnational satellite broadcasts. This legislative intervention was intended to preserve the monopoly of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) as the hegemonic apparatus for information dissemination and cultural programming within Iranian society. Nevertheless, despite state-enforced compliance mechanisms such as law enforcement raids to confiscate satellite equipment and the deployment of advanced signal-jamming technologies, a substantial segment of the population—including members of the political elite—circumvented these restrictions. Satellite television emerged as a parallel media domain, offering alternative narratives that undermined the state-controlled information architecture, thereby challenging the government's capacity to sustain informational hegemony. Back to the internet, initially, Internet access in Iran was restricted to universities and research institutions. However, according to World Bank data, fixed broadband subscriptions in the country surged from 176 in year 2000 to nearly 11 million in 2021. Similarly, mobile cellular subscriptions grew from 9,200 in 1994 to almost 136 million in 2021. An increasing proportion of these mobile devices are Internet-enabled, granting users access to social media platforms. This exponential growth signifies a notable milestone for a developing nation but simultaneously presents profound challenges to an authoritarian regime intent on constraining personal and political freedoms. To preserve its dominance over the digital information ecosystem, the regime has systematically imposed restrictions on widely used platforms, including YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Telegram. Nonetheless, Iranian citizens have adeptly utilized Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to circumvent state-imposed censorship and access restricted content. From the regime’s perspective, this challenge has been further exacerbated by advancements in satellite Internet technology. Increasingly, Iranian users are bypassing government-controlled telecommunications infrastructure by connecting to global satellite networks, such as Starlink, provided by the international aerospace and telecommunications corporation SpaceX. This trend is extensively documented in the Tehran E-Commerce Association’s fourth report on the "State of the Internet in Iran. /episode/index/show/ce601e90-c6c7-4263-96b7-d3d643686977/id/34738795