Questioning the Narrative: Iran, Democracy, and the Future of Regime Change

Imagine a world where diplomacy triumphs over conflict, where the voices of the oppressed are heard, and where a nation stands on the brink of a democratic renaissance.

In this episode of The Partovi Effect, Dr. Ryan Partovi, JD, NMD, MIFHI, and Mrs. Madi Partovi explore pressing geopolitical issues surrounding Iran, the legitimacy of regime change, and alternative paths toward democracy. They analyze the role of the IRGC, historical interventions, and the potential for a peaceful transition led by the Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi.

Key Topics:

• The ethics and justification of using force against tyrannical regimes
• The nature, influence, and criminality of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)
• Historical U.S. interventions: successes, failures, and lessons learned
• The potential for a democratic Iran via a transitional government led by Reza Pahlavi

We love hearing from you! Do you have questions or want to suggest a future podcast topic? Email us today at office@drpartovi.com — your input helps us create content that serves you best.

Ready to take charge of your family’s health? Visit https://www.aspenwellnessinstitute.com to access personalized wellness solutions, expert guidance, and a community that supports informed, empowered health choices.

The contents of this podcast are for educational purposes only and do not constitute medical advice. Talk to your medical professional before starting any new treatment.

Don’t forget to subscribe for more enriching discussions, and leave a review if you loved the episode!

Transcript

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (01:07.34)
Welcome to this episode of the Partovi Effect. My name is Mrs. Maddie Partovi. And I'm Dr. Ryan Partovi. And today we're going to guide you through questioning the narrative, whether this war with Iran is just another war or is it an effort to liberate the people of Iran? And... Well, before you even get into that, I actually have another question I think bears answering first, which is... 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (01:38.11)
Is it ever a good idea to use force to overthrow a tyrannical regime? Right. Or should you always withhold or fall short of force? And I think that there's a pretty easy test for how you determine whether force is justified or not. But I think there's a lot of people basically 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (02:07.938)
I heard Dave Smith talking about it on Piers Morgan. My cousin had sent me a recording of it. And, you know, it seems to me like under his standard, 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (02:21.314)
The answer is force is never justified. And it makes me wonder, like, would he have gone into Germany during World War II? You know, like, would he have said, we should stay out of World War II as none of our business, right? And just let Adolf Hitler take over the rest of the world and then eventually come for us, presumably. You know, and that started me thinking, right? I was like, okay, well, there has to be... 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (02:49.1)
while it's, and then I watched another video, sorry, this has obviously been on my mind, but it was AI models debating about whether we should basically go into countries that are dictatorships, that are evil, that have regimes that hurt their own people, and basically overthrow those regimes, or whether we should. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (03:17.112)
you know, just try to basically stay out of it. And I think that that is a false dichotomy. It assumes that those are the only two options and that we have to basically apply only those options all of the time, right? And I think that the truth of the matter is that most of the time it makes sense to, you know, if a country is democratic and they're 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (03:45.846)
Maybe they have a government that we don't agree with, but it's what those people have elected and it's truly a democratic election process. Stay out of it, leave them alone. As long as they're not attacking and terrorizing their neighbors and conquering surrounding countries and making a big deal out of it. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (04:10.87)
On the other hand, if you have countries that are not quite up to the standard of modern liberal democracy, you have many other tools in your toolkit to use to help them along the way. You can offer help, can incentivize them. You can say, hey, well, if you do this, we'll give you this. We'll give you these weapons to better defend yourself. We'll give you access to this food, this technology, right? To help you along the path. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (04:41.408)
in exchange for moving in the direction of more freedom. And so there's a lot of things that can be done. And then there's other punitive measures. They can say, well, if you don't do this, then we're going to do sanctions against you, right? So there's a lot of different, and sanctions are one of many ways you can mess with a foreign regime. I'm just using that as one example. But the point is, that, shh. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (05:08.5)
Should we be engaged in trying to make the world a better place? 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (05:12.534)
I think the answer to that is unequivocably yes. Would you agree? Yes. Right. And so there's many different ways of doing that and saying, well, the only way is regime change wars. Absolutely not. Right. Regime change war is like a last resort. It's when you've tried everything else and nothing works because that regime is just totally incorrigible, totally not open to any kind of progress, any kind of development. And what I think people are missing about the case of the 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (05:42.4)
Islamic Republic is that it is actually one of one such regime It is a regime in which no movement no forward movement. No possibility There was no possibility there Because of the nature and the structure of their belief which I can get more into if you think it would be worthwhile well go ahead, I don't think I Do believe that 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (06:12.578)
we would all agree that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is problematic and that it does affect international... Well, it's more than problematic. I would say it's criminal. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (06:26.03)
It does affect international stability. And the United States did officially declare in 2019 that it's a foreign terrorist organization. Finally, Europe and the rest of the West has fallen in line with that. Right. it's clear that the IRGC... 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (06:48.318)
Supports groups. So for those who don't know that the IRGC the Islamic it's not Iranian That's a common misconception, right? You just actually made a classic error, which I have to correct It's not the I and IRGC does not stand for it. I did say Islamic. You did say Islamic. Yes. Okay. Well, I heard something very clear. I heard something else, but regardless it very important people know it's the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, okay 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (07:18.202)
And the reason for that is that this is literally a paramilitary group that has taken over the country of Iran. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (07:26.018)
This is a, know, they represent maybe maximum 20 % of the population, but they have taken over the country and imposed a very radical form of 12-verse Shia Islam on the entire country and forced the entire country to live according to the rules that they believe this particular sect within Islam mandates. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (07:52.001)
And the IRGC also projects power. Hold on, wasn't actually that thank you for again reminding me the IRGC. So the IRGC is the military, the fanatics. They're like the military wing of this Islamist group. They're the. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (08:10.572)
You know the people that are the true believers and then Iran has a its own military like an army and a Navy and you know All of that is separate from the IRGC. So it's a little confusing. It's different from the United States We don't have a system like this, you know, but it's like if we had had we had some sort of Religious nationalist group that took over the country and they had their own actually in the the Nazis had something like this I forget exactly what it was called. I think they had like the SS right and that was like 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (08:40.516)
you know, they're sort of the true believers of the Nazi ideology, but then they also had the German military as well. So the IRGC is more like the SS. You these are like the true hardcore Islamists. And they don't represent the majority of the country, but they do represent the... 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (09:03.714)
How would you say it? The true believers. Proceed. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (09:11.98)
I wanted to mention that when the IRGC was declared an official foreign terrorist organization, that that was unprecedented for our country to call another military a terrorist. Yeah, but again, but it's really not a military, right? It's not the military of their country. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (09:34.57)
It is a gang of thugs that has occupied the country. I that. I got that you have very strong feelings about this. Well, I have... Okay, just a whole line. Okay. I also wanted to mention, IRDC does support... They project power... 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (09:58.592)
and involve themselves in proxy wars by supporting groups like Hezbollah, Hamas, like Houthi movement in Yemen. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (10:09.582)
And that just doesn't work. So I gather that we can agree that the IRGC is very problematic. You said more than problematic. how to counter that? And this is the discussion that we're having today. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (10:26.976)
Right. And I think that certainly depriving them of international support and resources and legitimacy is the first step in that. And obviously the next step in that is 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (10:41.868)
directly attacking them, which is what we're now doing, right? And that's really what we're now, you know, kind of in the midst of and also in the midst of discussing. And there's another question, like, why are there so many Iranian people all around the world, cheering in the streets? You know, ask yourself that, ask your Iranian neighbor. Well, and I think that is very much part of the question. And what I would just say, again, as somebody who 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (11:12.27)
you know. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (11:15.074)
half of my descent comes from Iran, the other half from Europe. And I've never been to Iran, never visited, couldn't visit. Because according to Iranian law, according to the Islamic Republic, I would be considered Iranian even though I'm only half Iranian descent that was born in the United States, because my father was born in Iran. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (11:43.542)
And I would be forced to serve in their military for two years if I were to visit. So that's why I never could visit. But, you know, I still have lots of cousins that live there. And what I would just say is, you know, you said something earlier, you said you feel you have a lot of feelings about this or you feel very strongly about it. I think that I, what I'm upset by, I guess, 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (12:12.01)
I'm upset by the fact that there's not, more outrage against the Islamic Republic regime in this country and what they've done, and not just in their own country, but around the world. And B, I am upset at the fact that there is not more support. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (12:39.288)
for what we are doing in there, which to me is a very righteous thing, not just for the Iranian people, but also protecting our own country and also the entire region. As we can now see, this lunatic regime has now attacked 14 other countries, lashing out, because literally, if you study their ideology, 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (13:00.91)
they believe that their Messiah will come at the end of the world. So they're trying to bring about the end of the world right now. That's literally what they're trying to do. They're like, well, you we see that our clock is up, you know, it's 1159 for our regime. So if we're going to have any shot of bringing about this, you know, end of days that we have, that we're believers in and that we have been working toward for the last 47 years, now's our chance, right? 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (13:31.466)
And yet people still say, you know, and I listen to a lot of the same things, you know, podcasts and news station, you know, more independent media. And there's just, I think that there is such a... 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (13:51.138)
There's such a... 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (13:54.936)
how shall I put this? It's called a sour taste. It's like there's a sour taste in the mouth of people because of Iraq and Afghanistan and the feeling of like, well, those really did not turn out as successfully as we'd hoped. And look, I can tell you, we can sit there and go, you know, conflict by conflict. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (14:17.038)
In one minute, I can tell you why Afghanistan didn't work out. It's because we didn't stay long enough in order to actually have that country. You needed two generations to go by and a new population to emerge that was educated and had a new way of looking at the world. You needed a Marshall Plan for Afghanistan, period. That's the reason why Afghanistan didn't work out. Iraq didn't work out because we did debathification. The Bath Party was the only secular 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (14:46.983)
you know, sort of Western aligned what we would call, you know, 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (14:54.038)
moderate political group in that country. The only problem was that the dictator, whose name was Saddam Hussein, happened to take over that party and killed like, I think something like 40 to 60 % of its members, its top members, when he took over the party and then ruled the rest of the party with an iron fist. But ideologically, the Ba'ath party was the most aligned with the West out of any of the parties in Iraq. And then so we go into Iraq and then we win the war, but 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (15:23.952)
then we debathify the whole country. It would basically be the equivalent as if we were to go into Iran and we were to take over the country but then put the Islamic Republic back in charge, right? It would be that crazy of a thing to do. But again, what you have in Washington is you have a lot of really smart people who don't really understand the region. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (15:48.936)
And they think they understand the region maybe because they speak the language or because they've studied the history books. But, you know, I don't know. I think that there's a big knowledge gap when it comes to a lot of the elements that are at play here. And we're not going to be able to get into everything today. But I just, for me, 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (16:16.718)
Did you have anything you wanted to say? did want to mention that there several countries in which intervention did pan out very well. please. Yeah, please. I want to help. that. Look it up. Well, I would say one example that comes to my mind was Kosovo, right? Absolutely. Yeah. And we prevented that genocide from continuing there. Yeah. And 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (16:45.676)
You know, I'm sure there are other ones too. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (16:52.536)
You know, obviously Korea didn't turn out like we hoped it would, but we've still got South Korea out of the bargain. What's another good example? I mean, so here's a good example of Russia intervening. Russia intervened in Syria. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (17:11.052)
I know it was Turkey, sorry, Turkey intervened recently in Syria and now we have Assad out of there finally and you know a regime that seems at least somewhat willing to interact with the West and seems to be able to keep ISIS under control and you know we'll see how that pans out but it'll be interesting. But you know in Iran we had a regime that was absolutely aligned and supported the West and that was the Shah's 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (17:38.946)
government, which was basically prior to 1979. he became, think, a... And I wanted to mention this briefly. I may have mentioned it on the last episode we talked about Iran, but he became a victim of... 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (17:57.102)
a couple of things happening at once. Number one, his medical situation because he had cancer in the later years of his life that was sort of misdiagnosed and undertreated and poorly treated and mistreated, frankly. And then the other factor was that 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (18:18.862)
You know, I think because he had a great concern about his own health and how long he was going to live and he felt like I have a lot that I need to get done and I can't allow for anything or anyone to slow me down. And so because of that, he kind of squelched a lot of the... 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (18:37.066)
other parties that might have slowed down his process. And I think as a result of that, there was a lot of resentment when anything went wrong in society. And so you had the same kind of things economically happening in Iran in the late seventies as happened in our country. And 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (18:55.906)
You know, here Carter got blamed for him. Instead we got Reagan. Well there, you know, the Shah got blamed for a lot of the same things. And instead we had, you know, Khomeini. It was the result because, because the Shah was the only one providing stability and accountability to the country. And so without him, you have this radical Islamist clerics come in. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (19:24.15)
then take over but really know nothing about governance and are really more concerned about lining their pockets and spreading their ideology around the region and helping out their friends to the detriment of the general public. It's really a horrible tale. But what's interesting about it now is that Iran actually has an opportunity to 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (19:51.758)
frankly reclaim its national identity. And fortunately we have Israel and the United States. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (20:01.742)
presidents, mean really what's so amazing about what Trump is doing and people don't understand it, but it's literally like people save 3D chess, 4D chess, 5D chess, but what you really have to understand is it's like Iran is this central kind of pivot point around all of Asia. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (20:24.47)
and it provides drones which are being used by Russia against Ukraine. It provides oil, which is providing cheap oil for China. So you go in and you take over Iran, you're actually creating more of a stressful situation for Russia, hopefully bringing them to the negotiating table more quickly when it comes to Ukraine. You're also... 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (20:53.514)
having the growth that China's experienced maybe cost them a little bit more. So you're putting a break on their economic acceleration that they're experiencing. And you're doing all of this while also restoring freedom and democracy for the Iranian people and creating potentially, I would say, especially if we get a truly democratic Iran. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (21:22.542)
And the way we do that is with the transition process that's been laid out by the Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi. Pahlavi is, I think the right way to say that is actually, is it Pahlavi? 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (21:38.508)
I think it's... Palavi? No, it's Palavi. think it's like Palavi. Anyway, I don't speak Farsi, so anyway. Rézó, Rézó, Palavi. I think that's right. But anyway. Who I will be calling the Crown Prince for the rest of this video. But if we basically allow him to... 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (22:04.502)
lay out his plan and to fulfill on his plan, then he basically starts a transitional government as soon as the United States is done eliminating the IRGC. That transitional government sets, I think, within three to six months has an election for the Constitutional Convention. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (22:30.978)
And then the constitutional convention, the constitutional assembly meets and they basically work out a constitution, different, sorry, different options. They're going to work out different options, I think is what is the next step. And then they're going to put those options to a vote. Do you want a republic? Do you want a constitutional monarchy? Do you want, you know, something, some other option, you know, who knows? 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (22:56.974)
They'll give them two, three, or four options. I don't know how many. At least two. And then people will have a chance to vote on what form of government they want. Then they'll be based on that new form of government. There'll be a constitution written by that. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (23:14.894)
you know, under that form of government, there'll be a new body that's elected, then that body will write the constitution, then once that constitution is finalized, there'll be another round of elections. So this whole process takes about 18 months to two years, but in that time, we actually get a stable lasting system that Iranians will be proud of and be able to live with and will be truly democratic. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (23:43.43)
And the person that has the credibility to do that is Reza Pahlavi, the crown prince. And I think that, you know, I have been puzzled by the fact that his name is not, in Iranian circles, his name is very commonly said and used and it's kind of understood that he's the obvious choice. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (24:09.806)
But in Western circles, for whatever reason, there's questions about this. And people say, oh, who's coming next? Who's coming next? Oh, you're going to get rid of the, told him maybe somebody worse will come along. It's like, no, who will come along is really obvious. It's going to be the crown prince. And he's been saying for 20 plus years that what I want is a democratic Iran, period, period. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (24:38.23)
And he's been incredibly consistent, more consistent than any of our politicians in Washington, including Donald Trump, including Bernie Sanders, who used to be for tariffs and now is vatimately against them. Explain that to me. So, you know, look, to me, I think that the Crown Prince is the obvious choice. And I'm... 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (25:01.152)
sort of disturbed to hear people saying, we don't know who's going to, who is it going to be? It's really obvious who's it going to be. There's no other choice. There's no other choice that even, it's not like there's a distant second. There's not, there's not, there's no other choice. You know, and I think that anybody who's hoping that some other choice will rise up is coming from a very interesting bias. And this is something I wanted to talk about today. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (25:28.686)
I'm sorry, I'm totally dominating the conversation. But you're right, this is an area that's very near and dear to my heart. Before you go there, though, I just want to mention, I do hear your anger, and I get it, and I understand, and you're upset. And I'm kind of reflexified by that, since corporate news is owning the narrative. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (25:54.154)
and really framing it in a certain way. mean, how are Americans supposed to be enraged about something? You really have to dig into alternative news and the Iranians that are speaking out about it. You really have to dig. Yeah, you do. And unfortunately, it's... you have to... Not many people know what's happening. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (26:19.918)
in Iran, under the IRDC, and how that's affecting the people and how many people are at the judiciary system up there is just insane. How they're eliminating people and hanging people. It's like what judiciary system? It's like, oh, you know, you... they call a judiciary system. Right, right. No, that's more accurate. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (26:48.182)
Yeah, I mean, if you're LGBT, hung from the rafters, literally hung from, hung from lightning posts, light, light posts. If you are speak out against the regime, tortured, probably never seen again. If you, what's the other thing I was thinking of? I mean, you could be in prison just for not covering your hair properly. If you're a woman, it's absurd. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (27:16.142)
There's even people who've been killed for that there. I mean, it's totally incomprehensible. There was a recording of a young person who was tortured by the regime soldiers and it was played on a recent 2CTV livestream. My R2C to me, big shout out to him. He's got the best source for sure. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (27:44.738)
global geopolitical news, really excellent on Iran, think more than any other subject. Because he's getting news directly from Iran, directly from the Iranian people, from the streets. And he has a lot of sources in Iran, because he's from Tehran. He grew up there. He was kicked out of the country. Excuse me. yeah, think that's the other thing. There was one other thing that this so-called judiciary has done. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (28:14.92)
yeah, if you convert away from Islam to say Christianity or any other religion and they find out about it, dead. Yeah, it's absolutely barbaric. You mentioned TCTV as a resource. Alaka Laban is also a fantastic resource. She's very close to... I don't even know her, but that's great. It's great to hear. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (28:43.694)
Yeah, and then... 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (28:49.644)
the, let's see, so I was talking about monarchy because I think part of the resistance or the hesitation or the, you know, this is one of the things I think people that they don't take Reza Pahlavi seriously is because they're like, really? A king? It's 2026, a king? And it's like, okay, okay, calm down, you know, like, 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (29:16.492)
This is a very American centric view you've got here. Realize that our, you know, oldest ally, the country that we came from is still a monarchy. It's a constitutional monarchy, which if in fact Reza Pahlavi was to stay on as Shah, it would be under a constitutional system like they have in the United Kingdom. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (29:43.328)
he's the head of state and there's a prime minister that's elected as the head of government, which is, it would actually be more democratic than the 1906 constitution that Iran lived under from 1906 until 1979, because under that system, the Shah actually appointed the prime minister. So what he's described, 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (30:09.61)
if he were to come back as the Shah would not be the restoration of the 1906 Constitution, but rather would be a new Constitution more similar to the UK Constitution, which is unwritten, but basically the way it works is that you've got the King is the head of state, Prime Minister elected by the people is the head of government, and then an elected legislature. And obviously one of the things they're going to have to work out is do they want a unicameral or a bicameral system? 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (30:40.264)
But suffice it to say, one of the things that I find so interesting about this as someone who got a degree in history, and I specialized in a few areas. I specialized in Chinese history, thought and culture. I specialized in Middle Eastern history with a special interest in the religious history of the Middle East and also 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (31:09.762)
what I would say my primary interest as a history major was monarchy, revolution, rebellion, and monarchy in history. Because to me, it's such an interesting phenomenon and it takes up so much of the time and space in our history books and it took up about a 200 year period of our history as a planet. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (31:36.264)
And it begs the question of like why monarchy? Why would anybody want a monarchy? Well, I'm going to try to explain this to an American audience and it's going to be a little tricky, but I'm going to do my best. First of all, in Iran, you have I think six or seven different ethnic groups at least. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (32:00.518)
And yes, the Persians are like a slight majority. It's like 50 to 60 % of the population. But then you have all these other ethnic groups. So what is to keep all of these other ethnic groups from saying, well, we want our own little stand over here on this side and we want another little stand up here and another stand down there. then, you know, we'll have a bunch of different stands. Just like Pakistan broke off from India, right? The reason for why 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (32:28.942)
We might for example not want to have some sort of ethnic majority ruler But instead to have the Shahs because the Shah has always been seen as a unifying figure Representing all Iranians freely and fairly since the earliest days since literally the first Emperor, you know, we call Cyrus the great in this country laid down the laws of the first Declaration of Human Rights came from him It was a Persian human rights, by the way 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (32:58.936)
were a Persian invention. don't know if people realize this, but the idea that each individual, regardless of ethnic group, regardless of tribe, regardless of origin, would be respected as a member of the Iranian nation is something that is truly ancient, 2,500 years old, and is very closely tied to and associated with the Shah. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (33:26.83)
That's number one. So let's keep Iran as one unified country. Who is the best capable of doing that? The Shah. Why else might somebody want a monarchy in 2026? Well, let's look at our own country. Let's look at even the United Kingdom, where right now the majority of people in the United Kingdom want a different government than they have. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (33:52.142)
The king in the United Kingdom, unfortunately, he's supposed to have a power, by the way, to dissolve the parliament and call for new elections. He actually does constitutionally have that power. But he's not doing that. I think partially because he actually personally likes the current government, but also is afraid at this point in the history of the country to use such a strong power. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (34:19.136)
I think he's afraid it would be pretty disruptive. So he's like, let's just let the next few years play out and then we can have new elections and then, you know, the total composition of the government will change. But, you know, yeah, I think that one could argue that that's created a lot of chaos and instability in the UK because the king has become too weak. Look at our own system. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (34:48.972)
where Congress has become this deadlocked, completely bought out by special interests institution that is frankly less and less effective with each passing year. This is the same problem that you had in Rome at the end of the Roman Republic, and there's been many historians that have said that the final years of the Roman Republic are the closest match to what we're currently going through right now as a country. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (35:18.222)
And that makes a lot of sense to me. But, you know, ultimately what has people call for kings, call for monarchs, is the sense that there's a corruption in the system, the system is not working, and there needs to be somebody strong who can come in and restore order. And the reality of the matter is that people in Iran have had an opportunity to live under a republic, and I put that in quotes because... 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (35:47.596)
Realistically, it wasn't truly what I would call a republic, but that's what they associate a republic with. And the young people, especially the ones who are my age and younger, who grew up already in the time of the Islamic Republic and have only known that and only know the shah through videos and history books and listening to their parents and grandparents talk about the shah and his time. Those people... 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (36:16.524)
don't have, we don't have any, you know, there's no nostalgia for the Shaw. It's more that they look at that and say that's an ideal that is worth fighting for, that's worth dying for. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (36:27.436)
because that's a country that was actually strong and protected its people, looked out for the least of the people. The Shah and his family donated millions and hundreds of millions of dollars to everything from hospitals to schools to everything in between to take care of the less advantaged people in the country. And we're really committed to the modernization of Iran. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (36:54.53)
And frankly, I think that was a big part of the reason why ultimately. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (36:58.388)
he was overthrown, which I did not get into, which is there was basically a tacit agreement between the French government and the British government and the Carter administration at the time that, well, our deal with the Shah is coming up in 1979. A lot of people don't like to talk about this, but they had an oil deal and it was about to have to be renegotiated. And they said, well, maybe we could get somebody in there who's going to negotiate a better deal with us. Maybe some idiot Ayatollah who doesn't know any, 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (37:28.302)
I put that in quotes because that's how they thought at the time. In fact, you read Ambassador Sullivan, was the United States Ambassador to Iran at the time, if you read his communique to the Carter administration, he was a real snake in the grass. But it's a real obvious, you know, basically he's like, maybe we can, you know, maybe we can basically. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (37:50.764)
do a run around the shah and put somebody else in there who doesn't really know what they're doing and we can negotiate a better deal with them because they're not going to know what they're doing anyway. These are ayatollahs, know, they're clerics, they're religious people. What do they know about oil and negotiating deals? Okay, well, let's see how well that worked out, right? 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (38:10.774)
So you took someone who was an avowed, know, Western educated, Western minded friend of the United States and didn't like the fact that he'd gotten too powerful. Didn't like the fact that OPEC listened to what he said, that oil prices were up, that he was like, hey, you know, we're going to have to raise oil prices because you guys keep raising prices on other commodities. And so it's like, it's got to be a tit for tat kind of thing. I mean, in some ways I hear an echo of that and how Trump has been about terror. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (38:40.768)
He's like look you guys can't you know just continue to charge us tariffs and not expect we're gonna charge you tariffs That's basically what the Shah was doing He was saying look, you know, you can't expect we're gonna keep oil prices super low if you keep raising the price of your goods, you know, you have to Expect that if you raise the price, we're gonna have to raise our price too so we can pay for your goods makes sense, right? 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (39:05.042)
And the Western powers felt like, well, we should kind of own Iran. Iran should be our little play toy. And therefore, we'll just put somebody in who we think is going to be more amenable to us. And they learned how well that works out, which is not very well at all, because they didn't do their homework. They didn't read Khomeini's writings. They didn't read the kind of regime he wanted. They didn't read the documents he'd written. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (39:32.81)
And so they put somebody in there that they hoped would be kind of a dummy. And instead they got a zealot who is one of the most anti-American, if not the most anti-American leader ever in modern history for sure. I mean, to me, the death of hominy is like... 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (39:54.188)
That's like second in terms of evil dictators. That's like you got Adolf Hitler at the top in modern era. I'm talking, you know, basically a post industrial revolution. got Adolf Hitler at the top and then, you know, how many is like number two for sure. I mean, easily over Saddam Hussein and Saddam Hussein was probably three, right? But like how many is was easily number two. So. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (40:23.404)
Anyway, I just think that when it comes to monarchy, the idea that you have somebody who's an educated, learned, benevolent monarch, who can then train and educate his children to do the same thing, to keep stability and accountability to the chaos of democracy, which there is a chaotic element to it. Nobody can deny that. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (40:51.444)
and basically provide a check and balance on a system that sometimes does veer off the tracks is something that frankly, if you really think about it deeply, probably sounds a little bit like that could be interesting, you know? And in fact, the trick with monarchy is there's two tricks with monarchy that I have ascertained. One, 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (41:16.994)
You have to keep it benevolent, right? You have to keep the people that are in the line of succession, educated and well-meaning, right? And the second, and I'll talk more about that actually. You see that in the way that... 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (41:35.862)
the Pax Romana, the 200 years of peace in the Roman Empire, where you had them choosing the best member of the family to be their successor because they didn't have sons for like almost 200 years. The emperors didn't have sons. And so they would choose like, is the most promising member of my extended family? And then I'm gonna adopt that person and make them the next emperor. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (41:58.638)
And that system worked pretty well because you could basically, you you didn't have the direct nepotism, but you did have the sense of we're going to pick the most competent person. And so you have the benevolence and the competence. That's the first piece. The second piece is you want to have a system, a structure, a governmental structure where the monarch has just enough power. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (42:26.914)
Which is to say not no power so that they're just a figurehead, but not so much power that... 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (42:35.266)
They're seen as being to blame for all of society's ills, which is what happened in 1979, right? The Shah had taken over, had taken too much power in his desire to rush the country forward into the modern era. And not, know, because he was like, he was checking his watch, being like, I've got cancer. You know, I need to hurry and get this done before I'm gone. And I can't brook any opposition, right? And I think that 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (43:03.682)
You know, that led to a lot of unrest and then people basically blamed him for all of the problems. And I think you have to have a structure where you still have a political system, you still have elections. If things aren't working well, it's the prime minister's fault, not the Shah's fault, not the King's fault. And at the same time, if the system is not working, and by that I mean explicitly, 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (43:30.53)
What I mean by system is not working. I mean that the government is not reflecting the will of the people. Then you need to have a check and balance of a king or some sort of whatever you want to call him, maybe president, who can come in and say, no, we're not doing that. And dissolve the parliament and call for new elections and have the people's voice be heard. And that's what really should be done right now in the UK, in my opinion. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (43:59.886)
And, you know, to some degree in our system here in the United States, we have managed to mitigate some of the need for a king because we've accreted more power to the executive. So the president is more powerful by far today than he was, than George Washington was, hands down. I mean, I think every historian would agree with that. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (44:26.126)
And that's part of how we've avoided. But the problem is, is that that's not the same as a king because the king never has to get reelected. And that's the problem that you have with the president is the president is only in there for four years. The president was in there for automatically eight years or 12 years or 10 years. Then I think it would be less subjected to a lot of this. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (44:52.524)
you know, chaos that can happen. But then the problem is then you're stuck with the same guy for that long. That's why it's kind of nice to have the two-tiered system where you have the king who is kind of above the fray, can only, what is only going to get involved if things get really bad. And then you have the prime minister and he's going to be the one running the government who has to get reelected every four years. And it's going to be more accountable to the people. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (45:18.474)
And they've sort of, you know, they've emulated that same system. Ultimately, they've realized that's what they need to do in France and a lot of other countries where they have this sort of president and prime minister instead of a king and a prime minister. So this is not. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (45:33.806)
It's not as radical of idea as it sounds to most Americans, what I'm describing, but it is a way of dealing with the political corruption that we have in this country. And I actually have a really interesting proposal, which we can get on a different, totally different day, which is an idea about how we could do like a merit-based monarchy, not a true monarchy, but like a merit-based 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (46:02.094)
aristocracy or nobility where like the more you contribute to humanity, the higher you're esteemed in society. And I think that that would actually be a great way of replacing both the old type of landed gentry of, know, old NCM regime aristocracy, as well as the new aristocracy, which is whoever has more money in their bank account is considered to be higher on the rank. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (46:32.29)
But I think, I don't think society is quite ready yet for my plan, basically I would say that I think that it would be an interesting one to discuss at some point when we're ready for it. yep. Any thoughts about the whole monarchy question? No. I'm curious to know what you feel about that, because I know that, you know, 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (46:59.468)
Vietnam has not really had a monarch in too long, so it's kind of not something that was ever on your radar growing up. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (47:13.166)
I think that your idea is a utopia of sorts. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (47:24.022)
Interesting I've never heard anybody call monarchy utopia you talking about monarchy you're talking about the idea like a merit-based. Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean again, this is just a very short idea, but it's basically the idea that 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (47:42.026)
Society has to have elites. It's the nature of social structure that you need to have elites that basically lead the way, that run the society. And the problem is we don't have a coherent way of assigning who the elites are other than whoever has the most money, which is, I think we've seen, not really the greatest way of doing it. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (48:09.286)
Or who has the most land because their dad conquered a bunch of land and then passed it down to them and passed it down to the, you know, like 17 generations, which is the old way of doing it. Right. So I think that the question is, could we come up with a new way of actually having elites that serve the people and have that be the way that we, so kind of like an, it's, like an emergent method where basically the people that, 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (48:38.338)
contribute the most to society are recognized the most by society and therefore Actually get privileges that other people don't have so you're actually incentivized to do the right thing Because if you do the right thing then you actually get more social status and people who do the wrong things But yeah, I mean it's definitely people are interested in that you know let us know email us at part of the effect at gmail.com and Say hey, you know 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (49:08.014)
present that, because I have a whole paper that I've kind of been working on in the background on that and kind of what that would look like as a, and it wouldn't even necessarily have to replace the current system, it might just be something that would, you know, could augment the current system. But yeah, it's an interesting idea for sure. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (49:33.506)
maybe a little bit utopian. I'm not really a big believer in utopia though. To me, it's it's an iteration. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (49:39.758)
It's like, hey, it's tied into my whole philosophy of life. It's like, let's try to do a little better than our parents did. So it's like, hey, let's look at like monarchy and aristocracy and think about, and elites and think about not getting rid of them, which is of course what the communists think that we can do, which I don't think, to me, that's the utopian idea that we're not gonna have elites anymore, because everybody's gonna be totally equal. It's gonna be a completely egalitarian society. To me, that's the utopia. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (50:09.712)
you're saying is this would be like a more realistic utopia, like something that could actually, you know, we could work toward, right? And that's fair. Yeah, I think that's my intention too. Absolutely. For our listeners, as we could create this consensus together, I invite you to ask yourself the questions whether you're being 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (50:39.822)
formed and barraged by corporate news? Are you consulting, are you navigating the annals of critical thinking? Are you consulting other sources like TCTV or Ella Kiliband who is a lawyer? She's a fierce daughter of Iran, very well spoken. I think I know who you're talking about. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (51:01.57)
She's been on Piers Morgan? Yep. No, I like her. Yeah. She's cool. Cracker. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (51:12.91)
So are you? There's another lady I have seen that I also like who I believe is also an attorney. She's Canadian. Her name is Goldie. I don't want to mess up her last name, but it's like Gaberian or something like that. Yeah, but just look up Goldie Iran. You'll find her. And it's Goldie with an IE. But yeah, no, she's like she streams like all day long. She's kind of wild. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (51:42.808)
But good stuff. Go ahead, were you saying something? 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (51:48.622)


Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (51:49.573)
my thought was complete. I'm inviting our listeners to consult other sources, to take a look at the history, to talk to your Iranian friends, you know, neighbors. If you don't have an Iranian friend, make one. I mean, look, I'm not even Iranian, right? I'm totally American, but because I have so many family members that immigrated from Iran, 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (52:17.824)
I grew up hearing about all of these geopolitical realities. And so I feel like just based on that, I have a better sense of what's going on in the Middle East half the time than, you know, 98 % of the people in Washington. And I'm sure a lot of people feel that way, you know, but then me then studying history on top of that, I think is at another layer. yeah, I just, and then being a physician, you know, just 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (52:47.724)
Having a natural bent towards wanting to diagnose and treat the problems of society, think that a lot of what we come to with this is that comes from that desire to actually have the world be a better place. And I think that, excuse me, I think if we approach this Iran intervention from that perspective, then I think there's a real opportunity to create a future, not just for Iran and not just for the region, but for the whole world. That is truly a better world. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (53:16.75)
And yeah, I think that 98 % 99 maybe 99.9 % of the time we should be doing negotiation. We should be giving positive incentives. If we have to, give a negative slap on the wrist in order to achieve a more free, more peaceful world. And then that, you know, 0.1, 0.2 % of the time we do need to intervene and that's okay to do. And I understand that people are hesitant because of Iraq, because of Afghanistan. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (53:46.656)


Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (53:47.097)
I get it. I totally get it. But it's just as someone who grew up in this milieu of hearing about all these things and hearing about all these countries and their internal politics and the issues at play, I'm here to tell you that Iran is actually different. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (54:05.235)
And we absolutely have to get rid of the IRGC completely because as long as they're still around as an entity, we will not be safe. The region will not be safe. The United States will not be safe. The world will not be a safe place because this particular group of people are cuckoo, as my eight-year-old son would say. Not that we talk about this with him necessarily, although... 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (54:32.48)
I have shown him some of the president's videos about what's going on in Iran when President Trump gives a speech about it, just so he can start. Because we realized, for example, that when we were growing up, if the president was talking on TV, like everybody was watching that because the president's on TV, right? Now you have to actually go seek that out. So we've been sort of... 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (54:57.858)
you know, selectively choosing particular speeches or particularly momentous speeches to kind of show the kids, to show them like, okay, this is what's going on in the world. But from a very, you know, from a very kind of official, calm perspective. yeah, I think that's been good. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (55:26.894)
had some good conversations. And I think one of the things that came up today on the way to school actually was that Ryan kept getting confused between sort of when I was saying Iran or when somebody was saying Iran on the news, it's like, well. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (55:50.188)
Wait a second. Is Iran the good guys or the bad guys? Right. I had to distinct for him like that. There's like, there's like the bad guys Iran, which is like the Islamic Republic and IRGC. And then there's the good guys Iran, which is like the crown prince and the Iranian people. And I think if people understand that Iran is like the true Iran is the crown prince and the Iranian people and the Islamic Republic and the IRGC. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (56:20.172)
see is the kind of product of this paramilitary coup from 1979 that has essentially occupied the country, the true Iran, for the last 47 years. And then what we're doing is we're ending the occupation. And that is a beautiful thing and something that I think that we as Americans should be proud of. And, you know, I can only 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (56:48.79)
begin to imagine the gratitude that the Iranian people for the lives that have been lost already and the lives that will continue to be lost, the American lives in this conflict, because those are lives that are being spent not just for the freedom and the safety of the Iranian people, but again, the entire region and the world. Because as the attacks in Washington DC and Austin, Texas have shown us, 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (57:16.226)
This is a regime that is not going to hesitate to spread, continue to spread terror throughout the world. And we saw it in Lebanon and the Beirut and the bombing of the barracks there. We've seen that was back in the 80s when I was a kid. And all really from then forward. I this regime has the bombing of the USS Cole. mean, there's been... 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (57:45.442)
multiple times where the Islamic Republic has ended American lives. So really this right now as of the time we're recording this there have been six Americans who've lost their lives in this conflict. This is just the six latest casualties in a 47 year conflict against this criminal regime which has got to go. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (58:09.614)
because if they don't go they're going to continue to grow in power and continue to you know infect and infest the world with their extremist radical ideology and You know that frankly the Iranian people deserve better we as a as a planet deserve better Than to have that kind of sort of doomsday 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (58:36.31)
you know, apocalyptic, we need to bring on the apocalypse by destroying the world kind of ideology, having that, have control of a country, much less a country that has nuclear weapons, which, you know, they were right on the verge of having. So, yeah, I mean, that's a horrible thought. I mean, and obviously they're not, they would not have been afraid to use them, unlike, 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (59:06.317)
You know, I say what you will about North Korea, right? Obviously not good guys, but don't seem to be like suicidal either, right? 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (59:19.392)
So these guys though obviously are and you can see that in the way that they've literally attacked their closest neighbors, their friends, know, Oman, which was hosting the talks between them and the United States. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (59:37.218)
The United Arab Emirates, which by the way, I don't know if my cousins are watching this, but my cousins that are in the UAE, I hope you're staying safe. I love you. I've been thinking about you every day since this started. And I've been worried the heck out of you. And just have been meaning to reach out and try to get ahold of you, but I've just been, you know. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (59:57.098)
in the thick of it trying to monitor everything that's going on at the same time. So just let you know that I love you and my thoughts and prayers are with you and I miss you and I hope you're staying safe. Because I have... I think... 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (01:00:15.158)
Do I have in the UAE like seven or eight? Seven or eight, yeah. Yeah, at least. All right. And same to my cousins in Iran, which are so many that I don't even know how many they are. But, you know, really each and every one of the Iranian people is my cousin eventually, I'm sure. Just like every person on the planet is my country, is my cousin eventually. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (01:00:39.68)
It's interesting, I asked Chachit Buti about this, said, you know, what is the likelihood that someone has some of the genes of Abraham, as in like, you know, Abraham, father of Isaac from the Bible, in their body at this point in time in history? 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (01:01:00.462)
And it was basically, he me this long explanation. It's basically like a hundred percent, you know, we are all at this point, children of Abraham because of the fact that, you know, the children of Abraham have spread all over the world and intermarried so many different times with different people. And, um, you know, we kind of like to a little bit tongue in cheek say that, well, I got my, I got my blood of Abraham from Esther, you know, in the Bible who married the 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (01:01:30.19)
the Persian King Xerxes, who actually our second son has his name, which in Farsi is Hasha'iar, which is his middle name. But yeah, mean, at this point we all have a little bit of Abraham in us. And I think that's such a beautiful thing, that we all really are part of God's people and part of his tribe, the holy family, if you will. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (01:01:58.798)
And that's such a, that's an important message. You know, that's a message that we teach in Godly play really, is that we're all part of God's people. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (01:02:13.74)
You know, certainly Jesus made that more real than it had been before. I think that, needless to say, genetically it's also true, which was kind of cool to see. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (01:02:30.894)
I look forward to visiting Iran with our boys. Yeah, well and you know hopefully with my dad as well and while he is still well and sprightly and yeah that's absolutely something I'm looking forward to. I've been looking forward to for you know at this point 45 and a half years. But yeah that'll be really fascinating and enjoyable. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (01:03:00.192)
experience. I've only looked at pictures my whole life. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (01:03:09.186)
Well, stay safe everyone. Azadi. Did you want to talk about anything else? Is that the Farsi? That's how much Farsi I know. Azadi. Azadi is stay safe? Freedom. Freedom. Okay, see? I don't even know. But I do know Javid Shah, which means long live the king. I like that. Ryan asked me the other day, what does that mean, Javid Shah? Long live the king. 

Dr. Ryan & Mrs. Madi Partovi (01:03:42.434)
Alright, well thank you for listening in on this episode of the Partovi Effect. It's been a fun ride. I'm Dr. Ryan Partovi. This is Maddie Partovi. You will.