The War on Iran w/ Nina Farnia & Navid Farnia

Speaker 1: You remember Din-Din-Boo?

Henry Hukimaki: No!

Speaker 1: The same thing happened in Algeria, in Africa. They didn't have anything but a rifle. The French had all these highly mechanized instruments of warfare. But they put some guerrilla action on them.

Henry Hukimaki: Hello and welcome to Guerrilla History, the podcast that acts as a reconnaissance report of global proletarian history and aims to use the lessons of history to analyze the present. I'm one of your co-hosts, Henry Hukimaki, joined as usual by my co-host, Professor Adnan Hussain, historian and director of the School of Religion at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada. Hello Adnan, how are you doing today? I'm doing great, Henry. It's wonderful to be with you. It's nice to see you as always. We have two fantastic guests today, but before I introduce the guests, I would like to remind the listeners that you can help support the show and allow us to continue making episodes like this by going to patreon.com forward slash guerrilla history. That's G-U-E-R-R-I-L-L-A history. So our topic today is going to be focused on Iran. And of course, Iran is very much at the front of the news cycle these days. And recently, I had read an interview by both of these guests that was in Pambazooka, which was a really great interview. We're joined by Naveed Farnia, who is a scholar of African-American studies, and returning guest Nina Farnia, a law professor and legal historian. She was on an episode. I don't remember. It couldn't have been that long ago, Nina, like maybe six months ago. But it's nice to have both of you on the show. Naveed, if you would like to say anything else about yourself to introduce yourself to our guests, to our listeners rather, because it's your first time on the show, please feel free.

Navid Farnia: Sure, yes. Thank you, Henry and Adnan for so much for having us on the show today. Yeah, as you said, my name is Naveed Farnia. I'm a professor of African-American studies at Wayne State University in Detroit in the United States. And my research is broadly on the relationship between racial oppression in the United States and US imperialism, particularly during the era of national liberation. So I really focus on revolution and counter-revolution. So what's going on right now is, of course, both a personal interest and a scholarly interest as well.

Henry Hukimaki: Yeah, absolutely. And Nina, as I mentioned, you've been on the show previously, but if you'd like to reintroduce yourself to our listeners briefly, feel free.

Nina Farnia: Hi, everybody. And again, Henri and Adnan, thank you so much for having us on. It's always a pleasure to speak with you both. And my research is I'm a legal historian. My research is basically on U.S. imperialism and foreign policy, the law and foreign policy of U.S. imperialism.

Henry Hukimaki: So as I mentioned, I had read this article, which was an interview with the two of you for Pam Bazooka, and it was a really interesting article that was focused on the state of Iran at that time. It looked at the protests that had broken out across Iran, which we've previously talked about on Guerrilla History as well. You talked about what the cause of those protests were, how they were inflamed from abroad. You talked about the economic not only conditions but also orientation of iran in that article it was really interesting and we're going to touch on those topics today but of course in between you doing that previous article and today there has been a lot that has changed so we're recording this on april 2nd listeners and for over a month now the united states and israel have been conducting an air and sea campaign that they claim have neutralized nearly all strategic Iranian targets. Meanwhile, Iran is still responding with thousands of missiles and drones across Israel and the Gulf states. And despite Donald Trump often saying things to the contrary, there is currently no signs of de-escalation. In your article, that previous article, you mentioned Iran as the last independent and sovereign state in West Asia. Now with this war entering the second month, I'm wondering how you assess the strategic situation. Has the axis of resistance held?

Navid Farnia: Yes, I'll start. And I'll just say that the Axis of Resistance has not only held, but it has the strategic initiative at the current moment. Iran was hit hard on the first day, just like it was hit hard on the first day of the 12-day war by the Zionist regime, by Israel. It was hit hard on the first day of this particular war as well. And I think the United States and Israel calculated that Iran would be strategically paralyzed to the point where there would be chaos and perhaps the opportunity to facilitate what they call regime change in Iran, which would basically be the demise of the last state bastion of resistance in the region. But in fact, within really an hour of being hit, Iran responded back, and it responded back forcefully, not just by hitting Israel, but particularly by hitting US bases in the region, from Bahrain and Kuwait to Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, of course, and then Iraq. And then the other thing is, Henry, as you point out in your question, is the larger axis of resistance. Within a day, the Iraqi resistance, which hasn't gotten historically as much play, so to speak, as other forces in the axis of resistance. But within a day, the Iraqi resistance activated and has basically routed NATO and US forces out of the country of Iraq, right? To the point where the Iraqi resistance in Iraq itself has been hit hard in the last month. But that is precisely because of the strategic gains and initiative that the Iraqi resistance has, of course, with the support of Iran. Hezbollah in Lebanon is perhaps, you know, I would argue, perhaps fighting the most important front in this war right now, because in that respect, it is a ground war. And the Zionists are basically invading southern Lebanon, trying to create at least a buffer zone, perhaps just completely, you know, occupy whatever, however you want to phrase it, according to them. But the Lebanese resistance has engaged in basically a guerrilla war at this point, and they've inflicted heavy costs on the Zionists, right? And I should also add that it's clear that U.S. ground troops are in that ground war as well. I think like last week, it was reported by Israeli media that U.S. troops had been, that several U.S. troops had been wounded in combat in southern Lebanon, right? So all of this to say, and of course, this past week, Yemen has activated as well. Right. So all of this to say that despite whatever, you know, whatever psychological operations that the Trump government tries to engage in to say that Iran has been incapacitated, the reality on the ground reflects completely otherwise.

Henry Hukimaki: And of course, I would love to hear Nina's thoughts on this as well. But, you know, I just have to mention, Naveed, since you mentioned the Iraqi resistance not getting the credit that they deserve, that's absolutely true. And that's also unfortunately true on our show. We've talked quite a bit about Hezbollah. We've talked about Yemen quite a bit. But as you pointed out, within the first day of the current war on Iran, the popular mobilization forces in Iraq activated. And listeners who have been following the situation closely will know that the United States was pushing the Kurds to launch a ground invasion in Iran with the idea of, at the very least, balkanizing Iran, if not initiating regime change through that means of a Kurdish ground invasion. And within the first day of this operation, the popular mobilization forces in Iraq, the Iraqi resistance, they themselves came out into the media and said, we are absolutely going to ensure that there will not be any movement of Kurdish forces into Iran. from our territory. And that was a critical thing at that point, because as you mentioned, Naveed, the first day was extremely difficult for Iran. They got hit extremely hard. The situation was very unclear for a while. So the fact that you had one of these resistance factions who hasn't gotten a whole lot of credit in the media, even within... the alternative left media, stepping up and ensuring that that pathway was going to be closed down immediately was remarkably important. And I just wanted to dwell on that for a moment. But Nina, please take it away.

Nina Farnia: I'll just add briefly that in spite of the extreme violence that actually that we're witnessing now, just today, bridges and pharmaceutical companies and all kinds of civilian facilities and infrastructure were bombed or are being bombed right now by the US and the Israelis. And in fact, last night in his speech, Trump did say, we're going to bomb them into the Stone Age, right? I mean, this is clearly a war crime at minimum to say this and then act on it. But despite all of this, despite the tragic losses, both at the civilian level and the political level, Iran has exhibited that it was incredibly prepared for this. It's been preparing for almost 50 years, but it was actually through the Lego films and all the PR operation itself, the deployment of international law, its approach to the Strait of Hormuz, the diplomatic processes it's engaging in, all of these things. suggests that Iran has been preparing for this moment for quite a long time. And so far, you know, knock on wood, mashallah, whatever you want to say, it has left no stone unturned. And so if the U.S. does indeed send ground troops, and I think a lot of the military commentators are suggesting it's going to happen this weekend, that is another stone that Iran did not leave unturned. They'll find out soon.

Adnan Hussain: Yeah, we are on the cusp of possibly some sort of ground assault. There's been talk of, you know, islands in the Persian Gulf that might be targets, either Kharag Island or these three islands that the UAE claims for itself and that it might attack. join. And those might be opportune sort of targets because the U.S. can enlist some support. Yeah. And we will see. We're on the cusp of that. Other possibility, of course, is that there might be additional, you know, attempts to deploy airborne, you know, special forces in other places behind. And so that's also going to be you know, important that Iran maintain its vigilance. And it seems to me, you know, that the society is very mobilized for this. Like there may have been questions beforehand after, you know, we saw an upsurge of nationalist solidarity after the 12-day war. But then, of course, there were operations after media, disinformation, psychological ones, and, you know, infiltrating legitimate economic protests with, you know, Mossad agents, CIA agents, people who have been, you know, paid or recruited, you know. And so on. So there would have been possibly questions about that, about what is the character of Iranian society, you know, and how will it be weathering these difficult times? Obviously, they were the imperialist forces were expecting and perhaps even depending on. Creating conditions that would enable that any groups to seize opportunity for disorder chaos in undermining the integrity of the government and social order. That hasn't happened. The exact opposite has happened when people have been asked to come into the streets so that they could protest the Islamic Republic. Instead, people have taken to the streets to defend their country, to defend their system, even people who may have protested. I've seen a lot of videos recently of people who may have participated or say that they did go to the protests over the course of January, late December and early January, but who now are out in the streets making common cause against the very evident attempt to destroy Iran as a nation, as a country. And this is, I think, why we're also seeing the change in tactics to utterly try and devastate civilian infrastructure because of the failure of those other attempts and almost as if um irani you know people now are legitimate targets of course they always were but there was a discourse of we're trying to save the iranian people from their country but now if they from their government but if they want to support their government well then you know why not like you know they're legitimate targets this is a sort of discursive logic. So I was wondering if maybe you could talk a little bit about what has changed or maybe what has always been there in Iranian society to present this form of social solidarity where people are patrolling their neighborhoods, they're doing mutual aid, they are not running a out to kind of plunder, you know, grocery stores or, you know, kind of, you know, there is despite targeting police stations, government offices and all of the, you know, institutions that would be responsible for maintaining public order. You know, Iran's society has been acting with enormous sense of social solidarity. And that's something that I think is very difficult for people in the West to really appreciate and understand. There's very little reporting on it. But even if they hear about it and they see these videos of people pouring out into the streets, with defiant revolutionary energy and slogans amidst bombardment, it's very hard for them to understand it. Perhaps you have some thoughts and perspectives on how and why the society has reacted the way it has.

Navid Farnia: Yeah, so I'll just quickly say that I think that the West, and even including the Western left, has never given credit for the strength of the social fabric of Iranian society ever since the Islamic revolution. And I think back, Adnan, you mentioned the 12-day war. This is kind of ancient history now, but I think back to the assassination of Soleimani back in 2020. And there were questions then about whether the United States is going to hit Iran and begin a war. And what happened at that point was that millions of people came out on the street in commemoration of Soleimani and Mohandas, the Iraqi general who was also murdered and assassinated in that strike. um and very quickly after that after the iranian people came out on the streets the entire like discourse of course the iranian state responded by hitting a u.s base in iraq and quickly you know the question the question was whether the us is going to respond to that and there was going to be more tit for tat but quickly because of these popular popular demonstrations right um there was no more question about whether the united states was going to go in at that point right um i think back to this january with the urban war right like and the the the discourse then at least here in the in the united states was that you know iranian society is on the precipice it's you know it's fracturing it's it's cracking a little bit but in fact what ended like once and for all that urban insurgency those riots was on i believe january 14th the Iranian people, again, in the millions coming on the streets, not just in Tehran, but across the entire country, right? And from there, there were no more questions about, like, whether these Mossad agents were going to, like, be able to get any sort of traction on the ground and support from, like, you know, whatever, Iranian dissidents or whatever you want to call them, right? And so this shows that like the social fabric is not only strong today, but there's this historical continuity of this social fabric that that people had, you know, here do not give credit for. And that is in large part because of the, you know, the propaganda that they've been eating up for the last 47 years. Right. I think Nina probably has a lot more to add on this. Yeah.

Nina Farnia: So I've been reading up just on U.S. military strategy, especially because the Iranians and the Axis have been saying for several years now that for them this is a war of attrition, and they are prepared for several years of a war of attrition. And we knew this, right? We know that in... asymmetric wars, especially if there's more asymmetry, the guerrilla or colonized forces, the forces seeking national liberation often pursue attrition. But attrition can also be used by colonizing forces or the more dominant forces. And it looks like, especially after Trump's speech last night, it appears that the U.S. is pursuing a strategy of attrition. in addition to conventional warfare. And so I've been trying to read up to understand, okay, so what happens when you have sort of a colonizing or imperial force using attrition and a colonized force that seeks national liberation, like the Iranians using attrition. I mean, Iran is not, you know, everybody knows what I mean. They're not, you know, colonized, but they're certainly weakened by the imperial system. So... According to the literature, there are three paths of warfare that the U.S. generally pursues, right? Counterinsurgency, attrition, and conventional. And they often, they sort of do it, you know, they use these paths sequentially, right? Not in order necessarily, but sequentially. First, often, it's the conventional, right? The bombings and things like that. And then once they clear out the society and sort of debilitate it, then they begin to use counterinsurgency. And because of the people, the people in the streets, they have not been able to do that. And so the reality is that we need to think about the people of Iran that hold the streets almost every single night, almost every single night, millions of people holding the streets in the face of bombings, right? We know that at least one person was killed while she was in the streets, probably more. But this is not just a popular cradle, which I've called it in the past. This is actually a form of popular resistance. Right. Like popular resistance among the people. And I don't I mean, it's remarkable to watch this and be Iranian. It's truly, truly remarkable because on the one hand, you know, we're scared that our families are going to get hurt or something is going to happen. But on the other hand, we see this and we feel a sense of pride. But the reality is that colonized peoples and peoples fighting for national liberation have done this. They've done this, and it's been a critical dimension of their battles and their victories. And the Iranians are just really, really holding their own, and they're following in the footsteps of especially the Vietnamese. The question is, you know, it looks like counterinsurgency and knock on wood, again, is not going to work out for the United States. But the question is, then what happens? They're truly pursuing attrition. What is this going to mean? How much longer are we going to be witnessing bunker buster bombs of hospitals and schools and bridges and pharmaceutical factories, etc. ? The impact is going to be serious, right? Edan is a big nation. It's by and large a wealthy nation. It's going to be able to weather this. It's not going to be eliminated from the planet. Everybody knows that now. Everybody admits it. But I'm not convinced that we're just looking at two more weeks. I think that last night's speech was about preparing us, the people in the United States, and especially Trump's or the U.S. allies in Europe for a longer war. That's going to use attrition and conventionals.

Adnan Hussain: That's interesting that you come to that conclusion because a lot of the conventional commentators, of course, looked at the boasts made by Trump about how they've achieved so many of their, you know, currently claimed war aims. Of course, they're not at all similar to what might have been war aims at the start of the war, but that this kind of spending so much time talking about how devastating the U.S. attacks have been and they've done this and done that is being interpreted as a way for a short kind of pull out of the situation. So it's interesting that you're looking at it, you know, as announcing essentially that this is a longer term kind of commitment and preparing the U.S. public for that. I might ask you a little bit about what in the speech you read as signaling that or how you interpret and frame that just as a follow up immediately to that point.

Nina Farnia: I mean, the bit about. This was the most striking part of the speech for me when he said, look. The U.S. was in World War I for a year, year and a half. World War II for approximately three to four years, between three and four years. Korea for three and a half-ish years. Vietnam for 19 years. I think though Vietnam was longer. Iraq, eight years. Iraq was definitely longer, right?

Adnan Hussain: And he didn't say Afghanistan. And he didn't say Afghanistan for 20, but he could have been.

Nina Farnia: yeah and then and this 32 days and and that he didn't have to say that he didn't have to say 19 years and 10 years and all that and that signals to me that they're looking at something longer than two weeks maybe it's not going to be five years or three years but i don't think it's going to be two weeks i think

Adnan Hussain: Right. Now, see, that's interesting because a lot of people would have read that as just a brag about how we've accomplished so much in just 32 days, which is, of course, something he also said. But retailing that history, you know, you know, even if it's skewed and incomplete and all that is potentially a preparation for, as you're saying, a much longer commitment period. And, you know, the discourse even on like, say, our Quincy, you know, Institute for, you know, soft imperial statecraft, which is how I kind of call it. You know, somebody like Trita Parsi has been going around saying he's looking for an off ramp. But the real problem is... is whether Iran will, you know, kind of pull back from this aggressive revolutionary IRGC, all very excited, you know, with the elimination of these sober, you know, we don't have Larijani anymore and people who might be able to negotiate. The real risk here is that Iran might not, you know, recognize that it has to, it might be too ambitious, you know, it might do, you know, so there's this kind of discourse to try and fight frame this as Iran shouldn't miss the opportunity for some kind of like, you know, off ramp, you know, for its own sake, it could lead itself into destruction, you know, by pursuing this too aggressively. And I thought that's also very interesting to see how that is being kind of mooded into so-called critique of the kind of war or the Trump Trump war and so on. So I don't know if you had any any thoughts about how to kind of respond. I mean, I just sort of ignore that sort of stuff. But I did also have like a question that I wanted to ask about. Whether, you know, one level of analysis has been that the U.S.-Israeli attack is, you know, this kind of combined, you know, imperial sort of structure. But yet others have sort of distinguished that there might be different strategic goals. And also, perhaps we have been seeing certain moments where Israel plays the bad cop for the good cop that we're negotiating or we're trying to solve this. and that they are often, you know, making the escalation sort of strikes. And so I wonder if there's some kind of sense that, you know, that Israel is sort of happy to see Iran be completely de-industrialized. It doesn't matter to them if it's fragmented, if it has collapse, you know, the longer it goes for them, You know, they feel perhaps that it's better to kind of reduce Iran's capacity or even plunge it into, you know, a risk of a Syria or Libya type situation. And that they will kind of sabotage, you know, any kind of off-ramps or negotiations and so forth. I'm wondering what you think about this in the analysis of different levels of strategic goals. You know, how do you reconcile, you know, that kind of picture in analyzing the Ramadan War?

Henry Hukimaki: Yeah, I would like to add into that if I may. So it's a really interesting question that you asked, Adnan, about what the strategic vision is and then these different levels of possibility. And like Nina had said, the speech in which these different timeframes were noted, for me also, I agree with you entirely, it looks like they're just prepping the American populace for a longer engagement. And I also then see this situation where when analyzing what the overall strategic goals of the operation were, there are levels. I think that initially the plan was that the government would just fall within the first day or two and then there would be chaos and the United States would be able to handpick somebody who would then run Iran. That became evident very quickly that that wasn't going to be the case. And despite the fact that we have Trump out there every day saying that Iran has been totally obliterated, 90% of Iran's missile launch systems have been obliterated and destroyed, we also see in reality that within the last week, Iran has launched over 200 missiles, which is over 30% of the total that they've launched in the last four weeks. So the capacity doesn't seem to be destroyed by any sort of metric. The analysts that are looking at it are not stating that things look to be largely destroyed. That's really only the United States government that is doing it. And meanwhile, the United States is also telling its regional allies, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, that the United States will, and I've seen this quoted directly, will not let them get hurt or fail in any way. Well, Unfortunately, that's just rhetoric because they have been hit quite a bit and they continue to be hit. Again, military analysts are stating that the air defense systems and these regional allies are going to be running short very soon. Iran's capacity doesn't seem to be running short, but the air defense and these allies that the United States is not going to alarm to be harmed seems to be running out much quicker. So this is where I'm now adding on to what Adnan had said. I also see that there's these levels of analysis. There was this one tactic that the United States would just decapitate the government, things would fall apart in two days. Okay, that didn't work. Well, maybe we can goad the Kurds into launching an invasion. Maybe that'll work. Oh, okay. Well, that's not going to happen now. And so... I also now see this situation where they're prepping the populace for a much longer engagement. It's clear that Iran is not going to fall apart. And the ultimate goal there, as Adnan points out, may just be that they force Iran into this perpetual failed state sort of situation, similar to what they had forced in Syria or in Libya. But Iran economically, as you pointed out, Nina, is extremely different than Syria or Libya. So that's where I'm going to leave off. My addition to what Adnan was saying was just basically to underscore what Adnan had said, but then also to underscore that if we go to that level where the United States may just be trying to impose failure, long-term perpetual failure, We also have to analyze that Iran just structurally and economically is remarkably different than those other cases.

Navid Farnia: Yes, absolutely. So I want to address both your questions, Adnan and Henry, on three levels. And so bear with me. The first level is on the battlefield. What's going on on the ground, right? And this is why, for me, the question of initiative is so important, right? Theorists of guerrilla warfare and revolution have written about the importance of strategic initiative. If we think about what Iran did at the beginning of the war, first of all, they did not hit Israel hard compared to what they're doing right now, right? So that's for one. Second of all, what they were hitting was radar installations and listening posts. If the Iranians anticipated that this was going to be a short war, they would not have gone after those installations first and foremost, right? Now, the second stage after the radar installations, which have been largely destroyed in the region, right? Of course, also the air defense systems. They've hit the Patriot air defenses and the THAAD missile systems as well, to the point where they're trying to relocate from South Korea. I read a report the other day from Poland. The Polish apparently refused the request for Patriot missiles to be relocated to the region, right? So the air defenses and radar installations. The second stage was Air Force multipliers. So refueling planes, right? The report last. So a couple of two, three weeks ago, it was like six refueling planes hit in a US base in Saudi Arabia. This past week, two or three more, along with the AWACS aircraft as well, hit. So like so so these Air Force multipliers hit. They enable these fighter jets to fly all the way from occupied Palestine or from Jordan to, if not Iranian airspace, because I think that the US and the Zionists are still afraid to send their fighter jets deep into Iranian airspace. They go into Iraqi airspace. launch standoff missiles, which by the way, they're running short on those as well, launch standoff missiles from Iraqi airspace, and then go back. But even that trip, they need a refueling plane to do that, those fighter jets, right? And so this is what Iran is doing, is hitting these refueling planes, right? Again, all of these things suggest to me that they're hitting strategically significant equipment and defense systems and radar and these kinds of things, right? Because they anticipate this is going to be a longer war, a war of attrition, right? And so this leads me to the second sort of phase, which is the question about Iran and the United States and these kinds of things. So first of all, I think it's very important what Nina pointed out about what Trump said last night. Because oftentimes what I've had said in other conversations, just like just everywhere, is that these wars for liberation, they take a while because the resistance fights wars of attrition, right? They have to, that's the only way that they could win. I mean, Vietnam defeated two empires over the course of 30 years, right? And we can go back all the way to the Haitian revolution, took 13 years, right? And half of the population in the Haitian revolution was was killed and the land was destroyed multiple times in that revolution. All of these anti-colonial and anti-imperialist wars have always been wars of attrition. If we think about militarily, and I'll get to the question of popularity as well because that's very important, but if we think about militarily, who is prepared for a longer war? Is it the United States and Israel or is it Iran? Right. Israel has already been in a war of attrition over the last two years, two plus years against the Palestinian resistance, against the Lebanese resistance and the Yemeni resistance. Right. And the Palestinian resistance said as early, I should say, as late as last year that they're fighting a war of attrition against the Zionists. Right. That was the Palestinian resistance in Gaza. Right. In the worst of conditions on the ground. that they were saying that. So they recognize, the Lebanese resistance recognizes, the Iranians recognize that Israel does not have the capacity to fight a war of attrition. In fact, we see images of settlers leaving every day. And without the settlers, the project cannot stand. As for the United States, perhaps militarily, yes, is more equipped to fight a war of attrition. But the United States public has no sort of appetite for a long war. And this is exactly why Trump is trying to basically cajole his base and cajole the U.S. public into sort of supporting this war, right? They've done false flag operations left and right across the region. hasn't had any sort of popular effect, right? All these things suggest to me, you know, the fact that they send the Ford aircraft carrier with this malfunctioning toilets to the region, right? And, you know, and then within a couple of weeks, there was like a quote unquote laundry fire on the Ford, right? And they had to take it out of commission, right? You know, like at what point does it become more embarrassing, just like less embarrassing just to admit that you were hit by a missile, right? you know, than to say, like, you had a laundry fire that destroyed 600 beds on your ship, right? So, like, all of these things suggest that, like, not only the popular morale, but the troop morale is not, like, is not where it needs to be to fight a long war. And so this brings us back to the popular question, right? And this is the third level, and I'll wrap up here, is that, you know, for example, the Vietnamese, and Nina raised this point about popular resistance, I 100% agree. The Vietnamese framed their war as a people's war, as a people's war. Right. In fact, I have a book, I don't know, on my shelf behind me. It's a series of essays and interviews by General General Von and drop the it's the book is called People's War, People's Army. Right. The relationship between the popular resistance, the people and their and their military forces. Right. And so perhaps perhaps we need to do a better job here in the West to think about this as a people's war, a people's war of liberation. The Yemeni people showed us this when they went out on the streets every Friday, you know, in the millions, right? The Lebanese people show this in South Lebanon in particular, and even off on the streets of Beirut, right? The Palestinian people, again, in the worst of conditions in Gaza, like think about when the ceasefires were declared and all the people were like saying, you know, We are the men of Muhammad Daif. And so these are people's wars. This is a people's war of liberation for the region. And I think we need to understand it that way.

Adnan Hussain: Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think on some previous conversations in our Iran versus the Epstein empire series that I hope we'll get Nina and you on as well at some point, I've said this is definitely a people's war. Like you can see that the strategy, both in terms of the decentralization of the command structure to local IRGC commanders who are given the strategy and given, you know, decision-making authority. That's a technique that only people who have confidence in, you know, in that, at that level. And then, of course, the knightly resistance, the revolutionary kind of popular fervor that is being shown in defiance. You know, bombardment is actually a strategic weapon that is... People's people's war. And it's not in control, really, even of the government. I mean, it is going to impose its own conditions potentially on the government and on the military leadership that they must not betray the trust of the people who are mobilized now in action. And they are driving what they want, that the end has to be one that is of populist, revolutionary, you know, meets those demands, the demands of the people. And in that way, I'm wondering if, you know, since I'm going to have to drop off our conversation shortly, is, you know, this is actually a strategic weapon in a way that does things like even take off the table, in my mind, to some extent, the fears about nuclear weapons. you know, bombardment of the, you know, Iranian people or of this mass, you know, kind of destruction of the civilian infrastructure. If this kind of solidarity can maintain itself to some important level through all of this, It's really a weapon against the possibility of any external force winning. And we said at the very outset in a conversation with Justin Poder that only Iran can defeat Iran in this circumstance. If they stay kind of solid, then there's just no... You know, there'll be different circumstances. There can be more or less, you know, achieved there. You know, there's a lot of variable factors, but ultimately defeat is not really possible if Iran doesn't, you know, stays integrated, solid and committed to this, you know, to this to this fight. And so the last thing that I think about it is I think you pointed out a connection or comparison with Vietnam and its anti-colonial resistance. for such a long period of time. But there's one thing that's really unique about the Iranian kind of situation here is that it is committed to decolonizing the region itself. One and two, really attacking the integuments of imperialism in the way that it operates. That's something it's not just national liberation for ourselves, but it's actually fundamentally directed at how empire has been working in the global system. And combating that and also in solidarity with other peoples of the region, which is really, you know, important. I think the only other example is Cuba, you know, that has been committed in its revolution to other, you know, kind of liberation movements and struggles. This is truly, really remarkable. So when, Nina, you say you're very proud as an Iranian to see this, I mean, you know, this is world historical stuff. Resistance history is being made here, you know, in a really powerful way. So I want to thank you because I'm going to have to drop off. But if you have any responses to that, I will definitely listen back. And I just so much appreciate both of you and your work and what you've been doing. So, you know, until victory, inshallah. Nina, you want to take it?

Nina Farnia: Well, you should talk about Cuba. You want to talk about Cuba and the battle that we took on in Bali and stuff? Your research on Cuba? I can talk about that after, but go ahead. I want to touch on what Adnan said about Trita Parsi and all that stuff, because I think it's important for our audience, because a lot of this audience, for better or for worse, retweets folks like Trita Parsi and the NIAC crowd, the National Iranian American Council crowd, and they do sometimes say good things, right? They do sometimes say... things that are compatible with left arguments or anti-imperialist arguments, even if they're not anti-imperialist or left themselves. But the reality is that Trita Parsi and that crowd want Edan to be integrated into the global capitalist system. And they were very aggressive about making anti-government statements in December, just like a few months ago, December and January. And they are part of the category of people that sort of paved the path through their discourse and their rhetoric for the invasion of Iran. by calling into question the government's economic policies rather than centering the economic policies of the empire, which even Scott Besant at Davos called economic statecraft. you know, we have to be really sensitive to the discourse of these types like treat a Parsi, et cetera, because it's, it's, um, it's, it's very sophisticated and it's not, it's not really designed to do what we think it's meant to do on the question of, uh, but actually I'll let you take the question of the people's that we talk about in Cuba.

Henry Hukimaki: Well, Before we get to that, I'm wondering if we can go a little bit deeper because a lot of the listeners probably missed. They either haven't read your interview that you did on Pambazuka that I've referenced a few times, and they also probably haven't watched Scott Besant talk about how there's economic statecraft involved in Iran. Yeah. And again, Adnan and I have talked previously on the show about the protests that took place in Iran. There were legitimate economic grievances that were being raised in Iran. However, in saying that, it also has to be acknowledged that the economic grievances were legitimate. exacerbated by sanctions on Iran and were manipulated intentionally. The economic situation was manipulated by the United States for the express purpose of raising a popular discord within the country. And so even though we've mentioned that on the show previously, the listeners may not understand how the United States has manipulated the economic situation in Iran over years, but particularly within the last several, let's say half a year, where things really ramped up there. And Very interestingly, how instead of continuing to inflame that, then the United States takes the military option, which then completely sidelines the economic grievances within the country. And as we've been describing within this conversation, has really solidified legitimacy of the Iranian political system amongst the populace. So Nina, if you can talk a little bit more about that, I think it would be useful here.

Nina Farnia: This is actually an important point that's relevant to what Iran is doing right now. The counterinsurgency dimensions of imperialist warfare that I talked about That whole episode of economic statecraft was designed as a counterinsurgent project, right? They wanted to, what they did was short the currency over the course of a few days through the UAE. The currency dropped to lowest ever levels and the Bazaaris, some of the Bazaaris, and not a huge amount of them, but I think the numbers were in the low thousands, protested and the government met with them. They met with the labor unions. They began to start addressing the concerns. The protests began to calm. And then all of a sudden there was this massive urban warfare campaign, right? And that's what I mean by counterinsurgency. What we're talking about is, I say this virtually in every interview that I do, because I think it's important to remind everybody. We actually saw videos of human bodies, of Iranians being dismembered alive in the streets with axes. They were being set on fire. I think I even read that when they were setting people on fire, men on fire, they would start with the genitalia area. And so this was disgusting. It was disgusting. And there were videos. I don't know to what extent there's a Persian speaking audience here, but there were videos of Persian language videos of young Iranians. They looked like young Iranians, but God knows if they really were saying no mercy. This was spreading in Persian language social media. No mercy, which is not far from what I think it was Hexeth said a couple of weeks ago. No quarter. Right. Which is then when Arachi came out and said, this is we're talking about genocide now. This is we're looking we're looking at genocidal language here. But. This didn't work because the people, as Navid described earlier, took the streets. They took the streets back from the counterinsurgents. And so then they had to move to the military option because they couldn't foment regime change. You know, the government officials, including Ayatollah Khamenei, said this was a coup attempt. It was a failed coup attempt. And then so then moved to the military campaign. Actually, go ahead, Navid.

Navid Farnia: Yeah, I'll just also say quickly, I'll add that regarding the protests by the Bazaaris, they were also explicit during those protests that they were not political. They were not anti-government protests, right? The people who were interviewed, if you watch the interviews, you can hear them say, we don't have anything against the government. These are protests that are in relation to economic inflation and for all the reasons that you all have discussed, right? I guess to go back to the world historical question and nature of this war and what Iran is doing and what the regional resistance is doing, we can think about this. I think perhaps the most apt comparison, and again, it's not a one-to-one comparison, but Adnan, I appreciate that he brought it up, was Cuba. And Cuba's support for the Angolan liberation struggle in Angola, and how that sort of dominoed into the liberation of the rest of the Southern Africa region, right? So, you know, the victory of the MPLA forces and the Cubans in Angola ultimately facilitated SWAPO, the Southwest Africa People's Organization's victory in Namibia, And then all of that, which was occupied by the apartheid regime in South Africa at the time. And all that, of course, ultimately led to the demise of the apartheid regime. In addition to, of course, the domestic resistance within South Africa, which was perhaps the most potent force in facilitating this entire process. Right. All that to say, in the Southern Africa region, the resistance, they were known as the frontline states. Here in West Asia, of course, we know them as the axis of resistance. We talk about what Iran is doing. We talk about what Yemen has done, of course, over the past two and a half years. Of course, Al-Aqsa flood was the event that sparked all this. But I also think we need to focus on what is the world historical context that we're living in that has facilitated the emergence of these resistance movements, both in the West Asia region and in other parts of the world, right? Like whether in West Africa, perhaps in the Caribbean and in the South Pacific, so on and so forth, right? And the reality is that, you know, some people might not like this term, But if we're not at full-fledged multipolarity in this moment, the emergence of multipolarism, like the emergence of China and the re-emergence of Russia and what Russia is doing in combating the NATO forces in Ukraine, All of these are related to what's happening in the West Asia region. And we can't separate that. We can't just say that all of what's happening in West Asia is independent from what's happening in Ukraine. Because in reality, the fact that Europe is completely reluctant to send its forces to West Asia is because they're bogged down in Ukraine, in the United States. I don't want to be predictive, but we're seeing NATO being torn apart in many respects. And so what is that like? What does that suggest for the future? Right. Like, of course, we're going to see, you know, we're going to see greater levels of violence and we're already seeing that. Right. But the reality is if NATO is overstretched and that bodes well, not just for West Asia, not just for West Africa, but for the entire global south. Right. And I think we need to be clear on that.

Henry Hukimaki: This is music to my ears, Navid. I've talked about that at conferences before, but the fact that I live in Russia usually gets me enough stick without having me say that. So the fact that you've said exactly the same thing that I've been saying is a nice thing. I don't have to bring that up today. But there is another really interesting aspect when you bring up the case of Cuba and their support for... liberation within Africa is that at the time there was this narrative that the forces in Namibia, in Mozambique, in Angola had to be opposed because those liberatory movements were communist. They're non-state communist guerrilla forces. Any attempts at trying to aid them means that you're bringing in a weaponry to these terrible communist actors. Now today, interestingly, when you bring up the axis of resistance, we have several non-state actors in the axis of resistance. We have Hezbollah, we have the PMF in Iraq, and Likewise, whenever they are getting armaments from Iran, the narrative comes up not because Iran is communist or that these axes of resistance forces are communist, but rather they're Islamist. You can't have Islamists with weapons, and particularly if they're non-state actors, you can't bring weapons to non-state actors. But then you also have the United States government today. with a completely new narrative, which is that even state actors that operate outside of the hegemonic sphere cannot have weaponry themselves. So unlike the case of the 1970s, where the United States didn't claim that the Soviet Union couldn't have weapons. I mean, they were communists, but the United States didn't say they couldn't have weapons. They didn't say that Cuba couldn't have weapons. I mean, they complained, and they tried to block Cuba from providing support to any other actors, but they didn't say that Cuba didn't have a right to having weaponry to support their sovereignty that narrative was outside the realm of possibility at that time it was non-state actors communist non-state actors specifically because the united states was very happy to arm non-state actors if they were anti-communist but that's that's a different story today we also have the united states government trump Hegseth coming out every day and saying, we cannot allow Iran to have weapons. Now, that narrative started a long time ago with nuclear weapons. And you know, there's all these nuclear non-proliferation treaties and things like that around the world that have been agreed on in decades, for decades. So, That part at least fit within this norm in terms of international law, which our previous episode with you and Nina is about international law, and we can talk about what that means again, but we've already had that conversation. But the interesting thing is that now, today, we have the president, the secretary of war, I guess that name is very apt these days. They're coming out and saying that Iran should not, and Marco Rubio said it in an interview yesterday that I saw. They said that Iran can't be allowed to have missiles. Well, in what event in world history has a country that has had a longstanding government been told that they can't have conventional weapons? They say, well, you know, Iran is threatening to the world. It's holding the world hostage. And that's a direct quotation from, again, I believe that was Rubio yesterday. But, I mean, these speeches really all blend together. But, yeah, they said that Iran has been holding the world hostage. Well, tell me, how many wars has Iran initiated in the last 200 years? How many wars has the United States initiated in the last 200 years? Like the number is extreme, but nobody says that the United States cannot have conventional weapons. Yet somehow American government officials get off and the Europeans go along with that. Mark Rutte, the head of NATO, goes along with everything that Trump says. They claim that Iran, despite being a legitimate state, a sovereign state, also cannot have weapons. So, Naveed, I guess I'll turn this over to you first. I find this dichotomy very interesting because if you're looking at the liberation movements of the 70s, you would have... the hegemon say, well, you know, communist guerrillas, of course we can't have weapons with them, but they would stop short of saying that states couldn't have conventional weapons. But for some reason, when it comes to Iran and when it comes to these Islamic forces, even if they are state actors. Now suddenly, the United States very loudly and very frequently can start saying they shouldn't be allowed to have conventional weaponry either. I'm wondering if you have any thoughts on that change.

Navid Farnia: Yes, absolutely. And I would say, like, it's both change and continuity, right? Like, because perhaps we should understand it as historically the pillars of internationalism, right? Both of national liberation and, by extension, internationalism have been the very forces that have been in question whether they should have weapons or not, right? So, like, you know, like... You know, I don't want to go too deep, right, Henry? But like, I mean, even going back to the Haitian Revolution, right? Like, okay, yeah, I'll go deep. So like, even going back to the Haitian Revolution, the French could not defeat the formerly enslaved Africans on the battlefield. And so what they did at a certain point by the early 1800s was to say that we're going to disarm them. We're going to disarm the rebels, right? And they thought that they found collaborators within the black generals to help facilitate this disarmament. In fact, the generals were actually secretly, they're saying that they were disarming the population, but they were actually secretly filtering those arms back to the population led by General de Salines, right? And so when this disarmament failed, then the French embarked on basically what a campaign of extermination, a genocide, right. That wasn't, that didn't work. And ultimately like the French lost and Haiti became an independent country. Right. And so, but not all of it.

Henry Hukimaki: With reparations, of course, even though the French lost, you know, we can get into that whole story of the reparations and.

Navid Farnia: Yes, the indemnity of 1848, of course. All this to say, the question of disarmament has been central to the pillars of resistance throughout anti-colonial, anti-imperial history. If we think about over the last two years, the questions of whether there's going to be a ceasefire with the Palestinians, whether there's going to be a ceasefire in Lebanon, all of those are conditioned on the disarmament of the resistance so that they cannot resist anymore. Right. You know, like when the PLO laid out laid down its arms in the early 1990s. Right. Like this. The question was about resistance. And so for me, like what happened in southern Africa is extremely relevant here because it shows that those forces of resistance. Right. Like. were not compromising in what they were doing, right? And in fact, they understood that resistance was the only path. And to Adnan's earlier point, they also understood that as long as we resist, we cannot truly be defeated, right? Like historians have written about this throughout the history of the modern world, but it also bears as true today as it has historically. And the last thing I'll say before, maybe if Hino wants to address this as well, Henry, is that It's ironic that these people say that during the 80s and 90s or 70s, 80s and 90s, that it was the communist forces in Southern Africa. And now the Western left is complaining that it's not communist forces that are the vanguard of liberation in West Asia. And so that's a way to undermine the resistance in that region, right? And so we have to question what the motives are when a lot of this rhetoric comes out as well.

Henry Hukimaki: Nina, anything you want to add on this?

Nina Farnia: Yeah, I just, one of the things that's super frustrating and that we have to constantly remind ourselves of is that the colonizer, the colonizing force always wants a compliance agreement colonized victim. And so, I mean, this happens sort of in the day-to-day level of interaction, right? But it also happens at the military level. So at the first moment where they sense that they have a non-compliant subject, right? they immediately begin targeting that subject for every action that it takes, every single action that it takes. This is sort of, you know, throughout history, it's been, you know, it's evident throughout history, throughout the history of imperialism and colonialism. And it's also evident, you know, as somebody speaking in the United States, and I write about, you know, I mean, I'm a critical race theory scholar, more or less. cautiously these days. It's also evident in just interactions in American life, where anytime they see a group of people of racialized subjects from Black and Latinx communities or Indigenous peoples, colonized peoples, they want them completely compliant and completely subjected to their decision-making and their violence. And then they use law, right, or international law in the international context to justify their behaviors. And so, like, just today, one of the EU officials, she's... I can't remember what... Kallis, I think, is her name. I don't remember. Kaja? Kaja? Yeah. She... She tweeted this. She just had a phone call with, I think, Wang Yi, Foreign Minister Wang Yi of China, and said that what's happening in Hormuz has to go back to quote-unquote normal, and that this is not acceptable, the situation that Iran is creating. When in point of fact, actually under international law, Edan can do what it is doing. It can do what it's doing. It can do it under conditions of war. And even after the war ends, they can toll, they can institute tolls, and there's precedent for it around the world. So it's just important. It's important to remind ourselves of that, that any time we resist or colonize people or racialized subjects resist, they're going to be accused of all kinds of crazy stuff. I'll also say just in terms of the historical record, Libya is an example of a country that they force into giving up its weapons and then completely, I mean, like... What happened to Libya is so tragic. It's so, so tragic because Libya was truly a bastion of Pan-Africanism and liberation. But it's, you know, they killed it. They killed it.

Navid Farnia: I'm just going to add a couple of short, quick points on this point as well to both what you, Henry, asked and also what Nina just said. I mean, if we want to think about the racial contradictions of the international system, frankly, the racism, right? The apartheid regime in South Africa had nuclear weapons, right? But when they transitioned to majority rule, The South Africans had to give up their nuclear program. Like, what is that about? If not about race and about resistance against the international system, right? The other quick thing I'll add is that this Rafael Grossi, the International Atomic Energy Agency, right? continually would make trips to Iran. Iran exposed through the capturing of Zionist documents that Grossi was basically feeding all this information on Iran's nuclear program to the Zionists and the United States as well. And so, you know, again, like who is the international system serving? Of course, we know the answer to that question, right? But like the contradictions in the international system show us why resistance is necessary, right? And I think that's important to point out.

Henry Hukimaki: Well, and just, you know, to underscore a point that every listener is already aware of, but it's still worth underscoring anyway, there is... every day mention that Iran cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons. Iran cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons. Iran cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons. I mean, never mind the fact that there's been a fatwa on having nuclear weapons since 2004, but never mind that. Iran cannot be allowed to have nuclear weapons. And then sometimes they expand that rhetoric and say there cannot be nuclear weapons in the Middle East. And you think to yourself, hmm, I know a country that has nuclear weapons in the Middle East. I wonder who that could be. Everybody in the world knows that Israel has nuclear weapons. Everybody knows that Israel was working with Apartheid South Africa on their nuclear weapons program. which is what brought this to mind, Navid, when you bring up the nuclear weapons of apartheid South Africa that were, you know, they were allowed to do the testing. They were allowed to do the trials. They were allowed to work on nuclear weapons. But when it flipped to majority rule, the nuclear weapons couldn't be allowed to be had there. We have this rhetoric that nuclear weapons not only cannot be had in Iran, but they can't be in the Middle East. Well, unless, of course, it's a white colonizer regime that operates within the confines of the hegemonic imperialist system. Then in that case, it's totally cool. And even though everybody knows that it exists, we're never going to publicly acknowledge it. Everybody knows it. Everybody knows it. But we're never going to say it publicly. And so we're supposed to just kind of forget that when this rhetoric about no nuclear weapons in the Middle East come up, because what they want you to picture when they say Middle East is brown Muslim people. And when we say no nuclear weapons in the Middle East, what that really is signaling is people of color can't have nuclear weapons and non-Judeo-Christians can have nuclear weapons. So, you know, we'll acknowledge that Israel is in the Middle East, but we're not going to acknowledge that they have nuclear weapons because that makes the rhetoric a little bit less strong. And also, it makes it a little bit harder to obfuscate the racism that's inherent within that. But I do want to turn our attention to some more, let's say, maybe not controversial, that's maybe not the right word, but maybe contentious topics that we can hit on within this. And of course, this idea of multipolarity is going to come up within this because there is a lot that is said all the time about multipolarity. We'd have these discussions on the show frequently. You had it in your interview. If we look at the situation in Iran today, we have the foreign minister of Iran. confirming that Russia and China are providing military cooperation, including intelligence, drone technology, strategizing. China's provided access to its navigation satellite system, Russia sharing intelligence to boost response capacity of Iran, but neither power has intervened directly. And I guess notably, last year there was a strategic partnership treaty that Iran signed with Russia. It was big news here in Russia. But notably, that treaty lacks a mutual defense clause. So given what is happening currently in Iran... Do we note that there is possibly limits of the multipolar order in the way that we have been thinking about it today? Is Iran actually being supported? Or is it in some way being left to fight alone while the multipolar order continues to try to build itself? This is the contentious question.

Navid Farnia: So, yes, I'm glad you're asking this question. It's clear, as you pointed out, Henry, that Russia and China are providing support to Iran. I'm actually convinced, and this might be a controversial statement, I'm actually convinced that the Chinese would send troops if Iran asked for it. I don't think Iran would ever ask for it. Iran's philosophy has always been one of self-reliance and self-sufficiency, right? The ability for it to support itself. And in fact, that's the entire reason why Iran has been able to endure over the past 47 years of constant attacks, sanctions, encirclement, and all these things, right? Um, but that doesn't mean that russia and china are not supporting iran in other ways, right? Like of course military everything you just said militarily and intelligence Economic support, you know political support and of course these things go these things go are are two-way streets, right? Like in terms of what iran has supported russia with respect to ukraine, right? um the dprk in russia as well like and so What multipolarity for me is, is an integration of a system where like all these countries, there's no hegemon over here, right? Like that these countries support each other in ways that they request to each other, in ways that are needed. And of course, there's going to be limits, right? Because states, you know, have their self-interest in mind. And of course, like that's the reality. But in the whole, in the grand scheme, this context of multipolarity has actually been very, very good for national liberation. We saw it historically going back to the Cold War, where the Cold War rivalry facilitated and fueled this era of national liberation. And of course, the other way around, national liberation advanced multipolarity as well. And I think that's exactly what's happening today. If we're not in the sort of peak moments of it yet. I think what we're seeing is the emergence of this kind of situation, right? And so, you know, to those who say that Russia and China are not doing enough, you know, I would just say, like, you know, Iran, Iran is going to get whatever support they need. But Iran, like, understands that this is its war, and that it's going to endure, and it's going to win. If there were any question of that, then they would ask for more support. But I think through this 47 years of developing a strong and sovereign nation state, what it means to be sovereign, it means that you have the capacity to defend yourself. The last thing I'll say on this, and I don't know if Nina wants to answer as well, The Vietnamese in the 1960s, right? They had private conversations about these very issues, right? And this was in the context of like communist forces in the world, Soviet Union and China, right? And of course the Sino-Soviet split that happened, right? And the Vietnamese determined that we're going to get support from the Soviet Union and China, right? Like we're going to get all kinds of political support, economic and military support, right? But at the end of the day, it is us who has to determine our own policy in fighting this war. We cannot rely on anybody else. And so we have to be independent and self-reliant in our political policy and in the way that we fight this war. Even Vietnamese allies, like other third world allies, yeah, they might understand our situation, right? But they also might think that we're sacrificing too much, that we're taking too many hits. But it's only us that can determine that, right? It is only us. And so when we say, when we question whether the sacrifices of the Palestinian people have been too much or the Iranian people have been too much, I don't think it's our place to bring those questions to the forefront, right? If the Iranian people are out on the streets, saying that we need to keep this thing going, basically holding the government's feet to the fire to make sure that this thing keeps going, then we over here need to support that. We need to support the resistance in that way. And so I think that's very, very important.

Henry Hukimaki: You know, before Nina comes in, Nina, I'm sure that you have something to say on this. I can't let you get away with being the only one to say something controversial on this, Naveed. So I'm going to make sure that I bring up something as well. You mentioned that you're fairly sure that if China were asked to send troops to Iran, that they would, in my view. that would benefit China much more than Iran. This is my controversial point. And the reason is a couple of fold, and I'm not going to belabor the point too much because your thoughts are much more important than mine. But the way that war works today does not rely on massive ground troops. I mean, we see that in the situation in Ukraine and the special military operation. It's not mass convoys, armored brigades that are controlling the battlefield. The way that war is fought today is extremely different than in the past. However, so Iran doesn't need huge amounts of manpower coming in. China, on the other hand, when was the last time that China has had any experience with military intervention? Well, you know, I hate to break it to you, but that was when they invaded Vietnam and that didn't really go very well for them. So for the last, what is that now, four and a half decades? The Chinese military, and we always hear frequently those of us who look at military capacity of various countries, the Chinese military has modernized tremendously within the last decade. Their manpower is at historic highs. Their Navy is expanding dramatically. Their Air Force is coming out with all of these new next generation planes. but they still have absolutely no actual combat experience. I mean, absolutely zero combat experience. And even if we go to like the general staff, Most of the generals of China, some of them had experience in Vietnam, but many of the leading generals and the general staff that did have experience in Vietnam, which again, did not go very well, but at least that some combat experience, most of those have been removed in the last couple of years from leadership positions within the Chinese military. So the Chinese military is a very modern advanced, large, capable military, but with absolutely no real world experience. It would benefit China, in my mind, it would benefit China much, much more than it would benefit Iran to have some contingent, even knowing that that may invoke some additional sanctions on China. Even if they label it as a peacekeeping force, the West is probably going to find some way of retaliating against it. It would still benefit China tremendously. That's one point. As a brief other one, since you mentioned the DPRK in Ukraine, this is exactly why the DPRK sent soldiers to... I mean, they didn't actually go to Ukraine. They were in Kursk Oblast, which is part of Russia. But nevertheless, that is the reason why they sent them here. Yes, I mean, the messaging is all about brotherhood and solidarity between the peoples of the countries. But let's face it, the Russian military has the capacity... to complete the goals that the DPRK assisted with on its own. It would have retaken all of the temporarily captured lands in Kursk Oblast. Some of my friends are from Kursk Oblast. One of the ones that I work with is from Kursk. The Russian military would have had the capacity to do it in about the same timeframe with or without the DPRK. The DPRK benefited tremendously from sending those roughly as far as the intelligence that I have is around 10,000. To Russia, the training that they had here with people who have active combat in itself was a blessing for those soldiers. But then also, they had frontline combat duties integrated with Russian units. That is the most combat that any DPRK soldier has had since 1953. I mean, no living person in the DPRK's military has any combat experience from the lowest soldier to the highest general. That's not the case anymore. Now there are thousands who have frontline combat experience in a modern style war. That's something that the Chinese can't say still. So there's my controversial point. Maybe it's not super controversial, but I had to try. I'll have more later. Nina, I'll turn it over to you now.

Nina Farnia: I don't, I mean, I don't have much to add. I completely agree with what you're both saying. I completely agree. I'll just say two things. First, all the technology that's being shared between these three countries, technology is not like a t-shirt. You don't just hand it over and then you never see it again. In order to use technology, you have to train and that takes time. And so the level of collab, we have no way of knowing, right? We don't know what the exact level of collaboration is, but I'm pretty sure that we can assume that there's significant collaboration when it comes to technology sharing. The second thing that I'll add is that as a tactical matter, handing over your struggle to outsiders does not bode well for your future. And so it's not just like an ideological or political question. It's actually a tactical and strategic question. The ability to stand on your own is important in the world that we are living in today, which is filled with bullies, like the most savage, most violent bullies that the world has ever seen. And this is part of what makes the Palestinians and Al-Aqsa flood and then the Iranians so inspiring that they're willing to stand on their own to defend their land and their causes and their struggle. But you both said it brilliantly. Other than these two points, I have nothing else to add.

Henry Hukimaki: Those are terrific points, though. I mean, really, terrific. Naveed, I see you have your hand raised.

Navid Farnia: Yeah, I'll just add a couple points. One to something you said, Henry, and one to what Nina said. I totally agree with everything that you both just said. And Henry, to add to your point, we cannot emphasize combat experience and combat readiness enough, right? And Unfortunately, if we think about Venezuela, I think what happened with Venezuela was the lack of combat readiness. And we don't have to go there. But this is why I feel that, in fact, Cuba is better positioned to withstand an imperialist assault than Venezuela was. Because Cuba...

Nina Farnia: Yeah, I completely agree.

Navid Farnia: Yeah. Battle hearted. Right. Like in Southern Africa, like it was, of course, we're talking about the late 80s. Right. But it's still like we're talking about, you know, of course, those generations are still alive. But that also that generational knowledge and the experience in combat is handed down to newer generations. Right. So, again, I don't want to be predictive of what's going to happen with Cuba. But Cuba has... Again, almost 70 years of a consolidated revolution, right? A revolution that was built on struggle, like both before and after the actual revolution. And I think that cannot be emphasized enough. And the second thing I'll say is something related to Nina said, which is that you're not putting yourself in a good position when you're handing over your struggle to outside forces to come in and basically support you. And I 100% agree with that. And I'll also add that the force that's coming in to support you, you're also not putting them in a good position either, right? Because, and the reason why I bring that up is because there was a lot of criticism with respect to Iran and Russia in Syria, right? And, you know, a lot of that criticism was about like, you know, the Iranians and the Russians should have supported Syria more and perhaps this wouldn't have happened, right? Well, you know, The reality is that neither Iran nor Russia was in a place to support a Syrian government and state that could not support itself by the end. But secondly, and I think more importantly for what's going on right now, had Iran sent those forces, what would Iran's situation be right now on its own domestic readiness to fight a war against these imperialist aggressors, the Zionists? in the United States, right? I feel that Iran would have been overstretched in its capacity to do that, right? And we have historical examples of this as well, right? So that is why we cannot emphasize the importance of self-sufficiency and self-reliance enough, that national liberation entails a country being able to defend itself against imperialist forces, and it cannot be anybody else who does that.

Henry Hukimaki: Yeah. And you know, when you talk about Cuba, so one of the things that comes to mind is given the ongoing assault, economic assault, the economic siege on Cuba, which has expanded into a total blockade of even fuel imports into Cuba. there have been some signs by the leading countries that are trying to achieve a multipolar world, Russia and China, are currently taking efforts to strengthen Cuba's power grid. Now, I would love to see more happen on that front, but just yesterday, An oil tanker from Russia broke the blockade and made it to Cuba, bringing over 100,000 barrels worth of oil, which there hasn't been any oil that has come into Cuba for a long time now. Meanwhile, China also relatively recently, I would say about a month ago, said, had announced that they were going to be bringing over a massive supply of solar powered solar generators, small scale solar generators, modular generators, solar powered panels to Cuba as well to increase the amount of electricity that could be generated within the communities, like small communities, village communities, as well as from the sun. So not relying on oil continuously. This is essential at this time. I mean, Cuba's power grid is continuously facing collapse because of the imposition of this situation on them. It's not something that they have engineered themselves. It's something that the United States has been engineering for years and in particular in the last few months. But nevertheless, Russia and China are doing something in this case. Again, I'd love to see more. As we talked about with Iran, Russia and China are doing things. It's not that they are doing nothing. Would I like to see more? Yes. Would it be beneficial for helping bring about a more multipolar, polycentric world? I think yes. Would it be beneficial for places like China to get more involved? I believe yes. It would be beneficial to them individually as well. One of the things that really bothers me, though... is the rhetoric. Even the rhetoric is not as strong as it could be. I mean, that's like the bare minimum. So I'm just going to point out a couple of things that I've seen from China recently. China called the recent strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities a heavy blow to nuclear non-proliferation treaties. They've expressed... deep regret over damage to cultural relics in Iran. I mean, the rhetoric here is so weak. They confirmed that Chinese vessels were able to pass through the Strait of Hormuz and they thanked, quote, relevant parties for allowing their passage. Now, if we're talking about showing solidarity with these liberatory movements and standing up to the imperial order, I mean, are we saying that they should send in troops even if Iran is not asking for them? No. I mean, I think it would benefit China to have troops involved, but I'm not saying that China should just go ahead and unilaterally decide what they're going to do. Iran should have the right to decide the best course of action for themselves. But my goodness, the rhetoric. occasionally you see some pretty good rhetoric coming out from Russia and China vis-a-vis the situation in Iran, the war on Iran. But some of the things you see are so weak, so weak. And for me, that's just the bare minimum. Now, I know I don't like to complain about China very much on the show, but like really some of the rhetoric has absolutely blown my mind in terms of how weak it is. I don't know if you've had any thoughts about some of the messaging that you've seen come out from maybe you're not following the russian news as much as i do i mean i live here but at least in terms of this the statements made by the foreign ministers of china and things like that there's the there's two sides like one they stand wholeheartedly with the government of iran against this unprecedented assault and you know rhetoric like this like yeah good but they express regret that the the targeting of cultural artifacts and and sites within iran regret like i i regret that i dropped my sandwich on the ground like this is something different you know it's uh sorry i'm ranting now it's it's it's late in the evening anything that you want to say on this point before i go into a closing question for us

Nina Farnia: So I think the first thing is that I don't disagree with you, Henry. The language could definitely be stronger. But Russia and China were the first to come out in defense of Iran when the assault happened. And those statements were very strong. I think the sort of more relevant factor here is that China has economic ties that it needs to preserve in order to handle its own concerns and its own autonomy, global autonomy. And I also think, and I think the sort of the historical records proves this, that China will come along. If the Iranians can stand on their own and if they produce a comprehensive approach to the Strait of Hormuz, which they're saying they're going to release that comprehensive approach in a few days, China's probably going to support it and come along. Up until now, China has supported their approach to Hormuz. It has not condemned it. And I think the big question that everybody always asks with regard to China is around Palestine and Zionism. And again, I think when it comes to the fall of Zionism, China will come along. China is not going to get in the way. They're not going to be cheerleaders on the sidelines, you know, like rah rah sis boom bah. Whatever support they provide is going to be, I think, more subtle. But they're going to come along and they're ultimately going to be on the right team. I mean, they always, they have been on the right team.

Henry Hukimaki: I know. I agree with you, Nina. I just, I don't know. The rhetoric, and you're right, the early rhetoric was better than the more recent rhetoric for some reason. It's moderated itself. So I guess my rant shouldn't have been so ranty. You know, thank you for reining me in on that, but... Yeah, I guess, like...

Nina Farnia: Because I'm in the law, I'm used to dealing with, I think it's the best way to say it, sort of legal speak and diplo speak. And so a lot of the things that are coming out of the states around the world at any given moment are legal speak and diplo speak. And so it's not to dismiss the mistakes that they make or their errors, but it's to recognize that they have a particular position in the global system that they have to enforce. And that diplo-speak or legal-speak is not always representative of what their actual material commitments are, right? Fully or wholly representative. That's all.

Henry Hukimaki: Yeah, absolutely true. And you are a much more responsible person than me for ensuring that we bring that up because I would very happily just continue to rant. Navid, I see you want to say something.

Navid Farnia: Yeah, I was just going to add, I completely agree with Nina. There were criticisms of China being present at the Munich Security Conference, just being present there at all. Again, the realm of diplomacy, I think the diplomatic acrobatics that both the Chinese and the Russians, and in other cases, even Iran, even the DPRK that they engage in, does not belie the material realities of what's going on. And and I think like with respect to West Asia, I think Nina is 100 percent correct. I think it is. And this is why the importance of like we talk about the importance of resistance, right? Like it is the resistance that is going to determine the future of the region. It was never going to be China. It was never going to be Russia. Right. And I do agree that they're going to just go along. And this is like this is to me, people like like to target and attack multipolarity on this point. I actually say this is the strength of multipolarity that China doesn't get to determine what's going to happen in West Asia. that russian doesn't get to determine what's going to happen west asia right that is that the determination is among the peoples of the region right and again i keep going back to the vietnamese they knew this they knew this in their struggle for liberation right they knew that they can get count on support from the chinese from the chinese and the soviets but they also knew that this was their struggle and they had to set the terms of their struggle right and of course the soviets and chinese were going to come along because ultimately it was going to be to their benefit right, if the Vietnamese won. Same thing with Iran. If Iran wins, it's going to be to the benefit of the Russians and the Chinese.

Henry Hukimaki: I know, Nina, you're just about out of time. I have one very small closing question. You can answer it first, and then you can go when you need, and Naveed can elaborate a little bit longer if you would like to on it. The closing question is that throughout the last few days and probably the last week or two, Trump has indicated that talks eventually might be possible with Iran's less radical and much more reasonable new leadership because we've achieved regime change, although The Supreme Leader of Iran has rejected negotiations saying America and Israel must be defeated. They must suffer. They must be punished for this. So the narrow, the window that they seem to be looking for possibly is very narrow. I don't really see the possibility there. So as we close this conversation, what gives you hope and what should listeners be doing now to oppose this war and support the forces of anti-imperialist resistance?

Nina Farnia: You know, I'm very hopeful. I'll be honest with you. The U.S. and Israel have been antagonizing and harassing and bombing and sabotaging Iran and genociding the Palestinians and the Lebanese and the Iraqis. for decades, right? If we're really going to be truly historic about, you know, historian-like about this, you know, it's been over a hundred years. And so it's time. It's time. It's time to resist. It's time to do it in a decisive way. It's, you know, I want my child to not you know, to be able to go back to his countries, right, and to live freely without the fear of U.S. violence or Israeli violence. And I want my family there to do the same. And the first step toward victory is resistance. If you don't resist, you're never going to be victorious. Going back again to the diplo-speak stuff, we don't win against empires through diplomacy and elections, right? And the Iranians know that and they're practicing it. And they are following the lead of the Palestinians and then the Vietnamese before them and the Cubans, etc. So now that being said, there's going to be a heavy loss of life on the Iranian side. heavy loss of life, heavy loss of infrastructure. It's going to be a tough, tough period, especially for Iranians. But it's important to stay the course and to remember why they're doing what they're doing. Thank you so much, Henry. This has been wonderful. Thank you for inviting us. It's my pleasure. The discussion is excellent. And I'll see you soon.

Henry Hukimaki: Yeah, I know you have to run. I just want to let the listeners know how much I appreciate you and the work you do, Nina. And I'm hoping you'll come back on soon.

Nina Farnia: Definitely. My pleasure. It would be my pleasure. Absolutely.

Henry Hukimaki: Take care. And Naveed, I'll turn the floor over to you for this final question. What gives you hope and what should people be doing in order to support the anti-imperialist struggle?

Navid Farnia: Yes. So I just want to echo Nina that it's the resistance that should and does give us hope. And that resistance, of course, stems from Al-Aqsa flood. It stems from, you know, the Palestinian, the steadfast resistance of the Palestinian liberation organizations on the ground, the resistance factions, I should say. And of course, the people. Right. All the way up until now. But I also want to take this question and think about it like from from like what what we should be doing or what, you know, people in the West should be doing. And to think about it from that angle. Right. Because I think that is a is a perhaps a little bit more convoluted question. And I think it deserves a lot of consideration, which is to say that, you know. A strong anti-war movement is going to give fuel to the resistance in the region. It's going to give leverage to whatever the resistance demands are to get those demands met. So for example, if there was a strong anti-war movement here in the United States right now, it would push the united states to end the war on iran's terms which iran's terms would be for u.s troops to get out of the region right to close the bases all these things right um so that that is like those are the those are the stakes for an anti-war movement to develop here in the united states but the second thing i'll say to that is an anti-war movement or a resistance movement in the united states and this is probably even more important for the context that we that i'm in is in the service of the people of the United States, right? So we refer to Iran fighting a people's war. Iran is fighting a people's war against the United States and the Zionists, which they're fighting a ruling class war, a ruling class war that is not in the benefit and to the interest of the U.S. people. And so what that means is that an anti-war movement, ending the war, like diverting those resources that are being allocated to the military back into education, back into housing, back into welfare and these kinds of things, would be in the service of the people of the United States. And so we have to make those connections of why a movement of this kind would be important and beneficial to the people here. Right. And so to me, those are the stakes. And it's very, very important for the people, for the future of the people of the United States to understand and make those connections internationally. Right. So those two things, right. Resistance and internationalism. I mean, we always come back to those, but, you know, that's for there's a reason for that. So.

Henry Hukimaki: Yeah, absolutely. So listeners, as you heard, Nina had to run, so she's not going to be able to read herself out. But I will just mention that, again, we had an episode with her not that long ago. I'm going to have that episode linked in the show notes. So do check out that episode on Lawfare that we did with Nina not that long ago, if you haven't already listened to it. And I will have... links to Nina's work in the show notes as well. So you can click on that. But Naveed, it's been a pleasure meeting you. I know I've read your work for a long time, but this is the first time that I've actually gotten to speak with you. So it was really a pleasure getting to meet you. And I've really enjoyed this conversation. And likewise, like I said with Nina, I'm hoping that you'll come back on the show again in the near future as well. So can you let the listeners know where they can find more of your work? If you want to tell them about what you're working on now, basically anything that you want to let them know about. This is your opportunity.

Navid Farnia: Yeah, absolutely. First of all, I want to thank you very much, Henry, and of course Adnan as well for having us on the show. You can find our work on the Anti-Imperialist Scholars Collective, so anti-imperialist.com, where you can find like a group of scholars who basically address a lot of the questions that we address today, right? And so, you know, you can find my work there. You can find the work of Nina and other comrades as well. And yeah, and beyond that, I've been just working on my book. So wish me luck on that.

Henry Hukimaki: You certainly have my best wishes for that. And like I told Nina with her book project, I'm not giving you the choice of whether you want to come back on the show or not. When your book is ready, you must come on. I am compelling you. So really looking forward to it. And again, thank you very much for coming on the show. Listeners, I'm going to also let you know that Adnan had to run earlier. You should definitely check out his other show, The Adnan Hussain Show, which is on YouTube and on podcast platforms. As for me, I'm pretty hard to get a hold of these days because everything is blocked in Russia, either by... The Western companies blocking us or the government here blocking them. In most cases, it's actually both sides blocking the application. So very hard to get online these days. But you can follow me on Twitter at Huck 1995. Just don't expect anything new from me there until the sanctions are lifted, probably. And more importantly, to help support Guerrilla History and allow us to continue making episodes like this, you can go to patreon.com forward slash guerrilla history. That's G-U-E-R-R-I-L-L-A history. And just a reminder, listeners, you're never going to hear any advertisements on the show or anything like that. We have no external funding beyond what we get in on Patreon. So we are entirely listener funded for better or for worse. So with that being said, then listeners, and until next time. Solidarity.