In this Conflicted Conversation, Yeganeh Torbati, the Iran correspondent for the New York Times, discusses her excellent new book Stolen Revolution: Betrayal and Hope in Modern Iran.
Yeganeh explains how:
The 1979 revolution promised justice but created clerical authoritarianism.
Islamic law was subordinated to preservation of the supreme leader.
Institutions created to help the poor became engines of economic corruption.
The IRGC became a military-economic oligarchy.
Khatami-era reformism failed by refusing to challenge the constitutional source of authoritarian power.
Ahmadinejad promised to overthrow corrupt elites but merely installed new ones.
Rouhani promised economic normalization but enabled even greater corruption.
The destruction of all sources of organized opposition left protesters exposed to overwhelming violence.
Foreign powers encouraged expectations they did not possess the strategy or commitment to fulfil.
Iranian society continues to resist socially and culturally, making the future unstable rather than settled.
Find Yeganeh on X: https://x.com/yjtorbati
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-betrayal-of-the-iranian-people/id1443491069
As the Middle East wakes up to an unnerving new normal following the signing of the M.O.U., Aimen and Thomas turn their attention to something truly cutting edge: the AI Arms Race that is rapidly transforming the Gulf into the front lines of a truly global U.S.-China confrontation.
Aimen and Thomas discuss:
Iran's drone attacks on Gulf data centres.
AI in missile defence and military targeting.
The physical infrastructure behind cloud computing.
Cheap Gulf energy and rapid data-centre construction.
The UAE–Saudi competition for AI leadership.
Sheikh Tahnoon, G42 and MGX.
Saudi Arabia's HUMAIN strategy.
The US–China global AI rivalry.
Israel's cybersecurity and military-AI role.
Whether AI-generated art can be genuinely creative.
https://podcasts.apple.com/ae/podcast/the-middle-easts-ai-arms-race/id1443491069