Michael Ledeen on Iran’s Collapsing Khomeinist Regime and Our Role, Gen. Flynn's False Guilty Plea?

Big Ideas with Ben Weingarten ^ | 2018-08-09 | Ben Weingarten

[fredericbastiat1]

For this week’s Big Ideas with Ben Weingarten podcast, I had historian, Freedom Scholar at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, former Special Advisor to the Secretary of State and consultant to the National Security Council during the Reagan administration, author of 38 books and most pertinent to today, Iran expert, Michael Ledeen on the podcast to discuss among other things:

• The impending collapse of the Khomeinist regime and what the U.S. can do to accelerate it
• The false narrative about alternatives for Iran being either appeasement or war
• The history of U.S. intelligence failures in Iran
• How secular and liberal Iran's dissidents actually are
• Whether there is a wedge that can be exploited between Iran and Russia
• What will become of Hezbollah if the Iranian regime collapses
• The allegedly political witch hunt against Iran hawk and Israel supporter Larry Franklin as an illustration of historic anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism in the foreign policy and national security establishment
• Ledeen's theory that Gen. Michael Flynn -- with whom Ledeen co-authored the book, The Field of Fight -- falsely pled guilty, and the real reason why Gen. Flynn was targeted in the first place

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[BurgessKoch]

The money quote about Flynn: “He was a threat. He changed intelligence. He reformed the way we do intelligence on the battlefield, and that cut out an awful lot of people with stars on their shoulders back in the Pentagon in Washington. And he was starting to do the same thing at DIA. And they did not like that. They didn’t want that. And they went after him, and first they got rid of him at DIA, and then they were terrified when he became so close to Trump. And when he was named pending National Security Advisor, then became National Security Adviser, they went all out after him.”

[Will88]

The impending collapse of the Khomeinist regime and what the U.S. can do to accelerate it

I hope there is an impending collapse of the Khomeinist regime, but Ladeen has discussed the impending collapse a time or two before, going back to the W Bush terms.

I don't know that anyone has a good assessment of how many Iranians support the regime, how many oppose it and want to see change, and how many just want to be left alone. But maybe the new sanctions and economic hardship will be the impetus that finally leads to an overthrow of the Khomeinists.