Podbit · The Rest Is Politics: US
In March 1979, a CIA report called the Shah's regime 'durable, long-term, and sustainable.' Six months later, America was in crisis. Before that: the 1953 coup against Mosaddegh. After that: propping up the Shah. Then missing the revolutionary fanaticism. Now signing a deal in Versailles. The pattern is unbroken and spans seven decades.
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At 19:18 · chapter starts 18:10
Scaramucci lays out the Iranian playbook: negotiate when the pressure gets uncomfortable, secure sanctions relief, stabilise the regime, then wait. They have no electoral clock; America does. Every administration has fallen for this. He invokes Scott Anderson's book King of Kings about the Shah's fall, opening with a CIA report from March 1979 calling the regime 'durable, long-term, and sustainable' — just six months before total collapse. America got it wrong with the 1953 Mosaddegh coup, wrong by propping up the Shah, wrong by missing the theocratic revolution, and wrong again now. The bombs don't work either: bankrupt Iran just becomes more fanatical. What's needed, he argues, is genuine empathy for the adversary's worldview — American centrism doesn't travel well to Tehran.
Jared Kushner genuinely believes you can do a business deal with any regime and it will override their ideology. During the first term he said giving Palestinians shiny condos would fix the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Now he thinks a cash injection will make Iran abandon 47 years of 'Death to America.' Both times, spectacularly wrong.
Marco Rubio hasn't said a word about the Iran deal. It's not an accident. He's watching JD Vance become the fall guy in real time, and he wants the distance. The president himself said at the press conference that if the deal fails, he'll pin it on Vance. Rubio read the room before the room was even fully set.
Factories that replaced coal engines with electric ones in the early 1900s got only 6% efficiency gains. Those that redesigned their entire factory around electricity got a 3x productivity improvement. Swapping AI tools into your existing structure will give you 6%. Rebuilding around AI will give you 10x.
Lebanese terrorists backed by Iran were holding American hostages throughout the Reagan presidency. Reagan had loudly campaigned against negotiating with terrorists — putting him in an impossible position that his team quietly decided to ignore.
During the Iran-Iraq War, the US openly supplied Iraq with weapons, training, and intelligence. At the same time, Oliver North was secretly funneling missiles to Iran. The US was playing both sides of a shooting war.
Oliver North traveled to Iran under the alias 'William P. Goode' with a fake passport. CIA Director William Casey allegedly gave him cyanide pills so he could kill himself rather than be tortured if captured. He returned safely and the deal moved forward.
The Pentagon sold missiles to the CIA for $3,700 each. The CIA sold them to Richard Secord at cost. Secord sold them to Iranian middleman Ghorbanifar for $10,000 each. Ghorbanifar charged Iran even more. The profit — including $3 million in interest in one Swiss account — was diverted directly to fund the Nicaraguan Contras.
America secretly transferred 2,000 missiles and missile parts to Iran in 8 shipments over more than a year. Only 3 of 7 hostages were released. Three more were taken. The net result was zero freed hostages and a full-blown constitutional scandal.
On October 5, 1986, a CIA Contra supply plane flew a weapons drop at 2,500 feet in broad daylight. A Sandinista soldier shot it down. The only survivor, Eugene Hasenfuss, had borrowed a parachute from his skydiving brother. He was captured, paraded in front of cameras, and told the Sandinistas everything he knew.
The CIA supply operation used a front company called Southern Air Transport, widely known to be a CIA cover. Crew members of the downed plane carried their Southern Air Transport employee IDs in their wallets. One also had a business card directly linking him to Oliver North's office in Washington.
When the scandal broke, Oliver North and his secretary Fawn Hall conducted what became known as a 'shredding party,' destroying a day's worth of documents. The full truth of Iran-Contra may never be known because of what was fed through that shredder.
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