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Ben Meiselas dives in with the central image: tens of millions of Iranians flooding Tehran and neighboring cities for Ayatollah Khomeini's farewell ceremony, with mist stations and free food distributed in 35-degree Celsius heat. He describes watching the B-roll footage and immediately thinking about the Trump regime's consideration of a ground invasion — and how those crowd scenes would have translated into what he calls an American 'meat grinder.' He notes not just the scale but the composition of the attendance, including official delegations from dozens of countries, and frames this as a spectacular failure of the Trump-Netanyahu isolation strategy. He reflects honestly that he does not consider himself an apologist for the Iranian regime — acknowledging real internal dissatisfaction — but insists the footage demands a realistic intelligence assessment. The eulogist's words at the Tehran prayer hall — 'we have not come to bury our leader, we have come to avenge him' — punctuate the gravity of the moment. ^{[1] — Ben Meiselas "Tens of millions of Iranians turned out for the Ayatollah's funeral — and the Trump administration had no idea it was coming. By killing th…" 03:51 Play}

With a granular list of attending nations — Turkey, India, Pakistan, China, Russia, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Iraq, Georgia, Armenia, Afghanistan, Oman, Qatar, and many more — Meiselas makes the case that the funeral functioned as a referendum on Iran's global standing. The goal of the Trump-Netanyahu campaign was to isolate Iran; instead, countries that had been kept at arm's length sent their top dignitaries. Meiselas points out that killing the Ayatollah — who was the Shia world's equivalent of the Pope — turned him into a martyr and unified not just Iranians domestically but Shia communities across Iraq, Pakistan, and Yemen. He argues the intelligence community understood this dynamic and tried to warn Trump, but Netanyahu's framing — '24 hours, they'll welcome us as heroes' — overrode it. He draws a sharp contrast: Obama, Biden, and Hillary Clinton all pushed back against Netanyahu's pressure to escalate against Iran; Trump embraced it. ^{[1] — Ben Meiselas "Official delegations from Turkey, India, Pakistan, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and dozens more showed up for Khomeini's funeral. Th…" 07:30 Play}

This chapter centers on two extraordinary Trump quotes sourced from Axios. The first: Trump admitting he was surprised to see millions of Iranians genuinely mourning the Ayatollah, and suggesting the tears might not be real. Meiselas points out that Western and Israeli propaganda spent months insisting the regime was universally despised and broke — and now the same crowd is claiming millions of people were paid to attend a funeral by a government they said was bankrupt. The second quote is more alarming: Trump openly stating that if the U.S. wanted to, it could strike all of Iran's gathered leadership in 'one shot,' before clarifying the U.S. won't because it wants negotiating partners. Meiselas draws an explicit contrast to Mark Levin, who watched the same footage and called it 'opportunity lost,' suggesting he would have preferred the strike. Meiselas's reaction: 'What a sick thing to say.' The sequence crystallizes the episode's core argument about the gap between fantasy and strategic reality. ^{[1] — Ben Meiselas "Trump told Axios the mourning might be fake and mused that the U.S. could have struck all of Iran's leadership at the funeral in 'one shot.…" 09:40 Play}

The 'paid crowds' dismissal gets a systematic takedown. Meiselas points out that Western and Israeli commentators have spent months arguing Iran is economically on the verge of collapse — so the claim that it simultaneously paid millions of people to attend the Ayatollah's funeral is self-refuting. He acknowledges the complexity: he believes there are tens of millions of Iranians who genuinely oppose the regime and want change, pointing to the January protests and Trump's unfulfilled promise of 'help is on the way.' But he insists there are also millions who genuinely support it — and in a 90-million-person country, both things can be true at once. He cites the Mossad's Persian-language social account as an example of the propaganda attempting to frame all mourners as cynical — writing that 'many arrived not to mourn, but just to make sure the Ayatollah is dead.' Meiselas dismisses this as insufficient to explain the scale. He also addresses Trump's broken promises to Iranian reformers, noting that Lindsey Graham has made the same 'help is on the way' pledge to Lebanon with equally hollow follow-through.

Recording on July 5th, Meiselas pauses to note that two days earlier marked the anniversary of one of the most consequential and least-discussed incidents in U.S.-Iran relations: the July 3, 1988 shootdown of Iran Air Flight 655 by the USS Vincennes over the Strait of Hormuz. All 290 passengers were killed, including experienced Iranian commercial pilots who had themselves trained in the United States. The U.S. military claimed it was issuing warnings — but on military radio frequencies to a commercial aircraft that had no military radio equipment. The pilots never saw the missiles coming. Meiselas contextualizes the U.S. presence: American warships were in the Persian Gulf because of the Iran-Iraq War, and U.S. forces were on high alert after Iraqi forces had mistakenly attacked a U.S. ship weeks earlier, killing 37 soldiers. President George H.W. Bush publicly declared he would never apologize; a settlement of over $100 million was quietly paid in approximately 1996 — without any formal acceptance of responsibility. Meiselas argues that understanding this history is not optional: it explains why Iranians are 'livid,' why 'death to America' chants persist, and why any realistic policy must grapple with these deep-seated grievances rather than dismissing them. ^{[1] — Ben Meiselas "On July 3, 1988, the USS Vincennes shot down Iran Air Flight 655 over the Strait of Hormuz, killing all 290 people aboard, including experi…" 14:20 Play}

Mark Levin's reaction to the funeral becomes the vehicle for Meiselas's sharpest critique of the hawkish right. Levin reportedly aired footage of the procession and declared 'the enemy gathered en masse, all in one place — opportunity lost.' Meiselas engages this head-on: what exactly does Levin want? A nuclear strike on millions of civilians? And if that happened, what comes next — millions of American soldiers dying in an occupation of a 90-million-person country with a resilient regime and Shia populations from Iraq to Pakistan rallying in response? He frames Levin, along with Hegseth, Rubio, and others, as 'Netanyahu agents' whose endgame, however stated, leads to catastrophic American military and economic consequences. The segment functions as a reductio ad absurdum of the 'maximum pressure' school of thought. ^{[1] — Ben Meiselas "Trump propagandist Mark Levin watched the Ayatollah's funeral — tens of millions of mourners, hundreds of global dignitaries — and called i…" 16:55 Play}

The Citronik citations serve as the analytical spine of the episode's conclusion. Meiselas reads at length from the Israeli analyst's assessment: the large turnout at the funeral is consistent with crowds that gathered throughout the war, demonstrating genuine support for the Islamic Republic among important segments of Iranian society. Citronik does not deny that millions of Iranians oppose the regime — he explicitly acknowledges it — but he insists it is 'equally difficult to ignore' the resilience of the regime's actual support base. His key conclusion: a gap in intelligence between what analysts knew and what decision-makers wanted to hear produced a strategy built on 'highly optimistic assumptions about the regime's ability and the likelihood of its rapid collapse.' Meiselas uses this to validate his own position: he has been saying the regime was not on the verge of collapse, and now an Israeli intelligence analyst is saying the same. He warns that continuing to explain away every public display of support as 'paid crowds' risks compounding the original error with a second one. ^{[1] — Ben Meiselas "Israeli Iran analyst Danny Citronik concluded that both Israel and the United States systematically underestimated the Islamic Republic's s…" 17:35 Play}

Meiselas reveals one of the episode's most striking details: Iran's deliberate use of Quranic verses as diplomatic instruments during the funeral proceedings. Each foreign delegation was paired with a verse calculated to send a politically specific message. Saudi Arabia — with whom Iran has a complex new relationship — received a verse about two armies meeting in battle, one believing in God and one not. Turkey, a key NATO member, got a verse elevating those who fight over those who sit. Lebanon's government heard a verse about people refusing to sacrifice when called. Hezbollah was told directly: 'do not weaken or grieve, you are superior.' Hamas received a verse about men who fulfilled their covenant with God. Yemen's Houthis were praised as believers who fought without weakening. Qatar, the perennial mediator, received a verse about forgiveness and divine favor — a nod to its diplomatic role. Meiselas frames this as evidence that Iran is operating with considerable strategic sophistication, conducting diplomacy through religious symbolism at what was simultaneously a domestic and international event. ^{[1] — Ben Meiselas "Iran didn't just hold a funeral — it conducted precision diplomatic messaging. Saudi Arabia got a verse about two armies meeting in battle.…" 19:55 Play}

The episode's final analytical section paints a sweeping picture of how the post-conflict Middle East is being reorganized. The Islamabad Quartet — Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia — is described as the driving force behind a new regional security architecture that replaces U.S. influence with a Chinese-backed framework. An Iranian civil aircraft landing in Sana'a and breaking Yemen's 11-year blockade is cited as concrete evidence of this realignment. Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister and parliamentary speaker have both spoken publicly about China's growing security role. The memorandum of understanding signed after the conflict, Meiselas states, gives Iran control of the Strait of Hormuz, with Arab nations — not the U.S. — deciding future transit. Despite this, the Trump administration continues to treat the MOU as the opening of new negotiations rather than a finalized agreement. Pakistan's elevated role is explained in part by a reported ~$500 million crypto fund payment to Trump that bought it special access. Russia's Medvedev also attended, alongside China's top congressional delegation. Meiselas closes by calling on viewers to see the reality clearly: Trump's 'wow, the crowds are so big' response is what happens when a president pursues a strategy built on fantasy rather than intelligence. ^{[1] — Ben Meiselas "A new regional alliance — Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, dubbed the Islamabad Quartet — is deepening ties with Iran and effecti…" 21:20 Play}

In the closing seconds, Meiselas steps back from analysis into housekeeping. He asks viewers to weigh in on the episode, calls it 'illuminating,' and urges subscriptions toward a 7-million subscriber milestone. He promotes the MeidasPlus Substack platform — offering ad-free articles, podcasts, daily recaps from Ron Philipkowski, and exclusive reports — and directs viewers to sign up for free at MidasPlus.com. The brief outro underlines the show's editorial posture: that mainstream Western media is not showing the full picture of what's happening in Iran, and that the MeidasTouch platform exists to fill that gap.