Iran

I think we have now entered a new phase of greater uncertainty over the next few days in terms of what or if a US military strike - which I would argue still seems likely and is on the table - whether it takes place and what the target deck looks like. In terms of will the regime topple, I think the concept of regime collapse itself is quite problematic. What we will likely see instead is some sort of transition, whether led by one individual or a constellation of leaders across the security forces and intelligence, that is yet to be determined and I think that is going to be ... a quite protracted and painful process."

He [President Trump] thinks he has deterred the Iranians from escalating further against their own population and wants to claim credit for that. I would say there are some limits to what the US has in the Middle East at the moment in terms of military capabilities, so it's just as possible that they are playing for time... They don't have potent forces there, or could get them there reasonably quickly. There are far fewer US aircraft and other things in the region that we are normally used to, there's not an aircraft carrier there or even nearby, probably over a week away. They don't have lots of their combat aircraft in the region."

It’s not been a consistent thing across the 40 years of the of the Islamic Republic, but it certainly has had its very strong moments, and that’s primarily when there have been real hawks in the positions of power, such as head of the police, which is in fact the case now"...Memories of the 1988 bloodbath were stirred up recently when Ebrahim Raisi, one of the prosecutors involved in passing death sentences, won the 2021 presidential election. During his short-lived presidency (he died in a helicopter crash in 2024), the execution rate again “went up quite considerably as a response to the 2022 Women, Life, Freedom protests”, says Farmanfarmaian...Iranian authorities tend to go out of the way to make their executions of protesters conform with the letter of the law, says Farmanfarmaian, ensuring that victims have faced a trial and judgment in front of a judge – however brief or imperfect.