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Radio War Nerd EP #575 — Inside Iran, feat. Navid Zarinnal (Patreon)

Published:
2026-01-22 20:49:35
Edited:
2026-01-22 21:08:03
Imported:
2026-01
Tags:

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Guest: Navid ZarinnalRecorded: January 21, 2026

We talk to Iranian-American researcher Navid Zarinnal in Tehran about Iran's protests, US imperialism, who supports & opposes the IRI government, and life inside Iran compared to how it's portrayed in the western media.

Subscribe to Navid's podcast The Colony Archive

*Mossad-linked account's recruitment ad (h/t Grayzone)

Total time: 1:04:15Direct link to this episode's mp3 here

*

Buy & review John Dolan's new book, They Should Have Been Hanged: War Nerd Essays on the U.S. Civil War

Subscribe to Radio War Nerd at patreon.com/radiowarnerd

Sound production by Telescope Audio

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Comments

Pay

Thanks for posting this

Jane Allred

Carney, for better, and for worse is one of the few centrists who is an actual pragmatist. The better: discussed in the show. The worse: amping up the resource extraction on stolen land.

Shahean Barzegar

This was a truly bizarre conversation. Mark seems impressed that he isn’t afraid to be interviewed, but did he say a solitary unflattering thing about the government? The only thing I heard was that it was kind of scary in a vague sense that they could shut down the internet.

Zachary Jones

How on earth can iranians people have faith in iran's defensive capabilities after what has happened?

JoR

It’s crazy (negative way) that news is just so all over the place that we may have to wait a while for the analysis of the official Kurdish betrayal by the US in Syria. Also like a month + past due for an Ukraine update. But again, understandable with all the other shit going on. The episodes in 2015 feel like eons ago

Christopher Small

One thing that does seem significant about the protests compared with past ones, at least from what I’m gleaning from the interview, is that they seem to have started in what normally would be the government’s base of support: bazaari’s and the traditional middle class, people in second and third tier cities, and so forth. Protests from these groups over economic issues aren’t uncommon, but they’re not the kind that boil into a challenge to the government. And that kind of cuts a lot of different ways in terms of how the initial protests should be interpreted

Antipaganda

Thankyou for this unexpectedly calming episode. Before I started listening I thought I'd be hearing accounts of massacres and breakdown of the civil order, and now you've given me a wider perspective on the situation and a sense that even if the US bombs the place, it won't turn into another Gaza. The horror is lifted from my mind, and I can sleep.

teh_drewski

Very interesting interview, great job. Very balanced and thoughtful lived perspective.

Johnny Spanish

What was the name of the guy he mentioned being a “strong man” in 1963?

Witoldo G.

I'm a subscriber to RWN in large part because it regularly provides a view that gets at some kernel of truth lost in other media narratives. But sometimes RWN veers into pure contrarianism. This feels like one of those times.

.

I’m curious what you think he’s suppose to say. The U.S. is threatening to bomb the country he lives in that has been absolutely crippled by sanctions and other foreign interference. He was clear. The U.S. empire doesn’t want regime change. They want complete destabilization and balkanization like Libya which is true. He gave an overview of how different Iranians think about the situation politically. Is he suppose to say “yes this regime sucks because x,y and z” to western audiences to help manufacture consent for bombing the country him and his family fucking live in.

.

The comments from this interview are extremely fucking gross and I truly believe that the only way citizens in the imperial core will ever understand what people are going through is if the bombs start falling on us.

William Brame

Sound wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be.

triplevalaska

You are taking the interview like this is someone who is a real person. Everything this guy says has been cooked up in an irain intelligence agency. Nothing he says is real. So save your outrage

James

'The person being interviewed didn't say what I was expecting them to say, so something must be fishy 🤔 it is probably malicious as well, knowing how those Iranians operate!'

triplevalaska

This is what it must have been like to listen to radio free europe back in the day

Shahean Barzegar

I’m a lot less anti-gov than my family still in the country. They’re real people and this interviewee waved them away as nothing significant. I’m not even saying this guy doesn’t represent a real viewpoint in Iran. But it is uninteresting and completely irresponsible to have it be the only viewpoint. It’s like the corny daytime news where there’s a panel with a government figure.

Shahean Barzegar

The balkanization point is a very good point. When I argue with family who still live in Iran, I say the same thing. They seem to have a classic Persian perspective where they don’t think what happened in surrounding Arab countries could happen to them. They think cleaner regime change is possible. I try to tell them that I know Americans, and to believe me that Americans hold zero distinction between Iranians and Syrians or Iraqis or Libyans. Many Iranians I know just think they’re special.

James

Could it be that in a country of 91 million people, some of the population might have different perspectives to each other, or to the perspectives in western media? Or are they all just being contrarian?

NYCM&AHole

Unrelated to the ep but what’re you planning to do to hunker out this storm? Down here in the garden state I’ll be lighting a fire in the fireplace and playing with the kids.

William

This is actually what it was like to listen to radio war nerd back in the day

William

Why does he seem to be pro government

William

This comment section tells me a fair amount of yall are too clever by half. I don’t think there’d be as much disagreement if cyrus himself said any of this

JoR

So I didn’t listen to the episode yet, but their main goal is always to get either an expert in the topic they discuss,or someone “on the ground” experiencing said event. Or something close. You can disagree with the guest, but if they’re trying to get an insider’s perspective on what’s happening in Iran, they got one. I really don’t see the contrarian aspect of this. But again I didn’t listen yet so maybe I’m missing something

Daniel Hoppes

Khamenei said thousands were killed by mossad. BBC cut off the last part.

Witoldo G.

Listen to the episode. Guy wasn't outside for any of the protests. Said that because the CIA intervened in 1953, that they must have intervened now. Seriously, this was the main argument the guy made to "prove" it was Western-backed agitators who were leading the protests. Guy was trying to explain away thousands of dead protesters by saying that the government figures didn't distinguish between protestors and state security forces, so who knows...maybe the majority of dead are actually the Iranian state security. RWN's criticism of Western meddling in politics is usually well-founded, but this episode feels like a whitewashing of a government that for 30+ years has a pretty solid record of being fine with killing its own citizens.

Factory Troll

Actually, a lot of commenters were deeply suspicious about Cyrus the first time he appeared on RWN, and if I recall correctly some of them gave me flack for calling it a great interview back then (Yes, us comment-section people have long memories. Those Bastards!). There are many ways to get paranoid in a world like this.