English transcript

Um, what have people been saying throughout the past week about perhaps

how long this has taken, how it was being, how it was taking place?

What have you been hearing from people there?

Well, Riley, because of the blackout in the, of the internet,

that, that situation has caused a reduction

in the amount of information that is flowing here and there among people.

But also we know that, you know, according to the things that we receive,

the people what we talk to,

the Iranians are bracing for this new and this announcement of a new supreme leader.

But everyone here, everyone here in Iran is expecting it to take time.

And it's, I mean, this announcement tonight may surprise many

because they were not expecting this announcement to be soon

because of the threats by the Israelis and the Americans to kill the new supreme leader.

But at the same time, there has been discussion, there has been names talked about

who is going to be probably elected and so on.

As I mentioned in my previous intervention here,

Hassan Rouhani's name was presented as a possibility.

Speculation here about whether the, the leadership, the interim leadership

is going to take a hard line and appoint someone who is closer to the previous line

or to the, the late supreme leader and to the Revolutionary Guard

and to the Basij and so on, which, which is what happened,

or whether the, the new, whether they are going to select someone who is more

a reformist or closer to the reformists and so on

and probably more acceptable to the Americans and the Israelis.

That has been the discussion during the last few days.

But now that everything is, has become clear,

the Iranians are going to, of course, remain divided about this announcement

because we have the reformists who have been demonstration in the street,

demonstrating in the streets, looking for change in Iran.

I don't think that situation will change.

But under the present circumstances of war and aggression on Iran,

we have seen their voice being hushed, not by the authorities,

but by the feeling among many Iranians that now this is not the time

to go and rally in the streets against the government.

Many Iranians, as far as I know, and I'm told that many Iranians

at circum-, in, under circumstances like this,

they even switch a little bit to the other side and feel nationalistic

and feel that their country is under threat and that the enemy is on the,

at the gates of their country.

And this is not the time they show some kind of attachment to liberalism

or Western politics and so on. And that's the situation now.

So people here, it is, it is going to take time.

And probably we will not hear much from the opposition right now

until the, the war is over.

But that's, and that's the time when the Iranians will come back probably

to the same mode of, "We are against you because we want reform" and so on.

But that's, this is not the right time for that.