Episode 18: Taking on the ayatollahs with Mark Dubowitz

Ask Haviv Anything

Haviv Rettig Gur

History

4.9 • 640 Ratings

🗓️ 12 June 2025

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Trump administration has been trying to hammer out a deal to dismantle Iran's nuclear program. In the last 24 hours, the rhetoric has ratcheted up on both sides, as both Iranian and US officials have warned about impending military action.

A week ago, we recorded a conversation with Mark Dubowitz, CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, on the Iranian regime's strategy, its nuclear aspirations and what it would take to disrupt those aspirations diplomatically or, failing that, militarily.

Can Iran's nuclear program be stopped? Can the regime be reined in or even toppled? Do the interests of Israel and America overlap, or are there meaningful gaps that could force a divergence in policy? How do we support the Iranian people, who have repeatedly rebelled against the tyranny of the ayatollahs in Tehran?

Mark joined Rachel and Haviv to tackle these questions in a conversation that has only grown more relevant as the days have passed.

This episode was sponsored by Julie and Frank Cohen because they believe this podcast is a way to teach our story, and because understanding our past and present is key to building a better future.

Julie and Frank have asked to dedicate this episode to someone we lost on October 7.

Today we remember 1st Sgt. Eliran Abergil, who was 29 when he died fighting the Hamas terrorists who invaded Kibbutz Be'eri. On the morning of the attack, Eliran was in Tiberias in Israel's north celebrating the Simchat Torah holiday with family.

He rushed down south to join his comrades, met them on the front lines, and volunteered to be one of the first officers to enter Kibbutz Be'eri. He was killed in a firefight with Hamas gunmen. Eliran's wife discovered she was pregnant with their first child shortly after his death.

Please join me on Patreon to support this project: ⁠ www.patreon.com/AskHavivAnything⁠

If you would like to sponsor an episode, please email us at ⁠[email protected]⁠.

A podcast by Haviv Rettig Gur

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, everybody. Welcome to Ask Kaviv Anything. This is kind of an exciting episode. We're going to try a little bit more of a conversational approach. Please let us know if this format works. We'd love your feedback. We have here someone that we have learned a tremendous
0:22.5	amount from, Mark Dubowitz, the CEO of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a man who has
0:28.6	the illustrious true honor of being sanctioned by both Putin's Russia and Chaminers, Iran.
0:37.7	I have to say, Mark, I'm jealous, you know, the only sanctions I've ever faced or from my kids.
0:43.7	But that really reflects on Mark's work.
0:47.3	And what we're going to try and do for this episode is have a broader conversation.
0:52.3	I begged and begged and managed to convince my wife,
0:56.3	Rahel, who is the executive producer behind the scenes, who has made this podcast, developed
1:01.1	it, built it out from something that at the very beginning, we had no idea how to do,
1:05.7	and now we know how to do a lot more, and we, of course, have plans to do even more than that.
1:10.4	To come out from behind the curtain, two really important things.
1:14.4	One is our sponsor to whom we are very, very grateful.
1:17.6	Julie and Frank Cohen have sponsored this episode and asked us to say that they believe that this
1:24.0	podcast is a way to teach our story because understanding our past and present
1:28.1	is key to building a better future. And Julian Frank have also dedicated this episode, as many
1:35.0	sponsors have. It's one of the most beautiful things that has developed around this community that
1:39.7	this podcast has become to someone who died on October 7. This episode is dedicated to First Sergeant
1:48.0	Elirana Birjil, who was 29 when he died fighting the Hamas terrorists who invaded Kibbutz
1:55.0	Behrie. He is from Khadera, and on the morning of the attack, he was with his wife at her parents' house in Tiberias, in Tveria, up north on the Sea of Galilee, celebrating the Shavut holiday.
2:09.6	He rushed down south to join his comrades, met them on the front lines, and volunteered to be one of the first officers entering kibbutz Berri, which was one of the
2:18.1	real major, one of the three major massacres of October 7, were the most dangerous places to be.
2:24.1	He was driving one of two armored jeeps inside the kibbutz in the early afternoon.
	...

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