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Hidden Forces

Iran's Counterrevolution & the Future of the Greater Middle East | Kamran Bokhari

Hidden Forces

Demetri Kofinas

Business, Government

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 19 January 2026

⏱️ 4 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Episode 459 of Hidden Forces is the twelfth episode in the Hundred Year Pivot podcast series. In it, Demetri Kofinas and Grant Williams speak with Kamran Bokhari, a strategic forecaster and geopolitical analyst who specializes on the Middle Eastern and Eurasia, about Iran's nationwide protests, what they reveal about the power and stability of the Iranian regime, and what the state of Iranian affairs portends for Iran's future, the region's geopolitics, and the strategic considerations and objectives of the United States.

The conversation's opening hour traces Iran's modern formation—beginning in the early 1900s with the Constitutional Revolution, moving through the 1953 coup and the Shah's rule, and culminating in the 1979 Islamic Revolution and its aftermath.

Kamran walks the audience through the evolution of Iran's dual military structure, explaining the critical distinction between the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the regular armed forces (Artesh), and how the IRGC grew from an ideological militia into an oversized parallel state controlling everything from telecommunications to Iran's nuclear program, while becoming increasingly corrupt and internally divided.

The second hour is devoted to analyzing the current protests engulfing Iran, how they differ from previous uprisings, and the implications for a severely weakened IRGC following Israel's dismantling of its proxy network, the relentless targeting of its commanders, and its failure to secure the safety of its own citizens from Israeli reprisals. They explore the regime's internal factionalization, the role of the merchant class in these protests, the potential pathways forward—from managed regime decay to military intervention to outright chaos—and the cascading effects that Iran's instability could have on its neighbors, from Turkey and Azerbaijan to Iraq, Afghanistan, and beyond.

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Episode Recorded on 01/15/2026

Transcript

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0:00.0

What's up, everybody? My name is Demetri Gaffinus, and you're listening to Hidden Forces,

0:06.0

a podcast that inspires investors, entrepreneurs, and everyday citizens, to challenge consensus narratives,

0:13.4

and learn how to think critically about the systems of power shaping our world.

0:18.1

What you're about to hear is the 12th episode in a podcast series hosted by me

0:22.3

and my co-host Grant Williams titled The Hundred Year Pivot. In it, we speak with some of the

0:27.8

smartest, most plugged in people we know to help position ourselves, our organizations, our families,

0:34.0

and our portfolios for the once in a century economic, political, and geopolitical

0:39.6

reordering that we believe is currently underway.

0:43.0

In today's conversation, Grant and I speak with Kamran Bahari, a senior fellow at the New

0:47.4

Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy, and a leading expert on Middle Eastern geopolitics and

0:53.1

security affairs about Iran's nationwide protests,

0:56.8

what they reveal about the power and stability

0:59.5

of the Iranian regime,

1:00.9

and what the state of Iranian affairs portends

1:03.3

for the country's future, the region's geopolitics,

1:06.4

and the strategic considerations and objectives of the United States.

1:10.6

We spent the first hour of this

1:11.6

conversation exploring the deeper historical context needed for understanding modern Iran,

1:16.8

from the constitutional revolution of the early 1900s, through the 1953 coup, the reign of the

1:22.5

Shah, the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and its aftermath. Carmen walks us through the evolution of Iran's dual military structure,

1:30.8

explaining the critical distinction between the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the regular armed forces,

1:36.1

and how the IRGC grew from an ideological militia into an oversized parallel state,

...

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