How is the IRGC positioning itself after
the war with Israel?
>> Morning Jennifer. Yeah, you're
absolutely right. It's important to
state first of all, it's definitely been
weakened. Right. Top and Hans have been
assassinated completely by Israel. It
suffered to an extent a great
embarrassment in the extent to which
Israel was able to dominate particularly
in the air aspect of that war. And yet
in the aftermath of it, in the in the
way that Iran has sought to regroup and
recuperate, we've seen the the IOGC
taking a really prominent role, it's
it's filled a lot of the the slots on
this brand new defense council, National
Defense Council that will be key, I
think, to any uh sort of chain of
command situations in any future
skirmishes with Israel. And then there's
a way in which it's also standing to
benefit from this uptick in nationalist
sentiment. Right? While it's both
embarrassed that in the way the the war
unfolded, it's also the most capable
fighting force in the country, it did
have some small wins, it would say,
against Israel during the war. Be it
missile strikes against Israeli cities
or or downing Israeli drones that were
trying to attack Iran. So it could also,
if it plays it cards its cards right,
benefit from that uptick in nationalist
sentiment as the the sort of vanguard of
the Iranian military in any future
skirmish as well.
>> And Patrick, as you note in the story,
uh it's not just another military group.
It it's really quite central, as we
pointed out in the intro, uh to the the
happenings, uh within the the the
region. Can you walk us through
financially what it does and how key it
is to to Iran?
>> Yes. So, it's known obviously abroad as
a military force. We're all familiar
with those groups that it backed across
the region like Hamas and Hezbollah. But
internally, it's also the face of
putting down protests. Um, that's how
many Iranians will interact with it if
at all during daily life at those times
of unrest. And then also I think less
much less known abroad it's also got
huge business interests right spanning
from hospitals TV stations and in
particular engineering it it it was even
involved in the construction of the
Tehran metro that construction
engineering uh expertise is a legacy of
the war with Iraq in the 1980s where
there was huge damage and huge
reconstruction required in the wake of
it. Obviously, the war we've seen more
recently in June was a much shorter
affair, but there was a lot of damage
done. And I think the IRGC will be in a
uh pole position to be able to take
advantage of that, use its engineering,
construction expertise to get those key
contracts and again uh reassert not just
its military dominance but also its uh
economic position in the country.