Iran Is Escalating. The Economic Stakes Go Beyond Oil | Bijan Kian

Is the war with Iran ending, or is it at the verge of escalation? Today, we sit down with Bijan Kian, who's gonna tell us what's happening right now inside Iran, and how this war could impact the rest of the region, and where things are going from here. Islamic Republic is losing $500 million a day, half a billion dollars a day. The right question is, how long can they hold off with this kind of a hit on a daily basis? How do you see this conflict ending? I don't see President Trump sitting back and saying, oh, well, we tried. That's not the President Trump that I know. If you're counting on no major military action against Islamic Republic between now and election, I'll say, take a good look at that bet. I'm Siamak, welcome to Market Insider. Bijan, it's great to have you back, and welcome back. Great to be back, Siamak, thank you. We wanna talk to you about Iran. Things are escalating again, and the peace deals, it looks like it didn't go anywhere. Can you tell us what you're seeing right now? Are you talking about the MOU in Islamabad? It was a joke. It wasn't worth the paper it's written on. And if anybody took it seriously, they would have to take a real good look at it. That MOU was made out of things that many points of the 14 points did not to be mentioned in an MOU. Their principles accepted international law. The international community recognizes things like sovereignty of the nations, and they will make their own decisions and so forth. And it doesn't need to be a point in an MOU. International law, point two. Some of the things that are mentioned there are just nonsense, basically. And I say it with confidence. Like what? Like the United States must move their forces away from the vicinity of Iraq. Really? Fifth Fleet to go away? What does vicinity mean exactly? I'm saying it's a joke, because that is not how a treaty, an agreement, some kind of a serious protocol is written. You have to be specific. Vicinity of Iran, how about Fifth Fleet? You want us to move Fifth Fleet out of the Persian Gulf? And what do we get for that? What kind of promise do we get from Islamic Republic? Islamic Republic is hoping to continue to kill people, steal their money and stay in power. That's what they want to do. What do you think they would do if you remove all of your military from Persian Gulf? It is ridiculous. I think there's no doubt about it. United States is going to accommodate $300 billion in what? How? American taxpayers' money? That $300 billion is something I did for five years every day. We provide non-concessionary financing to U.S. exporters to be able to export goods and services to other countries, about 150 countries in the world. We have that program, nothing unusual. You want to do a project, the project is worthy to be financed. You come to the United States Export-Import Bank and we'll finance it for you. In fact, $300 billion, $500 billion. Why not more? Nothing really special. The Iranian side knows how ridiculous that was. They just need it for internal consumption. Oh, we squeeze the concession out of the United States. I think President Trump is really looking back and saying, how did I miss? How did I miss? Did I really believe that I can deal with these people? He called them nice people. This is a different layer. We can do things with them. I think he's looking back and saying, what a ridiculous idea that was. I think he said it himself. They said, how come you called them nice people and then you called them scum? The next day, he said, I got to know them. That's a very objective statement. So the deal, that was really a joke. So where do you think things will head from here? Escalation. Okay. Look, we've said this before. Islamic Republic in Iran, and I say it intentionally in that way because Iran is an old country with amazing culture, amazing history, glorious past. All of that, 48 years, it's been occupied by kleptocrats. They steal, they're corrupt, and they stay in power by force. So what do they want? What does the Iranian regime want right now? Do they want to stay in power and keep everything as is? Yeah, everything as is. This morning, I was on an interview with somebody and there was someone who was really representing the position of the Islamic Republic. And he was saying, you know, guys like you, you've been away, you don't know what's going on there. You don't know the people. You don't know anything about anything and you are writing prescriptions for that country. You guys got clueless. I said, okay, you're not clueless. You tell me what they want. This is your, and in so many words, what they want is I will continue to keep the stolen money. I will stay in power and kill every Iranian who protests against me. That's what they want. And they want the world to respect that, to understand that this is our culture. We tell people how to live. If they don't want to follow our directions, we'll kill them. That's what they want. Now, of course they know that they cannot hold an election and open it up. They know that. They know that because what they did a couple of years ago, I think it was in 2022 or 23, they ran a survey by the Ministry of Guidance inside and the results were like 83% of the people don't want this regime. They don't want it. They know it, but they want to convince the world that we're here to stay. So right now the US government is trying to put pressure with the sanctions. Exactly. And a conversation took place and went something like this. Somebody said, you can't starve the people to change the government when the government doesn't care about the wellbeing of the people. They don't care. They starve, they die, they don't care. That's a bad policy. You have to target. You have to target those who are keeping things the way they are. You cannot starve the people and hope that they would rise up. You know, empty stomachs don't have any motivation for rising up. You cannot be hungry and participate in a revolution. First, you have to eat. Something's missing. And I'm sure, I'm sure, I have every confidence in this administration that they would get it right. That's why I'm saying, you know, Bijan, don't measure things as they are. Don't measure things as they are because as we move forward, things are gonna change. President Trump knows what President Trump is doing. I have every confidence in him. And I hope I don't get surprised again by hearing, oh, we didn't know. So Iran is trying to put tolls on the Strait of Hormuz. What do you think of that? Do you think they really mean it? Why are they doing that when they're so instable? Do they wanna have a conflict with the US? Iranians hope that they would push oil prices to $200 a barrel and choke the world and get President Trump to a point where President Trump would say, oh, well, we tried it, it didn't work. Do you think President Trump is the kind of person who would do something like that? I don't think so. That's where they are wrong today. You see, you watch their programs and you see their analysts sitting there and they all want to console each other that everything's okay. Islamic Republic is very strong. It's gonna stay in power. We're gonna win. We're gonna push oil to $200 and then we wanna make President Trump surrender to us. Do you see that? It doesn't make sense. There are others who cannot stand even a small dose of Islamic Republic remaining. People of Iran will never forgive them. They killed their children. 50,000 lives lost because they want to stay in power. It's not sustainable. The people of Iran have spoken. They don't want them. They want them to rally around the flag and say the enemy is the United States. You see, you're suffering, you're hungry because United States is putting these severe sanctions creating complete isolation. United States wants you to die. And the Iranian people say, no, no. I used to believe that. I don't believe you anymore because I could see how much you don't care about the people and you killed them. You killed our children. We came out to say we don't want you and you killed us. So they don't believe him anymore. The biggest enemy of Islamic Republic today is the people of Iran and they're not gonna give up. Let's go to the rest of the regions, the neighbors, and then we come back to the people of Iran. How do they see this conflict? Countries like Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, do they have different interests or are they all aligned? And why is Iran hitting them? The characteristics in formation of foreign policy in that part of the world can be described in this way that they don't like change. They don't like change. They want things to remain the same, as problematic as they are. It's okay, we understand, but we can't solve all the problems in the world. Now I'm talking like somebody in Riyadh, for example. All we wanna do is we wanna make sure that our eastern parts are covered, that some crazy people don't hit our oil industry. And that's what we want. We don't want trouble. We don't care about what they do to their people and all that. We've been accused of things ourselves. So what is it to us? Let them live, let them be. And the way we like them to be, I mean, the position from Riyadh is, I don't wanna have a competition. I want to be brokering deals for them. I want to be there to be the ventilation for trade. And you go to Emirates the same way. I mean, this is not exaggeration. It's not accusation. They all know. You go to Jebel Ali in the Emirates and you'll see all the offices of Islamic Republic businesses. You go to the jetty. On the right side, it's the stuff that goes to Iran. On the left side is the regular thing. So Iran is closed essentially, but these countries are using their gateway to Iran for trade. Islamic Republic to stay, right? Because then Islamic Republic will give them advantages. We'll sell them water, we'll sell them soil, we'll sell them whatever. And I think it's myopic for the countries in the Persian Gulf region to settle for a compromise because Islamic Republic will not be friendly with them either. Look what they did. They hit their infrastructure. Why? Because they have missiles that can hit them. And they wanted to hit all of the interests of United States in the region. And they were successful in doing that. What do you think the relationship between the people whose desalination plants were destroyed by the Islamic Republic? When do you think they will forgive the Islamic Republic for that? These are lasting foreign policy impact issues. They won't go away. And I hate to talk about people in this way, but there are a lot of smart people in Iran. I talked to them. I know them, very smart. But they're all under the thumb of very dumb people. People who just want to steal money. They don't care about anything else. So smart people are following stupid thieves. All they care about is give me a way to steal more money. So the regime, so what you're saying is the regime right now, it's all about corruption or is there an ideological faction? There is an ideological. I mean, it would be, it's hard. It's hard to measure sincerity of the ideological. I doubt that. I don't believe that. When I see ideological together with corruption, I question the purity of the ideological belief. But there are ideologues. There are ideologues who will go all the way. Maybe they're not doing it for money. Maybe they're doing it for power. But there are such people there. And I won't call them stupid or anything. If they're sincere, that's their prerogative. They want to go to heaven killing people. Do you have any thoughts on who has the power in Iran right now? It's very confusing, right? It's not very clear. You know, they say a hammer sees everything as a nail. I see everything related to money. Whoever has the gold makes the rules. So you name them. So it's like wealthy, wealthy groups that have families that have connected. They have amassed massive wealth through confiscation, corruption. This whole sanctions regime since 1995 has given them an opportunity. You see, in Iran, there are people called trustees. It's not what you think it is. The word is respectable. But trustees are those who circumvent sanctions. They take a commission for all that? Well, a commission, they take a lot of money and they return whatever they think they have to return. Not all of it. They're thieves, basically. But there's an issue. I think it should be said to the world who says, well, you don't want to talk about business. We don't want to get into politics. These are good business people. We've known them. We've dealt with them. Things are going to change. You see, if you go into business with one of these oligarchs in Iran, you will have a stamp of shame that's going to be with you wherever you go. Because now we have in the world banking system something called KYC, know your customer, and KYT, know your transaction. These are rules. Same for all financial institutions. Reputation risk. They wouldn't touch it. So a message to these oligarchs is, don't think you're going to pay your way through. I saw one of these kleptocrats. You know, someone was reminding me that usually, usually business leaders become successful in business and then they follow Maslow's triangle of needs and they want to go do self-actualization. So they would get into government and they don't need to make any money. They've made the money. And now they bring their desire to serve the public, let's say, if they can. But that's not how it is in Iran. I was told very specifically that business sector came from government. In other words, you become powerful by placing yourself in the public trust and then you betray them. And then you steal. And you call yourself successful business people who built the biggest mall in the Middle East. How? Oh, we get a loan from a bank called the Future Bank, Bank Ayandeh. And then what you do is you say it didn't work and you take the money and you give this to the bank. The bank goes bankrupt and everything's okay. On to the next theft project. That's the way things are. It's not sustainable. They cannot be that way. What about the goals of Iranian government across the Middle East? Because there was operations in Syria, in Lebanon, in other places supporting the Houthis. What's their goal with all of that? Proxy operations. They buy killers, smugglers, a very vast network, all over the world. You see, it all starts from this point. You've heard about the Quds Force. This is the killer force that operates abroad, not inside Iraq. They dress up as diplomats. They appear in the Islamic Republic embassies around the world. They're killers, basically, and smugglers. That's what they are. And they have good contact with all the operators in the narcotics field who also would kill people for you if that's what you want. That's their network. The budget for this killing people and blowing things up has to come somewhere. Naturally, it cannot come from a parliament where the Quds Force would go to the parliament and say, I need a budget to kill about 200 people abroad. Maybe Bijan Qiyan is a good target. We can take money for him to kill him, and then I need the money. They can't do that. They have to get the money through illicit means. And what's better than a corridor of narcotics coming in from Southeast Afghanistan and then find its way to Europe through the Western front? So that's what they've been doing. Is it sustainable? No, it's not. The old Islamic Republic is dead. The new Islamic Republic is deadly for themselves. So how do you see this conflict ending? Do you see a major war with Iran going forward? Do you see like a calm down where which we've been in the last few years? I see escalation. In the immediate future, I don't see any possibility for a compromise. Let me explain. I don't see President Trump sitting back and saying, oh, well, we tried. That's not the President Trump that I know. That's not the administration that I know. Even with Democrats, there is no such scenario possible. There may be power struggle between Republicans and Democrats, but at the end, they will see the threat as it is. So I don't see Islamic Republic being able to afford a total surrender. Some people making mistakes, as Bijan, you've been going around and saying, the only option Islamic Republic has is total surrender. Do you see them surrendering? No. The fact that I say the only option they have is total surrender is because I don't believe Trump is gonna settle for anything that would not give him the legacy of a victor. No way. I just don't see that. I don't see that. So what's gonna happen is that if you're counting on no major military action against Islamic Republic between now and election, I'll say, take a good look at that bet. Don't bet on it. It might happen. There's not a guarantee. In fact, whatever you think is not gonna happen, it's possible that would happen. Now, let's say there's a conversation, imaginary conversation between Republican Party leaders and President Trump. They come to him and say, look, it looks like we're gonna lose. Maybe we're not gonna win. You don't wanna own that loss. Don't do anything. Let it happen. If Democrats win, you still have from November to 20th of January, you could do a lot of things, whatever you wanna do. So don't do it. And he's thinking about it and says, well, let the world think I'm not gonna do it. Maybe I'll do it. So I keep the element of surprise, not losing anything. The unfortunate thing is that all these calculations mean more suffering for the Iranian people. And that means who's responsible for that? I don't think we can hold President Trump responsible for that. I think we should keep all of us who care, the world who cares to come together and Russia has to stop sending weapons to Islamic Republic because they will have shared responsibility in killing Iranian people. I think China has to realize that for short period of time, they will have to take a little bit of pain because this conflict is not good for China either. And if I were to bet on China betting on its continued relationship with the United States, all the government papers that China buys, would they leave the United States to go back the dead Islamic Republic? I wouldn't count on it. The Chinese are focused on their own challenges and they're not interested in buying Islamic Republic's problems. They have enough challenges. So Islamic Republic is isolated. The future is predictable, certain, without a doubt. What about the people of Iran? People inside Iran, what's the sentiment right now? The sentiment is that they're very, very upset at their government. They're also confused. They don't understand this psychological warfare, something they don't understand. They're saying, look, do you want them to stay or do you not want them to stay? If you don't want them to stay, why don't you close all of these little border areas where possible trade is conducted with the help of Pakistan and China? You know, there's a little corridor called Rimdan. And this area is really the free zone that connects you to the Chinese market. Not directly, but getting connected to that corridor. They're saying, hit the border, hit that border. There are others. We did that to the border with Turkmenistan. It does make a difference. They're confused. They're saying, do you not know what you have to do if you really want to win? If you really want to do this, do it effectively. And I believe that people are also sitting down in Washington and telling people, look, this is a humanitarian crisis. You cannot starve the people, hoping they would rise up to topple their government. Make sure that they're fed. Make sure you don't take responsibility in people dying out of hunger or lack of medicine. So that's the picture there. They're confused and they're suffering and they're gonna suffer more. Siamak, I'm really worried for the people of Iran as they will be facing extreme hardship as the weather changes, you know, expect power shortages, no power. Basically expect people to be desperate to find their much needed medicine. Expect people to have difficulty feeding themselves. And every day you listen to them. You know, the guy is an officer in law enforcement, makes 38 million tomans. Now that sounds like a lot of money. It's not. So it's like $200, $190 a month. Yes, a month. And they run out of money on the 15th day of the month. Prices keep going up. They can't afford it. How is this government going to survive? There was another officer that I just saw the video today that he mentioned that people come to him and he says, I don't have any solutions. I'm not part of the government. I'm not one of those that makes decisions and I can't even buy milk myself. I believe that. So Bijan, some people have been asking us why the people of Iran are not rising up. They're hungry. They don't have the means. They face armed people who will kill them. Would you do that? Would you rise up today after what happened January 8th and 19th in Iran? It's unreasonable. Unreasonable to expect the people. I mean, see I'm like you and I face the people. We have to be able to look them right into the eyes and say when you were bombed, I didn't sit there and cheer the bombing. We have to be realistic. You cannot expect hungry people to rise up against armed to the teeth, brutal government that doesn't care about their livelihood at all. Why is it reasonable to expect the people to rise up after this? However, however, something amazing has happened. When you wanna rise up, you need certain things. You need to have a motivator, a voice you trust, a compass you can follow, something that gives you comfort that you're putting foot in the right way to get to where you wanna go today. And I know, I understand it's not the Western style. Don't try and take the Western template and put it on this and say, oh, it looks good. No, it doesn't look good because it's not the Western style but the people of Iran have found their compass and their compass is one man they trust and that's Prince Reza Pahlav. They trust him. They trust him and they follow him. Now, not all Iranians are doing that but the greatest number of Iranians who want change see him as an agent for change, see him as the leader of the Lion and Sun Revolution. It's real. Now, the West doesn't like that because the West wants to see Western model. I get some people together and that's good and it's gonna happen. It's gonna happen because I don't have any particular information but I can tell you from all I know, Prince Reza Pahlavi is determined to create a well-diversified circle as a consultative body and then that consultative body would legitimize the formation of an operational group, some temporary group that would actually do things and how do I know that? It's not because I feel that way but I know that because that is written in the booklet of the plan that's been prepared under his supervision and then I have to tell you, it goes back to about a year ago in Munich where somebody got up to the podium and said, we need to create this because that's what he wants. The talk was, look, don't look to him to do everything. You have to take responsibility and put this together. What do you envision for a lot of people if things are gonna escalate, how long does it take for it to come back to normal? Do you think this is gonna be a fast process because this choke point, straight up hormones is very important for a lot of people economically from fertilizers to oil, to a lot of different things come from there. First of all, we are net exporter of energy, the United States, it's not like the old days and we just got a hold of a substantial volume of oil from Venezuela. So we're not suffering. Islamic Republic is losing $500 million a day, half a billion dollars a day. The right question is how long can they hold off with this kind of a hit on a daily basis? We have the power to do that. We're not worried. We will not let oil prices get to past $120. I can put a bet on that. We will not let that happen. So we have the ability to endure. Islamic Republic doesn't have the ability to endure and we're not gonna let that happen. The world is not gonna be held hostage to the Islamic Republic. Islamic Republic will not last. And I don't say that because that's my desire. I say that because I will ask you, how could it? How could it? It's a business that's run out of money. Nobody is gonna recapitalize it. In fact, this regime, this regime of economic measures, when it's applied, it's gonna choke. Not only it's not gonna help them, it's gonna choke the economy because it's already in shambles. Inflation, over 70%. GDP growth, negative 6%. Unemployment, you don't wanna go there. People are up to here with dissatisfaction. And do you see, a lot of people here are not sure about what's going on in Iran and what the sentiment is inside Iran. Do people support the US bombing and attacking? Do they support that from what you've seen? Mixed review, Siyamak. People are hoping. They're saying, what do you wanna do? Do it for yourself. If you see Islamic Republic as a threat, be decisive. Stop this game of let's fight, let's negotiate, let's negotiate, let's fight. It's not going anywhere. And they do take note of the mistakes. So I cannot sit here with a straight face, tell you that we've been successful. I think it's a mixed review. The new round of sanctions, they're gonna be helpful alone? No, it's gonna have to be a combination. It's gonna have to be a combination of military taking all of their capability out. They're out, no Navy, no Air Force. They still have missiles, yes. But there's limitations on what they can do with the missiles. So nothing left. Economic pressure is going to choke them. But there is a need for people's action and that's going on strikes. Now, strikes are not easy. We don't want to be the Marie Antoinette and telling them to go eat cake. They go on strike, somebody has to take care of their families. So there are people in Washington DC who are now campaigning for humanitarian action. And you heard President Trump say that. So it's being talked about, is that you cannot, that people are gonna die and their government is gonna change. It just doesn't compute that way. This government doesn't care about people's lives. They don't care how many people die out of hunger. They want to, they know they're not gonna win. They just want to survive and they're counting on that. So people of Iran can take decisive actions of not going to work, but somebody has to help them to feed their families. There is a need for that. And there are people who are trying to campaign for exemptions on OFAC and trying to help people from here. Unfortunately, it's tightening up. It's not opening up, it's tightening. So we need to make sure that we're not accused of changing the butcher's knife to a butter knife to be able to do this job. That's not it. We just have to make sure. If we want the people to rise up, you gotta feed them. You have to give them the motivation to be fed so they can go fight. They won't fight hungry. If this regime survives, they have hit some of the infrastructure in UAE and other countries. Do you think that would go away? Or do you think that those areas will go back? Do you think those areas, those countries, like UAE is a pretty advanced country. Do you think that will go back to normal or do you think it's changed forever? It's changed forever because trust is destroyed. There's no trust. They could operate with a little bit of trust, a lot of business, but there's no business anymore. There's no incentive. Money dried up. So when they don't trust and there's no incentive, what's left to continue a normal diplomatic and trade relationships? If I were the countries in the Persian Gulf, I would confess that we cannot be friendly with Islamic Republic. Islamic Republic wants to be a hegemon. The goals are not, they're not consistent with each other. They're not congruent. They want to be dominating and they should all know that. It's a wrong calculation to say, well, you know, leave them alone, they'll be fine. They won't be fine because their people have decided to kick them out and they will do that. So who's gonna lose? The one that made the wrong bet. People are going around the world, talking to policy makers and saying, look, stop looking in the rear view mirror. That was past. That was your relationship with your counterparts in Islamic Republic doing business day in and day out from those jetties in the Emirates and all that, it's gone. Look to the future. In the future, you would see a young, educated public that can do fantastic trade, but make a deal with them. Make a deal with them. And they say, well, you know, how do we make a deal with 90 million people? We've got to talk to the government. No, you don't have to. You don't have to talk to the representatives of the government that's coming in the future, the free Iran. Who are they? Talk to the people. They'll show them to you. Bijan Kian, it was great to have you back on Market Insider. Thank you. Please come back and tell us what's going on in Iran. Thank you, and I'll be back. Anytime, Siamak. Would be my pleasure. Tell us what you think about the war with Iran, and if things will escalate, how do you think it will impact oil prices? Will it be a transitory, small change, or do you think it will last a long time? You can always let us know in the comments. I'm Siamak Khorami. This is Market Insider. We'll see you next time.