Hey everyone, welcome back to My Weird Prompts. I am Corn Poppleberry, and we are coming to you from our home in Jerusalem on what feels like a truly historic week. Usually, we are diving into an audio prompt sent over by our housemate Daniel, but today, Herman and I decided to take the reins ourselves. There is just too much happening right outside our door and across the region to talk about anything else.
Herman Poppleberry here, and you are right, Corn. It is March fourth, twenty twenty-six, and the world is essentially holding its breath. We have spent so many episodes over the last couple of years tracking the shadow war, the proxy conflicts, and the tension in the north. But with Operation Roaring Lion and Operation Epic Fury currently unfolding, we are looking at a potential tectonic shift that hasn't been possible since nineteen seventy-nine.
It is intense. We are seeing the headlines about the strikes on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the reports about the death of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But what we wanted to do today was look past the smoke. If this war actually achieves its objective—a new, peaceful, and sovereign Iran—what does that look like? Not just for the Iranian people, but for us here in Israel and for the entire global order.
It is the ultimate what-if scenario, but it is becoming less hypothetical by the hour. For decades, the West and Israel have viewed Iran through the single lens of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the export of terrorism. We think of drones, we think of the Axis of Resistance, and we think of nuclear enrichment. But if you peel that away, you are left with one of the most sophisticated, cultured, and ancient civilizations on the face of the earth.
I think that is where we have to start. Most people don't realize that the enmity between Israel and Iran is a historical blink of an eye. It is only forty-seven years old. Before the revolution, we were strategic allies. We had trade, we had shared infrastructure, and we had a mutual understanding of the region. Herman, you were looking into the actual cultural depth of Iran earlier. It is staggering when you compare it to other global powers, isn't it?
It really is. Iran has twenty-one United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization World Heritage Sites. To put that in perspective for our listeners, that is more than the United Kingdom, which has eighteen. It is almost as many as the United States, which has twenty-four, but the United States is an entire continent. Iran has this incredible density of history. You have Persepolis, the seat of the Achaemenid Empire. You have the ancient city of Isfahan, which people used to call half the world because it was so beautiful and cosmopolitan.
And yet, for the last few decades, it has been essentially a closed book to the world. I mean, they had a decent tourism year in twenty twenty-four and twenty twenty-five despite the sanctions, bringing in about seven point four million people and over seven billion dollars in revenue. But that is a tiny fraction of the potential. They were aiming for twenty million tourists by twenty thirty. Imagine a world where an Israeli family could catch a two-hour flight from Ben Gurion to Tehran or Shiraz.
The economic spillover of that alone is massive. But it is not just about tourism. It is about the people. Iran has a population of eighty-seven million people. It is a young population, it is highly educated, and it is incredibly tech-savvy. If you look at the Iranian diaspora in the United States or Europe, they are some of the most successful entrepreneurs and scientists in the world. Now, imagine that energy being unleashed inside Iran without the boot of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on their necks.
That is the part that fascinates me. We often talk about the Persian street versus the regime. We have seen the protests over the years—the Woman, Life, Freedom movement—and the internal fractures that have been growing. There is a reason the regime viewed the recent diplomatic talks in Oman and Geneva as deadly poison. They knew that any opening to the West was a threat to their ideological purity.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was trying to play this pragmatist role in late twenty twenty-five, but the hardliners saw the writing on the wall. They knew that the Iranian people are not naturally anti-Western or even anti-Israel. In fact, many covert surveys have shown that the Iranian public has some of the highest favorability ratings toward the West in the entire Middle East. They don't have the same historical grievances that some of our closer neighbors do.
It is a natural fit. Think about the economic complementarity. Israel is a global leader in water technology, desert agriculture, and cybersecurity. Iran is a country that is facing massive environmental challenges—water scarcity is a huge issue there. They have the fourth largest oil reserves at one hundred fifty-five billion barrels and the second largest natural gas reserves in the world at thirty-four trillion cubic meters. They have the resources; we have the tech to help them manage those resources sustainably.
And let's talk about the physical infrastructure that already exists. This is one of my favorite pieces of trivia. The Eilat-Ashkelon Pipeline was a joint venture between Israel and Iran in the nineteen sixties. It was designed to bring Iranian oil from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean, bypassing the Suez Canal. It is still there. It is still operational. In a post-revolutionary world, that pipeline becomes a literal bridge between our economies again.
It changes the entire energy map of Europe and Asia. But I want to push on the geopolitical side, because this is where your expertise really shines, Herman. We have spent years talking about Israel's relationship with Europe—which, let's be honest, has been strained lately. If Iran becomes a partner, does that change how Israel looks at the world map?
It changes everything. This is what I call the Central Asia Pivot. Right now, Israel has very strong ties with Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. These are secular, majority-Muslim states that provide a huge amount of our energy and are key security partners. But there is a giant gap between us and them, and that gap is Iran. If Iran normalizes, Israel suddenly has a land bridge to the heart of Eurasia. We are no longer an island on the edge of the Mediterranean, dependent on the whims of Brussels or the shifting politics of Western Europe.
So we are talking about a trade route that goes from Haifa and Ashdod, through a friendly Iran, straight into the Caucasus and Central Asia. That is a massive strategic upgrade. It essentially recreates a modern Silk Road where Israel is a primary hub.
Precisely. And it reduces the leverage that hostile actors have over us. Think about the Abraham Accords, which we discussed back in episode nine twenty-eight. That was the first step—normalizing with the Sunni Arab world. But Iran is the big prize. If you have a friendly Iran, the entire Shia Arc that the regime spent billions building—the one we analyzed in episode seven sixty-six—it doesn't just collapse; it reverses.
We are already seeing the collapse of that arc. Bashar al-Assad is gone in Syria. Hezbollah has been severely degraded over the last two years. Hamas is essentially a non-factor in Gaza now. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps proxies are falling like dominoes. If the head of the snake is replaced with a partner for peace, the entire Middle East looks different. No more Houthis threatening the Red Sea. No more militias in Iraq.
It would be the end of the long war. And for the United States, which is partner-leading these strikes in Operation Epic Fury, it is the ultimate validation of the maximum pressure strategy. It shows that you cannot bribe a revolutionary regime into being a normal state. You have to support the people and remove the ideological barriers.
I wonder about the spillover effects on other global players. You mentioned China earlier when we were prepping. They signed that four hundred billion dollar cooperation agreement with the regime back in twenty twenty-one. If the regime falls, what happens to China's influence in the region?
That is a great question. China has been playing both sides, but they really banked on the regime's longevity. If a new, pro-Western or even just a pragmatic nationalist government takes over in Tehran, they might look at those lopsided deals with China and say, "Wait a minute, why are we selling our oil at a massive discount to Beijing when we can sell it on the open market and buy better technology from the West and Israel?" It is a huge blow to the China-Russia-Iran axis we have seen forming.
And India too. India has been invested in the Chabahar port in southeastern Iran because they want a route to Central Asia that bypasses Pakistan. A stable, normalized Iran is a massive win for India. It turns the region into a multi-polar trade hub rather than a battlefield for proxy wars.
It is funny, Corn, because we are sitting here in Jerusalem, and for our whole lives, Iran has been the ultimate existential threat. The sirens, the missile defense talk, the shadow of the bomb. To think that we could be on the verge of a world where the most dangerous threat becomes our most significant regional partner—it is almost hard to wrap your head around.
It reminds me of the Cyrus Cylinder. You know, Cyrus the Great, the founder of the Persian Empire. He is literally a hero in Jewish history. He is the one who allowed the Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the Temple. He is often credited with writing the first human rights charter. There is a deep, ancient historical precedent for a Persian-Jewish alliance based on mutual respect and cosmopolitan values. The last forty-seven years are the anomaly, not the rule.
That is a powerful point. The regime tried to erase that pre-Islamic history, but they couldn't. The Iranian people still celebrate Nowruz, the Persian New Year. They still take pride in their ancient poets like Hafez and Rumi. They have a sense of self that is much older and much deeper than the ideology of the nineteen seventy-nine revolution.
Let's talk practically. If you are an investor or a business owner listening to this, what are the first things that change? Beyond the oil and the pipelines, what are the sectors that explode?
Agriculture is number one. Iran has incredible land, but their irrigation and water management are stuck in the mid-twentieth century. Israel's drip irrigation and desalination tech would be a multi-billion dollar industry there overnight. Then you have the tech sector. Tehran has a burgeoning startup scene that has been starved of capital and global connectivity. Imagine Israeli venture capital and Silicon Valley expertise flowing into Tehran. You would see a massive tech boom in the Middle East that would rival anything we have seen in Europe or Asia.
And the medical field too. Iran has a very strong tradition of medicine and science. Collaborative research between the Weizmann Institute here and the University of Tehran? That would be a powerhouse for global health.
But we should also be realistic about the challenges. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps isn't just a military; it is an economic conglomerate. They control thirty to forty percent of the Iranian economy. Dismantling that without crashing the system will be a delicate operation. It is going to take a lot of international support and a very clear-eyed approach to reconstruction.
It is almost like the reconstruction of Germany or Japan after World War Two. You have to purge the ideological leadership but keep the civil service and the infrastructure functioning. It is a massive undertaking, but the reward is a peaceful world.
And think about the impact on Israeli society. We have been in a state of high alert for so long. The amount of our Gross Domestic Product that goes toward defense is necessary but exhausting. If the threat from the East evaporates, imagine what we could do with those resources. We could solve our own housing crisis, invest in our infrastructure, and really focus on internal growth.
It also changes our domestic politics. So much of the political divide in Israel is based on how we handle security threats. If the primary threat is gone, the political landscape here shifts too. It might lead to a more consensus-based domestic policy because we aren't constantly in emergency mode.
That is a very optimistic take, Corn, but I think you are right. It forces us to look at who we want to be as a nation when we aren't just surviving. And for the Iranian people, it is the same thing. They get to decide what a modern, prosperous Iran looks like.
I keep thinking about the travel aspect. I know it sounds trivial compared to geopolitics, but it is so symbolic. I was looking at photos of the Tabriz Historic Bazaar Complex. It is one of the oldest bazaars in the Middle East and a World Heritage site. It has been a center of trade for centuries. I want to walk through those halls and talk to the merchants without looking over my shoulder.
Or the deserts of Yazd. They have these ancient wind-catchers, these badgirs, that are a form of natural air conditioning from hundreds of years ago. It is brilliant engineering. I would love to see those in person. There is so much shared DNA in our cultures—the food, the music, the emphasis on family and education.
It is the ultimate My Weird Prompt topic because it feels so far-fetched until you realize how close it actually is. On February twenty-eighth, just a few days ago, the Omani Foreign Minister, Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi, said peace was within reach. The regime was backed into a corner. They chose to fight rather than give in, and now we are seeing the consequences of that choice. But the end result might be the peace they were trying to prevent.
It is a tragedy that it had to come to military strikes, but when you are dealing with a regime that views peace as deadly poison, sometimes you have to break the bottle to save the person inside. Operations Roaring Lion and Epic Fury are the breaking of that bottle.
I think we should also mention the effect on the broader Shia-Sunni divide. For a long time, the regime in Tehran has used sectarianism as a weapon. A normalized Iran could actually be a stabilizing force in that religious conflict. If Iran isn't trying to export a specific brand of revolutionary Shia Islam, they can coexist with their Sunni neighbors in the Gulf much more easily.
The Abraham Accords showed that the Arab world is ready to move on from the old conflicts. If Iran joins that circle of normality, the Middle East problem as the West has defined it for seventy years essentially disappears. We are left with a region of emerging markets and cultural exchange.
It is a vision of the future that is worth fighting for. And it is a vision that I think the United States administration and the Israeli government have been very clear about. This isn't just about destruction; it is about what you build afterward.
And that is why the Central Asia pivot is so key. It is the building part. It is the new trade routes, the new alliances, and the new energy map. It makes Israel a global player in a way that our size would normally not allow.
Well, Herman, I think we have covered a lot of ground here. From the ruins of Persepolis to the high-tech corridors of a future Tehran. It is a lot to take in, especially with the news changing every hour.
It really is. And for our listeners, I think the takeaway is to look past the immediate tactical reports. Yes, the strikes are significant, and the military reality is intense right now. But the goal—the why behind all of this—is the world we just described. A world where the Iranian and Israeli people can finally be the friends they were always meant to be.
I couldn't agree more. And hey, if you are listening to this and you have your own thoughts on what a post-war Iran looks like, or if you have some obscure piece of Iranian history we missed, we want to hear from you. We have been doing this for nine hundred and fifteen episodes now, and it is the interaction with you all that keeps us going.
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This has been a heavy one, but an important one. We are living through history, and we are glad to have you all along for the ride. We will keep tracking the developments from here in Jerusalem.
Stay safe everyone, and keep looking for those deeper connections. This has been My Weird Prompts.
Until next time, take care.
