Amir: Okay Catherine. Let’s speak in English and then I will translate it to Farsi if it’s not confidential. Is it Okay?
Catherine: Okay
Amir: Catherine, you have been making a lot of news lately during last two months, at least. And let’s start from there. Before talking about Russia. I know you have been friends with Nader Talebzadeh. And Nader Talebzadeh was a friend with Alexander Dugin. And Alexander is and has been for a long time, the chief strategist somehow for Vladimir Putin, when it comes to specifically when it comes to Middle East. And it’s a lot of connections, huge connections behind the scene; because normally the people are trying to find the reason behind everything is happening in Iran, it doesn’t make sense in the normal world. But you cannot look at it ‘normal’ when you want to let’s say translate the behavior of Iranian regime. What do you know about the behind the scene? Catherine, can you tell us what was happening behind the scene in the mind of Dugin, Nader Talebzadeh, and Russia, and Iranian regime, Khamenei?
Catherine: It’s quite interesting because Nader was really good friend with Alexander Dugin. And you know, I’ve been around there for long enough to know how you used to behave with with people. And a lot of the time, you can see that people were truly talking to someone that was such a high-ranking official within the regime, they were very deferential towards him. And I had never seen Nader being deferential to people; even when he was speaking to Oliver Stone, for example, or even other really famous and prominent people. You always have this sounds like if he was very much in charge of the conversation and that he felt he was at least on a par with the people he was talking to. The only time that I’ve seen him lose his composure and truly understood that actually, he was being more the employee and the puppet was with Alexander Dugin.
Amir: And it’s very interesting. Because Dugin was the chief strategist for Putin and Talebzadeh, the chief propagandist for Khamenei. And Khamenei is looking to put in as kind of the Puppet master. And exactly the same relationship between the Dugin and Nader Talebzadeh. That’s interesting.
Catherine: But you know what’s quite interesting is that Putin and Khamenei, never really met. So it kind of tells you where Khamenei sitting in terms of the hierarchy as far as Moscow is concerned. And it’s not like they don’t care about Iran, but they really truly see Iran is the Puppet Master, as the puppet, and then the master. And then they can’t even bother to send the president to actually have a conversation with Khamenei when they want to.
Amir: But a couple of times Putin went to Iran to see how many and even gave him the fake Quran.
Catherine: True. But Dugin came a lot more. He came very often to not only to Iran by the way, but he visited…
Amir: You want to say the meeting between Khamenei and Putin was more like a just show, but the rest of the job was done during the year by Alexander Dugin?
Catherine: Exactly. But that tells you that Putin didn’t care enough with Khamenei to even bother to curate their relationship, as you would imagine to do in between, for example, if you look at France and Germany, you know France and Germany meet on a very high level very very regularly. Okay? Because it tells you that it’s a true relationship. And that the two, they are partners in Europe. As opposed to Russia’s relation to with Iran was more that of a master to with his puppet as opposed to two equal partners discussing and having true discourse, as Russia is doing with the middle east. It was truly the case where Putin used to send Dugin, and Dugin was telling Nader what you do and Khamenei what to do and their job was to carry it out. And it’s quite interesting to see that Dugin literally told Nader where to take him because he wanted to travel across Iraq, he wanted to have access to Yemen, for example, Syria, all those various countries where, basically, you have the axis of resistance, and he was the door opener.
Amir: Who was the door opener? It was Nader Talebzadeh who was opening the door for Dugin?
Catherine: Yes. Because, the way that it worked, the relationship that they had so Dugin had a plan. Okay? that basically, he architected with Putin and Nader was the cover in there because he was part of the Islamic revolution. And, Iran created this axis of resistance from Hezbollah to Hamas, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain, all those countries, and of course Iraq. Nader had the ability to move within those countries under the cover, saying we want to work toward this Islamic revolution with the goal that we created. And Dugin was there just as a tourist, trying to meet with people and create relations, but Nader was very much the front. So it was, Nader offered the deniability that Dugin needed should anyone question why was he there?
Amir: And do you want to say that all these terrorist groups in the Middle East that you mentioned, Hezbollah, revolutionary guard, Hamas, all of them, are kind of puppets in the hand of Russians and Putin?
Catherine: That’s exactly what I am saying. Look at it this way: Russia has an agenda when it comes to exporting its narrative to the Middle East in opposition to that of the West. So, Russia’s goal is to have influence in the Middle East, not only in the Middle East, but in Africa and Asia. Now, rather than come at the world under the Soviet kind of flag and have a repeat of the fails in the imperial agenda that they had, now their trial is this time to use the Islamic revolutionary movements to basically infiltrate those countries and to use Islam as the pressure point on to communities to create this court to allow chaos to grab hold of the region and have basically communities, Sunni, Shiite, Christian, Jews, whatever, to have in fighting. So that Russia could come in, without anyone paying attention to anything that is going on, and basically, rob those countries of their natural resources, insert themselves within those governments, and rule as the colonial power with deniability. Because they could argue that you have a republic, oh! but you have a president in Syria, you have a whatever in Iraq. it is kind of a covered form of imperialism that Putin came up with in order to fight Western interests in the Middle East, in Africa, in Asia. And the problem that we have is that under the covers IRGC, Hezbollah, Hamas, they have literally infiltrated Western organizations, and Western institutions. They have, I think, polluted the public discourse in that, you see a lot of antisemitism. You see a lot of hatred directed at Israel. Why Israel? Because Israel is the only secular democracy in the Middle East. And by being a secular democracy, you are actually challenging Russia’s agenda for the rest of the world. They do not want to see secularism.
Amir: Do you have anything else Catherine to add to this part? We want to go to the next one?
Catherine: I would actually encourage people to go because I’ve written a very long essay on my friendship with Nader and everything that I’ve witnessed. And I am going to integrate details. Obviously, I will get integrate the details in my book, but I think that the essay that I’ve written for Iran Wire is actually, I think an eye-opener for people who did not know Nader the way that I did. Because I’ve seen the man behind closed doors and the kind of, you know, I had those discussions that I will keep it private to you, in terms of understanding his agenda, where he was coming from, the relationship that he had, within the regime and outside of Iran. And I think it’s important for people to realize also that there are a lot of people within the regime who are even very high-ranking officers within Sepah and other state officials who are actually in opposition with the regime and it’s important to understand that. You have a lot of people working for the regime right now who actually have infiltrated and are working really, really hard to give a lot of people intelligence and to share intel with them so that the …
Amir: Do you mean inside Iranian opposition we do have a lot of people who are (infiltrating)?
Catherine: Inside Iranian Regime! it is important for the Iranians to realize that you have a lot of people working for the Iranian people and basically waiting for the right time to strike.
Amir: Oh! That’s interesting. That’s interesting.
Catherine: Look! I know that the regime is working in such a way that it wants to convince the Iranians that there’s no hope, that the opposition – people like you who are outside – that they can’t do anything, that it’s hopeless, that people will get in prison and go to jail, get tortured. It’s not true. This is the facade of the regime. The regime is not as powerful, as people think it is. Everything that you see, for example, in the streets right now, in Ahwaz, in other places, Shiraz, for example, other places in Iran where people are starting to rebel against the authorities. They need to understand that the only real power that the regime has is through Basij, through Sepah, killing people. But, within, they’re actually eating each other out. Because they are so paranoid. There are so many people they realize that who are against their agenda, that the Iranian people are not alone. I really want to stress on this because it’s this revolution is like you’re that close. To toppling it is in approach.
Amir: Okay, let me thank you, Catherine, for this very important message, you pass to the Iranian people. But, let’s go back and look at your experience in Iran. You have been in Iran. How many times?
Catherine: About five and six times.
Amir: During how many years?
Catherine: About 2-3 years.
Amir: And you have been successful to go deep enough to see your articles on Supreme Leader’s own website. How many times they published your articles?
Catherine: I can’t really remember. Countless times. It was about average at least once a month for years.
Amir: I’m 100% sure, a lot of people from Khamenei’s Palace right now they are watching this because they are very sensitive about my Instagram. You can say hi to them. You just wave your hand. And yeah, it shows how powerless they are. It’s just propaganda. And they are nobody and a lot of them right now, I’m sure, are in our room at the clubhouse. But it shows how weak they are. Catherine, do you want to talk about that period of time? How could you open those doors?
Catherine: I didn’t. It was all Nader.
Amir: Nader Talebzadeh?
Catherine: It was him the whole time. Look! I know that it’s difficult for people to understand because I met so many people in Iran. And I realized that I’m one of the very few political analysts, I mean a western political analyst, (…???…) it’s difficult to imagine. How is that possible for a woman too, to go that high that quickly because my …
Amir: And the woman with the name Perez! The same name as Shimon Peres! the former prime minister.
Catherine: I know; let me tell you a little story: So, because obviously in France when you get married, you take your husband’s name, right? But on your passports, by law, there you have to put your maiden’s name as well. Which is they’re Jewish, I have the prime minister(‘s family name) in Israel we literally have the same family name, but whatever, anyway. So, when I get to Iran to attend the Palestine Conference, Okay I’ll get there (later), they gave me a little badge thing with my name and my picture. And rather than putting my married name which is what they would be knowing me under, I was literally walking around with written Catherine Perez! Okay? and you had Hamas, Hezbollah, PLO, Houthis, everyone in the room, and I had like my little badge. No one picked it up.
Amir: Excuse me, where was it?
Catherine: It was in Tehran
Amir: In Tehran, in Khamenei’s Palace?
Catherine: It was the Conference Hall in Tehran. Do you know where they have all the big conferences?
Amir: For the terrorists, right? Now, I’m thinking. When I’m translating, I’m thinking about something that I will tell you what is that. It makes sense right now. Why Nader died now? Why they killed him? Okay, I will go there later. But, Catherine, go ahead. Sorry! you were at that conference with your badge there with the name of Catherine Perez, Okay? Then?
Catherine: Yeah! and I remember there is Al-Manar TV, which is for Hezbollah, were asking me can you be kind enough to do an interview? And I had my name in full view, and I was thinking are you for real right now? Yeah. And nothing happened. Because every step of the way from my arrival to Iran, to my interview with President Raisi, to everything else that happened, Nader was there! Now we see everything that happened, all the people …
Amir: And it was another name, the IRGC commander, who was that?
Catherine: Soleimani?
Amir: No, not that. The commander of the Quds force.
Catherine: Soleimani.
Amir: Not him. Another one who was a connection for you, too. What was it? We had it on the news. His name was Sardar …
Catherine: Oh! Yes. Yes. Yes. The head of the ICC.
Amir: What was it? How many Sardars you have met?
Catherine: A few.
Amir: A few means who?
Catherine: Okay. Here’s my problem. I’m really bad with names.
Amir: Me too!
Catherine: So let me recollect with that. I do know who he was. I met with the head of IRGC.
Amir: Sardar Salami you mean? Hussein Salami?
Catherine: I’m not sure what you’re saying. If you show me his picture, I will tell you yes or no. But anyway. I met with one of the high-ranking officers. I bumped into Hassan Rohani. I met with Larijani. I met with a few people. If it was not for Nader, none of this would have happened. Nader had power …
Amir: Let me see; have you met this terrorist? Sardar Salami, the head of IRGC?
Catherine: Yup!
Amir: Okay, and he has a long history of killing humans. He started with killing women to come the long road from the Revolutionary Guard, and who else?
Catherine: I can’t remember all these people. A lot of the time I met people I didn’t know where they work. They were interested in talking to me and asking me a lot of questions about Yemen. They were very interested in Yemen. And I happened to have really good connections in Yemen. Boys within the Houthi movement, as well as the former president and president’s family, the Saleh family. So, that’s why they were very interested in my expertise, and they were trying to have me to build bridges between them, the Houthis, and the Saleh family which I didn’t do. They wanted to use me for that because they didn’t have access to Yemen, nor did they understand Yemen. And they need someone to translate the mess they had Yemen for them. Because Yemen has always been very closed to Iran. And even though I know that everyone keeps saying that …
Amir: When was it? Which year was it?
Catherine: They were circling around me from the time that I got to Iran. So, it was 2016, 2017, and 18. That was really when they were like on me when it came to Yemen, and they were asking me Can you do this? Can you do that? Do you know these people? Do you know those people? Can you write? Can you do whatever they want? They really wanted to understand Yemen; how to curate the relationship with Yemen; and how to best understand them, because
Amir: But they had that type of relationship. They built the Houthis as a terrorist organization and they funded them for years, but probably they wanted some connection between these terrorists and the Saleh family. Am I right?
Catherine: No, here’s the problem that Iran has with the Houthis. The Houthis and Yemen in general is a very troubled country. Okay? And historically speaking, Yemenis don’t have a lot of love for Persians. There’s not a lot of trust. And they are religiously, socially, politically sitting on very different sides of the river. So even though the Houthis fall under Shia Islam because they are Zaydi, they dislike Twelver Muslims. And as far as they are concerned Iranians under the regime are not even Twelvers, because they think that they are following the religion of Khomeini, and they say that this is not Islam, this is Khomeinism. So, they don’t like Iranians and they don’t like the Islamic Revolution. And the Houthis have been clever in the sound that it took Iran’s money but didn’t do anything; none of the things that Iran wanted them to do; none of it. And instead, they are quite close to Iraq and quite close to Qatar. So that’s what Iran had the plan to do about. So, they are trying to understand the best way to bring them back under their control which they couldn’t do.
Amir: Let’s go and talk a little bit about (Russia). I know you have been talking about Russia. And its relationship with Iran lately. Everything you said about the terrorist groups just earlier. They all terrorist groups are run kind of by Russians. It’s mentioned in my book, ‘Comrade Ayatollah’. And I put all the facts and documents there because I was in shock when I have seen it. And I saw you when you were invited to the clubhouse to talk about the book called ‘The Mitrokhin archive’. And it was very interesting for me. That was the time. I came to that room to see what is going on. And that book was out, was there; everybody could see it. And The Mitrokhin Archive is about the secret, it’s thousands of secret documents, confidential documents, from the era of the Soviet Union. The head of the KGB’s archive brought all those documents to UK and then MI6 started to publish these books based on those documents. It is fact. And I translated some of those documents in my book ‘Comrade Ayatollah’, but in our community, the Iranian Community, specifically in opposition … because that was very interesting for me, the Iranian people, they loved the book. The book was sold in the first year more than three million copies in Iran on the black market, underground market. But the people could get it, could understand it. They have seen the facts and said, this is the fact, and they loved the book. But in opposition, since we do have a lot of Marxists, and monarchists who don’t want to see the history, as it is. They have some fantasy history for themselves and all of them started to resist and make fun of this book and say, no, that’s not you. Because I didn’t create this fact, these facts were there in such a book, The Mitrokhin Archive. I just translate it and put together the piece of the puzzles. You read that book. And you have seen the connection that how the Russians have been operating in the entire Middle East. And I want you to explain it for the people of Iran. Catherine?
Catherine: Okay, so let you know, I’m going to try to do it justice because I need to summarize it very quickly. But basically, the book is very clearly stating… You are talking about there are documents to prove. This is not a theory. Those are facts. This is exactly how it happened. Basically detailing the fact that what we have come to learn to know as the Islamic Revolution, was not a revolution against the Shah. It was actually a coup d’état, organized by Moscow by, it’s true I would say a series of betrayals within the government of the Shah where his government was infiltrated and broke into and people pushed a very Soviet Russia agenda. The idea was because Russia could not fight Iran in a militarily speaking and actually engage in whooping war with Iran, that they were going to topple the Shah, replace the regime of the Shah with an Islamic Republic that would allow Russia to have not only deniability but actually act through this unique revolutionary movement to expand its agenda throughout the region. Understanding that the Middle East, had one thing in common – Islam – and that by pitting Sunni versus Shia, it would be able to carry out its agenda, which is to form a chaos to better act as the source of control and this is what happened. So, a lot of the time when Iranians feel that they had in a revolution in 1979. It’s not true. It wasn’t a revolution. It was a coup d’état. And for 44 years, you have basically lived under the thumb of Russia. And if the Soviet Union is no longer, it doesn’t mean, I mean we have to remember that Putin is a former KGB agent. So, his agenda, even though slightly different from that of Soviet Russia, is that he’s like an ultra-nationalist, has been basically rebranded. So, what you see today is the continuation of the Soviet agenda under a different label. And that is the way, the fact that Iran, very much the regime in Iran works for Russia.
Amir: It’s very, very sensitive and important thing you mentioned. Let me translate it. Thank you. Catherine.
Catherine: You’re welcome.
Amir: Okay, anything else you want to add? Because I am positive our conversation will not be at the endpoint here. We’ll talk a lot more in the future. And I guess I will see you soon somewhere to speak at Parliament together, and we’ll talk more then. And. we’ll talk a lot more on Instagram and other social media. But I want you to feel free to pass your message to the Iranian people. They’re listening right now. It’s the people who are listening, and the elite in opposition and in the security forces in Iran, all of them. They are listening right now. If you have any message for Iranian people and special message to the regime. Go ahead.
Catherine: Well, first of all, to the Iranian people. I see that we already have entered what I would call the pre-revolutionary era, a real revolution this time where the regime is going to go. The time of the Ayatollah is over. People have no more ground in the, I mean, their back is against the wall. So, they’ve been left with no room to breathe. They come by bread. The situation in Iran is unattainable. It’s unbearable for the people. And you can see in many many provinces across the country people are …
Amir: Hold on. I wanted to cut you a lot in your message to translate it fully because it’s very beautiful, the way you are putting together these words. Go ahead, Catherine.
Catherine: I was saying: Look!, you have protests right now ongoing in Iran. Basij was sent to crack down on people. it’s not like that I don’t believe that I can change anything but the one thing I would tell the Iranian people is that they have to trust in the fact that they can do this. This regime is pay person. It’s this accretion of terranes. Because those people have weapons, and they don’t. But truly they have not even one length to stand up. They need to understand that right now people in Tehran are sitting terrified, and I tell you why they’re terrified because they realize that the regime has been broken into, that many people infiltrated. Information is flying off Tehran and reaching the media faster than they can think. And it just tells you this regime is done. It’s already over. It’s just that people in Iran need to realize that you just need to go and get it, just push for it. The last thing I would like to say, and again, it’s not my place to tell Iranians what to do, but ultimately, I would like people to understand that regardless of which party from the opposition, they support, it doesn’t matter. They’re all united in the fact that they need to see the regime go. So, I’m begging you ‘Agree to disagree for now’, get rid of the regime, and then discuss. What is it that you want to do for the future of your country, but right now you need to stand united. And you’re only strands. And the only way that you’re going to get rid of the ayatollahs is that if you stand united together and forget your political disagreement for one second, get rid of them, get rid of the regime, clean your country, take them to trial, judge them, do whatever you need to do and then, then have the luxury of the conversation with your own people and decide what future you want to make for yourself. But right now, you have no choice but to stand united and the regime is thriving on disunity. Do not give them the pleasure.
Amir: Thank you so much, Catherine. It was amazing. I really enjoyed this conversation. I’m sure everybody else. They enjoyed it.
Catherine: We’ll have plenty of conversations.
Amir: And I want to ask my followers on Instagram. I can see almost 300 people on clubhouse followed you. I had a secret conversation, Catherine, with the Basijis. I asked them to not bother you that much and try to tell you that they are part of the opposition. They are not. But they are coming. They are coming to just say a lot of bad words to you in the comments.
Catherine: It’s okay, it’s okay.
Amir: But just ignore them. Just ignore them all and enjoy. Anyway, thank you. Thank you for being with me and we will talk a lot more. Take care. See you soon.
Catherine: Thank you, everyone, take care.
Amir: Thank you, bye-bye.
