What does a revolution look like from the inside? What does it cost? What does it demand from the rest of the world?

The world is watching Iran. This episode is part of a miniseries we're dedicating to understanding what's actually happening there, and the struggle for freedom of a people caught between a barbaric regime on one side and missile strikes on the other.

Spend time with the people who know this fight best: Who’ve fought brutal regimes in the halls of the Hague, or been held in the notorious Evin prison. Who have lived through revolutions, and shared their story with the world.

HTCTW presents Iran: Inside the Revolution.

Iran is a civilization more than ten thousand years old - home to great poets like Ferdowsi, Rumi, and Hafez, leaders like Cyrus the Great – who created the first charter of human rights, and thinkers like Zoroaster, the founder of the world’s first monotheistic religion that influenced Judaism, Christianity, Islam. Iran and its culture has been held hostage by theocratic rule since 1979. To understand what is happening there right now, we have to understand its history.

As our guest today has written, modern Iranian history is really the story of a battle between the visions of two people you need to know - Reza Shah and Ayatollah Khomeini. Reza Shah, who founded the Pahlavi dynasty in 1925, and his son Mohammad Reza Shah after him, built a secular, modern state, rooted in Iran's pre-Islamic identity. Khomeini answered with a theocratic counter-vision that swept everything away in 1979. That same battle for the spirit of a nation is still being fought inside the country, and its effects are being felt around the world. We also explore another crucial figure - former Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh - in this story.

Our guest today has lived every chapter of this story. Born in Tehran, radicalized at UC Berkeley in the sixties, he returned to Iran as a young intellectual, was jailed at Evin Prison under the Shah, taught at Tehran University after the revolution, watched the Islamic Republic prove darker than he ever imagined, and fled into exile during the Iran-Iraq War. And now, from Stanford, he is one of the most compelling voices on what Iran has been - and what it might yet become. Dr. Milani has dedicated his life to developing the self-cognition of a nation. This conversation with Dr. Abbas Milani was recorded at the end of March 2026 - in the midst of war. While current events may shift by the time of this episode’s release, the journey of Iran to know and reclaim itself from tyranny continues.

Welcome to Part 2 of our three part series - Iran: Inside the Revolution.

What does a revolution look like from the inside? What does it cost? What does it demand from the rest of the world?

The world is watching Iran. This episode is part of a miniseries we're dedicating to understanding what's actually happening there, and the struggle for freedom of a people caught between a barbaric regime on one side and missile strikes on the other.

Spend time with the people who know this fight best: Who’ve fought brutal regimes in the halls of the Hague, or been held in the notorious Evin prison. Who have lived through revolutions, and shared their story with the world.

HTCTW presents Iran: Inside the Revolution.

Our guest today is Gissou Nia - an Iranian-American human rights attorney who has dedicated her life to holding brutal regimes accountable. She started her career in The Hague, working on war crimes and crimes against humanity. She now leads The Strategic Litigation Project at Atlantic Council, which focuses on prevention and accountability efforts for atrocity crimes, human rights violations, terrorism, and corruption offenses around the world.

We'll get into the ins and outs of launching legal battles in international courts, the specific pressure points that could collapse this regime, and the pathways that lead to a just and prosperous future for the Iranian people.

This conversation was recorded at the end of March 2026 - in the midst of war - so while current events may have shifted, Iran's path towards freedom continues. And to set the stage for our guest, I think it’s only fitting to ground us in the words of one of Iran’s greatest poets, Ferdowsi:

Rise, do not let the world to darkness fall

May each of us strive for the good of all

Good deeds alone spin the celestial spheres

Our time is at hand, and our glory nears

What does a revolution look like from the inside? What does it cost? What does it demand from the rest of the world?

The world is watching Iran. This episode is part of a miniseries we're dedicating to understanding what's actually happening there, and the struggle for freedom of a people caught between a barbaric regime on one side and missile strikes on the other.

Spend time with the people who know this fight best: Who’ve fought brutal regimes in the halls of the Hague, or been held in the notorious Evin prison. Who have lived through revolutions, and shared their story with the world.

How to Change the World presents Iran: Inside the Revolution.

Our guest today is Adnan Hadad, and he knows revolution not as some abstract concept, but as a lived reality. He left a stable career behind to join the Syrian revolution in the midst of a brutal conflict. Adnan co-founded the Aleppo Media Center, producing The White Helmets - the Academy Award-winning documentary that shared the power of humanity even in the midst of war to global audiences.

Together, we dig into the blueprint of dictatorships, the insights Syria’s revolution holds for the Iranian opposition, and the underlying challenges to make regime change and secular democracy possible.

This conversation was recorded at the end of March 2026 - in the midst of war. While the situation on the ground continues to shift rapidly, the journey of Iran to reclaim itself from tyranny continues.

-----

The How to Change the World Podcast is produced by World Within Studios with PRX.

Producer and Composer: Alexandre Miller

Editors: Eve Weston and Martin McGreevy

Session Engineers: Amirnezam Samadabadi and Gabe Sweeney