Drawing on both his years in international business and his nearly five years of imprisonment, Shargi explores how the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has sustained a system marked by political repression, economic dysfunction, and internal instability while projecting influence and conflict across the region. He also examines what recent military confrontations between Iran, the United States, and its allies may signal for the future of the Iranian regime, the prospects for political change, and the broader balance of power in the Middle East.