the beautiful flower i am! the nuclear agreement that iran signed with the united states and five other world powers is a big complicated deal that's taken years to arrive at and some people as i'm sure you've gleaned really hate it. the bottom line is if government of iran has agreed to slow down its nuclear program dramatically in exchange for the lifting of crippling economic sanctions. i spent two weeks in iran as the details of this deal were being

ironed out. if you watch this show regularly, you've probably seen some of my reporting from there. but those reports by themselves can't convey the richness of the experience. the impressions of the places we visited. the views of the people we met. views that iranians would only share off camera in some cases. the next half hour attempts to do just that, share the whole experience of being there. a real look at iran beyond the deal. the first thoughts when i landed were about how everybody who i saw looked very different. you didn't have to have your head covered on the plane but as soon as you got off that plane you were in iran and you needed

to put your head dress on. that was what they needed to do to get into the country and not get into trouble with morality police in iran. that morning the city that most came to view when we were in tehran was los angeles. it's spread out and there are freeways everywhere and they're heavily trafficked. high-rises. apartment buildings. commercial areas with low slung buildings for shopping. we were a team of five. the photographer. my producer. our handler who is a representative of the agency. there are about a handful of agencies who handle you on behalf of the government. mostly they help you because it's a state in which you're shooting for tv you get stopped all the time by various levels

of police. all the time. >> we had little id cards we carried that they made for us and papers that said that we had permission to shoot but it didn't really matter. this is a society where everybody checks papers, asks their friends if it's okay. and the handler helps you out. so he came with us everywhere we went. so there are a few levels of different story you get. there's a story you get with the cameras on with the government minder there with his phone recording the conversation. that's the least story you get. then you get a different story with the camera off but the government minder there. somehow there's a slightly more casual feel. then you get a different story when the minder has stopped recording or maybe walked away with his phone and the cameras are off and that story actually resembles ease. it's a conversation. we actually got used to the fact in iran everything was being watched or recorded. eventually you just don't worry about it. one guy we were taking a shot of

his car dealership and he said no and my cameraman asked him you're not doing anything illegal what are you scared of? he said this is iran. we're scared of our own shadows. >> this one? >> yes. >> iran is a weirdly hospitable

society. ? iran they worship in that way but allow us to be part of it. i look at that scene in that mosq mosque. there must be some good that comes out of this. that's not to say there are real problems there and that people see the world differently but the basics are the same. tehran is cool actually. no humidity. it was nice not to have a tie. i do my work in a uniform as it were and this does not exist here. and you'll go into banks and see the manager. nobody has a tie. now, the interesting thing is that at one point the eye

iatollah khomeini said dressing like this is a uniform. >> they were mostly fit. we didn't see a lot of big people there for some reason. it became very popular after the revolution to have these sort of beards that were well kept and very closely shaved. i understand that, that was a sign of being one of these people that fought in the revolution or supported the revolution. women would dress a certain way according to what they deemed to be islamic code. women all had their head covered in public. they would have a bun or

something and a head covering and then you'd see the back of their hair and see most of the front of it so about maybe a quarter or an eighth of their head would be covered and then you'd go to other areas where people were fully covered, you know, head to know face was open. we didn't see people with faces covered in iran. so you could see some variation in the women but even the women who were lightly covered had a very fashionable sense about them. >> they have learned to work around things. so there are certain businesses that do well by virtue of sanctions. for instance, we interviewed an auto parts maker who used to be an auto maker who realized the problem was parts. you would hear stories about people in iran not using their wipers during storms because they could not get the

replacement. there was a demand for auto parts. we went to a software operation. they run iran's version of youtube. they're in business because you can't get youtube in iran. now suddenly these restrictions on entertainment and media are lifted why do you want the iranian version of youtube. and then you'll see the version of a car you're familiar with but then you'll see pars on the side meaning it's made by the pars company. so what do they do when nissan makes their own cars? i don't know. there are money changers all across the city. i don't know what you can do when you can actually change money legally or you don't have to change money.

so it's an interesting dynamic. about ten years ago we were doing a story on the strait of hormuse. this thing has been a point of contention for decades. it's a choke point where oil from oil producing countries in the world goes out into the world. and at its narrowest, the distance between iran and oman is 21 miles. that's very easy to control militarily. iran often threatens to lay mines. so when things get hot with iran i'll prices go up because people assume i'll won't get out. we did go down there but it was the middle of summer and the real feel was 137 degrees and

people kept asking us why are you going down there? we could not really explain it. it was in our destiny. we were going down to the gulf. >> you know, water looks like water. the strait looks like any other water. but it was so important because we were seeing ships go back and forth. it wasn't -- we didn't just waste time going on a trip to satisfy our curiosity. the strait is where iran's biggest port is. general business trade things going out of iran and things coming in has dropped by 27% because of the sanctions. it's very easy to explain. you can't pay for these things. how do you buy cars if you can't transfer the money. if i live in london, i need their number, go to a bank, it's a seemless transaction. iranians can't do that. businesses can't do that in iran. so unless you have a way to pay someone in another country,

can't do business. the carpet bazaar in tehran is in another part of the city. it's dusty, conservative, religious. we were talking to these guys who have been in business which is ancient for persia. these are carpets that everybody in the world would think are beautiful and before the sanctions, this one little shopna i was in, this one little owner would ship a container full of these carpets to the united states every week and you'd buy them in fancy stores i suppose. and since the sanctions, he sells no carpets to the united states. his entire business. >> so i said to him well this is a problem for you because if the sanctions are lifted the demand

for your carpets will increase and the cost of your carpets will increase. how will your business change? >> he said no the cost will come down and i'm thinking he's missing my point. and he said no the cost will come down because i'll sell so many more carpets that my profit margin will be reduced. so he'd thought had whole thing through economically. and everybody in iran has done that. they can tell you based on what they buy and sell and make what will happen when sanctions are lifted. it's like they can taste it. this is, like, the ramadan for sanctions. they see the end of it and can taste what their lives will look like at the end of it.

i do like iranian food quite a bit. it's got a good range but fundamentally it divides into two kinds of foods. there are delicious stews on rice and there are some kind of meat on rice. and we really escape joyed this for the -- enjoyed this for the first few days but at some point you tire of the same thing. i'd taken protein bars but the weather was so hot that you'd open it up and it would be like eating chocolate pudding and nobody wanted them. the only way you could get anybody to get one was when we were so hungry, ten, twelve hours into the day and nobody

had eaten. i actually have more space here than i had when i left. the wi-fi and cell infrastructure in iran is less than perfect. i had created an expectation that communication would be difficult. and detailed communication would be yet more difficult. when you tried to skype, the wi-fi would go down. you try to do -- it wasn't even reliable. so you tried to call and just talk. nice to have the connection back home. i mean, that was the most important thing because in a weird way you can feel very isolated when you think you're being watched and controlled and there were days where there was none of that, where we didn't feel it at all. where we just enjoyed the place and the people and there were days when you felt i'm disconnected from those who i know on the devices with which i'm familiar. at no point did we have reliable

service all the time. and online, sites are blocked. i can get google but not my email from them. you could not access things like the bbc or there were various publications that you could not access. apple phones are very popular. android phones are very popular and i'd be asking where do you get these phones and he said they come from dubai. people go there and bring him iphones and sells them at a profit. they're new. they just don't come in through normal channels but neither google play nor the app store can be registered with an iranian email address. that said i learned that i was one of the few people of the 80 million in iran having trouble accessing the internet properly. people in iran use these vpns in order to get around the government restrictions and everybody seemed to understand

that, that was the case. i was the only guy who didn't get my email for two weeks. the comradery is there. even though you're hungry and hot and things aren't going your way and everything takes too long somehow it all ends up in a laugh. we're starving and someone asks for a protein war and they open it up and it's dripping on them because it's liquid chocolate and we're laughing. somebody does something wrong and there's -- the photographer is trying to get a perfect shot of something and suddenly our producer walks through the shot not knowing he's worked on it for ten minutes but it is the fun part that keeps you going so it became a group of friends. it was fun. >> coke was everywhere. iphones were everywhere. i wanted to ask the kids

studying engineering what he thought about america. i think i said do you have anything against america? he said i love american muscle cars. he said i tinker with cars. i've bought some and reworked them and sold them. he knew more about muscle cars than a lot of people i've ever spoken to here in the united states. it can make a distinction between america, american things, and american foreign policy in the middle east. i didn't meet a lot of people who liked american foreign policy in the middle east. i did speak to a professor at the university of tehran and i said to him, you know, i go around and i see people drinking coke and using iphones and yet i see signs that say down with america and america will be defeated and when you go to friday prayers on the pull pit there's nothing other than the statement we will defeat america in english and arabic, farci.

i'm asking him how do you square this? and he said maybe people drink coke because they like the taste of coke. maybe people like iphones because they like iphones. we use korean air conditioners here because they keep the air cool. he says only you western journalists would take that to mean that we like america.

>> a

we had learned about this jewish community in tehran and i interviewed the jewish manslaughter in parliament and there are kosher restaurants. so we arranged to go to one for dinner and i was looking forward to that. because being in new york i associate kosher food differently. i didn't realize that their food was the same as everybody else's. jews in iran are persians. they've been there for a long time and eat the same food.

my cameraman decided we would do this one interview with the owner of the kosher restaurant over dinner and there are these little chicken drum finger wings on the plate and all i can think of is how i can keep this guy sitting next to me talking long enough that i can keep on eating. and i didn't know i was doing. i didn't realize it. i thought i was being so good and i was impressed with myself saying i'm eating and interviewing this guy. i subsequently saw the video. i didn't do that good a job. i heard people say that it looked like i was prepared to eat my fingers. it didn't look like there was any actual meat on the bones. that i was asking dismissive questions just so he could talk while i ate. everybody thought it was kind of

funny. >> it's a restaurant. iranians will tell you that there's a vibrant jewish community in iran and the thing about the jews in iran is that they don't associate with european jews. they're not of european jewish stock. delays been there a long time. this is what they do. so there is not a sense of going somewhere else. there's not a sense of belonging elsewhere. some have gone to israel. some have come to the united states but between 8 and 30,000 have stayed. the majority have left. there were 100,000 before the revolution. but some have stayed and the question is can they stay. will they stay? maybe their kids won't stay. the infrastructure of being jewish in a non-jewish environment has sort of disappe disappeared. they still have some schools and synagogues. a few kosher restaurants but maybe not enough to sustain so the question now the rate of

jewish emigration has become zero meaning no more are leaving. i don't know what that means. certainly none are coming. so i will say that if any jews want to immigrate to iran i'll give them a recommendation for a good kosher restaurant. i studied religion. this is what i did for a degree so when i actually see people being pious in their environment i'm taken. you see pictures of the two ayatollahs. the first and present one. you see those pictures everywhere in every kind of government official office. both of those men will have their pictures framed.

it felt like a cult of personality more than a religion. people had shrines in their homes. religion seemed to be substantially more personal in iran than i expected it to be. i didn't go to the big friday prayers in tehran. the sermon was partially religious and partially political and there were references to america and there were references to israel and jews and saudi arabia and references to isil. maybe 10,000 people. not an ornate mosque at all. that was definitely more political type of thing.

so we were really interested in talking to government officials and business owners and regular worker people about politics, the economy. i didn't really schedule to do a lot of cultural things. but everybody kept telling me you have to go to this little area on thursday night. thursday night in the muslim world is like friday night in the western world. we went into this one area and winding little streets. everyone was cruising. people had their cars and they were all shiny and nice driving windows open, music playing. young guys on motorcycles, two or three to a motorcycle. cruising for girls for lack of a better word. walking. we'd go to an art gallery opening. they were showing this exhibition about artists who were pushing the boundaries of

graphite drawing and it occurred to me you're pushing the boundaries of a particular strain of art in a country that is built on not pushing the boundaries of anything. of listening to what the authorities tell you you're supposed to do. you start to wonder who are these demons, these people who we don't know. and that's not to say that there aren't real problems there. but the basics are the same. i went to iran to report on a country that has been dmonize for some valid reasons for decades and the politics of this deal are for people smarter than i am to debate but whatever you think about iran's policies, i found them to be warm and accommodating towards us as members of the western press. and i know there are powerful pockets of hostility towards the west it's not all consuming and it's not the response of the

average iranian. iranians are a people steeped in culture and proud of their history. they want to reclaim their place in the world and get on with their lives beyond any deal. video showing officers tossing food to asylum seekers