republican leadership conference yesterday where rick perry delivered a well-received speech to fuel speculation he's gearing up for apartmental run. please don't forget to send us a video of your american dream for our "making it in america" airing july 3rd. include the subject line "american dream." the deadline for submission is june 28. thank you so much for watching "state of the union." happy father's day to all the dads out there. up next for our viewers in the up next for our viewers in the u.s., "fareed zakaria gps." -- captions by vitac -- www.vitac.com welcome to all of you. i'm fareed zakaria. first up, jobs or the lack thereof. to me this is the usual issue in the american economy and western economies, and we have a powerhouse debate with robert reich and david stockman.

then what in the world, how to redo your constitution using twitter. next up, inside syria. few outsiders have been in, but the renowned expert fawaz ger guess has and he'll tell us what he saw exclusively. then in iran, two years since the elections that sparked the green movement. there's something very strange going on in that country. we'll talk to iranian journalist maziar bahari. here is my take. i've been watching the republicans on the campaign trail. what strikes me so far is that conservatives in america have gone through a strange transformation. it used to be that conservatism was a hard-headed set of ideas rooted in reality. unlike the abstract theories of marxism and socialism, it started not have an imagined society, but from the world as it actually exists.

this is the way things work, conservatives would patiently explain to professors. whatever you want it to look like, this sp what it really looks like. consider the debates over the economy these days. the republican prescription is cut taxes,/government spending and things will always bounce back. i would like to see lower tax rates in the context of simplify case and reform, but what is the actual evidence that massive tax cuts are the single best path to revive the u.s. economy. taxes as a percentage of gdp are at the lowest level since 1950. the u.s. is among the lowest taxed of the big industrial economies. so the case that america is grinding to a halt because of high taxations is not based on facts, either past or present, but is simply a theoretical assertion. the rich countries have thought they were in the best shape with strong growth and low

unemployment are germany, dark mark and canada. many republican businessmen have told me the obama administration is most hostile to business in 50 years. really? more than that of richard nixon, for example, who presided over tax rates that reached 70%, regulations that spanned whole industries like airlines and telecommunication and who actually instituted price and wage controls? in fact, right now any discussion of any government involvement in the economy, even to build vital infrastructure is impossible because it is a cardinal tenet of the new conservatism that such involvement is always and forever bad. that's the theory. meanwhile in practice across the globe the world's fastest growing economy, china, has managed to use government involvement to create growth in jobs for three decades, from singapore to south korea to germany, evidence abounds that they can act as capitalists for

free market growth. conservatives resemble the old marxists who refuse to look at actual experience. i know it works in practice, the old saw goes, but does it work in theory? republicans often praise businessmen. one of the first steps any business now takes when confronting a problem is to ask how are other companies around the world handling this? is there a best practice we can learn from? in any area from infrastructure to health care to education, that is heresy on the right. it's a shame. i think we need smart, market-friendly conservative reforms that streamline governments, cut costs in health care, empower individuals, but they need to be rooted in reality, drawn from best practices around the world and based on practical measures of what seems to work. what we have instead are policy that is are simply recitations of some free market theory taken out of some book based on no actually existing economy.

it turns out conservatives have become the woolley-headed professors after all. for more on this, you can read my column on "time" magazine or time.com. now let's get started. joining me now to talk about the nation's jobs problem and much more david stockman, ronald reagan's budget director, and robert reich was secretary of labor under president clinton. they have many more credentials, but that will do for now. welcome back to you both. bob, let me start with you. the administration is now thinking about further tax cuts, payroll tax cuts and things like that. wouldn't it be sensible if the great problem is jobs and the large part of that problem is in the construction industry, wouldn't it be sensible for the government to simply try to employ -- i don't mean the government employing them, but

do roads, bridges and highways which puts private contractors back into the hiring business and effectively create jobs directly rather than hoping that people who get tax cuts will start spending again? >> i think that's right, fareed. i think it is useful because i think it's possible that the republicans would agree to exempting, let's say, the first $20,000 of income from the payroll tax for a year. that would put money directly in people's pockets and they would arguably spend at least 50% or 60% of that and that would be a direct stimulus. as you point out, i think it's very useful to extend large public projects or even a wpa as we had during the depression, works projects administration, to put the long-term unemployed directly back to work or a civilian conservation core to put millions of young people directly to work. we have public parks that are closed. we have all kinds of needs with

regard to teachers' aides, hospitals, many jobs that are not filled because nobody can afford them. the public cannot afford them. better to have people do these jobs directly than to have people sitting home collecting unemployment insurance. >> david stockman, can we afford this? obviously there is the cost involved, a lot of this would be long-term borrowing, but it would put people back to work and they'd start paying taxes? >> no. it disagree with that. that's more of the same canes yen medicine. we have a national balance sheet totally busted. the federal government and state and local governments are out of money. so the keynesian is out of work. washington has to get back to its business which is managing the budget and beginning the pay our bills.

unfortunately that is probably going to compound the job problem rather than resolve it. but we have no choice unless we want to end up where europe is today and where greece is. we simply are rolling the dice if we think we can keep borrowing know that the fed is out of the mark, qe 2 is over and the other central banks are no longer buy the bond. it would be a grave mistake to go back to the failed stimulus policies of the last two or three years or even decades. >> david, you would accept that the consequence of that kind of tightening, that austerity, would be even more people would be unemployed and their forecast revenues would fall. in other words, the scenario you're painting is pretty grim? >> yes. that's the dilemma we're in. we're in a deflationary cycle. we can't afford to borrow more or create artificial demand and artificial employment.

so, therefore, we're likely to have unemployment in the teens for the balance of the teens, for a decade or more. that's the mess we created after 30 years of tax giveaways and lack of control on entitlements and running this massive $800 billion war budget that we don't need and can't afford. it sounds like very harsh medicine, but it happens to be reality. we cannot borrow our way out of this one in my judgment. we're now facing the day of reckoning, literally. >> how can david stockman or any republicans or even for that matter any deficit hawks look at what is happening now in the country with 9.1% unemployment, 13.5 million people unemployed and millions more, too discouraged to look for work and

say that's not a problem, we can't do anything, washington can't do anything? that is herbert hoover economics and should be rejected out right. >> david? >> i don't know if i sound like herbert hoover. i think professor reich sounds exactly like art laffer. in other words, we don't have to take fiscal medicine, austerity is never needed. what we need to do is imagine we can grow our way out of this problem. i think it's too late for that. we can't grow our way out of this problem. the economy has failed. it's busted. we haven't created one new job net in the last 12 years. so as a result of that we have to worry about where the world bond market, the currency market and monetary conditions are going to be. two years ago greece was borrowing two-year money at 3%. this morning they're borrowing at 30%. there reaches a point when the bond market is no longer willing to tolerate the kind of fiscal

irresponsibility we have, and i think we're very close to that, and it is very foolish to run a risk of trying to find out how much longer we can go on with this before the reaction sets in. so yes, i agree it would be nice if we could afford to spend money to put people to work or put money in people's pockets, although i don't think that's a good public policy. but we can't afford it. literally we are broke. literally we are at the edge of a financial calamity and yes have to get beyond the idea that there's always enough balance sheet left to borrow some more money until we get to economic conditions that are more to our liking. the conditions that we have are the ones that we have to cope with, and that unfortunately is the fact of life today. >> fareed, if i may. look, when consumers are scared, they have a huge debt load,

worried about their wages which are falling in real terms, worried about their jobs. they're in no position to buy. they are pulling away because their housing prices in addition are going down, their major nest egg. when consumers are pulling away from spending. when businesses are not going to make new investments, sitting on $1.9 trillion. it's not a problem of businesses not having access to capital or the money. they're not going to build new facilities or create new jobs without customers. you've got the private sector in a kind of paralysis right now. this is when the public sector has got to fill in the gap. we learned this painfully in the 1930s. yes learned it in the 1940s, the second world war. the debt to gdp ratio got up to 120%. was that a terrible thing? actually it put america back to work and led the way toward an extraordinary spectacular 30 years of prosperity after the second world war. so i don't know -- david stockman is not looking at

history. we know what we need to do. >> gentlemen, we'll have to take a break. we will be right back with robert reich and david stockman. we know it's intimidating. instant torque. top speed of 100 miles an hour. that's one serious machine. but you can do this. any socket can. the volt only needs about a buck fifty worth of charge a day, and for longer trips, it can use gas. so get psyched. this is a big step up from the leafblower. chevrolet volt. the 2011 north american car of the year. down the hill? man: all right. we were actually thinking, maybe... we're going to hike up here, so we'll catch up with you guys. [ indistinct talking and laughter ] whew! i think it's worth it. working with a partner you can trust is always a good decision. massmutual.

let our financial professionals help you reach your goals. ♪ ♪ [ male announcer ] thanks to advanced natural gas turbine technology from ge, the power that will help make our nation more energy independent is right here in america. [ crickets chirping ] ♪ [ cheers and applause ] advanced gas turbine technology from ge. ♪ the morning after the big move starts with back pain... and a choice. take advil now... and maybe up to 4 in a day. or, choose aleve and 2 pills for a day free of pain. smart move. ♪

work and led the way toward an robert reich and david stockman. we are back with robert reich on the left, david

stockman on the right talking about jobs, the budget and america's economic future. david stockman, what would get corporations to start spending their money? as bob says, $1.9 trillion of cash on corporate balance sheets. what would get them to invest and start hiring workers? >> well, the fact is that's a bit of an illusion. there's $1.9 trillion of cash, but there's also $11 trillion of debt. in other words, the idea that the business sector is rolling in cash, it isn't suffering from a debt problem is wrong. the household sector still has $13 trillion of debt, almost at the peak level that we achieved in 2007. people are not spending because they're scared. they're not spending because they're broke. we can't then deal with the business reality that i just described or with the massive leverage condition that the household sector is still struggling with by having the government borrow money and,

therefore, compound the amount of taxes that we're eventually going to need to pay for all this. >> bob, let me ask you about something else you've been talking about. you are concerned about the deficit, but you have a different way of dealing with it. you suggest raising marginal tax rates to 70%. alan reynolds has written a piece in the "wall street journal" pointing out you can raise tax rates all you want, the federal government has never been able to collect more than about 9% of gdp. what do you say to people who say, if you raise the rates that high, lit discourage investment and lead to an orgy of tax lawyers and accounting finding ways to ferret the money around. >> to set the record straight for reynolds, it was raising it on incomes over $15 million. i didn't say i'm just a $250,000 or $500,000.

more importantly, before 1980 -- in fact, during the great prosperity from the second world war, for 30 years really, until 1980, we had a marginal tax rate on the very wealthy that never dropped below 70%. it's true, if you include all the deductions and credits, the effective rate was something under 70%. nevertheless, it was over 70% officially, even under dwight david eisenhower, republican general eisenhower in the 1950s, it was 91%, the marginal tax rate on the very rich. what happened? we didn't slow down. the economy grew dramatically. with that kind of marginal tax rate on the very top, it meant the disposable incomes of people people in the middle and at the bottom, given the investments that those tax rates at the top allowed, given that we could, as a nation, do so much more than we are doing now to open the gates of opportunity, given that

we could actually build the economy from the bottom up, it meant we grew at an average rate of over 3.5% a year, during those very prosperous years. since then, if you permit me to finish quickly, we've seen marginal tax rates drop dramatically. we've seen the economy slow and we've seen the rich get richer and richer, to the point they're now claiming over 20% of total income. this doesn't let the middle class purchase. it robs the middle class of the purchasing power we need to keep the economy going. >> david? >> well, i agree that taxes are at their lowest level, federal taxes, at any time since 1948. we can't possibly cut enough spending, even if there was a great deal of hee rowism and courage in washington to close the gap. so taxes will go up and i agree the rich can afford to pay a lot

more and should. but i would start with the capital gains tax. it's 15% in an economy that has very low inflation. that isn't justified. when the capital gains tax was lowered 20 years ago, we had double-digit inflation and there was a case for it. today it's just a windfall benefit to speculators and to traders and to high-income investors. it should be abolished and we ought to get to tax rates that are the same regardless of how the income is generated. but i don't think we can say that simply taxes the rich will solve the problem. we're going to have to do all three. raise revenue, dramatically demobilizing and reduce our defense establishment and reform the middle class entitlements, medicare and social security. if we do those things, the economy can gradually heal over a long period of time, but there's no money left in the kitty, no room left on the

national balance sheet for the kind of tinkering and stimulus that keynesians of the right that call it tax cutting and keynesians of the left who call it pump priming have indulged in over the last couple decades. we're now out of that business. we're now in the business, i believe, of paying our bills and facing the music of the real mess that we've gotten this economy into. >> we are out of time. gentlemen, a passionate, serious debate. i would very much hope we'll be able to bring the two of you back together. thank you. thank you robert reich. thank you david stockman. we'll be right back. [ manager ] you know... i've been looking at the numbers, and i think our campus is spending too much money on printing. i'd like to put you in charge of cutting costs. calm down.

i know that it is not your job. what i'm saying... excuse me? alright, fine. no, you don't have to do it. ok? [ male announcer ] notre dame knows it's better for xerox to control its printing costs. so they can focus on winning on and off the field. [ manager ] are you sure i can't talk -- ok, no, i get it. [ male announcer ] with xerox, you're ready for real business. ♪ ♪

[ male announcer ] thanks to advanced natural gas turbine technology from ge, the power that will help make our nation more energy independent is right here in america. [ crickets chirping ] ♪ [ cheers and applause ] advanced gas turbine technology from ge. ♪

now for our "what in the world" segment. we all know how americans revere the constitution. so i was struck by the news that tiny little iceland is actually junking its own constitution and starting anew and using an unusual, some would say, innovative mechanism. the nation decided it needed a new constitution. it's soliciting ideas from all of iceland's 320,000 citizens with the help of facebook, twitter and youtube. this social media method has worked. ideaing flowing in, many have asked for guaranteed good health care. other want campaign finance systems that make corporate donations illegal. some just want the country to make shark finning illegal. there's a conditions tushl

council that incorporates some ideas, rejects others. everything is done in plain sight on the web. as one member of the council said, the document is basically being drafted on the internet. why do they need a new constitution anyway? well, after iceland was crippled in recent years by the economic crisis, they all wanted a fresh start. and anyway they felt the document was old and outdated, drafted all the way back in 1944. now, you might be tempted to say that iceland doesn't have any reasons to be proud of its political traditions in the manner that the united states does. think again. iceland is home to the world's oldest parliament still in existence, the althy set up in 930 a.d. the rocky ledge on which they gathered, represents the beginnings of representative government in the world. so iceland has reasons to cherish its history, and yet it

was willing to revise it. by contrast, any talk of revising or revisiting the american constitution is, of course, seen as heresy. the united states constitution was, as you know, drafted in a cramped room in philadelphia in 1787 with shades drawn over the windows. it was signed by 39 people. america at the time consisted of 13 states. congress had 26 senators and 65 representatives. the entire population was about 1% of today's number, about four million people. america was an agricultural society with no industry, not even cotton gins. the flush toilet had just been invented. these were the circumstances under which this document was written. let me be very clear here. the u.s. constitution is an extraordinary work, one of the greatest expressions of liberty and law in human history. one amazing testament to it is the mere fact it has survived as the law of the land for 222 years. but our constitution has been

revised 27 times. some of these revisions being enormous and important, such as the abolition of slavery. then there are areas that have evolved. for example, the power of the judiciary, especially the supreme court, is barely mentioned in the document. this grew as a fact over history. there are surely some issues that still need to be debated and fixed. the electoral college, for example, is highly undemocratic, allowing for the possibility that someone could get elected as president even if he or she had a smaller share of the total national vote than his opponent. the structure of the senate is even more undemocratic with wisconsin's 6 million inhabitants getting the same representation in the senate as california's 36 million people. that's not exactly one man, one vote. we are surely the only modern nation that could be paralyzed as we were in 2000 over an election dispute because we lack

a simple national electoral system. so we could use the ideas of social media that were actually invented in this country to suggest a set of amendments to modernize the constitution for the 21st century. such a plan is not unheard of in american history. after all, the delegates in philadelphia in 1787 initially meant not to create the constitution as we now know it, but instead to revise the existing document, the articles of confederation. but the delegates saw a disconnect between the document that currently governed them and the needs of the nation. so their solution was to start anew. i'm just suggesting we talk about a few revisions. anyway, what do you think? should we do this? if we were to revise the u.s. constitution, what would be the three amendments you would put in? write to us and let us know we'll post the best ones on the website. we'll be back. >> what's really amazing, fareed, if you drive and don't see any military presence even though i understand you have

tens of thousands of security personnel, civilians, basically all over the place.

the libyan government says a nato air strike hit a

residential neighborhood in tripoli killing nine civilians. nato is investigating the allegations. the incident occurred a day after nato acknowledged its aircraft had mistakenly struck libyan opposition vehicles in the eastern oil town of el borrego. prime minister pom tray oh pushed parliament for a new cabinet. he's trying to push through an economic reform package of tax hikes and spending cuts to avoid what he calls a catastrophic debt default. texas congressman ron paul won the latest gop presidential straw poll in new orleans while an absent john huntsman placed a surprising second. the poll was taken at a republican leadership conference where rick perry delivered a speech which fueled he's running for apartmental run. those are your top stories. now back to "fareed zakaria gps." the arab spring has now turned into summer and the avalanche of images and analysis out of egypt has turned into a

slow trickle out of syria. that's because syria, vitally important, is all but closed off to outsiders. my next guest has managed to get deep inside that nation in revolt. fawaz gerges is the director of the middle east center at the london school of economics. he joins me now from beirut. fawaz, what was your first reaction being in syria. what is your sense of the mood? >> well, fareed, the situation is very fluid. it's a very, very confusing situation. i have spoken to schools of syrians in syria and in lebanon over the last one week or so, and the country seems to be dleeply divided. it's divided along class line. there is better than 12 abject poverty, divided along sectarian lines. the big point to highlight is the protests in syria are not as

thick and large as some of the protests that we have seen in tunisia, egypt and yemen. the reality is that the asad regime maintains a solid social base of support. if you ask me to put a number on this social base of support, i would say the regime has about 40% of supporters. in the last two weeks or so, the regime has mobilized its followers and basically it's flagging national sentiments about the flag and the army as the guardian of the nation. >> fawaz, it sounds like what you're describing is a regime that will be able to crush these protests, if it has a base of support which is not insignificant, whether 40% or 30%, it has the army. it has the will to use very lethal force. do you see it being able to ride out this protest movement? >> i would say the odds are against the protesters.

the regime not only has a solid social base of support, but also has the support of the security forces and the army. despite some reports of minor mutinies, individual officers, there are no credible reports about larger scale mutiny in the army and the security forces. also, as you said, the regime itself has the will. in order to really survive and basically fight it out. the fear is that given the polarization in syria, given the socioeconomic and the sectarian and ideological divide, i would argue that syria faces very difficult days ahead. we're talking about low-intensity conflict as opposed to regime change along the lines of tunisia and egypt. the regime will be able to weather this powerful storm. my take on it is that it will emerge weaker. and it also will be much more

dependent on iran. one of the major i think results of what has happened in the last few weeks in syria is that syria has lost turkey. the relationship between turkey and syria has been and was strategic. president assad nourish, a very close relationship was the turkish prime minister, owed ran. owed ran oopsz as you know has been very critical of syria. he reprimanded the regime for its actions publicly. this particular loss of turkey which has been the foundation of assad's strategic relationship will make syria much more dependent on iran in the next few months and years ahead. >> what does this mean for the united states? the united states government has been careful on syria while it clearly does ntd like the assad regime and clearly seems to sympathize with the protest movements, it has not publicly

called for the resignation of assad for the transition for democracy, partly because it knows it won't succeed and it will be inciting people to revolt and then be crushed. is the american strategy in your opinion the right one? >> i think so. i think the united states -- the obama administration finds itself between a rock and a hard place. i think the administration would like the syrian regime to open up the closed, authoritarian political space and basically put an end to the one-party rule in syria. but the reality is the united states knows very well that syria is a very complex society, that syria is a very divided society, that the assad regime is deeply entrenched. i think the united states, as i understand, is also very concerned about the sectarian divide in syria and the

potential repercussions into lebanon in particular. i can tell you, my family lives, fareed, about 15 minutes from the syrian borders. lebanon now, if you really want to understand what's happening in syria, lebanon is as deeply divided about the syrian situation. many lebanese are concerned that syria plunging into conflict will likely plunge lebanon into all-out sectarian conflict as well. >> fawaz, did you ever feel in danger when you were there? >> i did not really. i traveled as a local as you know. by the crossing in northern lebanon as a local, and no, i did not because i did not travel as a journalist. i have crossed into syria many times. i don't need a visa. what's really amazing, fareed, if you drive and you don't see any military presence even though i understand you have tens of thousands of security personnel, civilians basically

all over the place. the reality is, fareed, there is trouble in syria. syria is divided. there are protests in syria. the protests are not as thick and large as the protests that we have seen in many parts of the middle east, particularly in yemen, tunisia and egypt. they're isolated. you're talking about thousands of protesters as opposed to tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands. we can explain why. you have multiple factors, many factors that explain the lack of the huge crowds that we have not seen in syria today. >> fascinating account, fawaz of a syria that perhaps will endure, the regime will endure. but weaken with lower-intensity conflict and the loss of a very crucial ally in turkey. thank you. we will be right back. who is the good guy in this fact? the mullahs or ahmadinejad? >> the simple answer is none of them are the good guys.

we're going to hike up here, so we'll catch up with you guys. [ indistinct talking and laughter ] whew! i think it's worth it. working with a partner you can trust is always a good decision. massmutual. let our financial professionals help you reach your goals. [ man ] at ge capital, we're out there every day with clients like jetblue --

financing their fleet, sharing our expertise, and working with people who are changing the face of business in america. after 25 years in the aviation business, i kind of feel like if you're not having fun at what you do, then you've got the wrong job. my landing was better than yours. no, it wasn't. yes, it was. was not. yes, it was. what do you think? take one of the big ones out? nah. ♪ and today, we're re-inventing aspirin for pain relief. with new extra-strength bayer advanced aspirin. it has microparticles so it enters the bloodstream faster and rushes relief right to the site of your tough pain. ♪ in fact, it's clinically proven to relieve pain twice as fast. new bayer advanced aspirin. extra strength pain relief, twice as fast.

it's been almost exactly two years since the contested elections in iran that kept mahmoud am did jan in power and led to the green movement. my next movement was in iran to

cover the elections for "newsweek" until the revolutionary guard came knocking at his door one day. maziar bahari spent the next 118 days in prison, much in solitary confinement. he's written a new book about iran and his experiences there "then they came for me." he joined me to talk about iran two years later. >> welcome back, maziar. >> nice to be here. >> we've all been watching this arab spring. it's not happening in iran. is that because the regime is different or they are just able to completely brutally repress it? >> i think there are two main differences between the situation in iran and the rest of the middle east. one is that iranians experience the sudden change of revolution 32 years ago. so they approach any sudden change with caution. they do not want another revolution. and what happened in 2009 after the election was not a

revolution either. it was a movement for change, for reform. the other difference between iran and arab countries is that eye toll la khomeini has been grooming his image as a clean leader in a sea of corruption. he's very different from mubarak and ben ali, for example. he has forbidden his sons to get involved in financial activities, and his followers, they think that this leader is almost a saint. if he were catholic, i think they would have dee phied him. khomeini has people around him willing to die for him and kill for him. in other countries, i don't think that is so. >> a fascinating power struggle taking place where ahmadinejad

seems to be sensing this overly islamic republic or ideology isn't working, so he's been distancing himself from the thee krats. we tend to think ahmadinejad is the bad guy. let me ask you, who is the good guy of the fight, the mullahs or ahmadinejad. >> the simple answer is neither one. according to those that believe khomeini, they think he as the supreme leader is the person who can interpret the teachings of the koran and run the country at the same time. but what ahmadinejad people are saying right now is we do not need that clerical establishment. we can interpret the teachings of the koran myself. we can be in touch with the shia messiah ourselves. he's undermining the whole system of belief that puts khomeini in power.

>> is ahmadinejad popular? he was popular as mayor, for parts of his presidency as this simple clean guy who was not corrupt as far as people knew. that's why he dresses in this sr. simple way. does that image still hold? >> no. i don't think so. ahmadinejad has a lot of support because khomeini supported him. now that khomeini explicitly is not supporting him anymore, ahmadinejad has lost his base. that's why he's trying to steer people's nationalist sentiments. that's why he's trying to have a new support base for himself. ahmadinejad has certain people around him who -- in the same time, in the way they organize and thuggishly behave, they remind one of -- >> in this bewildering situation, one of the things you've often said our our show

is, don't forget this regime has some support, poor people, rural people, some people very religiously minded. do you feel like it's any support? is there any indication of that? >> the regime is losing support every day. last year it had more support than now. because the situation has become really untenable. all the ingredients that led to the demise of mubarak and ben ali in egypt and tunisia, they exist in iran. higher unemployment rates, inflation, an educated population who feel they're disenfranchised and their votes don't count. people used to say when the monster goes out, the angel arrives, meaning if the shah goes out, khomeini arrives. now they see the monster went out and something worse replaced him. now they're not saying that

anymore. >> in this mix, what should the administration do? what should the united states do? the obama administration began its term trying to see if there was some way to establish a dialogue with iran. part of what happened is the regime was really not that interested in having a dialogue buzz they need the anti-americanism. then, of course, the green revolution happened. i think right now there is no coherent policy toward iran. should there be one? how should they handle it? >> as you say, the situation is really complicated. i think they should think more about the sanctions. they should lift the bad sanctions that hurt ordinary iranians. they should allow more iranians travel. there was a good development they're giving visas to students. the students can have multiple visas. i think what the united states should do is to provide means for iranians to communicate. iranian people know what to do, how to determine their own

destinies. what they need is how to communicate with each other. that means having better communication infrastructure, for example, satellite internet that cannot be sensored. they need more filter-busters. companies like google, yahoo! youtube should be able to deal with the iranian people freely without worrying about being reprimanded by the u.s. administration. they have to try to help iranian people in general as much as possible. >> in your book you talked about your mother who is how old? >> 84 years old. >> where is she now? >> she's in tehran. >> the one part about this new life is you can't visit her. >> i can't visit her. she comes to london every now and then. but it's very sad. >> they let her out? >> they let her out, yes. >> your father was jailed by the shah's regime. >> my father was jailed by the shah's regime.

my sister was jailed by khomeini's regime. stories are not unique. we are one of millions of iranian families, thousands of families who have been jailed by both regimes. my mother is a proud iranian. she says, i was born in this country, i want to live in this country and die in this country. many people in iran, they say that. that's why i'm very hopeful about the future of iran because even though the government is trying to brutalize people, people are not losing home. they're still fighting for a better future. this fight is with a bit of trepidation, but it is still a fight that will have very good results. >> maziar bahari, pleasure to have you on. >> very nice to be here. >> and we will be back. [ wind howling ]

[ technician ] are you busy? management just sent over these new technical manuals. they need you to translate them into portuguese. by tomorrow. [ male announcer ] ducati knows it's better for xerox to manage their global publications. so they can focus on building amazing bikes. with xerox, you're ready for real business.

our question from the gps challenge is a history question. it might seem like a no-brainer for some of you. i have a reason for asking it, so bear with me. during the korean war, the u.s. and south korea fought against

north korea and what other nation? is it a, the soviet june jun, bjapan, c china or d vietnam. stay tuned and we'll tell you the correct answer and why we asked the question. make sure you go to cnn.com/gps for ten more questions. check out our website, the global public square where you'll find smart interviews, blogs, takes by some of our favorite experts. you follow me on twitter and facebook. this week's book of the week is by robert reich "aftershock" looks at what reich says are the underlying causes of the economic crisis and he has solutions for fixing it. if you like what he had to say earlier or if you disagreed with him completely, i think you'll find the book stimulating. he writes with clarity and passion about big economic problems. now for the last look. thames town is a typically eye dillic british town.

you can't miss the red telephone booths. you can see the london taxi or black cab and the local tudor style pub with real ale, lovely for a summer holiday. how do you get there? don't go to england. thames town is not by the river thames. it is by the yeng see in china. it's one of a group of new townships outside shanghai all built on the theme of another country. we stumbled on the story when we learned that while the brits might be flattered, the austrians got quite upset when they heard about plans to copy one of their famous towns. china is reportedly building a replica of the austrian town of hash stead, complete with winding roads and a lake. what i would love to find in china is a beautiful replica of a traditional chinese village, but these have become almost impossible to find. the correct answer to our gps challenge question is c, china fought alongsideor