>> it is an atemple to explain why i spent about ten years finishing the book that you have to my left, the book called "the shah" that paul ghraib just published. i think it is increasingly clear, at least to me it is, the fall of the the shah was one the pivotal figures -- events of the 21st century. in a recent review of this book, in fact, in "wall street journal." the reviewer compared the islamic revolution in 1979 in terms of the magnitude to to the

1917 revolution. the revolution brought in lennon, soviet union, cold war, it's hard to imagine a more important event. he claims the islamic revolution and thus the fall of "the shah" was an the event of equal magnitude. so in my view, understanding the shah is about understanding today. it's about understanding today and about understanding why we are where we are today both domestically in iron and in terms of iran's relationships, troubled relationships with the u.s. i think if you ask any book reader in the english-speaking world, i suspect any part of the world, and ask what are the three major problems about iron? they would point to iran's

nuclear program, iran's democratic movement, and they would probably point to events of august 5, 1953, as a turning point in u.s.-iran relations. august 5, 1953 is when the government was overthrown or dismissed, depending on who's narrative you believe. the shah who had fell there was brought back to iran and a new phrase in his power began. some have pointed to september 11th as having it's origin in that event. that's how pivotal that event is supposed to be. and the iranian democratic movement, as i will argue shortly, iran's nuclear program as i will try to argue shortly, and events of august '53 by

definition have all of them at their center and the figure of "the shah." and i think it is extremely urgent that we understood him, because understanding him is not just about understanding the past, but really about mapping out the future and understanding why we have had this tortured path today. if you ask any iranian, any student of the iranian politics or society, what have been the three defining problems with the last century in iran? i would think again there is some consensus that the three major problems iran has faced in the last century has been the question of modernity and the fight with tradition. sort of the battle between the moderns and the traditionalist. very much included in this

debate between the traditionalist and the modernist is the question of what does it mean to be an iranian? the question of iranian identity. is iranian identity primarily islamic? or is iranian identity a hybrid identity? or is it primarily a preislamic identity and the islamic identity is an unfitting were diseased edition to it that has come 1,000 years ago and since been rejected by the body politics. third question, and it was decided from tradition and modernity, the question of identity is again the question encumbent between process and

authoritarianism. the question of whether you can have democracy and progress at the same time, or whether there is something needed in the iran's current political, cultural, some would say even ethnic makeups that requires or gets in the one form of december matism after another. how do we replace the shah? the shah's authoritarianianism with a far, far more brutal, more oppressive, less confident, more corrupt islamic regime. how is it we got rid of one king to get someone who now has more power than any king ever had and also claims to speak for god? literally speak for god? recently one of his henchmen said going against the word of

mr. harmanny is going against god himself. it is god himself, there is no he/she. god is man and ladies have to just live with the fact that it is a massage mist cross moll. in all of the questions, the domestic question and the international three questions that i mentioned. the shah figures very prominently. and his period, 1941 to 1979 figures extremely prominently. it is the contention of the book that the iranian democratic movement that we have heard so much about, the green movement that we hear so much about that created the mythical almost movement by bringing three million people in the city of 12 million people who silently marched and asked what happened

to my world? where did they world go? that movement is in every fundamental composition. the same social forces that brought the shah down. so on defending why the shah fell, understanding why the coalition was formed against him, and it was very estranged coalition, and i will explain why, helps us understand why there has been politically instability in iran for the last 30 years. and if american policymakers, for example, had truly studied the case of the shah's nuclear program, and how he went about it, they would have managed, i think, the nuclear negotiations with iran in a different way. i suspect they might have come to better results. finally, i in the book offer

rather different view of august '53. my argument is that the events of august '53 are far more complicated than the narrative hittered to offered by the royalist that claim it was a national day of uprising, or by the activist who claim it was an infamous cia cook. i think that reality is far, far more complicated and i try to explain why it is more complicated, and why, in fact, the people who ruled iran today, the clergy had far more to do with muslims that fall than the cia ever did. the clear in my view unquestionable dominant force who's shift of position

essentially completely shifted the dynamics in iran or the clergy. when they sided with most of their, you can clearly see in the documents the balance of forces was now against muslims. i refer to documents. and documents is really the last season why we now need a biography of the shah. there has been about a dozen bioing a if if -- biographies oe shah so far. in my view, unfortunately, all of them had been commissioned biographies. commissioned in the sense they were written to demonize the shah by his opponents, or lionize the shah by his advocates. many of them were directly paid biographies. in one case, they paid the french -- a british lady close to a half a million pounds in that time. she came to iran, spent very little time in iran and the

embassyies when the british embassy, she sent most of her time in iran in her hotel in the company of young handsome iranians who were very eager to meet with this biographer. and did very little and got basically the money and repeated almost verbatim everything else that everyone else had written in the earlier biographies of the shah. the biographies have not done justice to the shah. and partly they haven't done justice to the shah, part of it has been commission and omission. but part of it has been because it has not been possible to write in my view completely documented account of the revolution, because some of the most critical documents that we needed were declassified. both in the american archives and in the british archives.

there is a 30-year rule. most of the documents are classified for 30 years. some are classified for 70 years. and they get the declassified in the sequential fashion, and essentially i had to wait until 19 -- 2009 for some of the most important documents to be declassified. literally, the part about the nuclear program. the documents that i needed that i have used to write history of the shah's nuclear program were declassified about three months before the book went into print. i had to delay the publication of the book. hi to rewrite the entire chapter because about 1,000 pages out of 70 were available. it is now urgently needed for

reasons that i have explained. and it is now more than ever, i think, possible if one doesn't want to lionize him, or demonize him. and i have tried to do neither. i have tried to rely on what the documents indicate. the book is composed of 20 chapters. some periods of the shah's life are treated much more quickly. some periods because they are deemed in my view more important in understanding the revolution are covered in the greater depth. for example, the chapters, three full chapters of maybe about 100 pages. that cover 1959 to 1963. because i think that's a pivotal period in iran. that's when the shah with pressures from the americans, pressure that begun with the eisenhower administration and

was augmented during the kennedy administration forced the shah to under go changes. some of these changes were very much changes he had wanted to do all along but was not powerful enough to do it until then. like the land reform, to his credit, the shah had been talking about the land reform almost from the day he ascend the thrown. some of them were very clearly mandated and pressured by the kennedy administration and earlier by the eisenhower administration. it is remarkable how worried the american administrations of eisenhower and kennedy were about the future of iran in 1958, '59, '60. they really thought the revolution was right around the corner. they believed that unless something drastic is done. i have quoted some of the documents. it is truly remarkable how anxious they were and how correct they were. essentially they missed it by 20

years. they were right in almost everything they predicted. but then equally remarkable is how far cia is off of the mark in 1978. in 1958, they were predicting a revolution. in 1978 when tehran was literally burning, the cia and it's infinite wisdom decided that iran is not in the revolutionary state. the shah is here to stay. the opposite is -- there's nothing going to fundamentally challenge the shah. in the mid '78. mid '58, the same cia saying unless we do something yesterday, tomorrow there will be a revolution and there won't be any shah. these changes, changes that came about and were called the white revolution, essentially prepared the ground for the revolution.

in this way, the idea behind this revolution was very much the modernization idea popular in the american social science communities. the idea that you need to modernize the society, you need to modernize the infrastructure, you need to educate people, you need to enfranchise women. you need to increase urbanization, and if you have a middle class, if you have an enfranchised woman, if you have techicrats in charge, then societies with change and process can come. it was essentially a packages deal. the shah was going to jefferson, his traditional social base of power. the shah's base of power, everybody understood this in 1958, the shah's social base of power was essentially the futile aristocracy, the know maddic,

the clergy, the military, and se evidence of iran's industrial middle class or upper class. the idea was to create a larger middle class, the idea was to do away with the feudal system. the idea was to create techicratic middle class that would be the shah's base of support. what happened, unfortunately, was that in the process of change, the united states and iran both under went important changes. 1965 the price of oil begins to change. in 1966, the shah literally no longer needs american aid. in 1962 he comes to the white house and says i want a military of 150,000, kennedy say, no were you are going to have a military

of 120,000. kennedy won the argument because kennedy was paying for the military. the united states was essentially underwriting iran's military development. iran was the biggest recipient of u.s. foreign aid from 1953 to 1961. it was estimated that the u.s. gave the shah more than a billion and a half in aid. it is a remarkable sum in that period. from '65 on, the shah no longer needed this. in fact, from '74, it was the west that now needed the shah's money. the shah went on what the cia called the landing -- lending binge. he gave away to a billion and a half to anybody's that came begging, london's mayor to ask to rebuild the water system in

london to zimbabwe to pakistan. anybody that came, france, american companies, american companies on the verge of bankruptcy came, got their moneys, and they went back. with that economic independence came political independence. the shah no longer needed to heed american pressures to democracyize. moreover nixon came to power. i argue about the development of the nixon doctrine and how the shah was very much influential in the development of the nixon doctrine. but the nixon doctrine basically said give the shah what he wants, sell him as much military as he wants, and don't bug him about democracy. and bugging the shah was democracy is something that every u.s. administration from

roosevelt to carter had done with the exception of nixon. it is precisely during the nixon period where the changes in the iranian society, oh blowing iranian society into a new social fabric. a new modern middle class was coming. the agriculture revolution had completely changed the fabric of iranian countryside and iranian cities. the best example if you want to know what that revolution did to iran is follow the life of ahmadinejad. i've written a mini biography of ahmadinejad. he captures what i was talk abouting. his family was living in the small village. by 1960, they decided they can't

survive in the village. feudalism had ended, no infrastructure for support, they come to tehran, they become dwellers in these marginal new neighborhoods, people by the poor, and who's there to sing the song of revolution in their ears? the clergy? and why is it only the clergy who are there to sing the songs of revolution? because every other force in iran from the left to the right was decimated by the shah's authoritarianism. the shah believed his authoritarianism was the necessary step to progress. and iran made remarkable progress in this period. iran during the early '70s was sometimes registering 20% increase in gmp. 20%. it's a remarkable change. i've given some statistics on iran in 1925, when the dynasty

took over, and 1978 when the crisis begins. it is remarkable transformation of the country on verge of complete collapse to a country with a we we are oning middle cs and competitive with turkey and south korea. iran is in the same league as south korea and turkey. this is a remarkable change. it had come at price of democracy. it had come at the price of no political opposition allowed in the country. the only group allowed to organize and mobilize, the only group allowed to create social clubs for themselves, they didn't call it social club, they called it a mosque. they didn't call it social club,

they called it schools to teach koran. they didn't call it training seminars, they called it summer camp for the pias. the clergy created from 1971 to 1979 a remarkably subtle, complicated, multifast -- multifaucetted organization from the lethal original named [inaudible] to the most benign classes teaching the study of koran. this network encouraged by the shah was the only force ready capable of holding the country together in late 1978 when the u.s. and britain both about the same time, october '78 is when both countries decide that the

shah cannot any longer stay in power. and he can't stay in power primarily because he is given two indecision in times of crisis. the shah had shown he cannot withstand pressure in 1953. the shah had shown he is not a man to stay in the ring and fight it out. he was not saddam hussein. he was much more likely to flee the scene of the crisis if the crisis arose. he almost left the country five times before 1953. and in 1978 when the british and the americans began to see the rise of the movement in iran, and began to see the shah incapable of making decisions, they began to look for what the british prime minister called a way to reensure. they wanted to look for somebody who they could form a pack with,

they could allow the country. who emerges on the scene? the clergy. this network that they have created. and who plays this hand brilliantly in man by the name of hanny. who had risen to national prominent by opposing women to vote, by opposes land perform, by opposing the status of force agreement with the united states, by using lethally anti-semitic rhetoric against israel in 1962. he was exiled in 1964. he lived from '64 to '77 in exile. and he wrote some of the most remarkably anti-democratic, anti-modern treaties as ever penned in modern persian language. nobody in iran was allowed to read them. because he was a banned person.

his works for banned. and no iranian expect the very few radicals had ever a chance to read what he really intended to do. he had said very clearly what he was going to do. but in late '78, very astute politician that he was, he recognized that that is not going to win him the day. the iranians wanted democracy. every indication is that the 1978 revolution was not about economics, as i told you, iran's progress was remarkable. it wasn't about anything else other than political freedom. there was more cultural freedom in iran in 1978, '77, than any other muslim country in the middle east. iranians were essentially free to live their private lives any

way that they wanted. for the first and last time in history of iran, jews, christians, and even members of the religion that had been persecuted by the current regime incessantly and were persecuted before achieved more or less legal equality with everyone else. some of iran's greatest industrialist were member of the high faith or jewish community of iran. iran had 150,000 jews living in iran. today still iran has more jews than all of the other muslim countries living -- put together. 20,000 to 25,000 people live in iran. but in 1975, there was 150,000 people. they had more or less religious equality. there was -- woman were beginning to get equal rights under the law. they were beginning to get the right to vote. countries who islamic

prescriptions. but these were not what the people were interested in. people wanted political freedom. they wanted to share in the political decision making. shah had made a bet and i don't say this metaphorically. he almost literally made the bet that by giving the iranians an economically prosperous lives, he's going to quiet them from demanding he's going to release them from demanding the political rights. hehe was tryinged to in iran in 1975 what we today call the china model. what china is doing today, the shah did in '75 and failed. which is give people great deal of economic freedom, give them something of prosperity, and

then as a return, demand that they do not engage in equal power sharing in the political domain. people got the economic welfare that was created as a result of the hike in the price of oil. and the hike in the price of oil said that the shah had much to do with it. but nevertheless, they were not interested in any of these things. they were not interested in the right of women. the left chastised these as mere decoration. they wanted political rights. so harmanny appears, and says to the american, which he volunteers to contact, i have found some remarkable documents about the extent of the regime.

contacts before the months of revolution. the same regime that is putting people in prison because they code, for example, an american official was actively seeking and establishing contact with the americans both in paris and his allies in tehran. they realized, he realized that what the americans were looking for was force that would hold the country together, keep the communist out of iran, soviet union was still soviet union in those days, and keep the oil running. in a letter that he writes to carter, he more or less says exactly what i told you. he says what do you want? you want oil to flow? you want the country to be held together? you don't want the communist? we'll do all of this. tell the military to stop supporting. that's exactly what the american government did. the american government

interceded on behalf of him with the military. general hoiser was involved in telling the american leadership that they will not support in favor of the shah. the future belongs to the new regime. and i must say that it was their ignorance, not their viciousness, solomon, who was the american ambassador to iran at the time, i think really believed that he is going to create a democratic regime. because like the rest of the iranian society, he had not read his work. he had been talking to some of the iranian democrats and some of the iranian intellectuals and they had all told him what he is saying to everybody publicly. he promised more than once, in

fact, more than dozens of times, he gave more than 110 interviews in paris in the three months that he was in paris. he gave more than 110 interviews to foreign correspondence. not once does he mention the word [inaudible] which is the rule or the guardianship of the juris council, which is the iranian guardianship today. not once, in fact, repeatedly, when he was asked whether the government of iran is going to be a government of the clergy, he said absolutely not. he said, i, myself, will go to the city of qualm, not far from tehran, and leave all power to the people. the first constitution that was drafted for iran while he was

now back in iran. the shah had already fled the country. the regime had already fallen. the first constitution that was developed was profoundly democratic constitution. but then the war with iraq, the occupation of the american embassy was used by him to gradually but brutally and officially sideline and marginalize the democratic forces one by one. and the constitution that was written at the period now had the center of the concept of the right, the rule of the guardian. one of the first decisions that he made was to stop the shah's nuclear program. in the same period where iran's rise in income had given the shah the grand ideas that some

of you might remember from those days when he talked about democracy of the blue-eyed world is about to collapse. during the period, they decided iran was going to have a nuclear program. within a very short span of time, they developed a program that stipulated iran to have 20 reactors. now contrary to the claims of this regime, i have again documented this with some detail. the united states was not in full agreement with the shah. and the nature of the nuclear program. in fact, it was much tussle, democratic tussle behind the scenes, between the shah and the u.s. about the nuclear program. the u.s. believed then that the shah might be going towards a potentially military nuclear program. and they did everything they could behind the scenes to try to get assurances from the shah

that this would not happen. the shah would not give category -- categorical assurances. he did not want to bomb yet. by '77, late '77, early '78 was the carter administration willing to allow u.s. companies to sell iran nuclear parts and nuclear reactors. in the meantime, europeans have jumped in like they have done in the last few years, they jumped in and called the market essentially. and they had signed agreement with iran to start the reactor in the city of boucher. that reactor was supposed to start in 1981. he unilaterally decided that the irans nuclear program was garage, that the shah was lacking of the u.s., that's why he decided to have a nuclear,

and he start the nuclear program on which iran had spent millions. saddam hussein bombed the place several times. by 1984, he changed his mind. by 1984, he changed his mind because in the war, saddam hussein used chemical weapons against iranian soldiers. and to their shame, i think, the international community and the reagan administration did nothing, specially nothing to punish saddam for his egregious crime. the regime decided if the international community is going to allow saddam to use weapons of mass destruction against iran, then the regime must develop it's own weapons of mass destruction. and they started the nuclear program but they did it this time secretly. they kept it from the international community, they kept it from everybody because

they were worried that israel would do to iran's nuclear program what it had done to iraq. the iraq case. and recently syria. and by the time the international community learned of the existence of the nuclear program, it was already a fairly developed program. we can talk much more detail about this, we don't have time, i need to stop. and the short version of it is that many of the same problems that have existed between this regime and the international community existed between the shah and the international community. one big difference was the shah was trying to solve them within the context of the mpt, within the context of the existing international laws, and not in the defiance of international

laws. it is a remarkable sign of incompetence, i think, something that hasn't been much discussed in any media that a program that iran could have had in 1981, iran still does not have after billions of dollars, after economic losses that are remarkably more than the mind can easily configure. because this regime's incompetence. first the wrong decision to scuttle the program without any discussion. and then the decision to restart is it secretly, and then their decision to lie and cheat every way, every step of the way. creating the current impasse where their word is not taken by the international community and the international community is worried that with iran, you will have with iran's going nuclear

or developing the ritual capacity for the bomb, which i think is what they are trying to do. they are trying to do what the shah was trying to do. to have everything in place to be able to go nuclear at very short order. almost verbatim what the shah told officials in iran and western officials. he said we don't want to bomb now. but if any of the neighbors become the nuclear state, we are not going to be far behind. the shah was particularly worried from 1959 about the possibility of an attack by iraq. it is really fascinating to see how his thinking changes after the change in iraq and the rise of the new regime. let me stop here and try to answer some of your questions.

[applause] [applause] >> thank you, abbas. we have a number of questions that deal with the relationship with the shah and mosedec. they are asking for more clarification on what the relationship with the shah and mosedec, and why were the clergy anxious to see mesedec overturned? >> okay. this will take about three minute response. bare with me. mosedec, for those of you who don't remember him, he was a member of the parliament. he was a nationalist leader. 1951, he becomes the prime

minister through the democratic process. one the first steps is to nationalize iran's oil industry. that was until then in the monopoly control of britain. now even before he comes to power, the united states beginning to worry that there will be a nationalist uprising in iran under oil issue. because the agreement was so unfair to iran. i have found really remarkable documents exchange between the u.s. and britain with the u.s. and the truman administration telling the british give in a little bit before something more serious happens. but the british were arrogant, they thought the americans are stupid, they don't understand how to deal with these natives, literally, and they are naive idealist. and then he comes to power. the british is first instinct was to try to attack iran.

the truman administration held the line and said no. then they tried to organize against him. they pushed the shah to use extra power and the military to overthrow him. the shah said, no, i won't do this. we need to find a democratic process to -- we need to find a legal process, not a democratic process. we need to find a legal process to get rid of him. i'm not going to do anything illegal. when the british attacked moseceb, and when the communist initially attack, he became the head of the powerful nationalist movement. everybody lined up behind him, the middle class was behind him, the merchant class became completely in support of him, and the clergy became supportive

of him. because they thought he is causing fighting a nationalist cause. the clergy were divided into two champs. one was the very political clergy, and became eventually the speaker of iran's parliament and ally of mosedec. it was a quiet school of shiiteism, they don't believe in seizing power. they did not want to seize power. he was very subtly clearly supporting mosedec in this fight. the shah had apparently relations with mosedec. but behind the scenes, they were at each other's throats and they dislike one another and they were trying to limit one another's power. the shah would not oppose him

legally, publicly. but august '53, something had happened. the united states had by november '52 reached the conclusion that there is no deal that he would take. he believed it's uncompromising and there's no deal that's going to satisfy him. he 79s -- he wants 100%, and nothing less, and the british were not going to give ham -- give him 100%. the united states begins to change the position. until september of '52, they were against the idea of overthrowing. after '52, they begin to get convinced maybe we should get rid of him. one the reasons, one the other reasons that they decide they need to go against him is the increase rise of the two of the communist party in iran. something of the historians have

said the turning point came in june when -- june 1953 when the party organized a demonstration and brought a 100,000 people in the remarkable discipline in tehran. that scared the bejesus out of the tehran. he was becoming increasingly isolated because of economic hardship, and was becoming weakened because of, again, economic hardship. the clergy began to worry that he's depending too much on the communist. they were worried. now the british and the cia we know in this period had a very sophisticated program where they would send them to pretend to attack the clergy from the radical communist. they wanted to frighten the

clergy even more. and it worked. the clergy with themselves worried and these further contributed. further adding to the risk other than the fear of communist, other than the economic isolation. it was the aggressive leader and he felt that mosedec had stayed in power basically because of his support. so he began to demand essentially veto rites -- rights on legislation. he began to demand the right to appoint ministers and implementation of islamic laws, and implement laws against people in iran and mosedec said no to all of them.

he changed his mind and decided to work with the critics. all of the factors work hand in hand and made him a much more isolated figure. so in the election, that he himself had organized, the results of the election were not very much to his liking. so he stopped the election halfway. and decided to have a referendum to dismiss the parliament. many of his allies told him that first of all, there's no constitutional basis for this. second of all, there are importantly, if you dismiss the parliament, the shah has established right to make recess appointments. he has made many such recess appointments. he will make another one dismissing you and another one

appointing someone in your place. the shah literally say he doesn't have to cut. the shah believed that dissolving the parliament has mosedec had done gives him the constitutional right to make the appointment. so he wrote two orders, one a pointing him as his appointment and replacing him. most had learned by the rules. instead of abiding by the shah's order, he arrested the messenger. he believed the shah was seriously engaged in a regime essentially. he fled the country. he fled the country, went to iraq. from iraq he went to rome, and in rome, he began to plan for a life as a gentleman farmer in connecticut. but then on august 19, the tide changed. on august 19, crowds began to gather and the attack mosedec's

house and the radio and took over. where these crowds rented crowds by the cia as the cia claim? or were they genuinely angry and worried anti-communist iranian members of the middle class as the shah supporters claim? or is it a combination? my research everything that i have done and i wrote the chapter on who the last. because it was the most difficult for me to write. my conclusion that it's really a combination of all of these factors. the cia was involved, but it had much less of a role than it later claimedded. and later claimed it was the only force that played this role because it had had a series of defeats. this is really the only major success they had in a series of

debacles that are remarkable. read "the legacy of ashes" and you will see how debacles they had before this. that was more than three minutes. >> i noted that. it was interesting anyway. so there are a number of questions here also just to leap forward a little bit in time regarding iran's nuclear program, the weapons development, and the so-called peaceful development activity. and did you come across documentation that may have given proof one way or the other what they are really planning to do? and do broaden this question a little bit, is what should the united states be doing? are we handling this correctly? should we leave all of the options on the table to use a popular phrase? or not? >> well, let me begin with the easiest. which is the last one.

i don't think iran's nuclear problem has a military solution. i think it is too much developed, it is too far dispersed, the innocent lives that would be, the collateral damage is simply too great. and without u.n. mandate, without a u.n. decision for the united states or israel to once again attack a third muslim country, especially for the united states, unilaterally, i think is a fiasco. and i don't think it will be militarily successful in it's attempt to delay this program. iranians now have learned how to build center finals, they have learned how to enrich uraniums

and build the facilities. it is under 25 feet of cement and dirt. it has been heavily fortified, there are three centers for enriching uranium, each the size of six football fields. and they have the capacity to have centrifuge cascade of 50,000. nobody in the right mind believes the country wants a peaceful nuclear program when it build a cascade of 50,000. you just don't need 50,000 for enriching uranium. for enriching, 5,000 is inform. 50,000 will give you 90% uranium. which has only one use. for the bomb. i think the regime clearly in my view, ambiguously has been

trying to become what is called the latent, or a virtual nuclear state. that is have the capacity, established known capacity to build a bomb at short order and have the world country it as a latent nuclear state. in other words, they want the world to know they can be a short while away from a bomb. and they are working on ways to deliver it, they are working on designs, they are working on every aspect of this, accept i think, the decision to take that last final step. which is to weaponnize this enriched uranium. now the united states i think made several very strategically important errors. in 2003, when the u.s. had just defeated saddam hussein, the

u.s. had just defeated literally in eight days an army iran had not been able to defeat in 80 years. the clerical regime in iran was very worried that the united states might attack. the neocons in washington were singing the song that boys go to baghdad, men go to tehran. this song had reached tehran as well. iran at that time was very much willing to negotiate. it had to spent it's enrichment, although it had suspended it early. and it felt like it was in a very weakened position. that the united states now had almost 200 -- this was before whatever you want to call it, the uprising, the civil war, the disturbance, whatever you want to call what happened in iraq.

back before it began. the united states had almost 250,000 forces on iran's bordered. -- borders. they had easily defeated two of iran's biggest challenges. and a regime was worried. they were willing to make a deal. and the bush administration decided that they are not going to negotiate with these guys. and i think that was a very, very important opportunity. now the bush administration, i think, has been, you know, overly criticized. some people claim the regime was willing to give up everything in this period. it was willing to recognize israel, it was willing to give up it's nuclear program aling to, it was willing to give up the support for hezbollah, all for the promise that they would be treated well. i think that was -- that's a bogus argument. i don't think that argument was really ever -- that deal was ever on the table.

that they were in much more negotiating mood then. now they feel like they have achieved the upperhand. they have, you know, -- it used to be the policy of the united states not to negotiate with tehran if there was one centrifuge. there are now 8,000 centrifuges and the united states and the international community is willing to negotiate. tacticically, the regime has won. strategically, they have really bungled it up. something that iran could have had in 1981, iran still does not have. and even if it gets it started with all of the virus business and all of the buying of material and the black market, nobody knows whether it's going to be safe. >> well, i hate to do this, but we've run out of time, and

perhaps abbas would be willing to stay around longer while he's signing books to answer some additional questions. i'm going to ask one final one. as you know i was in iran last year for a very short tourist visit. found the people to be very friendly on the streets. we didn't really interact with any government people. so -- but that was a characteristic that i would give. one the questions here has to do with -- actually two pieces of it. but how did the iranian people react on 9/11? there's a short answer to that? also. are you able to return the country again? >> i can return if i accept that it will be a one-way trip. [laughter] >> the idea for a two-way trip, i can't. they have, in fact, named me and they have named stanford as

co-conspirators against the regime and have written about it an article in "new republic." and the other one -- iranians as far as i know are the only muslim country where the people spontaneous took to the straight, light a cadged, -- candle, and organize a vigil in the american. the united states is very much popular. there's in the wikileaks an interesting document. it was the u.s. bagmitten team was supposed to visit iran. the explanation was the united states was not supposed to announce the team was traveling to iran. and when the united states announced it, he pulled the plug because he said there will be

such strong show of support for the american team that it will be propaganda bonanza. when the u.s. wrestling team went to iran and played in the international tournament, the iranians showed more support for the u.s. team than for their home team. and that became an incredible embarrassment for the regime. and he says we don't want another wrestling fiasco. that's how popular the u.s. is. >> okay. thank you. before we thank abbas. finally, i'd like to remind you that his book "the shah" is available for sale it my left and courtesy of books inc., and that he will be available here to sign copies for you. and i might just add a little note, i could mention that introducing -- in introducing

dr. milani, i should have mentioned he's a shakespeare buff. as you read his book, you'll see quotes from shakespeare's richard ii that lead into each chapter. and that highlights the parallels or analogies between the two tragedies. in other words, if you read and buy his book, you'll get two for one. shakespeare education, as well as learn a lot about iran. so thank you very much. [applause] [applause] [applause] [applause] :