the previous speaker has already alluded to. host: yesterday the president said he would like to continue to take part in multi-national talks and the u.s. will continue to take part in talks with tehran over suspected nuclear weapons program, quote, because the chock is ticking. a reference to the possibility that irand will acquire enough fuel to build a nuclear weapon. that's the approach former president george w. bush adopted during his last six months in office. how can the president do that? and not necessarily show support for the current regime versus those who oppose it and people who are trying to protest the outcome of the election? >> that's a balance with which we've had to strike, the united states has had to strike in other international conflicts nations are capable of sitting

down and recognizing that they have interests are in common in resolving disputes without at the beginning sorting out the differences they might have on internal arrangements in each other's countries, so that's the basic reason why it should be possible to do that. it is possible that the timetable with iran for dialogue, if it ever gets started, is going to get extended somewhat. it will take time for the iranian authorities to settle the personnel venue of government and their policies. it could be that iranians may not be able to make up their mind about the invitation extended by the united states and the united states partner, such as china, france, germany, to negotiate on the details of the dispute, but it won't be

able to make up its mind about those invitations until september. host: next up, robert on our line from independents from chicago, illinois. go ahead, please. caller: good morning. you know, it's very funny how the united states is set up to talk about they want a democratic move in iran. you just had a president who left office, george bush, who wasn't democratically elected to office. he got into office by his buddies in the supreme court. everybody asked when the united states was important to interrupt the shah of iran, and we were getting free oil for years. you didn't say nothing when people were oppressed by the shaw. now his son comes up and says we want a pro democratic movement. the problem you see in the movement is one, but when you see countries stand up, take control of their own political agendas, that's when they become outlaws. same thing in cuba. when cass stre came in an kicked

out the sand niece stas, that's when you get a problem. you look at democracy. what is democracy, about 200 years old? how do you change 2,000-year-old cultures? go over to israel. nobody is saying what is going on over there, because the united states have an agenda with israel. they don't have a problem with the palestinians getting murdered, but as soon as a bomb blows up, it is terrorism. host: we will leave it there. mr. ambassador? guest: iran is going to change in the long term, but that will happen in accordance with the wishes of the iranian people. i'm not trying to dictate what shape that should take, and i don't think that's the intention of any of the politicians who comment on iranian affairs, other than to say that there are

ra union versal status in mill rights. if the country itself claimed that it wish the to have a democratic element to its national element, like iran does, then it is reasonable to listen to voices coming from within iran itself as to whether or not those standards have been met, so, in my persons, iranians don't want violent change. they want peaceful reform leading to a stronger representation of the democratic elements in their constitution in decision making in their country, so that seems to me a very reasonable position, an we should be cawb tious about expressing clear support for that at any one time, there is no doubt that iranians want that form of peaceful revolution and they have a right to it.

host: mike from colorado writes do you think the moral authority of the ayatollah and the clerics has been diminished as a consequence of the crackdown? guest: yes, i do. i think that the breaking of the taboo on criticism of the supreme leader is significant. i think the he refusal of the candidate who stood against ahmadinejad to stand against the outcome as presented by the election authorities is unprecedented and the fact is that it is the supreme leader's call, which is now two weeks old, for the results to be accepted have not been heeded by many millions of his servants, and that, too, is a big change, and it indicates severe doubt as to whether he is exercising his authority correctly and whether he is serving the interests of

his people. i don't want to suggest that that the iranian people as a whole take that, too. it is a percentage of the people, but in my experience, there is always a good deal of criticism of how the religious system is actually working and people are going to see the events of the last two weeks as a milestone in the evolution of iran. host: can we draw parallels between the unrest in iran and uprisings in poland, czechoslovakia, and other revolutions? guest: i will not do that. those revolutions happened quickly and they had a successful result over a period of time. i don't think there is a direct parallel between what's happening in iran today and that

situation. if only for one thing, that the dominant power in those societies, poland, czechoslovakia, and so on, lost the will to exercise authority in the face of the popular demonstrations, but there is no sign of that lack of will in iran. right from day one after the announcement of the results in the first challenges to the results, the iranian authorities have shown a clear determination to put an end to this. host: next up, lincoln, nebraska, sam on the behind for republicans. go ahead. caller: yes. good morning, gentlemen. it's nice to encourage democracy in iran and parts of the middle east, but i ask your guest as

there were rulings after world war ii, why didn't they make sure before they left in 1948 that they gave the palestinians the freedom and the democracy. israel declared itself in 1948 as independent state, and england pulled out and left the palestinians hanging without democracy, without a country, and as a result for the last 61 years, the palestinians have been homeless, suffering under occupation, living in refugee camps. doesn't he feel guilty as a brittish man for what they have done to the palestinian people? host: sam, what is the tie between that situation and the current situation in iran? caller: we are encouraging democracy in iran, england, the

united states, but when it comes to the palestinian people, the only thing we hear from politicians is the negative things from a few actors that are raking in the middle east. host: we will leave it there. guest: i think the current situation in palestine is a prime example of where the countries you mention, including mine, do encourage democracy. we have supported the elections there. we made a mistake, in my view, in the attitude we took to the most recent election, and i don't agree with the policy which we adopted in the last four years, but to go back to 1948, i don't want to suggest that that was anything other than a major failure on the part of britain, which has had fateful consequences which are highly regrettable for the palestinian people. host: the guardian is reporting "iran opposition alleges plot to

implicate mousavi, jailed iranian reformists have been tortured in an attempt to force them into t.v. confessions of a fore-led plot against the regime. it is alleged today as the guardian council buries hopes for any significant decision of a disputed presidential election, according to iranian opposition websites, the quote, unquote, confessions are aimed at implicating mousavi, the defeated reformist candidate, in an alleged conspiracy." what do you make out of this? is there any significance to this? is this real or is this being made up? how is this advancing or not advancing the situation? guest: i hadn't seen that report before and i am not in a position to comment on it. the iranian authorities do use confessions. they, for example, asked people to say on the television that yes, they were incited by voice or or of america or the bbc, but

whether they would go that far to blacken mousavi in that way, it's not clear to me whether they would. host: back to the phones. orchard park, new york. carl on the line for democrats. caller: yes, mr. ambassador, you're very familiar with iran, obviously, and the squeography of iran and we've heard for the last few years, especially the 8 years of the bush administration, and the right wing elements in israel that perhaps we should bomb, carpet bomb, the nuclear facilities if they confine them in iran, and as a former ambassador there, is it not true that if the west gave israel the green light or actually participated in a bombing of the so-called nuclear facilities, wouldn't iran

immediately, with their mobile missile systems, totally blockade the strait of hormuz, which would shut off about 50% of the world's oil, raise the price of oil up to $400 or $500 a barrel, and in addition, free up the revoluntionary volunteers from iran to take on our $130,000-member army currently next door in iraq and next door in afghanistan? host: ambassador dalton. guest: i agree with you the consequences of a strike on iranian nuclear facilities in the present circumstances could be much as you suggest. it would be an extremely negative and dangerous thing to do, but there's an underlying issue here which needs more examination, and i would like to refer you, if you're interested,

to the reports, which have been published. in that report last november, we did set out the international legal considerations which should be present in the minds of any country who is suggesting bombing iran. in brief, there has to be an imminent threat from a country before its lawful to take action against them in the way that you suggest, and there is no such imminent threat from iran. host: last call comes from joplin, missouri. carl on our line for independents. go ahead. caller: good morning, y'all. i have a question from the iranian election. in the bbc u.k. i was reading about the poll that was done by

the bbc and abc one week before the election throughout iran, and it showed that ahmadinejad would win about been by about 2 to 1, which is about what the election rolled out to. also, before the bbc journal of the you -- before the bbc journalists were kicked out of iran, on the bbc u.k., i saw a clip of an interview with one of the young women that was in the protest movement, and she made a comment that that the media had it wong. they weren't protesting the government. women are protesting for equal rights. the young women want equal rights with men. you know, they're tired of riding at the back of the bus, and basically the policies of

ahmadinejad, they see as constricting the economy of iran . guest: you're right that the importance of women in the political movements of iran is broad based. there is a wide range of concern including rights, the economy, a better life for their families, including the fact that men haven't always done thite thing in that country and that a different political system could do better for all its people. i believe that the women in iran are going to remain in the vanguard of movements to improve conditions for much for everyone. host: the report that sir richard was talking about can be found at chatham house.org.uk and that is hyperlinked through

our website. chatham house, by the way, is the brit issuee equivalent of an american research think tank and was founded in 1920 and granted royal charter in 1926. thank you very much for being on the show, sir. guest: thank you. host: he we want to tell you about what is coming up later, we will be talking with joseph stiglitz, former world bank chief economist. he is here to talk to us about the future of the american capitalism, and then we will talk with ron fair chiel. national center for summer learning. he will talk to us about improving summer learning. we'll be right back. as this year's supreme court comes to an end, listen to the

review of the decisions handed out this past year. live coverage on c-span this morning at 9:00 eastern. >> there are two sides to conversation. should you drill or not drill? historian douglas brinkly on teddy roosevelt and his leading role in the early days of the conner is ation movement. >> he was op op not by modern terms a holistic, you know -- he was he believed in hunting, but he did not believe in hunting so you make a species extinct. yes, he cared about butterflies. he cared about wildflowers. he wanted to make sure we had a place for that in modern society. >> sunday on q&a, part two on the wilderness warrior, thee theodore roosevelt and the

crusade for america. download the c-span podcast and watch part one of our interview with douglas brinkley at c-span.org. host: joining us from new york to talk about the future of american capitalism is joseph stiglitz, and he has an article in the july issue of "vanity fair" magazine called "wall street's toxic message." when the current crisis is over, the reputation of american-tile scap capitalism will have taken a beating, because of what washington practices and what it preaches. disillusioned developing nations may turn their backs on free markets warning nobel laureate joseph stiglitz. what is the message of this article and request do you say that wall street is accepted

ing? >> the problem is the way that we manage capitalism american-style is very different from the way we have been telling other countries to behave, an and let's go back to the crisis in east asia a little over a decade ago. at that time, we said very explicitly, aze interest rates, cut back extend tours, get your deficit down. don't bail out the banks. you have to be tough on them, and have good regulation, but then, of course, what did we do? we deregulated. when a crisis came to the united states, we brought interest rates down to zero. we had a huge stimulus package. now, i think some of the things

we're doing are the right things. the stimulus package was right. the way we bailed out our banks, though, costing american taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars was outrage scwus. they've seen this kind of inconsistency and they're asking questions. this comes on a history of inconsistency where, for instance, we talk about free trade, but we subsidize our agriculture to the tune of billions of dollars. we talk about free markets, but then we go bailing out our banks, and our auto industry, so the crisis has sort of brought to the foar a whole set of issues of hypocrisy on the part of the u.s. government, and i think it has taken away a lot of its credibility, but it is also the failure of american-style capitalism to

take away a lot of the credibility. it was put forward as a model, the american banks were a model of banks everywhere to follow. no one believes thatted to. host: in your article, you right in america, calling someone a socialist may be nothing more than a cheap shot. in much of the world, however, the battle between capitalism and socialism or at least something that many americans would label as socialism still rages. in the interest of this particular conversation, how would you define socialism and why the battle rages between american capitalism and world socialism? guest: that's a good question, because the word "socialism" is not a very well-defined concept, and it has a lot of different meanings to different people. in the next sentence, i was trying to highlight the fact that we tend to think of it in a

very negative way and much of the rest of the world doesn't think of it that way. there is a joke going around now that just like china was trying to become a market economy with chinese characteristics, our big bailouts of the banks is socialism, with american characteristics, but those in china, when i gave that -- mentioned that said no, no, you don't understand, that is not socialism, because socialism is about helping oordz necessary people. what you did in helping the banks and bailing them out was really corporate welfarism. the question here is, what is the role of the government in our economy? that has been what the battle is about. we know that the extreme version where a communism didn't work, where the government was trying to run everything, but in this

crisis, the private sector came running to the government and asking for literally trillions of dollars in guarantees, and money and bailouts. a very strong role of government in the economy. we aren't using that term, but clearly this crisis has blurred all lines, all kinds of discussions of that kind. host: we're talking about the future of american capitalism with joseph stiglitz, former world bank economist and author of "wall street toxic message" in the july issue of "vanity fair." if you would like to get involved in the conversations -- if you have called us in the last 30 days, send us an e-mail at journal@c-span.org or send us

a twitter. the address is c-spanwj. our first call comes from beacon falls, connecticut on our line for end the pents from mow -- from on on our behind for ippedz pents. go ahead. caller: how can we call it capitalism when we bail out the big banks an big insurance companies? guest: that was exactly the point i was trying to make is that these lines of capitalism and socialism have really been blurred. we would like to see -- many americans want to he see these things as very bright lines. they're not. the critical policy question is what should the role of government be, and i think one of the problems is that we have a government doing what it should be doing and not what it should be doing and doing what it shouldn't be doing, and so under the label of capitalism or

socialism, we we are have really not directed the questions where they ought to be. for instance, in my own mind, it is very important that the government have responsibility to make sure that everyone has a certain basic level of social protection, and access to health insurance, particularly children, but it wasn't until very recently that we said children ought to have the right to access to health regardless of the well being of their parents. president bush had veet he towed the bill to provide health care for poor children saying we couldn't afford it. a little bit later, a few weeks, months later, he found hundreds of billions of dollars to help sick banks. does that make sense? helping sick banks but not helping sick children? host: let's take this call from

columbia, south carolina. joe on the line for republicans. you're on with joseph stiglitz. guest: i don't know how you can't say that the government wasn't responsible for this meltdown. they encouraged loans, and they did everything to make fair life and easy, not easy but fair for everyone. when they did that, they promoted no money down home loans for people who had no money, and that is what caused fannie mae and freddie mac. they forced the banks in large part to do this. i'm not saying the banks are responsible, but your world of the precious government and how great and righteous they are whoas me away. i would rather have a free market operating and the wealth it produces over time than a spiteful government controlled program that you're mentioning, and sure, every 40 years real estate hiccups and people go crazy in it. i don't know how you ever get

around that, but the point is that the glassman bill and repeal of it by clinton was the problem of this thing created by a democrat who deregulated the financial markets and caused the likes of big banks like what cove ya an bank of -- like what cove ya and bank of america to come out of that. guest: you're right deregulation was a mistake. banks are backed up by deposit insurance. the notion that you could run a banking system without regulation sometimes called fro banking is an idea that has been shown over and over again not to work. the last experience in free banking was down in chile with pin shea.

it was a disaster to that country, almost a quarter century to pay back the debt that resulted from that. we didn't learn those lessons and we deregulated. p it was bipartisan. it was both partyies taken up in this ewe foreya over deregulation. the basic point is that there needs to be a balance between the government and the market, and that balance was lost. now, in terms of encouraging homeownership, yes, the government did encourage homeownership, but it never told banks go out and lend money beyond their ability to pay. it never encouraged predatory lending, and it was clear that the banks with engaged in predatory lending or at least some of them. there were efforts made to stop that predatory lending, but those in the financial sector were making so much money, used all the political pulls they

could to stop this legislation to restrict predatory lending. the irony, of course, is that the banks have been bitten by their own greed. they have been hoisted by their own greed. that is one of the lessons of this crisis. excess greed does have its consequences. host: could the american banking system and the world economy have survived from the funds from tarp and the federal he reserve without collapsing? guest: well, the question was whether there were other ways of protecting the banks. one of the things that could have easily have been done is to use what he we call playing by the rules, when a company goes into trouble, the shareholders lose their money. the bondholders get converted