the type of relationship that would develop would be one that would be based on the broader national interests. and then the question also becomes, you know, there are various elements in iran that are operating maritime forces and you know, with whom would the relationship be? that's a decision that really i believe is part of the broader diplomatic context and and, you know, we will conform to whatever the commander in chief would require. >> admiral, thank you very much for your time. >> thanks a lot. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2009]

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> coming up, a discussion about the political effects of the iran presidential lks and then "washington journal" and later live coverage of president obama's town hall meeting on health care. on this morning's "washington journal" a look at minnesota's senate race with eric mcpike. pollster peter brown with data on american opinions about health care. randal johnson from the u.s. chamber of commerce and the chief economist from the national association of realtors, lawrence yun. coming up on thursday, martha radditz from abc news. on saturday's program, ken

silverstein on the employee free choice act and washington times editorial page editor. on monday, hen we waxman. "washington journal" is live every day at 7:00 a.m. eastern. >> this holiday weekend on book tv discover an unfamiliar side of our nation's first president as we're live from george washington's mount vernon estate. join our three-hour conversation sunday on "in depth." part of our three-day holiday weekend starting friday morning on c-span 2's book tv m >> here is a look at the recent presidential election in iran and its political consequences. this panel includes middle east analysts and the political editor for a united arab

emirates newspaper. this lasts two hours. >> good afternoon. i'm sam wells, a sune major scholar here at the wilson center. i would like to welcome you to a session on the iranian presidential elections. what do they tell us? a lot of interpretations. more than there are bits of evidence and they frankly are all over the map but we hope that our four speakers today will give us some patterns and clarification on what we should make of this important election in the islamic republic of iran. among the things that i hope they will address are is the

election really as significant as the media in the united states and in europe has made it out to be? that is opposition to the regime been broadly enough based that it can survive repression, that it can continue to work even behind the scenes? is compromise possible or desired by the leadership? and ultimately, if, as the guardian council's validation of the election yesterday seems to indicate, mahmoud ahmadinejad continues in office. what are the implications both for the stability of the regime and for foreign policy? you've had available to you the biographies of the speakers, i won't go into those in any detail. let me first say that our

initial speaker is robin wright, long-time international journalist, "los angeles times" now a public policy scholar here at the center and one of our most valued experts on the middle east. robin? >> thank you, very much. for those of you that were here when we did our re- plex presentation i ended my powerpoint with this slide. i didn't realize how explosive this election potentially was going to be. so where are we? the first week was clearly a political showdown over disputed election that declared mahmoud ahmadinejad the winner. the second week was about a physical confrontation as the protests continued and as the state began to clamp down and most importantly as the flashpoint shefted from the election to the powers of the supreme leefered. now we're into the third week in

what i call the sorting out process both little politically and on the streets. i have 10 bottom lines to offer and three guidelines to what will happen next. my first bottom line is a regime that came to power through a brutal revolution through a country suspected of developing a technique weapons program faced its biggest damage in 30 years from peaceful civil disobedience. it was a stunning precedence for iran and the entire middle east. iran's uprising needs to be understood, i think, however in a global context. the past 20 days fits into a broader historic pattern. the largest public demonstration since 1979 forced the regime to face the same ideals that have swept across five continents

over the past 20 years. accountability, transparency and issues of justice. the outside world has focused on how tech-savvy iranians use twitter and facebook in their protests but the same technology also has educated iranians for many years about what's happening elsewhere in the world and many very much want to be part of the 21st century. in many ways, some kind of challenge was also inevitable given iran's modern history. for a century, iranians have been trail blazers, political trail blazers, both in the region and in the wider 57 nations of the islamic block. their quest for empowerment has played out in four different phases. from 1905 to 1911 there was a

constitutional rebellion. the very first of its kind. it forces the dynasty to accept a constitution and iran's first parliament. in 1953 the democratically elected national front coalition of four parties pushed constitutional democracy and forced the last shah to flee to rome. in 1979 yet another coalition mobilized on the streets to end dine arrestic rule. it has been unleashed in peaceful demonstrations is the natural sequel in this stream of events. each of the first three phase left indelible imprints that in some way opened up iranian politics and defined what follow and i think this fourth phase

will too. today's opposition movement is very distinct from the 1999 student protests which failed becausette involved only one sector of society and it was a body without a head or a strategy. in contrast, you look at the variety of people who turned out on the streets, the cogs is the most powerful since -- coalition is the most powerful since the revolution. it includes people of all ages and classes. youth that make up the democratic majority in iran. feisty women, again trail blazers in the wider islamic world. sanctions, businessmen, two former presidents and a prime minister, taxi drives. members of the national soccer team and senior citizens. one of the most interesting things is the role of the clergy in all of this.

several have spoken out adding lenltmassy to the challenge. ayatollah who would have been prime minister had he not decided to speak out months before has issued a fatwa. dismissing the election results and urging iranians to reclaim their dues in calm protests. he warned security forces not to follow orders that might later lead them to be condemned by god. today he wrote censorship and communication lines cannot hide the truth. another outspoken cleric told the guardian council that we must hear the objections that the protesters sa v to the elections. we must let them speak.

another ayatollah expressed abhorrence to those behind the violence. he said what belongs to the people should be given to the people. the wishes of the people should be respected by the states. another grand ayatollah said the protests were both lawful and islamic and he, too, warned the security forces that it is against islam to attack unarmed people. most seen or clerics have, in fact, been noticeably silent in either endorsing mahmoud ahmadinejad before the election or embracing him afterwards and most clerics in the holy city have never backed an islamic republic and i think that we're seeing many of those objections play out in this election. an even more powerful coalition has backed mahmoud ahmadinejad

led by the supreme leader. the regime has also unleashed the tools of the state to support their choice with no holds barred. the paramilitary religious vigilantes have become more powerful than at any time since their creation after the revolution. generally iran has not witnessed this scope of brutality again since the chaotic early days of the revolution. the regime strategy is three-fold. one to rebuff all allegations of fraud. the council of guardians has now given its stamp of approval. second, they are trying to divide and conquer, to break up groups that dare to take to the streets into small groups to prevent anyone from taking cell phone videos or pictures of large crowd gathering and three to pick up the people around mir

hossein mousavi and the protesters. this is a website where the regime is using the same technology the students are, putting up pictures of the people in demonstrations and asking people to send in any i dentification and several have stamped across them identified. they know who they are. the political divide? iran is now a full-scale schism. there are people who once served in the shaw's jails together. i think it will be very hard to recreate that kind of unit any time in the near future. the one thing we need to remember is that the protests were not a counter revolution. the opposition is not talking about ending the islamic republic. they are talking about instead

of what it should be, how to reform it. how to refind and how to make its officials more accountable. the core issues, in fact, are not new. this little word here says republic or republicanism. the main flashpoint in this confrontation really goes back to the early days of the revolution between the ideal ogues. they say it should be a redeemer state. restoring islamic purity in iran and across the 57 nations of the islamic block and creating a new islamic body to challenge boast east and west. -- both east and west. the realists argued iran should seek legitimacy by creating a capable islamic state by

institutionalizing. they wanted one that was capable of interacting with the outside world. the bottom line issued today is really whether to give priority to the revolution or to the state. whether the islamic republic is first and foremost islamic or a republic. that issue played out again in the campaign this year wh mahmoud ahmadinejad championing the idea of the original revolutiony vision and mir hossein mousavi campaigning for the need to create a viable and practical state. the same issues are central to the post-election turmoil msm in a later statement he warned that the large amount of cheating and vote-rigging has begun to kill the idea that islam and republicanism are compatible. i think we need to be clear that

neither the opposition leadership nor the demonstrators are rejecting the role of islam in the state. the rallying call today is still god is great. they simply envision a different role for islam and the state. my final bottom line is where does that leave us? well, the regime has never been so vulnerable and the idea of a supreme leader, an infallible political pope now faces a real challenge of legitimacy and there is no resolution in sight. so what's next? there are three factors that will determine the future. leadership, unity and momentum. leadership is where the opposition is the most vulnerable. the still unanswered question, is whether mir hossein mousavi can lead this new opposition long-term. the answer remains unclear.

he was always an accidental leader. the product of public sentiment, favoring reform. he was not the founder of it anymore than the former president was in 1997. in both elections, iran's savvy voters latched on to a figure who promised some degree of political, economic and social openings and who had a prospect of winning. i think if mir hossein mousavi does not demonstrate more visible leadership soon the opposition may begin to look elsewhere. there is probably a window of opportunity for him to act. and he has been increasingly less visible over the past week. the third issue is unity and this is where the regime is most vulnerable. many in the government have to be worried about the long-term cost of a crackdown. parliament has yet to get more deeply involved.

sorry, has begun to get more deeply involved, both in attempts at reconciliation and in outspoken criticism. i'm really sorry, i had this fantastic video of a little speech given by a member of parliament, angry, getting some angry and worked up, his turbine keeps falling off and he has to put it back on his head. i haven't seen it reports anywhere, justs in the last few days. i think it is very striking this played out in parliament. this is also where the speaker in parliament, himself, a former presidential candidate could emerge as an interesting player. so far he has straddled both sides. he was seen here with mahmoud ahmadinejad. he is the man bowing forward at this speech given by the supreme

leader but he has also since then indicated some concern about what is playing out on the streets. the security services are another area to monitor. the besiege -- the regime's most loyal instrument. but it will be very interesting to see what plays out among the police. this is one of many pictures of how a protester is trying to help and there is a sequence of pictures to this so we know it is true to help this policeman who has been injured. we have lots of storyors policeman indicating to protesters that they don't want to hurt them, would they please leave so they don't have to act. i think there are even some questions about the revolutionary guards. not the commanders the rank and file. in 1997 the regime did a poll among the revolutionary guards to find out how they voted and they found that 84% voted for the reform candidate.

we have to remember that most of the guards are rank and file, doing their national service and many prefer to do the revolutionary guards because they get off at 2:30 and can then get a second job. the third issue is momentum and how the opposition movement manages to sustain itself. this is my last point and i think this is going to be the trickiest part because as we have already seen, the momentum has begun to slow significantly. you know, there are the morning cycles. this is the picture of neta who was the young woman, student who was shot in the streets and whose death, this is her grave, marked the emergence of a kind of heroic figure to the revolution. but because the very tactics of mourning were used originally by the revolutionries to propel the

protests against shah, they have begun to clamp down on the types of engine that might create momentum. they have refused to allow public demonstrations and mourning for neta when she died. my last bottom line is i think the genie is out of the bottle. i think it will be impossible to put back. it can be repressed for now, for long term but i don't think there is a way that we can go back to what happened at the beginning of june. thank you. >> thank you very much, robin. two nouments that i neglected to make at the start since we are being webcast and broadcast live on c-span, i would like to ask people to turn off mobile devices, cell phones, pagers and such. because it does interfere with transmission and i would like to let the people in our overflow

space know that we will take questions from you. there will be some paper available for you to write questions which will be conveyed to me and we will work you into the discussion in our second hour. the next president is by a faculty member in political science at the university of hawaii and a scholar, former scholar here at the center, a frequent visitor to our sessions and someone we always welcome back. >> thank you so much. thank you for being here. thank you, everybody, for being here. i'm going to pick up on where robin left and sort of lay out what i think happened in iran and essentially make an argument that most of us who are sitting here really do not know where

iran is going and that's for good reason. it has to do with the fact that the iranian leaders themselves probably don't know where they are going at this point. i'm going to make an argument that this is a very improvised game and moment in iranian history and we are probably better off sitting down watching than trying to analyze the situation on a minute-by-minute basis to try to see which direction to go. let me begin by saying that the crisis that has engulfed iran since its election is without a doubt the most significant events in the 30-year history over the islamic republic as far as i'm concerned. with the exception of the revolution itself, the deeply restructured, the political map of the country, no other event, including and we're talking

about big events in the islamic republic, the iran/iraq war. in 1929 revamping of the revolution. turning the office of the leadership from a regular office of leadership into into an absolute office of leadership and created the expediencey council because of the conflicts that existed in the country or the rise of the reformist politics. none of these events have been as significant as far as i can tell and as far as i'm concerned, the significance of these events lie in the fact that throughout its life the islamic republic has relied on two basic institutions to manage and moderate political conflicts and fundamental conflicts. and those institutions where elections and the office of the -- and in this situation, both

of those institutions faded and fade significantly -- failed and failed significantly and miserably. elections, amazingly the 29th, this election was the 29th. that we just witnessed in the islamic republics. 30th -- 30-year history have been a matter of choice to manage mass participation while the office has been the ultimate overseeing arena where competition is regulate and negotiated. not necessarily totally managed because this competition goes out of control every once in a while but that office ultimately is the body that comes in and negotiates and tries to find a new balance. as i said, in this crisis, both of these institutions, irexpective of whether there was fraud or perception of it, this

election was not only fraudulent, it was totally cook, that the numbers were just made up. i'm happy to defend that position if there are questions. no matter whether they were fraudulent or there is a perception of fraud, this election was mishandled. eye is gantically and ultimately failed to temper conflict and both of these institutions ended up heighten and inciting them further. i'm from hawaii. i had to stay away past midnight to watch live him speak and my mouth was open and i could not believe that he would actually go on television and incite the public to go into the streets the way he did and that is a role that the leadership in iran

has not played. or has not tried to play. so the failure of these two institutions was the direct cause of street confrontation and violence, which as far as i'm concerned is politics by other means but the iranian election is still continuing and will continue as far as i can tell for a while. in the process, as robin pointed out, the damage has been done to the legitimacy will either have to be repaired in serious ways or perhaps face these institutions will have to face serious consequences. and with results for the future structure of power. either elections will become totally meaningless in iran, for instance, or the way they are conducted have to be repaired in serious ways. in short, such cosmetic and in

some ways amusing efforts, for example, today by the guardian council to open and read the ballots of 10% of poll boxes on national television when no one knows where those boxes have been for the past two weeks are really silly exercises in trying to repair the damage to the legitimacy of the system but the fact that they are doing so suggests that they fully understand that something serious has happened and at least they have they have to put a show on. while the events are seen as uncertain and often imped outcome no matter which direction they take us, one thing is certain and that is that the election was seriously mismanaged and mishandled and both sides miscalculated and

underestimates their opponent's power and capacities. let me begin with the reformists. the so-called anti-mahmoud ahmadinejad front and their miscalculation. the miscalculation on the part of the expanded ranks of the iranian elite who stood behind mir hossein mousavi was the belief that manipulation was the name of the game in iran and a given in iranian politics. massive manipulation was unlikely. in that miscalculation i also plead guilty. i really did not think that massive manipulation in iranian politics was a likely thing and in fact, i thought and the reformists thought that this massive manipulation would be a dangerous exercise. hence, it would not be tried for its destabilizing