shouldn't stand up for women's rights, for example, in iran. doesn't mean we shouldn't decry segregation. we shouldn't decry various aspects of civil rights that are abused. but it also doesn't mean that we should try to impose our way of life and our thinking and our ideology on other people without taking into consideration that there's a culture there that is proud, that needs to evolve in its own way and its own time. and whatever changes come to the government, whatever changes in terms of the political system happened, have to happen internally. they can't happen because we want them to happen. that's just not going to happen with iran. you know, we tried that in iraq. and we were able to bring about the change in iraq. but i think in the long-term when we look at it, there are few people who are going to say that for america -- maybe for the iraqi people 50 years from now they'll say thank god the americans removed saddam hussein because we got what we wanted in the end.

that may be true. but for america, i don't think america is going to get what it wants out of iraq or has gotten what it wants out of iraq. and certainly not at the cost -- and i don't mean financial, in terms of american interest and the number of dead and wounded we had from the conflict. for america, it's never going to have been worth it. i think when it comes to iran, we have to look at these things i touched upon. but i think we can't obsess about one thing or another and have to really think about whether we as a country want to forget about the hostage crisis, have the iranians forget about 1953 and move forward and say, look, we will recognize your grievances, you recognize our grievances. we recognize we will never have complete agreement on everything, but there are areas where we do have agreement where we do think we can come to

some sort of agreement. and those are whether it's syria, whether it's lebanon, iraq afghanistan. where we could actually sit down and negotiate with the iranian people. and then once we negotiate and we come to some sort of agreement and the nuclear issue, after that we can then say okay now we have an issue with your human rights record. but at least we've gotten this other issue out of the way and we can con tencentrate on building better ties and helping the iranian democratic movement inside iran that right now we can't help in any way. in fact, if we ever try to help them, they are tarred with a brush of being foreign agents. and, you know, a country under threat is always going to feel that it needs to be more -- to be less willing to give in than a country that's not under threat.

so, anyway, i'm going to stop talking and start taking questions. and i believe there's -- >> speakers include michael ledeen, a critic who was working with opposition groups. we look at the prospect of human rights reform under current irony president -- current iranian president. >> let me start with you. what is your sense of what is going on in iran right now? particularly, the people think it is wonderful -- the president is a reformer. he is making things much better. 2009 uprising is over and done with. they're satisfied with what is going on. are they supportive of what is the weapons program? what do we know?

>> when it comes to the source of our information, we need to remember iran is not like north korea. it is a country where censorship is a play with a press however if you are in iran, you have the opportunity to get information from a variety of media -- in spite of the fact that all those media are censored by the government. particularly, if we look at the smaller circulation magazines and journals, special economic newspapers, iran is just like america. most people do not read economic newspapers. the first thing you do is to read economic newspapers to get all the information. but this is something you should do every day, take a look at specialist journals and magazines -- particularly those of the revolutionary guard.

they have a weekly publication which expresses the political line of the leadership of the revolution, and you have on the other hand, a newspaper daily that expresses the viewpoints of others. and all the other newspapers are in the middle. there are different sources we can console. it does not reflect the broader public, they give us extremely important insights into the thinking of different elite groups. within the family of the ruling clans of the republic, those of you who are fans of godfather think of the group as the corleone -- maneuvering other groups. there is nothing to do with liberalizing, it is nothing to do with democracy, it has absolutely nothing to do with opening up the economy of iran.

it a lot to do with taking privileges away from the revolution and back to the first generation of the islamic republic. the clan allowed him. >> david, you might want to discuss in this regard, relatedly, your confrontation with foreign minister is a. david: a few months ago, i attended a lunch with the foreign minister. and a few other people. after lunch, i approached him and asked him if he thought it was ironic when he enjoys facing facebook when his government bans it. he replied, that is like. [laughter] that is worth for word what he said. when will the most famous political prisoner be free?

he said, i do not know that is. i publish this on "the daily beast." and he got picked up from there. thousands of iranians wrote the foreign minister on facebook. after a lot of pressure internally and globally, was picked up widely, they when the media pressure die down he was put back into prison. it was my 15 or 20 minute debate/discussion with the u.n. prime minister. why approached him them with the same issues, why does he get to post on facebook when it is banned, he said are the facebook and twitter banned in iran? i listed political prisoners.

have you ever heard? she's the only one i've heard of. the only reason is because her name is constantly in the media which i thought was instructive. he is probably lying about the others. it is a testament to the power of the international media to raise these names. he sounded and i do not exaggerate like a cross between mother teresa and gandhi. in his telling there is no government on the planet more dedicated to peace and freedom and democracy and justice, and it is sad to report that he is succeeding in convincing much of the world's governments and media, and when i left the lunch , a renowned journalist turned to me and said his and he just

so wonderful? there were few difficult questions. these are the sorts of situations i hope to change. any time an iranian diplomat steps outside of his office he should be confronted with the names of the political prisoners. i think there's a direct link to how much pressure we put on this vicious theocratic regime and how much they open. the fact that even in today's age they let tave coley out of prison even for a week after this international outcry says that the same model used for soviet dissidents to raise the international pressure is still effective. i used to work for one of the government officials. and they said why did you release shir an ski? and he said everywhere i went the only thing they would talk with me about is shirnski. i went to canada and no one

would speak about agriculture. the only they would talk about is lacquered. you can ask about they would bring up their names and that had a real effect on soviet policy. so that was just one small confrontation but one that we can all be part of recreating over and over so we don't let the regime get away with their absolutely absurd narrative that things are getting better when there are still thousands of people in prison. >> go ahead. >> i just want to say this goes to people don't get the importance of what david's talking about.

but even during the holocaust european countries found -- all the danes who were very good at this, found that when people wrote letters to concentration camp prisoners, sent them presents, wrote them post cards, whatever, that they had a much better survival rate than people who didn't get attention. and that was because in part writing to them, calling them out, naming them, putting their names on lists given to foreign ministers and so on removes the cloak of anonymity from them because it is much easier for regimes to kill anonymous people than it is to kill people who have real names and real faces and people out there in the world who are calling attention to them. this has worked over and over and over again. >> i want to press all of you on this in a way. it strikes me that letters to officials would probably not have saved james foley.

at the same time, it also seems to me that among organizations that are identifyably and self-identifyably jihaddists whether the islamic state or republic, there are common goals, common themes even if there are different strategies. how do we understand that? do we say the iranian regime is much more moderate than the islamic state? it puts journalists in prison but doesn't cut their heads off. we should recognize that and talk about that as progress? or, should we see all these various self-proclaimed jihaddist groups as essentially similar even if their strategies are different? ali alfoneh: one of the issues i

think the iranian government one of the things they really want to avoid is diplomatic isolation. they really fear. and what they have been particularly happy about when it comes to nuclear negotiations is that they genuinely believe that if they give some tactical concessions in the nuclear issue nobody would care talking about human rights situations in iran. and this is a policy that they have been pursuing. these are the statements that mr. ham ni himself is making in public. and it is also some of the threats that he is making against the u.s. government saying that if we accept your nuclear terms do not come after us with the human rights issues. the answer of the obama administration and i think all civilized governments in the world is no there is actually a connection between the nuclear issue and human rights questions. how a regime treats its own

population at home also relates to the way it would behave in international and political settings. and this is the connection i think that we really need to make here in the west and not only apply if you reach with your contractual obligations. there is also something called human rights and do not forget the u.s. got and the u.s. president has on many, many occasions made direct addresses to the the iranian public. how do you think the iranian public would feel if they are totally abandoned by washington and washington only cares when it comes to nuclear issues? it is a very, very important message that washington needs to send. to the iran government and to the iranian public. >> i would say the supporting dissidents is not just a moral issue it's a strategic issue as well. faufl was say famous for saying there can be no peace inside of countries until there is peace in how it treats its people. and iran torturing and jailing dissidents will treat its enemies with mag anymorety is a

rather silly contention. but the way it was used in the soviet context was it was a tool to end the soviet union. and so too it can be used in the iranian context. and we -- when you look at the boldness of someone like senator jackson who confronted the soviet union and directly linked most favored status, that was a tool which drove them absolutely crazy. and if you read the memoirs of these guys, you see that when carter or reagan would bring up the names of dissidents, they really hated it. and i think that's one sign that it's the right approach. i think that human rights is a real achilles heel of the iranian regime because they are depend bt upon external actors to some degree.

their economy is being hit hard. and i think if we understand this human rights issue not just as the right thing to do morally but that opening up this closed society is absolutely critical to the peace and stability of the region, we'll begin to utilize it as a tool in the war against dictatorship. michael ledeen: i've been writing this for 30 years that there's a real identity, and i think david put it exactly right. this is an identity between moral imperatives and strategic sexaretives. -- strategic imperatives. it's rare that you find such a perfect fit of one to the other. and the degree to which the myth of rouhani has been created along the same lines as the myth of gorbachev. it's a real throwback for me.

because i remember back in those days as one soviet dictator after another emerged they were always had their loveable human aspects. they liked jazz, they were -- they had been head of the kgb bot. there was a human element to them and so on. rouhani is a man of the system. he is a pure product of the system. he came of age in it, he worked in it all his life. he's always bone a loyal servant of the system itself. and now here he is at the top and people don't talk much about what he is really all about and what he really wants. why does he take all these different positions? because the main game that's being played inside iran right now among the various factions who are contending among one

another is who is going to succeed ham ni? he is believed to be sick. he's truly died long since if he is anywhere near as sick as the stories say he is. but anyway, people think he's sick and no one would be surprised, let's put it this way, quietly, carefully, no one would be surprised if he dropped dead tomorrow. so all these various characters, the rouhani, the auckland in the they're al maneuvering for the succession. that's what i've called the war of the person succession. they are trying to make sure. rouhani is basically acquiring support everywhere. that means that each individual faction has greater autonomy and has greater run at its own enemies. and that is why in part -- i mean, his government is setting

records for executions torture's, censures -- so on and so forth. worse than nidgejad who was the stereo type of the nasty vicious hard liner. and rue han aeie who is the stereo type of the angel child mulea is objectively by any measure worse, much worse. so this tells us among other things that there are these fractures inside. i want to make one point about what we know and what we don't know, since you started with that, about the known unknowns. in iran there are a lot of known unknowns. if you just look at our history in anticipating internal developments inside the country, look at the big uprising of 2009 which was bigger than the uprising that overthrew the shah in 1979.

more people in the streets covered larger areas of the country, so on and so forth. i think it's fair to say that no one inside government saw that coming. no one in serious position either to make policy or affect policy. they were amazed. because up until then the conventional wisdom had been there is no opposition of any standing or significance inside iran. and even if it exist t they don't have leaders that people are going to follow. so it doesn't matter. just forget about it. there isn't going to be insurrection. then people said of course it was there. we knew it was there. it was there all along. you could see it. and of course blah blah blah. and then they added. and it's irresistable. if you go back and read the press of 2009, june and onwards, you'll see that the intelligence community and the policy making

community, they are saying we don't have to do anything because these people are irresistable. look at them all. they're going to win. it's sort of a precurser of the assad is going to fall. no, assad is going to win. no, assad is going to fall. no assad is going to win. types of conventional wisdoms. so the bottom line, we don't know. we didn't know in 2009. and we don't know today. what we do know is that the regime acts as if there was something serious to be afraid of. we can say that. this increase in slaughter and mayhem, the increase in censorship, all of that, that bespeaks a regime which doesn't think it has control and which this -- so whenever more than three people gather on a street corner in any major street in the country, they're either broken up, beaten up, or sent home or whatever.

>>david keyes:clifford may: michael, you talked about record numbers of executions, incarcerations. i guarantee you that most people don't know that, most people think we are in a period of post ahmadinejad of reform and moderation. if you simply read the media as i suggested earlier i think you would get that impression. maybe if you come to think tanks you would have a different understanding. does that not suggest -- let me start with ali on this, that the regime is doing very well on public relations, in fact it's winning the public relations war right now and perhaps the media is not doing their job in terms of covering iran? >> absolutely. i think it's very clear, if you compare rouhani to his predecessor, mr. ahmadinejad, mr.

are you hani is a sophisticated man. he speaks like a lawyer. he's a trained lawyer. mr. ahmadinejad was an engineer but spoke like a truck driver. rouhani is in silk robes. these are some of the findings of this government. mr. ahmadinejad managed to isolate iran diplomatically. they are in reality bringing iran out of diplomatic isolation. so yes they are succeeding and the western media is not paying the attention they should. they should to begin with start reading what he has said all over the years. back in 1999, iran, the islamic republic, experienced ets most serious political unrest. that was the tehran university unrest which spread to the

entire country which politician do you think it was who went to the public and supported the revolutionary guard and the police suppression of the students movement? mr. rouhani, who systemically called the iranian students foreign agents. it was he who systemically as chairman of the supreme national security council was banning newspapers and now people are expecting that he of all the people is going to allow freedom of the press? why? why? this is why i believe is david the mistake of the western press that they do not pay attention. they do not take a look at the history of those individuals. therefore, they have expectations which is totally immature. some younger people in tehran have these kind of expectations. this is why they voted for him. but you cannot blame them. they are young and naive.

here in washington people are not so young but naive. this is one of the complaints that i have when it comes to u.s. government view of the rouhani cabinet. david keyes: i think the regime has succeeded in making 98% of the discourse of the nuclear issue, maybe even higher, and convinced the west is how to prevent iran from getting nuke -- nuclear weapons. without nuclear weapons, with purely conventional arms hundreds of millions of people have been killed in the last 150 years. 200,000 people slaughtered in syria, 800,000 in rwanda, tens of millions in world war ii. so i think we need to dramatically and unequivocally restore the focus to the human rights question. when his wife was touring the state department one time in the 80's she would tell a story that there was a huge map on the wall