host: and this is ayatollah khomeini? guest: this is ayatollah khomeini, the sume people leader. a very important service is in tehran at taye an university a number of senior clerics take part and deliver their views. their views are often taken as symptomatic of the views of the leadership of the whole, and particularly the supreme leader. that's not always the case. there are occasionally voices that are different in the friday sermons, but it is taken by the iranian people as what the leadership wants the iranian people to think at the time that that sermon is delivered. host: is the support of the clerics unified? is it total behind them in this situation in this disputed election? >> it clearly isn't. there have been statements by leading clerics, dissenting from the official line, but these are a minority. there has been another group of clerics who have been calling for calm, calling for reconciliation between the groups, who vn sided with one or the other.then there is a larger who will be supporting the supreme leader an president ahmadinejad. we don't know the exact pr

the only kind of appeal is to the supreme court leader, ayatollah khomeini, as mr. musavi has already been appealing him to say do not a allow irregularities to be committed in this election, but mr. yike quiek has made it -- mr. ayatollah khomeini has made it clear that he will not overturn the results, so it seems that there is know official recourse. the only hope that he has is his supporters could also vent their anger about this, so it's a very difficult thing to do in iran with such high security state, and certainly this morning, there were a few protestors, maybe a couple hundred out on the streets in front of the interior ministry. they were dispersed immediately by police, so the hope of a popular uprising in response to this is very minimal. >> we have read news accounts that there is someone who contributed a tweet this morning who said some of the supporters had chashes with the police. would you describe those as clashes or is that going too far? from what i hear, that is correct. i went down to the interior ministry this morning but unfortunately, i

one day before the election, the ayatollah khomeini came out and ensure the public that there would not be fraught -- fraud. reformists' assumed that the same pressures would be at play. the genuine shock expressed by mir hossein mousavi along with the population was a direct result. on the conservative side, the miscalculation occurred in the opposite direction. what they underestimated was the ability of the reformist candidate, particularly the largely on charismatic mir hossein mousavi -- un- charismatic mir hossein mousavi at the time to what they perceive to be a relatively cynical electorate. bacon said more iranians vote and in the united states -- they can say that more iranians vote then in the united states. with a bit of fiddling and manipulation, winning the elections with 60% participation. they knew that with a 60% participation rate, with ahmadinejad popular in the countryside and the rural area, a man of the people, it would not be difficult argument to sell, that he could get 60% of the vote. then he had in fact bought the vote did not matter to them. they thought it w

guest: the ayatollah khomeini when elected as supreme leader did not have the religious credentials that were bestowed upon him in order to make him into this supreme leader. for that he has lost the respect of many of the respected clerics. he does not have the religious wait that in the grand ayatollah in iran should have. because of that he relies heavily on a group of conservative, hard-line clerics and partly also on the instruments of power like the military guards. mr. ahmadinejad also belongs or is affiliated with the same hard-line circles. in one sense they seem to be very closely associated. host: on the flip side, this person for brooklyn and asks if we know what will happen to relations if mr. mousavi comes to power? guest: not being a policy maker i hate to make predictions. the hope is that iran will be more flexible and relaxed in its response and dialogue. but the conflicts that ruled the society right now and have rolled during mr. ahmadinejad's time will not go away. until now mr. mousavi has not been in a position of power since he was prime minister to show whether h

it was 30 years ago on wednesday that the ayatollah khomeini it was toppled the shah who was pro-american, pro-israel, he toppled iran and there were 9 million iranians in streets. the streets of iran were on fire. when khomeini took power and on then on april 1st, 1979 he declared that iran was going to be the first islamic republic. the first country in human history to be governed by shari'a law, by the laws of the koran. now, on that 30th anniversary, iran marked that time, israel had a change of network on the day before. benjamin netten -- nettan yahue was sworn in. i had the privilege for working for him back in the year 2000. i announced i am a failed political consultant. i was on his comeback team in the year 2000. now, do the math. it took nine years for him to come back and when i was with him last year, i noticed he didn't ask me to come back and help him. [laughter] >> so that's why he won. but he faces an extraordinary challenge and i don't envy the role that he has now. his first interview that he gave as prime minister was to the atlantic magazine, an "american" magazine

we forget that ayatollah khomeini dismissed a president, dismissed and ousted in 1980. we had in 1986 the famous merckty affair which was involving the u.s. overture to iran in the context of the iran-contra affair. in which there were many arrests of people close to centers of power. we had the removal of ayatollah month certificate ri as khomeini's designated success accesser in 1989. that seriously shook the regime. we had a serious rift over whether or not to end the iran/iraq war in 1987-'88 when iran was losing, and there were many senior figures that said, no, iran should continue. that was a major rift. in 1999 we had major student riots, several killed. just in 2000 we had -- 2004 we had the council of guardians which vets the candidates, basically disqualified almost all of the major reformist candidates for the parliament, and there were sit-ins and various protests right from within the regime, so the idea of a rift in the regime is new i think is not correct. ayatollah rafsanjani was actually a key figure in many of these rifts. he is a very, very clever ba

when the ayatollah khomeini came back in 1979, he was using cassettes, simple audio cassettes were an instrument of revolution. the world moves. 30 years later, we have the internet, cell phone, satellite dishes, all of this. tyrannies have always depended on the modern age in sealing their populations off from outside influences, socializing, nationalizing if you will, the cornsness of the people. it's impossible, nowadays. simply impossible. furthermore, the median age in iran is 25. half the country is under 25 years old. they are not going to be governed indefinitely bied me neevel -- medieval clerics, it's not going to happen. what we're seeing here is something akin to what happened in the philippines when marcos called an election under intense pressure from ronald reagan and his envoy paul axley, had the election, it was obviously fraudulent, people went in the streets and four days later, he was gone. this is going to take longer than that, but the fact that regime change is coming to iran, is, it seems to me, obvious. host: we had an interesting post with the woman who wrote

has attracted the wrath and lack of admiration of a significant portion of the disciples of ayatollah khomeini, and i think that's what this rift is about. those who were followers of khomeini and implemented khomeini's policies from the time he was in exile in france feel that ahmadinejad is just not worthy of that mantle, of that succession to the presidency and that he has seriously isolated iran to the point where it is hurting economically and vulnerable to economic sanctions. and to go back to some previous questions my view is instead of focusing on changing the regime, that maybe the best focus to achieve u.s. objectives would be to redouble our efforts on the sanctions issues which i think were hurting the regime, particularly last july to the point where perhaps they were reconsidering their strategy on the nuclear issue. >> a question back here. >> sir, you mentioned that 11 million vote would be a lot of fraud, and you said that those people on the streets are not majority of iranian people. what you say to -- >> can't hear you. >> sorry, go ahead. yeah. >> okay. what i'm asking is

successor to ayatollah khomeini who is the real power, all right? and when you hear something about mahmoud ahmadinejad says and he will say some things that sound pretty lobito as i think we need to remember he's not talking to us, he is what we would call shoring up his political base and it's very interesting to me. q1 by about 51% and if we were less easy to demonize, they would have a four more moderate president right now. he's up for reelection again. the only way he is going to win is if we are easy to demonize. i assure the encouragement and miers' helping him in the same way that if there had been a terrorist attack for months ago we would have a different president today. wouldn't you imagine? it is just human nature for people when they are threatened and fearful to go to the hard-liner, and he is a hard liner. .. look for more weeklian and it was very fun to get eye contact. it was called eye fishing. i would go out and do some eye fishing because it takes them a while to shoot this stuff. i get eye contact with somebody and they'd say

. >> tomorrow morning we'll bring you remarks on ayatollah khomeini, the supreme leader of iran. speak about the results of iran's presidential election. that's at 6:00 a.m. eastern here on c-span. then at 7:00 it's washington journal. we'll discuss the capitol hill wrangling over healthcare with mary agnes carrie of kaiser health news and congressman earl plume enaur -- washington journal is live every morning at 7:00 eastern on c-span. >> charles he answer, the president of the chicago federal reserve talks act the economy at the chicago press club on monday. he's been with the fed since 1991, became its president in september 2007. this is 45 minutes. >> thank you, diane. that was a very warm introduction and i truly appreciate it. thanks to corinna for inviting me to speak to the executives club. i have spoken to this group before. this is a tremendous turnout and i'm delighted to be here. when diane asked me to speak i didn't hesitate to accept the invitation. i think it's very important for federal reserve policymakers to use every opportunity to help people understand our

it was 30 years ago on wednesday that the ayatollah khomeini who had toppled -- he had toppled the shahd returned from exile into iran. he had -- there were 9 million iranians in the streets. theee

we and threw him out and brought something to the other side which was a theocracy from by ayatollah khomeini. to a 70 million iranians are born after the islamic revolution meaning they are products of the islamic revolution and this is really -- you learn the textbooks, the professors, everything is working with that system. so, it shapes people's outlook. the theocracy as everywhere. what on the street on every street corner there is a box, literally every street corner. and this says in a farsi script saying put money for the poor, what ever. you leave in your bed in the hotel room, look up at the ceiling and go if i feel like pricing i know exactly where mecca is. there is an arrow. from the tv late at night and go to the top dial's where you might find the shopping channel or cute girls or something like that you get several channels to pray by. there is live mecca, there is babbling brook, there is a big red sunset and its music to pray by and it occurred to me we have and ideologies or, yeah, and ideologies which is economic. the soviet union had a ideologies. to be afloat materially.

well, if you go into a bathroom at ayatollah khomeini's mosque which accommodates a million people you go in the bathroom there's like 30 doors and you don't know which one's available. you have to check each door and they're filthy. i mean, people wash their hands for religious ritual but they just mere stuff around when it comes to cleaning the bathroom. [laughter] >> i'm just telling you my experience. [laughter] >> did you visit a church or synagogue? >> did not visit a church or a synagogue. there's churches and synagogues in my slides. they're all over place. i knew it wouldn't be in the stuff because i didn't want to get in the religious thing. i wanted to know the difference between sunnis and shiites, not how christians were mistreated. i really wanted to understand the dominate religion there. >> any advice for making traveling especially airports easier for someone walking with a cane? >> well, if you have concerns about your physical traveling the most grueling travel anyways is the heat and the crowds of summer. do yourself a huge summer go at the end of the season march o

that is why the issue is between the ayatollah and khomeini and ahmadinejad. i love the picture of the general sitting there. that is why the question of who controls the revolutionary guard is very important. we do not know. but the unity and vulnerability becomes a key issue. it is them fighting over the money they are making. so the outcome will be partially related to who will control the money. thank you. >> thank you very much, fariborz ghadar. our last presentation is by the non reza their research fellow and he will focus his thoughts on the protest and the gulf and a larger region. >> thanks to robin, we know iran is entering a new phase that is probably more diffuse, opaque, and contracted than the previous weeks. in a way, that makes it harder for all the countries in the region, specifically the arab world to have a good sense of what is happening to iran. how this will play out. it is important to examine that at this point, the implications for middle east security and politics, of the profound changes that have affected iran recently. much will