it doesn't fit into a bronze policy joining us in the now as american historian and journalist gareth porter from washington what's your perception here where does iran stand amid widespread turmoil that we're seeing in the middle east. well if you'd asked this question just a few years ago you might have gotten much more of a response that iran is like other middle eastern countries still unstable and subject to possible regime change that of course after the june two thousand and nine election which was contested and after which there was a lot of demonstration of the very large scale demonstrations particularly in tehran itself but that phase of the political history of iran has now passed and it has clearly been able to. sort of right itself in terms of political stability there's no sign of serious instability on the horizon any time in the foreseeable future in iran and therefore it really sort of stands out in the middle east as the one place where you can. see a predictable course of stability over the next few years. and i think that the obama administration undoubtedly recognizes t