thank you, iason.your perspective on coordinatingiesan's work at the time of the election and since then and your own perspective on where we are today and perhaps we can all address the role that the social media played, twitter at the time of the election. there was a lot of question about this, ue tube and how important -- and youtube and how important that was. >> first, let me thank the wilson center. this is where i wrote my books. it's always wonderful to come back here. and thank you, joan, for the work that you're doing, which really is filling in an enormous gap for those of us editors who are trying to fill in our news pages with really interesting and inciteful coverage with a very very limited budget. i always identify with my reporters as a former correspondent. i identified more with iason than with any of my other correspondents. i wanted to be there on the streets with him in iran. i was experiencing, watching it on television, seeing images on facebook, twitter and so on and almost fe

after iason cannot, he continued to cover the story in iran. i think that his perspective on trends in iran and looking at the media coverage and how the media function in a situation where first they were under extraordinary restrictions as to where they could go, what they could do in the immediate aftermath of the election, and then, you had people being arrested, and most of the foreign journalists being taken out of the country so that there were not able to report firsthand. how the report on the situation as it unfolds in that circumstance? so i think we will begin with iason to talk through the experiences that he had and his perspective on iran today, and then we will turn to barbara, also brings tremendous background on the subject to get her perspective as well, and then we'll open it up, i hope, to q&a. >> thank you very much for coming today, and thank you very much for posting me. it is wonderful to be back at the woodrow wilson center. as john mentioned, -- as jon mentioned, we met on my lehman year, which came on the heels of th

as iason pointed out, this third generation is very plugged in. iran has -- what?0% internet usage among the population. it is an extraordinary figure, the highest in the middle east and one of the highest in the world. 80% literacy. this is bound to fail. the question is how long will it take, and how disruptive would be, how bloody will it be? the statements that the iranians have made about starting up new uranium enrichment plants seem like a bomb dust. they have not been able to complete one facility. the facility so has something like 8000 centrifuges, of which only half are really operable right now. it may take years before the facility is completed. they have another one that they started that the west found out about in qom, which is not operational yet. so for ahmadinejad did talk about 10 more, 20 more, whatever, it is really bomb dust, but it is their way of showing the outside world iran will not be pushed around. they're not afraid. they can take sanctions, and they can continue to move on. they figure that obama will not agree to military action aga

so we had iason there. since his experience, i have had to cover iran through stories that come out, a video that comes out. the killing, which i saw on facebook like so many people. i clicked on it, and suddenly watched this horrific video of a young woman being killed. we have pictures still coming out of the protest demonstrations, people taking pictures with cell phone cameras, and they smuggle it out. i have a couple of iranian americans who write for me, who call their friends in iran and do interviews via sky and on the telephone through twitter and facebook -- interviews via skype. hopefully the iranian government will open up to foreign correspondents. certainly everything we have seen in the last few weeks does not fill me with optimism that they are going to open up to this sort of coverage in the near future. i think i will stop there, and we will open up to your questions. >> questions? over here. >> [inaudible] how much was the glory of the prison empire of the past part of the election proces

after iason cannot, he continued to cover the story in iran. i think that his perspective on trends in iran and looking at the media coverage and how the media function in a situation where first they were under extraordinary restrictions as to where they could go, what they could do in the immediate aftermath of the election, and then, you had people being arrested, and most of the foreign journalists being taken out of the country so that there were not able to report firsthand. how the report on the situation as it unfolds in that circumstance? so i think we will begin with iason to talk through the experiences that he had and his perspective on iran today, and then we will turn to barbara, also brings tremendous background on the subject to get her perspective as well, and then we'll open it up, i hope, to q&a. >> thank you very much for coming today, and thank you very much for posting me. it is wonderful to be back at the woodrow wilson center. as john mentioned, -- as jon mentioned, we met on my lehman year, which came on the heels of th