for example, iran is not just mahmoud ahmadinejad. it's a very complex society. and i won't define the rules of the mullahs in iran. as an inhuman regime. i don't believe that's true. i think it's -- i mean, it's too trivial to say that i'm against it. but i don't -- that's in my vocabulary. i think now is the real turning point. what to do with iran, what to do with them? this calls for lots of full discussions and what are the options? what i tried to devise is a vocabulary and moral vocabulary to deal with the moral aspects of those. that's basically what i took on myself into account. and maybe you're wrong in many historical judgments, factually wrong. the point is whether i provide the right vocabulary and not whether i give the right historical analysis. i may be wrong about what formed the union and what was the nature of the compromise there. what were the options there? but the point is the test for me is whether i provided the right vocabulary, the moral vocabulary, to deal with those questions, even if i'm wrong empirically, namely that i just got the

is mahmoud ahmadinejad's regime near the breaking point. >>> inside "the situation room," not ours but his. a rare look at the place where the president makes some of his most difficult decisions. wolf blitzer is off. i'm suzanne malveaux. and you're in "the situation room." >>> the blue ribbon panel which investigated the 9/11 attacks found a number of failures in america's defenses against terrorism. they were shortcomings when it came to watch lists and overseeing visas and above all there was the failure of government agencies to pull and share intelligence. listen to a 9/11 commission member richard ben hav veniste 2005. >> when we issued our final report, one of the central tenets of what we found was that there was a failure of communication that we had accumulated a great deal of information, but that it was not wisely used, information wasn't shared, it wasn't effectively utilized. >> he joins us here in "the situation room." that was four years ago when you said that. you put a lot of work into this report. we all remember it very clearly. are you stunned to hear now that the

news stories rumbled in 2009 from the saber rattling of kim jong-il to the fist shaking of mahmoud ahmadinejadn protesters ran beneath a banner of a young woman. the pan a.m. terrorist walked free. iraq and afghanistan heard plans for american troop buildups and pullouts. even as a military community dealt with tragedy close to home and concern for the growing number of veterans kept growing, too. >> i think we owe it to them, absolutely owe it to them to take care of them when they come back. >> yet for many americans the biggest worry was a tiny bug. worst virus, the h1n1/swine flu had everyone on the run. it was less deadly than fear. >> i don't want to come off as pro-pandemic, but i feel like i have been cheated. like, when's it coming? >> the vaccine was also much harder to find than federal officials predicted. >> if you see swine flu -- what the government would do if it was really a serious virus, would be a picture of the government unable to cope. >> it's one of those things where you say, i don't want to come in today and your bosses are like, why? you can easily say, i have swine

. >> this is one of the most important stories of our time, and if there is a democracy, mahmoud ahmadinejad is taken out of power, but before we go on, do you believe he is going to be taken out of power? you believe he is a puppet between khomeini and mousavi but has no power. >> well, over the last three months, he is no longer a figure. the concentration, and the world attention on this issue is absolutely extraordinary and necessary, because it is a unique phenomenon, don, is a nonviolent civil rights movement in the context of a very violent context, and the implication of this give ten demographic aspect of the movement, 80% of the iranian population is under the age of 40 and 50% of it under the age of 25 and the reason it has a global resonance and social networking, et cetera is precisely that you have a nonviolent civil rights uprising and mostly charged by young people -- >> young educated people with the tools to go online. >> and the class and the social strata that underlies it is not teheran based or upper middle-class or none of that, but it is spreading all over the country

administration and it goes beyond mahmoud ahmadinejad. i think if you can do a real poll which is impossible in that situation you would find that support for the islamic republic of iran is way below, way below half we ought to be able to make something of that we should have started years ago putting ourselves in a position to make something since it has been clear for a very long time that this was a very unpopular regime. it's now undeniable. i think the key to stopping and iranian nuclear weapon is a change in that regime and i think the most likely way to achieve it is when the people of iran decide to throw off -- >> if something has to be put in the context does that imply a case for pressure on the regime -- to exacerbate -- >> let me give a concrete example. there's talk about and even legislation making its way through congress talk about trying to limit the importation of refined petroleum product into i -- your on. roughly half the gasoline that goes into iran and cars and trucks and tanks for that matter every day is importe

there is massive discontent with the mahmoud ahmadinejad administration, and it is beyond him -- and it goes beyond him. i think if he could do a real poll, which of course is not possible, you would find support for the islamic republic of iran is way below half. now, we ought to be able to make something of that. we should have started years ago putting ourselves in the position to make something of it, since it has been clear for a very long time this was a very unpopular regime. it is now undeniable. so i think the key to stopping an iranian it nuclear weapon is a change in the regime, and i think most likely way to achieve it is when the people of iran decide to throw off -- >> everything has to be put in the context of the tumult. does that imply a pushover regime? >> let me give a concrete example. there is a lot of talk about and even some legislation making its way through congress, talk about trying to limit the importation of refined petroleum product into iran. roughly half of the gasoline that goes in iranian cars and trucks and tanks every day is imported. there are onl