rafsanjani tried it. these are the elements that blocked them. is there a possibility that you know, in this sort of moment of self-reflection and analysis they say, look, we've got to loosen up or we've got to take some measures to prevent this from happening again. rather than with an iron first, they find some other conciliatory or evolutionary way to do it in terms of changing the economy and changing the security structure? i know it's a long shot but do you think it's possible? >> great question. >> i was talking to an analyst a few months ago, according to him who is very close to the reform camp, according to him best thing for iran as you suggest, a group of revolutionary guards and a group of reformists come together, in order for them to survive, in order for the regime to survive to a certain extent they have to understand making money is better than to make war and chaos. and then they have to do something against their radical elements within the revolutionary guards, against some the more idealogical cohorts of ayatollah khamenei.

the attempts by president rafsanjani at the end of war with iraq, as much as rouhani has done to reform the economy and bring iran further back into the world, ended badly. the reformist movement, i think in many ways the most ambitious and most optimistic element of reforms of iran during the president of mohamed hatami sought to seek a dialogue with civilization. precepts in the iranian constitution do call for rule of law and representative government. at every point they found themselves outwit, outflanked by the capacity of hard-liners to control the coercion, coercive instruments of the state, to use any means necessary to sideline those who were seeking reform. and what we've seen is this sort of successive series of failures. i was, in 2013, optimistic about rouhani. i thought in fact this might be a path forward to focus once again on economic reform with at least some social liberalization. to engage in the world in a way to bring iran's rehabilitation at least partially. he succeeded in the sense he was able to bring about the nuclear deal. that was no small accomplishment of