Former Deputy National Security Advisor Recommends Twitter for Nobel Peace Prize

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TheSurgeStrategies
June 22, 2009

Former Deputy National Security Advisor Mark Pfeifle on Fox News discussing the Iran Election with Host Shannon Beam. (transcript below) Bream: Let's talk about the Administration's so far. Has i...

Former Deputy National Security Advisor Mark Pfeifle on Fox News discussing the Iran Election with Host Shannon Beam. (transcript below)

Bream: Let's talk about the Administration's so far. Has it been on point? What do we need to see next from the White House?

Pfeifle: They are walking a tightrope. That's what they are doing. They do not want the U.S. or West to become the talking point for the Iranian regime, saying they are trying to do a coup by their public statements. What the reaction has been in the prayers yesterday by their supreme leader, he used it anyway and said the West is trying to do this. So, sometimes it doesn't work. And you try and stay quiet and you try to stay mum or you say too much. The real winners in this and the people that have gotten the message out, even though the U.S. with some exceptions has been fairly quiet is Twitter, has been Facebook, Flickr, YouTube. It's been all of those. If there's anybody that should possibly get a Nobel Peace Prize in the next time around, it should be the founders of Twitter who delayed the tuning up of their system in order for an amazing amount of tweets to be sent out in the last week or so.

Bream: It's been such a valuable source of information because, in the past the government there probably had a lot more control over the information disseminated inside the country and outside as well. So now that we have this additional information coming in, does it put the Administration in a different place as far as, you know, crediting some of this information - maybe not being able to credit all of it because it's coming from unreliable sources?

Pfeifle: It's difficult because it's moving so quickly. We saw just on the 17th, 221,000 tweets sent about Iran, 3,000 videos were uploaded onto YouTube. It's been really remarkable, you know, how the emerging media the social networking has taken over and has given a voice to a lot of people who have been silent.

Bream: And let's talk about this escalating today as well, because the government had been cracking saying no more protests in Tehran. Mousavi will be responsible for whatever happens if these people are hurt or injured. They turned out anyway, thousands of them we know so far. Now he's also amped things up so far by talking about being ready for martyrdom and also calling for a national strike if he is arrested. You know, this seems to be on a trajectory. What happens next there?

Pfeifle: It's really hard to tell. If the country is shutdown by a strike or portions of it, it's going to put the Iranian regime in a very difficult situation. Already they have massive problems with gas rationings for fairly wealthy country. Where they've been putting money into funding Hamas and Hezbollah and putting so much money into their nuclear program instead of into their people. All of this is quailing up. It's hitting a point right now where the regime is going to have to make some drastic changes one way or the other. They've already said that they are going to count 10 percent of the vote. They are already making some concessions and the people's voices are being heard.

Bream: Alright, so we know about the official response we've already talked about that so let's talk about back channels. Obviously there's a lot going on probably that we don't know about. What kind of efforts can the Administration make off the radar in this situation?

Pfeifle: well, it's difficult to get to the actual Iranian regime. They are very isolated. There's some ways through the Swiss, there's some ways through Ambassadorial channels that you can makes some entries to the Iranians but for the most part they're not going to listen to the West, they are not going to listen to the U.S. They are going to listen to them more between press releases and public statements as President Obama has done, as the Secretary of State and others have done periodically last week.

Bream: Mark Pfeifle, we thank you so much for your insight on this and for sharing your Saturday with us as well.

Pfeifle: Thank you Shannon.

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Former Deputy National Security Advisor Recommends Twitter for Nobel Peace Prize

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