 Good morning. I'm Jim Marshall. I'm the President of the United States Institute of Peace. I want to welcome you all here to what promises to be quite a good event. I'm often asked what the Institute does and the very, very oversimplified version of what we do is that we stop fights. We do it globally. We do it working with governmental and non-governmental organizations, both foreign and domestic. We are not successful most of the time, but when we are it's a big deal and we cost less. than fielding one platoon in Afghanistan. My partner in crime here today is Jane Harman. She directs the Wilson Center. The Wilson Center is one of the sort of governmental, non-governmental organizations that we do partner with. It's been a long relationship, a very fruitful relationship, and Jane if you would like to. Thank you, Jim. Let me announce that there are no fights that I know of between the USIP and the Wilson Center. As Jim said, I'm Jane Harman, served in Congress for nine terms, many of them with my former colleague Jim Marshall. We've traveled the world together. We're blue dogs and buddies and cosponsors of things like Iran sanctions legislation over many years. I had thought that Joe Gildenhorn was here, but I don't see him. He's the former chairman of our board. I think Michael Adler is here who has attended all Iran negotiations and is a scholar at the Wilson Center. We value our work with USIP on a range of hot topics. Tomorrow, together, we will be hosting another event on the crisis in South Sudan, featuring Wilson fellow Alan Guilty and the UK's former special envoy and ambassador to Sudan, and the USIP fellow Princeton Lyman. We follow Iran very closely. This fall we welcome Catherine Ashton, the EU's high representative for foreign affairs, and Yukiya Amano, the IAEA Director General, and held four what we call ground truth briefings on the Islamic Republic with leaders like Tom Pickering, Gary Samour, Bob Einhorn, this cast of characters, and Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group. Today, we're here to debrief two rock stars and dear friends, Wilson USIP distinguished scholar Robin Wright. Yes, she has both titles and isn't she glam. And Washington Post wise man David Ignatius, who has written a spectacular op-ed this morning on Iraq. Dispatches from their visits, Robin finding Marilyn Monroe pillow art on display in Tehran, and David describing Tehran as a cross between Pyongyang and Los Angeles. Ouch. Depict a historic but fragile interim agreement. My view is that we need to give both sides running room to make a deal, and I applaud. I totally applaud John Kerry's energy and courage. We've been trying to get Iran to the negotiating table since 2003. Why can't we give them an extra six months after a decade of trying? Jim and I are recovering politicians, so we both know that the US have to respond to domestic politics. Draft sanctions legislation pending in Senate, picking up cosponsors and a majority of Iran's parliament, signaling that they will support requiring their government to enrich uranium up to 60% are disturbing ideas. Tit for tat in foreign policy is dangerous. And it's time, in my view, to press the pause button. So why doesn't Congress get all the cosponsors it needs on the sanctions legislation and just hold it? Remember, the Joint Plan of Action is not a final settlement. It's an opportunity for a settlement. Let me just, Jim looks impatient. So let me just say that I think a successful nuclear deal could be proved to be an enormous shift in the tectonic plates in the Middle East. And since I'm from California, I understand how earthquakes work. It would serve the interests of all countries in the region, plus the P5 plus one, plus the world. As Henry Kissinger once said, Iran must decide whether it is a nation or a cause. The US also must decide to take some risks, and hopefully we and Iran will make the right decisions in 2014. Again, welcome. Thank you, Jane. I'd like to recognize my board chairman, Robin West, who is here. And also, another board member, David McCain, who is the director of policy planning at state. And with that, I'd like to turn it over to Bill Taylor, who is our vice president for the Middle East and Africa. Ambassador Bill Taylor, who has been with the State Department for years, also a Vietnam vet. A real asset to the institute and an asset to the country, Bill. Thank you, Jim. Thank you very much. And Congresswoman Harman, thank you both for your introductions. Particularly, I want to thank Congresswoman Harman for doing all of what I was about to do. So the introduction of these, which, of course, neither needs an introduction. We're very pleased to have two people who have written books about Iran. There's going to be covers of two books that are represented, the authors right here. And they have also just returned from Iran. So what we thought would be very useful and interesting for you and for us is to get a picture or sense of what's going on inside. For all the reasons that we all know, this is the time to try to understand what's going on there. Maybe there are changes there, and that is what I hope we will get from this discussion. Without anything further, Robin is going to say a couple of make some observations about her trip. David's going to make some observations about his trip. We will have a conversation open to you very quickly. And I look forward to your questions. So this will be an interactive, easy discussion. So, Robin. Thanks, Bill, very much. Four headlines as an old journalist. Four things that I think are particularly interesting. One is that the fact that David and I were allowed to go at all. I went to see a Grand Ayatollah, one of only 12 in the world, and I said, what's changed? And he said, the fact that you're here. This was the first interview he had been allowed to give in five years, and he's a Grand Ayatollah. And that was quite striking. When I went to see a former deputy speaker of parliament, whose brother was president of Iran, President Khatami. And I said to him, you know, what's new? And he said, well, I'm less afraid than I was before the election. And this is a man who is very much a part of the system. So you could, you know, we all know about the bad old days of President Amininejad, but it was very interesting hearing it from the inside of people who were, you know, powerful players. I think what's really interesting politically about what's happening in Iran today is that there's a new category on the political spectrum. We've gone through the era of the hardliners with President Amininejad. We went through the reformers with President Khatami. And what we're seeing is a new category today of what I call the realists, who are not out to, like the Green Movement was, they're trying to transform Iran to challenge the powers of the supreme leader. They're willing to work within the system, but they do want to open up political space. And a lot of it in a lot of different ways. It was very interesting that President Rouhani last night met with an array of artists, film directors, actresses, actors and so forth, and said that art without freedom was meaningless. So, you know, the tenor has changed, but we're looking at people who are realistic in terms of what the various goals are. Secondly, I think in terms of our interests, what's really important to understand is that Iran is going through what I call a strategic recalculation or recalibration. And again, this does not mean some kind of overhaul, but it does mean that they are responding in real time to what is going on in the region. A decade ago when the U.S. intervened in Iraq and got rid of Saddam Hussein in Afghanistan and got rid of the Taliban, King Abdullah of Jordan started worrying about the Shiite crescent, that arc radiating from Tehran through Baghdad into Damascus and then into Lebanon and the rise of the Shiites. And Iran was, you know, sitting pretty as the kind of strategic winner. What's interesting today is that with the rise of the al-Qaeda franchises, with the U.S. having withdrawn from Iraq, having about to withdraw from Afghanistan, that Iran suddenly finds itself encircled by Salafis, by al-Qaeda militants, encircled by the Sunnis. And this has led to an awareness of, well, you know, the U.S. might not be such an adversary after all. And that when we look at why Iran is at the negotiating table, we often tend to focus primarily on the pressure of economic sanctions when in fact there are a lot of other much bigger issues that we ignore. And that's one of them, this strategic recalculation. Another reason is the psychology of war. The grizzliest modern Middle East conflict played out in Iran with Iraq. And one of the most striking things to me was going to a couple of hospitals in Tehran and seeing victims dying of chemical weapons. Thirty years after they came under attack, Iran now estimates it has close to 70,000 people who are still survivors of chemical weapons and need chronic medical help and it will eventually die. Numbers could end up rivaling the death toll in World War I from mustard gas. And when I talked to people about the nuclear deal or President Rouhani, you know, kind of what they were, what the mood in Tehran was, the first thing so many people told me was, we know we can wake up tomorrow morning and not worry about a bomb falling on Tehran, but there really is this deep fear of what a military action might entail, how long it might go on, what it might cost again. So those are my kind of initial thoughts. I will conclude with one final thing. I think President Rouhani is arguably today more popular than he was the day after he was elected, that he's taken many smart moves, whether it's the diplomacy with the outside world, but he also appointed a lot of really experienced technocrats to try to bail them out of the huge economic mess created by President Amin Inajad and the Minister of Finance, the head of the central bank or all people who are very smart. The budget that was introduced deals with the huge problems of inflation, the fact that one in four of the young are unemployed. It's trying to make some hard choices that will need to be taken if Rouhan is going to get control over what has been a plummeting economy. Robin, thank you. So strategic recalculation or recalibration. Shiite Crescent, now Sunni encirclement. We want to come back to these. But a pretty positive description, I would say. Hang on. We'll come back to this. We'll come back to this. David, your view. You were there approximately at the same time. We'd love to hear your thoughts. Well, first thanks to Bill and Robin and Jim Marshall and Jane Harmon. It's really nice to be asked to speak about a subject that really matters. A lot of times in Washington we speak about things that sort of matter. These negotiations and their consequences for our country are really important. And I think sessions like this where we try to think through what Robin and I have just seen and share it with you and get your feedback are important. I should just note as a panelist that it's a great pleasure for me to see my mom and dad in the audience. So I have to be especially careful not to give these sort of bland, journalistic, because I'm going to hear about it later. And let me start just with a caveat. I wish I knew more about Iran. I was there on this trip for four days. So everybody needs to understand that I am giving you casual impressions from a very quick trip. We need to know so much more about this country. You do feel the product of 34 years of being cut off in the lack of deep expertise. So I hope I'll go back. I hope Robin will go back often. Here are just a couple of brief starting points in terms of my own sense of the country and the people when I was there. First, there is the appearance of a real debate. I want to say division among senior members of leadership, at least as seen in my interviews. I interviewed at length and in real detail. I published a full transcript if you want to go look at it. The foreign minister, Javad Zarif, who's the leading realist in Robin's terms, the leading western-looking face of the regime. He went pretty systematically through the negotiating issues. Sometimes I wasn't sure just where the space to make a deal was, but Zarif kept asserting that a deal can be made and we'll take care of this and don't worry. He was obviously believing, as he spoke to me, that he spoke for President Rouhani and beyond him for the Supreme Leader. I also saw, as Robin did, probably the most visible hardliner associated with the regime, who was the editor appointed by Supreme Leader Hamani of Kehan, which is the very conservative newspaper. His name is Hossein Shariat Madari. I've met him on a previous visit to Iran. He's very articulate, very outspoken, and when asked, do you think compromise with the West on these nuclear issues as advocated aggressively by Zarif and less visibly by Rouhani, do you think that's possible? He said flatly, no, I don't. I don't believe in compromise. I don't believe that the Islamic Republic should compromise its identity. He went beyond that to saying that he thought that Zarif, the foreign minister, had essentially misrepresented the deal that was struck in Geneva, the interim six-month deal to freeze Iran's nuclear capability. He described Zarif calling Rouhani in the middle of the night from Geneva and Rouhani writing a letter to the Supreme Leader and then said this man, meaning Zarif, would tell the truth about what's in that deal. And that's a little bit chilling to have somebody so close to the Supreme Leader in effect repudiate the deal. Zarif was very open with me about the extent to which he feels under pressure from the Revolutionary Guard. He's had a public fight with a commander of the Guard which he acknowledged, and these are unusual things in a country like Iran. The basic point is about sanctions. We often hear and indeed use the phrase crippling sanctions to describe the sanctions that have been applied to Iran, and they're pretty intense as economic sanctions go. Robin was smiling when I used the phrase crippling sanctions, and I think I know why, which is that when you go to Tehran, this doesn't look like a country that's just hobbling these about to fall over dead the way you sometimes get the sense reading our accounts of how we've just driven them to negotiations, practically broken their arms. No, they are a very resourceful people. They're good at suffering, living with suffering, and they found ways to work around these sanctions as clever as they are. You go to North Tehran and talk to a business person and he'll tell you exactly, down to the number of percentage points in the additional interest rate premium necessary to get financing for illegal banned supposedly impossible deals. Nothing's impossible, and so people should bear that in mind. What the sanctions have done is cripple Iran's future. It's the opportunity cost, the country that Iran might be that every Iranian I talk to feel senses this Iranian moment is coming where our brain power, our scientists, our business people are ready to dominate the region. They just feel it on their fingertips, but they won't grasp as long as the sanctions stay in place, and I think people know it. I think it's really our biggest leverage. A related point, I kept hearing, even in this brief period, intense criticism of President Ahmadinejad, who just left office, his links with the Revolutionary Guard and the corrupt nature in people's minds of the deals that he had made and the way in which Iran's oil income in particular, now largely disappeared, was wasted. People, I must say, three or four people talk about the $700 billion that Iran earned in oil sales during the Ahmadinejad eight years. Where did it go? What happened to that $700 billion? People would ask it as if it was a criminal indictment almost. Again, that's something really important in terms of what we say to Iran, that these people around, people close to the Revolutionary Guard have been involved in stealing money that belongs to you. A final point I'd make is really about process. I think my strongest takeaway as I left Tehran was just how hard it's going to be to get this deal that I think is very much in Iran's and America's interest. And I would close this introductory part of our discussion by saying that if there's some way for the United States and its allies to give the Iranian people a taste of what it would be like to cross the threshold into this future where they join the rest of the world, have open contacts, have modern music performances. I'd love to see some of the kind of diplomacy we did in the early detente years where you have rock music or ballet or symphony. And let the ayatollahs tell people they can't go listen to music. I mean, I don't think they will. And I think things like that could make a difference. So I'll stop there. David, excellent. Robin, thank you both very much. So you're both there. What we'd like to at least start off with is a sense of what's going on there. You've both given us that part. What surprised you the most about it? Robin, you already addressed this. One of the surprises you heard from them was that you were even there. But as you looked at the society, looked at the economy, as David described, what surprised you? You've been there for many years. 40. 40 years. Many years. And so you've seen it either not change over a long time, but you've been back now and have seen it for nearly two weeks. Well, like David, one of the things that really strikes you is how the economy seems to be, when you're on the streets, thriving, the grand bazaars, popping, the aisles are packed. You go into North Tehran and there's a technology mall that is just for computers. And there are so many Apple stores that have the Apple brand on it. And one of the pictures you saw from, I took from, you know, you can get an iPad, iPhone, iPod, latest variety in any color that Porsches sell out before, you know, almost ordered in advance, you know, that this is not crippled in the sense, and we need to be careful about how much we assume sanctions will do anymore. Yes, it is complicated business. And in the case of the chemical weapons victims, they couldn't get access to a lot of the medicine, not because of sanctions, because the U.S. allows all humanitarian clothing, education materials to be exempt from sanctions, but because banks were not willing to be engaged in transactions that even if it was for medicine. And so I went to a hospice care facility where one guy is literally dying. He may have died since I came back. And they were showing me the inhalers that he needed and the American made and that he couldn't get access to because no pharmacy could get anybody to finance the ability to buy these things. In terms of surprises, you know, I've been trying for 34 years to get into the American Embassy in Tehran. And I covered the hostage crisis and the revolution and stood at the foot of the steps of the plane in Algiers when the 52 Americans disembarked. And this time I got in and I had a revolutionary guard take me around the building. It was really, it was actually, to be honest with you, a little anticlimactic at this point. But it was fascinating. You know, the gold shag carpeting is all matted and filthy and it's kind of crude. It says on the door, paper's forgery room. And in the old room where they had their, you know, diplomatic discussions, the Iranians have a big sign, they call it the glassy room. And they have these three mannequins who have cheap suits and disheveled wigs and they're kind of, they're obviously mannequins that don't completely bend because they're kind of sitting straight back and they're supposed to be American diplomats having their secret conversations. And my revolutionary guard, Dawson, even said to me, and that one's supposed to be Ambassador Sullivan. He was your last ambassador. He died last month. I mean, they actually keep up with this stuff. But I think the thing that surprised me was how, I also then went to see the man who masterminded the takeover of the American Embassy. Man, it was one of three masterminds. Man named Ibrahim Oskar Zadeh. And I found him fascinating. Here he is today, you know, white-haired, slightly punchy, but clean-shaven in contrast to so many in Iran, advocating not only the resumption of relations between the United States and Tehran, but also the reopening of the Embassy. And you got a sense of that we really are as two countries for the first time in 34 years. And we marked the 35th anniversary on February 1. We are on the same page. Whether we can turn that page is still the big question. But this nuclear deal is important, not just because we all want to prevent a country from getting the world's deadliest weapon. It's also important because everywhere I went, people told me the parliamentary elections next year will be decided in terms of who's allowed to run, what the public mood is, what the kind of big guns, how they see the mood on the street. If there's a nuclear deal, if there's a nuclear deal, then there will be more of the realists or even some of the reformers allowed to run. I went to see Holmeni's granddaughter, who's a leading woman's rights activist. And she talked about how the nuclear deal will determine women's rights, that if there is a nuclear deal, then the President will be all the more empowered to do things on other issues, including rights for women. So we have a sense in Iran that they really want this deal. And that is, I think, to the advantage of the nuclear team. For all the obstacles they face from the hardliners who still control the judiciary, there is a real public mood in favor of a deal. And I think to answer Bill's question, the amount of it surprised me. St. Page? Well, a couple of surprises are just things that I was able to see that might interest you. I got to know a first grade from what I could tell, really world-class scientist, molecular biologist, somebody who is doing work dealing with neurodegenerative diseases that's like what my daughter, who's now a young doctor, was working on in the labs. Here's a person who has very commercial ideas that could be the basis of a biotech company who's nervous about starting that company in a country that isn't part of the WTO because you can't protect intellectual property. He doesn't want to leave Iran. He just doesn't know what to do. He's caught. And that's an example of this society waiting to jump into the future and the people who want to play on the world stage of business and finance that the United States needs to be speaking to. I think the other thing I would just note, and it touches on the comment Robbins cited, the famous comment of Kissinger's, is Iran a nation or a cause? And that's a sort of code for asking, has Iran turned the corner from its revolution? The Iranian Revolution in 1979 was the great destabilizing event in that region whose tremors still affect Iran and other countries. It's like the French Revolution in Europe, I always think. Think how long it took Europe really to absorb all of that destabilizing energy. I kept looking for signs that the revolution is over and finding signs that at least among people at the commanding heights, people with guns, it isn't. I'm sorry to say that, but I think Iran's destabilizing role in the region, its willingness to encourage turmoil in Syria, Lebanon, Bahrain, go down the list. I had, sure I had moderate say to me, I didn't quote this in anything, but it was part of the on-the-record interview, basically say that Saudi Arabia couldn't last and the Saudis will come down as our part of the world changes, meaning the Saudi raw family. I mean, it was that basic revolutionary idea, destabilizing ideas is still there. I don't know how to deal with that. I'd love to have discussion when we get to Q&A about it, but first we think about that issue and that side of Iran. How much should we allow them to continue of these activities and where should we say, no, that's not acceptable? Let me ask one other question that follows on what both of you have said, in particular last comments, David, and then we'll open it up. So be preparing your questions here. Robin, you've talked about strategic recalibration. David, you said you're worried that the revolution continues, real debate in there. Is there a recalculation? What are the implications for the nuclear deal, for Syria, for Iraq, as you wrote this morning? And then I agree with you, there's some very smart people in this room who will have views on this as well, but if you can each just talk a little bit about the implication, well, whether or not there's this recalibration and if so, what the implications are. I think David made a tremendously important point about the revolution and it's clear that since 1979, the big debate in Iran, whoever was president, but it played out at every election, was is the Islamic Republic of Iran first and foremost Islamic or is it first and foremost a republic? And under the reformers, they're trying to push it toward the direction of a republic and under the hardliners to keep its ideological purity. And this is a debate that's far from over. And that's why the realists are interesting because they're trying to bridge the two, but they're not going to answer this existential question. In terms of the strategic recalculation, I think that, again, I think David's right, Iran is one of the most nationalist countries in the world. I often tell people that if they want to understand Persian nationalism to think of their most chauvinistic Texan and then add 5,000 years, and then you begin to understand just how deep those passions go and that they will continue to do anything it takes to protect their national interests or to promote their national interests. But I also think that the realists have been willing to consider some important steps. And on Syria, and I talked to, you know, on the record and off the record to the foreign minister, the chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee in parliament, several MPs, both reformers and hardliners, and there is a sense, a recognition, that Syria may not hold together as long as Assad is in power and that as a result, what's the best, you know, alternative? And they have indicated in some, again, on the record, some off the record, that they're prepared to lop off the head, in other words, President Assad, to keep the body, to keep the Ba'ath party as a part of whatever the next political system is. And that's an interesting position. I think they're very worried about, in Iraq, about al-Qaeda or ISIS re-emerging. And I think this, that in a way they once were such a prop that they understand that these, you know, whether it's the sons of Iraq militia, that getting the Sunnis on their side is actually in Iran's interest to stabilize that country. And they think of it not just in terms of stability, but this is, you know, a big economic outlet, a border country. And so, look, they're never going to walk away from the war. Hamas, you know, I thought one of the most interesting things is how they're reverting to the language on the Arab-Israeli conflict that President Khatami used in the late 1990s, that if there's a deal between the Arabs, between the Palestinians and the Israelis, they're not going to be the ones to say no to it, to try to sabotage it. And I actually think that there's so many other bigger problems that the Arab-Israeli conflict doesn't have the profile or the priority that it once did. Just a couple of thoughts about these big strategic issues that I think are at the center of what U.S. officials need to be thinking about and if they can, discussing with the Iranians. What is in our interest, and I think we need to show is in their interest, is a process in which Iran turns towards being a player in. You know, maybe a leading regional player in, some kind of new structure for security in the region. And the essence of that deal is that Iran understands there are limits on its ability to move toward having nuclear weapons, highly destabilizing in the end, dangerous for them as well as for the region. And also has to accept limits on its covert action in neighboring countries like the ones that I mentioned. And what it gets out of that is acceptance that it is going to play this major role. It's a little bit like, if you imagine it, returning to the sort of status that Iran dreamed of under the Shah. And so I think laying out that idea for Iranians and helping their elite think about it, get a feel for it, is crucial. I talked at length with Zarif about this, and he talked about some of his own writings that are in a similar direction. Interestingly, I wrote a kind of quasi-scholarly article years ago, in 2006, looking at some of Henry Kissinger's writings about how Europe was stabilized after the French Revolution. The Iranians gobble them up. And when Amity Najat of all people came to Washington two years ago, he wanted to talk about that. So the idea intrigues them. A second strategic point. One theme of the article I wrote this morning is that Iran is incredibly adept at riding several horses at once. Negotiating with the United States in the west about a nuclear deal as it continues to run Hezbollah, as it backs Assad in a bloody civil war. Meanwhile, it's got multiple Iraqi militias, some competing with each other, all of which it covertly is sending into Syria. So I mean, they're masters at this. And it's very, very skillful policy, I have to say. The United States needs to do, in its way, a little bit of the same. We need to ride multiple horses at once. We're trying to do something important with the Iranians in the Shia world. It scares our Sunni friends, but we ought to be, you know, sort of redoubling our engagement with our Sunni friends at the same time. It may appear to be contradictory. So what? Often good policy has elements of contradiction. So I, you know, riding several horses at once is the way this part of the world is going to work for a while. And we need to understand that and get better at it. David, thank you. In the audience are people listening carefully and who have some responsibilities for this policy. So this is a very, very good advice. Let me invite you in the audience to ask questions of these two about any of the things that you've heard so far. You will raise your hand and there are mics on either side. And there is, the first question is right up in the balcony here and it may be hard to get the mic to that. I can speak louder. Loudly, okay. Can you do that? For C-SPAN, they need it. But C-SPAN, yeah, there you go. All right. My name is Ilhan Kagri and I'm from the Muslim Public Affairs Council and my question is directed towards David. And I found it interesting that he made a statement, something to the effect that the Iranians felt Saudi Arabia will not last. And the thing is that, well, and that you thought Iran played a destabilizing role in the region, which of course it does. But my question is two-fold. One, do you think that the statement meant that Iran will play a role in bringing Saudi Arabia down or was it simply a statement of fact considering that there are many destructive forces within Saudi Arabia itself? And two, don't you feel that your statement reflects a bias in terms of talking about destabilization in the region? I mean, a lot of people feel that, okay, you're talking about Iran being destabilizing, but look at what Saudi Arabia is doing. And it's interesting that you made a comparison between those two. And don't you think that that just reflects a bias that many people feel the US government has? It's a good question, well-phrased. I don't mean to be saying that I think the status quo and the status quo powers as opposed to revolutionary Iran, in all cases, deserve US support. I think I hope Saudi Arabia will address its deep internal problems. I hope Saudi Arabia will modernize, adapt, become a more open country, become a prosperous country as it does so. So yes, you're right. Saudi Arabia has an Iran problem. Iran does metal, especially in the eastern province. But Saudi Arabia's biggest problems are internal and they have to do with issues the Saudis have to solve. So I accept the caveat. The Sunni world is convinced that Iran has its hands at their throats. I mean, if you travel, I spent a week in Abu Dhabi in Dubai before going to Tehran, waiting for my visa and had a chance to talk to lots of Gulf Arabs in conversations. And the degree of anxiety about Iran as they look at this process of change that's beginning is really important. And I think it's important whenever you're in a period of change to reach out to people who are your traditional friends and tell them what you're doing. Communicate more. If I would fault one aspect of US policy, it's that in this very turbulent period, we have not been communicating enough to the various players, especially our traditional allies. That could happen. Yes, right here. Ryan, are there questions? Thank you, Bill. I'm Will Embry from Dinecorp International. To come to a deal, there's got to be a quid pro quo. And I think the problems in Geneva are that we're going to have to deliver relief of sanctions and having worked on sanctions in the State Department. I know there's an incredible web of bilateral, regional, multilateral sanctions out there and they're owned by various groups. I'm really worried about our ability to be able to deliver on relief of sanctions to lure the Iranians to give on the nukes. So just briefly, it's interesting that Iranian economists who are advising the government told me that the new budget for Iran assumes that sanctions will continue. In other words, although they desire sanctions relief, they're not writing their budget based on the idea that there'll be a new windfall. Indeed, the most interesting thing that Rouhani is doing through his economic ministers is trying to get the import and export balance in better shape, independent of oil exports. So they're trying to boost non-oil exports of iron ore, of copper, of other strategic minerals. They're trying to boost petrochemical sales. They're trying to boost a range of things at the same time that they lower unnecessary imports so that they get a balance that numbers people were sharing with me would be on the order of $80 billion coming in that they could pay for with non-oil exports. So they're batting down for a sanctions-continuing world. I have to say, looking at how hard the issues are on the table, I would be surprised if by the end of the six-month freeze period they can be negotiated. So the goal of comprehensive settlement and comprehensive relief of sanctions, I just don't see that happening after six months. And I think the Iranians probably get that. And they understand that sanctions will come off slowly. They watch the U.S. Congress. They know how much intensity there is behind the idea of adding more sanctions. Just a final thought. More sanctions will in part have the effect of enfranchising, just as they did in Iraq, the most corrupt people who control levers of illegal business. And we have to remember that much more aggressive sanctions that follow breakdown of negotiations will empower the people we would least like to see on top. Robin, your thoughts both to the question but also on this issue of sanctions. And I'd like to keep it focused on Tehran, but as the congressman has already indicated, it bleeds into Washington politics as well. But on the sanctions question, what was your observation there in your discussions? Well, it's similar to David's. I think one of the important things we all have to understand is that there are sanctions imposed for a lot of different reasons. And they're not all related just to the nuclear program. They're for supportive extremist groups. There's a state sponsoring of terror. Anyway, there are multiple issues. And that the Iranians are looking in the current package really to get relief from the sanctions imposed in just over a year ago or a year and a half ago that went into effect in the summer of last summer. Is that right? Right, last summer. That imposed sanctions on any third party that buys Iranian oil. And that has affected their ability to sell to their six largest trading partners. That's what they're looking for. They're not looking for this nuclear deal to go beyond and deal with issues of the Arab-Israeli peace process or support for extremist groups. Human rights, there are some sanctions imposed because of human rights violations and so forth. Those issues that doesn't want to put on the table, those sanctions that they know will not be lifted. So it's one narrow section. I will say that the very charismatic foreign minister said to both of us that if new sanctions are imposed by the Congress, even if they don't go into effect for six months, the nuclear deal is dead. That they have the terms of the interim deal say no new sanctions in exchange for what is really quite small sanctions relief. It's giving them just over $4.6 billion in cash and a little bit more in other things. It's a token relief, particularly in the fact that they're losing so much more because of sanctions and their inability to sell oil. In terms of, I guess I'm a little bit more optimistic about whether they could in principle get a deal because the Iranians are very focused on what sanctions relief they know they can get. What I'm more pessimistic about is the fact that I think there's a greater danger that Congress will make what could be an epic miscalculation in passing new sanctions, thinking it will add pressure to Iran and bring us closer to a deal when it could actually sabotage it in a way that would ultimately put the military option back on the table. It would basically be a war resolution. Congresswoman Harmon has already given advice to the Congress on how to avoid exacting that. Yes, right here. I'm Faye Mochtiter with NIAC. To answer your question, Mr. Ignatius, this is David to you. You mentioned that you were really still very concerned about the revolutionary face of Iran. I just want to make a little quick comment. Did you have to remember that this government came into power with the platform of anti-U.S. and anti-Israel? So it's really difficult for them at this point, especially how many to abandon that face because this is basically their constituency that they need to support. But this phase is pretty much fading away and it is really not very attractive to many Iranians. About a month ago there was an anniversary of 1979 embassy takeover and my daughter who is a journalist, they reported that there was a march with the students, young elementary school students walking on the streets of Tehran and marching anti-U.S. slogans. And when they were asked, what are they here? What a bunch of the boys answered, happy and unhappy that we're not going to school today. So you can imagine that many of these kids don't take these slogans quite seriously. So this was an answer to your quick comment about the concern of the revolutionary face of the Iran. If I could just briefly respond. America is a country born in revolution and we celebrate our revolution every year and we celebrate the revolutionary patriots who are our founders. You get that. You're not the idea that we're going to ask Iran to abandon. This history is unrealistic. That said, if I were to express a hope for the way Iran will move, I would think of the rise of Deng Xiaoping and people like him in China who preserved the Communist Party with authoritarian structure, alas. It's a shame that China doesn't have more freedom. But did turn toward the West. Maintain the nominal demand that they would someday take Taiwan which was their rightful possession but didn't really do anything about it. If you had that kind of outcome here where you had an Iranian Deng Xiaoping that says our regime, our revolution continues and we embrace it because it's ours. But move the country into a connection with the West recognizing that security and stability come from making things like the nuclear deal. Then I think that's probably, for now, that would be fine. I think that's a useful analogy. It wouldn't be perfect. I'd still be sad about some of the repressive things in Iran but I understand that. Can I just add one little thing because I often try to go to Iran on November 4th for the anniversary of the takeover because I covered the original hostage affair. It's very funny because the government has declared November 4th to be Pupil's Day and they do give everybody a day off school if they show up at the embassy. One year, not too long ago, they were handing around little cards to do business with any of these brands because they do business with Israel and Calvin Klein and so forth. What makes me laugh is that I drove off from the commemoration and up the street was this huge billboard for Calvin Klein. The revolution is full of these great contradictions that you still see the language down with the America that is on one of the pictures I showed here that covers like a 12-story building and yet the mood is very much as if that's of a different time in their history. Oscar Zadeh, the mastermind of the hostage takeover or the embassy takeover, also said to me, he said, I'm realistic. I believe that everything has its time and its place and that time is over and that's from somebody who led it. I see three hands here. Let me acknowledge that there are people in the other room in the overflow who have also sent in a question, one of which continues the discussion or asked about the strategic recalculation and the implications Philip Juan from the Foreign Report asks, could the U.S. in Iran's mutual opposition to al-Qaeda in Iraq and Syria bolster U.S.-Iran relations, especially with regard to future nuclear deals, so the kind of linkages and is there a real change in the overall approach? David, you want to start? Well, I think certainly as al-Qaeda puts down deep roots in the Euphrates Valley and Syria and Iraq both, the United States is turning to Shia allies who were supported by Iran and we are now providing weapons, technological gear and lots of advice to the Maliki government in Baghdad which is, I don't want to say a client of Tehran but it's pretty darn close. So you can imagine a situation down the road where the kind of sharing of information that took place after 9-11. If you read Ryan Crocker's comments on the record in a remarkable article in The New Yorker several months ago by Dexter Filkins about the head of the Quds Force in Tehran, Ryan describes the extent to which we were sharing information with the Iranians about the al-Qaeda threat. Again, from what I know, this unfortunately is another example of Iran's ability to ride several horses at once. It's clear that Iran has liaison with al-Qaeda even as it is threatened by al-Qaeda. But the question of what to do in Iraq and Syria and how to get this very dangerous threat under control and who are the right allies is an absolutely central strategic issue for the administration right now. I'm glad the head of policy planning is sitting in the front row and that he has to start this out because it's really a hard one. But the idea that we would end up sharing information with Iran about mutual adversaries, that's happened in the recent past with al-Qaeda and in Afghanistan and it's entirely possible it will happen before too long. Can I have one small thing? The thing that concerns me about the idea of a military strike against Iran is that I think the Saudis would or at least some leading Saudis would like to see that happen as much or perhaps even more because of those pesky little Shiites across the Gulf as the nuclear question. And my deep concern is that when we look at Iran and the nuclear program, we don't often factor in how this would play to the sectarian divide. To me, the greatest threat across that region today is the many different aspects of the sectarian divide and you could make the case that it is deeper today than any time since the original schism 14 centuries ago. It is more extensive. It affects so much larger part of the world. It is a global phenomena, the way it plays out in terms of security interests, the economy, security. And that we tend to put in a bubble each individual issue and this is one on this very important question that gets to something much deeper that's happening in the region that could end up, I did a piece in The New York Times in September, redrawing the map of the Middle East that it affects a lot of the much more fundamental basics of that region that would have a tremendous spillover on all of us. Okay, here I've got at least three but let's start here with, yes, right by the mic. Thank you, my name is Peter Shutley and I'm retired from the State Department. The comments thus far, if you look at the map above you have focused on the country's regions west of Iran. I would like our two guests, panelists, to give us some insights into what the Iranians are thinking of the area east of Iran, specifically Afghanistan and Pakistan. How worried are they about Pakistan's nukes? How worried are they about what happens in Afghanistan after the U.S. departs? Let me take a first crack at that. One of the more interesting comments that was made to me, the person I won't describe said, put down your pen, I don't want you to write this. The biggest reason we need to think about having a nuclear weapons program is Pakistan. They view Pakistan and near neighbor as a country that could become much more dangerous to their interests in the future. They worry that to the extent the U.S. tried to manage this problem, we haven't done a very good job of it. So I think that's something on their strategic radar we need to be aware of. I think like everybody in the region, they are apprehensive about what happens as the U.S. draws down its troops. They nominally say that they want no American military presence in Afghanistan. I'm not sure that they really mean it, but other people who are specialists would know better than I. The Iranians do seem to be willing to play more in discussions about the future of Afghanistan, at least they signal that they would be willing to. Hussein Musavian, who just has gone back to Iran, was at Princeton, wrote a book, I commend the people who really follow Iran that was published last year, very open account of his role working with Rouhani and Zarif a decade ago. But he says in this book that the Iranians made an explicit offer after Richard Holbrook's death when Mark Grossman became our special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, that he come to Iran for discussions about the mutual interest shared by Iran and the United States in dealing with the Taliban problem in Afghanistan and stabilizing Afghanistan that the U.S. never responded. So that's an interesting statement on the record by a prominent Iranian that says, this is an area where we'd be willing to talk to you. Can I just commend? I run a website called IranPrimer.com and it's now the most comprehensive website in the world in any language on Iran. We have every major pronouncement article, analysis on every aspect. It was originally a book, we put the whole book on the web and we add 12, 13 pieces a week of analysis. We have every statement, every pronouncement and action by the U.S. but also by Iran. And we've just run a four-part series on Iran and South Asia. So there's one on Iran in Afghanistan, Iran in Pakistan, Iran in India. So I commend that to you. It's on IranPrimer.com. Very good. All right. Let's go here, right. Thank you. My name is Faribah Parsa, George Mason University. My question is about new technology and social media. We know more than 50% of Iranians have access to internet. And Rouhani and Zarif also on Twitter. But a few days ago they have a policy to have more censorship on social media and internet access. How is it fixed with the realistic policy of Rouhani? I'm happy to take that. I follow both Rouhani and Zarif on their Twitter accounts. And yesterday, in fact, we just posted on the IranPrimer today, tweets from the president's account on his speech about freedom in the arts. And one of the problems is that the president Rouhani doesn't have control over that issue. And it's one which he's talked about a lot. And again, this goes back to the nuclear deal. They can't do anything else until they get this nuclear deal and they prove their creds. And the rest of the regime has to bend more because the balance of internal power moves more in Rouhani's favor. They also don't want to move too quickly because that's what the reformers did in opening up all these newspapers that then went after everybody within the power structure and created a backlash that most of those papers either were closed or the editors and reporters ended up in jail. And now that plays out a decade later in social media. When I was in Iran, I'll tell you, I had to go through VPN, virtual private networks, and it wasn't easy. But I managed to post pictures on Facebook. And while I was posting things, I would hear from other Iranians who would see things. So we would communicate often on social media. But the censorship issue is fundamental. And one of the fun things was Zareef after he opened his Facebook page. Right after he was in New York, and I think this plane was delayed in New York, he was going back to Istanbul, and he posted something about, oh, I'm having trouble with the internet or I'm having trouble posting, and someone inside who's in Iran said, well, now you know what it's like for the rest of us. So you say the president doesn't have responsibility for that aspect? Who does? Well, this is where, you know, there's a national security council that is the powerful entity, and there are those on it who are from the intelligence, from judiciary, from different branches. And they kind of have to come to agreement on a lot of these basic issues. Now, the most important name that's probably not known in this country and the person to watch is a man named Ali Shamqani, who is a national security adviser. He was a former minister of defense during the reform era. He's the only Arab in the inner circle. And many believe because he was one who got up after the Green Movement and said Musavi and Karubi, the two candidates who have been under house arrest now for more than two and a half years, that they should never have been imprisoned. And he took some strong stands. And it's widely believed in Tehran, and who knows whether it's true, but it's widely believed among the people I talked to, that he's in that job, in part because he is going to slowly move toward trying to get them released. I think that the mood is, within many in the inner circle, that it's okay to let them go. Their fear is that millions would turn out on the streets in support, and that would then seem to be an embarrassment for whether it's the supreme leader or Rouhani, and that the timing is not yet right on that issue. So this is this strange system that Iran's constitution is based on Belgian and French law, but every one of the traditional branches of government has a parallel branch of Islamic clerics or scholars that has either veto power or can have a say on things. And then you have the various intelligence ministries, and there's not just one, that also have a say and don't always fully collaborate with the politicians. So taking steps on things like censorship, it's not flicking a switch. Anything on that? That's well said. Good. I want to try to go up here. Yes, right here, please. I've got the other ones in mind up there. Thank you. I'm at Harbam with the Quest for Middle East Analysis. Just a question. Ms. Wright, you answered this question about the internet thing, but my concern is have you felt on your visit that there is some sort of a grace period? I mean, and how long would it be? Thank you. Good. Yeah, I think Rouhani has kind of six months, eight months, maybe all of this year to produce something. Iran has parliamentary elections next year and everybody's already looking at that. And when I went to talk to some of the former reform members of parliament who were subsequently disqualified from running again by one of the Islamic councils, the Guardian Council, they talked about preparing the ground that none of them will try to run again, but they are actively now recruiting and for the momentum to move in the favor of the Rouhani's crowd to break the hard line lock on parliament. Something has to happen this year and, you know, earlier than the end of the year, so he doesn't have forever and legislative elections are just as important in Iran as they are in this country. Let me just say that about 10% of the parliament is reform and the rest of them are either conservative or hard line. Yes, sir. That's okay. Hi, my name is John Lyle. I'm a retired Foreign Service officer. I have two questions which are kind of different. One is how do they view us? It seems to me that, you know, that they might come to the view that we're tired of war and that as a result a more aggressive approach to us might be in order. First question, one. And the other one goes to an interesting aspect of Iran, namely the abuse of drugs and the source of drugs. Did you see any evidence? I mean, Iran has a very high abuse rate of heroin, for example, one of the highest in the world and they're increasingly a source for methamphetamine. Did you see in the streets or hear from any of the people you spoke with concern about the abuse of drugs in Iran? So how do they view us and drugs? David, you want to try? You know, the first thing to say is that almost everybody you encounter in Iran, and I should say this is not a lot of poor people from South Tehran if you're an American visitor, but almost everybody you encounter has got a brother, a cousin, somebody in the U.S. who's done spectacularly well. And so the idea of America as a place where Iranians have prospered is just a very powerful idea and they look at us as a place where people go and make money and generally have good lives. I think looking at U.S. policy, they initially were probably mystified. I mean, we have taken down their two biggest adversaries. Their biggest national security problem was Saddam Hussein in Iraq. They fought an inconclusive eight-year war against Saddam and we blew in in April 2003 and that was the end of their Saddam problem. You know, their other problem was the rise of the Taliban and Sunni extremism on their other border in Afghanistan. We pretty much have taken that down and oh, by the way, we've also gone after their adversaries in al-Qaeda. So sometimes I'm sure policymakers in Tehran scratch their heads and ask themselves, what is this American conspiracy that appears to be serving the national interests of Iran? So totally, what's the trick? I think that there is a view in Iran as elsewhere in the region that the United States is exhausted, is war-weary, is in a kind of retreat from this part of the world and frankly, you know, they're reading the country pretty accurately. This is a war-weary country. There's no arguing with that. So somehow the president has to find policies that have enough public support that we have some staying power for the strategy we choose. And the Iranians, the Saudis, everybody else understand that, that these are policies that we are serious about strategically and can defend. Because I think if the perception that the U.S. is on its way out takes hold, why would you make a deal today if six months from now you're going to get a much better deal? It's the classic problem of a distressed seller, as they say in real estate. I would only add one thought, kind of anecdote. I went up to see the new head of the Foreign Ministry think tank, a guy named Mustafa Zahrani, a very thoughtful guy, and he did scratch his head and it was really about, but in terms of the nuclear deal, he said sometimes you think, you know, the Americans don't really know what they're doing. The president who comes out and says, you know, we celebrate this deal and we are going to honor the terms and then Congress turns around and says, open defiance says no, we're going to impose new sanctions. And so that they don't make sense of. But when you ask about what do they think of us, there's a very distinct division between what they think of the United States and what they think of the American people. And that's always been true. And I remember, I often go down to Homanie's Tomb, I go to certain landmarks as barometers on every trip. And several years ago, I met an American tour group down at Homanie's Tomb. And so I said to one of the women who was quite a world traveler, I said, you know, well, what's it, what do you think? And she said, oh, it's so refreshing being in a country that they like Americans. Which is, and is true. And so this time, I went down to Homanie's Tomb and one of the pictures that was shown were two of the dusters at Homanie's Tomb, two guys with their green and yellow dusters. They dust, you know, the tomb. And I took a picture of them and they were very sweet. But when I went through the women's security side, you know, they wanted to make sure I didn't have anything, just a normal security check. And the woman said to me, where are you from? And I said, the United States. And she said, oh, welcome, dear, welcome. And this was not North Tehran where, you know, they have a long history. On your question about drugs, this is a really serious one for Iran. And I think it has the highest percentage use of heroin. And in the old days, kind of the Iranians, the rule of thumb was the traffic could move from Afghanistan as long as it wasn't left behind in Iran. And obviously, particularly, beginning with the war years, it was and it's become a chronic problem. I have seen in the past, but this is now many years ago, the drugies wandering the streets, you know, begging for money. And then the Iranians opened up facilities for them to deal with the drug. They've recognized the drug problem in the same way they've, despite Amininejad's comments about there being no gays in Iran, they've, you know, they're dealing with the HIV problem now. That there is, they recently opened alcoholism centers. So they're being a little bit more realistic about dealing with some of these growing problems. Good, thank you. Here in the middle, very good, coming to you guys, and I'll just go up here in the middle. Right. So we got about 15, not quite 20 minutes left, so we're going to try to get as many as we can. I'm Kate Walters with IJet International. You mentioned early in the talk that Rouhani has actually gained some popularity since he came to power. And I was wondering about the backlash from those people that have made a lot of money and had a lot of success from the sanctions, and also the Revolutionary Guard. How much has there been a backlash in how much power those people still have? You both addressed that. David, do you want to start on that? Yeah, I think Rouhani Rouhani is described to me by a range of people as being more powerful now for several reasons. I think most Iranians hope that his opening to the West succeeds. He ran in the elections last June as the candidate who said we can't just have friendships with Russia and China. We need to have friendships with the West. And I think Iranians powerfully believe that and they're embarrassed to feel so isolated. He is seen compared to a Medinajad and a dozen different people I talked to. He's seen as a better manager Medinajad was seen as chaotic incompetent. Always popping off, always embarrassing Iran with his statements. Rouhani is more efficient and his economic management has, this is helped obviously by the markets doing better and the currency is strengthened in the black market. But inflation is down. I believe that other indices of good economic management show that he's doing better and that makes him popular. So my feeling is that even if and I think Robin is right, a year is the right time horizon to think about how long there is to work on this. Even if at the end of that year there isn't a comprehensive deal I don't think the backlash against Rouhani would necessarily overwhelm him. I'm not as brief as foreign minister but the two are not completely interchangeable. Just to mention one more interesting thing about Rouhani. When I interviewed him in September in New York when he came for the General Assembly I had I think the only on the record printed interview that he gave. He gave a lot of other sessions that were more background. He said in the course of that I think we can negotiate a nuclear deal within three months that my jaw dropped. It turned out he actually did it more quickly than that. The other thing that was fascinating was I asked him about something he had said during the campaign about how the IRGC is too powerful. The security agencies in Rouhan are too powerful and they should pull back. And I said do you still feel this and what are you going to do about it? Thinking that he probably wouldn't answer it. And he did answer it on the record and said yes. I think the IRGC is in many ways a wonderful organization but it should stay out of politics it shouldn't form relationships with other political groups and I think in Rouhan's future other parts of our society need to blossom. That's really interesting. Somebody wrote a recent commentary that I'm sure Robin posted on her site noting that he's not doing this directly he's not challenging the IRGC directly but trying to get the Supreme Leader to do it for him. I guess that's the space that I would most be watching myself over the next year is this space between Rouhani and the Revolutionary Guard is that space widening is there signs that he's trying to really reduce their say over some of the files they not control? The Supreme Leader has come out more than once and said it's time for the Revolutionary Guards to go back to their barracks and help the country develop economically. And this really plays to what happened after the Iran-Iraq war when it was a war weary society economy was in dire straits and Raf Sanjani decided to appease people basically and rally support for the government by opening the floodgates and they imported everything and went into terrible debt and so forth and I remember going to the first Mercedes Benz franchise because I thought this was fascinating and these two the two guys who were running it, managers big, early bearded stereotypical Revolutionary Guard types and I looked at them and I thought this doesn't quite match and so I asked about their backgrounds and sure enough they were vets and what happened was after the Iran-Iraq war particularly as they wanted to keep the Rev Guards and all those who had fought in this very grizzly conflict they wanted to keep them on board and so they kind of bought them out and they've been buying them out ever since and they're now so deeply in to this process that the Revolutionary Guards both the veterans and the kind of companies run by the Guards, the construction companies particularly are a huge percentage of the economy but it is I think one of the most interesting lines I heard in Tehran was when I asked about some of the leadership of the Revolutionary Guards and someone said well at the end of the day General Joffrey who is the head wants to keep his job and we forget that there are realities for them as well and they want the system to survive and to do that they have to be sometimes realistic all the way in the top right in the blue shirt Hanif Kashani from Iranwire this message is for Robin you've been going to Iran for about 40 years so I'm sure in those 40 years you probably had a few tea sessions and sit down with Iranian women so I was curious to know this time around what was your take what were their concerns aspirations I guess and David can feel free to comment too on this trip if you had some contact as well thanks it's a good question and I think there's that the women know that they're in a holding pattern and that women's rights are not a top priority right now at the same time President Rouhani has talked quite often tweeted about equal job opportunities equal pay giving women the opportunity to get outside the home to have equal access to education and so I think there is a sense that the current government's heart's in the right place but that it's not likely to be able to do anything dramatic and this is where I saw one of the offspring of Ayatollah Khomeini women's rights activist and she again went back to the nuclear deal and said if we get the nuclear deal then that opens the doors for other things to happen and so everybody's waiting and that's why this year actually is very important because it's not just the nuclear deal or it's everything that the United States would like to see happen in Iran is on the line with the nuclear deal as well and that's the tragedy of the possibility of Senate sanctions that by doing that the Senate thinks that it's doing something that will help achieve American goals when it could be the most counterproductive thing that the U.S. does in terms of its very own goals just a brief comment if you talk to demographers they will tell you that one of the most striking developments in the world is the radical decline in birth rates among Iranian women they have just kind of fallen off a cliff actually there are sharp declines of infertility in most in many other Muslim countries as well this is one of the unnoted fascinating facts in the world in Iran when you talk to people they just say it's education for women is widespread I believe a significant majority of those in university are women are taking their career seriously they're delaying marriage they're delaying having children so as to have careers it's really hard for a middle class family in Tehran to make ends meet and so often both members of the family work again that has had the effect of reducing birth rates I find this aspect of Iranian life fascinating in the most movie that won the Oscar separation which was about the strains in a marriage caused by modern life but I just in so many parts of the world the changing role of women is probably the most important driver of broader change and I'll bet that's true in Iran too can I actually add something to I forgot one of my favorite stories about Iran the revolution the leadership called on women to breed in Islamic generation and they did and in a decade Iran's population went from 34 million to 62 million and then I call it the moment when the government of God plummeted to earth because they realized they couldn't feed, clothe, house, educate eventually employ and they had reduced the voting age to 15 and suddenly that meant that all these young people had the dominant say and today over 50% of the population is post-revolution so the government in the late 1980s introduced a family planning program and everything was free tubal ligation, norplan, IUD, condom, vasectomy the water tower in Tehran in English and Farsi said vasectomy clinic here and on UN population day the clerics would give talks about limit your family to two and I actually went to a vasectomy clinic with a cleric who was taking two of his guys to have this little surgery and the Iranians figured out a way to reverse it so that it wasn't necessarily permanent in the case a wife died or children died or something and it did, it brought the average number of children down from over six per woman down to under two and Iran won two awards from the United Nations for having the most effective non-coercive family planning program they also had 35,000 women they recruited to go door to door to preach the benefits of family planning that the children would have better health that the mother would have more of a life that the country's welfare wouldn't be squandered on all these children but could be more focused and ultimately that more resources could even be used for the defense of the nation and it was incredibly effective and they did the numbers turned around with lightning speed and then they decided to introduce a program to make sure this became a part of life where every couple getting married would have to get a family planning go through a family planning course with or but betrothed so I decided to go to one of these classes to see what it was like and I have to tell you I learned some things but they are incredibly graphic and there were many couples who were arranged marriages and they just met each other a couple of weeks you know and the brides brother or father you know there was a chaperone with them so it was always a threesome but there was a class of them and they even had a giant phallus and they did the condom thing and I'm like oh my god and it was during Muharram so they apologized they couldn't use their musical tape because they don't play music during the month of Muharram so but you have to have that certificate in order to get your marriage license well the interesting thing now is and the second thing about the women's education is that Clarice didn't realize that the unintended consequence of the revolution was that a lot of traditional families who didn't allow their girls to go to school beyond elementary school suddenly began to trust the system of education and let them go on and as a result you do have 64% of the university community that is now female and Iran has also won the highest award for gender equality for girls in school across the board than there are boys but it has also led to an unusual demographic in that now they're realizing that you have this really big generation where you have a decade that's going to work its way through the system of where there are six children per family that's being supported by two children and it's the same problem of social security and so now the government is under Amani Najad they talked about giving gold coins and other incentives so that families would have more children but the interesting thing is just as David said it's now kind of part of the system the two child per family they accepted norm there's not a lot of interest in going beyond that because they realize those basics let me ask the last question which is where do we go from here based on your observations Congressman Harmon has given us some advice on what the Congress should do about the sanctions bill and Robin has called the sanctions bill war bill David has some advice on integrating Iran into a regional structure and an outreach to the Sunni state surrounding how would you like to conclude what final thoughts about the way forward and Robin why don't you you have to start I have to start oh what's next I actually do think a deal is possible I think the Iranians will do a lot and they will compromise more than we think they will to get it I think they're really ready to move on for a lot of reasons again for things that we don't always recognize the environmental problems in Iran are horrific as David knows the pollution you wonder that half the population doesn't have lung disease three of the four most polluted cities in the world are in Iran now they're running out of water we did a great piece I have a great piece on the Iran primer about these environmental challenges some of the rivers have just gone totally dry that this is a reality and again I keep thinking in terms of crippling sanctions there are a lot of much more basic questions that they're really interested in they want to move on so I think there are prospects the problem is I'm really worried that 34 years of tension and making them you know the enemy there was a postcard I remember at the time of the hostage takeover that showed an old woman kicking the map of Iran and it said kick the Shiite of Iran you know there's that still that holdover that hangover from the hostage crisis that still defines our perceptions of Iran that's so out of date that's one of the reasons I keep going back and looking at whether it's the anniversaries or trying to get into the embassy itself they've moved on I'm not sure that we have moved on and that as I said earlier that we are on the same page so I just don't know whether the psychology the fear we can get beyond the fear factor to do what is ultimately in both nations national interest I think I'm probably a little bit more pessimistic than Robin about the ability to get a comprehensive deal over the next year I certainly think we should try to do it I don't think we should soften the edges of what we're seeking so as to get it I think it's important that those edges remain clear we really are requiring them to reverse elements of their nuclear program to give up things that they have and trying to pretend that that's not so I think would be a mistake I just would close by saying that I hope that President Obama and his key advisors on this policy will continue to be strategic and I say continue to be because I think well I would fault many things the administration has done and foreign policy on Iran they have done this pretty sensibly when the president came into office in 2009 he thought we need to find a way to engage Iran we need to open the door to real contact with them so as to talk about the nuclear and other issues and then he realized that we need to find a way to organize a coalition supporting us that will pressure Iran to walk through that door open it and then find a way to move them in the direction of negotiation and he did that and this coalition is powerful and he's kept Russia and China as part of it with a lot of hard work so basically I think the president needs to own this and continue to drive it and continue to make good decisions I thought he was pretty honest the other week when he said to a gathering sort of like this that he thought there was a 50-50 chance of a deal you know he wasn't blowing smoke he was just and you know if he sticks to that and continues to empower Secretary Kerry and all the other key people you know even if you don't get the deal after a year I think the process itself will be a good one for Iran and will give as I said to close give the Iranian people a taste of what's around the corner if they can make the turn that I described David you were hard on the administration in your column this morning and you were positive on their intent Robin you've taken us from family planning to the nuclear deal a great session I want to thank Meg King who works with Congressman Harmon and Ryan Plannahan who works with us really appreciate the work we're doing with the Wilson Center and look forward to tomorrow's as well I think your parents will be very proud they'll be very proud thank you very much