 and prevention at the United States Institute of Peace. I have great pleasure in welcoming you to the Institute and this public event, Regimen Opposition in Iran, preparing for a new confrontation. I would also like to welcome our online audience, thanks to the magic of modern technology. We're webcasting this event live, and people are watching the proceedings from around the world, including in Iran. While we will not identify anyone by name or screen name, our online audience will also have the opportunity to engage in a lively discussion of their own in Farsi or in English through Twitter and through the chat function on our webcast page. For those of you tweeting about this event, the official hashtag is hash USIP Iran. Our online audience should also know that they can post questions to the panel through chat and Twitter. In the room to my left, we have Anand Varghese from USIP Center of Innovation for Science, Technology and Peacebuilding, and Samira Niko from the Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention, who speaks fluent Farsi. They will be tweeting and chatting about the event and will go to Anand during the question and answer session to get a sense of what's going on online, and will also take questions from the online audience. I should like to thank the Center of Innovation for Science and Technology for coordinating the online portion of this event. I am also grateful to our online partners, Georgetown University's Center for Democracy and Civil Society and Medan.net. Medan is hosting a live blog of this event in English and providing a simultaneous translation into Arabic, which we've linked to USIP's webcast page. Ladies and gentlemen, as one reads the debates raging on the opinion pages of newspapers and blogs about what to do about Iran, it is striking that for the first time, Washington seems very interested in what the Iranian people, rather than just their leaders are thinking. Ordinary Iranians seem to have entered the consciousness of a foreign policy elite in Washington. As Americans try to decipher and predict how decisions are made in Tehran, our analysis and calculations now have to take the green movement into consideration. This is a major change from the past 30 years of American thinking about Iran. American leaders are now seriously concerned about how their policies will both impact Iranian society and how they will be perceived by Iranians. This is a positive development and we need to think about ways we can encourage this kind of thinking. The United States is also now beginning to think of a relationship with Iran, both state and society, on its own terms. This is quite distinct from thinking of Iran as a subset of some other issue, like nuclear proliferation or the military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. One only has to think of the amount of people and resources now dedicated to understanding Iran in both the United States government and think tanks compared to just a few years ago to sense this change. USIPs contributing to this positive development and we need to keep thinking of ways to reinforce it. As Iran begins the 11-day commemoration of the 1979 revolution, we have assembled an outstanding group of experts on today's panel. Let me now introduce them in the order in which they will speak. Their biographies have been distributed, so I will be brief. Daniel Brumburg is acting director of USIP's Muslim World Initiative and associate professor of government at Georgetown. He's the author of several books, including Reinventing Khomeini, The Struggle for Reform in Iran. He will speak on repression and resistance in a divided society. Robin Wright is a Jennings Randolph senior fellow at USIP. As a journalist, she has reported from more than 140 countries and her foreign tours include five years in the Middle East. She will address the topic in search of unity, Iran's opposition. Fatemeh Hagigatu was a member of the Iranian parliament from 2000 to 2004. She has held several academic posts in the United States, including at the University of Connecticut and MIT. She will focus her remarks on the future of Iran's opposition. Susan Maloney is a senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy Studies. A monograph entitled Iran's Long Reach was published by USIP in 2008. She will address the question, the regime where are the fissures? George Lopez is a Jennings Randolph senior fellow at USIP. He holds the Theodore Hesburg Chair in Peace Studies at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. He has written or co-edited several books on economic sanctions. He will speak on US Iranian engagement. Each panelist will speak for no more than 10 minutes so we can have ample time for the question and answer session in which we certainly hope you will participate here in Washington and also those who will be participating online. So Dan Brumbug, you have the floor. Well, thank you very much, Abby. I thought the traffic this morning was beginning to look a bit like Tehran than anything else for a while. So I'm sorry, we started a few minutes late. I'm gonna put on my professor's hat this morning, which I often don't do here and talk a little bit about the conceptual issues that we are facing in terms of studying regime and opposition. Many of the assumptions I'm gonna talk about and lay out for you very quickly and the framework that they constitute have guided the previous work that the USIP and CAP in particular has taken on Arab oppositions. For our ongoing project on Iran, one of our main goals at the Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention is to explore ways in which there may or may not be a nonviolent solution to the ongoing conflict between the regime and the opposition. So very quickly let me set out these working propositions and I hope that they will provide some framework for the analysis that's going to ensue. Proposition number one, escalating confrontations between oppositions and autocratic regimes seeking to survive generally have two possible outcomes. Regime collapse or a negotiated informal accommodation or a formal political pact. Each of these two outcomes has its merits and demerits. Regime collapse can create a tabula rosa in which a totally new system is built, a system that minimizes the constraints of the ancien régime. But such an outcome, a regime collapse, also can come with great violence and upheaval and hardly promises a democratic outcome. By contrast, a negotiated pact or informal accommodation can minimize violence to an extent but it comes at the cost of retaining many of the old structures and actors from the previous regime. For reasons I will mention in a minute I believe that a negotiated outcome is still the most likely outcome in the case of Iran despite all the circumstances with which we are very familiar. Second assumption, regime opposition accommodations. I will put the slide up to sort of exemplify the ideas here a bit more. Second assumption, regime opposition accommodation is most likely to occur when regimes and oppositions contain within their respective ranks. Regime softliners and regime hardliners on the one hand in opposition moderates and opposition radicals on the other. This is what we political scientists call a four player game. In this game, opposition moderates are necessary because they are the ones who can reach out to regime softliners thus facilitating an accommodation. But opposition radicals are also vital. Their mobilization in the streets gives opposition moderates the leverage they need to cut a deal. Khatami failed to recognize this essential point in 1999 when he supported Khamenei rather than embracing the students. As a result, Khatami lost much of the bargaining leverage he needed to fend off the radicals from within his own ranks. Third assumption, the evolution of the Islamic Republic of Iran and particularly what I've called the dissonant nature of Iran's political system has left a political field that lends itself to this four player game. It is certainly true in Iran that the most hard line of hardliners want a two player confrontation since a polarized dynamic would frustrate if not preclude a negotiated outcome. And they're doing their best to make sure this happens. But thus far, the extreme hardliners have not succeeded in part because the so-called conservative ruling apparatus remains a complex fraction driven entity that holds out the possibility of defection or at least the threat of defection from within its own ranks. We see this happening today as Farhi's recent analysis so amply suggests. Fourth assumption, Iran is or has become what political scientists might call a divided or plural society. That is, its society is divided by competing groups that have antagonistic and in some cases mutually exclusive definitions of Iran's political future. The struggle is thus in some sense existential. The fundamental paradox or dilemma rising out of this existential conflict is this. The conflict makes a political pact more difficult to achieve and at the same time more urgent. It is difficult to realize such a pact because the central issue in question in Iran is one of national identity, which is not easily negotiated. And what is more, because the state contains within it powerful forces that have the means and the will to defend a vision of the Islamic Republic that still has mass support in some corners of the Iranian society, a political pact is difficult at the same time necessary. It is vital to achieve a pact because the only way to give regime softliners a measure of security and leverage within the regime itself is to agree to a set of procedures that make it more likely that a measure of state supported political decompression will not lead to the obliteration of the regime. There must be some guarantees to isolate the hardliners and increase the leverage of the softliners. So what are the prospects of a negotiated outcome? Well, the good news is that in Iran there appear to be political leaders, and this is relatively good news, of course, on both sides of the regime opposition line, who understand both the obstacles to negotiate an outcome and the urgent need for one. They include leaders of the Islamic left, such as Karubi, Khatemi, and of course Musavi. Far from irrelevant, irrelevant, far from irrelevant, these Islamic leftists remain critical because they have solid revolutionary credentials and what is more, but they have an eclectic, multi-dimensional ideological orientation that could create a bridge between opposition moderates and more pragmatic conservatives from within or attached to the regime. Now while regime hardliners certainly retain the upper hand, and thus are calling the shots quite literally, there are some indications that pragmatic regime forces are now realizing that the alternative to accommodation is more violence, perhaps civil war, or a political system that ultimately excludes them. These pragmatic regime forces include elements of the official semi-official clergy, the business community, and lay Islamist intelligentsia and even some elements within the revolutionary guard. They have representation in multiple institutional arenas, such as the parliament, the council of experts, and the expediency council, and they may or may not have the support of the supreme leader. Now there's the rub, or at least one of them. Where Ayatollah Khamenei comes down in this elaborate and highly opaque chess game is not the only question, but it is certainly a crucial question. Iran experts are now trying to look into his soul and what they are finding is murky. Our bigger job today, however, is to take some elements of the framework I've laid out and let them inform and hopefully deepen our discussions. We need to consider the nature of the regime, the nature of the opposition, and on that basis evaluate the probabilities of a negotiated outcome on the one hand versus a more violent or dramatic outcome, perhaps regime collapse on the other. But what is more, we should modestly keep in mind that whatever trend does or is emerging, at any time it can be upset by sudden internal or external shocks. Moreover, as other cases such as Paul in the 1989 show, even a negotiated outcome can set the stage for further transformations positive or negative. Nothing is predictable until it happens. With these caveats in mind, we will now turn to Robin, Fatima, and Suzanne, each of whom will consider a particular aspect of this complex puzzle, while it will be up to George to ponder the foreign policy implications of their presentations. I wish all of you good luck. How do you make it move forward? Okay, great. Thanks, Dan. I guess I should say God bless democracy because you don't always have to agree. I will take a little bit different approach to the same issue, and I'm gonna do it in pictures to kind of illustrate where we came from and where we are today. So let me start with the initial eruption of the uprising. Iran's eight month uprising has evolved through at least three different stages of what is likely to be many more. The first phase spanned the summer and witnessed the spontaneous birth of a broad but motley coalition that almost accidentally became known as the Green Movement. It includes a former president and prime minister as well as people who never voted at all, and millions of students in one of the youngest populations in the world, and women in one of the most politically active female populations in the Islamic world, both young and old. The common denominator was anger over injustice, one of the two defining themes of Shiite Islam, specifically over alleged election fraud. But these diverse sectors of society also view this crisis through very different prisms. The second phase began this fall with a new round of protests. Two things evolved, a shift in the Green Movement's themes and a widening of the tactics. The focus shifted from the election to the Supreme Leader and the definition of an Islamic system itself. The general chance in the summer, death to the dictator, became bold and specific calls for the ouster of the Supreme Leader. During phase two, the new civil disobedience campaign became as important as the protests. Iran actually is now the side of the most vibrant and imaginative civil disobedience campaign anywhere in the world. From the use of balloons to send messages when the government cut off cell phones and other means of communicating to using currency as the medium for the anti-regime message, always in green, of course. The government reportedly tried to take the marked banknotes out of circulation but then found that there were simply too many. Then it announced that banks would no longer accept marked banknotes, which has reportedly been largely ignored. Another interesting aspect of the campaign was a call for a boycott of all goods that were advertised on state-controlled television from food to cell phones. The civil disobedience campaign included individual and uncoordinated attacks. Mahmoud Bahidnia is a math student who was invited to a meeting between the Supreme Leader and Iran's academic elite. He went to the microphone and instead of asking a question, he warned the Supreme Leader that he lived in a bubble and didn't understand what was happening in Iran. But Iranian TV abruptly cut off transmission of the live broadcast, but not before it was taped by the BBC and others and ended up on YouTube. During the second phase, the signs of dissent grew in many ways, graffiti on public buses, against the Supreme Leader as well as Ahmadinejad. Anti-regime graffiti showed up on fences and offices, apartment blocks, and university property. Public space was used to give notice about upcoming protests. Posters also appeared overnight issuing new demands, many called for the release of political prisoners in trials that were reminiscent of the Soviet show trials of the 1930s and the Chinese purges during the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. Again, one of the more imaginative, rather spontaneous campaigns began after the arrest of Majid Tavakoli in protests in December. The government published a picture of Tavakoli trying to escape release by wearing women's dress. So Iranian men went out and started taking pictures of themselves in hijab, green, of course. It was a spontaneous campaign as young men put their pictures on Facebook. The numbers grew and grew. Then Tavakoli's Islamic dress was adapted for a picture of Ahmadinejad and put on the web and then on the Supreme Leader himself, an act of real irreverence. Even sports teams became involved. Iran's national team in the summer had started wearing green during an international match. But inside the country, some opposition dared to attend a game wearing green, which reportedly led the government to air the game in black and white. On other occasions, supporters started shouting Allah who Akbar during matches, which led the regime to send in Basij during many of the games. The green movement has generated some lively new art. This is the famous cell phone video of Netta Sultan, the young woman shot in June. That gruesome photo has become a popular poster in the technique used for Barack Obama's campaign poster. The same image has been blended in the artwork into the Iranian flag, so her face takes the place of the religious symbol in the middle. The blood pattern from her face has also been imposed on the Supreme Leader's face, an implicit message that he is responsible for her death. Perhaps one of the most unusual, recent, and rather spontaneous demonstrations of civil disobedience was at a education class for the military. When there was criticism of the dissident cleric Ayatollah Montazari, several of the officers in the crowd started coughing, repeatedly coughing, until they were forced to cancel the event. Other new slogans emerged during the fall. At the November 4th commemorations of the US Embassy takeover, Iranians are normally urged to shout death to America and death to Israel. This time, many shouted death to no one. Others shouted, rather pointedly, Obama, you were either with us or with them. Despite the growing repression by the regime, the demonstrations have only grown through the fall. The protest on National Students' Day, commemorating the death of three students during protests in 1953, protesting the visit of Vice President Nixon after the US put the shaw back on the throne, was the largest since the summer. Then in December, Iran's leading dissident cleric and mentor the Green Movement, Grand Ayatollah Ali Montazari, suddenly died, sparking another eruption, even in the holy city of Qom, which had been off limits to protest before. I think we may look back on his death as the beginning of a third phase. The outpouring was so large that the government sent troops to fill the mosque in Qom and prevent the memorial service. The largest crowd since the summer turned out a week later in cities across Iran to mark Ashura, the most important religious holiday in Shiite Islam. It marks the occasion when Shiites broke from Sunni Islam over two issues, leadership and injustice, the two themes that are at the heart of the current crisis in Iran. The government's response has highlighted the public fury, especially as troops open fire directly on unarmed civilians. The crisis has literally inflamed the situation. So that brings us to the revolution's anniversary, known as the 11 Days of Dawn. Beginning with the return of Ayatollah Homeini 31 years ago today, it ends with the fall of the caretaker government on February 11. The Green Movement has been mobilizing for weeks for another showdown. Its posters are urging peaceful protests. The regime has said it will show no mercy, but the Green Movement also believes it has the momentum on its side. Turning the revolution's anniversary would be the ultimate embarrassment and could begin to make what so far is really a human rights campaign look more like a counter-revolution, at least in appearance, if not in substance. The anniversary comes amid talk, as Dan pointed out, of a political deal in the air to end the crisis. During this third phase, presidential candidate Mir Hussein Musavi outlined a five-point plan. It called, among other things, for the government to recognize the rights of the people, for new election laws, and for freeing of all political prisoners. Last week, the opposition leadership appeared to go a step further when former presidential candidate and parliamentary speaker Mehdi Karubi said he recognized the Abany-Nijad government, even though he still believes the election was stolen. He also said he accepts the supreme leader and criticized the protesters for chance against him. He said the Green Movement had no intention of abandoning the Islamic Republic. In an intriguing move, he also effectively offered a scapegoat, the man in the white turban in this picture, Ayatollah Ahmed Janati. He criticized Janati as the effective cause of the problem. Of course, Janati has been head of the Council of Guardians for 22 years. It's the body that bets candidates and has an extraordinary amount of control over some kinds of legislation. It looks like the opposition is trying to shift the focus to Janati. But these ideas are in stark contrast with the sentiments of others in the Green Movement. And I think any deal at this juncture could see the fracturing of the opposition into its many disparate pieces. And I think it's far more diverse than just radicals and moderates. I think it spans a huge array of factions. To close, I think any deal has no guarantee of ending the crisis, at least long term. First, the uprising has been in the making for a century, since the constitutional revolution of 1905 to 1911 that gave Iran the first country in Asia to produce a constitution. And it emerged out of that crisis. And second, the current protests have simply gone on for too long and involved so many that even tiny concessions or compromises to stop the protests would only encourage significant numbers to demand more, if not the next day, then not too far down the road, which the regime knows. It looks at what happened in the Soviet Union. And there are often comparisons, or even during the days of President Khatami, when hardliners in the regime saw him as, they called him Ayatollah Gorbachev. So the bottom line is that in the short term, there may be negotiations. There may be a deal. But my bet is that it will not end the crisis. Thank you. Good morning. I would like to thank you, the center organizer. The vice president and professors. By considering the nature of the Islamic regime, the opposition has done a great job so far. Although the opposition is not unison, the opposition contain a spectrum of diverse views ranging of those loyal to the current order of the Islamic Republic to those that want fundamental change to the structure. At the moment, the movement has broad base of people regardless from age, economic, and educational background sympathy. The organizing of the movement rests on several strata. Student activists, women, Iranian diaspora, and workers. However, important other groups, which are quite active in themselves, have not yet officially integrated into the movement, which is the ethnic groups. The leadership model for the movement is perfect for the circumstances. Mr. Mousavi's presidential campaign slogan was every citizen is a campaign headquarter. And after the election, he emphasizes this concept even more. He has said every citizen runs own protest campaign. And every citizen is media. And he praises and encourages the youth to be creative and to understand from violence. Some people have criticized Mousavi for his minimum leadership and his ideology and because of his loyalty to the regime foundation. However, from my point of view, this decentralized and multipolar model suites the current circumstances best. Otherwise, the security forces could have taken out the leadership, and this would have ended the movement. The security forces have arrested a huge number of leadership advisors and shot down many newspapers. But it has not stopped the movement and its momentum, just because of this decentralized leadership decision. An important factor of the movement has been the close coordination between the first critical pillars of the movement who have backed in tandem. Mr. Mousavi, Mr. Karubi, Mr. Khatami, and Mr. Hashemi Rafsanjani. Most importantly, the women of the movement, women behind the leadership, have been quintessential for the movement. Mrs. Rahnavard, and you see that she clarifies the latest statement by Mousavi and also daughter of Hashemi Rafsanjani Faiza Hashemi plays an important role to push his father to be active more in the movement. Also, it's same for Mr. Karubis. On the other hand, it has to be said that some of opposition outside of the country do not have fully trust in the movement's leadership, such as Mousavi and Karubi, because of their previous roles and function inside the Islamic Republic and their continuous loyalty to the regime foundation. However, the critical question is, without them, this movement would not have taken off, because no candidate outside of the establishment would have even been able to stand for the election because of election laws and procedures. Who could like Mousavi, unless high-ranking individual within the security forces in favor of the movement, would an outsider have been able to crack the armor of the regime if this individual have not been in the leadership of the movement, moderate forces within the regime, such as Nadegh Noori, who was the competitor by Khatami in 1995 and six presidential election. Ali Motahari, who is the current member of parliament, would not have gotten involved in favor of the movement to criticize the hardliners. An outsider would not have been able to active and passive consent of the clergy in favor of the movement, although one cannot draw plural. But I liken the role of Mousavi to that of Gorbachev in the Soviet Union. Only a loyal, effective insider to the Soviet regime could even contemplate reforming of the system. In fact, a poll conducted by Mr. Sazegara inside Iran shows that Mr. Mousavi, Mrs. Rahnavard, and Ms. Karubi enjoy the highest confidence of the sample group. Beside of those criticism inside Iranian, also Washington does not trust Mousavi and leadership group because of his and their position on the nuclear issue. I want to say this is wrong. Mousavi represents the nature and depths of the Iranian people views while, at the one hand, Iranian feel entitled to having peaceful nuclear program. A democratic Iran would not be have hegemonial tendency beyond an invading nature. The West should not equate nuclear technology in the hand of the current regime with nuclear technology in the hand of a democratic Iran. What could be next? I see the prospect of an internal civil war between these two groups opposition and the regime as very low because the green movement is very aware of the negative consequences of violence and the track records of movements which have succeeded through violence. This is evident from the huge number of written and posted papers and opinion following the Ashura violence. As to negotiated outcome between the opposition and the regime, I see it as a pre-negotiation stage. I see the following from the internal makeup of the two sides. The hardliners inside the regime still have the upper hand within the structure. They form the majority within the National Security Council which is the most important decision-making body within the current circumstances. It is the decision of this council to give authority and the management of the suppression of the movement to the revolutionary guard and the passage force. But in the Majlis, there is a keen competition among conservative for power between the hardliners and the moderate conservative. With no one has clear advantages. I offer the example of Mr. Hosseinian's resignation which was out of the frustration about evenness of the competition in which he intended to upset the balance in favor of the hardliners. Again, it's the moderate conservative by bringing some pressure to force the moderate to side with the hardliners. Now, I come to the judiciary branch which is not independent. During the last four years, the judiciary was restructured in favor of the hardliners in which way that every decision that was taken by security apparatus was rubber stamped by the selected obedience judges. The head of the judiciary has ceremonial function. So not much to be expected from the judiciary. Finally, I come to the office of the supreme leaders which is entirely controlled by the hardliners and the security forces which control all channel of information to the supreme leader. Consequently, there is a strategic coordination and collaboration between the leader and security forces and the government dances to tune of the security forces and the supreme leader. Despite the fact that the moderate conservative are not involved in key decision, a strategic decision making, they are not sitting idle and are actually quite creative. The national reconciliation plan of Ali Mutahari, who is a member of parliament, is one case in point. While Mutahari starts up with asking Musavi to recognize Ahmadinejad as a president, he calls quite far in asking for the president should apologize to the candidate for the accusation made during the campaign, ensure freedom of expression, release of the political prisoners, and most importantly, ending the security atmosphere within the country. The security forces stop paranoia about the intervention of the foreigner and velvet soft revolution rhetoric and accession of the accusation of the foreign involvement. It goes further to ask the judiciary prosecutes wrongdoers among the hardliners who are hiding behind the supreme leader. You can see this list is very strong. Even when I read first few months ago, I got upset because of the opening statement and now reading make me to understand the depths of his plan. Looking at the moral, sorry, looking at the model, the pressure from below and negotiation at the top, which is famous this model in Iran news. However, over time, moral authority gains the upper hand and the hardliner will be forced to come to the negotiation table. However, it might be too late to negotiate within the legal structure of the regime. And the demand of the green movement may be beyond this and for the reform of the supreme leadership office. So from my point of view, the current status quo will continue for a while. Thank you. Thank you to Dr. Williams and to Dr. Brunberg for organizing this event and particularly for asking me to be a part of it. I feel a little bit intimidated and out of my depth to follow three terrific speakers and world-class experts on the issues that they've addressed today. I also feel, as I pointed out in a similar panel where Robin and I gave parallel presentations that I've been given the task of covering the bad guys while Robin and Fatima were given the task of covering the good guys. I'm not sure quite what that says about me. It may say something about Brookings, which has been raised, again, in the recent hearings in the trials of some of those who participated in the Ashura uprising and was named twice on a list of 60 organizations that are considered subversive by the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence. But clearly, the role of working on the regime is something or talking a little bit about the regime is not quite as AV-friendly as certainly Robin's subject, although I'm sure I could have provided some really dramatic pictures to intimidate or at least drive home the message of the problems of this regime. But let me just start by making one point that I think is quite important, that Iran, since the outset of the revolution, has always been fraught by fratricidal partisanship. This has never been a regime that has been coherent in the sense of full consensus around anything other than its own survival, anything other than the fundamental importance of the system itself. I've always been contending ideological points of view. And in fact, the debates over issues surrounding the economy and the guidance of the state were as fierce in the early years of the revolution as they have been in recent years and recent months. And so the idea of dissent and contention and even outright hostility and animosity among the constituents, components of the Islamic Republic of Iran is one that has a great deal of history at quite a track record. At the same time, that kind of contention provided some kind of a stability for the regime. It was a venue for elite competition. It was a substitute for more organized forms of political competition and action, rather than forming political parties, rather than in fact being attracted to join opposition organizations. Political contenders found an avenue for voicing their dissent within the system itself, so long as they were part of the system at the outset. And so it was a force for stability within the Islamic Republic. What we've seen over the past six months, I think, is something quite different than we've ever seen. It is happening at a level and at a scope and at a depth that is really dramatically different than what we have seen since the very earliest days of the revolution. It's important to make that distinction, because there are those who would point to what's happening in Iran today and say it's really not all that important. The splinters within the regime, the dissent and the disagreement is not all that catastrophic. It doesn't mean anything new if you really understand Iran. I think this is false wisdom. In fact, what is happening today at a regime level is quite important, quite significant. In the outcome, we really don't know at this stage. It's different for a couple of reasons. One is the depth of the breach. It started on the day after the election with Mir Hussein Musavi's decision to contest the outcome of the election, which was a public rejection of the Supreme Leader's Authority. It's not to say that either Homin-A or his predecessor Holmeni have ever had unchallenged authority in Iran. Iran was never Saddam Hussein's Iraq. And yet the kind of public contention, the public defiance of an edict of the Supreme Leader that the election had been decided, that it had been a landslide in favor of the incumbent candidate by a constituent and important longtime member of the regime's insider clique was such a sort of breach of all previous protocol. And set the stage, I think, for the continuing momentum that we saw in those very early weeks, but also some of the bolder stances by some of the other members of the political lead, including former President Khatami, whose past track records have not been marked by that kind of a courage. So that public rejection, which has been continued, I think, over time, this very deep rejection of any sort of continuation of the system, more explicitly, obviously, by those who've gone out onto the streets, but also by the continuing unwillingness, up until very recently, of some of the key members of the green movement to begin to compromise in any significant way. I'd also say that what is important about the fissures within the regime is the scope of the alienation. We have seen it really in the scope of the repression that's taken place since June. The people who've been arrested, Bethzad Naubovi, the negotiator who was responsible for leading the Iranian representation to the Algiers Accords, the agreement that freed the hostages in 1981, is now considered an enemy of the state. The sheer numbers of people, Alireza Behesti, the people associated with both the clerical class with the revolutionary founders of the state who have been imprisoned over quite a long duration. Obviously, this is a regime which has been willing to use violence in the past against its dissenters. It's been willing to threaten violence as the previous speaker knows only too well and threaten imprisonment against those who speak out against some of its policies. But we have not seen the numbers of arrests and the treatment of protesters, both at an elite level, which matters to the stability of the regime, and of course at a popular level, since the early 1980s. And again, very important. The scope is so deep, in part, because these breaches within the elites are identified with what's happening on the street. Even if, as both Robin and Fatima suggested, there is a beginning of a dissociation between the pace of events and the demands of the protesters on the streets and what some of the political leaders of the Green Movement might be willing to compromise and settle for. Clearly, the threat of some of those political leaders is that much more acute in the eyes of the orthodox defenders of the regime because of exactly what is happening on the streets and the linkage and identification between them. The third distinction between today and all of the previous public spats which have taken place among the members of the elites and within the regime itself is this public venting of hostilities, which we see on an almost daily basis. Most recently, the sort of spat very direct accusations between Ayatollah Masbah Yazdi and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former president and current heads of both the Expediency Council and the Assembly of Experts. This is, of course, the sort of things that has always happened in Iran over the years, but it has not played out in quite a public venue as it has over the past six months. This is a function both of the kind of age in which we live, in which even the censorship of media, even the spamming of broadcast media into Iran, even the government's ability to rest control of the internet isn't enough to prevent people from speaking. It is, in fact, I think a vindication of one of the things Akbar Ghanji said more than a decade ago, that the genie is out of the bottle, the bottles have been smashed, it can never be put back in. Iranians feel the need to speak, to talk about these issues. And even at an elite level, they're going to vent these sorts of frustrations and animosities in a much more public fashion than they have ever had before. But again, that makes it all that much more threatening for those orthodox defenders of the regime and for, of course, the supreme leader himself. Finally, I think the distinction between what's happened today and what happened at any time since the earliest days of the revolution is just the duration, the persistence, and indeed even the escalation as we've seen in recent months. The fact that severe repression has not been able to prevent people from gathering in the streets, that it is not really cowed political leaders from associating themselves with the green movement. Even as the green movement suggests some willingness to compromise, one sees more and more expressions of sympathy, whether it's for the nephew of Musavi who was killed in one of the earlier protests and some of the other families. The consistent representations and public acknowledgments that what has happened has been deeply problematic even by those who have been longtime defenders of the regime. Let me just notice, I think Fatima has suggested just before me that the push for compromise that both Fatima and Robin suggested has been coming from the green movement in recent months or in recent weeks has certainly been present among some key elements of the regime itself, of the defenders of the regime, principle as conservatives, however you might want to qualify them. For several months, there was a lot of talk over the summer about something called the National Reconciliation Commission, about some sort of mediation by one of the senior Ayatollah's Mahadevi Kani that was largely un-pursued, I think, because there wasn't a sense, apparently at least, among the principalist camp that the situation was that urgent. Clearly what has happened, I think, in the escalation since students' day, if not earlier in December, has been a recognition that this was not a short-term event, that this is an existential crisis for the Islamic Republic, and we've seen more and more, particularly those from the clergy coming out and suggesting that this is simply not a crisis, that the state can or should be willing to permit to endure in the size and in the numbers of people who are coming out to the streets. We're hearing more and more from some of the fence sitters, the opportunists, the hedgers, the people like Ali Lara Johnny, the current speaker of the parliament, who, as most know, is neither a moderate nor someone who is necessarily a political forward thinker, but who has also begun to suggest that the state's handling of the situation is deeply problematic, and that gets at what the real cleavage is among the elite today, this animosity toward Ahmadinejad and all that he stands for, the radicalism that he has brought to the state, the disturbance within the Nizam, the system which has been obviously undergone a lot of crises over the years, but has been able to withstand what one might argue are even greater existential dilemmas, the invasion, some of the economic crises over the years without the level of instability that we've seen in the past six months. Ahmadinejad is identified by many members of the principalist camp, traditionalist, clergy, members of the merchant community, people who are longtime supporters of the Islamic Republic and who are in fact committed to its perpetuation and endurance and are looking for some sort of a negotiated compromise and solution. We don't know where the Revolutionary Guard stands. Certainly most of the public statements of the command has been quite supportive of Ahmadinejad and of the Supreme Leader, Khamenei, but it's hard to imagine a component in the regime which is at least at a base level as diverse as the country is itself, having no capacity for pragmatism and having no willingness and diversity of opinions. So I think that that is an area that remains tremendously opaque, but obviously critical to the way this crisis plays out. The fulcrum in all of this is the Supreme Leader himself, Ayatollah Khamenei. And I think there we run into the difficulty to the negotiated pact solution that Dr. Brumberg suggested might be the most likely option. Khamenei, from my perspective, doesn't appear to be in any mood to bend whatsoever, in part because his mindset is one of constant defiance, constant opposition. He has said time and time again as one of his very close allies, who Fatima mentioned, Ayatollah Janati said, only on Friday that any kind of compromise, any show of weakness will only lead to greater crisis for the state and it will be the beginning of a process of the eradication of the regime. And in this way, the crisis, the domestic political crisis is for the leadership of the Islamic Republic very much linked to the diplomatic setting and US policy issues, in particular the nuclear issue. The identification of this very indigenous movement for change in Iran, one that I think anyone who knows anything about the country recognizes had nothing to do with the US government whatsoever and everything to do with the Iranian people and their legitimate aspirations for political change which have long been bottled up. The identification of that with foreign conspirators, with some sort of international plot to bring down the Islamic Republic is part of the defining myth of Khamenei and of this leadership at this time. And both as a result of this mindset and I think as a result of his own history, his own recollections, participation in the revolutionary mobilization in 1978 and 79 is going to lead him to I suspect take a more defiant position and that is of course what we have seen over the past six months. No real willingness or scope for compromise. Khamenei knows, I would suspect instinctively, what most academic studies of the revolution have in fact demonstrated that every time the shahd suggested some willingness, some flexibility, some compromise, the revolutionary mobilization was empowered. People came out into the streets in bigger numbers. People saw in fact that their demands were leading to some sort of a change and felt more motivated to join in opposition to the regime. And so I think for that very reason we're going to see further obstinacy from the Islamic Republic's leadership at least at Khamenei's level. Let me just say, and I've been asked to talk about the regime rather than about US policy but in closing I think that what we're dealing with is in fact probably the hardest possible set of circumstances for any administration here in Washington to deal with. We're dealing with incredible ambiguity, shifting positions and at least some degree of splintering among both broad camps that one can look at within Iran, principleist, reformist opposition, however you want to characterize them. An incredible amount of opacity because so many of those whom people were in contact with here are no longer capable of maintaining those communications. I've been hearing stories of people's family members whose cell phones have been taken and so all the normal modes of communication of people who did maintain very close coordination with people in Iran have been cut off. There have been obviously a great deal of technological savvy that far outpaces anything I can even imagine that I imagine has sprung up to fill some of these voids but clearly we have less information even as we have greater citizen journalism and more to watch on YouTube every day. But the final piece of it that I think is so hard for Washington is that we're in just a situation where we all know it's going to change, it's flux. Nobody can predict the outcome at this stage with any degree of certainty. This has always been one of the truisms about Iran but it's more true today than ever. We simply know that what Iran looks like today is probably not what it's going to look like in a year or in five years and so the administration has to be nimble enough to deal with what it's spacing on the ground today but also in effect preempt whatever, whichever direction this may change, whether it's a negotiated pact, whether it's the development of full-scale revolutionary mobilization or whether in perhaps what might be the worst case solution, some sort of devolution into civil war or unchecked violence by the regime and a more violent opposition arising in that sort of an outcome. So I think the difficulty for all of us is to continue watching, looking for the parallels from both 79 and other revolutionary situations but not to presume that we know the answers yet, at least not in my case. Thank you. I benefit greatly from that transition in Suzanne's last set of remarks. The last part of our title this morning is preparing for a new confrontation, question mark. The intransigence of the government in Iran to the October uranium enrichment deal and the government's repression of its various opposition and protest movements as our panelists have looked at has intensified the dialogue in this town that for many the only major question is what kind of new crippling, and that's the word used for many months by Secretary of State Clinton, sanctions will be placed on Iran soon. There's very little discussion of whether or not sanctions are a viable response or what the range of responses might be to the changes we've seen this morning. If congressional conferees reconcile their differences between the Senate sanctions bill past last Thursday and House Resolution 2194 passed in mid-December, then gasoline imports of a devastating nature will be imposed on the economy of Iran. Under Secretary of Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Levy has readied an asset freeze and other financial sanctions aimed at various Iranian banks and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Other administration officials are very much talking about a new package of UN Security Council sanctions focused on a targeted arrangement on Iranian leaders. Under normal domestic and international circumstances, I would argue, Iran's defiance of IAEA guidelines, its development of secret uranium enrichment facilities, and its human rights violations make it a prime candidate for international targeted sanctions. But what we've heard this morning from our other panelists tells us that Iran as a nation and as a society is finding itself in anything but normal circumstances. The U.S. then faces a very difficult dilemma. There seems to be on the face of it substantial justification for imposing sanctions on the regime. And there even is, according to different governmental criteria, an array of stinging tools at hand, ready to be imposed. I doubt, though, seriously that any of these will achieve U.S. or international strategic objectives. Rather, the bitter irony of this moment and the perilous case of the difficulties in the domestic arena in Iran mean that the sanctions may very well create economic havoc in Iran, but they fail on each of its major counts. They will not stop uranium enrichment and they won't improve the behavior of Ahmadinejad's government. Worse yet, for U.S. and fellow sanctioners, we will be unable after imposing sanctions to control any of the secondary or unanticipated effects or reactions by the government to the sanctions. This is a recipe not only for sanctions' failure but in translation, foreign policy failure. Regarding the enrichment crisis, I understand the U.S. and international end game to be the following. An acceptance in some form of the basic principles of the October agreement carved out in Geneva, in which Iran would permit enriched uranium that it's generated at a low capacity to be essentially traded for fully processed fuel to meet its energy, development, and medical needs. Until such an agreement can be reached, the United States is committed to find various ways coercive and otherwise but non-military to coerce, disrupt, and slow Iran's progress in such enrichment. An essential component of that strategy, however, is that the IAEA inspectors continue to have access to Iranian sites and that Iran remains a party to the non-proliferation treaty. Regarding human rights conditions within Iran, I understand the U.S. and international end game to be the Iranian government would permit more free speech, freedom of assembly, and free and fair elections in a nation that is guided by the will of the Iranian people. The United States also understands at this moment it cannot directly speak in favor of the opposition nor find ways to aid it. The final analysis says that Iranians will determine their own fate. None of the sanctions being discussed at any level in the U.S. government are likely to lead to either of these end game outcomes in the nuclear or human rights realm. The congressional sanctions will fail because even well formulated trade sanctions have a very, very low batting average for success in the past, somewhere between 25 and 33%. The Senate version of these sanctions past last week in particular demands that the president enforce secondary sanctions against those who trade with Iran, meaning that a great deal of U.S. foreign policy will be devoted to the interdiction of goods going into Iran and takes our eye off the primary focus of direct engagement with the regime. Proposed congressional sanctions, I believe, are a pile driver into the general economy of Iran where a scalpel is the instrument necessary to influence the choices of the elites. Moreover, the lesson of social change in South Africa reminds us that you should never impose general trade sanctions in a situation in which the opposition movements themselves have not come out directly in favor of the imposition of that sanction and have been willing to bear the cost. This is not the condition we have on the ground at the moment. Truly smart sanctions must engage a target not only enrage it and that engagement must be on the issue of the international crisis of the moment, whether it be human rights or uranium enrichment. The sanctions imposed and think about by Congress are so punitive that they fail in each of these regards. In Washington over the past few months, as the movement has grown, diversified and become more challenging for outside analysts to cope with, even the specialists we have here with us this morning, the mood about sanctions has changed from sanctions as a calculated, limited tool of pressure in the service of a policy of engagement to sanctions being a policy of punishment with multiple rationales supporting that move. Such sanctions, I believe, are a trap for increased escalation of a dispute where the central contentious struggle will soon be the sanctions themselves rather than the general principles of the norm or violation of international law that led to the sanctions. Sanctions being discussed by the U.S. will not lead at this moment to denuclearization because the appropriate set of other tools and the more general policy to achieve the mix of tools has not been formulated by the Obama administration. Past cases like Ukraine, Libya, South Africa, Brazil and Argentina teach us that only an astute use of the most narrowly targeted sanctions on those directly responsible for the technical aspects of nuclear development. Combined with new security guarantees and combined with a sophisticated set of economic inducements lead states to choose denuclearization. The challenge in those situations was never how you increase punitive sanctions but rather how you formulate the new security paradigm and context in which it would be in the interests of the elites in the targeted state to choose denuclearization. And that would be accompanied by a credible promise that that new security arrangement would soon be forthcoming and new economic inducements would stimulate it. Historically on the human right side, smart sanctions have never been successful and certainly in turning over regime and certainly not having more than limited success in changing the behavior of brutal leaders. In fact, the key to success in human right sanctions is that it occurs only between states with substantial amounts of trade, investment and interaction that is hardly the case after 30 years of US and now three years of UN sanctions with Iran. Worse yet, I would claim on the human right side, new sanctions only intensify the human rights crisis. In a country with such a besieged leadership, you have a classic case of sanctions providing a Medinijad government with a rally around the flag effect whereby the leadership can point to the sanctions as intensifying the economic crisis underscore the linkage between the protest movements being supported by outsiders and use those very sanctions meant to improve human rights to in fact increase repression. Worse yet, even though many in Congress think that sanctions will send a good human rights message, such sanctions will in fact give a Medinijad a platform where they to choose for withdrawing from the NPT treaty and most importantly and most damaging to our interest expelling inspectors. If not these tough sanctions, then what is Washington to do? First, I believe the administration and Congress must recognize that the combined slowness of uranium enrichment over the past few months which occurs either by direct choice or by technical difficulties and the dramatic disarray of internal Iranian politics that we've discussed this morning gives us an option to take at least another six months to observe the progress of Iranian history as a much more prudent policy than the imposition of sanctions. Secondly, the U.S. must accept the fact as must the Security Council that you cannot sanction Iran into better human rights behavior and you certainly can't sanction them into nuclear submission. The Obama administration needs to find ways to breathe new life and creativity into its policy of engagement and give it real teeth without the application of sanctions and with a policy of direct and permanent diplomacy. We must take the bold move either secretly or openly to meet and talk with the existing Iranian leadership and others in Iran who will talk with us about some version of a Geneva agreement that can take some more consideration of Iranian national aspirations to independence of the energy sector or independence of some level of enrichment. Substantively, the administration must treat then the October agreement as a deal in waiting, not something that's been categorically rejected. We must recognize that the history of negotiating with Iran often means that opportunities presented at one time are now grasped for later in the game. As I conclude, I recognize there may be many in the audience that are saying to themselves that the ideas I presented might have been interesting to hear in the dialogue three, four or five months ago but that we're in a town where the sanctions train has already left the station. Under what conditions then can I offer some practical, realistic, incredible discussion about what sanctions I might use or what we might do with the Security Council in light of my rejection of the general trend in the town. Let me accept that challenge for a moment and propose the following if I were to write the Security Council resolution. It would include the following particular aspects. A condemnation of Iran for the development of secret facilities of uranium enrichment, for refusals to act in good faith to an agreement they partially constructed themselves in Geneva and for continued violation of Security Council resolutions 1737, 1747 and 1803. But after that condemnation, I would suggest a call for a re-engagement of the October accords by all relevant parties with a full examination of alternative proposals that have been developed by the Iranians and other member states. Thirdly, I'd create a panel of experts akin to the one created by the council to accompany the sanctions on North Korea to provide expertise and investigation to the 1737 sanctions committee with a special mandate to investigate proliferation networks, entities and individuals who've been responsible for the greatest violations to 1737 and 1747. Important for symbolic and real purposes, this committee would be based in Vienna to maximize its interaction with the IAEA. And finally, if sanctions must come to it, I would impose smart, targeted, narrow sanctions based in the Security Council for travel and other restrictions on those entities which have been proven, directly proven, to violate 1737 and 1747 on the exchange of missile development, missile technology and nuclear aspects of the development of Iran. But that those would be not only on Iranian entities but on our entities outside which have been the other end of the flow scheme. This kind of resolution is supported and used by the United States would need to be accompanied by a major policy statement by the Obama administration outlining the future vision it has of security in the Middle East, a future vision which includes not only a denuclearized Iran but nuclear controls by all contending states in the region over time and provide a set of new options for sustained dialogue with Iran complete with the economic incentives that might make this happen. Thank you very much. All right. Well, I'd like to thank our five panelists for their stimulating presentation. So we now turn to the question and answer period and we have about 35 minutes, a good amount of time to have an interesting session. What I would do, I would take two or three questions from the audience here at the institute and then go to Anna and just to give us a sense of the discussion which is happening online and then take two or three questions perhaps from the online conversation. So we'll be moving back and forth. So just raise your hand and Leslie will bring the microphone. My name is Shahla Arosta from Voice of America Persian News Network. My question is to Robin. What do you think is the regime is most worried and afraid of and to what extent would they do? What do they do to keep away that danger and worry away from themselves? I should defer to Suzanne. That's her topic today. I mean, I think ultimately the main priority and deepest fear of the regime is some sort of revolutionary turmoil. It's perpetuation of the system of government and I think what has happened in recent weeks has been a recognition among some of the key constituent parts of the regime that in fact Iran may be embarking on exactly that sort of a situation. At the same time from what Robin and Fatima said and what I see in the news there does also appear to be a parallel recognition by Musavi, Karubi and others. And what's so I think fascinating about Iran is there is something playing out in public which inevitably reflects conversations that have taken place outside of the public purview. We may be seeing an exchange of quid pro quos that could in fact lead to some resolution but as Robin suggested it would probably only be a temporary resolution. Okay, I'm standing over with the Kato Institute. One possible outcome that hasn't been discussed is a Tiananmen Square type of repression and I see one of the panelists nodding. So how likely or possible would that kind of outcome be? Okay, first Fatima and then Robin. You can also add something. I don't think so that the regime could use such a violence because actually they already used violence against the movement and we see if you look at today trend of the movement since the June 13th to now you will see that at the beginning the slogan was where is my vote and then when they continued to oppress the movement then we see that the slogan from where is my vote turning to this to the leader. I just here at my Skype I saw that they sent actually more than 20 list of slogans for February 11th rallies that all of those when we look at today's slogans shows that the needs is more beyond the current structure but I guess they can't use such a violence. It's there is a quite differences between China case and Iran case. Iran cannot use such a situation against its people. Robin, you wanna add something? Yeah, let me just add something quickly. There are often comparisons between China and Iran today and given the fact that they have autocratic regimes and the growing closeness between the governments economically and politically but I think in fact there are huge differences. The very idea that Iranians have had to vote for a long time. Majority of people in Iran have voted most of their lives and Iran had the first constitution a century ago as I tried to point out that the issues are so different. Iranians are already empowered and the government could try a Tiananmen but I don't think it would end that sense of either the right to get out and protest or the right to want more. They're just very fundamental differences between the level of politicalization within each society. Just a very quick point. I think that if there were an attempt to use a much more massive level of force that has been used to date, you would see an exacerbation of the splits within the principalists because clearly the level of repression and the scope of violence and the number of people still sitting in prisons has been one of the key issues that has been used by other conservatives to criticize Ahmadinejad and others. Yeah, and I'll very quickly add to this. I think if there were a Tiananmen situation, the regime might very well collapse but the regime has studied, the regime was made by people who brought down the Shah and they know the lessons of the fall of the Shah and they have been delivered in their effort to avoid a situation where that level of violence and killing would be necessary because the repercussions for the regime, in that sense it's very rationing. And there are also so many splits even within the revolutionary guards themselves. 84% voted for Khatami in 1997. There have been a lot of credible reports of even shouts of death to the dictator from some of the revolutionary guard compounds where some of them live. And I think that you already see on the streets in the last round of protests a lot of police, anti-riot police and others who don't want to get involved who are saying no. And I think that because so many in Iran have been affected by the crisis that they have a neighbor, a friend, a cousin, whatever that this is spilling over within security forces as well. Okay. I'm Maryam Amar Siddegi. Just as a counterpoint though, I wanna point out that this is the highest level of repression and violence that Iranian people have suffered since the revolution. And although the type of Tiananmen violence hasn't been employed yet, as Dan Brunberg said quite intentionally, by choice the regime sees that as a severe loss of credibility and potentially the start to its downfall. But the level of arrest, imprisonment, torture, intimidation against protesters and their families is huge. And I think in this forum it needs to be communicated that the fear element is very strong. And yet at the same time as I think every panelist observed the green movement's momentum is only rising with every month, with every protest. And the level of communication about the demands of the green movement is only increasing from where is my vote to, I think as Fatima Eradjou pointed out, the slogans prepared for February 11th are all about the supreme leader as far as I can tell and his illegitimacy. So I think that it's a combination of increasing violence against protesters but increasing resistance by the protesters. Thanks. I think Leslie, after that comment, perhaps I could turn to Anna and to just give us a sense of how the online conversation is going and if we have one or two questions from our online audience and then I'll come back to our audience here. Okay, Anna? There's quite a bit of conversation going on online, very interesting. Some of it seems to be from Iran, so that's encouraging as well. A couple of questions that's there all, the discussion seems to be centering on two basic issues. The first is US foreign policy. The main concern is that's been echoed here as well ever since a protest began. What's, what about the disconnect between the words and actions? How are we going to actually make this work? W, that's how he or she identifies himself, says, does the Obama administration have the domestic political support to have some version of the Geneva agreement in Iran? And how will this option even be possible? There are lots of concerns by online activists. Jillian asks, what about the sanctions on Iran that prevent Iranian users from downloading US-made software? They only seem to affect ordinary Iranian citizens and there's a lot of concern about sanctions, smart or not, affecting the local populace. Thank you, Annan. Perhaps, George, you might want to respond on this issue about sanctions and the possible efficacy of sanctions since you touched on that and this concern about whether the Obama administration has support for a Geneva-kind agreement on Iran. Sure, I think certainly in a structural way they have the support and substantively they have the support. That is, remember this would be an executive agreement, it's not a treaty. There's a great deal of bipartisan concern that the nuclear crisis not be lost within the larger concern about human rights, while many, I think, within the American population respond very much to the human rights dimensions rather than the nuclear one at the elite levels and certainly in Congress. Many of the Congress people are looking at uranium enrichment as the primary concern. At that same time, I think these are vectors going in a kind of opposite direction, a real tightrope to be walked by the administration and essentially on the human rights side they continue to say, let's leave change in Iran for the Iranians. Down the road it creates the most difficult of all situations. Were there to be an opening from the Ahmadinejad government to reopen the nuclear discussion, you then fall victim to the critique that you're negotiating essentially with an illicit or illegitimate regime and you're doing it in order to increase the domestic support that Ahmadinejad has rather than the domestic support issues being for Obama. Thank you. Leslie, you want to? Questions from the crowd? Luis Boteo from the International Center for Journalists, maybe for Susan or Robin. Susan, I think you mentioned that we are not informed anymore, that we lack information. To what extent that's happening and its relationship with the crackdown on the media. Maybe Robin, how it is reporting right now in Iran, the ability of the independent media locally and internationally to actually report what's going on there. I think there are two sides of the same point. So Robin and I may have something similar to say but clearly there has been an immense amount of repression against individual journalists, against newspapers, websites and it has become incredibly difficult to publish information. At the same time you have this explosion of citizen journalism which is incredibly exciting and informative but it makes it very difficult to assess both day to day trends to understand how deep the scope of what's happening is. I get that question all the time and there is an enormous amount of information out there but I have yet to see anything that tracks on a day to day basis where there are acts of civil disobedience happening to the extent that there are numbers to be attached to anything. It's all data you typically have after the fact of a revolution rather than while one is going on. So I think it's something that we have to be cognizant of at a more elite level, this is a difficulty that we've always had with the Islamic Republic that to my knowledge, no one from the US government has ever had any contact with anyone from the office of the Supreme Leader. We don't have a good understanding of the decision-making structure at any time of the Islamic Republic and certainly not at a time of crisis. So we can see, as I said, the public manifestations of some set of negotiations and some set of understandings that may be happening among members of the elite but I don't think that we know all the component parts of it and I suspect the same is true of the opposition. Yeah, I don't have much to add, except that the majority of the foreign press has been expelled or their visas revoked. There are many Iranian journalists who've been longtime reporters for the Western press who've opted to leave because of intimidation. The New York Times reporter wrote a very moving piece and about three weeks ago about why she took that decision. And yet at the same time I can think of no country in the world with a political crisis like this where there has been as much information. We can thank technology and we can also thank Iranian perseverance. Can I just point out just in response to that and also to one of the comments from the online community, there has been some discussion, I believe some legislation introduced on the Hill to remove some of the sanctions where they apply to anti-filtering technology and some of the important technological getarounds from some of the regime repression. And I suspect if there are additional technological solutions as well as other avenues to enhance the ability of American NGOs and individuals to interact with the Iranian counterparts, there would probably be a lot of receptivity on the Hill and within the administration to those sorts of measures. Warren Strobel with the Clatchy Newspapers, a question about Ahmadinejad, I guess, for Suzanne. It's sort of striking how little he's come up in this discussion so far. His power, of course, has always been circumscribed by the Supreme Leader. Has it been circumscribed still further? Is he being pushed to the sidelines? Is he trying to recreate himself as a moderate? How does that may seem? And what are the chances he's gonna be in his office a year from now? I'll start, but frankly, I'd be fascinated to hear about him as a perspective on this and others. I don't think he's been marginalized yet. That might be the outcome of some sort of negotiated compromise solution, but clearly he is someone who has made his political career by putting himself at the forefront of contention. And so I think he would resist any effort to either force him from office or in any way circumscribe his ability to insert himself on every set of issues that he chooses to do with every fiber of his being. I think if anything, what he has done through some of his appointments, through his assiduous efforts to make his influence felt over the past five years, and particularly since his fraudulent election last June, has been to try to make himself more important to try to enhance his ability to have an impact on the system. And that is in fact what is driving so much of the resentment in the parliament, as Fatima said, as well as among just the general traditionalists and conservatives. Fatima, would you also like to comment on prospects for Ahmadinejad's survival? Well, I completely agree with Suzanem. I would like to say that Ahmadinejad will be removed even at the first, his first round, and just he completed his first four years because of support of the Supreme Leader. And for this reason, the latest statement issued by Musavi, he mentioned that if there would be no necessary support from the Supreme Leader, then parliament and the judiciary system could remove him. So there is a great dispute between, within the conservative camp, and I would say he will not end his this next four years. And also, I would like to- He will not, what? He, from my perspective- He will last four years. He will not. He will not last. Yeah, yeah. And I would like to just mention to another point, especially on the nuclear side that, you know, I guess in the United States, the Washington should dramatically change his policy to the nuclear issue and also to condition in Iran. From my perspective, to address nuclear issue, to address security, you know, Middle East, security issue, it is essential to pay attention to the green movement in the country. The key answer is green movement in the country. Just, I would like to mention that in 2005, Mohsen Rezaei, who is the Secretary General of the Expediency Council, categorized four important challenges between the United States and Iran. That four challenges was human right, nuclear issue, massive weapon, and also terrorism and Middle East peace issue. And directly, he mentioned that we have to stand at the first one, which is the nuclear issue, because if we stand in this challenge, we could, you know, have a support of the nation over the nuclear issue. But if the United States and West moved from nuclear issue to let's say human rights issue, then we could not unify the nation over human rights issue. And that means the human rights issue is really an uphill hill of the regime. And I am considering that if the United States just wanted to, because of his fear, if just emphasize on nuclear issue, nothing will happen in Iran. If United States want to impose sanction, this sanction should be based on human rights issue, not based on nuclear issue. Let me tell you, since 2005 that Iran started to continue his nuclear program based through diplomatic channel to address this issue and look at the current situation on the nuclear issue, nothing happened, and nothing will happen for next year. Right now, Iranian understand that you're interested to October agreement, so why not to play over this nuclear, sorry, over the October agreement. For this reason, each time the foreign minister say, okay, we wanna just exchange this amount of the, you know, let's say the nuclear, what is it again? Uranium, yeah, sorry for my English. So, and they understand, you know, during Iran-Iraq war, I just wanna emphasize on one example, we have conventional war and unconventional war. Iranian decided by Mehdi Chambran, who was the minister of defense, to change the policy from conventional war, war that is every method and strategy is clear to non-conventional, and that was the great strategy that they could, you know, work better during the war. This is the same methodology or a strategy for the regime. They say, okay, we know that West wanna be stopped this, but if we just go through this, we couldn't, if there is a false translation, maybe you can help me. Could you help her? Yeah, or she's, sorry, I try, because I think this part, it's important and I would like to explain in farce, rather than in English. The US's approach to the nuclear issue has to change. And in fact, the Iranian government, in this particular case, is not the official government, for those who know, the West is always the official government and Iran is the most important nation that is responsible for a very important issue, which is the issue of the regime, I know there are some Iranians here. Anyone know how to translate the word? Motheb, Babel, Mahersoum, I don't know how to translate it. Costume. And most of all, if we look at the points of the leaders of Iran, they are the ones who have gone from this to this in the international community of human rights issues. So why do we have to deal with this issue? Why do we have to deal with this issue? If we have to deal with this issue, we have to deal with it in the future. That's why Washington should target that path and approach the issue over the human rights with Iran, rather than atomic issues. As far as the West doesn't overcome their fear and concern over the atomic issue, they're not going to get anywhere with Iranian leadership and the regime. Can I ask you a question? Thank you very much. We have to go and give an opportunity for some other people to have an opportunity to ask some other questions. Do you want to check in on the web? Anand, just maybe a couple of questions from the online conversation and then I'll come back to wrap things up. There's a lot of discussion in the online community about this being a sort of repeated Iraq experience. A couple of people are wondering why are we so worried about internal politics in Iran? We don't have the same concern about Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, or Azerbaijan. Why are we interfering in other countries? There's that sort of tenor of cynicism about the US foreign policy towards Iran. Another issue that someone brought up is that his comment was how do we deny that these protests aren't the result of some foreign outside influence is what he called it? How do we make sure that this defining myth that Susan Maloney talked about, what happens if it actually trickles out and is it actually trickling out into the wider public discourse about the protests? Thank you, Anand. Do you want to comment on the issue about why should we be concerned about what is happening internally in Iran or any other country for that matter? And then perhaps Susan could comment on the issue of whether all of this is being engineered from outside what is happening in Iran. You know, despite the fact that Iran is an authoritarian state, it's never been the case. We all know this, that the Iranian people have been cut off from the international community. This is as much a domestic sort of issue as it is a global issue that engages the questions of human rights on a global level. So I would say that in many respects we have to recognize that the voices that are being expressed in Iran today are voices that have international support. Without at the same time in any way taking away the authenticity of the movement, what is striking about this movement is how homegrown it is and how much it represents the desire of the Iranian people. The international community is concerned about the failure of this struggle I think is a good thing because they are struggling for their basic rights. Let me add just one point briefly. I think there are three reasons why we care so much. One, because Iran was the model in 1979 that introduced Islam as a modern political idiom that changed the face of politics and warfare throughout the region. What's happening today could again become a model. It's the first time we've seen people power in the Islamic world. So that's really, you know, this is really important stuff far beyond what happens in Iran. Secondly, there's always the issue of oil. I have to be honest that any country with that much oil and gas is going to be important to American industry and American interests. And the third, and again we can't deny it, is Israel. Particularly in light of Amani Nijad's statements both about the Holocaust and, you know, Israel's futures. I started off with kind of a joke about the conspiracy theories of external interference. And I realized we shouldn't joke about it because it is taken seriously in some quarters. There is a long history of concern about foreign interference that is very much identified with the Iranian democracy movement. You look at the tobacco revolt, the constitutional revolution, these themes come up again and again about foreign interference. But it undoubtedly has some traction. That said, I obviously have not been in Iran since June, but it seems completely inconceivable to me that that kind of a myth could gain a real stronghold beyond whatever base is wholly convinced of that perspective at the outset. What at least we can see through YouTube, through all the other evidence of everything that's been happening within Iran, has been that this is an entirely indigenous movement. In fact, no one here expected this. And I think few in the international media did as well. So the idea that somehow it was orchestrated or that it continues to be orchestrated by elements of the U.S. government, by academic establishments, or even by expatriates abroad, seems so farcical that it is tempting to laugh about it. But the fact that it comes up in the online discussion reminds us that it is important to underline that authenticity in the indigenous base and to ensure that we do nothing to compromise it. Well, very quickly, the mention of Iraq was made. I think that Iraq is an important lesson in terms of a foreign policy that was guided to some extent by wishful thinking as opposed to analysis. And we have to be very careful in terms of Iranian politics to not be, not to head down this road as well. And we know that the debate about Iran and the evolution of the opposition and the state has become highly politicized. And there is a temptation, and we all feel it, I think, to want, as we all do, the opposition to prevail. At the same time, we shouldn't underestimate the tenacity of the regime, its resources, its capacity to hang on. And I think, to some extent, we see often a kind of romance of the opposition, but we have to be very hard. Those when we consider this regime and the kinds of stakes that are up for the regime and its determination to hold on to power, which I think is tremendous. I'll take, since we're running out of time, I'll take two, well, three questions and then wrap things up. Karima Abdiyan from the Human Rights Organization. I have two questions, one for Fatemeh Haygadjou and one for Robin Wright. The first one, Ms. Haygadjou, when you were identifying the various forces within the movement, green or otherwise, you mentioned that, obviously, the students are very active, women, middle class and workers. Then you said the ethnic groups, those are the ones who, while they are present, but officially have not declared. My question is why? Why when this group that, by some accounts, 60, 65% of the population and have been subjected to the same repression for the past 30 years and have shown that they have the capability and why they have not joined the fight? My question for Robin Wright is that you very correctly shown that, you know, since June until now the movement has momentum and breadth and, you know, so, but why hasn't, more or less the same question, why is it stuck in Tehran? Why it hasn't become nationwide, especially to the Arab areas in Azerbaijan and Balochistan and Kurdistan by some analysis that make or break, you know, why, why it hasn't become that nationwide? Thank you. Hi. Diane Perlman, George Mason University, Institute of Conflict Analysis and Resolution. First of all, this was a terrific panel. Thank you. I want to address the issue of nuclear developments and also sanctions and I've been studying dynamics of proliferation for about 29 years and that it seems like our mindset here, the way we look at it is we must not let Iran get nuclear weapons and if we punish them and if we, you know, crippling sanctions then they'll do what we want. Whereas if you look at social science, the evidence is, you know, one case of a hundred cases of sanctions they failed, 86% of the time and made things worse. So that even well-meaning politicians, that people are sort of gripped by a false belief that this will work where tension reduction might work better. So one is I found George Lopez, your presentation, very important and I wonder if other people also agree with that and that also according to the law of opposites a lot of our policies have the exact opposite effect of what we intend. So they're more likely to produce defiance and the more we threaten and the more insecure they feel, the more they will feel a need to have a developed nuclear program to deter us. And we need to look at our, what I call the political Heisenberg principle, that we can't observe their behavior without looking at the effect that we have on them. So what do you think? Thank you. And then just a final question to Scott. Scott Lesensky from the US Institute of Peace. I want to ask you about Iraq. There's an election in Iraq in March. To what extent would a violence-free election that's free and fair where all the votes are counted have an impact on the Iranian opposition? Then the flip side of the question is, to what extent is the turmoil inside Iran affecting how the regime is trying to capitalize and leverage the election? They've been on a campaign to try to weaken. Maliki teach him a lesson in the US troop withdrawal later in the year. Iraq is a big project for the Iranian opposition as the internal conflicts and divisions in Iran at all affecting how Iran is trying to expand its influence inside Iraq. Okay. Well, thank you very much. I think we'll move from George up towards this side of the panel. George perhaps unintended consequences of sanctions. And then perhaps Suzanne on the influence of what is happening in Iraq on Iran. Fatimeh, the question which is posed directly to you about why 65% have not participated in this movement. Robin, why the movement has not become national? And then we'll conclude. Just very quickly, I think there are certainly strategies of tension reduction that could in a sense by widening the scope of the existing disagreements beyond nuclear which might create some possibilities. But I haven't seen an administration in the United States which had the wherewithal yet to be able to maximize those. I think one of the myths that I hear circulating and others can comment on this is somehow the belief that an immediate triumph of a green opposition movement would lead to a different nuclear set of policies coming out of Tehran. And I think that's an empirical question, but the odds aren't at least initially in its favor. The administration here is caught in a difficult time warp in that it would have been so much better to have a movement on the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which is scheduled to occur in May, give a greater likelihood of hearing of a U.S. serious intention to denuclearize as being the engine that would pull a dialogue with other states with which we have nuclear concerns into a new kind of engagement. But the engines of push for sanctions in this town, particularly outside the administration, have been such that Congress is now much more in charge of this than the administration is. And that engine is very, very difficult to engage in tension reduction regarding. Quick point on Iraq and then a quick point on sanctions and very quick on Iraq. I don't know the answer. Maybe others do. I think it's an important question to what extent either the green movement is watching what's happening inside Iraq or that what happens with the green movement will impact Iran's adventurism inside Iraq. I just don't know. I do think on the point of sanctions as someone who has been consistently opposed to them, it's important to point out that both the Iranian regime and certainly other players around the world are now looking at the Obama administration to deliver on the expectation that if engagement over the course of a year did not work that they would be able to mount some kind of pressure. I think that if the administration abandons any push to get sanctions, then it will have a real credibility problem on its hands, which will make it incredibly difficult to get anything out of this regime. I think any prospect of getting a deal like the Tehran research reactor deal at this stage will require the demonstration that the international community, and I think that is the critical actor here, not the U.S. Congress, can in fact apply greater pressure to Iran. The Tehran research reactor deal might have been precisely the right deal for the right time because it would not have solved the nuclear crisis in one wish, but it would have bought time, time that if everyone here is to be believed is exactly what Iran needs to continue playing out this domestic change. And so anything that brings us back to a deal that gives us a little bit more time, I think is a real positive. And for that reason, I think multilateral sanctions are a route that we do have to pursue very strenuously at this time, recognizing that they're unlikely to have the impact that we want them to have. Well, regarding that 66, I don't know the number is correct or not, the second is he didn't mention that 66 out of the country. Reasons, I am not sure exactly, but one important issue is harass violation again is ethnic group is one important reason in a small city that everybody knows everybody. Security forces has a great record of activists in that city, so they control them and many of them during these past years have been executed and their family had so many problems. And on the other hand, maybe they don't see a clear connection between the green movements, goals and ethnicities, you know, needs, requests. And I don't know exactly, but I guess this to reason it's very important. Just one another regarding the sanctions, this doesn't mean that sanction has no effect in the country. Sanction had, you know, economic effect in the country, part of this economic problem inside the countries is related to sanction. Banking system, you know, is going to be, I don't want to use the word of collapse, but had a great impact on banking system. Also, mismanagement had, you know, Ahmadinejad government mismanagement had negative impact on economy, but sanction is also had important impact on that. Why is it not nationwide? I actually think it is. I've collected since the beginning, I decided as a project I wanted to collect the images of this crisis. And I have thousands and thousands of pictures, slides, and what's so stunning is whether it's filling the square in Isfahan, which is the 12th largest public gathering place in the world, so that it's packed. In December, you saw there were 10 major cities for National Students Day where there were activities. With Ayatollah Montazari's death, it penetrated calm. Ashura, it was, it did hit, even there were indications that for the first time there were some rural areas where there were protests. I mean, Baluchistan is irrelevant to what happens in Tehran. Always has been, may always be, but there are vast parts of the country where people are very invested in what's happening. Quickly an issue of sanctions and relating to what Suzanne said earlier, the issue of sanctions was publicly debated in Iran. And this issue of sanctions is important because it affects the leverage of the kind of political game we've been talking about. The principalists have raised the issue of sanctions and said, well, Ahmadinejad, you open up the gate to these sanctions. It was your kind of rhetoric that made us vulnerable and they've been using that against them. It's particularly true before the June elections, less so now. But it became an issue in the internal debate within the conservative camp as well. And as far as I'm concerned, in terms of the foreign policy aspects of sanctions, I think that the U.S. reliance on sanctions is indicative of foreign policy, and this is my personal view, that it's largely been around tactics and not strategy. The sanctions as a kind of resort to when you don't have a strategy, when you don't want to face up to the hard questions, you go to sanctions. I don't see sanctions as effective, particularly the broad kinds of crippling sanctions we've been talking about. And the other effective sanctions from a tactical point of view is to keep Israel from attacking Iran. I mean, I think as long as we can uphold the prospects of the sanctions, we put off that data a bit further. But I don't see sanctions as being used thus far in a terribly strategic way, because in part we lack a policy guided by a clear sense of what our strategic objectives are. Well, I'd like to thank our panelists for the excellent presentations. To thank you, our audience here in Washington, as well as our online audience, for your really active participation. Thanks to Adnan, Vagis, and Semira Niku for engaging the online audience. And for Leslie, who's helped us to organize this event for ably managing the microphone. And to Austin, who has been blogging the event on Meet and All Morning. So thank you very much. We hope to see you here again.