access to the people, the streets of tehran. above ground, a bustling city of 12 million. [ horn honking ] below ground, we discover a gleaming subway system, far quieter and cleaner than the subways of new york city. and there was something else very different. this says women only here. the back of the train reserved for women. beyond the trains, the traffic, everywhere you look there s something else on the move, the prices. skyrocketing inflation. their currency losing 80% of its value in just the last year. u.s.-led sanctions tying an economic noose around iran. i think it hurts the people. reporter: the iranian people. plus, i think, the normal people. reporter: the relationship between the u.s. and iran never recovered after those 444 days. americans held hostage as the world watched. right here in the heart of downtown tehran, what used to be the u.s. embassy of course, the infamous backdrop to the hostage crisis that began unfolding in
tehran peaked. did we miss an opportunity? can sanctions work alone, and what does it mean to you when you hear, um, defense secretary leon panetta say all options on the table? well, all options on the table if we can use those options. well, there are some options that we had not just on the table, in the battlefields, and we wasted the opportunity. you just mentioned it. june of 2009, 1.5 million iranians these are not american or europeans or arabs, these are iranians were marching in downtown tehran about to shake off the foundation of that regime, and we didn t support them. it s going to be much more difficult in the future to bring down that system. heather: all right, washington leader if race, thank you for your insight, we appreciate it. scary situation. thank you. rick: new remarks from the white house today on president obama s place in history after he argued that his first three years was equal to or even surpassed all but three other administrations. that s coming
i think the evidence has been growing. and that s what i tried to look at in this article. we have already had over a period of many months now, going back to last summer and before, a lot of tit for tat events. a number of iranian nuclear scientists have been mysteriously killed, assassinated, even in downtown tehran, by men on motorcycles. we have seen the iranian retaliations, which may include this embassy attack against the british, just last week. there was a bomb in bahrain that exploded right near the british embassy. the british, by the way, have been cited along with the israelis as having been involved in this covert war. so i think the evidence, you know, is now just too obvious to ignore. that what we re seeing here is a long, concerted effort by, probably, the u.s. and israel,
they are actually not students, they are pro regime enforcers, generally sort of politically motivated rent a crowd, they will go away but in this case the police seem to have allowed these guys, at least some of them, to pour into not only the embassy, which is in downtown tehran, but the british embassy residence, which is all the way up in northern tehran. a park-like compound that the president bush have held for and owned since like the 19th century. and gone in there and ransacked the place and even apparently held a few people no one are calling them hostage but holding them for a little while before letting them go. not exactly sure where things stand exactly right now, whether the so-called students have
they are actually not students, they are pro regime enforcers, generally sort of politically motivated rent a crowd, they will go away but in this case the police seem to have allowed these guys, at least some of them, to pour into not only the embassy, which is in downtown tehran, but the british embassy residence, which is all the way up in northern tehran. a park-like compound that the president bush have held for and owned since like the 19th century. and gone in there and ransacked the place and even apparently held a few people no one are calling them hostage but holding them for a little while before letting them go. not exactly sure where things stand exactly right now, whether the so-called students have