Good morning, everyone. Thank you for braving the aftermath of cyclone bomb and polar vortex. Im the director for middle east policy and welcome to everyone in the room and everyone joining us on the brookings webcast and via cspan at home. We have an extremely important topic this morning and an excellent panel to discuss it. We often have debates on middle east policy on interests and what the u. S. Should do in terms of immediate policy and pursuing its interest and we often have debates what the u. S. Should do in terms of its values promoting its vision of the good life, its vision of what the world should look like and once in a while an issue that very clearly encapsulates both and this is one of them. It pertains directly to some of the most important policy issues regarding the middle east in recent years and decades even, with the jcpoa in play, and the president about to make decisions about that. And we also have the issue of democracy in the Islamic Republic of iran and the people on the streets calling for a change. We have, as i said, a stellar panel with us so ill mention one more logistical thing, which is you can follow also with a hash tag, Iran Protests and if youre tweeting about it, please use that hash tag. Were happy with us an iraniancanadian filmmaker and activist and reporter for news week for many years from 1998 to 2011. He was incarcerated by the iranian government from june 2009, a time that is reminiscent of this one to october 20, 2009 and he wrote most notably New York Times west seller called then they came for me, it was later a movie was made based on it by somebody you may have heard of jon stewart, it was called rosewater. And founded the iran citizen journalism news site. And its important for people following this and journalism is not a crime and were extremely happy and honored he joined us. With him on the panel will be our very own suzanne maloney, shes the Deputy Director of our Foreign Policy program as well as my colleague at center for middle east policy. Suzanne is our iran expert extraordinaire and energy and gulf energy issues. Among her many achievements i just want to note two books, in 2008 irans long reach and an excellent book published in 2015 by Cambridge University press called excuse me, irans political economy since the revolution. She was formerly on the state departments policy planning staff and now one of our leaders here at brookings and moderating one of the very best we could hope for here in washington. Susan glaser, the chief columnist and host of news new weekly podcast, the global politico, and her list of accomplishments was long, a Founding Editor of politico, editor in chief of Foreign Policy reported from krohning, from tora bora, from afghanistan, from iraq, from the soviet union as cobureau chief in moscow, and for a variety of different outlets and were extremely happy that youve joined us, susan. So thank you all. Please join me in welcoming our three panelists to the stage. [applause] [applause] well, thank you. Thank you to all of you for braving the cold out here this morning. Were grateful and i cant think of a more timely event in 2018. I dont know about you guys, but im exhausted by 2018 already. And you know, certainly, its a good reminder, the outbreak of these protests in iran and the question already of what to make of them. I cant think of a better panel to figure that out and, of course, well get to your questions as well, but i think a lot of us are starting out this morning with questions around, first of all, is this panel discussion, is it going to end up being an after action report essentially on a series of protests that are remarkable, but little understood and possibly fizzling out . Or is this the beginning of a new movement that we will be talking about throughout 2018 . So thats a question that i have beginning this conversation and, of course, the timing is remarkable because we are here in washington and once again, we see the convergence of one of our internal Foreign Policy debates. President trump as you know, faces a deadline next week to once again certify iranian compliance with the nuclear deal and called the fate of that nuclear deal into question with his decision last october, not to certify it, but at the same time not yet to withdraw or to proceed in any other radical way. How, at all, does the outbreak of these protests affect that decision and how do we understand the opaque Trump Administration policies to the middle east, but not exclusively so. What kind of information do we have about the protests . What does it tell us about the state or lack thereof it seemed to surprise just about everybody, not only here in the United States, but arguably even inside iran at this moment. So, what have we learned as a result of this . I cant think of anyone better to start out that conversation than who has deep experience inside iran and the iran wire project he helped to found, providing valuable insights from the country inside whats going on right now. Lets jump into that. We can talk later about the washington piece of this story. Its been incredible to sort of watch not only every middle east hand in washington weigh in with takes and debates and how much were selfabsorbed. Right, suzanne . And we spent half the time, as far as i can tell, reading the critiques, discussing and debating what we did in 2009 and whether or not that was the right thing, as much as discussing what we should be doing in 2018. But what is happening in 2018 . Is this the end or the beginning . Well, thank you so much suzanne, to organize this and thank you so much for coming. Before that, i just want to say that a lot of people in iran, especially from the government, say that this series of protests was organized were organized by foreigners. If it was so, it was a very bad, you know, decision because it was at the worst time. It was between christmas and new year, where most people were off and journalists were off. I mean, so i think thats it in itself can show it was not organized by whats going on in iran . From what we know, the 28th of december, last thursday, thursday before, the 28th of december there were some demonstrations and there are circumstantial evidence, we do not have concrete evidence yet, that there was a demonstration organized by the government itself, and by the hardliners in order to protest against rouhanis economic policies, against poverty and against unemployment. So, but between 2000, 3,000 people gathered in the city, iran square, which is marchers square, and id like to translate the names of the places in iran because they are very symbolic as well when you see the demonstrations on envelope avenue, and people say death to the dictator, and next to the monuments which means freedom monument. So, i think its very interesting to understand what the names of the streets and monuments mean in iran as well. So, there were there was a small demonstration organized by the government in masha and then on friday, we saw demonstrations all over the country. And then, of course, it became more widespread and two nights ago, three nights ago, i was counting the cities and there were at least 54 cities involved in the demonstrations, some people have said that its up to 70 cities. So, the demonstrations, we do not know exactly and i think anyone who tells you they know who exactly is demonstrating is lying. No one knows exactly who are the people in demonstrations, but it seems that most of the demonstrations are because of poverty, unemployment, and economic situations. Most of the people who have been arrested during the protests are young. The average age, they say its under the age of 25, either teenagers or in their early 20s, that means that the oldest of the people who have been arrested, they were 17 in 2009. So they didnt even have the right to vote at that time. And many of them did not take part in 2009 protests. So, the there were different kind of slogans chanted during the demonstrations and some chanted about the economy. Some of them chanted against and the first time they brought out pictures of ayatollah, and commander of the force which is the extra Territorial Branch of the revolutionary guard, and different groups within iran and outside of iran had their followers in different cities taking part in the demonstration. So thats why you saw that in certain cities they were chanting for the monarchy, the father of the shah and also the crown prince who lives in this area. There were some chants in favor of a city, which is his birthplace. There were some chants just about the economy, and people were saying that we are not it is not political protests, this is only about the economy. So its a very confusing picture that we see coming out of iran, but, it shows that theres a Fertile Ground for protest. Theres a discontent, widespread discontent all across iran and even the government, when you go beyond what theyre saying, you can see that theyre admitting that theres a wide discontent in iran, that can be triggered by anyone, any group, into protest, as soon as theres a measure of the space for people to protest. So, in the last couple of case, we have seen organized demonstrations by the government itself, against the what they call this. And they have narrowed the bandwidth and shut down apps which has been the main way for people to communicate. So, we have seen less protests, maybe in the past couple of days, especially today, there were prayers around iran and demonstrations after the friday prayers organized by the government itself against the quote unquote, sedition later on today. This is a brief no, i think no, i think youre right to highlight there are so many different slogans. Theres also the question of is there any leadership this time. In 2009, of course, it was taking place in the context of elections, and the Green Movement had a very specific set of political leaders. It had an apartment apparent set of demands. Id be curious what you make of the political context in which this is occurring. The reformists are in the government and theyre part of the crackdown. Theyre not joining these protests. What do you make of that, suzanne . I think thats one of the key differences between whats happening today in iran and what happened in 2009, and there are a number of distinctions that are worth considering and exploring, but the lack of an obvious figurehead, the lack of an organization that is spearheading this, at least in so far as we actually know, that is quite distinct from both 2009 and prior periods of protests, the 1999 student demonstrations in tehran, for example. And it bears noting, of course, that iran has experienced routine demonstrations, labor strikes, periods even of significant unrest that are somewhat localized, over economic grievances, typically, over bureaucrat particular and administrative issues, youll see teachers demand back pay and the labor unions that are active. I think whats interesting about whats happening today is this contagion effect that appeared to happen so very quickly, within 24 hours of the very first protest, whatever sparked that first one, to whatever extent it may have been orchestrated as an attempt to undermine President Trump rouhani and his economic reform agenda, whatever sparked it, it then morphed almost immediately into places around the country, 24 cities, i think, on day two, and then continued to mushroom and also quickly move from slogans that were focused on economic grievances to what, i think, can only be seen as radical and very deeply alienated slogans about the government. And then, we didnt that happened progressively over 2009, he was there and can speak to it from a firsthand perspective. It took some time and there was, in fact, quite a degree of disagreement among those who were organizing and leading the movement in 2009 about to what extent this should be about asking the government to respect its own rules, to adhere to the constitution or to what extent it was now time to articulate antisystemic, antiIslamic Republic messages. And thats quickly become a very antigovernment, broadbased, kind of they have different critiques or citing different slogans, but it seems that most of the protesters, would you agree, are basically against the government in some broad way. Theyre not asking the government to reform . No, theyre against the government as a whole. Theyre against the Islamic Republic of iran, theyre against the corruption in the past four decades. Theyre against cronyism thats going on in the past four decades and they do not distinguish between the reform and conservatives, they look at them as part of the system. In 2009, the demonstrations that started with a clear objective, to recount the vote. That was it. In 2009, the demonstrations that people, millions of people in big cities were going through the streets, asking where is my vote. Meaning, where are my rights as citizens of this country. The protests were peaceful. The protests were silent, actually. The silence was deafening for the government. And there were clear leaders. There were basically three figure heads. We have the three figureheads. Not that much of a leader about you figureheads for the protests. If those protests for that movement, we can call it the Green Movement, these recent protests they do not have a clear objective yet, there are people around the country who say theyre not happy with the system. They say death to khomeini, to the revolutionary guard and ive not heard a slogan what they want, what is the clear objective. That he is shoe the confusion to that shows the confusion to the iranian people as well. And when you talk to iranians, especially in major cities in a long middle classes, they cannot identify with many of the protesters because they say we do not know what they want. And at the same time, because of the desperate situation of many people around the country, because of the sheer poverty, because there are so many people who have nothing to lose, there is some violence and there are some people outside of iran who are inciting violence, so theres for example, a person who lived in this country, he has a challenge for people to banks and he has some followers. Challenged people to torch mosques or banks. And he has some followers. He may not be a leader, he is a his name is mohammad asany. Hes a former Game Show Host in iran, a cross between drew carey and howard stern, you imagine, if you have a revolution led by drew carey and howard stern. So, hes that kind of a character and hes asking people to torch mosques and torch banks and they do it because theyre desperate for change. And that has alienated many people in iran as well who do not want to be associated with this because they think that it can lead to iran becoming something similar to syria and the government has been very good in terms of taking advantage of peoples fear for as you suzanne knows better than i do, that iranians have always fear of lack of security has always been the primary fear for iranians. In the early 20th century when there was chaos in the country and people could not travel between cities, the father of the shah took over the country, he established rule of certain rule of law and the people were happy with his rule for a long time. Then during the 1953 there was chaos on the streets and seemed to be out of control and there was that coup, people do not come to the streets and support him. And at the moment, the government knows that people really fear insecurity in the country. And theyre taking advantage of scenes of violence torching the mosques, violence, slogans, in order to portray these demonstrators as the government calls them 40,000 hooligans who are being manipulated by outside forces. Well, thats a very resonant one. Lets talk about the causes and the people and who they are. How quickly it spread to the cities. One of the things that commentators remarked on it does not appear to be the traditional upper middle class, big city type protests. Its almost like the iranian version of trump country, those who perhaps supported former president ahmed dejad. President ahmadinejad. What is happening, so many people who know iran didnt know anyone a part of these pro tests. Is one of the most interesting features of what is happening. So many people who know iran didnt know anyone a part of these pro tests. Its worth noting, the numbers are different this time around from 2009, when the government talks about 40,000 hooligans thats their upper estimate of how many people have been participating in these protests,. Even if its off by a factor of 10, its still significantly smaller than what happened in 2009. But, i think its that question of deep alienation among the people who were expected to be the base in terms of the legitimacy of the islamic ,republic which came to power the Islamic Republic, which came to power and has consistently sought to enhance its legitimacy with its own people by talking about social justice, by talking about, you know, sort of the disenfranchised, the dispossessed. This was a major theme of the revolution. Its been a major aspect of Economic Policy throughout the postrevolutionary period and if theyve lost that constituency, if that constituency feels not just angry at one leader or one faction or one policy, but if theyve lost that constituency in a sense that those people are prepared to engage in violence and prepared to repudiate everything about the Islamic Republic, then its got to be deeply unnerving, and as said, the question even if the protests die down and i still think we have some question as to whether that is in fact happening, what is going to be the next barkspark. How can it be anticipated and how can the Security Forces and government try to forestall it . Weve seen that round up student leaders who dont appear to be directly involved in whats happened the past week, but what i think theyre trying to do is inoculate society as much as possible and prevent anything from sparking again. And that brings us back to this question of the crackdown and the playbook and you can speak to that both with your own personal experience from 2009 as well as what were, you know, leading and observing from the reports out of iran today. Tell us a little bit about your own experience in 2009 and, you know, i was struck in going back and looking at your remarkable memoir, which i recommend to everybody here, then they came for me, there was a