Begin our discussion of iran, a people in repression. Im david ignatius, a columnist for the washington post. Ive visited iran several times as a journalist and have a longstanding interest as a commentator and analysts in iran. Im delighted to be joined by two of the people i think understand iran the best in this country. Ill move from my left. Maziar bahari was my colleague as a newsweek reporter in iran. He worked for newsweek from 1998 until june 21, 2009, when he was arrested and imprisoned in tehran. Youll know if youve read his wonderful memoir, then they came for me, what that imprisonment was like, and if you havent read the book, you can go see the movie because it was made into a movie by jon stewart called rosewater, if memory serves, was the name and the unmistakable calling card of maziars interrogator. In 2014, he started something that im sure is familiar to many people in this audience, certainly as a mustread for anyone who wants to follow iran, and thats his website called iran wire, which gathers information from iran, reporting, commentary, as an immensely valuable resource for all of us. Suzanne maloney, who is Deputy Director of Foreign Policy programs here at brookings. Who has for many years been a leading american analyst of iran. She wrote a monograph published by the u. S. Institute of peace in 2008 called irans long reach and in august 2015 published a book, irans political economy since the revolution. If you know anything about iran and iran u. S. Contacts, you know suzanne has played a very Important Role in thinking about and sometimes helping nudge along behindthescenes conversations that have been important in the story of the runup to the jcpoa. Well see what suzanne wants to tell us about life since then. So, just to introduce our subject in a couple of sentences, just over a month ago, november 15, a wave of protests of unusual intensity broke out in iran. The estimates of the people whod been killed as the regime tried to crack down range from the most recent Amnesty International figure i believe is 304 killed. The high end is a u. S. Estimate of over 1,000. Well ask our panelists for their own thoughts about what the right estimate is. Its clear that many hundreds of people had been killed, that probably thousands have been injured. Thousands have been been arrested and imprisoned. This is, this is a big statement by iranians of their unhappiness with the regime and a tense and violent crackdown. By the regime on its citizens. Begin by asking our panelists if they will bring us uptodate. Where do things start now . December 18, more than a month after these protests began. Why dont you give us an impression from your sources of where you think things are now . Thank you very much for such a nice introduction. Im glad so many people chose to come here and here about iran rather than the washington impeachment. Many iranians were complaining when the protests started that no one was paying attention to what was going on in iran because people were preoccupied with the impeachment and elections in the uk and what happened with Eric Swalwell and, you know, im not going to tell you what happened. So what is happening right now in iran is people are waiting for the 40th day of the killing started which will be the boxing day, 26th of december, because iranians share in general, they mourn their deaths 40 days after the persons death. So were all waiting to see what will happen on the 26th of december. Many parents of those who were killed during the protests have asked the public to join them mourning for their loved ones. And it will be we just have to see what how the regime will react. The countrys still in a state of shock because people knew that this regime was brutal because, you know, killings had happened before november 16th, 17th, many people witnessed killings right after the revolution then in 1988, during the 1980s in general, and their regime treated the protests with brutality in early 2018 as well, but the level of violence, the killings and the brutality with which that they just murdered people, shooting protesters in the heart. Shooting protesters in their heads, is just shocking to people. And as we speak, they are finding new bodies. There are reports that they are finding different bodies from different lakes, dams, rivers, across iran. Many of those bodies, you know, we had a report yesterday about this man, a kurdish activist who had a bullet in his head and his legs and his arms were broken. The family doesnt know who killed him, what happened. So the country is still in a state of shock and were waiting to see what will happen on boxing day, 26th of december. And just to follow that up, im curious about whether you get reports of continuing protest or whether were now in a kind of lull as we wait for the 40th day response. On a given day, a friday, whenever, are people out protesting or are they being more careful . People are more careful now because 40 years after the revolution, its going to be 41 years after the revolution, people have started to respect their lives much more than before. In the beginning of the revolution, and even in the concept, it she a shia concept, it was not a value. Not only for the people who supported the government and the revolutionaries but also people who opposed the government. Many people dont know that but suicide bombing may have started in iran in the 1980s. Many Opposition Group members, they basically killed themselves and different imams at friday prayers and different leaders across iran in the 1980s through suicide bombing. So martyrism was a concept. People wanted to die for a higher cause, but that changed especially after the iran iraq war in 1988. And people started to respect life. People started to respect their existence. And because of that, you didnt see that many people resorting to violence against the government because, first of all, they knew that this government is armed and ready to use violence, but also they started to enjoy life much more than before. But now as weve seen in different cities, people are just desperate. There are reports that people are just dying of, you know the revolutionary guards video unit, they released video today, showing that people in the city are saying that were hungry, we dont have anything to eat, were just waiting to die. And this is something thats happening in many cities and towns across iraq. So people are resorting to violence as well and people, many people, they are responding to the violence perpetrated by the regime through violence. Whereas, in the past they tried to resort they tried to resist peacefully and nonviolently. Now i think after the november protests, we have entered the new phase. People still dont know what this phase will be like, but its a new phase. The government has become more militant and more violent, and the people will resist more violently as well. Suzanne, how would you set the stage in terms of describing where we are right now . Then well come back and look at how this started in midnovember, but whats your sense of where things are now . I think maziar has given us a great overview of the landscape in iran today, but i think its also important to understand a bit of the context, which is that, you know, iran has had a history of protests, of people willing to go to the streets, ready to go to the streets, often over Small Economic grievances or personalized economic grievances, labor strikes, teachers unions coming out, people protesting difficulties in the financial situation when banks close. Things like this happen all the time in iran and have for most of the past 40 years, even during the toughest times of the iran iraq war. There was still a kind of culture of political mobilization that existed in iran and it was within certain bounds. You had to be careful. You might risk actually being arrested or beaten. And we have seen moments where there have been much larger protests. Particularly over political issues, as in 2009, when more than a Million People came to the streets of tehran over a period of days. The protests went on for weeks. The unrest and the cries of death to the dictator, allahu akbar akbar from rooftops were heard for months. People continued to mobilize. Yet weve never seen the degree of violence used by protesters in a mass way or in terms of the government response. That is important to understand when maziar talks about this being a different moment in iranian history. Thats unequivocal to those who watch iran closely, this is something unlike we have seen before in iran. During the 2009 upheaval, which youre probably familiar with, it was a dramatic moment in iran. Yet, there was certainly violence used against the people who came to the streets but it was typically thugs on motorcycles who were trying to drive people off the streets, trying to disrupt what were largely peaceful protests. The videos that were coming out even, you know, in a small way while the internet was first shut down by the regime last month then in a much more dramatic fashion since the internet has been restored are like nothing i can imagine. In fact, it is far more similar to what weve seen play out in iraq with the shia militias shooting from rooftops, having gunmen on the streets. Its absolutely shocking and i think that this is part of what were seeing now in iran is the sense of trying to make some sort of sense of both the violence that was used by protesters, the degree of anger, the frustration thats not about one person or about one faction of the iranian political system but about the system as a whole. And then the readiness of the Security Forces to shoot to kill in a way that we havent seen in a mass basis in cities around the country. So, lets turn to the question thats always the mystery with social protest, why did it happen when it did . Maziar, just take us to that question. It is november 15. We have an increase in gas will you tell the story then help us make sense of why that led to this extraordinary explosion. Sure. So, on the night of friday , november 15, the government of iran announced that its going to increase the price of gas. 50 for the 16 gallons thats allocated for cars. For most cars. There are different allocations. Taxis and motorcycles. They have different allocations. Its mostly 34 pence for 16 gallons. 16 gallons, the allocation was increased by 50 . It became about 49 cents. And then beyond that, it was increased by 300 . Three times as much. Almost a dollar. You may think 1 even is not much, you know, in this country, its, like, how much is it, 3 per gallon . In the u. K. , its about 5. So, but in iran when you think about the average salary is about 250 a month and many iranians, they are making a living by working as couriers and cabdrivers, that 300 increase affects their lives. Again, we still dont know how this is going to affect the prices because its only one month after the price increase, but i think in order to understand this situation, the revolutionary guards video unit, called avant, they did a documentary which was released i think yesterday and they talked to some people from the city where many killings happened and people were killed by tanks and heavy machine guns. So, lets watch the video and then i will provide some context for the video which i heard about just about maybe one hour ago or so. Lets watch this video. [video clip] [speaking foreign language] started a tv and film unit since about 10, 15 years ago, and theyve become really active in the past few years. They have film units that make very expensive multimillion dollar animations, television series, as well as these kind of documentaries. But what is interesting about this documentary, according to a friend of mine who called me about one hour ago from iran, is that the person, the reporter that you see in this video, he is very close to the kuds force. And hes also someone whos been to syria many times and praised iranian involvement in syria, as they call it, the saviors of the harat. So according to this friend whos an astute irgc watcher and media analyst, this video is part of the plan they tried to perpetrate that, or to promote that iran needs a savior. That many governments, especially rouhani government, because of its inept and inefficient policies have created such poverty, such bad Economic Conditions and iran needs a strong man in order to save it. Im sure weve heard it in other countries before as well. And that person is no one but mani, of course, who is being portrayed like a saint in media or part of the irgc media, of course. But what i think what they are doing is going to backfire. Its going to be counterproductive. Because not only me but many iranians, when this guy is talking about authorities, we dont think of authorities as rouhanis government and rouhanis cabinet. We are thinking about the Islamic Republic. So to many iranians, this video is really a critic of 40 years of mismanagement. 40 years of corruption that has led to this point. And we have so many i mean, iranians are masters of poetry. You hear so many beautiful metaphors here, that this guy says each river has a capacity. This river, iran just overflows and led to this flood. And people say that we can accept poverty, we can accept unemployment, but we cannot accept discrimination. And thats why many iranians, again, they believe that what happened in november is part of this universal protest that is happening in chile, in iraq, in hong kong. By systems of Different Countries for their rights as citizens. They do not want to be neglected. They want their rights as citizens of the countries to be recognized. Suzanne, do you pick up echos echoes in your reporting and discussions that would support this fascinating idea that the irgc is trying to get out ahead of popular anger by saying its those authorities who are to blame. Do you pick up similar notes . Well, i think, you know, this is part of a broader history in iran of the regime really effectively propagandizing to its own population. We spend a lot of time here in washington thinking about irans export of the revolution around the region, but, in fact, part and parcel of this system since 1979 has been a constant effort both to repress but also to persuade the population. To try to make their case for sustaining a system that fundamentally doesnt carry the same degree of support that it does today. Most of the iranian population is too young to remember the revolution. Most of the population, in fact, is now too young to really remember the war, the first decade of the revolution. So you have this set of circumstances in which the regime really needs to constantly refresh this sense of the revolutionary values, the islamic values, to a population who have completely different cultural and political references and priorities. And so theyve become quite effective at it, as maziar said, theyve got a massive revolutionary guard propaganda shop that produces blockbuster movies as well as the kind of art movies that you sometimes see come out of iran and make it onto the festival circuit. I think ultimately, the question is, can they actually overcome this sense of deep alienation which has been building , particularly among those iranians its a very welleducated population, the postrevolutionary system invested in a lot of the infrastructure for the baby boom that has now come of age but these people just dont have jobs and dont see a future set of opportunities for them. That passionate man im a university graduate. Im unemployed. So, let me turn to the question of the america and the Trump Administrations role in creating the Economic Conditions that exploded on november 15. And maziar, let me ask you to start. The Trump Administration since 2018 has had its campaign of maximum pressure and its been pretty devastating in terms of anything you can measure, certainly Iranian Oil Exports and revenues. Sometimes listening to Trump Administration officials talk about these events, you hear the kind of undertone, this is just what we thought would happen, this is just what we wanted to happen, this is a corrupt regime and the people facing hardship are what about that . Is this a made in usa economic crisis, or is it something much, much deeper . No, i dont think its a made in the usa crisis. To start with, i dont think that iran was enjoying such a good Economic Situation before the maximum Pressure Campaign started. And also, the maximum Pressure Campaign is effective because of the corruption in the system. Because of the irgcs presence in different sectors of the iranian economy, industry, culture, everything. Can we show that infographic about irgc . Irgc and why it was created in the beginning of the revolution, it came from the idea that iran needed a revolutionary army in order to preserve the system, in order to fight to be loyal to the revolution. And irgc, by the way, does not have the word, iran, in its name. Islamic revolution, revolutionary guards corps. So theres nothing about iran in the name. Eventually the irgc became the hegemon that you see behind me. Its sorry you dont see anything. You can go to the website. So you have Financial Institutions, you have universities, you have different industries. So irgc is really the biggest industrial Industrial Institution in iran. It has many banks. It owns many factories. It owns many universities and hospitals. So when the u. S. Designated irgc a foreign terrorist organization, that meant millions of ordinary iranians were affected by that designation. So imagine youre working in a bank as an accountant, youre working in a university as a teacher or a janitor, irgc takes over that university or buys the majority share in that institution. All of a sudden, you become a part of the irgc and you become a terrorist. And because of that, millions of iranians are affected by it. In terms of the import of medicine in iran, one of the Main Financial institutions in iran that provides letters of credit to importers of medicine, the bank is majority owned by irgc, not directly by irgc but different institutions. Partian bank was affected by that designation and because of that, it cannot import any medicine. It cannot give letters of credit for import of medicine. So because of this corruption within the system, because of this omnipresence of irgc and these foundations that suzanne has written a lot about, in the iranian econ