Of this government. Mr. Ahmadinejad managed to isolate iran diplomatically, and mr. Rouhani is in reality bringing iran out of diplomatic isolation. So, yes, they are succeeding, and the western media is not paying attention. They should. They should, to begin with, start reading what mr. Rouhani has said all over the years. Back in 1999, iran, you know, the Islamic Republic, experienced its most serious political unrest. That was the Tehran University unrest which spread to the entire country. Which politician do you think it was that went to the public and supported the revolutionary guard, and the Police Suppression of the students movement. It was mr. Rouhani. Mr. Rouhani systematically called the students foreign agents. Mr. Rou manny systematically at the extreme National Security council was banning newspapers. And now, people are expecting that mr. Rouhani, of all the people, is going to allow freedom of the press . Why . Why . This is what i believe is the mistake of the western press, that they do not Pay Attention. They do not take a look at the history of those individuals. And, therefore, they have expectations which is totally immature. Some younger people in tehran have this kind of expectation. This is why they voted for mr. Rouhani. But you cannot blame them. They are young and they are naive. Here in washington, people are not so young, but naive. This is one of the complaints that i have when it comes to u. S. Government view of the rouhani cabinet. I think they succeeded in making 98 of the discourse about the nuclear issue, and convinced most of the west that the only issue worthy of discussion is to prevent iran from getting nuclear weapons. Without nuclear weapons, with purely conventional arms, hundreds of millions of people have been killed in the last 150 years. 200,000 people slaughtered in syria, 800,000 in rwanda, tens of millions in world war ii with pure nonnuclear weapons. I think we need to dramatically and unequivocally restore the focus to the human rights question. When saranskis wife was traveling, she said there was a huge map on the wall and one of the state Department Officials said with all due respect, you dont really expect us to relegate your husbands release to all of these important geostrategic challenges. She said what you dont understand is that those issues wont be resolved until my husband is released. I think that were aware of the information. There are lists of hundreds and even thousands of Political Prisoners. But many people dont get the link between internal freedom and external peace. And just real quick about the issue of the letters to baghdadi. I think speaking up for human rights also encourages those movements inside of iran. Theres nothing more fearful for a dissident than feeling alone and isolated and not cared about by the rest of the world. But we can do an enormous amount to increase the strength of dissident movements inside authoritarian countries simply by speaking out and supporting them. This helps give them the em pe tus to rise up against those who throw them in prison. I think thats another issue that the west doesnt understand. I agree with michael about missing what has become conventional wisdom of the arab spring. Its fantastic to look back at the predictions of supposedly smart people, in 2009, newsweek said that the best thing for syria was a wise and charismatic leader, assad. And kerry said he was for peace, prosperity and stability. In 2011, the israeli newspaper said syria was an island of stability. And the edone minutes said about ali, that his regime was far from over shortly before it fell. You look at p. J. Crowley talking about egypt as a rock of stability and island of stability. Secretary clintons famous remark on january 25th, that our assessment of the Egyptian Government is stable. All of these were falsehoods, and just dangerously wrong. In no small part because i dont think they were listening to the dissident movements. And the double thinkers is always bigger than we think in the Foreign Countries and dictatorships. Yes, greater emphasis on human rights is called for, but that shouldnt mean less emphasis on the nuclear issue. If this regime should get nuclear weapons, the amount of repression and carnage we could see under that Nuclear Umbrella for the remainder of this century would make whats going on now seem very small. No question it would be an infinitely larger danger. But the corollary is people underestimate the regime in power and supporting terrorism throughout the world and undermining every single gulf country, and funding terrorism as far as the eye can see, and repressing millions of people for decades. Thats an absolutely untenable and unforgivable situation that we need to work faster to undo. Weve got some questions. Again, introduce yourself and speak into the microphone, if you would. Thank you. Im mary ann. We run an Elearning Institute for iranian civil society. My question, or comment is about michael ledeens point that in 2009, americans intelligence or policymakers were saying things like, these guys are going to win, we dont need to do much of anything. I question that, because president obama, in one of the very few things he said when people on the street were chanting for him to do something, say something, you know, the slogan was, barack obama youre with them, with the regime or with us. When he did respond, he said, we really dont care which one wins, it doesnt make any difference to us. He had just taken office and reportedly sent a couple letters to khomeini. I question that the mood was one of optimism. If anything, i think it was a movement with inconvenience and wrench in the works, with the Incoming Administration thinking they could achieve with khomeini. A lot of iranians in civil society, people we work with, feel a big sense of betrayal from america because of that. I just wanted to voice it here. Thats a good point. Do you have a comment on that, michael . Yeah, i think everything is true. I agree with nk you said. Of course the iranians feel betrayed. They were betrayed. They have a right to feel betrayed. At the same time, the consensus at that time was that this is a huge thing, the uprising, the june uprising, and it continued and went on and on, and they said, theyre going to win. Its not easy to be wrong, systematically wrong about everything from beginning to independe end. But were trying. Actually, in that case we did pretty well. This is part of the discussion. It raises a point that id like to tease out, if i could. Getting back to what you said about strategic clarity versus moral clarity. Theres a view on, i would say both on the realist right and multikurt turlist left, that moral clarity is an impediment to strategic clarity. That once we strive, and this is a piece that came out on friday in the New York Times, on oped, that i will be writing about it in my column this week, that if we talk about whats going on, including the Islamic State, in moral terms, the language of good and evil, we get away from the possibility of good strategic thinking. I would argue its the opposite that moral clarity is necessary with strategic clarity. That also means the following. When youre deciding whether to, for example, support the Green Movement in 2009, when youre deciding three years ago whether to support the nationalists in syria, the equation becomes, well, what can they do, are they just pharmacists who would be given guns and couldnt accomplish very much. Should we be supporting whats left of the nationalists in syria, or should we not. And that gets to the question of whether you have a moral obligation to support those people who are fighting for values we hold dear, even if they may lose, as i think was the case, we thought, years ago, or if we just support them if its clearly utilitarian. Do you understand what im getting at . First, they said the moral choice turns out to be the pragmatic choice, too. The oped in the New York Times was outrageous. You know, the dissidents in the soviet union said the happiest day was the day the president was called evil. Finally somebody had the audacity to speak to the blinding truth about that incredible evil. I think that too many times today, i think what it boils down to is a loss of confidence in our own values and own civilization and our own power, in fact. There are many differences, obviously, but american policymakers like to set up to a nuclear superpower, which spanned 11 time zones and killed millions of people. Kissinger said dont bother with this human rights nonsense, were trying to contain the soviet union which could start a holocaust. You could compare that to iran today, which doesnt have a fraction of fraction of the nuclear power. In vienna, or geneva, or wherever, human rights are not even on the table. Thats outva jus on both moral and security and strategic grounds. Lets go to dana here. And then well go back on this. Dana marshall. The question is really more of a challenge. I think of myself as sort of both moral view of this, and im very moved by what youre saying about not forgetting the human rights aspect of this, but theres a part of me that really wants to challenge you. What do you do about this . The west has been deploying for decades some pretty severe sanctions against the Islamic Republic. Weve heard a lot about this, but its had the effect of starting a negotiation again, good or bad. Lets leave that to the side. So my question is, for those of us who cannot have a colloquy with the foreign minister of iran, and for those of us who think a letter or two, how effective is let me challenge you, what do we need to do . How much do we put on the table . How much do we really put i mean, honestly, not just saying, oh, you know, lets put this as the last talking point. But, you know, what do we really pay to move this agenda forward . And how likely is it that we will be joined by those areas which are even closer to have more leverage . Well, look at reagan and the soviet empire. And i think you can answer your question, just from historical events. When reagan started speaking out against the soviet empire and saying its day in history was finished, people yelled and screamed at him. Said he was dangerous. When Jackson Vanick was up for grabs, you cannot imagine how many leaders of various important communities inside the United States came to people who were advocating it, and saying, dont put the soviet union with its back against the wall, youll make things worse. Things will get worse. Exactly the things that people like david hears every day about whats going on inside iran. Yet, as we now know from all the dissidents, speaking out made life better. Its important for dissident groups inside the soviet empire, it was a crucial part in bringing down the whole soviet system. If we could bring down the soviet empire, how can anybody doubt that we could bring down this hollow corrupt regime in tehran. It doesnt begin to compare. And yet, whenever we have this discussion, people will always talk as if, its big, its powerful, its massive, theyre brilliant, whereas they make mistakes all the time. Can i just make one point about iran . Keep it in mind, iran on paper should be one of the most successful countries on earth. They have everything. When we sit down and draw up a checklist of what does it take to be a successful, flourishing, booming, democratic country, iran has it all. Even an educated middle class. Even women with some sort of significant role in society and so on. They have it all. Now go into the major strits of the city and what do you see . Record numbers of suicides, prostitution, you name it, all those indicators of social melees and failure. These people, brilliant as we invariably think of them, have wrecked a country which was very hard to wreck. Very hard. Sort of like venezuela in that regard. Venezuela, in my journalist days, i was sent to venezuela, and everybody i talked to, you cant wreck this place. Food drops out of the sky. Everything on the trees grow twice as fast, et cetera. So iran is one of these countries where it really takes a lot to wreck it. They wrecked it. You know, i think so support the opposition. What are we waiting for . Right . Its right to support arubbia, borgere, and the rest of them. Its strategically right. And it will probably work. No one everyone is afraid of them. Everybody thinks that crack pot and crazy. And yet its track record historically is pretty good. Sometimes it works. Im happy that we have you here. Because theres a certain generation. Americans Foreign Policy making community. They experienced the cold war. One of the things that, you know, some younger people in government have forgotten is the thinking process. A process that began as an arms agreement. And then it encompassed human rights issues. Most unfortunately, those brilliant people who are in government right now, in the United States, did not think of a similar model for the Nuclear Negotiations with the Islamic Republic of iran. Maybe because it was not a priority. Maybe it was because they had no recollection of how things were done in the cold war period. Then, of course, its very unfortunate. I agree with dr. Ledeen. Just look at the iranians. The iranians are successful every place in the world except for inside of iran. That tells you about the system called the Islamic Republic. Theres something you can do on a personal level, and then on the more diplomatic and national level. A few weeks ago, my Organization Advancing Human Rights relaunched movement. Org which links dissidents from dictatorships with help. Its like craigslist for human rights. Thousands of dissidents from 92 countries in the first few weeks have come to the sites, asking for legal help, pr help, some of them want a song written about a dissident in prison, whatever your skill is today, you can go to movements. Org and find someone from large dictatorships. Weve had songs come out of it with lawyers connecting with Syrian Refugees and so on and so forth. I think we need to revive the spirit of rabblerousing. I came up with this idea to rename the street in front of the chinese embassy. I drove the Chinese Government crazy. A bunch of pronunciations. It got in their face. The House Appropriations committee voted to change the street in front of the chinese embassy. Just as they did in the 80s. You know, the fact that the foreign minister can claim ignorance about a political prisoner, we can undo that. Why is the street in front of every embassy not named for a political prisoner. Its a small step. Its symbolic. I think it had some effect on the soviet union. The press covered it massively. It was in every major western newspaper. Suddenly the chinese were put on the defensive and they had to answer once again for their for this outrageous violation of human rights. On the national level, i think just traditional things like raising the name of these Political Prisoners in meetings. When you go negotiate in geneva or vienna, you cant say, well, well get to the human rights later. Thats not true just of iran, but all throughout, when the president went to saudi arabia. Of course, were going to raise human rights. It turns out they ran out of time when they went to this bureaucratic dictatorship. So number one is, raise the name. A guy like ahmed said the fact that he was on the cover of the economist saved his life. First the judge said with this picture youve signed your own death warrant. After ten years in prison, he said this picture saved my life. So attention, attention, attention. And then linking any improvements in to the iranian economy is a critical lever. Which is widely underappreciated. Lets go back to the north a little bit. Im mark. I wanted to talk about the Green Movement. Im a believer that the Green Movement is not dead. And the iranians are very smart waiting for the right opportunity to get out into the streets when they feel its appropriate. But my question is, what can the west or the u. S. Do this time around when the opportunity comes. Because im a hundred percent sure it will come again. Its just a matter of time. What should i do this time around to support the people . What specific things can they do . So, one of the things that the Islamic Republic cannot control is spontaneous uprisings. They can infiltrate any political organization. They can infiltrate even the smallest cell. Intelligence services have learned all their tricks of spy craft from the kgb, you know, they know what theyre doing. Theyre very good at this. But they cannot predict and they cannot control and contain massive uprisings, spontaneously breaking out. However, massive uprising is in need of communication, amongst those who participate in the uprising. But theres also a need for further mobilization of the public for a specific cause. There you need public broadcast systems. The Islamic Republic television is one of those highly censored institutions, of course, because it has Strategic Value for the regime. And most foreign broadcasters to iran, theyre extremely cautious in their coverage of the green revolution. So one of the things that could be done, and should be done, is to provide not only support, you know, from the media, only when things happen, but also prior to it. We do not have a single media, not even voice of america, which is trying its best, is not providing opportunities for iranians to have political debates, to question authorities within the system. There is no form for debate. It is something that the regime itself is trying to prevent very actively. There are a number of other countries, that broadcasting on them would be willing to provide those services. I think there is lot that can be done when it comes to the media. You als