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 weste
The reserve seats can be used, at least for this session. Rather than your having to be stuck in the back. So as i started to say, one of the goals of this conference is to engage the Younger Generation in deciding what we should or should not do. What we should desist from doindoing in the area of support for democracy abroaded in the decades ahead. So its appropriate the next generation have a major voice in formulating the new consensus, hopefully well get to a new consensus you have bios, ive introduced only two speakers by name. In your conference packages you have bio information on all of them. Our goal today is to have a really intense focused discussion where people have a chance to engage the panelists have a chance to engage with each other, they have dissending and differing views and leaving plenty of dim for discussions with you. Thomas melia hopes to be here. Hes snuck traffic. Dissent. Here are the three questions ive asked our speakers and you to think about and focus
The same as gorbachev has been a real throwback for me. I can those days after one dictator after another emerged, they all had very human aspects. They liked jazz. Music, anddixieland so there is a kind of Human Element to him. Rouhani is a man of the system. Ease up your product of the system he is a pure product of the system. And lived age in it in at all his life. And now here he is at the top. People dont talk much about what he is really all about and what he really wants. Why does he take all of these different positions . Because the main game that is being played inside iran right among the various factions is who is going to succeed khomeini. Khomeini is believed to be sick. I mean, its true. He should have died long ago if he is a six at if he is as sick as some would say he is. But no one would be surprised if he dropped dead tomorrow. Characters,f these the rouhanis, the ahmadinejads, the rafsanjanis, etc. , they are all maneuvering for succession. Theyre all trying to ma
Dissident movements inside authoritarian countries by speaking out in supporting them. This help gives them the power to rise up. That is another issue that the west does not understand. I agree with michael about missing the conventional wisdom of the arab spring. Tois fantastic to look back supposedly smart people in 2009, they said the best thing was a wise, charismatic leader call bush a alassad. They said he was a partner for these, prosperity and stability. An israeli newspaper said syria was an island of stability. Others talking about egypt is a rock of stability. All of these were falsehoods. Dangerously wrong. They werent listening to these dissident movements and the fact of double thinkers is always bigger than we think. The number of true believers is typically lower than we think. Im going to push you on a little bit. Thats not mean less emphasis on the nuclear issue. Regime has nuclear weapons, the amount of progression oppression would make whats going on now seems smal
This event was hosted by the National Endowment for democracy in washington, d. C. The challenges of moving from what i call authoritarian rackets, protection rackets, democratic protection rackets, governance, and the paradigm itself focuses on the dynamic of the conflict and identity in the air of a political system, that paradigm is by no means limited to the cases of the arab world. Lets look at ukraine right now as an example, where the issue of identity politics and hypocrisy intersect and democracy. But i think the issues of identity conflict are especially precedent in the arab world for a variety of reasons, and its not something that we really expected in the sense that when the revolt started of course in tunisia in the rural area, not in part of the metropolitan capital but in the rural areas it was about a revolt searching for social and economic equality and dignity. And so many of the initial slogans in the rebellion not only in tunisia, i much prefer the notion of the a