Source: Charlie Rose Show
CHARLIE ROSE: Earlier today, President Obama spoke with the impasse between Iran and the international community over its nuclear program. Addressing the United Nations General Assembly in New York, he said -- (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: The United States and the international community seek a resolution to our differences with Iran, and the door remains open to diplomacy should Iran choose to walk through it. But the Iranian government must demonstrate a clear and credible commitment and confirm to the world the peaceful intent of its nuclear program.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CHARLIE ROSE: The president also spoke passionately about human rights.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) OBAMA: Freedom, justice and peace for the world must begin with freedom, justice and peace in the lives of individual human beings. And for the United States, this is a matter of moral and pragmatic necessity. (END VIDEO CLIP)
CHARLIE ROSE: Human rights are a critical part of the conversation about Iran today, even more so after the protests that followed the June 2009 election. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who is in New York this week, spoke at the General Assembly today. Here is a part of what he said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) MAHMOUD AHMADINEJAD, IRANIAN PRESIDENT (via translator): In identifying those responsible behind the September 11 attacks, there were three viewpoints. First, that a very powerful and complex terrorist group able to successfully cross all layers of the American intelligence and security carried out the attack. This is the prevalent viewpoint which has been supported mainly and advocated by American statesmen. Second, that some segments within the U.S. government orchestrated the attack to reverse the declining American economy and its grip on the Middle East in order to save the Zionist regime. The majority of the American people as well as most nations and politicians around the world agree with this view. Third, it was carried out by a terrorist group but that the American government supported and took advantage of the situation. Apparently, this viewpoint has fewer proponents. (END VIDEO CLIP)
CHARLIE ROSE: Joining me are four Iranian Americans who live and work in this country as well. Abbas Milani of Stanford University, Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Farnaz Fassihi, senior Middle East correspondent for "The Wall Street Journal" and from Washington Dr. Haleh Esfandiari of the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars. In 2007 she was held in solitary confinement in Tehran. I am pleased to have all of them here on this program to talk about Iran, which everyone this week in New York City, at least, are talking about Iran, whether it is the Iranian president who is speaking at the U.N. today but has been doing a number of interviews. The president of the United States is speaking today. In an interview I did yesterday with the Russian foreign minister, with Turkey -- the Turkish president was here last night, we talked about Iran. So it’s appropriate now in a sense to bring people who are Iranian- Americans to talk about how they see these issues. So let me begin from Washington -- from Haleh Esfandiari. What’s happening in Iran today, how you see where they are a year-plus after the election?
HALEH ESFANDIARI, WOODROW WILSON INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR SCHOLARS: A lot is going on in Iran today. First of all, I don’t think that the green movement is dead. I think it might be a bit dormant but it’s not dead. The other night, one was interviewing Ahmadinejad here, there were people on the roofs of Tehran and probably other Iranian cities once again shouting "God is great," showing that they are there. Secondly, I think what is more important is the division in the regime. This is unbelievable. The president is trying to undermine -- is trying to undermine parliament. It’s trying to undermine the expediency council. He is trying to undermine even the supreme leader by even ignoring -- at least, his calls. The supreme leader called recently for unity among the regime leaders and the president is ignoring it.
CHARLIE ROSE: What is to be said about this tension between the president and the supreme leader?
ABBAS MILANI, STANFORD UNIVERSITY: Well, I think there is tension between the president and the spiritual leader, and more importantly, I think, there is increasing pressure amongst the conservatives, particularly in the parliament. I think one can say safely for the first time in Ahmadinejad’s five year there has been open talk of the possibility of impeaching him. Two very prominent members have in the last two weeks written either open letters to Ahmadinejad or have given interviews where they have said we can impeach you if you continue defying us, if you continue not implementing our orders to you, if you continue talking about the supremacy of the executive branch, as he has done, we might in fact impeach you. And if they haven’t done so far it’s because the international situation has not allowed it. So the tensions within the conservatives and then the tensions within the top clergy and the regime and within Ahmadinejad’s camp and the IRGC, even, the Revolutionary Guard I think have never been as fierce as they are now.
CHARLIE ROSE: Where are the Revolutionary Guards now? There are some stories I have been reading that they’re closer now to Ahmadinejad, that he’s leaned to garner their support. Is that true?
FARNAZ FASSIHI, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": I think Ahmadinejad’s support does come from at least a wide branch of the revolutionary guards. They’ve become much more prominent in Iranian politics, in the Iranian economy, and also the media, trying to dominate the political conversation. And so he does enjoy their support and I think it’s critical to see how long that’s going to extend. I think that rightly, we can assume that the clerical powers in Iran are weakening and the military wings of the Revolutionary Guard are becoming much more prominent.
CHARLIE ROSE: The economy, how is the economy doing in Iran? And what happens if sanctions imposed?
KARIM SADJADPOUR, CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE: The economy is under tremendous pressure both domestically and internationally, and it’s oftentimes difficult to discern what is the underlying cause of the economic tumult? Is it economic sanctions from the United States, from European countries? Or is it the profound domestic mismanagement? There is incredible mismanagement within Iran. And anecdotally the stories I hear are quite remarkable. People coming from Iran tell me that the price of meat for example is almost double the price of meat in Washington, D.C. So I think that people are having -- the elder generation of Iranians recalls the economic dignities they had prior to the revolution and they look with disfavor at this economy. And the younger generation of Iranians, there is incredible unemployment but more importantly underemployment. The number of educated Iranians you meet -- engineers, architects who are forced to drive taxis and sell pizzas is incredibly disheartening.
CHARLIE ROSE: One of the questions that came up about him and what he has been saying and what he has been doing is that Iran can withstand the sanctions. Haleh?
HALEH ESFANDIARI: I think it’s also nonsense what he -- yes, I think it’s utter nonsense what he is saying. They are relying on imports. And just an anecdote, when I was in Iran in 2007 you could find fruit from Chile. If the sanctions are imposed it’s going to affect even the goods that people use in their everyday life. So I think he’s just trying to put a very good face on the sanction issue because internally he is under a lot of criticism for having created that kind of setup to be sanctioned.
FARNAZ FASSIHI: I have to agree with Haleh. And the central bank of Iran came out with a report last week saying that the economy is in crisis and that the number of bounced personal checks and business checks was 38 percent higher this year than last year. Almost 2,000 checks bounced. So he can kind of sugar-coat the sanctions and the economic crisis, but even inside Iran there are official organizations coming out and saying "Here are the statistics, we are having problems, companies are closing down, we can’t import, we can’t export, we can’t open letters of credit." These are very tangible problems they’re facing.
ABBAS MILANI: One of the ayatollahs -- probably the second most important ayatollah -- the ayatollah that leads the prayers in Qom, said last week that the statistics that Mr. Ahmadinejad gives about unemployment, about inflation, are all bogus. He said that people know these are bogus figures. Quit giving them because you’re undermining the credibility of the entire government. And 40 percent of the entire liquidity of the Iranian economy is now in bad checks. In other words, the amount of bad checks, the amount of unpaid loans right now in the Iranian economy is about three times it has been since the beginning of the banking for the last 150 years. That’s how serious the economic situation is. But Ahmadinejad walks around like Mr. Magoo, says everything is OK, we’re going to withstand, it’s going to make us stronger, as if he operates in a parallel universe that bears no relation to reality.
CHARLIE ROSE: As you suggested to me earlier, you have never seen a head of state that you think is prepared to say more untruths?
ABBAS MILANI: I have never in my life seen a head of a state look an interviewer in the eye, look the camera straightforward, and lie about something he knows the international community has been filled about the stories -- the story of the stoning. He says, "No one has been accused -- condemned to stoning in Iran." For three weeks, that was the top of the news inside and Iran and outside Iran. He looked into the camera and he said, "I am the head of state, I say no one was stoned, end of story."
KARIM SADJADPOUR: Charlie, whenever I watch Ahmadinejad doing interviews, I am reminded of a famous "Seinfeld" episode where Jerry Seinfeld asks George Costanza the secret of lying, being able to lie well. And George said to Jerry "It’s not a lie if you believe it." And sometimes I think Ahmadinejad is truly delusional. He believes that Iran is the freest country in the world, he believes it has an incredibly prosperous economy.
CHARLIE ROSE: Let me come back to the question of stoning. Where does that stand?
FARNZA FASSIHI: The case of this woman is suspended right now. However, there is documentation out there from Iran’s central courts where she has been condemned to stoning, where actually the sentencing was registered. And it’s available on the Internet. Human rights organizations have put that out in response to Mr. Ahmadinejad saying she was never sentenced to stoning. I suspect that after the international outcry she will not be stoned, especially after Mr. Ahmadinejad went on TV saying there is no such sentencing, so in some sense that is a victory for human rights workers in trying to bring attention. But I think it’s not just stoning. We have hundreds of political prisoners in Iran. We have human rights workers, lawyers, students, activists whose case nobody really hears. They’re not celebrated cases. But they face torture every day and unclear what’s going to happen to their case and it’s very difficult to get an answer from the government where their cases stand.
CHARLIE ROSE: And when you raise that question as a journalist, what do they say?
FARNZA FASSIHI: I asked this question. I asked this question of Mr. Ahmadinejad a few days ago at a breakfast meeting with reporters and he looked at me and said "We have no opponents of the government in jail, and they’re all free" and that there are no political prisoners in Iran.
CHARLIE ROSE: So it’s not just on television he says it.
FARNZA FASSIHI: No, it’s not just on television.
CHARLIE ROSE: Go ahead, Haleh.
HALEH ESFANDIARI: Charlie, there are women activists that have been sentenced to long-term imprisonment just while he was here. A human-rights activist, a woman who promotes women’s rights was condemned to -- sentenced to six years. So these are unheard of. Usually in the past they would get a month and would be set free. First, they gave her over $600,000 bail and then they condemned her -- sentenced to this long sentence. So it really is not just a matter of the single woman, Mrs. Mohammedi. Under Ahmadinejad, the number of executions has increased by four times. The number journalists in jail is unprecedented in the world, and the clampdown on the press. So he’s sitting there and just lying and looking in your eyes and in the eyes of everybody who is watching him on camera.
CHARLIE ROSE: And is this often talked about and debated in Iran and in the press in Iran and within the government of Iran and the parliament?
ABBAS MILANI: Last 24 hours, one of the most high-profile political prisoners in Iran met with his wife and sent a message from prison that "I’m willing to come and debate Ahmadinejad and show the lie to all his claims." This is someone in prison --
CHARLIE ROSE: This has wide distribution in Iran.
ABBAS MILANI: It is widely distributed in Iran. The regime tries to use these interviews as a sign of its import, as they it as a sign of Iran’s importance in the international community. The fact that everybody wants to interview him is not seen by them as the fact that he has become a Mr. Magoo character and has become a caricature of a head of state. They see it as a sign of importance and they milk it. And from political prisoners within the last 24 hours a gentleman who is the undersecretary in the interior ministry met with his wife and said, "Tell the international community, these are all lies and I’m willing to come and show and debate and prove it is false."
CHARLIE ROSE: So what do you do and what do all of you do and beyond those of us who are reporters, what do you do to bring the pressure of an international community to the human -- to those cases?
KARIM SADJADPOUR: I think it’s absolutely essential that we continue to raise awareness. All of my friends who have been political prisoners in Iran, including Haleh, will tell you it was heartening for them to know afterwards when they came out of prison that the world didn’t forget about them.
CHARLIE ROSE: And is the Obama administration doing enough in terms of raising the issue of human rights?
KARIM SADJADPOUR: I think that they could be doing more.
FARNZA FASSIHI: Yes.
KARIM SADJADPOUR: I think they could be doing more, but oftentimes looking in a broader context of what the Obama administration could be doing to help the green movement in Iran, the answer the American officials often say is we hear mixed feedback from Iranians themselves as to the role they would like the United States to play. Some of the leaders of the opposition say they wouldn’t like to see the United States be more outspoken, but I think certainly the younger generation -- the young foot soldiers of this movement would like to see the U.S. more outspoken.
CHARLIE ROSE: I have asked this question, often.
FARNZA FASSIHI: Yes, absolutely. During the green movement protest last year, one of the slogans that people were chanting is, "Obama, you’re either with us or with them," meaning you take our side or you want to engage with the government. And I do believe that a lot of the green movement and opposition supporters believe that the Obama administration has not done enough, and they worry if the United States negotiates with Ahmadinejad he will resurrect his troubles and his presidency and fix his legacy and then the opposition will lose credibility.
CHARLIE ROSE: What do you make of what the -- go ahead, Haleh, I’ll come back.
HALEH ESFANDIARI: Charlie, I think that the Obama administration can easily try and engage Iran while condemn the violation of human rights. Condemning the violation of human rights and the atrocities that are taking place in Iran does not mean to come out overtly and let’s say, "We support the green movement" so that it gives another excuse to the government in Iran to repress on the activists, because precisely saying, didn’t we say that they are promoting a velvet revolution, didn’t we say that they are stooges of foreign governments? But I think that the Obama administration should continue, just as the president spoke this morning at the U.N., continue condemning what is happening in Iran.
CHARLIE ROSE: Is Mousavi under house arrest?
KARIM SADJADPOUR: Virtual house arrest. His associated whom I speak to tell me that he’s in his home and he wants to communicate important messages to people. He will turn up the volume of the television at full blast and whisper in their ears, or if it’s ultrasensitive information he will write a note on a sheet of paper, show it to the person and tear it up. So it’s very difficult to lead an opposition movement under those circumstances.
ABBAS MILANI: People who have been coming in and out of his houses have been interrogated, have been sometimes put under pressure.
CHARLIE ROSE: If change is to happen, a change of regime is to happen, and therefore, a change of policy, how will it happen?
HALEH ESFANDIARI: I believe if it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen -- it is going to happen, but it will happen from within the country, just like the green movement which was an indigenous movement. So it will not happen from outside the country. I mean, the pressure on the government would be so much, the pressure on the regime would be so much, the economic pressure on them, the political isolation, that the regime will have to make extraordinary concessions. And I’m told by people that it’s not very -- I mean, the clerical community hangs on to power, so if they need to make concessions to survive, they will do these concessions.
CHARLIE ROSE: And you saw -- I’m told in the streets, people who were the sons and daughters of people who had been close to and in some cases of the regime, and their own children were in the streets.
ABBAS MILANI: The people they put on trial -- they put 100 people on trial after the election, so-called election, these 100 people, if you go down the list, these are the architects of this regime. These are the ministers, undersecretaries who really build this regime. And I think the change that you are talking about, you can already see the outline of a coalition that is forming, a coalition that includes some pragmatic elements win the clergy who are seeing that Shiism is losing big time in Iraq, the technocrats who are running this regime and know the status quo is untenable, and elements of the Revolutionary Guard who realize what they have and realize the continuation of the status quo is, of course, the danger of losing everything.
CHARLIE ROSE: As my friends say to me frequently, "Why are you se fascinated, obsessed, interested in Iran?
HALEH ESFANDIARI: Because it’s a wonderful country.
CHARLIE ROSE: Because it’s a wonderful country. What else do I say? Tell me why Iran is important.
FARNZA FASSIHI: Iran is important because in the Middle East, and I travel around the Middle East all the time, it’s one of the only country where is this quest for democracy and change is grassroots. And it’s not from above, it’s not like Iraq or Afghanistan where it’s imposed by the government. It’s actually kind of a secular movement. A people’s movement has happened over the past couple of years, grassroots. And I think that’s what’s important. It’s also important because it’s strategically placed. It has oil. It’s close to the Persian Gulf. It’s got a lot of influence in the region. But other than that --
CHARLIE ROSE: And borders with everybody, almost.
FARNZA FASSIHI: It borders with everybody. It does have a dynamic, educated population.
ABBAS MILANI: Iran is the bell weather state for the Middle East. For the past 100 years everything has happened in the Middle East either in Iran, Turkey or Egypt. Second, read the bible, read Herodotus, the two canonical texts about civilization. Herodotus is about the war of Greece with Iran. In the Bible, in the Old Testament, there is no nation that plays a more significant role in the freedom of Jews, in the building of Jerusalem, than Persians. Iran is other of the west for 2,500 years. Iran is not two-bit hustlers who rule the country now. Iran is one of the oldest civilizations in the world. It has produced Hafez. It has produced Cyrus. And in the 20th century it is the bell weather state for the Middle East. You are very right to like it. )
KARIM SADJADPOUR: I sometimes think, Charlie, that Iran is like classical music or wine. It’s just something that is so complex and so deep and has so many layers. And when I read my own name in the press referred to as an Iran expert I cringe, because I think that no one can be an expert on this country, it is so profoundly deep.
CHARLIE ROSE: Haleh, I’ll leave the last word to you.
HALEH ESFANDIARI: OK. You are talking with someone who is in love with the flora and fauna of Iran and feels to this day very betrayed by being arrested and put in jail by the country of my birth that I love. But I think Iran has always been a trend-setter, and even when it comes to women’s rights, Iran had one of the most progressive family laws in the region. And even after the revolution I’m meeting with Iraqi women, meeting with women from the Persian Gulf, they would always tell me, "Explain to us how the family law in Iran worked so that maybe we can have a similar law." So women’s rights has been always an issue in Iran, again a trend- setter in the region.
CHARLIE ROSE: Haleh, thank you so much. It’s great to see you again, albeit via satellite. Thank you, thank you. Glad to have you here. And Abbas, thank you for traveling from Stanford University to join us this morning. We thank you very much.