Marxism was a concept. People wanted to die for a higher cause. That changed in 1988 and people started to respect life. They started to respect their existence and because of that, violence against the government, they knew this government is ready to use violence but they started to enjoy life more than before but now as we have seen in different cities people are just desperate. There are reports that people, the video unit showing people saying we are hungry, dont have anything to eat. We are just waiting to die and this is happening in many cities and towns across iraq so people are resorting to violence as well, people are responding to violence perpetrated by the regime through violence but they tried to resist peacefully and nonviolently. After the november protests we have entered a new phase. People still dont know what this phase will be like but it is a new phase. The government has become more militant and more violent. How would you set the stage in terms of describing where we are and look at how this started in midnovember but what is your sense of where things are now . A great overview of the landscape in iran but important to understand the context that iran has had a history of protests, people willing to go to the streets often over Small Economic reasons, labor strikes, teachers unions coming out, people protesting the financial situation. Things like this happen all the time in iran and have for the past 40 years even during the toughest times of the iran iraq war. There is a culture of political mobilization that existed in iran and it was within certain bounds. You might risk being arrested or beaten. Weve seen moments of much larger protests particularly over political issues. More than 1 Million People came to the streets, the protests went on for weeks. The unrest and the cries of death to the dictator, they were heard for months and people continued and we have never seen the degree of violence used by protesters in that way or the governments response and that is important to understand, about this being a different moment in iranian history. That is an equivalent to those of us who watch iran closely. This is unlike we have seen before in iran. During the 2009 up evil which you are probably familiar with it was a dramatic moment in iran and certainly violence used against the people who came to the streets but typically thugs on motorcycles driving people off to disrupt a peaceful protest. The videos coming out in a small way when the internet was shutdown by the regime and in more dramatic fashion since the internet has been restored, like nothing i can imagine. It is more similar to what we have seen play out in iraq with the shia militia shooting from rooftops, gunman on the streets, is absolutely shocking and this is what we are seeing, the sense of making sense of the violence used by protesters, the degree of anger and the frustration thats not about one person or one faction, the readiness of Security Forces to shoot to kill in cities around the country. Lets turn to the question that is always a mystery with social protests. Why did it happen when it did . Take us to that question, it is november 15th and we have an increase, help us make sense why that led to this extraordinary explosion. On the night of friday, november 15th the government of iran announced it is going to increase the price of gas. 60 for 16 gallons allocated they had different allocations but it is usually 33 foreword, 16 gallons. That allocation was increased by 60 and then beyond that it was increased by 300 , three times as much. You may think one dollar event is not much in this country, 3 per gallon but in iran when you think the average seller is 150 a month and many iranians making a living working as couriers and cabdrivers, 300 increase affects their lives. How is it going to affect the price because it is only one month after the price increase but in order to understand, the revolutionary guard video unit, they did a documentary released yesterday and they talk to people in the city of marshak where many killings happen where people were killed by tanks and heavy machine guns. And just about one hour, lets watch this video. [speaking in native tongue] [speaking in native tongue] we had tv and film units 10 or 15 years ago and have become really active in the past two years. We have film units with multimilliondollar animation and documentaries. What is interesting about this documentary according to a friend of mine who calls me one hour ago from iran is the reporter you see in this video he is someone who has been to syria many times and praised iranian involvement in the syria. According to this friend. This was part of a plan, to perpetrate, to promote iran as a savior. It is an efficient policy has created economic ambitions. You heard it in other countries. He is being portrayed, and the irg media. It will not be counterproductive. When this guy is talking about authorities, we dont think of it as rouhanis government. And the Islamic Republic. A critic of 40 years of mismanagement, that has led to this point. There are so many metaphors here, each river has a capacity. Iran just over led to this flock, to accept poverty, we cannot accept discrimination and that is why many iranians believe, this universal protest happening in chile and iraq and hong kong with citizens of Different Countries to their rights as citizens and they want their rights as citizens of the country to be recognized. Your reporting and discussions to support the fascinating idea the irg see is trying to get out of popular anger, do you pick up somewhere notes . This is a broader history of iran, the regime effectively propagandizing to its own population. We spent a lot of time in washington thinking about iran around the region. That has been a constant effort to repress and persuade, to sustain a system that fundamentally doesnt carry the support it does today. Most of the population is too young to remember the population, most is too young to remember the war. The first decade of the revolution. We have a set of circumstances in which the regime needs to constantly refresh the sense of revolutionary values, islamic values to a population with completely different cultural and political references and priorities. They have become quite effective at it. They have massive revolutionary guard propaganda shock, blockbuster movie, and to suit the festival circuit. Ultimately the question is can they overcome the sense of deep alienation which has been building particularly among those iranians, a welleducated population invested in a lot of the infrastructure for the baby boom that has come of age because people dont see a future set of opportunities for them. That passionate man, a university graduate, let me turn to the question of america and the Trump Administrations role in creating the Economic Conditions that exploded on november 15th. Let me ask you to start, the Trump Administration has had a campaign of maximum pressure and it has been pretty devastating in terms of anything you can measure, iranian oil exports, sometimes listening to Trump Administration officials talk about these events you hear the undertone this is just what we thought would happen, just what we wanted to happen, this is a rough regime and people facing hardship, what about that . Is this a made in the usa economic crisis or is it something much deeper . Dont think it is a made in the usa crisis. I dont think 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 irg sees presence in different sectors of the iranian economy, industry and everything. And at the beginning of the revolution, iran needed a revolutionary army to explain the system, to be loyal to the revolution and irg see, the revolutionary guard corps. Even generally irg see is what you see behind me. You can go to the website. You have Financial Institutions and different industries, for iran. It owns many factories and universities and hospitals. When the us designated irg see, that meant ordinary americans were effective by that designation. In an accountant, as a teacher or a janitor, at university for the majority share in that institution, all of the sudden become part of the irg see and because of that, millions of iranians are affected by this in terms of the import of medicine iran. One of the main Financial Institutions in iran that is a credit to importers of medicine is majority owned by the irg see and different institutions, it is affected by the designation and does not import medicine. In that system, the presence of irg see and foundations in the iranian economy the maximum Pressure Campaign has become effective. It is not the exact technology. When you think of these druglords, mexico and colombia they own charities and hospitals and schools run by druglords, it is better than hospitals and schools and if the drug lord is arrested or subjected to sanction that will affect the university. Not blaming the United States as the architect of their miseries but blaming the regimes which is precisely what the administration was hoping for. It is because independent journalists cannot work in iran because we cant do independent service in iran. Im not sure how many people blame the us or the iranian government, but i dont think the administration has done a good job in terms of talking about the sanctions because for example medicine and humanitarian goods. But there are two issues. One is when you have sanctions and the sanctions are repeated in the media this makes the Financial Institutions and different banks more conservative. They dont give matters of credit or help iranians Financial Institutions for humanitarian goods or medicine. And the American Government goes to the Financial Institutions and explains, dont explain the situation. For barclays the most experienced thing is to impose sanctions on everything. We have a website called iran, we are harassed by the bank even though we have no more working in iran and our bank in london and here in tennessee they keep asking about our transactions. Even justice for iran which is a Human Rights Organization and the government is harassed with iran in its name. So that iran iranian government is using sanctions to cover its inefficiencies and management and blame the us for all the misery. How would you assess the Trump Administration maximum Pressure Campaign in terms of its desired intentions target the irg see in particular, regime elements without alienating the population. How would you assess the effectiveness . Strategy is effective at compounding the structural economic problems that have existed in iran since the earliest days of the revolution that no government has managed to make progress addressing in a consistent and durable fashion for the past 40 years. Sanctions have been effective in part because of dysfunction within the iranian economy. They were more effective in creating economic pain than many in washington particularly those who supported Nuclear Diplomacy presume. There was a lot of uncertainty even by those who supported the administrations strategy how i go it alone approach would work because the last time we saw this level of economic pressure applied to iran it was with with consensus and Additional Mechanisms of pride by the european union. A number of governments including the uk and japan and elsewhere around the world and it was just the Trump Administration and these measures were imposed over the objections of all our partners and allies and uncertainties about how companies and firms and individuals would abide by them or not and there was a rush to the exit because of the unappealing environment for Foreign Trade and business, you dont know who you are dealing with and there are a lot of regulatory hassles and concern about running a foul when the see her go periods was lifted after the nuclear deal or suspended and a lot of concern because you didnt know precisely who might own the firm you are dealing with. In terms of imposing economic gains sanctions have been wildly effective to the extent that they have driven a strategy, that is where we raise some questions. There is readiness on both sides to engage diplomatically but because the United States articulated a broad set of objectives for the maximum pressure strategy and because it is unclear what the iranians are prepared to give we have incentivized iranians to begin escalating around the region, escalating in terms of noncompliance with the nuclear deal and a lot of uncertainty how that ends because for the iranians theres a lot of urgency to get out from under this pressure for a variety of reasons but largely just for the persistence and existence of the regime. At a certain point this level of economic hardship, readiness to go to the streets and protest in a really violent way will be hard to sustain. I think the iranian leadership would like to find a get out of jail free card but it is not clear how to get that from the Trump Administration so what they have been doing is to try to galvanized up a medic urgency around the world by striking out in the region and stepping away from the nuclear deal and i think we are now in a process where the iranians are dictating the time which is unfortunate. Lets spend more time on that and roll the videotape to april or early may. My sources for my reporting in my column described a change of strategy on the part of the iranian leadership who believed they could ride out the maximum Pressure Campaign from the Trump Administration, perhaps trump would be defeated in november 2020 perhaps because european governments would find some escape path and could ride this out and in early may maybe different judgment was reached and we saw the iranians create pain for golf country trying to make it difficult for them to explore oil. A series of tanker incidents and the most serious was the coordinated iranian attack on the saudi refinery for which the saudis had no defense and for which we and the saudis had no military retaliation so the question i would ask each of you, in terms of that dimension of the crisis, iran seeking to raise the pain level of the west, where are we and what would your judgment be that they are prepared to escalate further given that there hasnt been any military retaliation we know of yet . Iran knows that the us is playing games in its own backyard and irans own backyard so they feel they have the upper hand and they are following the us politics. They know that trump was very critical of past wars and critical of the invasion of iraq, so they know that, or they thought that they had been thinking the us is not going to retaliate as much as before against iran, military movements in the region and also iran is strengthening its military status in the region, in afghanistan after the fall of the taliban in iraq, after the fall of saddam hussein. They created hezbollah in the early 80s which they regard as part of the revolutionary guard and they have the new allies in the who the houthis. With the rise of isis they know that the us is vulnerable in the region and the us needs a certain level of cooperation from iran in order to contain isis so they have been using that, strengthening their position in iraq with this on and off alliance and the creation of strategies and in syria they are trying to expand their presence and they are also waiting and have been waiting since 2003 around the time of the invasion of iraq from an eminent us attack. When i was in iran after the invasion of iraq i remember my friend on Iranian State television telling me different parts of the Iranian State television in each province of iran, creating their own independence station in case the central headquarters in tehran falls, they can carry it out in different provinces. All 31 provinces of iran have their own state television and also you can see they have their own branches of Economic Activities in order to survive an american attack. So they are ready both inside iran and outside of iran for an attack. I think the best policy for the American Government and its allies is to have 0 tolerance for Iranian Military attacks outside of iran because if Iranian Military intervention in the region is tolerated then it will disable the regime and go on and that in turn will lead to more human rights abuses and brutality by the regime. The regime should know that it has to pay a price. If it attacks the tanker in the persian gulf it is going to pay for it. If it kills an american soldier or attacks American Allies in iraq it will pay a price. We will be coming to the audience for your questions and 10 minutes or so, think about what you would like to ask our panel. Let me ask you to give your judgment, whether additional iranian provocations or escalation are likely in this continuing stalemate when the regime is under pressure, looking for some way to increase pain for the other side. I note that there have been, quoting al jazeera here, since october 28, 10 rocket attacks in iraq near us troops or facilities and secretary of defense said on monday after one of these attacks, concerned about the optics of strikes on iranian proxies. Sounded like not quite a red line but a warning. What is your judgment about what the iranians do next in terms of their tactics . We have seen careful, prudent, precise escalation. That began in may. It was a shift from when the iranians sat tight to when the sanctions would