If everyone would take their seats, please, we are almost ready to start. Welcome everyone. I am barbara and i direct the program at the council and i am honored that they have asked me to moderate this extremely timely panel about the iranian elections and also about President Trumps visit to the middle east. Before we start, i want to thank congressman jared huffman, thanks to him we have the room. Also the fund and the Rockefeller Fund for supporting the work that we do. Weve got a great panel. We will start with a bestselling author of fabulous books about iran including the ayatollah begs to differ and the ayatollahs democracy. He has spent a lot of time going back and forth between the u. S. And iran and he certainly understands the political dynamics of the country very well. Then we will have a cofounder and executive director of the International CivilSociety Action network. She has published extensively on gender, peace and Security Issues and also knows a great deal about iran and regional dynamics. Finally nyack Research Director and he came here after serving at the state department in the office of iranian affairs. We will begin with a few questions for me and we will open up to you. They have lots and lots to talk about. Let me begin by asking for their impressions of a split screen reality that we had over the past two days. We had iranians dancing in the streets because they are reelected hassan and we had President Trump giving a very stern warning to iran from riyadh. Quickly, your impressions of both. I think the irony was lost on President Trump that he was speaking those words against iran and as the foreign minister said the bastion of democracy in the middle east. Yes, i think the election obviously was an important election because they were faced with a very stark choice, either go back to the days of, shod or move forward slowly at snails pace, but move forward in terms of re engaging with the world and fixing the economy which was of paramount importance to most iranians who live there. Looking at the cabinet of doctor ronnie, the accomplished people who were running the people on a daytoday basis, the choice was pretty simple, especially since the pendant had essentially said he would surround himself with the people in the cabinet. For the iranians, the stark choice became an obvious choice for most. Even people in the provinces who many people in america thought would vote for the conservative because everyone always assumes if the system, the regime and the Supreme Leader himself are in favor of one candidate then surely he will have a huge advantage. Its actually been the opposite overtime, and i cannot believe the system or regime as we call it doesnt know that, that every time you make it very clear that one candidate is your favorite, the chances of him winning become less so, i think iranians saw that new audience. I think they saw there was this opportunity to either reject this populism or return to the old days of difficulties with sanctions and isolation from the International Community or to move forward. As we got closer to the actual voting day and the media, both inside and outside iran and the persian language and the french language throughout the world were saying its a close race, we dont know how to call it, in the age of trump maybe they will be afraid and they want a hardliner. There was this nervousness which actually caused a lot of iranians to come out and say thats not what we want and i think the overwhelming attitude of the media that this was going to be a close race or we didnt know what was going to happen brought about what people getting engaged and saying no, we have to stop this, this is a vote against the conservative, probably in some ways, almost more so about for the doctor himself as a person. We all know what the result is now. In terms of President Trumps trip to the middle east and sword dancing with arab prince princes, its hard to imagine something less useful for the region than to ally yourself as closely as the United States seems to want to with saudi arabia. And so, i think for the iranians, they are just taking a waitandsee attitude. I think he made it very clear as has his foreign minister that they will wait and see what actions the United States takes. The foreign minister mocked President Trump on twitter for essentially milking the saudis for money and his big arms deal and other investments with saudi arabia, but they will, im sure that doesnt please iran in terms of the kind of arms that will be sitting inside arabia, but their own experience in terms of their military might has been that its not all its cracked up to be. The two week war in yemen which was supposed to be only two weeks is now in its second or third year end without american help the saudis probably cant fly many of their planes or accurately drop their missiles and bombs. I dont think iran is overly worried about the arms buildup of saudi arabia, but i think they are worried and we will have to wait and see where trump takes american foreignpolicy because there is no iran policy right now and the really isnt very much of a middle east policy. We would love to have the palestinians and israelis settle their differences, but we know its not the simplest thing in the world. In terms of yemen and syria and iraq, afghanistan and other issues in the region, nothing is simple as everyone knows and i think the iranians will just wait and see what actual real steps they will take. At the press conference he said we will wait, he was asked about the trump remarks and about iran which were quite harsh and he said we will mak wait for the american policy to settle down. I thought that was a very cautious response. It was more diplomatic than saying they dont have a foreign response. Take this further. This u. S. Alliance with saudi arabia, it can cut a couple of ways. If the saudis are reassured that america is really behind them, might they become more amenable to actually talking to iran . One thing he said in his press conference, he thanked the saudis for resolving a dispute. There were a lot of iranians who died in the stampede if you hears back. Could this embrace of the saudis help or will it make a difference in foreign governments and the willingness to invest in iran and help the economy . Thank you. Its great to be here. So its interesting because that dance was a war dance. It was the contrast of trump and the saudis being in some sort of awkward looking war dance while across iran people were dancing for joy and peace and this is something to bear in mind in terms of thinking about what was going on. What worries me is that the u. S. Has now gone hook line and sinker for the saudi version of the islamic story. The saudis have been a French Version of what is Islamic Culture and they have worked very hard to try to make themselves the leader of the entire sunni world and trump is falling for that. Thats a very dangerous issue because its basically extremism going in the mainstream in the sunni world. To me, what struck me is the u. S. Or the administration is getting the wrong end of middle east and islamic history and is on the wrong side of the future. From the iranian side, how do you deal with someone who wants to go to war with you. The best thing you can do is reach out a hand of friendship. It must be very annoying to have him come out and say we want to thank you and engage and so forth. I think its a clever move and i hope it would open up the space. We cannot have any attempted peace in the region if we dont have the audience there. So constantly going on about isolation doesnt make sense. Everybody knows that. This is just rhetoric. Coming on the heels of the election, the sect, geography, rich, poor, everybody was out there. Ive never seen the iranian diaspora out across the world so systematically. We are saying something to the world, and what we are saying is we want political evolution, we want nonviolent progress and change, we want, we dont want to go back to bad things, we were trying to bring about positive change and it demonstrates a deep democratic mindset in the country. This is another piece that mustnt get lost. To bring about democracy you cant bring democracy. [inaudible] so weve been trying to do with iraq and afghanistan. You need the institutions to help foster the norms and principles and laws but you also need a Critical Mass of people who keep demanding that of you. In iran, over the past 15 years we are seeing the depth of the mindset is really becoming rooted. Once you have that you cant take it away. Its like literacy. Once you know how to read nobody can take that away from you. Globally, at a time where people are realizing politics do matter in their status quo but things can always get worse, that is an Important Message that iran is sending to the world. It would be a really big missed opportunity. In fairness, we should say that the Trump Administration has not excluded talks with iran. Sean spicer, at a briefing last week said iran and russia would both be needed to resolve syria. I think its the first time he mentioned iran in the context and Rex Tillerson in saudi arabia was asking and he said he will talk to the iranians when the time is right. So, even though they are embracing the saudis and making harsh statements about their role in the region, theyre not entirely closing the door. I dont think you can say that any door has been closed just yet on foreignpolicy because trump in saudi arabia was really the opening salvo and the middle east more specifically. There are three things that stood out about this trip. Theyre problematic. Theres no other way to say it and i think calling it problematic is putting it diplomatically. First, when you announce billions of dollars worth of arms deals, we have to be realistic about the fact that the saudis are almost broke. You dont have to take my word for it, theres many articles. They are running out of money. They are privatizing and offering shares because theyre going broke. How are they going to pay for all of this is a question we should be asking ourselves. Thats the optimistic point. The more troubling point is that it looks like the Trump Administration has accepted the saudi and israeli view of Regional Security they have been pushing for at least 25 years and no american president prior to this administration has accepted that view and its predicated on three things, one, isolate iran, to ignore human rights and three forget diplomacy with iran. That is a recipe for war. Its served as the backbone for what the Obama Administration tried to put it pivot away from. Not coincidence in any way shape or form. The third point i make is that everything that happened in saudi arabia is the opposite of America First because at best we are extorting the saudis. At worst, we are now their mercenary in the middle east because, as robert gates said they are willing to fight down to the last american. There are a lot of Unanswered Questions related to the trip that took place in saudi arabia and the new framework or architecture for security that is trying to be set up. The last thing i would say about the saudi trip that is very troubling to me and that i guarantee you almost all of my former colleagues in the u. S. Government agree with is that Durable Solutions to complex requires the buyin of every country with the cap half city to wreck the solution. Just like you cant solve Regional Security problems without the United States of table or without the israelis at the table, you cant solve it without iran at the table. If you exclude any of those actors, iran, america or anyone else, it incentivizes the excluded party to disrupt, dismantle and destroy the process they are not a part of. So again, if you are excluding any actor we should be asking yourselves what are we working towards. Let me follow, we arent excluding iran completely. U. S. Sent a delegate to the talks about syria that were iran, russia, turkey. There have been various statements suggesting the door is not closed. What you think about the theory that and we embrace the saudis they will somehow grow some courage and be willing to talk to iran. Does anyone think thats realistic or my just putting a positive spin on this. I dont think youre putting a positive spin on it, i think thats what we would all like to see. I think we would like to see our traditional partners in the middle east not be free riders, however the Obama Administration tried to do something similar. The Obama Administration had record arms sales and gave almost, not entirely, almost a blank check to what saudi arabia was doing in yemen. Perhaps its too early to render judgment, but what i like about what obama tried to do is having a limit, shall we say and trying to balance the embrace of the saudis with continued and sustained dialogue through a variety of channels with iran and i dont think weve seen the Trump Administration take advantage of the channels that the Obama Administration established. Think we have to remember obama told the saudis one of the reasons they hated him as he said they had to share the region with iran which is a perfectly reasonable thing, a country of 80 Million People, of course you have to share it so i dont know if its the personalities involved in saudi decisionmaking are young, hotheaded it appears, and i dont know if they are easily persuaded to sit down with their iranian counterparts. Actually there are no 30yearold iranians running the country so there are no counterparts. Se. I dont know if theyre willing to sit down with them. I hope they could be persuaded to. You wanted to add something. Lets go back to iran internally. As he well pointed out, this was a choice that iranians made and i wrote about it this morning for the atlantic council. Think theres also a fear that with trump in the white house at the possibility of confrontation with iran could grow and iran needed steady hands, but he made a lot of promises during the campaign. Im curious what you all for c in terms of issues like human rights and freedom of expression. Will people be released from jails . What about the dual nationals. And others that are in jail. Will he be able to make more bold steps in a second term given he has a bigger popular mandate than he did in the first or will the curse of iranian president s who always seem to get weaker in their second term applied to him too . Its hard to say whether he will be able to fulfill his campaign promises. He wasnt in his first term but i think we should remember, outside of around, we pay a lot more attention to prisoners, particularly dual citizen prisoners of which i think there are six or seven at this point than iranians at home too. Everyone, during this twoweek campaign inside iran according to the media we read they were talking to voters and they were talking about how the atmosphere for social change had been better. The impression inside iran is better than it was. Outside iran it looks worse because there are more americans in jail than there were earlier other than the hikers who were not americans. And if you are brothers. There is more. And the house arrest, that something iranians care about, but i dont think thats the biggest priority for them. Although they would like to see that. More political freedom, no question about it. I still think we see human rights as a bigger issue than americans who are interested seeing it as a bigger issue than most iranians inside iran even though human rights means more social freedoms and more ability to speak their mind or freedom of the press as opposed to actual people in jail. When you look at the population, even of young people in jail, its not significant. They havent imprisoned 40000 journalists like how many has turkey imprisoned. s not 40000 journalists but 40000 people. My point is i think they are well aware of all this. He is aware hes got to provide a better economy first and foremost. More social freedoms in the way that most young people want those freedoms. The dancing on the street, holding hands, men and women cold mingling and stuff like that. Those are a priority. I think theres no question he would like to see the dual citizens released. Its a thorn in the side of potential relations with the west including england where they do have business interests and vice versa read whether he will be able to or whether the hardliners will back down a little bit or whether the Supreme Leader will ask that they back down is another question. Its hard to say. On a personal capacity, im always a little reluctant about having to compare ourselves to whats happening in egypt and the worst and worst and worst cases. My preference is to say we came up with this 200 years ago, why cant we be the bastion of human rights, not only in the region but in the world. That would be a lovely way to think about how things could move. Having said that, sanctions were the greatest human rights attack on the average iranian over the years. When you think about babies and pregnant women and people with cancer, and all the issues we were faced with, for us, for the world to sit here in the secretary of state to talk about human rights in iran and not addressed this aspect of it is hypocrisy. We have to put that into perspective. Finally, whats amazing for me is the richness of the debate during the elections. Its true, im sure if he had put his name up for elections we wouldve gotten through to run, but the nature of the debate was a whole different thing. The conversations were very broad, very serious about womens rights and minorities and so forth. The discussion is out there and the demand is out there. Its a question of if we isolate and threaten then internally things will become tough as well whereas if there is engagement a lot of issues can dissipate and the fear can follow it. I woul