But that tolerance as compared. Host was the everpopular mo popular among the iranian people . Guest i think she was think popular when he came to power. He had a reputation so i think he was popular until about 51 or 52 but then it a very tense relationship developed with the nationalist movement and the fact that he fled and then came back i think that damaged his popularity but after 63 he really began to look at the reform and into the political system all of these make more popular through 73 or 74 but then it got to his head and it abolished the party system and then he began to lose his popularity and then he was sick with cancer. He was diagnosed in 73 and the iranian people never knew he had cancer. Host you write in your book. Host in the chapter called the perfect storm it is hard to pinpoint the moment the coalition eventually overthrew the the shah began to coalesce. President carters humanrights policies had an impact to reinvigorate the dormant democratic movement. Guest one of the things that is not in the book but i had written about it, i was a political prisoner under the shah and overnight prison conditions began to change and a torture ended and overnight we understood Amnesty International was coming they begin to clean up the prison and issue blankets and then with the rise of democracy with society at large people felt the shah is under pressure from jimmy carter and all of these suppressed pressures you cannot create a middleclass or educated technocratic class when jimmy carter came they do the shah could not be as tough. Host why real a political prisoner . Guest i was young. The radicalism of the age that was easy to catch and i felt iran did not have a government but needed a more democratic government but with that idealism like many in the era to demand a more just and democratic government from when wetback i began to teach until the Police Caught up with me. I spent one year in prison that made for the year particularlynterestg wmont of i0 months they would become the leaders of the country which was the entire clerical class. They were all there within six months. Host where did they catch up with you . We met and discussed politics and organizing was not permitted at the time with those leftist ideas they cave and arrested me. Host review at the university or at home . Guest at the time when they arrested me i was the minister of education. He was a colleague at the university where he invited me to his office. Host he was the shah minister. Guest he was. Many people thought but halfway through my meeting we got a call of internal security that said my name had come up as someone who had associations with these groups and i was about to leave the ministry they grabbed me the way they wave grabbed with Political Prisoners to make sure you dont have the cyanide pill that was very popular in those days. The regime is far more butte brutal today but then they take me to the place and i spent six months there in the famous prison where the clergy was. Host where you tortured . Guest acquisition as solitary confinement for one month which was the worst torture. I was beaten a couple of times but when we arrived jimmy carter was elected. And overnight you fluency of the borders have come down but if they rested my wife when she was involved and other subtle forms of torture but the kind most of the regime is engaged in after word that was massive and the kind that the regime was engaged before we came because iran had a terrorist problem with pacs of terrorism and then they arrested those people. Host abbas milani how well did you get to know the mullahs . Guest some of them i got do you know fairly well and i used to spend one hour per day with them. I used to teach english occasionally and was elected to become the next leader after kohmeni and when he found out they tortured in the islamic president people were killed with very sorry trials coming he spoke out and lost his job and his been imprisoned most of his life. That is 20thcentury politics someone within a breath of being the leader said i could not watch people being tortured and executed and he lost his job i got to know him. But all that is most people have reviewed the book from the wall street journal they have appointed more or less to keep their personal views to keep their preferences out of this to look at the shaw with the account. Host at the end who was still boyle to the shah . Guest at the end unfortunately he did not remain loyal to them. He would be executed by the regime of the military again what is less known is that the Carter Administration around of member 1970 decides the shah is no longer capable of power since he becomes very active to create the rapprochement of the military and the clergy in to pick the most likely successor said the army chose to realize the American Government go bonkers supported the shah there in the streets for almost a year and a half but only to that end but what the shah decided to do is interesting. He arrested some of his most loyal servants because this way he thought he could stay ahead of the curve but i think anybody who studies the revolution it only increases the appetite ucb is when you put your own Prime Minister in prison may now want your head. Host we have been talking with abbas milani this book has been reviewed by the wall street journal , at the end in the biography and the l. A. Times says splendid the detailed biography. Published by palgrave did is an honor to introduce from the National Security council to speak but currently a professor at spent penn state and also with handed is hillary who served at the state department and negotiated with the u. S. Government with the iranian officials now a senior professor lecture at American University in washington and theyre riding has appeared in your times and Washington Monthly of long others said they came to us last night from virginia and took the latenight train and put up with like to do is turn it over to you for comments to start off. Thank you very much. I will start off for us today and then the begin by saying thank you for hosting us and for coming it is an honor and pleasure and me led ford to the interesting discussion today. I will start with too provocative themes from our book is going to tehran by the United States must come to terms with the republic of iran. And the first of the theme is the United States is today and has been for the past two years in power it relative to the decline in the middle east and also we have been the beneficiary of america is ongoing decline in the middle east is the Islamic Republic of iran. If you are not sure you agree with these propositions of want to ask you to prepare their relative position of the United States and the Islamic Republic of vibration in the mideast today with where they were even with 9 11 just over 10 years ago. On the eve of 9 11, every single government in the middle east was every one dash proamerican dash egypt and turkey are in negotiations to become proamerican like syria or libya or the taliban government in afghanistan are staying in iraq every single government was either proamerican in negotiations it to become proamerican or antiiranian that is a good position for the United States in the middle east. But because of elections today governments across the middle east in egypt egypt, tunisia, libya, leban on egypt, tunisia, libya, lebanon, theyre all though longer proamerican or antiiranian. They are all pursuing a least, at least independent Forum Policies which are by definition much less enthusiastic about strategic cooperation with the United States and much more open to the Islamic Republic of iran. Simply put todays relatively speaking United States is a profoundly weaker position in the middle east and the Islamic Republic of iran is in a stronger position. This is essentially happened because there has been a dramatic shift in the middle east balance of power. In our book, going to terrebonne, we describe why part of this shift is occurring because of the mistakes of the american policy in the middle east. But we also described in our book part of what is going on is something vastly underappreciated in the west, which are these successes of the Islamic Republic of iran that also drive the shift of the regional balance of power. We argued in our book, these two are inextricably linked with the success of the Islamic Republic is driving that theyre linked and in fact, a very coz dysfunctional policy toward the Islamic Republic of tehran that is at the heart of our decline in the middle east. We also argue that it will take a strategic realignment by the United States with the republic of iran to enable americas strategic recovery in the middle east. We unpacked use arguments first by examining the basis for u. S. Dominance in the middle east. Something increasingly driven since the end of the cold war by americas unique capability to project the enormous amounts of conventional military force into the middle east. No one else, not even chided can project this kind of military force into the middle east today or four years to come. This has given the United States extraordinary economic and political influence in the middle east and we forced the military dominance in other key parts of the world. But our failures in afghanistan and iraq in particular have underscored and especially for the middle east republics, the limits of what American Military might can accomplish. We argue these failures of the middle east policy are not just idiosyncratic generated products of the george to be bush said ministration but as we described in our book fees stemming from a much deeper source that cut through both democratic and republican did frustration than something we describe as the United States each essentially giving in to the post cold war temptation to act as an imperial power in the middle east and this turned in policy with little regard for the reality on the ground in the middle easts proven deeply damaging to american interests, as a candidate in 2008 now president obama then seems to understand and he talked about courageously during the campaign and pledged not just to draw american troops from iraq but also the american mindset that had gotten into the strategic mistake to invade iraq in the first place and pledged to change the middle east policy but instead the Obama Administration has pursued policies as the predecessors the same policies that did such damage to our strategic position and as a result the Obama Administration today is not just providing a stalled middle east Peace Process but the demise of the true state solution to the Palestinian Conflict and while the above it ministration military intervention in libya can and overthrow gadaffi it is now e. Incubating in libya a significant threat to American Security interests and as the detail in our book, going to tehran deal gone bad restoration has gone beyond the Bush Administration to trim the Islamic Republic to argue what we say is ward dangerous to discredit a gauge of it as a strategy to deal with the Islamic Republic of iran to say they tried to reach out and failed and therefore the engagement is the house of fools. But with these policies under obama as watch the middle east balance of power has shifted even further away from the United States even more than at the end of the bush to administration. This brings me to a critically important parts of our book which is out the republic of iran it is the biggest beneficiary of the middle east. In our book how by pursuing a Foreign Policy to build a domestic political order to attract the middle eastern republic it has been able to take advantage of american mistakes to include improve its own position dramatically. The key to the Islamic Republic success is beyond the shift of their distribution of power. It is both encouraging and taking advantage of this very important transformation in the middle east. One of the most remarkable things about this shift in the middle east over the last decade away from the United States and our allies and toward iran and its allies, is that it has had virtually nothing to do with irans use of military force or economic coercion. The republic has not invaded anyone or sanctioned them. It is all about the Islamic Republic. In our book we have set the Islamic Republic and reliance on this power in this strategic context. The critical set of sources or the unique and unparalleled opportunity that we have had sit and listen to why the officials and diplomats explain how the world looks strategically from their point of view our research and our interviews, we detail how we look at the world from tehran. Nearly all of whom have been hostile to the very idea of an Islamic Republic. Not just afghanistan but iranian diplomats inner conflicts that were killed. The Islamic Republic neighbor to its west, iraq under Saddam Hussein had helped them in other aerators killing 300,000 of its citizens. And today many of those same error countries that have helped iraq invaded and fight the obama or public, today they have thousands of u. S. Troops and billions of dollars worth of the weapons system. All ways and threatening to attack the republic to disarm it of weapons of mass destruction. They have built a strong defensive capability especially beyond its borders. They have acted ostensibly beyond the borders thats what have they done with the National Security strategy to develop this cross power strategy. A strategy that they galvanizes these most intense grievances, including their grievances against the United States and israel in their grievances against their own unrepresented prowestern settlements and regimes. It has aligned itself with Public Opinion itself in the middle east to constrain hostile governments from attacking it. Just think about how they are a largely shia population that would react as we use this to attack the Islamic Republic today. Now, u. S. Military planners could hope that offering population could be passive, as i think that they assumed even maybe five years ago. But today that seems a little reckless. So for all the ridiculing that they have, the Islamic Republic appeals to regional public actually works. It works to constrain the neighboring iran. Iran has also worked to reinforce these strategies over a number of years. Why as they pick what we would call winners from shia groups in and the rock and even the Muslim Brotherhood in egypt. He keeps political allies in key regions across the middle east. A years long bet on these groups has paid off. Because now the regional allies has become the most influential player in their respected amounts today. The result is that is the Islamic Republic of iran. And if ideas of the pacific tory government and independent Foreign Policy has real influence and power in countries across the middle east from egypt to other places that were once clearly in americas sights. And strategic return, it has been and is using not drones and tanks, but they are using the political awakening of the middle eastern republic to author the very nature of power politics in the middle east. As we described in our book, this has been an effective Foreign Policy and National Security policy. One that is repeatedly underappreciated in the United States. To pick up on hillarys point of this strategy being a real strategy for a regional balance of power that policymakers have long seen against the Islamic Republic, i think it is important to note that especially for americans to understand that it is only an Islamic Republic which can include the kind of games. The shaw could not have done it. Only the Islamic Republic of iran could do it. It persists in depicting the republic is an illegitimate system it is in imminent danger of overthrow. Virtually since the republics founding out of the iranian revolution. And it has consistently defied their relentless predictions of its class or deceased. It has emancipatory election of islamic governance and a strong commitment to Foreign Policy. This model is what a majority of iranians living inside their country one. They dont want a political order rounded and secular liberalism. They want to generate a political order that reflects their cultural values. They want freedom and independence and in the context of national identity. That is what the Islamic Republic offers them the chance to pursue. Th