committee will come to order i believe the ranking member will be joining us in just a moment but before i begin my opening statement i want to make mention several procedural issues  in the context of all of our hearings we request that the audience members do not hold up or away signs make gestures to attract attention stand up and protest shout or yell your views or otherwise our opening remarks the chairman and ranking member of the middle east and south asia subcommittee will have an opportunity make three minute statements i would strongly encourage other members statements for the record or make any comments they may have during their time for questioning which will be extended for this hearing only because we have such a large panel i would ask all the witnesses to summarize their statements in five to seven minutes your entire written statement you made a part of the record and finally the ranking member and i have agreed that all members will be given seven minutes to question the witnesses this means that both the questions and answers must be completed within seven minutes and we will enforce that time limit strictly that's not the intention of the chair to break for lunch we're going to plow right through until we're done and now today i will now use myself the time for the opening statement you know i'm not bringing food either i'm june twelfth iranians went to the polls and what was expected to be a close presidential election but instead a down to the wire contest the iranian government almost immediately clarity that the incumbent had been reelected in a landslide this hearing takes plague place in the wake of six weeks of post election turmoil and uncertainty the most significant internal people since the one nine hundred seventy nine revolution hundreds of thousands of courageous iranians have taken to the street in defiance of the regime to protest the election results the regime responded brutally to these peaceful demonstrators by the government's own admission at least twenty protesters were killed and some five hundred are in prison awaiting trial most human rights groups say the actual numbers are much higher with some putting the number killed well into the hundreds iran also barred is still mastic and foreign press from covering the demonstrations shut down cell phone coverage and the internet for long periods of time to limit communication among the day and arrested foreign journalists and in total disregard of international law broken to the british embassy to arrest local wire the people of iran should know that the over one million iranians living in america and hundreds of millions of other americas stand in awe of their courage to stand up for free elections have no doubt the american people stand with you post june twelve events in iran raise many questions has the regime as many have said now lost much if not all of its legitimacy is the clerical only now iraq revocable divided has the iranian revolutionary guard corps become the dominant force in the country if so what are the implications of these developments should we expect further turmoil is the regime survival in question and most important what are the implications for u s and international efforts to prevent iran from developing a nuclear weapons capability the facts on the ground are deeply disturbing iran has made significant progress on its nuclear program far exceeding expectations of the recent past according to the international atomic energy agency iran has now installed more seven thousand centrifuges produced enough low enrich uranium to fuel a nuclear explosive device where that low enriched uranium to be transformed into a highly enriched uranium and some would point out the distant scribe's only iran's overt programs in many quarters the suspicion lurks that iran also has a covert program that is even further the nuclear issue is urgent and it is of such overriding importance to america's national security and to regional stability that we policy of engagement why because our previous policy of seeking to isolate simply didn't work nothing we have done has slowed iran's drive to acquire a nuclear weapons capability and only by making a good faith effort to engage iran can we build the support we need from the international community to impose the crippling sanctions necessary showed engagement fail but while it is important to pursue engagement it is also critical that these efforts be time limited and that the ministry should be prepared to try a different approach if iran is not cooperating as i understand it that is exactly the administration's policy the president recently said that iran's willingness to engage will be re evaluated in early fall after the september twenty fourth two thousand and twenty meeting and he has also said that quote we are not going to create a situation in which talks become an excuse for inaction while iran proceeds end of quote on its nuclear efforts in short if i can paraphrase the president we should not allow iran to run out the clock i agree with the president's timetable if by autumn the iranians are not responsive to u s efforts to engage them it likely will be time to move on hopefully in close coordination with our allies in other countries that is also my approach regarding a twenty one ninety four refined petroleum sanctions act which i introduced with the ranking member in april which is now co sponsored by well over half the members of my bill would impose sanctions on companies that are sector to choose between doing business with iran or doing business with the united states the iranian economy is heavily dependent on imports of refined petroleum so this legislation if it becomes law was significantly increase economic pressure on iran and hopefully persuade them to change its current course when i are deuced twenty one ninety four i said that i did not intend to move it through the legislative process i wanted and still want to give the administration's effort to engage iran every possible chance to succeed within a reasonable time frame the bill as a sort of damocles over the iranians a clear hint of what will happen if they do not engage seriously and move rapidly to suspend their uranium enrichment program as required by numerous un security council resolutions if engagement doesn't work then i am prepared to mark up the bill in committee early this fall n floor debate on the foreign relations authorization bill that the committee would have hearings in july on how multilateral sanctions and the engagement process the diplomatic process has worked that we would have heard from administration witnesses and i hope that that will happen i respectfully request a follow up with the senior administration officials on this topic and as i mentioned in the hearing earlier imitating the successful libya model and calling for a complete permanent verifiable dismantle many of iran's nuclear program calling for the station of enrichment and reprocessing to temporary suspension to the current us position whereby the us has accepted a so called iranian civilian nuclear program is pursuing direct engagement with the iranian regime and is now engage proliferation of nuclear cooperation agreements with other countries in the middle east secretary clinton stated earlier today that the u s would upgrade the defense capabilities and expand a defense umbrella over s allies in the persian gulf this was met with much concern and skepticism in israel where dan meridor the minister of intelligence and atomic energy told army radio quote i was not thrilled to hear that this american statement that they will protect their allies with a nuclear umbrella as if they have already come to terms with a nuclear iran i would ask our witnesses today for their views on this u approach whether it signals an acceptance by the us of a nuclear iran and how this impacts sanctions and other comments turning to recent developments inside iran and how these could affect the regime and our strategic calculations the so called supreme leader must now resort to manipulating elections and using force against demonstrators to preserve the regime's hold on power regime authorities have detained independent minded individuals repressed organizations under the guise of protecting the regime against what is labeled as internal enemies even revolutionaries process that has gone largely unnoticed side of iran is the rise of the iranian revolutionary guard corps or are the rule of the more has been significantly replaced by the iranian police and military forces to ensure a b d s even has a dominant role in iran's nuclear weapons and ballistic missile capabilities and it is only in this context that we can fully understand what is now taking place in iran following the elections and well in addition to providing us their analysis of iran's internal developments i would appreciate if our witnesses would address how these are affecting the and biological weapons capabilities the most salient issue is iran's nuclear weapons program admiral mike mullen the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff recently said the clock has  he reiterated that position on may twenty fifth of this year again last month it is time for a policy based on and not on hope it is long past time that we apply a badly year ago as have many others i've supported the administration's efforts to engage iran in my travels through the middle east and here in washington i've asked israelis and numerous arab leaders if they supported the president's approach to engage iran every single intelligence minister prince president head of state responded exactly the same way america's engagement is long overdue and absolutely essential and then when i asked them if they thought it would work to a man they said absolutely not i don't think they're wrong either recent events in iran are instructive when confronted by a challenge to iran's rulers responded like any other pack of thugs with regime sponsored violence and utter disregard for human life and it should be noted the concerns and views of the rest of the world mattered to them not in the slightest in short with their backs against the wall around rulers didn't care who or how many got hurt unfortunately these events don't bode well for the administration's efforts whether or not bilateral discussions are going on right now or not i don't know but either way i frankly have little hope that iran's role as will give up their nuclear ambitions in any case what we've seen of late strongly suggests that iran's rulers would gladly break the country in half in order to preserve their grip on power and even given what has happened in iraq and what is not happened in north korea i suspect iran  these nuclear arms as their ultimate insurance policy all of this is to say that we need to start thinking again not just about sanctions and not just about what constitutes so called crippling sanctions but whether there is any level level of economic sanctions sufficient to compel a change in iran nuclear program and as we consider this question visa the iran i would suggest we think seriously about the decade of truly comprehensive sanctions on iraq which ultimately failed to resolve concern it's about weapons of mass destruction that didn't even exist does anyone think that the ayatollah khomeini is a nicer guy than saddam hussein this is reality iran is watching either a bomb or a latent nuclear capability this development is deeply destabilizing and already deeply unstable region successful proliferation by iran will most likely just end the international norm against nuclear proliferation if left unaddressed by the united states and the rest of the it's a natural community as seems to be the case right now israel will have to either live under iranian nuclear or act preemptively themselves in april of last year i concluded by saying i'm not calling for and i can't for the life of me figure out why we're waiting month after month bring that building floor it has two hundred sixty co sponsors everybody understands the threat that iran poses and we're sitting here talking they've been developing a nuclear weapons program as i understand it from staff for almost two decades they haven't made any any allusions about stopping or creating any illusions about stopping that nuclear program that they're not going to stop and unless we start imposing sanctions and we'll sanctions right now like your bill would do give the president the authority we're giving him the authority to do it let's do it i mean he's tried to reach out to them he said that he's willing to talk and all that other stuff is working and it's not going to work they have as you just said seven thousand centrifuges right now they're developing a nuclear capability and i know bibi netanyahu and i know that he's a man that doesn't want to have a conflict over there but i don't believe he or the government of iran or of israel is going to sit back if they have intelligence information and wait for them to complete a nuclear weapons program or a delivery system where we're messing around by waiting and not imposing sanctions today every day that we wait we're we're risking a major conflict over there now from the united states standpoint we're getting what thirty thirty five percent of our energy from that part of the world right now we don't need a conflagration that might involve nuclear weaponry i mean it would be horrible and so you know know the people over there obviously the people over there are good people they like america for the most part the people over there it's not the people it's the government and we need to start putting pressure on that government  post and we haven't been doing it if we start putting the hammer to them and we give the president the authority and he starts getting our allies to stop them from getting we find a while back in their country that will put extreme pressure on that government because the people over there are already upset because of these elections and there's a very good chance that the people of iran would make some move to overthrow that government and bring in a real democratic government that they could live with but for us to keep i mean i don't know how many hearings i've been to i've been on this committee now for twenty seven years i don't know how many hearings i've been to where we're talking about how we can work with iran or how we want to work with iran we want to open up a dialogue going to work the one thing about north korea you know they're going to lie iran doesn't have to lie they just keep telling us they're not going to pay any attention to us may go right ahead we need to impose sanctions now not later we have an  excellent time the gentleman has expired we have an excellent group of the witnesses some focused on the economic issues some focused on the political issues in terms of the issues raised up till now in i policy previously spent five years at the national defense university institute for national strategic studies and four years at the i m f the world bank and the foreign policy research institute he is author editor of over twenty five books including the last resort consequences of preventative military action against iran published in two thousand and eight and he has an interesting idea about how about how to take credit director of iranian studies at stanford university previously taught at the university of california at berkeley michael rubin is resident scholar at the american enterprise institute and a senior lecturer at the naval postgraduate school center for civil military relations he previously served as the editor of middle east quarterly and is a staff advisor on iran and iraq at the u s department of defense he is the author of numerous books including the forthcoming talking to the enemy the promise and perils of engagement suzanne maloney senior fellow at the center for middle east policy at the brookings institution she previously served on the state department policy planning staff and as director of the two thousand and four council on foreign relations task force on u s policy towards iran she has published widely on iran and her forthcoming book from cambridge university press well analyze iran's political economy an associate at the carnegie endowment for international peace he was previously the chief iran analyst at the international crisis group he is a frequent media contributor for organizations such as the b b c c n n and the new york times and he is lectured at harvard princeton and stanford university is a professor of law at arizona state university and a visiting scholar at the johns hopkins school of advanced international studies is also a senior fellow at the foundation for the defense of democracies co direct energy projects he previously served eleven years in the state department where he worked on trade and nuclear issues this is  statements will be included in the record thank you mr chairman let me put on my economist had to address the state of iran's economy and its vulnerability to foreign economic pressure first worried about iran overall economic situation there is no country in the middle east that has suffered more from the oil curse than iraq iran had spectacular economic growth when its oil income was  revenue fuel growth but after the one nine hundred seventy oil price rises iran became addicted to oil while the rest of the economy suffered that was true under the shah and has gotten worse under the islamic republic for years the different political factions in iran have all agreed that the economy was in bad shape and that drastic steps were needed but no one has been willing to tackle the entrenched interests and so therefore the country's economy has suffered the problem of the oil curse has been on full display in the last decade since two thousand or so prices have been on the rise from two thousand to two thousand and three the average price was fifty percent higher than it had been the one nine ninety s and from two thousand and four to two thousand and eight things got even better for terror on each year the oil price rose thirty percent with this windfall iran's economy has grown at six percent a year on average which is faster than that of united states or other industrial countries however it's a lot slower than the double digit growth which should have been possible with this windfall and iranians have been roundly unhappy about their that money and used it to engage the populace policies designed to secure short term popularity at the expense of long term growth budget for grants and subsidies went from eleven billion dollars to off ice to twenty five billion dollars this year an equivalent increase nine states would be if we spent an extra five hundred fifty billion dollars a year on grants and subsidies and that's just the explicit subsidies in the budget there's also an implicit subsidy which comes from price oil and natural gas well below world market rates the former central bank governor romney estimates those implicit subsidies at forty five billion dollars a year while the i estimates the mid eighty five billion dollars a year even at the lower figure the equivalent of two point one trillion dollars subsidy while this oil windfall has been largely wasted it's had a substantial foreign policy impact the additional oil income the impact of increased foreign economic pressure iran could easily afford the higher price imports that came because of our sanctions operations after all iran's imports tripled in the last five years given such a spectacular increase in the availability of foreign goods it was hard to make the case of foreign sanctions were holding back in short the last two years have been a particularly difficult time for foreign economic pressure to have much impact on iran but the prospect for the next few years is entirely different  revenues are declining instead of rising and that's going to pose serious problems for iran funding its imports and paying for its government budget if oil prices stay at their current level iran's export earnings  twenty billion dollars last year now at first iran could use its reserves to make up for the shortfall but those reserves are going to run out certainly within three years and if oil prices fall they will run out even faster then there's the government budget problem government spending is increasing at a brisk pace under at present oil prices and considerable budget deficit and furthermore  in a position to finance that deficit by borrowing from domestic banks it has ordered the banks to lend money for politically favored but on economical projects so the banks are in poor shape in some  situations in which iran's economy is likely to do poorly in the next few years is a perfect moment for the international community to impose additional sanctions on iran no longer can iran afford to offset the impact of those sanctions with the flood of higher  income on the contrary the sanctions will come at a time of economic hardship and there is reason to expect that rainy and public opinion will blame the economic problems on the hardliners isolation of iran to the international community in other words we are in the position of being able to take credit for that just going to happen anyway and in politics if you can get credit for making the sunrise in the east take it foreign pressure will not cause iran's economy to collapse nor i go but such pressure may well be able to contribute to what is becoming an intense debate inside iran about the wisdom of a confrontational and isolationist policy towards the international community that debate offers the best prospect for a fruitful resolution to the nuclear impasse because those who want iran to join the world are not willing to pay a high price for a nuclear program which they increasingly see as part of the as you indicated have now become a state within the state and much of the economy all of the military they have their own intelligence agencies they have their own prisons they have their bout the islamic republic once and we know that refusing to deal with the islamic republic has not succeeded in altering the iranian march toward a nuclear weapon reducing iranian support for terror or improving iran's treatment of its citizens secretary clinton is correct to note the challenges the islamic republic poses but it is incorrect blame her predecessors rather than the islamic republic itself for the failure of diplomacy it is a myth that the united states does not engage iran every jimmy carter has engaged islamic republic in each case it was not lack of goodwill on washington's part but rather the regime leaders disinterest which led to failure ironically the most hardline u s administration forty run was bill clinton's at least in it early years national security council official martin indyk made dual containment the central pillar of u s strategy as iranian sponsorship of terrorism and its pursuit of nuclear technology accelerated the clinton administration ratchet up sanction congress passed the iran libya sanctions act which empowered the united states to act against private companies investing in iran many u s policy makers however were unhappy with containment there seems to be little just cation for the treatment united states currently a port huron because of its nuclear program former national security adviser and scowcroft argued suggesting an end to the lateral sanctions and proffering of incense of such a greater commercial exchange iranian president mohammed within weeks secretary of state albright sent a letter to me expressing washington desire for government government dialogue floundered after the iranian government refused to move forward with any dialogue so long as u s sanctions and trade bans remained  planning we had one overt policy which was one of the goshi a confidence building and a covert policy which was a continuation of the activity still clinton remained persistent in pursuit of dialogue after albright spoke to the european union undertook a policy of critical dialogue critical engagement does not lead to any noticeable improvement in iran human rights conditions which worsen during the course of the dialogue persecution of religious minorities like bahais increase iranian use of the death penalty double engagement is also running in court for terrorism or politicization activity issues which more directly impact u s national security the two thousand and seven national intelligence estimate indicated that the deliveries and activities that were required to have been declared under the safeguard agreement earlier this summer husain rouhani iran's former nuclear negotiator acknowledged to an iranian interviewer that the iranian leadership previous suspension of uranium enrichment at the behest of european to go shooters was more tactical than a true concession we did not accept the suspension and construction of centrifuges and continued the effort that we needed a greater number despite finding in two thousand and three that iran had been talk supersedes reality of course diplomacy is a strategy a first resort it always has been unfortunately it does not always engagement has shown itself no magic formula for three reasons and i offer these in conclusion middle east region beaten and humiliated for diplomacy to be effective the target government must empower diplomats to negotiate over contested issues and then abide by agreements reached unfortunately iranian diplomats hold  challenging at the same time you also had a situation in which most of the moderates have been forced out of the iranian government and the people who are sitting across the bargaining table from where a particularly hard line group of people whose authority credibility and ultimate goals were very run up to the iranian revolution we don't know simply whom we're going to be dealing with in iraq thank you thank you thank you  the scale of the demonstrations has certainly decreased the last two weeks because the regime does repression very well and they are able to prevent large amounts of people from congregating in but the nightly protest chants of  god is great reminiscent of the night in revolution in order to keep the momentum going continued unabated not a word about the opposition the bulk of the leadership of the opposition outrage and channel that politically and that is the dilemma both the demonstrators on the opposition from the word however about the cost of this repression by the regime both the political cost and the devastating for many would be amongst the regime security forces namely the revolutionary guards so far we haven't seen that but the revolutionary guards are very large and hundred twenty thousand men whereas the senior initial overtures i think have played a role in that i do believe however that it's time to reassess u s policy post election and what i would argue is that we should not be thinking or talking about   is in question and is the opposition movement more about restoring the legitimacy and integrity of the regime or about a that over the region if we do even more to develop the military capacity of those allies in the gulf it is unlikely that iran will be any stronger for secretary clinton said energy agency's problem has been the iranian noncompliance with nuclear safeguards it will be a lot easier to verify iran's intentions should there be much more significant change across the  their nuclear weapons program while that dynamic is happening who would who would if you were the president and made a phone call work and then ronald reagan bombed the hell out of libya and that changed everything pretty quickly and when the israelis decided to knock out the nuclear development program in one thousand nine hundred two they were criticized for that change the really strong sanctions nothing's going to change over there and i'd like to give you an example most of you're too young to remember but after the treaty of versailles  world war one the germans were supposed to have over one hundred thousand people and their military so they would never be a threat to europe anymore instead a man named adolf hitler used a hundred thousand military people to train a multimillion man army and because we wanted to make sure there was peace in the world and we were involved in trade rolls royce engines were being sold to luke was in germany and he built up the biggest military machine in history and instead of trying to put economic pressure on adolf hitler we tried to negotiate with him we tried to talk to him we didn't put any sanctions on him and in one thousand nine hundred eighty eight lord chamberlain went to munich came back with a piece of paper saying peace in our time gave away the land and sixty million people died you know we were in the atomic age we're in the nuclear age now if we don't deal with this now we could see what happened in world war two to be child's play there could be millions and billions of people killed in a nuclear conflagration not to mention the economic problems that would arise after you have a war in the middle east where so much of our energy comes from so we have to do something now i mean all this talk is great and i really appreciate the intellectual approaches that you're talking about and how we ought to be talking to them and working with them we have been trying we've tried and we've tried and we've tried and it hasn't worked and so it seems to me the next thing we do is we use the hammer and that is a sanction we do it we take the chairman's a legislation and any other legislation we come let's get it passed yet our allies to work with us as much as possible put a freeze on all their assets in the united states hammer these guys really hard right now and then if that doesn't work and they continue with all these development programs and everything else over there then something's going to have to be done to stop them because they want to destroy israel and they've said that we're not their best friend and they don't as possible let them know we mean business and let them know that the next stage is going to be something that they're not going to want to have happen it worked with libya and i think it would work as well we don't want to hurt those people the people in  iran are good people they like america they dress like americans in many cases they try to live like americans but those guys in charge over there need to get the message and the way to get the message to them and they need to know what's going to happen next now israel is threatened a nuclear weapons program that develops a nuclear capability with a delivery system threatens the very existence of a very small country called israel and they have nuclear weapons unless we do something and do it relatively quickly in my opinion we're going to see a real threat of a conflagration up here over there that nobody wants and i hope you'll just take what i've said to heart i know you have differences of opinion i know some of you have a much more pacifistic approach and more reasonable approach but if you look at history and see what's happened in the past you know that there's a there's a real correlation between the way we treated what happened in world war two and what's happening right now you have to let them know you mean business you have to impose  around for the signing of the treaty has expired  agree with what he was going to say  have to make him an offer he can't refuse what's that offer the offer is that we are willing to sit and talk with you unconditionally on every issue human rights nuclear at the so called grand bargain not a grand bargain in fact i have argued in and you can't do it threats that they can bypass when they have china and russia and other words you can't do by way unilateral sanctions it has to be multilateral to be effective to get their regime it's hard line policies that isolate iran from the rest of the world and so we are in the exact situation we are in cuba where the regime has been successful in blaming this problem on our actions in iran by the contrary  not very much and when it does blows back in their own face because the response of the populace is on why you adopt the policies that are isolating us in the world it's the same regime which cuts off the internet which cuts iran off economically from the rest of the world the people of iran blame the government and the hard line government for cutting iran off economically socially culturally from the rest of the world that's the big issue in iran do you want to be part of the world or don't and we're on the side of the let  me my time is running out if if a tougher sanctions legislation as proposed by the chairman should come out of the committee would you recommend that the sanctions be mandatory or should discretion be vested in the executive in terms of their application so to allow if you will a more agile response one has to have confidence in ministration one provides that kind of authority because there is a long history of ministration that's neither  taken as something that is all that must be now we can negotiate honestly with this person because he's apologized i would hope that this administration breaks years ago let me note that we did not overthrow communism we did not communism without a map major conflict by simply using words i certainly appreciate the witness who suggested ronald reagan prepared to their government and so this protest movement is successful there is action prospects that we can resolve the nuclear impasse because the debate in iran is not should we have a nuclear islamic guidance or whether you're simply walking down the street you become something of a rock star if you're an american and i think that sentiment doesn't always correspond to similarly positive feelings toward the u s government or toward u s policies just to clarify just some of the questions and points made i think we guarding the strategy here i think it's good to get those now i like the producers play but i think you can't keep selling a thousand percent of this so secondly with a few exceptions that i'm actually surprised to hear the sanctions i don't know if that that eighty fold increase in trade is all pistachio nuts carpets well the big thing was we'd be exempted food and medicine from all embargoes and if you want to challenge that issue i think ok but let's clarify that that has to be you can i like pistachios but that would not account for an eighty my legislation i view it as planned plan a is to make it clear that whether it is bilaterally or multilaterally united states prepared to engage with the leadership of that i think the president has made clear many different times in many different for and as we've talked about earlier that hasn't been responded to he is the issue of international sanctions no one can argue with a straight face that unilateral sanctions are anywhere near as effective as year became a move to an assessment of a plan a at the g twenty in late september presumably i know the groundwork is being laid for a plan b now i but it's my belief that at the summit the single longest time spent discussing any subject was in the meetings between  isn't my bill as you know lateral sanctions or the legislation we have there are already unilateral sanctions these are extraterritorial you know either which i'm talking about some in the early fall move marking up in this committee and moving out and and there is an aspect of this that can have an impact if it's actually enforced by an administr because it does for some critical companies to choose between doing business with the united states in the refined people involved with the sale of refined petroleum products or investments in the energy sector or we're seriously moving down that road towards considering the taking the international sanctions issue so that it is in that context that i have proposed this bill and have ha rights violations and aggressive vocal support for the cause of freedom can have an impact speaking too softly to tyrants certainly will have a a weakness now to ronald reagan who was mentioned he knew how to do it well he used tough rhetoric and i am very grateful that i had the opportunity to work with mr with president reagan  for seven years i was one of his senior speechwriters but i let me note that it wasn't just the rhetoric it was also that ronald reagan had acted programs that he personally had approved covert operations to weaken the soviet union and so our choice isn't as mr burton might have been mistakenly interpreted as saying we need military action or threaten military action we don't need to do that there are other actions that can take place which leads me to the question for the panel number one do you think that a bank account of the  who have robbed their people hundreds of millions billions of dollars would have an impact number one number two should we have a covert support which we have not been and do you believe that had we over these last ten difference on down the line interesting indications that there's been significant amounts of money transferred by some of those in the last two months and i would hope that we could help provide european governments with the members primarily members of this panel for giving us your insight many of us are reminded of the apartheid in south africa when those who love the south of the world and ask that his nation be condemned i believe it is important in the eyes of the world in solidarity with what has to be one of the most provocative expressions of opposition in iran for a very long time and in solidarity i believe individual voices of this country should be continuously i make a plea to our non governmental organizations to take up this ca when you think of what could happen to the most vulnerable and children so i'm going to start with those questions one where is the world outrage what is occurring and let me my question let me  sanctions on mine domestic producing or domestic all petroleum company company sanctions on the most vulnerable babies needing mail what kind of story will come out of a sanctions regime  is more about style than about concern to us foreign policy nuclear proliferation and terrorism the problem with the revolutionary guard and with the office of the supreme leader with regard to sanctions and opposition it's hard johnny is not the opposition figure he's widely disliked inside iran the issue is that when it comes to what has been said before with regard to taint we're darned if we do we're darned if we don't because whether we act covertly or not the media apparatus is going to accuse us of that so we might as well base our policy on what we believe to be correct and doc decided support let me just ask you this pointed question do we have a breach in this rainy and government that we can build on democracy do we have the potential of a regime change is this sustainable what do we need to historic time in iran for the government to change ours may be different but since i speak american the government change this is not a time for government change absolutely i think this is a truly historic moment and i think that we shouldn't underestimate the going to do with nuclear weapons once it acquires it i support them one hundred percent if they feel like they need to go forward and defend themselves what i would like to know from you is what you feel like a mouse and h nuclear weapons capability we could live with a nuclear iran because they're not suicidal the problem is that among certain portions of the people that would command and control specifically within the supreme leader circle  there may be people that are ideologically committed to the destruction of israel now should there be a popular uprising when iran has a nuclear capability but they have nothing to lose with the calculation that look we're done for anyway and the united states are really going to retaliate against already therefore it's essential for the stability in the region that iran not be allowed to get this far in the first place and with  things like that with the saudis you're absolutely it would be a cascade of instability in the nuclear nonproliferation regime would be also three quick points congressman i was slightly disagree with michael here  iranian revolution and i can tell you that if they are they will respond and there will be thousands of collateral damage they know that this strike might they have fortified their bases they have taken it and put it necessary for what would be the next stage would be significant to what i would call crippling sanctions which i think would be appropriate i guess one of the areas i'm from florida and i just heard recently that the and again those are the kinds of transactions and investments that i think the united states needs to be concerned about and if we're going to have a serious conversation of creating strong economic impact  partment especially stuart levy is that instead the attitude of european governments has been to say to european banks well the americans may be a bit pushy here but you know they do have a good point and i think of it that would be the attitude of a lot of european governments if we were to sanctions about refined petroleum products that there are a number of european governments some of the most important european governments that are frustrated that smaller european states are blocking  favorably to this legislation but more specifically multinational businesses that are making their own decisions some of which are impacted by governmental authority and some are not well i guess the question with a company like an example though is if you the other arab states are certainly especially in the persian gulf are very cognizant of the problem is that they do not believe that we're serious if they do not see an effective effort for sanctions and other reasons then they will come to the conclusion that they have no choice but to accommodate with the islamic republic of iran therefore our intentions should go beyond dialogue and i should say that organized crime wasn't simply defeated by talking about the other issue which  we need to focus on is the continued pursuit of the gulf security dialogue which george bush relaunched an initiative that had been initiated by the clinton administration and the basis of the gulf security dialogue isn't just it's the persian gulf emirate on the other side of the persian gulf arab states to better defend themselves to better implement containment and this is what we had talked about before when it comes to what's called in our u s military amplifies all of those elements of the strategy no the problem with this administration in my opinion is that we're prone a little bit too much towards saying rather than using these multiple aspects of  after the crooked elections we took a i think somewhat of a softer approach on what took place there that it was unfortunate or whatever  describing the situation and the volatility that i ran and as a result of this crisis from the election but my concern is that we interpret this uprising  properly and i think it will be good for us to examine why and examine it from the perspective of the people who are doing the uprising and not just automatically assume that they are rebelling against what has become the standard attitude towards  or the standard attitude towards developing nuclear weapons so i'd like to find out from each of you to what degree the crisis and this uprising in th down a nuclear track and a rand and very very professed disdain for israel and so if we can say that the reason they're upset is not just because it was a bad election but because we the people who are not interested in pursuing a nuclear weapon and i don't know if that's the case or we negotiation now would be that they would inevitably fail and then there is a real cost to fail negotiation because in my subjective opinion there are people who want war and they would get what they want without ever letting three has that been revised in change because of course there is this thing that some have already alluded to which is just a ticking clock and i guess if they haven't restarted if we don't have evidence that they started former leaders reformers to the hard line taken by iran's supreme leader the question obviously before congress before the american people is the subject of this hearing that responded with a violent crackdown of the dissidents first response was not to quote meddle in the internal affairs of iran while the administration waited congress acted point is it proper for the united states of america to know who are the leaders in an engagement the people of iran by the millions if not agreed on who are the major industrial process so we don't know whether they resume weaponization or not what we do know is that weaponization is the easy part not completely easy but the easy part and they could suspend weapon till next year and still be very much on target to have a nuclear device by the end of two thousand and twelve what they have to do to have a weapon by the end of two thousand and twelve is keep producing the  designed to be misinterpreted it is true that all serious sanctions have got to affect the behavior of european and other foreign businesses that's why bills are designed to affect the behavior of foreign companies of particular note that the chairman will agree that those of us from los angeles also believe that all politics is local and we have two very local things happening directly relevant to this hearing i believe it's thursday the m t a will vote whether to go with the contract that believe they've already approved but are reviewing again with an italian firm a b or instead reject that contract and in effect give it to scenes i hadn't thought of the n t as a major foreign policy instrument ality of the united states but i for one and supplier of refined petroleum to iran just acquired a company that has a i believe it's month to month contract to provide jet fuel so we could just in l a county have a dramatic effect on two of iran's leading business partners i think it's particularly important that we do so because the front page of the washington times the number one story federal contracts with the firms that provide monitoring or blocking internet equipment to iran and that brings us to our friend solution monitoring center they disclaimed having provided more advanced technology perhaps one or two members of the panel would want to comment do you believe  systems when they didn't provide the deep packet inspection add on and do you think we should give a pass if all they sold was it intelligence provides roughly two billion dollars in special drawing rights but also gives the i m f the new capacity to bail out a rating economy should the i m f used to do so there's very little chance the i m f would choose to do so because iran policies myself for two short questions if somebody else hung around and get too short questions to question number one in fact i'm just going to get one short question a to have a sophisticated mathematical analysis which for me means they had a bunch of numbers in different paragraphs and therefore i assume to a sophisticated that it the thrust of it was that all this stuff about election rigged and breadth of the opposition was massively over that that if you looked at it different exaggeration almost methodology now in all fairness that was done at least a month ago and but i it's contrary to what a number of you particularly focused on internal  political developments have been saying so i'd like your reaction i don't know if you saw that paper but i have read the paper and i think it is deeply misinformed it doesn't take into account many of  data that we have acquired since many of the evidence about how did the election about fifteen million ballots that were printed without authorization without numbers and many other things that basically show us that the government did in fact that three million people according to the government to the mayor of tehran came out in teheran out of a population of twelve million that's a quarter of the population came analysis and i thought it was excellent panel and i'm very grateful for the nearly six hours that you spent here well five thank you very much