Thank you.
I will first answer the question dealing with the nuclear program.
As I explained, the nuclear issue is very complex and I'm not here as an expert on that issue. But the fact is that a regime that does not rule through legitimacy is more vulnerable than a regime with a democratic mandate. A regime that feels vulnerable is more likely to resort to militarization as a way of preserving its interests, both within the country and externally. One could speak about the long history of regimes that have projected their foreign policy through militaristic means by virtue of their internal political dynamics.
The reason we have had millions of people coming onto the streets of Iran is the desperation of people there. The unemployment rate now is about 25% in Iran. The underemployment rate, if one includes it too, is about 40% in a country where 70% of the population is 30 years of age and under. They are no longer satisfied with ideological debates and the revolutionary slogans of the regime. They are educated. They have satellite television and they have the Internet. They know what the world has to offer and they want hope for the future.
When young people are willing to get murdered in the streets, it's not because they're fanatics; it's because they have no hope. They're desperate. They would rather get killed than remain silent. That is the reality in a situation where billions of dollars of oil wealth are going to prop up this elaborate security apparatus. Sending up those rockets, having a nuclear program, and paying the Basij and Sepah-e and all of those security forces is costing billions of dollars. Iran is the second biggest exporter of oil in the world, but half of the population now lives below the poverty line.
This is the way in which the lack of democracy, the lack of accountability, and the human rights abuses, corruption, economic mismanagement, and crony capitalism all relate to the nuclear issue. It's the one issue the regime still has to rally the masses against an enemy, which, as we know, is the first thing any authoritarian leader needs.
It's in that context that I refer to the chants in the street to explain that the people have woken up to these lies and deceptions. They say they want jobs and education. They say they want the police out of their universities and their schools. “We want to have freedom,” they say, “and we want to have hope”. They're saying that they don't care about Hamas and Hezbollah and all of these other things that are constantly being fed to the Iranian people.
Finally, the question of commercial ties, as I said, is very delicate, as one would not want to make life more difficult for the Iranian people. Obviously, if there are, let's say, agricultural products being sold to Iran, I would not say that one should try to oppose that sort of trade. One needs to think very carefully about what impact sanctions are going to have on those we want to pay the price for the violations.
But there are clearly other areas. I was in Berlin recently and found out, for example, that a German weapons manufacturer had sold many of the weapons that have been used to kill people in the recent protests. Siemens and Nokia were involved in selling surveillance technology to the intelligence ministry, through which they could listen to people's phone calls and follow their e-mails and then arrest and eventually torture them. This is the type of trade we absolutely have to put an end to. I would even say now that some people in Iranian civil society are talking about boycotting the companies that have been engaging in this sort of trade.