Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  The Iranian dissidents and human rights activists are firmly convinced that the nuclear program is an essential part of the regime's survival strategy. Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi co-authored an article entitled “Link Human Rights to Iran's Nuclear Ambitions”, and the m

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  The Iranian government puts some considerable effort into monitoring Internet and other media outlets. But it also long ago decided that it's advantageous to the regime to allow intellectuals to say whatever they want in journals that nobody reads. Therefore, the Iranian regime c

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  In fact they're a little less accurate than the Scuds, but the Scuds were carrying a conventional warhead. And because the Scuds were carrying a conventional warhead, they didn't cause much damage outside of the immediate area where they landed. In fact, I would be more reassur

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  The Iranian regime is not in power because it enjoys popular support. It does not. It's in power because it has a dedicated minority, which is probably more than 10% of the population, who are prepared to kill the others in order to keep God's government in place. As long as that

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I'm not an expert on these matters, but there certainly are some people who are very concerned that the drive for both nuclear power and nuclear enrichment has led Iran to make some decisions that were environmentally unwise and that raise real dangers of accidents. It is the ca

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  The missiles Iran is using have guidance systems that make these missiles of very little use if the warhead is a conventional warhead, because a conventional warhead does damage that's limited to the tens of metres or perhaps, possibly, the hundreds of metres. However, when it co

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  The elections will certainly not be fair. State television, which is where most people get their news, is only reporting about Ahmadinejad's activities; it's not reporting about the activities of others. When it comes to the mechanics of voting, it is done by presentation of on

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I do not see such a Velvet Revolution happening soon. On the other hand, the track record of analysts predicting revolutions is very bad. Mention was made earlier of the Berlin Wall. When Mr. Reagan stood before the Berlin Wall in June 1987 and said this wall must go, many peopl

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Many countries get into wars because of miscalculations and ignorance about the other side. After the war is over, presumably at least one side regrets that the war started. The great worry is that Iran has a record of ignorance about the outside world, and a record of miscalcul

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Certainly there has been a strong change in tone, and so far what we have seen are pretty much the same objectives. There was a lot of press in the United States about the Obama administration being willing to participate in negotiations with Iran without pre-conditions that Iran

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  There's certainly no love lost on either side between the people of the two countries. They don't like each other. By contrast, Iranians like Americans and Americans like Iranians. On the government side, the Russian government has not seen the Iranian nuclear program as an urg

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  If a person were interested in taking an entirely different position on human rights, the guardian council that vets the candidates would never allow such a person to run. In any case, even if such a person were to run and win, the Supreme Leader has complete authority to overrul

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Iran has acquired a lot of the capabilities, including missile deliveries, that it would need in order to have an extraordinarily dangerous nuclear weapons system. We are increasingly at this stage debating what its intentions are and whether it will explode a bomb quickly or wai

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Presumably for testing it—presumably—

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  No, I don't think so. The Israelis, for instance, have never tested a weapon. Well, there's some dispute about whether they and the South Africans tested a weapon, but it doesn't appear the Israelis have tested a weapon. And the weapons design the Iranians seem to be going for is