On Oct 31st 2022 Shabtai NYC hosted NYT Columnist Brett Stephens and Iranian/American Author Roya Hakakian to discuss the Revolution of Women in Iran and the failed Nuclear Deal brokered by the Obama Administration. Deseret News Editor, Hal Boyd, moderated the symposium.
Revolutionary Jewish Women | Toby Hecht, Director of Shabtai
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Toby Hecht, Director of Shabtai | 10.31.22
Toby Hecht: One might ask why the invitation for tonight's invitation read Women's Revolution in the singular. After all, Mahsa Amini's story is not a fight for one, but for all. And it's a good question. One that I'm sure we will hear more of tonight. But before Brett and Roya deliver what is sure to be a thought provoking discussion, let's start at the beginning. Two weeks ago, the Jewish people began a cycle of reading the Five Books of Moses again. In the beginning, God created the world from splitting the heavens and earth to forming and breathing life into mankind. After the sin of the forbidden fruit, Adam and Chava were cast out of Eden, a utopian existence into a tumultuous world where, in the pursuit of knowledge, truth and morality are manifested when human beings choose good over evil. Adam is the first man, and Chava aim mother of all life. In what seems like a hot second, humanity descends into depraved immorality and aside from Noah, his wife, his three sons and daughters in law and the animals, God cleans up shop, destroys the world, and moves on to plan B. For the next 50 weeks of the year, we will be- we will read about rebuilding humanity and its infrastructure, sometimes name by name, all directly descending from the first man and woman.
Toby Hecht: Most importantly, however, we will learn about conscious monotheism through the first monotheist Abraham, which is the purpose of creation and God's will. Everything in the Torah is deliberate. There isn't even one superfluous word. The word Torah means to teach. And indeed it is a manual, the blueprint for the Jewish people to live a meaningful life, a godly life. We don't read it again and again for kicks. We read it to connect, to remember, to learn, and to practice. And as a woman, one can't help but see a very clear trajectory of the power of women from the beginning, illuminated through the distinct qualities gifted to them by God. This is how women, individually and collectively became the foundation of strength and valor. Today, it's easy to join a revolution. Take to the streets with placards. But how about making the revolution? You may think it takes the masses to make a difference. And the Torah tells us, no, not true. It just takes one to get the party started. And it's hard. It takes strength and courage for one to stand against the tide, the fear, the judgment, the naysayers and the doubt. The first Jewish woman Sarah. Sarah. Our mother, Abraham's wife, taught the women of her generation about God, and it was specifically her home that the temple in Jerusalem, God's sanctuary was modeled after.
Toby Hecht: Sarah becomes the archetype of the Jewish woman. God tells Abraham, Kol Asher tomar Eilecha Sara, Shma Bikola, All that Sarah tells you, heed her voice. Abraham is thus strengthened by Sarah's convictions. The second matriarch, Rivka, a prophetess, sees that it is her son Jacob who needs to receive the blessings and not her son Asa, and she quietly does what needs to be done to change the course of history. Through Rachel the third and Leah, the fourth and final matriarch, the selfless and dedicated mothers of the 12 tribes, we see some of the most relevant and timely examples of kinship and support between women, showing that united together through triumph and tragedy, so much is gained instead of lost. Then there is Miriam, my personal favorite, who was inspired by the convictions of her above mentioned great grandmothers. Despite living in a despotic Egypt. Under Pharaoh's rule, ancient Egypt represented the origins of every human rights violation. It is young Miriam who challenges her parents to stay married and have more children instead of giving up. Miriam and her mother, Yocheved, served as midwives, saving boys from the Nile, defying Pharaoh's edict to execute every Jewish male born, thus ensuring a future for the Jewish people. And it is Miriam who takes her newborn baby brother, places him in a tar lined basket, setting it on the Nile to save him from certain death.
Toby Hecht: And yet Miriam alone is not responsible for Moses the Redeemer. For as he lay in the basket floating on the Nile, an Egyptian princess Pharaoh's daughter sees the basket in the reeds, hears his cry as she bathes, she reaches for the basket and draws it near. She knows her father well and what this means for the infant. Without hesitation, she takes the seemingly abandoned baby, calling him Moshe to draw out of the water. With the help of Miriam, Batya the Egyptian princess saves his life so that Moshe Rabeinu Moshe, our teacher, can become the future leader and redeemer of the Jewish nation in order to liberate them from bondage and servitude, bring them to Sinai and finally the Promised Land. Through the Tanakh, Torah, the Five Books of Moses, Neviim prophets, and Kesuvim, Writings, and onward we see examples of women using their gifted intuition, oftentimes quietly and action here a strong word there: resilience, steadfastness, integrity, and self-sacrifice in the face of tyranny, destruction, and existential threats. Judith, Rachav, Devorah, Naomi, Ruth, Esther Homalka, Queen Esther in ancient Persia, the Jewish heroine who risked her life by asking her husband, the king to spare her people. And on and on.
Toby Hecht: The hundreds, the thousands, the millions of heroic women in our tradition. These women, one by one, have fortified the notion that in order to sustain the truth, we oftentimes alone will have to take a stand about what is right and true. They were not perfect or infallible by any measure. They were very human, just like the rest of us. And through trial and error and absolute persistence, they changed the world for the better. When we think of revolutions happening in places like Teheran, Mashhad, Shiraz, Isfahan, cities we have never been to, we ask ourselves, how can we make a difference here in this apartment right now? And I'll tell you. Think about someone else. Be kind to a stranger in distress. Reach out and make the world a ripe field for goodness and light. You never know what one good deed can do. My family and I were in Park City, Utah last year on a ski trip and were eating Shabbos dinner with the local Chabad rabbi and his family. We met a woman there, originally from Iran. When she heard that her last name was Hecht, she asked if we were related to the Rabbi Hecht, responsible for saving over 1800 kids on the cusp of the Iranian Revolution in 1978. Shmully answered yes. Oops, Almost there Almost there, here we go.
Toby Hecht: Rabbi Sholom Ber Hecht and his father, Rabbi J.J. Hecht, of blessed memory, together with the staunch support of the Lubavitcher Rebbe of blessed memory, were responsible for that rescue mission initiated by Shmully's father, flying to Iran in 1978 to load up airplanes shortly before the Ayatollah Khomeini took over the country. She told us that she was just 11 and her sister's 14 and 16 when they were rescued 44 years ago by the bravery and love of a few people. And then there is Roya, whose name in Persian means dream or vision, whom we met for the first time when she came to speak at our society dinner on Crown Street in New Haven nearly 20 years ago. I believe it was Nelson Mousazadeh who brought you from Davenport. Roya, you easily could have blended into the American dream without a thought of what you left behind, as many do. Instead, you chose to dedicate yourself to truth, to activism, to stand on the floor of Congress, to write books and articles, speak on the networks and argue with the syndicators, advise the State Department to try and save a country from tyranny. Your commitment and resilience, often in the face of indifference and appalling silence, are an inspiration to so many and will go down in history. Thank you for showing the rest of us what it means to carry a banner of truth. And as my grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, told me and my sisters years ago, when you feel weary in your mission and purpose, remember our imahos our mothers, matriarchs, Sarah, Rivka, Rachel, and Leah, for they are always with you standing by your side. Thank you. I'd like to introduce, um, Hal Boyd, who's going to be introducing our speakers. He is a member of Shabtai. Graduated the YLS in 2016. Correct?
Why the Lion? A Gift to Bret Stephens from Rabbi Shmully Hecht
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Hal Boyd: Let's let's think these two and bring out Rabbi.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: Um, so I just want to thank, uh. I want to reiterate the thank you's that Toby already gave tonight by thanking God for this wonderful opportunity to see so many beautiful people here together from so many different backgrounds. It's really wonderful to see each and every one of you. And of course, to our host, Gail Victor, who generously gave us her home. Uh, Gail, I should say that this is our second event for Shabtai and your apartment. And in Jewish law, when you do something three times, it has permanence. So after the next event, Toby and I are going to be moving in to the. Uh, we need a place in New York. Um, I should mention John Victor, your nephew, who and, of course, his mom today, Lisa is here, uh, who's responsible for the connection to this organization. We missed John, but he's in Montreal celebrating his grandmother's 96th birthday. And God bless her. So she's lived, uh, live and be well. She has obviously brought up a great generation of proud, um, Jewish Americans, Canadians, Canadian Americans.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: Uh, my name is Shmully Hecht. I'm one of the founders of Shabtai. Um, I want to just also mention that, uh, through the generosity of Rene Edelman, um, and Shabtai, tonight, we are going to actually give out the books. We're not selling books. We don't do book sales. Um, we're going to give out, uh, two of three to date or more to three, two of three of books, uh, Roya Hakakian books. So they're all sitting over there on the counter. One is assassins of the Turquoise Palace by Roya Hakakian. The other is journey from the Land of No. Um, a girlhood, that's an interesting word, a girlhood caught in Revolutionary Iran by Roya Hakakian. So these are books for each and every one of you to please take home tonight. Um, if you want to get it signed, you're welcome to meet Roya in the lobby at 10:00, because. Oh, they're signed already. Oh, fantastic. Okay, excellent. There we go.
Brett Stophens: Okay, let's sign twice.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: If you want me to sign it. Um, okay. So that's, uh. Thank you very, very much. Um, I do want to give something a small token to our speakers tonight, um, very briefly, on behalf of the society. So to Hal and to Holly, but to Hal for moderating tonight. Uh, this is an author I recently discovered. Hopefully, we'll have him up on campus. His name is Harry Frankfurt. He teaches at Princeton. I hope he's alive. I believe he's alive. He's got a number of books. The first one was called on BS. I won't, uh, I won't.
Hal Boyd: Great philosophy.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: He's a great philosopher. And you read this one?
Hal Boyd: I have not read.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: Oh, you have not read this one? He read the bullshit one. He hasn't read the one on truth. Well, how about I'm giving it to you?
Hal Boyd: The title.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: Fantastic. Okay, so his first book was called On bullshit. This is the second one. Um, I just gave it to Cory Booker. I'm giving it to people I think, um, are committed to truth and so this is a gift. No, I'm not going to sign it. I don't sign other people's books. Uh, it's On Truth by Harry Frankfurt. It's a great book. I bought it for a dollar on eBay. Is the absolute best all I've ever spent. So, Hal. But I didn't buy one. I bought as many as I could and I've been giving them out. So thank you very, very much for coming. You left the Children for being here tonight and for doing such a fantastic job. To Roya, whose books we're giving out tonight, I did find one book that I thought you may have read. And if you have read it again, it's a book that should be read. And if you have read it and you're not going to read it again, hand it to somebody who needs to read it. It's the story of Hannah Senesh. For those of you who don't know 22 year old girl who, um, who parachuted behind the Hungarian lines during the Holocaust 1942 out of then Palestine and died in captivity. The Gestapo was tortured to death. A woman, a Jewish hero, whose photograph will go on the walls of our mansion up in New Haven because every single person needs to know the story of Hannah Senesh the self-sacrifice of one woman to save the Jewish people during the Holocaust. So that's a gift for you.
Roya Hakakian: Dollar on eBay?
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: Uh, that's a little more than a dollar.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: Okay. There's.
Hal Boyd: Levels. There's levels.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: Of course to our hostess. Host. This is a book written by one of the former presidents of the State of Israel. His name is Zalman Shazar. Uh, this gets very pricey. And I'm so in love with this book that I actually had it leather bound, because I think it's a fantastic book. Zalman Shazar was the president of the State of Israel, and, um, he wrote his memoirs and in Hebrew called Kochavei Boker, which translated into English called Morning Stars. It's a brilliant, nostalgic read of going back to a world before a state and then being a leader of a Zionist movement and his kind of break, but reconnection to his traditional roots of Hasidic Jews in Russia. And it's a book that I, I found and I love, and I gave it to my friends. And it really tells the story of, of our people in a very, very, very special way. I will tell you also that as a Lubavitch Hassid, there's only one person that we know that the Lubavitcher Rebbe actually kissed when he saw him. It's on video and it's Zalman Shazar. And I always wondered, of the hundreds of thousands of people over the years of the Rebbe's leadership, why did the Rebbe kiss Zalman Shazar? And I only understood it after I read the book. And so that's my gift to you. Enjoy it.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: Now with our final speaker, Bret Stephens, who is here tonight. Thanks. Thank you for inviting him to join us. It's very difficult to give a book to, frankly, because, um, anything I've talked to him about, he's read already. So, um, and his book is out of print, which is why we're not giving out, um, your book tonight, but I'm sure there's another one coming up. So I just, um, I want to say something about, um, Iran. I grew up in Forest Hills, Queens. My father is a rabbi of a synagogue that consisted mostly of Iranian Jews. I grew up with Iranian Jews. Man Farsi Baladam. I can speak a little bit of Farsi, probably the most Farsi that any Hasidic rabbi yo are you ever going to meet speaks. And we're actually doing a Farsi night at Yale with all- we're finding all the Iranians, and we're having a gormeh sabzi night. And I'm going to make the gormeh sabzi. And yes, I am making I make the best gourmet sobsi in New Haven down pat. We're having a competition. We'll see. Okay. And so the Cooking Channel can come see who makes better gormeh sabzi, second generation Iranian Jews or Hasidic rabbis from Forest Hills. Okay, but I do remember distinctly waking up in the middle of the night in 1978, when I was three years old. My father returned from Iran. It's the only thing I remember being a three year old.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: I remember him bringing me back pajamas. It was Iranian pajamas. Pajamas that were made in Iran, and it was his gift. My father was a rabbi. He was a school teacher. He didn't have a lot of money, but he wanted to buy every one of us something. And over the last, uh, 40 years I have met hundreds, as Toby mentioned, of people that are in this country today with first, second and third generation Iranian American Jews today who were saved, um, because my father went to Iran in 1978 and arranged for visas to be given to young to college students to come here. And I spent my summers with them in the Catskill Mountains, because for two years, until their parents were able to come, as you know, um, they had to be housed and fed and taken care of. It's a long story. My father wrote a book about it, and hopefully we'll have you do a talk with my father, which we've spoken about before. A Hasidic rabbi in Brooklyn. The Lubavitcher Rebbe of blessed memory. The Rebbe who inspired my life sends one of his disciples, my father, from Queens to Iran in 1978 to save Iranian Jews. Not Russian Jews, not Ethiopian Jews, not European Jews after the Holocaust, Iranian Jews. It's an interesting story. My father wrote the book. It's inspired me my entire life, so I spend Saturday nights at home.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: And I get on the phone every Saturday night and I call a rabbi in Detroit, Michigan. His name is Rabbi Levi Shemtov, who is another Chabad rabbi who founded the Friendship Circle, which I'm assuming many of you know, which has over 100 centers around the world, which helps children of under, uh, um, children and adults of special needs. It's a national and international organization. He founded it out of Detroit, and he and his wife have turned it into an international organization. We spend Saturday nights every Saturday night, almost every single Saturday night over the last two years reading correspondence of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, his letters, not his public talks, not his um, uh, interaction on film, but his letters that he wrote. And I wasn't going to say really much tonight. But this Saturday night, the last letter we read- now this is a book. So it's volume eight. We finished volume nine. We're going backwards because he's got other scheduled classes that he does with other people. And this is volume eight of approximately 30 volumes of letters that are published. And then there's probably, you know, tens of more that have not been published. So we opened up a letter and lo and behold, the last letter we read together this week was to his grandfather, my friend Rabbi Levi Shemtov from Detroit. His father was Rabbi Mendel Shemtov, of blessed memory, and his father was Rabbi Ben Zion Shemtov, who was a big chosid in the Chabad movement.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: And the Rebbe here writes him a letter. And I said, Levi, we're good. It was 11:00 at night already Saturday night. Um, I've got to get to the casino. Let's finish the job. And I said, let's, uh, let's let me finish. Let's finish with this, because this is. This is what I need. I need this for for Monday with Brett and Roya. So it's Baruch Hashem, tes shvat taf shin yud daled and the Rebbe says, Blessed be God. It's the ninth of Shvat 1954. He's writing this letter to Rabbi Ben Zion Shemtov. ,,, All the titles. Rabbi Bentzion. Shalom Ubracha, blessed, bless and peace. ,,, The Rabbe always noted when he received his letter, He was always pretty rapid to get back, getting back to people. And when he did get back to people, he apologized. He says, I'm really glad to have received your letter from the 26th day of Shvat and the fourth of Shvat, two letters ... The Rebbe says, I'm very surprised that you're depressed, that you're down, that you're a little bit, um, morose. You're a little disappointed or you don't have energy. Your spirit is down ... that there are people that are mocking the work of Lubavitch. So this is a Rebbe talking to his chosid about the work of Lubavitch.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: And the Rebbe's trying to, you know, boost him. The Rebbe's going to boost him. ... So the Rebbe says, why are you down? They've been mocking us, us Jews since the days of Moses. ... Those of us that are committed to fulfill our mission, to bring light to our surroundings Hinei Sof Sof Didan Notzach... ultimately will be victorious. ... As my father-in-law, the Rebbe speaking of his father-in-law, the sixth Rebbe said "Az far dem emes Veren Aleh batel ." In Yiddish, Az faren emes veren aleh batel, that in front of truth. All is null. It dissipates in front of truth, everything disappears. But the Rebbe was very smart. And he says, ... why sometimes does it take longer than we'd like for those who face truth and hold lies to become null. ... the answer is that first of all, we have to thank G-d that slowly the other side is weakening, slowly the other side is weakening. And the halomos vihesterim, the concealment, the hiddenness of that weakening is not always revealed right away, but they're weakening. ... And therefore the battle against what we stand for will ultimately go away. ... and the fact that people speak, otherwise, we're at a battle. Whatever the challenge was, you don't know what he wrote the Rebbe.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: And why is there still a major opposition ... So the Rebbe says, to them, will come what comes to them. Vianan paala diyimama anan. We are paala diyimama. We are those that are going to toil. Paala dimiama means we are the laborers of the day. We are the laborers of the day. ... And as the great Tzemach Zedek said, Machin lichtig. What is our work? To bring light. ... and therefore there is no time for war, because it is our job to build. So I want to get very personal and very blunt. We're living in very precarious times. And to you, Brett. I know we're on camera, but we're off record. You are walking a very fine, a very tight tightrope right now at the New York Times. I won't get into it. We all know the Times because we all read the Times. You're walking a tightrope, and there are times that you are going to have to ask yourself when you walk out of that office, as some of the people in this room have done and others. What am I doing? Where am I? Where's the paper? What are my views? What do I believe in? And when you walk out to the elevator I can promise you and assure you that the editors are saying the same thing.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: I've worked with Jim Dao. I've worked with Trish Hall. I've worked with Bari Weiss. I remember you at the Journal. I've been back and forth at the Op-Ed page. I know Ed Rothstein. The list is very long. You're going to walk into the elevator and scratch your head, and you're going to walk into the elevator, and they're going to scratch their head, and it's moments like that. As for me personally, the Rebbe tells us that Anan paala diyimama anan. We have to bring light and truth. So what book can I give you? I can't give you a book. You're the author. You're the voice of truth. So I brought you something else. I asked you what your Hebrew name is, and you told me your Hebrew name is Ariel. Ariel is the lion of God. The first opening verse of the Code of Jewish Law, says Yehuda ben Teima omer ... Rabbi Yehdua ben Teima says that when a Jew wakes up in the morning, he has to be ... as mighty like a leopard. ... and light like an eagle. ... swift like a deer. ...And mighty like a lion. Ariel. Your name is Ariel of the Lion of God. I had a discussion with a zoologist in the School of Environmental Studies three weeks ago, on Friday night at our table at Shabtai, and I said. What's stronger, the tiger or the lion? What's the answer?
Roya Hakakian: The lion, obviously.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: What's the answer? Who's bigger, the tiger or the lion? Well, your phones are off. You can Google it when you get down to the lobby at 10:00. The answer is that there are actually a number of tigers that are larger and more powerful than the lion. Hence the question that bothered me. Why does Rabbi Yehuda Ben Teima say that a Jew should wake up in the morning and be mighty like the lion? There was a rabbi who lived in the 1600s in Lvov. We're reading about Lvov, Lemberg, the city of Lions. That's what it's translated as. And he's the first commentator on the code of Jewish law. And in the first commentary of the first verse of the Code of Jewish Law, quoting this Mishnah from the second century of being mighty like a lion. The Taz who lived in the city of Lions says. He doesn't talk about the tiger. He doesn't even ask the question that I'm asking, but he answers it. He says, ... because the lion is not afraid of any other creature. Even if the lion confronts the tiger, that's heavier and stronger and more powerful. The lion is the king of the animal kingdom because strength, strength is here. And on that note, I want to give you a gift. And you may have a pair of Tefilin. Do you have a pair of Tefilin? I'm going to give you another pair of tefilin because this is my gift to you, a pair of tefilin. And it says in Hebrew, Ariel Stephens. Why Teflin?
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: Tefilin is what has has kept the Jewish male and I know we are speaking about women tonight. It is the power of the Jewish man. The Torah tells us it's Deuteronomy. I found it actually on a Christian website today. I was looking for the verse and they come up. They seem to come up first. But I checked in the Chumash. I think it's Deuteronomy 28. Deuteronomy says , the Torah says ,,, that all the nations of the world. ... All the nations of the world will see that the name of God is upon you. Moses tells the Jewish people before they come to the. And then the verse says Viyaru Mimecha and they will fear you. When the world knows and sees that we carry truth. And we carry courage. And we're fearless. They will fear us. And the Talmud comments on this verse. That the verse that says that the world will see God upon us and fear us ... what is our ammunition. Our Tefilin.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: And what do we do with our tefilin?. Every day we put them on our hand and we put them on our head because our hand is next to our heart and our head is on top of our brain. We're all skeptics. All of us put a piece of leather with parchment that talks about the oneness of God on my hand and on my head every day, and say a prayer? It's primitive. It's what you say, 12th century. It's 2000 BC. Yes, because at those moments. When we have to face the courage to the world, we must connect with something that is greater than ourselves. That is the magic of the Jewish people. ,,, that the nations of the world will see that God is upon you. Viyaru mimecha, and they will fear you. ... This is the Tefilin Shebirosh that we put on every day. Whether we understand it, whether we perceive it, conceive it, even even have a relationship or feel any spirituality about it, because we commit our heart and our mind to something greater than ourselves. And then Brett, we'll conquer truth at levels that even you and your agents and your publishers and your biggest fans cannot even imagine, because it will come from a higher place.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: Roya has shown us the way. Roya will continue to show us the way. Roya will fight until the people of Iran are liberated. God willing, one day my children will say that we in this room did something tonight and will continue to do something. Maybe we're not getting on a plane and flying there because we can't, but we're going to do something when we leave here. We're going to call a Senator or Congressman or the CEO of the company we work for or the people around us, and we're going to do something. We're going to connect with truth. We're going to connect with powers that are greater than ourselves. And we're going to bring liberation to the people of Iran, to all people, to all nations, because Viyaru Mimecha because we fear something that is greater than ourselves. So I just want to say thank you very, very, very much to everybody. Thank you, God, for giving us this wonderful opportunity. This is in place of a book. It's a thing. It's another pair of tefilin and it has your name on it. Ariel, Stephens, the lion of the Jewish people. Thank you. The University of Chicago group is coming in at ten, so we like that.
Brett Stophens: Everyone leaves. The fun goes to die.
The Woman's Revolution in Iran with Roya Hakakian, Bret Stephens & Hal Boyd
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Toby Hecht: Good evening. I'm going to start by asking everybody, please, to turn off your cell phones off. We are recording tonight. Just so you know. Okay.
Toby Hecht: Good evening. My name is Toby Hecht and I am the director of Shabtai. I would like to first thank God for bringing us together for this important event. Thank you Gail. Gail, how are you? Thank you, Gail, who has for generously opening up your home once again to Shabtai New York City. Thank you, Ariel Steinberg, Rene Edelman and Stanislav Atanasov for your support tonight. Thank you, Roya and Brett, for graciously accepting our invitation to speak for us on Iran and the Women's Revolution, and thank all of you for taking time out of your busy lives to be here. We have an extra seat right here. Does anybody want to take it? Don't be shy.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: Tal. It's yours. I just look at it a little more. Thank you. No, I'm not over.
Toby Hecht: Oh, actually. I'm sorry. It's taken.
Toby Hecht: Sorry. Never mind. You're good. That's for you. No, no, it's not mine. Okay. One might ask why the invitation for tonight's invitation read Women's Revolution in the singular. After all, Mahsa Amini's story is not a fight for one, but for all. And it's a good question. One that I'm sure we will hear more of tonight. But before Brett and Roya deliver what is sure to be a thought provoking discussion, let's start at the beginning. Two weeks ago, the Jewish people began a cycle of reading the Five Books of Moses again. In the beginning, God created the world from splitting the heavens and earth to forming and breathing life into mankind. After the sin of the forbidden fruit, Adam and Chava were cast out of Eden, a utopian existence into a tumultuous world where, in the pursuit of knowledge, truth and morality are manifested when human beings choose good over evil. Adam is the first man, and Chava aim mother of all life. In what seems like a hot second, humanity descends into depraved immorality and aside from Noah, his wife, his three sons and daughters in law and the animals, God cleans up shop, destroys the world, and moves on to plan B. For the next 50 weeks of the year, we will be- we will read about rebuilding humanity and its infrastructure, sometimes name by name, all directly descending from the first man and woman.
Toby Hecht: Most importantly, however, we will learn about conscious monotheism through the first monotheist Abraham, which is the purpose of creation and God's will. Everything in the Torah is deliberate. There isn't even one superfluous word. The word Torah means to teach. And indeed it is a manual, the blueprint for the Jewish people to live a meaningful life, a godly life. We don't read it again and again for kicks. We read it to connect, to remember, to learn, and to practice. And as a woman, one can't help but see a very clear trajectory of the power of women from the beginning, illuminated through the distinct qualities gifted to them by God. This is how women, individually and collectively became the foundation of strength and valor. Today, it's easy to join a revolution. Take to the streets with placards. But how about making the revolution? You may think it takes the masses to make a difference. And the Torah tells us, no, not true. It just takes one to get the party started. And it's hard. It takes strength and courage for one to stand against the tide, the fear, the judgment, the naysayers and the doubt. The first Jewish woman Sarah. Sarah. Our mother, Abraham's wife, taught the women of her generation about God, and it was specifically her home that the temple in Jerusalem, God's sanctuary was modeled after.
Toby Hecht: Sarah becomes the archetype of the Jewish woman. God tells Abraham, Kol Asher tomar Eilecha Sara, Shma Bikola, All that Sarah tells you, heed her voice. Abraham is thus strengthened by Sarah's convictions. The second matriarch, Rivka, a prophetess, sees that it is her son Jacob who needs to receive the blessings and not her son Asa, and she quietly does what needs to be done to change the course of history. Through Rachel the third and Leah, the fourth and final matriarch, the selfless and dedicated mothers of the 12 tribes, we see some of the most relevant and timely examples of kinship and support between women, showing that united together through triumph and tragedy, so much is gained instead of lost. Then there is Miriam, my personal favorite, who was inspired by the convictions of her above mentioned great grandmothers. Despite living in a despotic Egypt. Under Pharaoh's rule, ancient Egypt represented the origins of every human rights violation. It is young Miriam who challenges her parents to stay married and have more children instead of giving up. Miriam and her mother, Yocheved, served as midwives, saving boys from the Nile, defying Pharaoh's edict to execute every Jewish male born, thus ensuring a future for the Jewish people. And it is Miriam who takes her newborn baby brother, places him in a tar lined basket, setting it on the Nile to save him from certain death.
Toby Hecht: And yet Miriam alone is not responsible for Moses the Redeemer. For as he lay in the basket floating on the Nile, an Egyptian princess Pharaoh's daughter sees the basket in the reeds, hears his cry as she bathes, she reaches for the basket and draws it near. She knows her father well and what this means for the infant. Without hesitation, she takes the seemingly abandoned baby, calling him Moshe to draw out of the water. With the help of Miriam, Batya the Egyptian princess saves his life so that Moshe Rabeinu Moshe, our teacher, can become the future leader and redeemer of the Jewish nation in order to liberate them from bondage and servitude, bring them to Sinai and finally the Promised Land. Through the Tanakh, Torah, the Five Books of Moses, Neviim prophets, and Kesuvim, Writings, and onward we see examples of women using their gifted intuition, oftentimes quietly and action here a strong word there: resilience, steadfastness, integrity, and self-sacrifice in the face of tyranny, destruction, and existential threats. Judith, Rachav, Devorah, Naomi, Ruth, Esther Homalka, Queen Esther in ancient Persia, the Jewish heroine who risked her life by asking her husband, the king to spare her people. And on and on.
Toby Hecht: The hundreds, the thousands, the millions of heroic women in our tradition. These women, one by one, have fortified the notion that in order to sustain the truth, we oftentimes alone will have to take a stand about what is right and true. They were not perfect or infallible by any measure. They were very human, just like the rest of us. And through trial and error and absolute persistence, they changed the world for the better. When we think of revolutions happening in places like Teheran, Mashhad, Shiraz, Isfahan, cities we have never been to, we ask ourselves, how can we make a difference here in this apartment right now? And I'll tell you. Think about someone else. Be kind to a stranger in distress. Reach out and make the world a ripe field for goodness and light. You never know what one good deed can do. My family and I were in Park City, Utah last year on a ski trip and were eating Shabbos dinner with the local Chabad rabbi and his family. We met a woman there, originally from Iran. When she heard that her last name was Hecht, she asked if we were related to the Rabbi Hecht, responsible for saving over 1800 kids on the cusp of the Iranian Revolution in 1978. Shmully answered yes. Oops, Almost there Almost there, here we go.
Toby Hecht: Rabbi Sholom Ber Hecht and his father, Rabbi J.J. Hecht, of blessed memory, together with the staunch support of the Lubavitcher Rebbe of blessed memory, were responsible for that rescue mission initiated by Shmully's father, flying to Iran in 1978 to load up airplanes shortly before the Ayatollah Khomeini took over the country. She told us that she was just 11 and her sister's 14 and 16 when they were rescued 44 years ago by the bravery and love of a few people. And then there is Roya, whose name in Persian means dream or vision, whom we met for the first time when she came to speak at our society dinner on Crown Street in New Haven nearly 20 years ago. I believe it was Nelson Mousazadeh who brought you from Davenport. Roya, you easily could have blended into the American dream without a thought of what you left behind, as many do. Instead, you chose to dedicate yourself to truth, to activism, to stand on the floor of Congress, to write books and articles, speak on the networks and argue with the syndicators, advise the State Department to try and save a country from tyranny. Your commitment and resilience, often in the face of indifference and appalling silence, are an inspiration to so many and will go down in history. Thank you for showing the rest of us what it means to carry a banner of truth. And as my grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, told me and my sisters years ago, when you feel weary in your mission and purpose, remember our imahos our mothers, matriarchs, Sarah, Rivka, Rachel, and Leah, for they are always with you standing by your side. Thank you. I'd like to introduce, um, Hal Boyd, who's going to be introducing our speakers. He is a member of Shabtai. Graduated the YLS in 2016. Correct?
Hal Boyd: That's correct.
Toby Hecht: Yes. And is here tonight with his wife, Holly from Utah. And he is where he is the executive editor of the Deseret Magazine.
Hal Boyd: So yes.
Toby Hecht: Thank you. To Am I missing something?
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: (Inaudible).
Toby Hecht: I did. I did, I did, yep. Got it all. All right.
Hal Boyd: Perfect. Thank you.
Hal Boyd: That was a wonderful, wonderful introduction. Thank you. Thank you, uh, Gail, for hosting for all those who have made this night possible. Toby, that was a great introduction for what we're going to talk about tonight. I'll just put in a quick plug for Shabtai as a member. Um, you know, my tradition, the Latter Day Saint tradition. The Mormon tradition, uh, we have this strong belief that the children of Abraham will bless all people, will bless all people. And I was certainly blessed through my association with Shabtai at Yale Law School. The intellectual dialogue, the free debate, the ability to seek Lux et Veritas, uh, Urim and Thummim, lights and truths. The Yale motto to seek it from all facets was embodied within Shabtai and what has been built here. And so I just want to commend, uh, those who continue to make it possible, those who sponsor it and thank all of them for making this night possible. So, uh, there couldn't be a better bridge than what uh, Toby already said with regard to the power of women to enact change. And thank you. Um, and in 2015, as I was preparing for to moderate this discussion, uh, rereading some of the articles that, uh, in 2015, there was a curious article in The Economist that talked about Iran as a, uh, a modernizing country, as a country that was maturing and that this trend would continue, uh, if there were to be a nuclear deal.
Hal Boyd: Um, now, that has been the prevailing wisdom of center left politics. And I think just, uh, just, uh, sort of a foreign policy dogma ever since then, um, that if the US had a deal, we had a deal. That deal was, uh, was taken away by a Republican administration, and now that deal needs to come back. But suddenly, within the past six weeks, that prevailing dogma has been thrown into turmoil. Something truly magical, something stunning, something tension filled, tumultuous is taking place. Uh, there is real change that is in the air, uh, in Iran. And we see it through the videos. We see it through the news reports of what can come out of the country. And so this has changed the dynamic. This has changed the paradigm of Westerners such as myself, of understanding what is happening, what what what is happening in Iran, what is happening in the hearts of the Iranian people. And so, uh, to help us understand this inspiring wave, this daring wave of protest, um, to unpack what is what is occurring and what the implications are not only for Iran but for the United States and, of course, the Middle East, we have with us two esteemed guests: uh, Roya Hakakian, who is Iranian born American poet and a noted author whose writing has graced the pages of The Atlantic as of late in recent weeks, and as well as the chyrons of the CNN and other media outlets helping unpack the significance of these events.
Hal Boyd: In particular piece The Bonfire of the Headscarves, quite a title, and her recent testimony on Capitol Hill have helped to, uh, have helped Westerners, Americans such as myself, better understand the dynamics that are taking place. Of course, we also have Bret Stephens with us, uh, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, the former editor of The Jerusalem Post, and a distinguished columnist at The New York Times. And I would note that through his work at the Times, he has carved out a very influential voice, uh, critiquing the Iran nuclear deal and, um, and the various sundry attempts to revive it. And so I'm sure we will have some of that illuminated today in our discussion. This is certainly a sobering topic. Uh, it's a time of tumult and tension, but it's also a time of hope. It's a time of the possibilities of what could come. It's a time, even perhaps, of revolutionary sentiment, the likes of which have not been seen for more than half a century. And so with that, let's go ahead and begin. And rather than start at the beginning of that revolutionary period of those late 1970s, which Toby touched on so well, let's start six weeks ago and Roya, help tell us the story of Mahasa Amini her life, her significance, her death, and the events that follow.
Roya Hakakian: Good evening. Um, I'm mic'd up, so I hope everybody can hear me well. Um, since everybody was thanking everybody else, I want to thank Brett. Um, because, um, I texted him to say if he would do this with me, and within about a few seconds he said yes. So I'm touched both as a friend but also as a fellow writer and thinker, because I felt that he understood the gravity of the issue. And thank you. Um, so I came up all of a sudden with a metaphor, or at least a parallel for Mahsa Amini, who was a Kurdish, 22 year old Kurdish woman who had come to Tehran to visit with relatives, um, for just a few days and then go back to Kurdistan. And I thought that her story of of eventually what happened to her is the perfect parallel in some ways with this story of Emmett Till. Um, you know, Emmett left Chicago, came to, uh, Mississippi. Um, you know, he was not a political person. He was a 14 year old. He had no intention of being politically provocative and then just the most innocent thing that he could possibly do, uh, got him killed and, and in some ways, obviously changed history. And I think Mahsa Amini's death, uh, a visitor in Tehran with no political intentions.
Roya Hakakian: No, no. You know, unlike so many other women in Iran or especially in Tehran, no intention to be provocative. Um, she had a few buttons at, of her uniform, the Islamic uniform that you have to put on as women in Iran, open. Um, it's actually been misreported by everyone. Uh, her hair wasn't showing. She had her scarf on, but the buttons were open. And the morality police always wants to make a lesson of somebody. And so they picked on her. And the rest is history. Um, and I think because she was everyone, because she was so perfectly innocent, because she had no intention of being provocative, it is that, you know, the nation has taken to the streets because everyone can feel that in her death they can find the death of their own relatives, you know, female relatives. And I think that, um, you know, someone told me when you were at the State Department speaking to, uh, the, you know, secretary of state and others, somebody quoted that the hashtag Mahsa Amini has circulated in social media over 100 million times. Um, and so, you know, I think she has somehow swept up everyone. Not just in Iran, but also the imagination of so many others along the way.
Hal Boyd: So you talked about it as certainly capturing the hearts of the Iranian people, but it's uniquely a women's movement. Is there, explain, do you think that's true? And in what ways how have women become sort of a political force within Iran suddenly? Or maybe they've always been one. What do you?
Roya Hakakian: They have always been a political force in Iran. They were the first opposition to the regime, and they had every reason to be. So if we go back a little in Ayatollah Khomeini, who is the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, uh, returned from exile to Iran in February of 1979. And, um, and and you would think that after a such a major revolution, he would have such, such great agenda. He would want to, you know, pursue so many other, uh, goals. But the very first, um, uh, issue that he focused on was to institute the hijab for women within, within the first few days that he had taken power. And so everybody was shocked but at the time he was the most beloved and the most feared person in the country. So the overwhelming majority of people in Iran tried, kept silent about the idea of introducing hijab to a country that had freedom of choice for women. And and so what happened was at the time that no one, absolutely no one, would dare to challenge Khomeini. On March 8th of 1979, women took to the streets of Tehran. And- and when no one else was criticizing Ayatollah Khomeini, women said that we didn't make a revolution to go back. So I think the foundation of an opposition, of a political opposition was, uh, was laid down right there and then on March 8th of 1979. And I think they became a political opposition. And I think the irony is that the rest of the nation, including secular intellectuals, leftist intellectuals who weren't, you know, who weren't religious, they had no reason to support the idea of the hijab.
Roya Hakakian: They weren't conservatives. They also believed that if women would sacrifice for the cause of the revolution, would make their own, you know, preferences secondary to and make the, you know, the cause, the success of the revolution a priority, then, you know, they would be helping the revolutionary cause and that's what a good revolutionary at that hour in the country needed to do. So there was a sense that that the women were being selfish by wishing to have the freedom of choice to dress as they wished. And that collusion between the left and the right, between secular women even, who were intellectuals and the rest of the country over this one issue is probably one of the darkest moments in in the contemporary history of Iran. And so people call it a women's revolution, not because the only people who are out there on the streets now are women, but because everybody else recognized the error from 1979. Everybody else recognized that to forego of that one right, to sacrifice women at the altar of the revolution was the wrongest thing to do. And so it is a women's revolution, because everybody has come to recognize that they need to go back to the beginning, and they need to all realize that it was a misogynist effort on the part of the Ayatollah, and it was a misogynist collusion at the beginning of the revolution that has allowed the ayatollahs to go on for 43 years. So you need to undo that by by allowing women to lead. But certainly women are not the only ones.
Hal Boyd: Okay. And so what? Speaking of who has taken to the streets, what are the demographics of those who've taken to the streets? And do they have widespread support?
Roya Hakakian: You know, it's interesting because you asked me that this afternoon and I thought, hmm, you know, did the American Revolution have widespread support? You know, how can we prove that other revolutions throughout history have had widespread support? In my view, revolutions are events that take a nation towards a better future. And, you know, sometimes the rest of the nation needs to follow, you know, kicking and screaming. Um, so, no, I mean, I don't think anybody can tell how wide the support is, but I can tell you one thing, and this is interesting because I was at the State Department, Anthony Blinken asked me, you know, so you're telling me that secular Iranians are with this revolution. What about the conservatives? And I said, well, the conservatives are moral people, too. You know, the conservatives recognize that if this regime continues, Islam is going to lose every ounce of attraction, allure, legitimacy that it has in the eyes of the people. There are, you know, for those of you who are on social media, you might have seen that it's become sort of a public prank for teenagers and other people on the street to knock off the turban from the head of the imams and, you know, other clerics who walk by. But that's an expression of the amount of hatred that people are feeling towards the clergy in Iran right now. So I think, you know, looking at the fact, the mere fact that it hasn't gone away, that it's, it's in its sixth week, and it keeps on growing in places that no one had ever expected, including Qom, which is the Vatican of Iran, which is the place where all the Shiite seminaries are located. You've had demonstrations in Qom. It's unthinkable. And so I would say it is widespread. It is a popular movement. And I think some of the conservatives who are joining are joining because they want to save Islam from further deteriorating in the country.
Hal Boyd: Let's turn to you, Brett. Um, retrace for us a little bit the politics of the nuclear deal. With some brevity. I'm sure we could dedicate an entire evening to that. And how is the past six weeks complicated the administration, the current administration's hopes to strike a deal?
Brett Stophens: Um.
Hal Boyd: Take it from there.
Brett Stophens: Uh, well, let me make a couple prefatory comments. And just also build on a few things that Roya said when she asked me to, uh, if I would join her this evening. The reason I answered immediately is, of course, it's an honor to share a stage with you. And for the last ten minutes, I think all of you have understood why it's an honor to share a stage with you. Um, and it's also delightful to see some old friends. Thane, Ed, Greg, a number of other people that I've known over the years in different walks of, uh, different walks of life. I just wanted to say one more thing in connection to what you said. You know, for revolutions to succeed, they often they don't just need exemplary heroes. They need exemplary victims. In 1978, the apartheid regime in South Africa, um, beat a man named Steve Biko half to death and left him chained in the trunk of a car. Um, and Steve Biko in some ways is, in the manner of his death, was a demonstration of why it was the regime that killed him that had to go. When Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire in Tunisia in, at the end of 2010. That was the exemplary victim, the everyman, which who showed why all of these Arab autocracies had to go. Something similar happened in Poland with a priest whose name escapes me right now during the solidarity movement. But that's in effect, it seems to me, what what Iran has had not the perfect champion. And I think the success of this revolution in some ways will depend on whether it finds a champion. But it is certainly found its exemplary victim, which is why it has been so galvanizing.
Brett Stophens: A second observation in connection to what you said, um, women had a unique power in Iran that men didn't have, which is that in being forced to wear hijab, every woman in Iran had the instrument of revolution literally sitting on her head. Um, and all it took was the courage, often found in numbers, to take that hijab off, to spark a revolution. And that's a real problem that dictatorships like Iran's have, which is that in trying to impose their dictatorship into the most intimate parts of people's lives, they leave themselves exposed. The best dictatorships, I mean, the best from the standpoint of dictatorship, is a Goldilocks dictatorship, which is not so repressive, right, that it creates opportunities like this and at the same time not so liberal that it makes it makes them easy to overthrow. So this is, I think, the way to understand what's happening in Iran can't simply be in the context of what's happening in Iran itself. You have to look at it in the context of other revolutionary moments and see how how it compares. And now it seems to have almost all of the features required for a successful revolution, except for one, which is some concept of leadership and I suspect we're going to see whether that emerges. With respect to the nuclear deal, to me, the nuclear deal was always essentially a form of capitulation. It was the capitulation which argued that there is nothing more that we can do to stop Iran from acquiring the instruments for weapons of mass destruction than to bargain with them and to offer them things that we think they might like in exchange for restraints.
Brett Stophens: And of course, it might have worked if the negotiation was being taken with South Korea or Belgium, you know. I mean, it's very easy to disarm people who are willing to be disarmed. But disarmament doesn't work with dictatorial regimes because they cheat. And there's an extensive history of this, whether it was during the 1920s and 1930s, the way the fascist powers violated strictures connected to remilitarization, naval tonnage and so on. The Soviet Union was notorious for cheating on nuclear arms control deals in from the 50s, uh, onward. And the Islamic Republic is the past master of cheating. Of course, it's very easy to cheat if you have a huge country with lots of mountains and lots of places where you can secret, uh, secret stuff away. The other miscalculation involved this false dichotomy that became entrenched in the thinking of Western foreign policy elites, which was the idea that there was a meaningful distinction between Iranian hardliners and moderates. Now, to some extent within the ambit of fairly narrow ambit of Iranian politics, that distinction might have meant something. Although if you actually study the history of Iran's nuclearization, the first great wave of its nuclear efforts happened under Mr. Khatami, who was hailed as the great reformer of the late 1990s and early, early part of this century.
Brett Stophens: So there was this idea like, well, you know, if we strike a nuclear deal and particularly if we strike a nuclear deal with moderates, and in the last administration, we had Rouhani, who was supposedly a moderate, then that will encourage moderate forces and create a kind of a movement for change within, within the regime itself. Now, this was just totally false. A, because it misunderstood that the regime was not Rouhani's to run. It was the supreme leader's to run always and particularly on nuclear issues. But it was also a mistake because the moderates were no less interested in a sincere denuclearization deal as, as the hardliners are. In fact, my experience in a different context, when I used to report from Israel and Palestinian Authority, is that it was better to speak to Hamas than it was to the Palestinian Authority because Hamas more or less told you what they intended, right? Whereas the Palestinian Authority lied. I mean, they intended the same thing, but one was dishonest and the other the other was not. So I think from the moment it was signed in 2015, I thought it was a disastrous deal. I supported and I didn't often support him. Trump's decision to walk away from the deal. And now to your last question. Um, the deal I think was dead on arrival before this revolution began. It's very difficult to imagine this or any other administration reaching a concordat with the people who are busy murdering men and women in the streets of Tehran and elsewhere. Right.
Roya Hakakian: So I just want to say something to the point you made about Hamas being a better negotiation partner. Um, I was at a dinner with Condoleezza Rice 15, 14, 15 years ago, and she said that Kazem Soleimani, the head of the Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, had called her up to say, if you really want to have a successful negotiation, why are you reaching out to the to the foreign minister, to Javad Zarif? You should know that the person who can actually make a deal is me. So yeah. So yeah, exactly. You know.
Hal Boyd: So speaking of negotiations, that was a good transition. You've been on the Hill. You've been talking to the Secretary of State. What are what are some of the- first of all what can the US do? What is it doing? What could it potentially do in your judgment, uh, better perhaps to support this fomenting, uh, protests, possibly, um, attempts for regime change, if you could, if I could be so bold to say, what could the US do? What could the Western world do? And what are you hearing from politicians? What are you hearing from diplomats with regard to the US's role?
Roya Hakakian: Mm. Um, Washington or at least the Washington I met mostly Democratic senators and the top brass at the State Department is intellectually delayed as far as the events in Iran are concerned. They are um, and it was obvious from the questions that they were asking. The first one was, um, it's a women's revolution, so who else is on the streets? Um, so, you know, we had to explain that yes, the women sparked this movement, but everybody else has joined in and the women have led it because they had a, you know, they had a reason and they had a tool with which they could spark the revolution. But everybody else has come along. Um, and then, you know, they they are so wedded to the nuclear deal that everything else has to orient itself around, you know. So what do we do with the nuclear deal? How can we help the demonstrators and carry on with the nuclear deal? And it seemed to me like, you know, it was like Churchill being asked to sit down with the Nazis and come up with a peace agreement, you know, during World War II. And, and he found it incredibly impossible to do both at the same time. So I was trying, without referring to Churchill, to say to the State Department, you can't be sitting down with the people who- with the very leaders who are killing the people on the streets, um, and, and negotiate a deal with them and think that you can also support those people at the same time that that these two are entirely, uh, paradoxical.
Roya Hakakian: They they can't happen both at the same time. Um, and, and I think part of the reason is because the intention of the State Department has been, ever since Biden came to power to bring back the nuclear agreement, that this has been the central effort that they have been trying to make. So I think part of what the US can do is to undo some of the thinking that they have been so wedded to. Um, part of it is the nuclear deal. The other is the idea that there is this, you know, there is this good and evil force in Iran, hardliners and reformists, and that if they just do the right thing and at the State Department or, you know, if they could just help the reformists, somebody would emerge to save the day. Um, and this is, as Brett said, has been false from the start. In fact, I think it's the the greatest political good cop, bad cop that any government has ever played. Um, and it's part of what unfortunately, so many of liberal intellectuals in America have bought and it goes on, you know, the discussion about, you know, reformists.
Roya Hakakian: Is there something we can do to help them gain power? Um, so I think part of what, what needs to happen is somehow for the administration to see this, you know, uh, kind of detach itself from these two beliefs. And then the third thing that keeps coming up is, and I had that conversation with one senator who said, but we can't intervene because we never understood that region. And I was thinking to myself to say, in the politest way, I could you don't have to understand the region. I mean, it's not it's not a very big issue. It's, it's a, it's a people who are saying the most fundamentally, Washingtonian wishes that what one could ever hear. They're saying, we want to hold hands on the street without being afraid. We want to have a future. We want clean air. We want to dance on the streets, and we want to be able to sing. I mean, it could very well be lines from, you know, the letter that George Washington said or the speech he gave to a Jewish congregation in Rhode Island where he said, we're building a republic where everyone can sit under his own vine and fig tree. Right. And that's precisely what Iranians on the streets are, are articulating at the moment. So to think that we have to think about Afghanistan and what went wrong in Iraq, and then and then conclude that we ought not to ever do anything again is the possibly the the worst un-American conclusion that we could ever draw? And I also think it's to miss a historical, an important historical moment, which is something happened in Ukraine.
Roya Hakakian: And that is in my belief, in my view, what has changed the Iranians perspectives on what they can or cannot do? Because if you had asked me when, when, uh, the US left Afghanistan, whether a revolution could happen in Iran, I would say no way, because it was it created such bleak circumstances. Um, and Afghanistan being next door to Iran, I thought, you know, they have every reason to fear that these forces, these Islamist forces in the region have become so powerful that they are impossible to overcome. And I think Ukraine changed all of that. Ukraine made it look like, uh, a nation that is incredibly dedicated about the cause of independence and democracy can be the David that stands up to Goliath. And, and, you know, and I think that made was a turning point for Iran as well. So what I was trying to tell to people I was meeting in Washington was that it's true that Iran is where it is geographically, but in terms of democratic readiness and maturity, Iran is ought to be bundled with Ukraine.
Roya Hakakian: And that's what they're not thinking about. But if they do and if they really catch up and if they somehow shed the fear of, um, you know, regime change because these have become, uh, buzzwords that, you know, send shudder to, to anybody at the State Department because, you know, whatever errors we made, uh, as Americans, you know, in Latin America or in Vietnam and other parts of the world somehow is catching up with them now. And so, uh, the idea of not doing anything, it's as if that inaction justifies or rectifies what it was that they did or didn't do, you know, 50, 60 years ago. And but and I had to say to, to Blinken, you don't have to change the regime. The people want to change the regime. You just have to make sure that A, you don't help the people they want to overthrow by by sitting at a negotiating table with them. And B, they're not asking for you to intervene militarily, but give them every other support that you can. At the moment that support is, uh, primarily internet and digital capacity. Um, the the demonstrators, the protesters are behind the regime turns off internet like a water faucet. It's incredibly scary. And then, you know, there's a whole host of other things that we could possibly do.
Hal Boyd: It's fascinating. So a couple of threads, uh, to sort of follow up on that. One is and I'd be interested in your thoughts, Brett. Um, so love the quote from, from George Washington in terms of, you know, uh, aspiring to everyone having their own vine and fig tree. Of course, we know Hamilton and the city made that line, uh, famous. Uh, you know, it it was, of course, in another book, uh, you know, in another famous setting before was in Hamilton, uh, but, uh, and this audience knows that better than anyone. But Washington also warned against foreign entanglements, and I imagine the tensions and, of course, some of the failures in the Middle East have caused conservatives in particular, but I'm sure across the political spectrum to become pretty gun shy in terms of entering into or getting involved in, um, uh, some of these, uh, more sticky and thorny foreign policy issues. So I would love to hear your thoughts of has the right- has conservativism broadly defined today in America retreated too much? Uh, has it properly recalibrated? Should it had never recalibrated? Uh, what are your thoughts about that? And then I have additional threads that I want to follow up from, from what you said.
Brett Stophens: Um. Look, the United States has screwed up around the world, and we have also done great good around the world. And we should endeavor to learn from our failures, but not forget the fact that were it not for us, Europe would be under either a Nazi or a Soviet dictatorship. Japan would be a very different country. South Korea would not be the thriving democracy that it is. Self-loathing and self-flagellation and we can never get anything right is a poor recipe in life. And it's a poor recipe in foreign policy as well. And it's particularly a poor recipe when we are not being asked to intervene. We are being asked to simply make it possible for other people to use instruments that we provide in order for them to realize their liberation. So it's a good thing that we are helping Ukrainians with arms. We're not intervening. We are allowing the Ukrainians to fight a battle that is vital for our interests without American soldiers being involved. It will be a very good thing, a very good thing for the United States, for the state of Israel, for anyone who cares about a future in that region that is led by moderates and modernizers if the Islamic Republic of Iran is overthrown because it stands at the center of an effort to turn the entire region into a series of appalling tyrannies, appalling tyrannies, tyrannies of a kind, by the way, that make the tyranny that's in Saudi Arabia seem relatively mild in in comparison.
Brett Stophens: So look at what is happening in Iran, Syria under Bashar Assad, Lebanon under Hezbollah, Yemen with with the Houthis. All of this has has Iran, uh, uh, Iran at its at its center. So, look, the right conservative approach ought to be prudential, ought to be sensible. There are options between sending the third Infantry and do nothing. And and this is one of these sort of false dichotomies that crops up, usually in kind of demagogic voices like the American Conservative or other publications like, well, you're just for another, you know, another Iraq or another another Vietnam. Well, no. Why don't we help the Iranians? Roya mentioned that we can help them with tools of communication. We can simply withdraw from from a negotiation which promises to give them tens of billions of dollars in sanctions relief. We can ask ourselves, why not get our oil from Alberta Canada? And leaving global, global, the global warming will happen whether it's in Alberta or Iran. But why are we seeking oil relief from oil sanctions for the Iranians instead of the Canadians? Bad as I think Canada is on many fronts. Uh, I'll take the Canadians over the Iranians. We can ask our European partners in a show of solidarity with women to expel, uh, to to expel ambassadors from European countries because every Iranian embassy is essentially it's an espionage and a hub of assassination, which which Roya can tell you. And to withdraw their ambassadors from, uh, from Tehran, we can go after Iranian assets throughout the region, in Iraq, in Syria, in Yemen.
Brett Stophens: We might even ask ourselves, why is it that we tolerate Iran having factories to produce drones, which are which are being used for genocidal purposes, genocidal purposes in, in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities? And to Roya's point, which I think is extraordinarily important, these struggles are connected. What happens in Ukraine, uh, will determine the outcome in many ways of what happens in Iran. And by the way, what happens in Ukraine will also determine the outcome of what may happen in the Taiwan Straits and in Taiwan in the very near future. So helping Ukraine achieve a swift and decisive victory over Putin will have ripple effects, not just in terms of strategy, but in terms of offering moral succor and an example of moral courage to people who are risking their necks in Tehran, Isfahan and elsewhere in Iran. The idea that we can do nothing, the idea that, you know, the this idea, everything we do is going to be a mistake is it's not only it's not only a false idea, but it's it's a pernicious idea because at its root is actually not so much a statement about our own failure, but a wish for the for the tyrants to win abroad, a belief that the United States should not be the last, best hope of Earth. And I think that is, in a profound sense, an un-American point of view.
Hal Boyd: Excellent.
Roya Hakakian: And can I add something because, you know, he gets me excited so I have to say something. Yes, yes. So I mean to to Brett's last point, uh, you know, historians and policy makers and politicians have been discussing, you know, how can the US lead in the world? You know, we are not the greatest economy or we are just about not to be the greatest economy. You know, so many other countries have caught up with us. So what's left for the US to by which to call itself a superpower? And I think what's left is moral leadership, because Russia is not going to do it. China is not going to do it. India certainly has its own problems. And I think- and by moral, I, you know, everybody is going to probably is thinking without telling me that, you know, the US has never done that. It's not about to do it. It's not you know, politics is not moral. But I think actually moral leadership is what is the most pragmatic thing to do at the moment, especially with respect to Iran. I have never met an educated American who knew the history of Iran and the Middle East, who didn't say to me, if we only hadn't overthrown the, you know, government of Prime Minister Mossadegh in 1953, the Iranians wouldn't hate us.
Roya Hakakian: We wouldn't have 1979. We wouldn't be where where we are. Right? That happened 70 plus years ago. Since then or or. No, actually before that we, we also, you know, bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Japanese have forgiven us. They have been our best allies or one of our best allies for the past several decades. But the one thing, the one immoral thing we did in Iran and I, I would argue that we didn't even do it. You know, we had some hand in it, but, you know, we wanted to take the credit. The one that one immoral thing that we did has been haunting us for longer than, you know, the nuclear bomb has been haunting the Japanese. So I would argue that doing the moral thing with respect to Iran completely changes the view, the perspective, of everyone in the Middle East about what the US is and what it can do, and it establishes a footprint for America that it so badly needs going forward from now.
Brett Stophens: Can I just make one more point to that? I remember in 2009, during the Green Revolution, as it was then called, the protests after the stolen election. Iranians were holding up signs in English. Uh. This was for our benefit, right? Yeah. There's a reason they were holding up signs in English. They were asking for help. And so our alliance with the real moderates of Iran is our alliance with its people. It's not all of its people, but it seems to be the overwhelming majority of its people, people who can actually muster the courage. And you have to ask yourself, think of the courage it takes to remove your hijab, to go out in the streets night after night, to risk getting beaten up, to have your house marked with paint because someone in the IRGC or in the Basij militia has noticed that you're involved in protest activity. Those are our people. And every Western government should say every single day we stand with them and we will find ways to stand with them, in part by undermining the 500,000 or so willful Iranians who are part of the regime, who aim to put their foot on the necks of the other 80 million. Right.
Tal Keinan: So I think we're at the time where we're going to open this up a little bit for discussion. But let me ask one more question. Um, we've talked about this in terms of how hopeful this could this could be. How this could result in a possible regime change. What is the best case scenario? I mean, could Iran get to a point if there's a regime change, could you see Iran in the next five years joining, say, the Abraham Accords, or is that ever possible in your mind? And then what is the worst case scenario? Because of course, we've already talked about, you know, some of these interventions which have not gone particularly well. And what do you think is actually what do you what do you actually think will be the outcome? And I'll direct that both of you.
Roya Hakakian: Okay.
Brett Stophens: So I go first.
Roya Hakakian: Yes.
Brett Stophens: You know, the best possible outcome is a gay pride parade in Tehran in 2025. And if that happens, all your other problems are solved. Abraham. It's all good, right? Um, look, what is the worst case scenario? I wrote about this in my book 12 years ago. Well, the worst, the worst case scenario is the regime wins. That is the worst. Uh, which is to say, the IRGC comes out. There are massacres in one city after another. Women are imprisoned and systematically raped in a way that has happened before in this, in this regime's history. And at the end of that process, within a year, the West comes begging and offers a nuclear deal which ensures that this regime has not only consolidated its power inside, but has essentially been given a green light to effectively acquire all the tools it needs to rapidly assemble a nuclear weapon, if not acquire a nuclear weapon itself. What's the second worst outcome? The second worst outcome is a kind of a Syria outcome in which this becomes I mean, people forget Iran has many ethnicities, uh, within it. It has the potential to be ethnically fractious between Kurds, Baluchis, Azeris, Arabs, not just, uh, not just Persians, and that a civil war that takes a half million or a million lives and creates even more a greater numbers of refugees. That could happen. Those are real things. Um, and you have to be thoughtless not to take them into account. You also have to be heartless to say that because bad things can happen, you shouldn't aim at optimal outcomes.
Hal Boyd: Excellent.
Roya Hakakian: Um, so I'll- whatever he said and I'll take it a step further, which is that Iran, Iranians need our support, but we need their victory just as much. And I'll tell you why. So yesterday, anybody who who had a New York Times at home saw that there was a huge two page ad that was a letter that Hillary Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, a whole bunch of leading women from around the world had signed inviting everybody to, um, it was a call to the UN to say that the UN should suspend Iran from the Women's Commission because Iran sits on the UN's Women's Commission. Uh, and my reaction was, when was the last time all of these women got together to issue a single statement? I don't know. There are historians in this room, you can remind me, but in my view, never. Right. So. And I'll talk about one other instance, which is, you know, the on on March 8th, 1979, when women in Iran took to the streets, there were French feminists marching alongside with them. Kate Millett, the famous American feminist, was there alongside the Iranian women marching, because at the time, the idea of feminism was that it's a global sisterhood, that if feminism was broken or the cause of women was broken in one country, it was broken everywhere else too, and we all had to come together for the cause, no matter where it took place.
Roya Hakakian: That idea has not been around for the last 40 plus years, and it has been the movement of women in Iran that has revived it. It's been the movement of women in Iran that has sparked so much excitement within the ranks of feminists. We also need Iranians to win because we need we need democracy to win in order for us to stay a healthy democracy here, the the, the more these thugs, the more these undemocratic, authoritarian systems win, the weaker we become. Now you can ask me, how can you draw a direct correlation? We can discuss that. But I think it's a the idea is that if if democracy keeps failing in other parts of the world, it, it will ultimately fail at home too. So I think we, you know, they need us to help them win, but we need them to succeed just as much in order to, you know, keep some of our own institutions and great ideas healthy. What Brett said about ethnic division in Iran, uh, is true, but I would have agreed with him far more seven weeks ago prior to this movement, than I would now. This movement has had a magical effect on bringing ethnicities that have never had a solidarity together in the last 20 plus years that the regime has had has made a concerted effort to divide ethnicities to, you know, pit them against each other.
Roya Hakakian: And in the past six weeks, the Kurds, uh, issue slogans in support of the Baluchis and the Baluchis, issue slogans in support of the Azeris and so on and so forth. So one of the reasons I feel like this is a revolution is the way in which it has galvanized and brought together the entire nation of all these disparate ethnicities that we thought would be fighting each other at any moment. Um, so I think these are all excellent signs, but they need support so that rather than keep experiencing failure, they can have some victories in order to gather momentum and move forward. And let's also remember that in the first seven, eight weeks that, uh, Russia invaded Ukraine, everybody that I know, with the exception of a few, was predicting that the Ukrainians would lose. And and with the proper help from, you know, the US and and the international community, they're winning. Um, it can happen in Iran too. And and who will come to power? I don't know, but, you know, we can't keep the movement of a nation forward just because we don't know what's going to come next.
Hal Boyd: Thank you, thank you.es here
Q&A: The Woman's Revolution in Iran with Roya Hakakian, Bret Stephens, and Hal Boyd
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Hal Boyd: Thank you, thank you. Now let's open the floor. We've got some questions already. Speak loudly. We have, uh, booms on boom mics that can pick you up if you speak loudly near the camera. So go ahead.
Brett Stophens: Speak softly, but carry a large boom.
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: Please introduce yourself.
Tal Keinan: My name is Tal Keinan. Roya, you ended with we don't know what will come next. Brett, you started with by framing leadership as the missing ingredient to a revolution. Can you collectively nominate 2 or 3 candidates for leader of that revolution now? Second part, assuming that that leadership needs to be cultivated in exile like it was in the last revolution, is there a role for U.S. policy here?
Brett Stophens: I don't think it's a question of who. I think it's a question of what? Um. Oh. I'm sorry. Should I repeat that?
Rabbi Shmully Hecht: Yes.
Brett Stophens: It's not a question. I don't think it's a question of who. I think it's a question of what? I mean, people can speculate whether it's, uh, some someone, you know, the Pahlavi family or someone we haven't heard of, uh, or a kind of an Iranian eminence living, uh, a Persian eminence living abroad. I don't think that's really for us to I mean, the United States. One of the mistakes the United States had in Iraq was to sort of say, oh, it's going to be Chalabi. Right. And so there was this kind of Chalabi buzz. And so it involved us in questions I think that were beyond our Ken and beyond our proper prerogatives. What we want is a government that Iranians agree is a legitimate and, and hopefully representative, uh, government. You know, I would also say this, you know, one of the problems with Iraq is that we try to impose a 21st century government on a 12th century society, not a great idea in Iran, I would say right now you have a 12th century government on maybe not a 21st century society, but a 20th century society. Right? So let's at least bring the let's create a government that, whether it's in the 21st century, the 20th century roughly reflects-
Roya Hakakian: Its own people.
Brett Stophens: Its own people.
Roya Hakakian: Um, I have some- there are some characters who have been very effective.
Brett Stophens: How about this one, by the way?
Roya Hakakian: No, no, no, no, he's joking. Um, really joking. There are some characters who've been very effective in, in creating the sense of fearlessness that, that, you know, people have gained, which has been really important because, you know, there is amazing footage. I mean, I know that the streaming services on Netflix are very attractive, but so is the footage that's coming out of Iran on social media. Um, and, and you see that there are people empty handed, empty handed, and they walk right up to somebody with, with a gun and, and full riot gear. It's incredible. It's stuff that I have never seen. So there have been figures who have been very influential in, in creating that sense of fearlessness. You know, one of them is Masih Alinejad. She, you know, she did a lot of campaigns to get women to dare to take off their headscarves. That has been very important. But I'm but I don't see those figures who can take it from here and move it forward. I think they've been important in, in creating, you know, what what we see now. But I think from this point forward we need a different or different sorts of figures. And and I was very pleasantly surprised by a recent statement that that the son of the former Shah gave saying that I only wish to be a transitional figure.
Roya Hakakian: I don't want to return and become a monarch. I don't even want to become a president or anything. But I wish to be a transitional figure and open it up, open for a referendum and and allow for an election for people to choose. I have a couple of favorites who, unfortunately, were plucked from their homes on the second or third day of the movement, the start of the movement, and are now languishing in prison. One of them is Hossein Ronaghi, who used to actually submit op eds to the Wall Street Journal. So the journal was publishing op eds by Ronaghi with his name for for about 2 or 3 years. And he is one of the first people that they picked up. So there are people there are, you know, some of them are in prison. And I think, you know, there the son of the former Shah, as a transitional figure is a wonderful thing. Um, so I wouldn't worry about leadership. I think there are enough characters there that once you know, this atmosphere of fear kind of breaks. And there is, you know, this movement has experiences a little bit more success. We will hear from them.
Toby Hecht: Please.
Max Gitter: Um, I is there a mic?
Roya Hakakian: I can give him this mic?
Brett Stophens: Why don't you take that mic?
Toby Hecht: Um, please introduce yourself.
Max Gitter: My name is Max Gitter. Um. I have a question for both of you. Uh, it seems to me that the absurdity of the American position has not been brought out in its fullest. Uh, Roya, you made the point that it would be very difficult for the United States to sit down with the Iranians while people are being killed on the streets. Well, that's a gross understatement because we are not sitting down with the Iranians. We are allowing the of all people in the world, the Russians, to sit down for us on behalf of the United States with the Iranians. Why isn't the absurdity, the utter absurdity of the American position not gaining more traction?
Roya Hakakian: Why?
Brett Stophens: Well, well, it's the point I made in the New York Times column back in March before, uh, before this revolution. Um, but, uh, maybe because Blinken is a journal reader. Uh. Look, I think there are two aspects. Um, one is the idea there was a kind of brain deadness in terms of the administration's position on Iran, which is that our entire policy is about getting a nuclear deal back. There wasn't any kind of.
Roya Hakakian: Yes.
Brett Stophens: Uh, plan B at, uh, at any point. Um, and so that's poor, poor planning by whoever's in charge of, of policy planning at, at the State Department. I don't even know who who, who.
Roya Hakakian: Malley.
Brett Stophens: Yeah, well, there you go, Bob Malley. Um, uh, the other aspect, and maybe I want to make this point sort of to the younger people here is that, um, American self-loathing has become a kind of bipartisan foreign policy impulse. And it comes to the question that you asked, I think very astutely, uh, earlier and that I get all the time, which is, you know, well, we were just the people who, uh, screw it up. Well, compared to who? I mean, compared to whom, are we screwing it up? We provided the Ukrainians with 18 of these Himars rocket systems, and they were able to turn the war around. Imagine if we provided another 18, for example, um, or UAVs. Um, we are at any given moment this, this country, for all of its manifest failures and all of our defects and all of the errors and sins of our past are doing more good around the world at any given moment than any other country on earth, period. You know, the one thing you never hear about George W Bush, say what you will about him, is he probably saved 25 million Africans from HIV AIDS. Don't even talk about that. I mean, any other country would be a century achievement, right? They would, you know, if, if if France had pulled that off, they'd be speaking about it for ages. But they don't do this.
Brett Stophens: And so we have to find our way back from the idea that everything we are doing is destined for failure. There are creative resources, even at the State Department, that can be deployed with leadership, imagination, um, and listening to people like Roya.
Roya Hakakian: So, so interestingly enough, I brought this up, some version of the point you just made, with Anthony Blinken because, you know, under George W Bush, uh, the State Department started an initiative by giving funding to the cause of cultivating democracy in Iran. And it started in 2004 and an organization that I helped co-found got the first grant, which was $1 million. And it was so much more than what we had ever wanted that we just didn't know what to do with $1 million. But anyway-.
Brett Stophens: Give it to me.
Roya Hakakian: But anyway, that was almost 20 years ago. And the funding came the- I'm no longer affiliated with it, but it keeps on going. Um, so I sat across from, from everybody at the State Department, and I said, you gave funding to the cause of promotion of democracy in Iran. Are you ready for good news? It worked. You know, people are on the streets. They want democracy. When you were giving this money out, did you have a second step for your plan because obviously, if you were giving the money and not thought in advance that it could actually succeed, then you would have a next step to follow through with at this moment. But they didn't because I think they always plan for failure. Um, and so I said, you know, there's good news. You didn't have to go into Iran. You thought for the longest time that it was a country that you were going to go to war with, it was going to be another Iraq and whatever. And it didn't turn into one of those things. You gave a few million dollars over the years to the cause of democracy promotion. It has worked. So, you know, let's make that investment pay by supporting them, by making sure that they succeed. And so that was our conversation, and I don't think they were ready for good news.
Hal Boyd: Yes. Go ahead and then we'll go.
Jody Hotchkiss: My name is Jody Hotchkiss. Um, could you talk a bit about the difference between 2009 and now? 2009 was crushed.
Roya Hakakian: Mhm.
Jody Hotchkiss: Um, you mentioned social media as being important. You mentioned um, like I think oil sanctions might have something to do with it, but why is there more hope today than there was then?
Roya Hakakian: So that's an excellent question, because I think even if the US had provided support in 2009, it wouldn't have been a successful movement. And the reason is that the people who were out on the streets were asking, where is my vote? They were in conversation with the government that they still believed in some legitimacy within the system that could deliver a just election to them. And it ultimately didn't. But nobody was calling the supreme leader a dictator. Nobody was, uh, obviously, calling the founder of the Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini, a dictator. But all of that and and all of that would get in the way of building a democracy. If you still think that within the the frame of a constitution that places a supreme leader above the law, you can have a democracy, then you really can't. You're not ready for democracy. This new generation understands that the Supreme leader is not supreme and he's a dictator and he's got to go. And thanks to social media, they also recognize that the guy, the supreme leader whom they thought was the pope is really Tony Soprano. Because it's been through the power of social media that they have they all the all the material, all the documents, all the video, all the photographs of so many of these leaders going to Europe and, you know, having lovers of on their arm without, by the way, unveiled in, you know, in Thailand and other parts of the world. The people, especially the conservatives, recognize that they don't want to be represented by this class of people. And I think if this if social media has had a major effect, it's been to to provide this evidence of the regime's corruption.
Brett Stophens: You know, there's there's another aspect to that, which is that, you know, it's not an accident that the Soviet Union collapsed a little more than 40 years after the end of World War II. And that's because the victory in the Second World War was the sustaining myth and that provided a kind of foundational legitimacy for Soviet power in post-war Europe. So all of the leaders, not just Stalin and Malenkov, but then obviously Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov and Chernenko. For them, their idea of Soviet power was linked to this astounding moment in history when the Red banner flew over the Reichstag in May of 1945. Right. Um, Gorbachev, no accident comrade, was the first leader for whom World War II was not the formative memory. Here you have a kind of an aging out of the regime, because for a diminishing number of Iranian leaders, was the revolution of 1979 their formative political experience? And for many of them, the formative political experiences were the brutality and corruption and self-dealing that typified the regime after 1979. So it's been de-linked from that moment, which is why dictatorships tend to suddenly sort of collapse at certain moments, usually when the founding generation, or at least the children of the founding generation, have to hand the baton just because they're dying out to another generation. And that's the difference between 2009 and 2022. These 13 years are significant. The fact that the Supreme Leader is now gravely ill is another reason why there is more hope now than there was in '09.
Hal Boyd: Okay, we've got time for one more.
Jody Hotchkiss: I just want to finish the. Isn't it a bit also of a perfect storm, meaning the economy being as dire as it is being part of this? Or no?
Roya Hakakian: Um, we have had economic uprisings and protests, but as far as I followed, nothing about the economy has reflected itself within the slogans and the protests. It's all death to the dictator. And by the way, things much worse than death to the dictator that I can't repeat because there is so much obscenity at the moment that there, you know, I think they're they're just trying to break the sanctity of the office of the Supreme Leader by uttering these obscenities. But yes, I mean, the there is nothing other than death to the dictator, woman, life, liberty and other slogans that really have been uniting the entire country. Obviously, obviously, the economic reasons are there, but it isn't what the protesters are actually articulating. Whereas we have had economic protests, the water shortages and, you know, subsidies got slashed and people came to the streets to protest, but not this time. And that's why I think this is, in every way, this is reflecting a true democratic shift in a subterranean way within the Iranian population that I have never seen.
Brett Stophens: Yeah. I mean, one of the wisest statements attributed to Khomeini was we didn't have a revolution to cut the price of watermelons. Um, which is a really astute comment. Revolutions don't happen because people are poor. Actually, typically they rarely happen. Revolutions happen on account of a moment of moral indignation that crystallizes why people might be willing to risk their lives to overthrow a regime that humiliates them.
Roya Hakakian: Right. Exactly, yes.
Hal Boyd: Let's go with you for the last question.
Valerie Pavilonis: Sounds good. Hi, I'm Valerie Pavilonis. Um, so I heard earlier, Roya said that the US government tends to be intellectually delayed when it comes to Iran and the region. And I was wondering, so we'll talk mostly about the government, but I was curious to know, um, is there anything that the Western media gets wrong about, like these protests in particular?
Roya Hakakian: You're tricky because you know what I think about this? Okay, well, yeah, they get everything wrong. I mean, with the exception of Brett, but the important point to be made is this. And I hate to be an alarmist, I never am. I'm the biggest optimist there is. I mean, I go to Washington to meet with people believing that they're going to do everything that I'm asking them. Um, and so but here's the alarmist, uh, idea that the reason we as Americans keep repeating certain ideas about what the Iranian regime is made of and all that. It, you know, like they're divided between hardliners and reformists and, you know, the, uh, if we only lift the sanctions, the nation will be happy and there will be no problems, that it's only the American sanctions that has made people brought people to the streets, not the regime. Uh, these are narratives that Tehran has successfully peddled within the American public sphere. And they made their way to the American media and then, you know, through CNN and everyone else, to the rest of us. So we are at a disadvantage because we as Americans have 1001 other things that we are thinking about.
Roya Hakakian: We are thinking about, you know, the environment, we're thinking about education, we're thinking about, you know, culture. We're thinking about so many things. The Iranian regime has only thought about one thing from from day one, survival. And so we are at a disadvantage because they have been planning for survival in ways that we could never think of. And therefore they have created a footprint that, you know, most people are- nearly no one that I know is aware of. For instance, here's something- I know we've run out of time, but this is this is important. Um, here's something incredibly absurd that some of you are too young to remember. But the students who took over the American embassy in Tehran in 1979 had a spokesperson. It was a woman named Mary. And Mary later on, Mary, who was a staunch anti-American, you know, but spoke excellent English because she had gone to school in Pennsylvania, was the face of anti-Americanism. Um, and then she became a vice president. She rose to power. She still is in power in Iran. Guess where her son lives.
Brett Stophens: Maryland.
Roya Hakakian: Beverly Hills. And she has a- he has a mansion. So I don't have a problem with people who turn away from the regime coming and living among us. You know, it's not his fault that his mother was, you know, crawled, you know, scaled the walls of the American embassy. But it's the fact that they're not repentant and they're here. It's the fact that you know, nothing about their fundamental belief about the United States has changed and that they are here. And so what I'm trying to say is that I think part of what I you know, Brett said, Roya can be a leader. I go to every place that I go, making sure that everyone hears me say first that I'm here as an American, as a concerned American, that I'm speaking to you because I am worried about what will happen if this regime stays in power because they have created a footprint in America. They are here. They have been controlling, uh, not controlling, but they have been peddling their own narrative within our media. And we have bought them wholesale. And I think we should do everything in our power to help the demonstrators, in part because this footprint ought not to exist because it's dangerous.
Brett Stophens: Just very briefly, uh, if I can speak for parts of the American media. Americans have a problem in that we mirror image societies that are very unlike our own. So we assume that if we care about economic issues, that everywhere in the world people must care about economic issues, and people must aspire to ever higher levels of prosperity or greater GDP growth. One of the advantages of I'm saying this quite happily, that of going to the University of Chicago as opposed to Yale. One advantage is an actual education. But had to get there.
Audience: Here here.
Brett Stophens: But the second advantage is at least a serious background in political philosophy, which allows you to understand that there are possibilities for the way in which people conceive of the good, which are radically unlike our own. And I actually think that, uh, studying Plato, Aristotle, the Greeks, opens your horizons to the possibility of a regime like Iran that Iran's that, by its own conception, is dedicated to a set of principles and a concept of virtue that is so different from ours. And so we're constantly projecting onto Iranian leaders and the Iranian people sets of desires, which are not necessarily similar to ours. The other problem that the media has is that we look for evil in almost every corner, except where it stares us in the face. And so it has been with this Iranian regime. All of a sudden, all these reports like, oh, this regime is terrible, you know, no kidding. Right. Uh, you know, I had a there was a person in Iran in 2009 who was busy writing these articles like, oh, Iran is this wonderful modernizing place. And then, of course, the election was stolen and Neda was killed in the streets. And he was like, oh, how could this be happening?
Roya Hakakian: I know who that is, but we'll leave it out.
Brett Stophens: Modernizing a country. Same with Putin. I'm very proud that my first anti-Putin editorial was December 30th, 1999. I have an unbroken record of saying that this guy was terrible, but we refuse to look at it. We refuse to look at it because maybe we thought it would be clever to look elsewhere. Actually, the clever thing is to to look at these regimes and understand what they are and to judge them accordingly and say so in clarion, ringing tones.
Roya Hakakian: But the Iranian anti-imperialism also hasn't helped. All the liberal media who want to embrace the anti-imperialism of, you know, the third world countries so.