“The entirety of this discourse was such that it encouraged the kind of ascendancy for a man like Ayatollah Khomeini.”

I went to the front, but I never participated in the war itself.

Whatever Iranian people have bought, they have bought in the black market.

Today, as a result of a miraculous set of circumstances,

Would Americans accept if we decided to come here and decide who your rulers should be? So why do you expect us Iranians to accept the idea that the United States shall come in there and decide who shall govern us?

When I talk about secularism, I’m talking about theories today. To give you for example, one example: Those who consider themselves followers of Mosaddeq today are adamantly against federalism.

Of course, everyone knows that I’m also opposed to the Iranian regime and I have said that we must change the regime. But it is us, the Iranians, that must change the regime.

When I’m speaking, I’m speaking only for myself. At the same time, I know that these ideas have wide support among the Iranian population.

And amongst the lower strata in Iranian society, we are witnessing an increasing rise of the expectation and it’s clear that the regime is incapable of satisfying these demands.

I am against revolution and am proud of it. Democracy cannot be created through revolutions.

It is like living with your wife, with whom you are in love and you are intensely involved in, but you also have tensions. And their position is that they want to deny that these tensions exist.

There is more disgruntlement, but because there is no media, the voice of this opposition is not heard outside Iran.

We believe in equal rights for all people in all nations. If Israel, the United States, Russia, Pakistan, other countries, China, have the right to have a nuclear program and nuclear bomb, Iran, too, must have that same right.

The issue has two dimensions. One is the legal dimension and the other one is the issue at the realpolitik. [In the] legal realm.

When women push their headscarf back an inch or two, this is interpreted to be a political act.

Let me begin by saying not only you can’t have democracy with $75 million. You can’t even have it with $750 billion.

But I know one thing for sure: That we, the Iranian people, are much more in line of danger than the West.

I have and I will always work to promote a civil public discourse.

It misdirects crucial resources and undercuts the trust needed between law enforcement and the communities they serve. It has no place in our national discourse, and no place in our nation’s police departments.

All discourses but my own afflict me; they seem harsh, impertinent, and irksome

As a source of innovation, an engine of our economy, and a forum for our political discourse.

If you look at the discourse before the revolution, whether it is the left communist, whether it is the right secularist.

A discourse that begins at a book club in a living room, but then spreads. That is meaningful to me.

There are very few people who have committed more to the pro-life discourse than Rob has. He’s spent time in jail. He has really lived it.

There can be no religious discourse which is in conflict with its environment and with the world and therefore, we Muslims need to modify this religious discourse. .