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I'm Charles Moore, the authorised biographer of Margaret Thatcher, former editor and columnist of The Telegraph,

and this is my guest edit of the Today programme.

I think perhaps I've been asked to be on to say a whole load of things which are sometimes

difficult to say on the BBC, and I've tried to follow that policy of opening up the argument.

One of the receive wisdoms that is current in reporting is the idea that it's very important

to have a deal with Iran, to keep the deal with Iran, and I think it's very underreported

what's going on in Iran and how people are being repressed and how the regime is clinging on.

The U.S. has taken a much stronger line on this than Britain and other European powers,

and we have Brownhook, the senior policy advisor to the Secretary of State, on Iran, talking to Nick Robinson.

The death toll continues to rise in Iran. The most recent report from Reuters has it at 1,500 people who have been murdered by the regime.

We have well north of 8,000 people who have been arrested, and you have thousands that were

injured in the crackdown.

Protesters across the country are tired of this corrupt religious mafia.

They're tired of their lack of opportunity and a struggling economy, the diplomatic isolation.

Now, there's no question that these protests are happening, that they're happening on a big scale.

But isn't the US administration guilty

of the same sort of wishful thinking that maybe we've seen from your critics in the past,

always believing that Iran is about to go your way? It used to be that the Europeans would

say, look, the moderates are about to take over. Now you talk as if the people on the streets

could take over. There's no sign at all, though, is there that the Ayatollahs are about to

release their grip on power? I don't think anybody has a crystal ball when it comes to Iran.

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