ayatollah khamenei on some points. but there have been influential religious leaders such as one under house arrest for several years who has also openly supported the protests and has objected to the way the elections have been done. host: the next question comes from atlanta on our republican line. caller: good morning, ladies. to start off i would like to let you know that i'm a kosher christian. my question is -- i'm hoping that these protesters are actually individuals who understand that ahmadinejad is twisting what the koran actually stands for. i do not believe that the koran once the death of israel, the other side of abraham's child. i'm from atlanta, in a microcosm of the world. many people here -- we go to a market and seek people from all around the world and get along quite perfectly choosing our produce. what i am hoping and praying is that these protesters are standing up, not embarrassing themselves by bloomberg jewish people for everything which is seems some in america -- but not blaming jewish peopl

ayatollah khamenei, but the fact of what he created in 199 goes against the ten ents and principles of shiite islam. the clerics believe it is not the responsibility of the clergy to govern. they have been saying that from day one. and some of them in fact after saying such things have been put under house arrest. we have the case of an ayatollah who was tortured in prison. i have accept an open letter and doing everything to appeal to the international committee to look into his case. this is a regime that doesn't even pity a member of their own, let alone anyone else. this has become a define moment for clerics both in the interests of the nation, but also in the interests of the faith and the clerical establishment, to show its complete demarcation from the system. i think we can anticipation that, too. >> over here? >> my understanding is that there is a fair amount of differences between iranians in the country side and those in the cities. what portion of the population live in the cities and what percent of the protestors represent the total people of iran? >> to what extent to

his guess, fairly inform, was that the ayatollah khamenei wanted a big victory from -- for ahmadinejad. the word went out. they all became overly successful, getting into the 60's, when they probably needed an election of 57%, not 62%. they overplayed their hand. all of the thousands of people who are responsible, and the boat got higher than the regime expected. -- vote got higher than the regime expected. it strain plausibility. you might not have had people in the streets were not for a small percentage. guest: 1972, nixon decided to manipulate that election a little bit. guest: i would not want to comment on that. guest: i am saying that the over the top behavior is something that the government wanted to do and it has come back at them. host: basically, according to this, "we cannot fight their battles for them nor, as conservative hawks fantasize, trigger regime change." saying that the president is doing what needs to. guest: we are all guessing. not just republicans and the old guard feria -- old guard. . the secretary of state has been urging all week that the president change