I think that the big issue people haven't talked about for the Iranians - and, obviously, for the Americans - is Iraq. Iran can be a tremendous help to the United States in Iraq. I don't think the Iranians have a particular preference for John McCain or Barack Obam - for them, it's the candidate who is willing to recognize that they are an important country that can have a serious effect on Middle East peace.

There's a lack of knowledge about Iran and the Iranian people.

If you are an [American] politician it's very hard to imagine. "Now we are going to treat these guys as our equals? That's ridiculous. What have they ever done to deserve that?"

He had undoubtedly not availed himself of the ministry archives, archives that might have revealed to him that Iranian diplomats in Paris, from this, his own Foreign Ministry, had taken it upon themselves to issue Iranian passports to Jews escaping the very Holocaust they were aware of, but that he now denied.

The thing about Iran is there are many political factions and it's not quite the dictatorial, authoritarian state with one person always making every single decision.

It's a tradition in Islamic society to issue pardons at the end of Ramadan.

I think there is an American attitude that is very hard to break which is "We're great. Who wouldn't want to be like us? Who wouldn't want to have the benefits of our largesse, handing out aid and having American companies based in their countries?" and "our culture is great," and all that. It's hard for us to imagine ourselves as not being the greatest country on earth.