Our support for the Shah, the CIA coup in 1953 - has become infused into the Iranian political discourse. The regime that came to power in 1979 during the Iranian revolution actually defined itself as anti-American, and that's now a critical ingredient in the Iranian domestic political debate. That really is the source of our problems - the regime in Tehran continues to see itself as opposing the US. In their eyes, everything the US does is directed at them in a very malevolent way, and therefore they have to fight back against it.

Once Iran gets nuclear weapons, they may believe that they are no longer vulnerable to either.

The real concern is that Iran would do what Pakistan did. Pakistan wanted nuclear weapons, like Iran, purely for defensive reasons - to defend itself against India. The problem was that once Pakistan acquired the weapons, it allowed the country to be more aggressive. So they stepped up their support for the Kashmiri terrorists, and it led very quickly to the Kargil crisis in 2000, which almost sparked a nuclear war between India and Pakistan.

The Europeans are starting to show that they're finally serious about the Iranian nuclear program, and they appear to be willing to use sticks against Iran. So I think it is imperative that the United States sit down with the Europeans and say, "Let's make this very clear to the Iranians. Either they can give up their nuclear program and their support for terrorism, in which case we'll given them all kinds of benefits. Otherwise, we'll join in comprehensive, multilateral sanctions that will cripple their very fragile economy."

The Iranians are very skilled terrorist, and we'd have to expect that they'd hit at us as hard as they could. Especially in Iraq, where they have a great deal of power and influence.

The basic problem with the Non-Proliferation Treaty is there's no teeth in it, no penalties for countries that don't comply. Worse, as you say, the very naïve structure of the NPT has actually made it helpful for countries who want to acquire nuclear weapons. Iraq, North Korea, Iran, all used the NPT to build up their nuclear programs.

The US has just consistently tried to ignore Iran. And this is ironic because the Iranians believe that the United States is as obsessed about them as they are about us.