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Iran is not in any sort of routine groupings. It's not an Arab country. It's not part of the Indian subcontinent. So it's in a neighborhood where it has some unique characteristics. We are a country which embraced Islam, learned Arabic, but didn't change its language or its culture... That's what keeps us unique.

For hundreds of years Iranians have been migrating to many parts of the world. They took Islamic culture to other parts of the world and established it there.

I sometimes try to think of my life as an Iranian, and it is hard to imagine. I am grateful for the life I have had in America and all the amazing opportunities and experiences it has given me. But there is a spirit in Iranians I can see that is unbounded by geography.

Inside Iran, people are actually quite well-educated about America. There are things they don't understand, particularly in the government, but the people, by and large, know the American sensibility quite well, and the reverse is not true.

For the Americans, it is not attractive to hear what the similarities are between them and the Iranian people. It is attractive to hear how different the Iranians are.

The stories from Iran's present and past are reminders that freedom, democracy and human rights, or fundamentalism, fascism and terrorism are not geographically and culturally determined, but universal.

It's very difficult to talk about religion in Iran because religion has gotten so mixed up with politics.

There is a Western world. There is America. There is Great Britain and Germany and France and Russia and China and other nations. I doubt that there is one country amongst those I mentioned which has a desire to see Iran, with its fundamentalist, Islamic, extremist government, possessing nuclear weapons.