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Mr. Pahlavi is so focused on the future of Iran that he prefers not to spend time on the past. Even so, when I ask what might be different today if the Iranian revolution had never taken place, he points to a chain of events that seem even worse with hindsight than they did at the time: "The Russians probably would not have invaded Afghanistan the way they did, and Saddam Hussein would not have attacked Iran. . . . From Sudan to everywhere else you can think of, there have been acts of terrorism, attacks on apartments in Khobar, the blowing up of Marine barracks in Beirut. It's been all over the place. If you look at the world the way it was before this regime took over, we didn't have any of these problems."

And yet a solution to all of this is percolating up today, Mr. Pahlavi says, and it's coming from the Iranian people. In fact, he insists, in dealing with a belligerent Tehran, "there is only one thing that the outside world can do, and that is to tell the regime: 'We are serious about supporting the people who are inside Iran who are against you.' That is the only thing that will make Mr. Khamenei [Iran's supreme leader] and everybody stand down. Because nothing else ruffles them. The only thing they are really scared of are the people themselves."

Peaceful revolutions from within have worked before, so why, he asks, isn't the West investing in the Iranian people -- "the same way they supported so many movements in Eastern Europe that ultimately brought down communist governments that were under Moscow's umbrella?" Dissidents are everywhere, in the universities, workplaces, the conventional armed forces, he adds: "There are thousands of cells . . . each trying to bring as much pressure as they can -- but with very limited resources. Imagine the cumulative weight of all these resistance groups in a civil disobedience act -- nonviolent, we don't believe in violent change -- that could begin sustained pressure to the point of paralyzing the system until it would collapse."
Moral leverage.....