 Tony, you recently published a book about the U.S.-Iran Strategic Competition. What are the hottest spots in the chess match right now between the U.S. and Iranian interests? Well, the hottest ones are the ones you would expect. First, there's the real power struggle for the Gulf, which will be the dominant power, Iran or its Arab neighbors. We have very close ties to the southern Gulf states. And that is critical to our strategic interests, because while we are not a direct importer of large amounts of oil from the Gulf, we pay world prices. And if the prices go up because of a problem in the Gulf, which is critical in supplying Asia and Europe, we pay them in our economy. Moreover, we do import oil indirectly because we get many manufactured goods from Asia, and they use Gulf oil. So virtually every job, every aspect of our economy is dependent to some extent on the constant flow of oil exports through the Gulf. Iraq is a key area of competition. We left it as a result of the war without any real capability to defend itself. Iran has a major interest inside Iraq. It has a presence that's both military and civil. We want Iraq to contain Iran. We want it to be a friendly state both to us and its Arab neighbors. And that's a real competition because it doesn't just involve the Gulf. If Iran has influence over Iraq, it also has a direct path to Syria and to Lebanon. And that threatens other allies like Jordan and Israel. And then finally we have the potential for a nuclear and a missile arms race. In fact, we already have one because Israel began to react long before Iran really had even the potential to have a nuclear weapon. That could threaten a kind of war no one has ever seen in the Middle East before. And finding ways to prevent that from happening is absolutely critical, not only to us but all of our friends and allies in the region. There's a growing drumbeat in both Israel and the United States about Iran's nuclear program and that we might have six months or a year before we need to really do anything or before Iran gets to the point of no return. How concerned should we be about the nuclear program in Iran? We should be very concerned. Again, you already have Israel having to target Iran. You have in Israel, which years ago extended the range of its missiles so it could hit virtually any target inside Iran. There is the risk that Israel might preventively attack Iran and trigger a process of unrest in the Middle East that could affect every interest we have in the area. And then there's the incredible tragedy of a potential nuclear conflict. What we need to be careful about is saying that somehow we or anyone else can simply go in and stop Iran. We have to be, I think, on the outside of the U.S. intelligence community and military planning, a little modest. We don't know the details of the threat that the intelligence community does. We don't know the targeting capability of U.S. or, for that matter, Israeli forces. We can't make those kind of damage assessments. And in spite of, shall we say, far too much speculation from journalists and think tanks, it's very hard to know how difficult it is to really have a major impact on Iran. But I think there's a consensus that we might be able to slow them down by perhaps as much as two to three years, but we might also provoke them into a national effort which, over time, could be far more threatening and far more serious. So whether the military option is better than containment or sanctions, in an election year, it's very easy to be dramatic and to call for dramatic action. But in terms of the interests of our nation, of our Arab friends in the region, of Israel and indeed everyone around Iran, we need to be cautious. Well, along those lines, you know, we've tried sanctions, we've tried diplomatic engagement. The U.S. has tried many different approaches to Iran. What should we be doing to manage Iran that we're not doing already? I think one of the great problems we have had from the start is that the sanctions have been gradually tightened. We never made the decision to really act as decisively as we might. And as a result, Iran has learned to react. But that's done. We can't alter it. What we are doing is to bring as many more pressures to bear from our European allies as possible. We just try to persuade China and Russia that this really is a critical area where we need security. But sanctions may fail and military options may not be adequate. So what we have to have is the capability to strengthen our allies and friends in this region with things like missile defense, with air defense, to show that the United States will react decisively to any kind of Iranian provocation, not simply the threat of nuclear weapons, but the use of things like asymmetric forces in the Gulf, ships in similar systems, knowing that it may someday have that nuclear deterrent in the background. And here Secretary Clinton has talked about extended deterrence, a threat of U.S. offensive action against any Iranian use of nuclear weapons that would be very similar to the kinds of guarantees that we offered Europe during the Cold War. The difference today is with precision conventional strike, you can do immense damage to the military structure and the regime of a country without the kind of nuclear weapons that attack its population. These are not good options compared to reaching an agreement that would give Iran a more stable position in the Gulf. They're not a solution to arms control. But if these are the options we have to use, these are the options we must use. Tony Courtsman, thanks very much for your time. Thank you.