debate with opponents. There are at least three cattle prods that serve as serious barriers to improved U.S.-Iranian relations. I would hesitate to put them in order of importance, but all are real. The first is the Iranian diaspora -- the people who bailed out of the country when Shah Reza Pahlavi was ousted by the Ayatollah Khomeini and his crowd in 1979. They haven't given up on returning to power in Iran if circumstances become propitious. Many of them live in the United States, including a cluster in Los Angeles. Americans with eclectic tastes in television recently had a look at them in a TV series titled "Shahs of Sunset." The propitious circumstances that they believe might return them to power would include the realization of the desire of certain Americans, including some military and civilian authorities, for regime change in Tehran. As time goes by, Iranians in the diaspora increasingly resemble the Romanoffs of Persia. They do, however, remain hopeful and active, funded in part by the CIA. A second party that works avidly to keep the United States from returning to a fruitful relationship with Iran is Israel. One of Israel's major goals is to distract the United States so as to avoid U.S. pressure to resolve its suppurating problem with the Palestinians. (That problem remains at the core of America's problems with Muslim nations.) Israel was delighted to see the United States bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan. It revels in U.S. hand-wringing over the violence