Once again, there are different Irans that we speak to. The aspiration of some people in Iran is to spread the Islamic revolution, first throughout the Shiite majority areas in Iraq and Lebanon and then perhaps in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. The aspirations of others may be a very kind of secular, political realist view of what Iran needs in order to defend its interests in the region. Then there are those who think that change has to first and foremost come from within by transforming the economy and that long-term Iranian-exercised projection of power ultimately depends on internal reform.
So I think these various actors exist, but it is a reality that Iran is a regional power, and any realistic foreign policy has to accommodate that. At the same time, it has to interject principle into the realist equation and understand that long-term stability, whether for Iran or the wider Middle East, will depend on moving beyond authoritarian power structures that have a vested interest in inciting hatred and conflict as a means of galvanizing absolute power.