Iran has now taken its rightful place at the center of our debate on the war. Hardly a day goes by without new revelations about Iran’s penetration of Iraq either by supplying weapons, money, guidance, and intelligence to both Sunni and Shiite terrorists, or, in some cases, sending soldiers from the Quds Force--an elite unit within Iran’s Revolutionary Guard--to confront American and Iraqi forces. And in the background we hear the leitmotif of the Iranian nuclear program, which continues apace despite international sanctions and negotiations.

An intensified debate has resulted: Is our current strategy adequate? Should we be more vigorous in confronting the Islamic Republic or should we--as under secretary of state for political affairs R. Nicholas Burns has recently argued--continue to use diplomacy as the primary component of our Iran policy? If we decide to take more active measures, what should they be?

In his latest book, The Iranian Time Bomb: The Mullah Zealots' Quest for Destruction (St. Martin’s Press, September 2007), AEI Freedom Scholar Michael A. Ledeen reviews the history of Iran’s long-standing war against the West and discusses American policy toward Iran from the fall of the shah to the present. He analyzes the Iranian regime’s treatment of its own citizens, presents a detailed assessment of the mullahs’ vision of the future, and proposes an effective strategy for thwarting their global ambitions.

Former CIA director R. James Woolsey and Cliff May of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, will join Michael A. Ledeen in discussing these and other questions upon which so much of America’s future depends.