The Islamic Republic of Iran often is in the news, and usually for all the wrong reasons. Tehran is suspected of developing nuclear weapons, though U.S. intelligence agencies see no evidence of an active nuclear weapons program. Iran also has a deteriorating human rights record.
One of the Obama administration talking points is that it has weakened and isolated the Iranian regime. Aside from the economic beating Iran has taken, there really isn’t any evidence that has come about.
During the chaotic days of Iran's Islamic revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the country's emerging "supreme leader," assured Iranians that their supposed oppressor, the United States, would not be able to put the hated shah back on his throne. "America can't do a damn thing against us," he inveighed, a winning line that became the uprising's unofficial slogan. It's a catchphrase Iran has deployed time and again since, most recently in a taunting billboard along the Iran-Iraq border and in a banner hung in front of a captured American drone (though hilariously, in the latter case, the hapless banner-makers mistranslated the phrase as "America Can Do No Wrong").
Seyed Hossein Mousavian, a former Iranian nuclear negotiator, said in a television interview aired recently in the Islamic Republic that the country "is in full compliance" with the International Atomic Energy Agency nuclear-safeguards agreement, and that there is "no evidence" the regime is diverting nuclear material for military purposes.
The final debate between President Obama and Gov. Romney won't likely change the course of the election with barely more than a week to go, but one sticking point in the debate -- U.S. policy toward Iran -- could well change hopes for peace in the world.