Issue date: 2/15/08 Section: News

But relations between the two countries will not improve until the U.S. pursues a new approach to negotiation and diplomacy, he said.

"There is an extraordinarily backward and disappointing orientation in Washington that views foreign policy making as issuing a list of demands, and if they're not satisfied to the letter, then we go to the war option," he said. "We've fallen into the trap of thinking that's what diplomacy is, but it's not what it has been historically or what it should be, in my mind."

Kinzer said the idea that Iran is a threat to the U.S. comes from the way the country is presented on television news, which focuses on Islamic fundamentalism and the hostage crisis of the early 1980s.

Many Iranians are not Islamic extremists and look up to the many of the freedoms enjoyed in the United States, he said.

But a U.S. military attack on the country would change that, he said.

"Iran is the only country in the Middle East where the majority of the population is pro-American," he said. "That would end in the blink of an eye with a bombing campaign."

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