Actually, forget that deal – I don’t really expect you to answer it.

How would I deal with “atomic ayatollahs?”

1. Support moderate politicians inside Iran, ensuring that they are the primary interlocuters with US and EU diplomats and giving them more leverage over externally provided resources (primarily trade and aid).
2. Support civil society inside Iran, particularly student movements, trade unions and womens’ groups, creating more internal pressure for democratic change.
3. Strengthen links with countries immediately surrounding Iran, particularly funding improvements in governance but also ensuring tighter border control and customs regimes to secure the Iranian border. (This of course is pretty much impossible given our standing in both Iraq and Afghanistan.)
4. Get agreement from the diplomatic backsliders on the Security Council that, while they won’t actively oppose any diplomatic or economic initiative, they will passively accept them in return for guarantees regarding trade and political influence.
5. Work hard to diminish the influence of Iranian proxies in Lebanon and Iraq, again by supporting moderate polticians and civil society, but also by more aggressively pursuing offenders through neutral third-party institutions (for example, by expanding and giving more teeth to the UN investigations into the assassinations in Lebanon).
6. Stop fixating on Ahmenijad, a demagogue whose political base of support appears to have rapidly dwindled and who is not the real power in Iran.

So that’s how I’d start. I’m fully aware of what a tall order some of the points above will be, but I don’t labour under the delusion that foreign policy is ever going to be easy. I’d love to hear your ideas, but I’m guessing that they mainly involve guns, bombs and really big airplanes that go “whoosh”.