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Tavis: Azadeh Moaveni is a well-traveled journalist who's covered Iran and the Middle East for "Time" magazine and the "L.A. Times." She's just out with a new book, rather timely, about her life and career, called 'Lipstick Jihad: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America and American in Iran." Azadeh, nice to have you on the program.

Azadeh Moaveni: Thank you.

Tavis: You can't have a conversation about a book called 'Lipstick Jihad' without making the very first question, 'Where did that title come from?'

Moaveni: Well, the lipstick part of it is a reference to how Iranian young people, and especially young women, started changing the way that they lived and the way that they comported themselves, and the way that they dressed, after 1997. There was a real sort of youth movement, very rebellious one, that started changing Iran from the inside. And lipstick and color and the way that young women wore the veil was a big part of that. Jihad, besides meaning holy war, also means struggle, and it can be a personal struggle, with yourself or with society. So it sort of brought that--those 2 things together.

Tavis: I'm gonna talk about those young people specifically in a little bit here, because it seems to me that they have a lot to say. I don't know if they actually get a chance to say it, but there may be a dichotomy between what we're hearing from the adults and what the young folk are saying in the region. I want to talk about those young people specifically in just a moment.

But first, though, speaking of young people, when I was much younger--and certainly for those who are older than I am watching this program--when we think of Iran, so many of us think of you-know-what: the Iranian hostage crisis. I don't know that what we think of Iran today drifts too far from that particular moment in American history. I raise that because I'm curious as to what your thoughts are about the biggest misconception that Americans have today about Iran, given the prism through which so many of us still look.

Moaveni: Well, I would say it actually goes right back to the heart of that, that in the American consciousness Iran is the country that conducted the hostage-taking. There is still a perception that Iranians are very anti-American, that they're religious fanatics, that they're fundamentalists, that the whole country is still stuck in that anti-American sort of mood and moment, which is not at all the case, because 25 years have passed, people are very secular today, by and large the middle class, and in particular their attitudes toward America have really changed, too. There is a fondness and a pro-American sentiment that is very unique in the Middle East, where most other countries that are Arab, you know, there's a great deal of anger against U.S. Policy, and in Iran you just have this pocket where people still have goodwill, still are willing to give America the benefit of the doubt.

Tavis: I see. You're a reporter, you've covered this story for Time magazine and other publications, as I mentioned a moment ago. So let me ask you a real fundamental question, for those persons who are listening and watching who are not foreign policy experts-- yours truly included, not an expert but trying to follow it. Given what you've just said about the attitudes that so many Iranians--certainly young Iranians, young people--have today about the U.S., not that anti-American sentiment that we're told to believe that so many of them have, why then do we hear so much anti-Iranian sentiment coming from this Bush White House? From, indeed, the United Nations? For a person who doesn't understand it, doesn't follow it, why are we hearing so much of that and how do you juxtapose what we're hearing against what you're saying about how they feel?

Moaveni: Well, if we're gonna talk about the Bush administration and other U.S. administrations, I think that there has never been a fundamental acknowledgement about the 1979 revolution. I think the U.S. and successive presidents have just failed to get over this hang-up, that this revolution happened, this regime is here to stay, it's repressive, it's authoritarian. It's not the kind of regime you want, and not the kind of regime that Iranians want, but it's not going anywhere. And so isolation is sort of a way, a policy to retreat to when you haven't figured out or the American administration hasn't figured out how it wants to deal with Iran, given that this is the state of the reality on the ground. Now, with the U.N. and with Europe, I think the question goes back to the nuclear issue, which is of great concern when it comes to proliferation. How are we gonna deal with a Middle East where countries like Iran are looking for influence, are anxious militarily, and are looking for a possibility or a way to have more influence and buy it through nuclear weapons. And that's something that, you know, is something that will produce anxiety.

Tavis: Talk to me, then, back to what I promised I wanted to get back to, these young people-- talk to me, then, about what young folk inside of Iran are saying or feel about this debate about Iran and its nuclear weapon capacity.

Moaveni: Young people are really split down the middle. A lot of them are very nationalistic. They want to have Iran have influence in the region, to be a real player. You know, they think of it as 'Israel has a bomb, Pakistan has a bomb. Are we any less? Why can't we extend our influence and have that?' So you have nationalist young people, definitely. On the other hand you have young people who are very politically savvy and they're cynical, too. They don't want to see this regime entrenched because they're critics of it and they know that having nuclear weapons will do that, and they're also worried, 'Do we want a Chernobyl?' This regime doesn't really have great efficiency in a lot of, you know, sort of urban issues like traffic and safety. So there is an ambivalence, and you sort of see the split when it comes to the nuclear issue.

Tavis: Because of this dichotomy that you've had to navigate of being an American in Iran and Iranian in America--I'll get to more of the book in just a second--talk to me about whether or not, given your unique position and prism, you think that there's anything that Iran can, in fact, do, even as we speak, to change the image of it that so many Americans again still hold?

Moaveni: Well, the first thing that the Iranian regime could do is to realize that it has a public image problem. There's a lot of things that are said in--

Tavis: You think it doesn't understand that?

Moaveni: I don't think it does. Because if it does--

Tavis: How could it not?

Moaveni: You and I would think that, but on the other hand, you have clerics who go on Friday and give sermons and say hateful things. And it's part of this revolutionary ideology. It's become habit. We can say things and assume that the world knew that they're for domestic consumption, that 'Death to America' is something we've chanted since the revolution and that's a separate thing from foreign policy. But when you have a theocracy, what's said at Friday prayer is viewed as policy. And I don't think that that's really absorbed by the regime. They need to realize that what they say is listened to, that it's considered as reflecting potential policies or parts of the regime, and they have to be aware that image and perception are as important as what you say at the negotiating table.

Tavis: So once they recognize that they have a perception problem, what might they consider doing to correct that? In your mind.

Moaveni: Well, there needs to be a streamlining of message. You can't have diplomats at the U.N. and in Europe saying, 'We're ready to negotiate about nuclear issues. We want to give the world safeguards so that there's comfort with what we're doing,' and then have the clerics at Friday prayer saying, 'We want to have an Islamic bomb.' You have to have a message and have it understood within all aspects, all parts of the regime and government that everyone communicates the same thing. You can't have what you're saying contradicted by, you know, officials within the same establishment.

Tavis: I wrote this down because I wanted to make sure I got this quote right. Of course, much news was made out of this statement made by President Bush just days ago, a statement that he, for all intents and purposes I guess, said rather jokingly-- he was speaking about Hezbollah. I want to stay in the region for one more second before I get to the book here. He says, speaking of Hezbollah, and I quote, 'Maybe someone will run for office one day and say, ‘Vote for me. Look, vote for me. I look forward to blowing up America.' I don't know, but I don't think so.' So, the president makes this joke about perhaps somebody running one day and suggesting, 'Vote for me because I want to blow up America.' What did you make of that statement by the president?

Moaveni: I interpreted that as a lack of recognition of what else Hezbollah means to Lebanese people. Because Hezbollah, you know, in the West, we think of it as this militant group that blew up marines in Lebanon. That is the image. Inside Lebanon, it provides social services, it built community networks, hospitals, schools. It takes care of running half a country that's being neglected by a government that can't meet all of the needs of those people. And so, a Shiite person in Lebanon who supports Hezbollah may have politics or political attitudes about Palestine or the U.S. that are critical, but that doesn't mean that if you are a supporter of Hezbollah, you believe that violence and targeting Americans is an agenda. It means that you have an understanding of what this group has done for our country and for people within that country who have been neglected. A holistic view.

Tavis: Let me get to the book, 'Lipstick Jihad', specifically and break this up into 2 parts if I might. When I say 'Iranian in America,' you say... What comes to mind?

Moaveni: Iran--

Tavis: You've written a whole book about this obviously. But when you say, 'Iranian in America,' talk to me about that experience, being Iranian in America.

Moaveni: I grew up that way, and it was deeply uncomfortable. I grew up in California. And so it was never very overt, people's suspicion of what Iran was and what I as an Iranian person would be like. But the hostage crisis had such a looming shadow. And it was always something that stirred such discomfort in people. And when I grew up, I didn't want to even be considered Iranian. I would say Persian because I didn't want to be associated with this regime and this country that had had this horrible confrontation with the country that I was growing up in.

Tavis: What does that do for one's psyche when they don't feel comfortable saying where they are from because the perception about that place and the aspersion that might be cast on the individual just by admitting they're from there? What does that do to you psychologically?

Moaveni: It produces a lot of confusion because you still identify in that way and inside the house and all your traditions go back to that culture. But then you have sort of a private-public mask. You have this internal world, and then you have the mask that you put up in public and the things you say and I think it leads to a kind of schizophrenic personality.

Tavis: So when I say the flip-- the exact opposite, rather, 'American in Iran,' what comes to mind?

Moaveni: Affection. I went back to Iran as an American, as an Iranian-American, and I just found people were so open to the West and curious about what America was really like and totally without the animosity that I would've expected because of the political relationship between the 2 countries.

Tavis: There's a number of great stories in this book. One of my favorites is a story that you share, which I'll ask you to share now about your talking to a top Iranian official about whether or not in your lifetime you might have the opportunity to become an Iranian ambassador. Tell me about that conversation. What was said to you?

Moaveni: I was sort of joking, you know, those questions that you ask half-joking, and I said, 'Well, how long do you--'

Tavis: Do interviewers actually do that? Just teasing. Go ahead. I'm sorry.

Moaveni: I asked him, how long will it take? Could it happen in my lifetime? Could I be an ambassador? Because I love foreign policy. And he just kind of looked at me. And the answer was, you know, 'Not in your lifetime because you're a woman who is secular, and we're not ready, as a regime, to count Iranians in exile, to count women who are secular as a public face of the country as it is now under the Islamic Republic.'

Tavis: This was said to you in what year? You recall?

Moaveni: 2001.

Tavis: 2001, a few years ago. You see, since you're in the region every day, any progress on that front, where women are treated or maltreated as it were?

Moaveni: In Iran, it's absolutely a push-and-tug. It's a back-and-forth. But I think fundamentally because of Islamic law, Shiite traditional Islamic law, women's legal status is just so compromised. And for that to change, it means rewriting the laws of the whole country. And that's gonna be a while.

Tavis: The book is by Azadeh Moaveni. It is called 'Lipstick Jihad: A Memoir of Growing Up Iranian in America and American in Iran.' Azadeh, nice to have you on the program.

Moaveni: Thank you.

Tavis: Safe travel back to the region. Up next on this program, actress Radha Mitchell from the new Woody Allen film 'Melinda and Melinda.' Stay with us.