Tilting on the axis (of evil): Iran's puzzling relationship with the United States--and itself.

I NEVER THOUGHT I'D HEAR "HOTEL CALIFORNIA" IN the bleak desert landscape of Iran. Don Henley's tale of a bad trip was a big hit with our guide, Reza, however, and he'd turn up the volume whenever the song looped around on his tape player. "This could be heaven or this could be hell," Don and Reza sang, as we drove in the mountains near Shiraz, several hundred miles south of the capital Tehran, passing crumbling caravansaries, those vacant hotels once used as inns by travelers on the Silk Road in the Middle East and Asia. "You see," Reza proclaimed, ...