So Who's talking to Iran?

Iran may be easing toward cooperation with the U.S. The U.S. broke off official dialogue last May, after it blamed a bombing in Saudi Arabia on al-Qaeda leaders based in Iran. But Abdullah Ramezanzadeh, spokesman for Iranian President Mohammed Khatami, tells TIME that Tehran is providing the intelligence services of friendly Western and regional powers with information culled from some 500 al-Qaeda captives. "If Americans need any information," he says, "they can ask through countries friendly to us."

The two sides are even talking again. Sources tell TIME that several former senior U.S. officials have recently held informal discussions with Iran, among them Brent Scowcroft, chairman of Bush's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. Tehran has offered to repatriate some al-Qaeda suspects if the U.S. cracks down on the People's Mujahedin (M.E.K.), a group of Iranian exiles in Iraq who want to overthrow Iran's mullocracy. A senior Iranian official notes, "There is no need for an unending crisis in U.S.-Iranian relations."

But Administration hard-liners oppose any thaw, insisting the only sound policy toward Iran is one pressing for "regime change."