michael hersch is senior correspondent for the "national journal" and join us now.ke. >> good afternoon, martin. >> just today, the obama administration launched what they're calling a virtual u.s. embassy with iran. as we look at the new website, which the white house says is designed to encourage dialogue with the iranian people, do you believe this is sincere, or is it just a smoke screen for what's really going on behind the scenes? >> well, fortunately, the virtual embassy probably can't be raided and attacked the way britain's actual embassy was just last week, which i think was, again, part of what we're seeing, which is a covert war and retaliation to increasing degrees by the iranians, the british ambassador himself said that he thought that those iranian student protester attacks were fomented by the government. so i think that to get back to your point, there's no question the obama administration is trying to appeal directly to the iranian people, while isolating or attempted to the iranian regime. >> michael, in your remarkable story, this is what you w