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MARK COLVIN: There are some tentative signs that things are getting better in Iraq. In the words of a New York Times article last week, "days now pass without a car bomb in Baghdad, after a high of 44 in the city in February".

But does that mean that the injection of fresh troops and the change in tactics known as the surge has worked?

Michael Ledeen, who's visiting Australia this week, is known as a key voice behind the Bush administration's thinking on Iran and Iraq policy.

A resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, he's been one of the most vocal critics of the Iranian regime.

Michael Ledeen believes the war against al-Qaeda in Iraq has already been won. I asked him how he squared that with the continuing carnage in the country.

MICHAEL LEEDEN: Well you may have noticed that there aren't many headlines out of Iraq, because people have wanted carnage headlines and haven't had them. The level of violence is down by spectacular percentages. Compared to a year ago, they're down 70, 80 per cent.

MARK COLVIN: You're sure of that numerically? Because I could call up Google News right now, and show you a series of headlines where there has been carnage.

MICHAEL LEEDEN: No, there is carnage. There are attacks, but compared to a year ago it's 70 per cent less, 80 per cent less, 60 per cent less, I mean, big numbers. Numbers that surprise, frankly, that surprise our own military people who are the ones who have carried it out.

MARK COLVIN: When you talk to people who go there, it's still not easy, for instance, for a Western journalist to go down to the shops, or to get a haircut, let alone to go out and do their job.

MICHAEL LEEDEN: Oh I think nowadays in, surely in at least 90 per cent of Baghdad, they can walk down the street. I mean, people do walk down the street.

We had Katie Couric, who's after all the anchorwoman for a major American news broadcast, she went to Baghdad and she walked right down the main streets of Baghdad all the time, every day.

MARK COLVIN: With a heavy escort of bodyguards, that's what the networks do, isn't it?

MICHAEL LEEDEN: No. I don't think so. I don't think she had big, heavy escorts. And there are lots of, now, embedded journalists who are all over the country, and many of them are leaving because there's no action, there's nothing to report.

MARK COLVIN: So what does that mean? I mean, what will a post-war Iraq look like, and how soon, in your view?

MICHAEL LEEDEN: Well, I don't think this can last. Because I think the Iranians and the Syrians can't permit it to last. I think they have to find new ways to attack us, and if they're left alone they will find new ways to attack us. So, I mean, it's a regional war. We've won a big battle, which is important, but it's only just a battle in a broader war.

MARK COLVIN: 'Cause the flipside of that argument - the argument that the Iranians use - is that George Bush is looking for any excuse to attack them during the last year of his presidency.

MICHAEL LEEDEN: Yes. Yes. Well you know, everybody has a tendency to think he's at the centre of the universe, and I suppose the Iranians do too, but I don't see any evidence that the United States is going to attack Iran, none at all.

MARK COLVIN: Is that a matter of regret for you?

MICHAEL LEEDEN: I don't want to attack Iran. I want to support revolution in Iran.

I've always been against attacking Iran militarily, as I thought it was a bad idea to, you may remember, to attack Saddam Hussein militarily when there were so many smart political things to do. And I thought we should have started with Iran rather than starting with Iraq.

But anyway, I mean, Iran seems to me to be just tailor-made for a democratic revolution. It fulfils every requirement. It's got a population that both hates and despises the regime and those two things are lethal.

The most common anecdote that you hear from Tehran is that if a cleric wants to get a taxi cab, he's got to take off his robes and his turban and hide them in his briefcase because otherwise no taxi will pick him up, he's got to look like an ordinary person.

So it's a very unpopular regime, and I think we should support the people against it. There are plenty of organised dissident movements there and we should be supporting them.

MARK COLVIN: But also hard-wired into the Iranian idea of themselves, the idea of history, is the idea that the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) and the British Secret Service are always trying to overthrow their government. So even if they like, as you say, they like America, they like the West ...

MICHAEL LEEDEN: Yes.

MARK COLVIN: ... trying to start a democratic revolution is going to be counter-productive. It's going to play exactly into their secret fears.

MICHAEL LEEDEN: I would put it a bit differently. What I would say is they think that the British Secret Service and the CIA run the world.

MARK COLVIN: But they have a reason to think that the CIA and the British Secret Service might meddle because they did meddle in the 1950s.

MICHAEL LEEDEN: You bet, and afterwards. And, I mean, no question.

But I think that what they believe is that if the Brits and the Americans put their minds to it, they can make anything happen. And that if they don't want something to happen, it isn't going to happen.

So take revolution, for example. If the Americans and the Queen of England want there to be a democratic revolution in Iran it will happen. It will succeed. And conversely, if they don't want it to happen, it can't succeed.

Which is why I think basically they are waiting to hear clearly from some American President or some British Prime Minister or from Her Majesty that it's time for democratic revolution. It's time for regime change in Iran, which no Western leader has ever said. No American President since 1979 has said such a thing.

MARK COLVIN: Lurking in the background of all this is the idea of an Iran with the bomb. How close, how close is that?

MICHAEL LEEDEN: It's close. I mean, if I had to bet, I would bet that they have nuclear weapons now, and that what they may not have is a delivery system that is effective enough for them to be confident that it will hit whatever they aim it at. So nobody knows.

MARK COLVIN: There is just a year or so of the Bush administration to go. Is the Bush administration going to do anything significant about Iran?

MICHAEL LEEDEN: I don't think so. Not as far as I can tell.

MARK COLVIN: So you're now looking ahead to the next administration?

MICHAEL LEEDEN: Well, yes. I mean, I think that if Iran did something really humungous and terrible, that any American administration would then be compelled to respond. But I think ...

MARK COLVIN: How humungous and terrible?

MICHAEL LEEDEN: Well I don't know, if they dropped a nuclear weapon on Israel, or if a nuclear-tipped missile were intercepted by the Israelis in mid-flight and shot down, yeah, I think that would precipitate automatically and very quickly a massive military response.

MARK COLVIN: But you think we've gone beyond the point where intelligence about intentions, or intelligence about capability would be enough to be a trigger for war?

MICHAEL LEEDEN: Right. I think there's no way the United States will go to war in the foreseeable future on the basis of an intelligence assessment.

MARK COLVIN: Because none of its allies would believe it, or because none of its own people would believe it?

MICHAEL LEEDEN: I think its own people wouldn't believe it.

MARK COLVIN: Michael Leeden, vocal critic of the Iranian regime, and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington.