Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power in June 2005 for two major reasons: defiance to an older generation's way of doing business; and a geostrategic shift in the circle of Iran's Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who felt the Islamic Revolution was at risk after the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Ahmadinejad and his peers are part of a young and less privileged non-clergy conservative base who want to revert to the basics of the revolution. This generation fought a long war with Iraq and bitterly watched the clergy rip off the luxury of power.

Maybe it is hard for many in Washington to accept, but Khamenei is a realist who sees the world in a cost-benefit analysis. He even sought a compromise with the West in May 2003 and November 2007.

Ali Akbar Velayati, Iran's foreign minister from 1981 to 1997 and one of Khamenei's closest advisors, was ready to go to Paris last November to meet with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who was sending positive signals to Tehran.

Media reports say that Velayati, who is a Johns Hopkins University graduate, pushed for seizing this French moment and rushed to meet with Ahmadinejad to request his consent. But Velayati had to wait several hours to meet him. Soon after, Ahmadinejad wrote an open letter to Sarkozy calling him "young and inexperienced." Even Washington had to put breaks then on many of Sarkozy's bold initiatives.

Yet, these moderate conservatives still accumulate power and search for common ground. They are a medium generation – between the older and the new – those who are old enough to remember the revolution and young enough to look beyond it.

Vice President Parviz Davoodi, 56 years old, holds a PhD in economics from Iowa State University, wants free markets and open economies.

Chairman of the Iranian parliament and former chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani, 50, has a background in Western philosophy. He has published books about Immanuel Kant and knows well the merge between reason and experience in negotiations.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, 55, was the campaign manager of Ali Larijani when he ran for president in 2005 and went to school in India.

"We hear new voices in America … we think the rational thinkers in America can seek reality as it is. We are ready to help them in this endeavor," said Mottaki in an interview to CNN.

In an open letter to U.S. President George W. Bush in May 2006, mostly based on historical facts and religious connotations, Ahmadinejad proposed vague ideas to end the nuclear standoff. The White House did not take it seriously.

"It was a period when neoconservatives still had a significant voice in the U.S. administration, before the War on Lebanon launched by Israel in July 2006 and the U.S. troops surge in Iraq in January 2007. This shift in the geostrategic landscape made the United States reclaim a sense of realism in shaping its foreign policy."

Indeed, Bush had to revert to the old guard, to his father's team. Former Secretary of State James Baker was called to bring order and chair the Iraq Study Group and soon later Robert Gates took over the Pentagon in December 2006.

It is not a secret that Rice had to battle with conservatives in the White House to allow Under Secretary William Burns to head to Geneva and face off his Iranian counterpart. Facing attempts by many at home and abroad to mystify Iran, Rice maintains the argument that Iran "is not 10-feet tall" and has vulnerabilities that Washington could explore.

Former National Security Advisor Zbiginiew Brzezinski said that the incentives package to Iran should include immediate and concrete steps to reward Tehran for its decision to suspend enrichment. This is meant to help those who want to promote a deal with the West inside the regime, instead of laying out promises of "a shopping list to discuss."

The nuclear standoff is, at its core, a security fear between Iran and the United States, one in which Tehran has been trying to master in an asymmetric war to bring Washington to the table. A dialogue, beyond the parameters of a formal incentives package with a deadline to reply, could produce far better results.

Not only are Iranians buying time before having to give an answer by next Saturday to the international community, but they seem unsure of what to do next: wait for the next U.S. administration or give away a nuclear power they have yet to perfect.

An imminent deal before October is a rare window of opportunity where moderate conservatives in Washington and Tehran are simultaneously in charge.