How to Apply for a Journalism Visa to Iran in 5 Not-So-Easy Steps:

1. Go to your local Iranian embassy or interest section, schmooze with the nice folks at the front desk, fill out a three-page visa application form. If you are a woman, you must wear a scarf and modest clothing for the trip; ditto for the four required passport photos. Bear in mind that Google is available in Tehran, so bonus points if you don't have any Jerusalem datelines or if you've ever used the words "Great Satan" in reference to the United States. If you admit that you laughed at that New Yorker cover illustration of Ahmadinejad in the men's room, leave immediately and without a fuss.

2. Next comes the interrogation. Chances are, you will be called in for a two-hour meeting with a senior consular official who speaks no English and has no translator available. If applying in, say, Cairo, perhaps you and the questioner will both have a basic command of Arabic, which means that with enough mumbling, sound effects and wild hand gestures, you just might be able to get your point across. Topics to expect: your father's profession, how many brothers you have and where they live, your marital status, the famed vineyards of Shiraz, and the Russian news agency Tass. Watch out for the trick question: "Do you think it's easier to be a journalist in Iran or the United States?" Invoke Guantanamo and/or Iraq in your response and you can't go wrong.

3. Call the interest section a couple of days later in order to receive a "reference number," which tracks the status of your application at the foreign ministry in Tehran. (Under no circumstances should you anticipate that the application has been sent to Iran in a timely fashion; allow several days for this step in the process.) Then one day you will call and learn that you have been approved -- in a record three working days from when the application was received at the ministry. You will be instructed to go to the local branch of an Iranian bank, pay for your visa and then head back to the interest section to have the visa applied to your passport. Upon hearing this fabulous news, you might be tempted to rejoice with your editors, brag on Facebook, dust off your chador and book a ticket to Tehran. Don't.

4. Go to the Iranian bank branch to pay for the visa, as instructed. If you can't recall whether the fee was 55 euros or 65 euros, call the interest section. A consular officer will thank God that you called because she was trying to reach you all morning (no, don't bother checking your phone; you will not find any missed calls). The officer will break the news that while, yes, your visa technically is approved, you must now fill out a second application packet, this time through the Islamic Republic of Iran's Permanent Mission to the United Nations. In New York City. When you protest that you do not in fact reside in the United States, have no office in New York and that your nearest colleagues are in Washington, the officer will solve the problem on the spot: "Can't your editors just go to New York for a day? New York and Washington are very close." If extenuating circumstances prevent your editors from dropping world news coverage and trekking to New York for the day to sign a paper, then you need to call a press liaison at the Iranian U.N. Office.

5. E-mail the press liaison. Call the press liaison and leave a long-winded message on his voicemail. You can always try to sneak in an "asalamu alaikum" in hopes he'll recognize the super-secret code that translates, roughly, as "I fully support your right to pursue a peaceful nuclear program." E-mail the press liaison again. Leave another voicemail for the liaison, minus the secret code. (Try hard to keep that increasingly perturbed tone out of your voice in the ensuing messages, even if you are thinking, "Peaceful purposes? Yeah, right!" by this stage.) And then you're finished. All you have to do now is wait.