Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that Iran will never achieve its goal of obtaining a nuclear weapon, declaring to Tehran: "Your pursuit is futile."
"What we want to do is to send a message to whoever is making these decisions, that if you're pursuing nuclear weapons for the purpose of intimidating, of projecting your power, we're not going to let that happen," Clinton said.
"First, we're going to do everything we can to prevent you from ever getting a nuclear weapon. But your pursuit is futile, because we will never let Iran — nuclear-armed, not nuclear-armed — it is something that we view with great concern, and that's why we're doing everything we can to prevent that from ever happening. ... We believe, as a matter of policy, it is unacceptable for Iran to have nuclear weapons."
| Pretty words. What are we going to do about it? |
As a security summit in Thailand earlier this week, Clinton raised the possibility of a "defense umbrella" over the Middle East to protect other nations from a nuclear-armed Iran, marking the first time a senior administration official has publicly broached the prospect of the Persian nation succeeding in building a nuclear weapon.
| Unacceptable: it allows Obama (or any future President) to fold the umbrella when sufficiently unhappy with Israel. As, for example, if Israel doesn't toe the line on housing in the Jerusalem area. |
Clinton said the Obama administration might still engage with Iran’s regime, even though she thinks the people there “deserve better than what they’re getting."
Moderator David Gregory asked Clinton if the U.S. would be betraying IranÂ’s democratic movement if the administration decides to negotiate with the government over its nuclear program.
“I don’t think so, David,” she replied. “We have negotiated with many governments who we did not believe represented the will of their people. Look at all the negotiations that went on with the Soviet Union. …
“That’s what you do in diplomacy. You don’t get to choose the people. That’s up to the internal dynamic within a society. But, clearly, we would hope better for the Iranian people. We would hope that there is more openness, that peaceful demonstrations are respected, that press freedom is respected.”
| That's the canard liberals like to bring up: we negotiated with the Soviets so we must negotiate with every pissant thug who makes demands on us. Hilde may have missed this: Iran is not the Soviet Union. |
Gregory asked if Iran is run by an illegitimate regime.
“You know, that’s really for the people of Iran to decide,” Clinton said. “I have been moved by the … cries for freedom. … People that go back millennia, that have such a great culture and history, deserve better than what they’re getting.”
| No, it's also for us to decide. We can proclaim, loudly, that the Mad Mullahs™ are illegitimate and do not represent the people of Iran. That alone would give the ordinary people there hope. We could continue to use our words and our ability to command the international stage to hammer away at the thugs in charge in Tehran. It worked in Eastern Europe. If Hilde is going to 'negotiate' with the Mullahs as we did with the Soviets, it's only proper that we borrow Reagan's approach to the Soviets: he talked with them, sure, but he also did everything possible to undermine them. And it worked. |
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