Transcript
NICHOLAS BURNS: I say first if you look around the world and look at where the United States critical and vital interests are engaged, you have to look to the Middle East, to Iraq first and foremost, to the challenge that we have in front of us to be successful in Iraq, to the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians, and the quest for nearly 60 years now by various successive administrations to try to find a way toward peace, to the conflict in Lebanon--and today, of course, is the anniversary of the death of Rafik Hariri; you have seen the demonstrations peaceful in honor of him in Beirut this morning--and to the conflict that we have with Iran. It is those four issues that are at the heart of our engagement right now in the Middle East, and I would say that it is fair to say that our Secretary of State and most of the rest of us at the State Department are spending a huge percentage of our time trying to make sure that American interests are being watched and being protected on all four of these issues.
I am going to speak today about Iran. I would say that next to the challenge that we have in front of us in Iraq, nothing is more important to the United States in the years ahead than to deal with this challenge which is multifaceted from the Iranian government. That challenge is an Iran that most of the world believes is trying to achieve a nuclear weapons capability, an Iran that continues to be in many respects the central banker of most of the Middle East terrorist groups, of Hizballah and Hamas, of Palestinian and Islamic Jihad, of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Command, just to name four terrorist groups.
And an Iran because of its recent policy in recent years, particularly through the statements and actions of President Ahmadinejad, that has caused instability in its relations with most of the Arab world and the countries of the greater Middle East. Those three aspects are the challenges that are in front of American foreign policy, in front of those of us in our government. Our policy is to deny Iran a nuclear weapons capability. It is to diminish Iran's capability of being successful in supporting these terrorist groups. It is as the president said this morning in his press conference on Iraq is to prevent Iran from providing the type of sophisticated IED technology that currently is providing that is a great threat to the American and British troops in Baghdad, in Basra and other places. It is also to help over the longer term we hope the creation of a society and a government in Iran that will be democratically-based and pluralistic, an Iran that wants to be part of the region in a positive way and not a disruptive force in the region.
Finally, I think one of the other imperatives of our policy is that we have to engage the Iranian people. As a country, certainly our government has an interest in doing that. It is the world's most unusual diplomatic relationship. We have an American diplomatic presence in Havana; we have found a way over the last couple of months especially to talk directly to the North Koreans through the efforts of our Ambassador Chris Hill who was so successful yesterday in helping to bring about this achievement on the Six-Party Talks. We have an improving relationship with Libya. We talk to governments that we do not like or admire like the government in Zimbabwe. And yet we have no relations to speak of with Iran. It is not possible now for us to have formal diplomatic relations with the Iranian government, but it is possible for us to in effect end the estrangement which is going on three decades now between the American people and the Iranian people.
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