Global Security Newswire

The incoming Obama administration would pursue new diplomatic efforts aimed at persuading Iran to halt potential nuclear-weapon development activities, Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton indicated at her confirmation hearing yesterday (see GSN, Jan. 9).

Speaking to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Clinton said the Bush administration's Iran policy -- ruling out talks unless Tehran first halted disputed nuclear activities -- has "not worked," the Washington Post reported. Iran insists that its nuclear program has strictly peaceful (see GSN, Jan. 12).

Clinton added that President-elect Barack Obama's administration would be "very open to looking to a positive, effective way of engaging with Iran," although "we won't know what we're capable of achieving until we're actually there working on it."

In written answers to committee questions, Clinton suggested that Obama might meet with Iranian leaders, an idea she had dismissed during her presidential campaign last year.

"We will not sit down for the sake of talking," Clinton said in her written response. "But we are willing to lead tough and principled diplomacy with the appropriate Iranian leader at the time and place of our choosing -- if and only if -- it can advance the interest of the United States" (Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, Jan. 14).

She added at the hearing: "We will do everything we can pursue through diplomacy, through the use of sanctions, through creating better coalitions with countries that we believe also have a big stake in preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear weapon power," Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported.

One Iran expert said the Obama administration could pursue economic penalties against Iran markedly harsher than those now in effect, including preventing Iranian gasoline deliveries to other nations.

"It seems that tough measures will be used in dealing with Iran," Rasool Nafisi said. "Unlike the past, there will be less tendency toward a military solution but more talks -- and if the two sides don't reach an agreement, then tough sanctions will follow."

Clinton might be assembling a group of Middle East specialists to help guide her on the Iranian nuclear dispute and other issues. Obama previously said that advisers would participate in the "Middle East process as a whole" from the beginning of his presidency.

News reports indicate that Obama has recruited veteran diplomat Dennis Ross to hold a top post addressing issues involving Iran and the Middle East. Ross wrote in Newsweek magazine last month that the Bush administration failed to press Iran hard enough over its nuclear activities or to offer sufficient incentives to persuade Tehran to cooperate with the United States (Golnaz Esfandiari, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Jan. 13).

Clinton also vowed that she would work to strengthen or extend several nuclear weapons control agreements, including a key U.S.-Russian strategic arms treaty set to lapse in December, Agence France-Presse reported (see GSN, Nov. 18, 2008).

The Obama administration "will have a very strong commitment to [Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty] negotiations," she told the Senate committee (see GSN, Dec. 22, 2008). "We want to get out of the box early. We want Russia to know that we are serious."

She added that the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty "is the cornerstone of the nonproliferation regime, and the United States must exercise leadership needed to shore it up" (see GSN, Nov. 12, 2008).

"We will seek agreements with Russia to secure further reductions in weapons under START, we will work with this committee and the Senate toward ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty," she said. "And we will dedicate efforts to revive negotiations on a verifiable fissile material cutoff treaty" (Agence France-Presse I/Spacewar.com, Jan. 13).

Additionally, Clinton pledged to rein in North Korea's suspected nuclear-weapon proliferation activities.

"We have got to end North Korea as a proliferator. ... So we will embark upon a very aggressive effort to try to determine the best way forward to achieve our objectives with them," she said.

She expressed support for ongoing six-nation talks aimed at denuclearizing the Stalinist state, and added that the process "also provides an opportunity, as Secretary [of State Condoleezza Rice] has testified before this committee, for bilateral contact as well between North Korea and the United States. ... Again this is under review" (see related GSN story, today).

"Our goal is to end the North Korean nuclear program -- both the plutonium reprocessing program and the highly enriched uranium program, which there is reason to believe exists, although never quite verified," Clinton said (Agence France-Presse II/Google News, Jan. 13).