Dear Strobe, Dear Mr. Benjamin, Ladies and Gentlemen, Excellencies. . . My deepest thanks to the President of the Brookings Institution for his kind words. I am thrilled to address this particular audience at this particular time.
The French are always very impressed by the influence of American think tanks. Conspiracy theories will be very difficult to dispel now that the Brookings Foreign Policy Studies Program has been able to get Senator Obama elected President of the United States! More seriously, the prominent role of so many Brookings scholars on Barack Obama's team is a tribute to the quality of Brooking. . . and, of course, to the fine judgment of the President-elect.
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The dark cloud looming over the whole region and beyond is Iran. Not just Iran's support for terrorism; not just its missile program, which is rapidly progressing; not just the vile statements of its leadership regarding Israel. Iran's current progress toward a nuclear weapon capability is the most serious threat to the international non-proliferation system and to the security of the region. Europeans cannot make effective multilateralism their motto and accept Iran's uranium enrichment, in continued defiance of the IAEA and the United Nations Security Council.
That is why we took the initiative to act on this crisis in 2003. Behind the UK, Germany and France, Europeans took a united stand. And we stuck to it, despite opposition from many quarters. We were railed by the U.S. administration for being weak-kneed, for "talking to the enemy". We remained firm, and were able to rally the support of the United States in 2005 and then of Russia and China in 2006 on a dual-track approach. And last summer, the U.S. participated in E3+3 talks with Iran in Geneva.
Today, I hear some voices, even in this town, saying that we have failed, that we must prepare for an Iranian bomb - or for a military intervention. I could not disagree more.
Our current approach has not yet succeeded (Iran is continuing to enrich) but it has certainly not failed. Iran's increasingly disastrous economic situation, will only become worse because of falling oil prices. The impact of sanctions will continue to grow. And the time will come when the leadership is faced with a clear choice: open negotiations, with all the promise they contain, including assistance on a civilian nuclear program - to which Iran is entitled once it has come clean - with all the promise they entail, or stand ready to pay a price too steep to sustain.
Until substantive dialogue is engaged with Tehran and so long as it refuses to suspend sensitive nuclear activities, we should increase the pressure on the Iranian government. But this is not contradictory with openness to dialogue, and obstinacy in trying to launch such a dialogue. I personally have spared no effort toward this goal. Unfortunately Iran has not yet replied with anything other than delaying tactics.
Today, the United States holds a key card in its hand: the prospect of dialogue opening a perspective for normalization. Depending on how and when this card is played, Washington can either help unlock the current stalemate, or doom the dual-track process, by convincing once and for all the Iranian regime that its perceived position of strength allows it to just continue playing for time. Neither Europe nor France has ever said that there must be no dialogue with Iran. But this dialogue must be meaningful.
The next administration will wish to take a new look at the whole issue. That is normal, given its importance. I know that the Europeans are often seen as "donneurs de leçons", or giving lessons. But the stakes are just too high to ignore what we have to say. If we want to ensure that a possible US-Iran dialogue moves us closer to our shared goal, and not further away from it, we must continue to work together. I was very encouraged by the discussion that Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy and I had in Paris last summer.
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