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QUESTION: Good evening, ma'am. I am a student of (inaudible) Jeddah. My question is when you were in Doha, you said the U.S. would have peaceful engagement with Iran but not, and I quote, while they are building (inaudible). U.S. is the first country to have nuclear weapons. In fact, it was the only country to have used those nuclear weapons. So why (inaudible) opposed against Iran's nuclear program? And if it is really the greater common good, why do you not ask Israel to give up their nuclear weapons?

(Applause.)

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, first let me say that this is a question that I hear often, so I appreciate the opportunity to address it. The world needs to move toward zero nuclear weapons. That is President Obama's stated goal. That will take time. We know that. But it is important to recognize that in the last 60 years, the world has tried to manage the genie of the nuclear weapon that got out of the bottle. And we've tried to manage it in a couple of ways. First, during the entire period of the Cold War, no matter how difficult the times were, the United States and the Soviet Union at that time worked to reduce the threat of nuclear war. And we were successful. It was not only deterrence, but it was negotiation, arms control agreements, in recognition of the serious threat that nuclear weapons pose.

The world also was presented with the Nonproliferation Treaty, which the vast majority of countries in the world signed, including Iran. In that treaty, the countries that already had nuclear weapons agreed to safeguard them, agreed to be very careful in how they were stored and secured to avoid proliferation, and the countries that did not have nuclear weapons, such as Iran, agreed not to pursue them.

Now, we find ourselves in 2010 at a point in history where the United States and the Soviet Union[1], as we speak, are negotiating yet another agreement to lower the number of nuclear weapons that we each have. We have a level of assurance that the countries that have nuclear weapons are safeguarding them. We have agreements to try to take possession of nuclear material so that it doesn't fall into the hands of the terrorist groups. Al-Qaida is very clear about this; it has sought and is seeking the means to make a nuclear device.

So when a country like Iran, which agreed not to develop nuclear weapons, begins to take actions which raise concerns in the minds of everyone who signed on to this understanding about how we would handle nuclear weapons, it is, I think, totally understandable that everyone who I speak with in the Gulf, including the leaders here and the leaders elsewhere in the region, are expressing deep concern about Iran's intentions.

Now, why would that be? Well, because Iran has threatened other countries, including the Kingdom. Iran has funded terrorists that have launched attacks within other countries, including the Kingdom. Iran is the largest supporter of terrorism in the world today. So if you are the leader of a country that's a neighbor or further away watching as Iran develops longer-range missiles, watching as they have internal political turmoil so you're not sure exactly who's making decisions, and hearing them say that they are going to go forward with enriching uranium, discovering a secret facility that they never disclosed to anyone, violating their obligations under the United Nations and under the International Atomic Energy Agency requirements, you have to ask yourself: Why are they doing this?

So the United States joined together with China, Russia, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom to try to see if we could work with Iran, and we made three very simple points. Number one, Iran, like any country, is entitled to peaceful nuclear power. And I want to stress that. Nobody is saying to Iran or the Iranian people you can't have nuclear power for electricity, for other forms of civil energy production. That is Iran's right. But you do not have a right under international agreements you signed and other obligations you assumed to pursue nuclear weapons.

And we made an offer to Iran. Russia, the United States, and France, which have the capacity to fulfill the offer, said you use enriched uranium now at a very low level to produce medical isotopes, you have a right to do that. But we, the international community, are right to be concerned about your other ambitions. So if you will ship out your enriched uranium, we will replenish it and give you back what you need for your medical isotopes. At first, Iran said yes, and then I don't know what the political decision making was, but they came back and said no. And the questions keep building. They say they're only doing this for nuclear peaceful purposes, but the evidence doesn't support that. They worry their neighbors because of actions they've already taken, not actions that are maybe in the future.

So that is why the United States and many other countries are concerned. And it is why we are still hoping that the Iranian Government and the Iranian people will decide to renounce a nuclear weapon and instead pursue their right to nuclear power for peaceful purposes. The international community has been united through this process. When you have China, the United States, and Russia all agreeing, that's - I think says we all see it the same way. And we are going to try to go to the United Nations and get additional sanctions that perhaps will convince the Iranians themselves to change direction.

The final element of this is that we want not only a world free of nuclear weapons, we want a Middle East free of nuclear weapons, including everyone. If Iran gets a nuclear weapon, that hope disappears, because then other countries which feel threatened by Iran will say to themselves, "If Iran has a nuclear weapon, I better get one too in order to protect my people." Then you have a nuclear arms race in the region. Then you have all kinds of opportunities for problems that could be quite dangerous.

So for all of those reasons, we strongly believe that it is neither in Iran's interests nor in the world's, and it is a violation of Iranian commitments that they've already made, for them to pursue nuclear weapons. And we're going to work with the international community to try to convince them otherwise. That's our objective.

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