Sunday, February 20, 2005
President Clinton's comments about Iran.
Perspectives:Former President Bill Clinton was interviewed by journalist Charlie Rose during this year’s World Economic Forum held in Davos, Switzerland, between January 26 and 30. President Clinton spoke in depth on the current state of US-Iran relations. The following are excerpts from this interview.
“But Iran is the most perplexing problem ... we face, for the following reasons: It is the only country in the world with two governments, and the only country in the world that has now had six elections since the first election of President Khatami. [It is] the only one with elections, including the United States, including Israel, including you name it, where the liberals, or the progressives, have won two-thirds to 70 percent of the vote in six elections: two for President; two for the parliament, the Majlis; two for the mayoralities.
In every single election, the guys I identify with got two-thirds to 70% of the vote. There is no other country in the world I can say that about, certainly not my own.”
“So ... I still hope there is a diplomatic solution. It is madness. There is an elected government in Iran supported by two-thirds of the people that wants a rapprochement with the West.... And we can't get there. It's crazy.”
“You know the religious council in Iran has not entirely shut down democracy, they haven't totally invalidated everything they have tried to do. I think there is still a lot of internal back and forth going on there. I personally believe that we ought to give some final vigorous push to diplomacy to try to deal with this.”
Click here for complete transcipt!
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