Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Syrian President Bashar Assad (AP)
Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns spoke at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library in Boston on April 11, 2007:
"On March 29, in my testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I said that diplomacy is our best course of action in blocking and containing the Iranian regime; that a military confrontation with Iran is not desirable, nor is it inevitable if we continue our skilled diplomatic course and have the patience to see it play out over the mid- to long-term. I am confident that we can avoid a conflict and see our strategy succeed.
"The response was remarkable. Every Democratic senator and every Republican senator said the same thing: that they support what we are doing in Iran … to be patient enough because we do have some time before Iran becomes a nuclear-capable country. Patient enough and devoted enough to our belief in diplomacy that we might create international coalitions to pressure the Iranians on each of those issues—and I think we are doing that."
