Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft (USAF, Ret.), former national security adviser to Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, National Council On U.S.-Arab Relations, 17th Annual Arab-U.S. Policymakers Conference, October 30, 2008:
"I think discussion is important. This time discussion I think needs to be preceded by a very careful understanding among the negotiators on this issue, and that is the British, the French, the Germans, the United States, Russia, and China. None of those parties want Iran to develop nuclear weapons, but they all have different sorts of concerns. It seems to me that what we need to do is to agree first among those parties. We do not want Iran to develop nuclear weapons. What are the steps to be taken to avoid that as an outcome? That will take a level of cooperation, which so far we haven’t really achieved. Will it work? I don’t know. But it seems to me that is the approach to take rather than assuming that Iran cannot be dissuaded, and that it is either acquiescence or the use of force."
