Hillary Clinton is tougher on Iran than her Democratic rival, Bernie Sanders. And the former secretary of state believes that’s an important distinction between the Democrats.
“[I]n some of the comments that Senator Sanders has been making, there is room for disagreement, even concern. Take his comments about Iran. I know something about this; I led the efforts to put together the coalition to impose very tough sanctions on Iran, which enabled us to get to the negotiating table to get the Iran agreement to put a lid on their nuclear weapons program,” Clinton says in an interview with NPR.
“So, I’m immersed in what it will take for us, going forward, to manage this challenging relationship.
“Senator Sanders has said he would like to see Iranian troops in Syria. I think that would be a terrible mistake; Syria is on the doorstep of Israel, just among one of the things why it would be.
“He has said he wants to see Saudi Arabia and Iran work together in a coalition to defeat ISIS. Well, you know, we’re having a very big flare up of tension between two longtime adversaries, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Either he didn’t understand that, or thought that he could get away with saying what he said.
“And thirdly, let me say this. I think that—when he said in the debate the other night that he would favor normalizing relations with Iran, that, too, was a fundamental misunderstanding of what it takes to do the patient diplomacy that I have experience in to be able to continue to change behavior, or at least to mitigate against behavior by Iran.”
