Iran Focus
London, 22 Nov – Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said on Thursday US cannot view regime in Iran and ISIS as separate challenges adding regional politics are too interwoven.
“Raising the confidence of our Arab partners and raising the costs to Iran for bad behaviour will contribute to a more effective fight against ISIS,” she said in a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations.
The former US Secretary of State said: “The United States should work Arab countries in the region to get them more invested in the fight against ISIS. At the moment, they’re focused in other areas because of their concerns in the region, especially the threat from Iran”.
She called on Congress to authorize a new military action against ISIS, National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) reported in its website.
Clinton said: “In September, I laid out a comprehensive plan to counter Iranian influence across the region and its support for terrorist proxies such as Hezbollah and Hamas. We cannot view Iran and ISIS as separate challenges. Regional politics are too interwoven. Raising the confidence of our Arab partners and raising the costs to Iran for bad behaviour will contribute to a more effective fight against ISIS”.
“There’s been a lot of talk lately about coalitions. Everyone seems to want one, but there’s not nearly as much talk about what it actually takes to make a coalition work in the heat and pressure of an international crisis. I know how hard this is because we’ve done it before. To impose the toughest sanctions in history on Iran, to stop a dictator from slaughtering his people in Libya, to support a fledgling democracy in Afghanistan, we have to use every pillar of American power — military and diplomacy, development and economic and cultural influence, technology and maybe most importantly our values. That is smart power”.
