Senator Jim Webb on Iran

On January 11, 2007, during a hearing at the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) said during a question and answer session with Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice:

"And our options are to ignore -- to do things informally, as you've been discussing, or to more actively engage in -- when I'm looking at this, one of the things that sticks in my mind is the situation that we had with China in 1971. This was a rogue nation that had nuclear weapons, it had an American war on its border. The parallels are not exact, but we went forward, without giving up any of our ideals or our national objectives, and we did a very aggressive engagement process that, over a period of time, has arguably brought China into the international community. And I just hope you will pass on to the president: A, my best regards; and, B, that if he were to move in that direction, he certainly would have the strong support of me and perhaps other people."

and

"Well, I think that it's important, as the Baker commission was saying, a lot of people have been saying, and I've been saying, that when you have a situation with a nation that constitutes this kind of threat, it's very important to confront as well as to engage.And I personally think it would be a bold act for George W. Bush to get on an airplane and go to Tehran in the same manner that President Nixon did, take a gamble, and not give up one thing that we believe in, in terms of its moving toward weapons of mass destruction, our belief that Israel needs to be recognized and interests need to be protected, but to maybe start changing the formula here."

Thank you, Virginia.