Oct. 30 Democratic debate transcript

Clinton: Well, first of all, we have to try diplomacy, and I see economic sanctions as part of diplomacy. We have used it with other very difficult situations -- like Libya, like North Korea. I think that what we're trying to do here is put pressure on the Bush administration. Joe is absolutely right. George Bush can do all of this without anybody. You know, that is the great tragedy and that's why we've got to rein him in, and that's why we need Republican support in the Congress to help us do so.

I invite all of our colleagues to pass something immediately that makes it very clear: He has no authority and we will not permit him to go take offensive action against Iran. But what we're trying to do is push forward on vigorous diplomacy. That has been lacking. I believe we should be engaged in diplomacy right now with the Iranians.

Everything should be on the table, not just their nuclear program. I've been advocating this for several years. I believe it strongly.

But I also think when you go to the table to negotiate with an adversarial regime, you need both carrots and sticks. The Revolutionary Guard is deeply involved in the commercial activities of Iran. Having those economic sanctions hanging over their heads gives our negotiators one of the set of sticks that we need to try to make progress in dealing with a very complicated situation.

Everybody agrees up here that President Bush has made a total mess out of the situation with Iran. What we're trying to do is to sort our way through to try to put diplomacy, with some carrots and some sticks, into the mix and get the president to begin to do that.

Williams: Respectfully, Senator, same question though: Do you have a threshold, a red line beyond which...

Clinton: I want to start diplomacy. I -- you know, I am not going to speculate about when or if they get nuclear weapons.

We're trying to prevent them from getting so. We're not, in my view, rushing to war. We should not be doing that, but we shouldn't be doing nothing, and that means we should not let them acquire nuclear weapons. And the best way to prevent that is a full court press on the diplomatic front.

Williams: I've noted all of our candidates want in on this.

Senator Edwards, you next.

Edwards: Thank you very much.

Well, I just listened to what Senator Clinton said and she said she wanted to maximize pressure on the Bush administration. So the way to do that is to vote yes on a resolution that looks like it was written, literally, by the neo-cons.

I mean, has anyone read this thing? I mean, it literally gave Bush and Cheney exactly what they wanted. It didn't just give them what they wanted. They acted on it.

A few weeks later, they declared the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, and -- this is going to sound very familiar -- remember from Iraq? The prelude to Iraq? -- proliferators of weapons of mass destruction.

The way you put pressure on this administration is you stand up to them; you say no.

A lot of us on this stage have learned our lessons the hard way, that you give this president an inch and he will take a mile. And this is about such an important issue, and we have to stand up to this president. We need to make it absolutely clear that we have no intention of letting Bush, Cheney or this administration invade Iran because they have been rattling the saber over and over and over.

And what this resolution did, written literally in the language of the neo-cons, is it enables this president to do exactly what he wants to do. He continues to march forward. He continues to say this is a terrorist organization. He continues to say these are proliferators of weapons of mass destruction.

How in the world is that -- Democrats -- we're not talking about Republicans now, Chris and Joe -- Democrats standing up to this president and saying, "No, we are not going to allow this, we are not going to allow this march to war in Iran"?

Russert: Governor Richardson, would you negotiate with Iran without any conditions?

Bill Richardson: Yes, I would. And I'm the only one on this stage that has actually negotiated with a foreign country...

(Unknown): That's not true.

Richardson: And I want to just say to you that, in my judgment, we have to use diplomacy. And there is a redline. We cannot permit Iran to use nuclear weapons. And I do believe what you do is Ahmadinejad -- it's very difficult to deal with him. But there are moderate elements in Iraq. There are moderate clerics. There's students. There's a business community.

And I believe that we can achieve a compromise on the nuclear issue. In exchange for them having a nuclear fuel cycle, nuclear power, they don't develop nuclear weapons -- carrot and sticks, diplomatic initiatives, economic incentives.

The problem is we saber-rattle. And this resolution in the Senate saber-rattles. I was U.N. ambassador. I know this region. And I do believe that it's critically important that we talk to North Korea, that we talk to Syria, that we talk to Iran.

It's going to take skilled diplomacy. What we have in this administration is a policy of preemption, of saber-rattling, of leaking out potential targets in Iran. That's not going to get diplomacy started.

I believe its critical that if we're going to resolve the situation in the Middle East, if we're going to get Iraq to stop Iran's helping terrorists, we have to engage them vigorously, potentially also with sanctions. We need to get European allies who refuse generally to help us with sanctions, as well as Russia. What you saw recently is Russia and Iran embracing each other. That is not healthy.

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