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The U.S. engages with North Korea, so I don't see why they can't engage with Iran.

Iran is not interested in a war. Iran is capable of defending itself and teaching a very harsh lesson to anybody who commits aggression against Iran, but we're not interested.

Iran has little capacity to deploy force. Its strategic doctrines are defensive, designed to deter invasion long enough for diplomacy to set it.

The reason the United States is not so likely to invade Iran is precisely because of the lessons learned from Iraq. And conversely, the Iranian push towards nuclear capability is calculated to deter invasions like the kind deposing Saddam Husain.

The reason that Americans have not been able to see the great strategic benefit that could accrue from a closer relationship with Iran is emotion.

It is time for Iran and other stakeholders to begin to address the causes of tension in the wider Persian Gulf region. We need a sober assessment of the complex and intertwined realities here and consistent policies to deal with them. The fight against terror is a case in point.

Iran did not talk to the United States for 35 years. And now we are talking. And I believe these talks are useful. But they haven't produced the intended results. We have not seen an end to the hostility that has been exhibited in the United States against Iran. And I believe it is important that we see some of that.

There isn't a doubt that Iran constitutes the single most important single-country strategic challenge to the United States and to the kind of Middle East that we want to see.

Fundamentally, we have to recognize that Iran is not a partner.

Unless we get serious about addressing Iran's regional ambitions in places like Syria, then our allies are never going to be confident that we have a strategy for the region.