Judd Gregg: “Most critical, of course, to this is the issue of how we deal with Iran and the fact that, once again, this…”

“Most critical, of course, to this is the issue of how we deal with Iran and the fact that, once again, this administration has failed to reflect effectively on the policy dealing with that nation. Iran, as we recognize, has been dominated by a fundamentalist leadership which has viewed its purpose as promoting an aggressive religious philosophy internationally. It has viewed the United States as its enemy in this undertaking. But this fundamentalism cannot survive forever. It is much like when we confronted the Communist leadership after World War II and President Truman and President Eisenhower recognized that, through the process of constructive containment, we would be able to bring down that system of government because it would fall of its own weight because at some point, after a certain period of years, the fundamental flaws of that system and that philosophy would simply undermine it and decay it from within. And that is true also of the fundamentalist movement in Iran. The Muslim religion is an extremely powerful and great religion, and it is a religion that is based on some very wonderful precepts. But the fundamentalism that captured a certain element of the Muslim believers is, as it is practiced in Iran, inherently self-destructive.”