On Barack Obama and Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr.
I think [Wright] went off the deep end. He’s either ignorant about politics or he deliberately tried to hurt Obama. I thought that was inexcusable. He should have just stayed quiet and let the furor over him die down.
I think [Obama] handled it beautifully with his speech in Philadelphia, which made me weep. It’s probably the best analysis of the race issue that has been such an integral part of my life that I’ve ever heard. And I think Obama took the right attitude to separate himself from Wright. I think that adverse impact will be transient, but who knows. It certainly will stay in the minds of people who are racist at heart. And there’s a lot of racism in our country.
Peace in the Middle East
Will Israel ever give up Palestinian land? So far, there’s no indication that the answer is yes. Because Israel has not only violated their promise at Annapolis, and also the Road Map premises that no more new settlements be built. At the same time, instead of easing off on roadblocks, the number of roadblocks has increased from 550 to 587 when I was over there. Most Israeli citizens agree that Israel should exchange Palestinian land for peace. But there are strong forces in Israel that find that to be unacceptable.
U.S. relations with Iran
I think we ought to be talking directly to Iran. We don’t have to have diplomatic relations with them, but our secretary of state ought to be talking to their foreign minister — not only on the nuclear issue but also on the future of Iraq. All the United States has done is threaten [Iran]. And if you were the Iranians and you were contemplating expanding your military arsenal to include nuclear weapons, and the biggest nuclear weapon holder on Earth was threatening to attack you, would that deter you from developing nuclear weapons or inspire you to quit? It would obviously encourage you to go ahead with it. I think just having discussions with Iran on what we could do for them diplomatically, economically, politically, would appeal to the moderate voices in Iran and I understand that there are a lot of them.
A nuclear Iran
Most people say, I don’t know who knows for sure, that it’s six or seven years before Iran could get a nuclear device. If they get a device, then they have to have an intercontinental missile, which is much more difficult to evolve. It’s a long, tedious process. And then you would have Iran with maybe three pitiful, little nuclear explosives, compared with [the] United States with 12,000 on alert. It would be patently suicidal for them to make an attack against us or Israel. I think the fanaticism in their government is almost directly related to the attitude of the United States toward Iran and the incitement of fear and extreme jingoism or nationalism on the part of their people. From all neutral points that I see, there’s an incipient moderation among their people that they could be stimulated by reasonable action on our part. I think our action toward Iran has been irrational.
U.S. reputation
The horrendous public relations that the United States has in foreign countries is very sobering. I think the next president could change that in 10 minutes by making the proper inaugural speech. If the next president would get up and say: “While I’m president, I will never again torture a prisoner. I’ll raise once again the banner of human rights and let the United States be in the forefront of that cause. I’ll never again attack another country, unless our own security is directly threatened. The United States will be in the forefront of protecting the environment against global warming or any other threat. We’ll lead the other countries, we won’t be laggards. When I’m president, I will start within the first month on an all-out effort to bring peace to Israel and Israel’s neighbors. I won’t wait until the last few months that I’m in office.” This, in 10 minutes, would send a signal throughout the world that, I think, would almost instantaneously transform the image of our country.
