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Clinton Says Al-Qaeda Greater Threat than Iran

Published by on February 7, 2010

(IsraelNN.com) U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton downgraded the Iranian threat to produce a nuclear weapon on Sunday and claimed that the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization is more of a danger to the world.

Shortly after her comments in an interview with CNN Sunday, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced his country will produce 20-percent grade uranium, which Israel and the United States warn will be used to produce a nuclear warhead for a missile aimed at annihilating the Jewish State. His statement represents an about-face from previous declarations that Iran would agree to send lower-grade uranium outside the country for enrichment, although Ahmadinejad said he was not giving up Tehran’s readiness to swap domestically produced low-enriched uranium with atomic fuel produced abroad..

Secretary Clinton told CNN, “In terms of a country, obviously a nuclear-armed country like North Korea or Iran pose both a real or a potential threat, but I think that most of us believe the greater threats are the trans-national non-state networks,” referring to Al-Qaeda.

She also defended U.S. President Barack Obama’s strategy of “engaging” Iran diplomatically, arguing that “engagement has brought us a lot in the last year. The fact is, because we engaged, the rest of the world has really begun to see Iran the way we see it,” according to the wife of former President Bill Clinton.

“It’s almost hard to remember how poorly much of the world viewed the United States when President Obama came into office,”

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