Biden’s CIA nominee: Significant US does 'everything' to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapon
25 February, 2021
The US nominee to lead the CIA, William Burns, said Iran should never have a nuclear weapon and warned of challenges posed by its destabilising behaviour.
Mr Burns, a veteran diplomat who negotiated openly and secretly with Iran in the Bush and the Obama administrations, appeared before the US Senate in his confirmation hearing on Wednesday.
"I think it’s absolutely very important to the United States to do everything we can to prevent Iran from creating a nuclear weapon,” he told the Senate intelligence committee
Later found in the hearing, Mr Burns named several problems that Iran poses beyond its nuclear programme and said that, if confirmed, he'd provide a holistic evaluation to President Joe Biden.
“Problems posed by Iranian behaviour are not ones we are able to afford to ignore, over the table: ballistic missile development in addition to subversive and destabilising activities in the Middle East and human rights abuses inside Iran as well,” Mr Burns said.
But the position diplomat, who brings 33 years of foreign policy experience, focused most of his hearing on countering a far more provocative Russia and a growing China.
He advised “firmness and regularity” in coping with Moscow, and called the SolarWinds cyber attack, that the US blamed Russia, a “incredibly harsh wake-up call".
The Biden administration is set to impose fresh sanctions on Moscow linked to the hack, Politico reported this week.
Mr Burns, who has served as ambassador to Russia, said putting a cost on its activities could be effective.
"We've more effects in some cases on [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s calculus when he views responses coming, company responses coming not only from america but from our European allies and others aswell," he said.
"So it takes care of to work hard in widening that circle of countries who are likely to push back."
In his opening statement, Mr Burns called China “a formidable, authoritarian adversary - methodically strengthening its capacities to steal intellectual property, repress its people, bully its neighbours, extend its global reach and build influence in American society".
But while he pushed for more robust assets to counter Beijing, Mr Burns as well saw have to co-operate with it.
“There will be areas in which it'll be inside our mutual self-interest to work with China, from climate change to non-proliferation,” he said.
Mr Burns’s hearing received praise from Republicans and Democrats, indicating his confirmation will be swift and easy.
He was introduced by ex - Republican secretary of condition James Baker, who called him “a person who seizes and surmounts every task that he meets".
Mr Burns, 64, served under successive US Republican and Democratic presidents from Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama, speaks Arabic, Russian and French.
He brings vast understanding of the center East, having been ambassador in your community intimately associated with the Iran negotiations since 2006, and as ex - assistant secretary of express for Near East affairs.
Mr Burns was a good deputy secretary of point out from 2011 to 2014; undersecretary of political affairs from 2008 to 2011; ambassador to Russia in 2005 to 2008; ambassador to Jordan between 1998 and 2001; and assistant secretary for In close proximity to East affairs from 2001 to 2005.
Source: www.thenationalnews.com