During his confirmation hearing, Thursday, John Kerry, President Barack Obama's nominee for secretary of state, assured Americans that the U.S. will do everything it has to do to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
"The president has made it definitive -- we will do what we must to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon," Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, said in his opening statement. "I repeat here today: Our policy is not containment; it is prevention. And the clock is ticking on our efforts to secure responsible compliance."
Kerry said that he hopes the U.S. and other countries will join hands on diplomatic fronts to look into this issue together and says that Tehran would need to prove that their program is for peaceful purposes.
Kerry was also asked about his outreach to Assad, now an international pariah after months of civil war and unending violence.
"History caught up to us. That never happened," he said. "And it's now moot, because (Assad) has made a set of judgments that are inexcusable, that are reprehensible. I think is not long for remaining as the head of state in Syria.
"I think the time is ticking," he said.
Kerry also addressed the controversy that surrounded him 42 years ago when the decorated Vietnam veteran testified about his opposition to the war.
"Today, I can't help but recognize that the world itself then was in many ways simpler, divided as it was along bipolar, Cold War antagonisms," he said. "Today's world is more complicated than anything we have experienced -- from the emergence of China to the Arab Awakening: inextricably linked economic, health, environmental and demographic issues," as well as issues such as proliferation.
