Hillary Clinton on Ukraine, Russia and Iran

HILLARY CLINTON, FORMER U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE: And I hope that as we move into the winter, which we know will be especially brutal for the people of Ukraine, that we don’t lose our commitment or our absolute passion to help them with every tool that they need, with military means, with humanitarian aid. And I also think it’s time for the United States and NATO to take another look at providing more defensive weapons. Because what the Russians are doing is trying to literally bomb the Ukrainian people into submission by destroying their power generators, their electricity grid. They will not succeed. But the suffering will increase. So, anything that can be done to give the Ukrainian military more means of rebuffing these brutal bombing attacks, we need to be looking much more closely at doing that.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, HOST: So, you think, and you would support the United States giving more sophisticated, you know, anti-missile defense systems. And also, the U.S. has called several times, I’ve spoken to senators on both sides, that their big ally, Israel, should do the same thing with the Iron Dome that the U.S. provides, et cetera. What would you say to your — you know, your own country and to allies in this regard, and others in Europe as well?

CLINTON: I would say exactly what you said, it is time to give much more sophisticated defense measures. And I know there is a new government in Israel. And they are rightly concerned about Iran, and because they are, they need to understand that Iran and Russia have now made an alliance, where Iran is assisting Russia, particularly with drone technology, to reap even greater destruction on Ukraine. I now believe it should be understood to be in Israel’s interest to try to undercut and prevent Iran from succeeding because of Iran and Russia deepen their military alliance outside of Syria, where they’ve also been working together for a number of years, that is very dangerous for the entire world, but in particular, for Israel. So, Iron Dome, other means of defense. I think defensive measures are called for and wherever they come from, the United States, other NATO nations, Israel, now is the time to send a very clear message to both Russia and Iran. That their behavior, their bombardment of Ukraine, they’re learning lessons that they could maybe apply in invading, occupying or bombing other nations will be stopped right now. So, yes, I agree completely with those calls and I hope that there’s a lot of conversation going on to try to move forward on that.