dr. matthew kroenig will be our speakers. il leave it to our moderator to introduce them. it is my pleasure to introduce our moderator beverly kirk, ce owe o of bev kirk international, and she is a member of the world affairs council. previously she willing and chored late news report for news channel 8. she anchored hourly news briefed produced by national public radio for pbs stations across the country and also spent six years as a correspondent for nbc news channel the affiliate division of nbc news. covering national stories, including the september 11th attack and its aftermath, the two olympics, the 2000 presidential election and the clinton impeachment among other stories. before joining nbc in 1997, beverly served as and chore and local government reporter for wlex-tv in lexington, kentucky where she produced and hosted the station's month lit minority public affairs program. she holds a masters of arts degree in international politics from the patterson school of diplomacy and international commerce at the university of kentucky. she also is a sum ma cum laude gr

dr. matthew kroenig. >> thank you very much for that introduction. it is a pleasure to be here. i think many of us would agree that iran's rapidly advancing nuclear program poses perhaps the greatest emerging challenge to the country, and deciding on how to deal with it is the most important issue facing the united states government now. as i see it, they're all in three ways this issue will be resolved. first, a diplomatic settlement, second, acquiesced to a nuclear iran, or we or israel can take military action. i think a diplomatic settlement would be ideal if we could get it, but i believe there is good reason to believe that we can not. it is hard to a mention any overlap to what the supreme leader would agree to in terms of constraints on the nuclear program that would reassure washington and the international community that the nuclear program is no longer a problem. as beverly kirk pointed out, we plan to return to negotiations with iran, but they said they would not be willing to talk to the enrichment program. a european diplomat said "maybe miracles happen, call on th