OBAMA ON MEET THE PRESS

Barack Obama sat down for the full hour this Sunday on Meet the Press.

MR. BROKAW: Let's move on to Israel, where you got very good notices across the political spectrum from Israeli leaders, but you also met with King Abdullah of Jordan. He recently told The Washington Post, and he's been saying in--this in the United States, as well; when asked if Iran is the number one threat of the region, he said, no, "I think the lack of peace [between Israel and the Palestinians] is the major threat. I don't see the ability of creating a two-state solution beyond 2008, 2009. I think this is really the last chance. If this fails, I think this is going to be a major threat for the Middle East: Are we going to go for another 60 years of `fortress Israel,' or are we going to have a neighborhood where Israel is actually incorporated? That's our major challenge, I'm very concerned that the clock is ticking, that the door is closing on all of us." I'm confident that he said the same thing to you.

SEN. OBAMA: Yes.

MR. BROKAW: Did you tell him that you would appoint a presidential envoy who would report only to you to work exclusively on the issues of peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis?

SEN. OBAMA: I told him something approximating that. What I told him was that this will be an issue that I don't wait until the last minute to work on, that I want to pick up on some of the progress that has been made coming out of Annapolis. I give the Bush administration credit that the Annapolis process has gotten Prime Minister Olmert in Israel and President Abbas in the Palestinian territories to have very serious and frank discussions. I think they have moved the ball forward. They may not be able to finish the job. They certainly can't finish it without serious participation by the next administration, and we've got to start early.

And, and one thing I want to pick up on, because I think King, King Abdullah is as savvy a analyst of the region and player in the region as, as there is, one of the points that he made and I think a lot of people made, is that we've got to have an overarching strategy recognizing that all these issues are connected. If we can solve the Israeli/Palestinian process, then that will make it easier for Arab states and the Gulf states to support us when it comes to issues like Iraq and Afghanistan.

It will also weaken Iran, which has been using Hamas and Hezbollah as a way to stir up mischief in the region. If we've gotten an Israeli/Palestinian peace deal, maybe at the same time peeling Syria out of the Iranian orbit, that makes it easier to isolate Iran so that they have a tougher time developing a nuclear weapon.

So we've got to take all these issues, and I think the next president has to start very quickly in moving both on the peace process forward and still recognizing that issues like Iran are connected and of extraordinary priority.