NIKKI HALEY LIVE: The Rules of Diplomacy

One of the rules of diplomacy is you have to listen very carefully to what people say they're going to do. Because that is normally the best guide to what they're going to do. That's exactly right. And I think one of the mistakes we all make, and I think Britons make it, Americans make it sometimes, we sort of impose onto other people what we think they ought to do. That's exactly right. Rather than actually saying, what do these guys say they're going to do? Let's start with that. I always say dictators tell you exactly what they're going to do. We just need to listen to them. Because if you listen, you will find out exactly what the challenge is going to be going forward. And then you're more likely, then the question is, knowing that, what would you do to save lives, to mitigate the situation, to make it better? So look, I don't know what a Trump presidency will bring in every area, but in this specific area of the Middle East, I think one of the biggest gaps in policy that we've had, not Britain so much, but I would say more America, is there's not been a clear Iran strategy. Now, you can criticise the Obama nuclear deal, but at least it was a deal that kept Iran verifiably away from a nuclear weapon. Then we had the Trump policy of maximum sanctions, maximum pressure. And the problem for the last couple of years, we've had nothing. We've had neither the sanctions nor the deal. And I hope one of the things that the Trump presidency can fix and fix urgently is a strong policy towards Iran. And we have to be consistent. And I don't think it's just America has to be consistent. I think the West has to be consistent on how we're going to start dealing with our threats, whether it's China, whether it's Iran, whether it's Russia, going forward.