What an honest speech by US President Barack Obama about Iran's nuclear program would look like

I would like to address the great people of Iran and Iran's government in the spirit of mutual respect and in the hopes that the difficult disagreements that have arisen between the United States and Iran can be resolved. I want to make sure you understand that the American people have great respect for the people of Iran and their rich history.

The American people also have common cause with those Iranian people who want their government to go further to guarantee human rights and freedoms. There are other governments in your region that deny human rights and freedoms to their people. Certainly there are governments more repressive than yours, or hold more people powerless under their control than yours. But many of these other governments are more cooperative with American priorities such as the security of Israel than yours. One of these governments holding many people powerless under their control is the Israeli government itself. So to those people of Iran who want to reform your government, to you we can say, more than we can say about many other people in your region, that the people of the United States wholeheartedly support and want to see you succeed in making major changes to the ruling structure of your nation.

Iran once had a right to the nuclear activities like uranium enrichment that the US and other nations are now working to prevent Iran from pursuing. At that time, the US opposed any civilian nuclear program for Iran because of the potential that it may allow Iran to gain access to technologies that could be used to make a weapon. The US may have been wrong for that position, but while both sides have had some share in our poor relations since the Iranian revolution, that is in the past now.

Today, however the International Atomic Energy Agency of the United Nations has asked that Iran refrain from exercising that right and the UN Security Council in its role as protector of world peace and security, has made that request mandatory, and until it decides otherwise has revoked Iran's right to enrich uranium or to develop technologies that could be used to make a nuclear weapon.

Iran, when it signed and ratified the UN Charter has agreed to cede a portion of its sovereignty to the UN Security Council so that Security council can do its job of ensuring world peace and security. Countries in the developing world and the Muslim world agreed with us that Iran must give up, for now, the rights we've revoked. Iran has made a commitment to follow the rules set by the UN Security Council and we expect Iran to respect its commitment.

The United States and other countries in the world consider Israel's security, as a Jewish state, to be of paramount importance in the region and we accept Israel's position that until it is accepted and those who oppose the continuation as a Jewish state concede defeat, its survival requires that it have a monopoly in its region on the ability to issue nuclear threats against others.

However, the Security Council has not revoked Iran's right to nuclear power that does not give Iran a weapons capability. We are willing, once Iran gives up its drive toward the capability to build a weapon, to assist with its civilian nuclear program. This is a big change in policy from just ten years ago and we want the Iranian people to appreciate how much our policies have improved.

We are also willing to discuss ways for Iran to accept, at least to some degree at first, Israel as a Jewish state, and to change policies that threaten Israel's security. In doing so we look forward to having all other sanctions and barriers removed so that the US and Iran can have normal relations as the US does with almost all nations in the world, including Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and nearly all Muslim states.

Iran must choose now. There is a path available to Iran's people of prosperity and integration as equals in the world community through cooperation, and then there is the path of confrontation. Iran, to follow the path of cooperation has only to follow the rules that have been set for every nation. When Iran shows it is willing to follow those rules, it will find the international community and especially the government and people of the United States of America eager to help work to improve the lives of the Iranian people in many ways, to give Iran the rich future it deserves.

From the American people, I say thank you and offer hope for improved relations, cooperation on the basis of true friendship, and prosperity in the future.