In a lengthy speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in which she defended the Obama administration’s foreign policy approach, Clinton said that “this is a moment that must be seized – through hard work and bold decisions – to lay the foundations for lasting American leadership for decades to come.”

Critics have said that the administration’s diplomacy has yielded little on such difficult issues as Israeli-Palestinian peace and Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, but Clinton argued the opposite, saying that substantial progress has been made on those fronts through “classic shoe-leather diplomacy.” She urged patience, saying that the fruits of the administration’s labors will not be apparent for some time.

Answering questions from the audience after her speech, Clinton took a shot at the Iranian government. “I don’t think there’s any doubt that Iran is morphing into a military dictatorship with a, you know, sort of religious ideological veneer,” she said. “And I don’t think that’s what the Iranian revolution for a republic of Iran, an Islamic republic of Iran, was ever meant to become.”

But she said that the United States is trying to strike a balance – being publicly supportive of efforts in Iran to promote democracy without doing anything to “either endanger or undermine those very same people.”

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