The United States tries to support democratic forces in Iran but in a way that does not undermine or endanger them, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday.

Speaking to foreign policy experts, Clinton also said she believed the Iranian people eventually will respond to what called a “sad confluence of events” in the oil-exporting nation, including its slide towards what she called a military dictatorship.

…”I don’t think there is any doubt that Iran is morphing into a military dictatorship with a … sort of religious-ideological veneer,” Clinton said in response to questions at the Council on Foreign Relations, echoing a phrase she first used in public in February.

“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,” she said. “So I know there is a great deal of ferment and activities inside that we do try to support.

“At the same time, we don’t want to either endanger or undermine those very same people so that it becomes, you know, once again, the U.S. doing something instead of the U.S. being supportive of what indigenous efforts are taking place.

“There is a very … sad confluence of events occurring inside Iran that I think eventually — but I can’t put a time frame on it — the Iranian people themselves will respond to,” she said. “We want to be helpful but we don’t want to get in the way of it so that’s the balance that we try to strike.”