A top Republican senator says the United States should still sit down with Iran, despite postelection turmoil in Tehran.
Sen. Richard Lugar says the U.S. has a goal of containing Iran's nuclear ambition. He says the two countries should meet even though there are protests in Tehran over this month's presidential vote.
Lugar, R-Ind., says President Barack Obama or Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton should be ready to meet with their Iranian counterparts.
Lugar also says Iran's supreme leader has pushed the conflict there toward a "very brutal outcome."
Lugar, one of the Senate's most respected voices on foreign affairs, says Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has put himself in the center of the postelection uprising. Lugar faults the Iranian leader for refusing to give in to demonstrators' demands for a rerun of the June 12 election that returned President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to office.
Lugar says that has laid the ground for a "potentially very brutal outcome at the end of the day."
Lugar spoke on CNN's "State of the Union."
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