JCS Chairman Michael Mullen urged Allied leaders to make the contributions necessary to win in Afghanistan, which he called “front and center” in the international security picture. He predicted that NATO “will have to deal with Iran in the very near future.” Mullen also reminded his audience of the many military personnel “in harm’s way this evening so that we might enjoy the freedom, the privileges, the opportunity that their service, in fact, provides.”

Mullen, the recipient of the Atlantic Council’s 2008 Distinguished Military Leadership Award, echoed the sentiments of his fellow awardees Tony Blair and Rupert Murdoch that we are in a perilous national security environment. He emphasized, however, that “there is also great opportunity. And we should work hard to seize that opportunity to ensure that stability becomes the norm in many parts of the world.”

In Iraq, “the opportunities that have been created because security has gotten better must be taken advantage of. That is diplomatic, that is political, that is economic.” In neighboring Iran, which “routinely pushes its way into more and more realms of instability,” there is an opportunity to push back and “create stability in that part of the world.”

Mullen echoed the sentiments expressed in a January Atlantic Council Strategic Advisors Group issue brief, that “as goes Afghanistan, so goes NATO.” Ensuring stability there is key to doing the same in the entire region and in demonstrating the Alliance’s commitment to “shared ideals of freedom and equality.”

Transcript of Adm. Mullen's Remarks

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