MR. HUME: Governor Romney, your thoughts. (Cheers, applause.)

MR. ROMNEY: Well, clearly your hypothetical suggests that everything we’ve done up until this point and beyond didn’t work, and there’s a lot we can do to keep that scenario from occurring. But assuming that that has not worked and we’ve been unsuccessful and your hypothetical is real and it is all too possible, you’re dealing with a nation that talks about genocide, it talks about Israel being a one- bomb state, and it is unacceptable for a nation that talks about genocide and contemplates using nuclear weaponry to have nuclear weapons. And as a result, we’re going to have to do something else to persuade them not to go forward.

What do you do next before you actually take up the military action? What you do in action is this. The president meets with leaders, Republican and Democrat, to make sure we’re on the same page. We want to make sure that Democrats sign up, that we’re all part of this on a unified basis.

Number two --

MR. HUME: What if they don’t?

MR. ROMNEY: -- number two -- well, my experience is being able to build consensus, and I’m not going to take that. I believe good Democrats love America just like good Republicans, and I’ll find a way to get us to work together.

Number two, you meet with our allies around the world and make sure we’re on the same page on this.

Number three, you work with the people on Arabian Peninsula, and you say to them we want you to put some pressure on people like China, like Saudi Arabia. They depend on your oil. We want you to put pressure on China to also be part of it. Now we take the military option off the table. We hold in our hand -- when they see our military option in our hand, a possible blockade or possible aerial strikes, they recognize we mean business, and that’s going to -- that’s going to make them think twice and hopefully abandon their folly because it is unacceptable to the world for us to have a nuclear Iran. And there’s no price of oil which would justify that outcome. (Applause.)

MR. HUME: All right. Senator McCain, you have the last word here, sir.

SEN. MCCAIN: At the end of the day, we cannot allow Iran to have nuclear weapons. Now I believe that we can do a lot of things. We can have a league of democracies to impose sanctions and to cut off the -- many of the things and benefits that the Iranians are now getting from other democracies. I think it’s clear that the United Nations Security Council will not act effectively with Russia and China behaving as they are.

But let’s see what Iran has been doing. Your hypothetical is closer to reality than many of us appreciate. The Iranians are sending lethal IEDs that are killing American soldiers. They’re training and equipping terrorists. They have dedicated themselves to the destruction of the state of Israel. They are arming Hezbollah. They are supporting Syria, and there’s no doubt they’re moving forward with the acquisition of a nuclear weapon. We need to work together with our allies, but at the end of the day, it’s the United States of America that will make the final decision.

On January of 2000 -- of 1981, Ronald Reagan came to power and raised his hand as president of the United States of America. By more than coincidence the Iranian hostages returned on that same day. I would employ some of his methods. (Applause.)