Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday cited the new National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) evaluation on Iran as evidence that pressure on that country has worked, while her opponents continued to criticize her more hawkish stance on relations with Tehran.

In a radio debate in Iowa hosted by National Public Radio on Tuesday afternoon, Clinton fired back on the issue by attempting to rope in her top two competitors closer to her position.

Clinton, who has taken a more forceful tone toward Iran than her Democratic opponents, went a step further and asserted that the report shows Iran can be contained through some harsher measures, coupled with diplomacy.

“I think we do know that pressure on Iran does have an impact. I think that’s an important lesson,” Clinton said.

Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said flat-out that such a conclusion was wrong and suggested the program was stopped prior to major steps to contain it.

“With all due respect to anybody that thinks that pressure brought this about, let’s get this straight: In 2003, they stopped this program,” Biden said.

Clinton, who was the only Democratic senator running for president to vote for a measure designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization, later stuck by her assertion, saying that “we've actually seen some changes in their behavior” due to the resolution.

Biden was again her strongest detractor on that point, saying there is “no evidence, none, zero, that this caused any change in action on the part of the Iranian government.”

Former Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) called the resolution “exactly what Bush and Cheney wanted,” and he and others continued to call it an assist in the administration’s march toward war against Tehran.

Continuing her new strategy of playing more offense, Clinton tried to bring her top two rivals, Edwards and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), closer to her Iran position by using their past statements. The three have been neck and neck in Iowa heading into the Jan. 3 caucuses.

Clinton cited a September 2004 Chicago Tribune report paraphrasing Obama as saying that the United States “should not rule out military strikes to destroy nuclear production sites in Iran.”

Obama insisted that the comment was in response to a specific hypothetical question about Iran going nuclear.

“In those situations, what I said is we should keep options on the table,” Obama said.

Clinton also referred to a speech that Edwards gave to an Israeli audience in January in which he said the nuclear threat from Iran was “the greatest challenge of our generation.”

Edwards did not directly address the remarks, even when pressed, focusing instead on Clinton’s Iran vote.

During the debate, the questions focused for 40-minute segments on three issues: Iran, China and illegal immigration.

During the immigration discussion, Obama said that illegal immigrants should not be allowed to work while Congress sorts out its legislation concerning their legal status.

Asked if he would let them work in January 2009 if the legislation were still unfinished, Obama said no.

“I think that, if they're illegal, then they should not be able to work in this country,” he said.

Clinton, who has expressed sympathy for hard-working illegal immigrants, said that position does not contradict her call to get tough on employers, who might subsequently eliminate those immigrants’ jobs.

Pressed on whether she would crack down on employers even if the move eliminates such jobs, Clinton assured, “I will crack down on employers.”

None of the candidates appeared to support having citizens be responsible for turning in illegal immigrants, but Biden and Clinton said employers who gain from their labor should have an extra burden to know whether they are hiring legal workers.

Clinton and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) seemed to downplay the importance of the issue, though. Clinton called much of the debate “contentious” and “demagogic” and suggested that economic problems are the main reason it has become so contentious.

“The Republicans, the extreme conservatives here, want this issue on the table,” Dodd said. “They don't want to talk about the war in Iraq.”

The candidates were largely in agreement on China, saying the country has not been held accountable because of corporate America’s interests. They also agreed that the United States should take a tougher position in negotiations with Beijing.

China has recently been under scrutiny for exporting harmful and defective toys and toothpaste, among other things.

Asked whether Americans would have to stomach higher prices by getting tough with China, Obama admitted there might be an initial bump in costs, but he said the problem would work itself out.

“I actually believe that China will modify its behavior if we actually are tough in our negotiations,” he said. “Look, we are the biggest market for China. They can't afford to just say, ‘See you later.’ ”

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and Edwards said a first step is to encourage people to buy American-made products.

“Why is the president of the United States not saying to the American people, to local communities, ‘Buy local’?” Edwards said.