Whatever Iranian people have bought, they have bought in the black market. It is not clear what they have bought, how many secondhand materials they have bought. I am very worried that something like Chernobyl will happen to Iran.
I'm blown away. I'm flabbergasted the president [Barack Obama] made the phone call to Rouhani after 30-plus, `79, 33 years or so. And there's a reason we haven't negotiated with Iran, because they're state-sponsored terrorists. They're the central bank for terrorism around the world.
Like twentieth-century Iran, the remnant of the Persian Empire, Ethiopia under Haile Selassie attempted to preserve the absolutist state throught an accommodation with modernizing forces in his own terms without completely subduing traditionalists. This was not a strategy of Haile Selassie's own choosing. Instead, he was overtaken by events and forced to deal with contradictions that were from the very beginning too formidable to be managed in the long term.
As long as Iran's aggressive policies continue, it's going to be bad for the region. Iran has to decide whether it wants a revolution or a nation-state.
When it comes to preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, I will take no options off the table. ... That includes all elements of American power: a political effort aimed at isolating Iran, a diplomatic effort to sustain our coalition and ensure that the Iranian program is monitored, an economic effort that imposes crippling sanctions and, yes, a military effort to be prepared for any contingency.
We've achieved this historic progress through diplomacy, without resorting to another war in the Middle East. I want to also point out that by working with Iran on this nuclear deal, we were better able to address other issues.
Iran has been a neighbor for millenia, and will continue to be a neighbor for millenia. We have no issue with seeking to develop the best terms we can with Iran.
Essentially, Iran was sanctioned because of what had happened at Fordow, its unwillingness to comply with previous U.N. security resolutions about their nuclear program, and as part of the package of sanctions that was slapped on them, the issue of arms and ballistic missiles were included.
We have a legal system, and this is not something that happens all the time. We have capital punishment. America has capital punishment. Iran has capital punishment. Iran hangs people and leaves their bodies hanging on cranes. Iran put to death more than a thousand people last year. I don't see EU reporting on it.
Iran has made vile comments, anti-Semitic comments, comments about the destruction of Israel. It is precisely for that reason that even before I became president, I said Iran could not have a nuclear weapon.
Over more than a decade, Iran had moved ahead with its nuclear program. And before the deal, it had installed nearly 20,000 centrifuges that could enrich uranium for a nuclear bomb.
We have two kinds of oppression. Oppression that is universal - everyone in Iran is subject to it. But everyone has also their own, unique way of experiencing this oppression.
Now that Iran's actions have been verified, it can begin to receive relief from certain nuclear sanctions and gain access to its own money that had been frozen.