When al-Qaeda was on the run from Afghanistan crossing through Iran, some were arrested and they are imprisoned. Some of them are charged with some actions in Iran.
We've had 60 years of intellectual development in Iran. How can we have the same system? Even theories of secularism are constantly being revised and changed.
Everything we've done has been designed to make sure that we address that number one priority. That's what the sanctions regime was all about. That's how we were able to mobilize the international community, including some folks that we are not particularly close to, to abide by these sanctions. That's how these crippling sanctions came about, was because we [USA] were able to gain global consensus that Iran having a nuclear weapon would be a problem for everybody.
The bottom line is this - whereas Iran was steadily expanding its nuclear program, we have now cut off every single path that Iran could have used to build a bomb.
Supporters of the national front, Mosaddeq, believe that in Iran, we don't have a nationalities problem, we don't have an ethnic problem. It is like living with your wife, with whom you are in love and you are intensely involved in, but you also have tensions. And their position is that they want to deny that these tensions exist.
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.
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.
That may prevent us from getting a deal done, It is there to be had. Whether ultimately Iran can seize that opportunity - we will have to wait and see, but it is not for lack of trying on our part.
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.
If Iran does not take steps in the near future to live up to its obligations, then the United States will not continue to negotiate indefinitely... Our patience is not unlimited.
When I came into office, the world was divided. Iran was resurgent. Iran is at its weakest point, economically, strategically, militarily, then since - then in many years. And we are going to continue to keep the pressure on to make sure that they do not get a nuclear weapon. That's in America's national interest and that will be the case so long as I'm president.
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.