Kenneth M. Pollack Quotes

I think the Iranians are clearly determined to have a nuclear program. And we have to assume that with a nuclear program they have the capability and the will to create a nuclear weapon.

Unless Iran’s leadership believes that the costs of building a nuclear weapon will be greater than the benefit those weapons will provide, the Islamic Republic will become a nuclear-armed state.

Iran with a nuclear weapon or with fissile material that can be given to Hezbollah or Hamas or others has the potential of not just destabilizing the Middle East. But it could be brought here.

My personal view is that Iran, left to its own devices, will get itself to that step right below a nuclear weapon, that permanent breakout stage, so the needle isn't quite in the red for the international community. And, frankly, that will be as destabilizing as their actually having a weapon.

The greatest threat that the world faces is a nuclear Iran. A nuclear North Korea is already troubling enough.

Iran sees India, China, Pakistan and, allegedly, Israel around them with nuclear weapons.

Obviously, we don't want Iran to have nuclear weapons and I don't know if they're developing them, but if they're not developing them, they're crazy.

We still live in a world where if you have nuclear weapons, you are buying power; you are buying insurance against attack.

The fundamental premise is that neither the United States or the international community is going to allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.

If you're Iran's minister of defense, I think you'd try to develop at least one nuclear weapon to save yourself from what happened to Iraq.

The North Koreas of the world are trying very hard to acquire the material they need to acquire nuclear weapons, as is the case with Iran.

The most dangerous thing Iraq could have ever had was a nuclear weapon. The nuclear weapon Iraq was trying to build was not deliverable by bomb or ballistic missile. It was a large, bulky device that they hoped to bury and set off to let the world know they had a nuclear weapon. They never achieved that.

And it raises a fundamental question: How long can we move the world in one direction while we move in another direction, and do we want to backslide into an era that we finally emerged from where we had a nuclear weapon for every tactical mission?

As long as some of us choose to rely on nuclear weapons, we continue to risk that these same weapons will become increasingly attractive to others.

But I really believe it is in America's interest as well as that of the free world more generally to stop Iran from getting its hands on nuclear weapons. This regime has threatened to wipe Israel off the map and bring about a world without America, and either of those is a really bad prospect.

Iran's goal is not to become another North Korea - a nuclear weapons possessor but a pariah in the international community - but rather Brazil or Japan, a technological powerhouse with the capacity to develop nuclear weapons if the political winds were to shift, while remaining a nonnuclear weapons state.

I can tell you one thing, Iran is closer to developing nuclear weapons today than it was a week ago, or a month ago or a year ago. It's just moving on with its efforts.

I wouldn't discount the possibility that the Israelis would act if they came to the conclusion that basically the world was prepared to live with Iran with nuclear weapons. They certainly have the capability by themselves to set back the Iranian nuclear program.

Well, Israel, obviously, thinks of the Iranian nuclear program as an existential threat to Israel.

The Security Council decided to deal with Iran's nuclear intentions. The international community will not be willing to tolerate an Iran with a nuclear capability and an Iran that collaborates with terrorist organizations.

The biggest problem that we have on the face of the planet is Iran getting a nuclear weapon.

If we are to assume that North Korea becomes a nuclear-power state, of course the danger of having an all-out nuclear war, that possibility is very slim.

As far as U.S. intelligence knows, Iran is developing nuclear capacities, but they don't know if they are trying to develop nuclear weapons or not. Chances are they're developing what's called 'nuclear capability,' which many states have. That is the ability to have nuclear weapons if they decide to do it. That's not a crime.

The Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons would be infinitely more costly than any scenario you can imagine to stop it.

We've already seen proliferation. We started it with Britain, then France. Then we benignly let the Israelis do it. The Pakistanis and the Indians have recently done it. The Chinese have nuclear weapons.