Barack Obama Quotes

I really believe the nexus of terrorism and nuclear weapons is the world's most ominous threat.

You know, people have actually changed the way they think about nuclear weapons now, post-Cold War, post-9/11. The threat of nuclear weapons is not so much Russia attacking the United States, China. It's not a state-to-state - it's obviously terrorism; it's proliferation.

The risk of just one terrorist with just one nuclear weapon is a risk we simply cannot afford to take.

The single biggest threat that we face is a nuclear weapon or some weapon of mass destruction. What that means is that we have to be extraordinarily aggressive and vigilant in controlling nuclear proliferation.

We are always just one successful terrorist attack away from a nuclear disaster.

If we have isolated individuals able to inflict enormous harm, imagine what a single lunatic can do with a nuclear weapon. I think the whole base of civil society is at risk.

And beyond that, the next issue is how do we guarantee one of these weapons, not necessarily this missile, but nuclear weapons ends up in the hands of Al Qaeda or some other terrorist group.

The nexus between terrorism and nuclear weapons, or even nuclear material, is obviously a current concern.

Are we prepared to tolerate a world in which countries which care about morality lay down their nuclear weapons, leaving others to threaten the rest of the world or hold it to ransom?

Our enemy is Al Qaeda and its allies, people who have publicly said they wish to attack the United States again, people who have publicly called on nuclear physicists and engineers to help them gain access to nuclear weapons, which, as the whole world knows, Pakistan has.

Any possession of nuclear weapons in the Middle East is a danger.

The centerpiece of a serious campaign to prevent nuclear terrorism … should be denying terrorists access to weapons and their components. After all, no nuclear weapons or material means no nuclear terrorism; it’s that simple.

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.

The truth is, as long as nuclear weapons exist, we are not safe.

If Iran gains a nuclear weapon, we will need a new calendar in the world - it would change humanity that much. Iran will give these weapons to terrorists the world over, and your children and mine will step into the shadow of nuclear terrorism.

The Islamic State is dangerous, a nuclear-armed Islamic Republic is even more so.

That is the number-one threat we face in the world. And it becomes particularly threatening if terrorists ever get their hands on any nuclear material. So a man who can be provoked by a tweet should not have his fingers anywhere near the nuclear codes, as far as I think anyone with any sense about this should be concerned.

The era of nuclear terrorism has arrived.

Nuclear is the single greatest threat.

Just like Sept. 11, only with nuclear weapons this time, that's the threat. I think that is the threat. I think it's just facing reality. It's not a happy reality, but it's reality and if you don't deal with it, it will become even more unpleasant.

The fact is that there is now, we know well, a proliferation of nuclear weapons, and that many weapons that Saddam Hussein had, we don't know where they are. That means terrorists have access to all of that.

Nuclear weapons offer us nothing but a balance of terror, and a balance of terror is still terror.

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

Protecting Americans from nuclear terrorism rises above politics.

Although September 11 was horrible, it didn't threaten the survival of the human race, like nuclear weapons do.