Barack Obama Quotes

We probably could more successfully resolve the North Korean nuclear threat through game-theoretic reasoning. We could successfully resolve what American leaders seem to perceive as an Iranian nuclear threat through game-theoretic reasoning.

If you're gonna sit there and be worried about what Donald Trump would do with nuclear weapons, you've got to know that it's Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton who have made it possible for Iran to nuke up, and that's in nobody's best interests. That's not in the best interests of our ally, Israel. It's not in the best interests of ourselves.

Folks, Russia is perhaps the second most powerful nuclear country in the world. If you don't have dialogue, you have to be fools.

The world should be very clear about making sure that Iran does not get nuclear weapons, period.

As we speak, Iran has rolled back its nuclear program, shipped out its uranium stockpile, and the world has avoided another war.

Sanctions aren't about weapons of mass destruction. People need to understand that.

Our Russian policy must not be dictated by people who have already made up their minds there is no possibility of working with the Russians and that our interests are bound to conflict and ultimately lead to war. From my point of view, this is an untenable position and can but lead to disaster.

China, North Korea's last ally in the world has just voted agaisnt them [in the United Nations]. What would you do if you thought every country in the world was against you and you wanted to survive? You would buy insurance. And the best insurance you could get to prevent invasion would be nuclear weapons, and that is just what North Korea has done. So now, when the President [Trump] threatens them, what do they do? They go out and buymore insurance.

If we can deter the Soviet Union, if we can deter North Korea, why on earth can't we deter Iran?

I thought I was going to grow up and become a diplomat and negotiate nuclear arms.

North Korea announced that they have nuclear weapons and they have no plans to give them up. The White House, acting quickly, announced their plan to invade Iran.

No matter the good news anywhere else, these nuke-hungry rogue states will provide grounds for bad-mouthing Bush foreign policy.

If they think they can get anyone who could have better handled the complex and difficult issues surrounding North Korea, Iran and other controversies, they are not understanding the world right now.

And now, as in no other age, we seek it [peace] because we have been warned, by the power of modern weapons, that peace may be the only climate possible for human life itself.

Our goal there, in my view, is to work and lean strongly on China to put as much pressure. China is one of the few major countries in the world that has significant support for North Korea, and I think we got to do everything we can to put pressure on China. I worry very much about an isolated, paranoid country with atomic bombs.

When they made that horrible deal with Iran, they should have included the fact that they do something with respect to North Korea. And they should have done something with respect to Yemen and all these other places.

I worry very, very much about an isolated country. That's what makes me nervous. Russia lives in the world. China lives in the world. North Korea is a very, very strange country because it is so isolated, and I do feel that a nation with nuclear weapons, they have got to be dealt with. Dealt with effectively.

Whether we report Iran to the council or not, I believe the only way forward is through diplomacy.

Any jackass can talk about bombing Iran.

The threat of nuclear warfare is very, very low. Trump is no fool, and he sees the world as a globalized world.

Strong countries and strong presidents talk to their adversaries. That's what Kennedy did with Khrushchev. That's what Reagan did with Gorbachev. That's what Nixon did with Mao. I mean think about it. Iran, Cuba, Venezuela - these countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union. They don't pose a serious threat to us the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us. And yet we were willing to talk to the Soviet Union at the time when they were saying we're going to wipe you off the planet.

Some of [Donald Trump] comments can be interpreted as potentially reducing the threat of nuclear war. The major threat right now is right on the Russian border. Notice, not the Mexican border, the Russian border. And it's serious. He has made various statements moving towards reducing the tensions, accommodating Russian concerns and so on.

It is madness for any country to build its policy with an eye to nuclear war.

The Middle East is the tinder box of the world, and to be able to remove a nuclear threat of any kind out of Iran, that would have been a big deal, very positive step forward.

There is a Western world. There is America. There is Great Britain and Germany and France and Russia and China and other nations. I doubt that there is one country amongst those I mentioned which has a desire to see Iran, with its fundamentalist, Islamic, extremist government, possessing nuclear weapons.