David Sanger

But those are the two different threats and they are very different that he is discussing.

And by the way, if the Iranians ever made a nuclear weapon, and so far they have not, and it has taken them longer than any country, it probably wouldn't be for a warhead that could fit inside a missile.

It would probably be a crude weapon.

The other interesting way to think about this, Terry, is compare it to President Trump's big diplomatic effort, a failed effort in the first term that dealt with North Korea.

Now, what's the difference between the Iranian program and the North Korean program?

The Iranians have worked toward the goal of a nuclear weapon, we believe, based on the evidence.

The North Koreans got to nuclear weapons nearly 20 years ago, and they have now built up an arsenal of 60 or more.

And there's every bit of evidence that they do have the missiles that can reach the United States or will soon be able to reach the United States.

Well, this gets to the central question of whether or not Iran is our most serious ally.

nuclear problem right now.

And I think you could argue that the fastest growing program is China's.

And the one that you might want to worry about the most is Russia's.

So let me just take those apart.

When Xi Jinping took over in China,

The country had gone through decades of theory of minimum nuclear deterrent.

It was created by Mao Zedong.

The country had roughly 200 nuclear weapons.

It wasn't an arsenal even big enough for the U.S.

to wrap into arms control talks.

Once Xi came in, he looked around the world and said, if we're going to become a great power, we need to have the nuclear arsenal of a great power.