Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Well, Iran's program has moved at a remarkably slow pace. Let's remind ourselves that it was now 20 years ago that Iran started its clandestine nuclear activities. Twenty years is a long, long time for a program that is of such importance to Iran and from which they're running such great risks of international isolation.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Hopefully what we can do is to persuade the Iranians that it would be really stupid idea for them to build just one nuclear weapon, because if they were to explode just that one nuclear weapon, they would face tremendous international isolation and what Secretary of State Hillary Clinton referred to as “crippling sanctions”—and, indeed, quite possibly more.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  They have a missile that has the diameter and weight-carrying capacity to carry a nuclear weapon to Israel. They appear to have a program to design a warhead that would fit on that missile. They have a program to produce large amounts of low-enriched uranium, which would give them the raw material to build more than dozens of bombs.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I don't think we know the mix. All those are there, along with the prestige of having advanced technology. With Khamenei, the man's preoccupation seems to be regime survival, and he seems to think that the essence of regime survival is finding a way to get the west to back off on its cultural invasion.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Iran has enough centrifuges and enough low-enriched uranium that it could, if it threw out the UN inspectors, probably make a nuclear weapon in a matter of months. Perhaps, if things went badly, it would take a year. But that would be a pretty primitive weapon, heavy and big, hard to deliver.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I'm not an expert on Russia of that time, but I would say that at the moment what we have in Iran is a small group, including the president, who sincerely believe that the tide of history is with them, and then there's a much larger group of people who think they're a mid-sized country with some very big problems coming up.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  I said in the Middle East there have been purchases of $100 billion of weapons in the last three years, which seem to be well designed for dealing with Iran. Iran has been accused by the nine states and Israel of providing several hundred million dollars a year to Hamas and Hezbollah.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  What Iran has been shipping abroad has been some disturbingly sophisticated weapons systems, such as longer-range and more precise rockets that it's trying to get into the Gaza Strip that could be used to hit Tel Aviv, and also anti-aircraft missiles and anti-tank missiles. There are disturbing indications that what Iran is providing is considerably more sophisticated than small arms to Hamas, and certainly Iran has for quite some time been providing much more sophisticated weaponry to Hezbollah, which has become a pretty impressive light infantry force.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  President Ahmadinejad believes his chest-thumping. I don't think Supreme Leader Khamenei does, because Supreme Leader Khamenei's great concern about cultural invasion and a velvet revolution suggests he thinks his regime is in fact in danger and that the people don't support it.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  The current Iranian government is racing towards the wall with its foot on the accelerator. There has been no adjustment whatsoever in government spending since the price of oil came down and the global financial crisis hit late last year. As a result, Iran is racing through its foreign exchange reserves.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Unfortunately, so far we haven't heard any indications on the Iranian side of what it is they would want in return for a deal. We're in fact further behind with Iran than we are with North Korea. The North Koreans at least say that if we provide them with this, this, and this, then we can have a deal.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  The Iraqi military--and Iraqi government--is being very insistent in the negotiations with the United States that it wishes to purchase 96 F-16 fighter planes. It has already purchased 120 M1A1 tanks and been given 20 more. It wants to buy another 120. That's 240 tanks and 96 aircraft--more than you need to defeat al Qaeda in Iraq.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Well, we need to have more leverage with the Iranians, and one of the best ways to get leverage, frankly, is to have political unity in the international community. When Canada makes this tremendous effort at the General Assembly at the United Nations to get the resolutions condemning Iran's human rights practices approved, that has a real impact.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  Again, Ahmadinejad, with his charming sense of understatement, has these grandiose ambitions. When UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan was giving his farewell tour around the world and stopped in Tehran, The New York Times reported on the meeting that he held with Ahmadinejad, in which Ahmadinejad complained that the structures of the United Nations were too much based on the results of World War II and that the world had changed.

Subcommittee on International Human Rights committee  The president in Iran has quite limited powers. The Supreme Leader is the man who really decides about questions of foreign affairs. For instance, when an agreement was reached in 2003 to suspend Iran's nuclear activities, the Iranian president at the time was not even informed about this agreement.