We need a dialogue with the Iranians, and it is going to take both carrots and sticks. We employed very tough economic sanctions, and they are having an effect. But we also have to give the Iranians an idea of what the economic and cooperative possibilities would be if they did give up their quest for a nuclear weapon.

I don't know how you make a record on liberal and conservative these days. We've had a conservative Republican Congress, so to speak, and a conservative president, and we've run up one of the most astounding deficits in the history of our nation.

Seventeen years after the Cold War, how can it be in the Unites States' national security interest for the President of Russia to have only a few minutes to decide whether to fire his nuclear weapons or lose them in response to what could be a false warning?

I think if terrorists had nuclear materials and found people to put a bomb together - both of which are possible - we would already have seen a nuclear explosion. But we have literally thousands of people around the world working their tails off and making a lot of sacrifices to contain nuclear materials. I particularly would like to compliment the Russians on this. In times of great economic distress, many of them could have made an awful lot of money if they had sold their expertise.

We are in a race between cooperation and catastrophe, and the threat is outrunning our response.

If you think you're a leader, and you look over your shoulder and there ain't nobody following you, man, you're just takin' a walk.

We need a dialogue with the Iranians, and it is going to take both carrots and sticks. We employed very tough economic sanctions, and they are having an effect. But we also have to give the Iranians an idea of what the economic and cooperative possibilities would be if they did give up their quest for a nuclear weapon.