CIA chief says US will keep pressure on Iran

CIA Director John Brennan tells Fox News that the US will “continue to keep pressure” on Iran to ensure it does not “destabilize” the region and develop nuclear weapons, regardless of whether a nuclear deal is ultimately signed.

“The nuclear program is one issue that we’re hoping to be able to halt; but also, we see that Iran is still a state sponsor of terrorism,” he says. “And so what we have to do, whether there’s a deal or not, is continue to keep pressure on Iran and to make sure that it is not able to continue to destabilize a number of the countries in the region.”

He says Iran is aware there will be “tremendous costs and consequences and implications” to its expansionism and attempts to develop a weapon. Brennan says the US “has gone to school” in the past ten years, “so that we can now have a better plan and an opportunity to verify some of the things that they are saying that they’re going to do and not do.”

“President Obama has made it very clear that we are going to prevent Iran from having that type of nuclear weapon that they — they were going on the track to obtain. So if they decide to go down that route, they know that they will do so at their peril.”