“If he takes the country to war in [Iran] without a vote of Congress, which will not exist, then he should be impeached.” (November, 15 2007)

“I stand with the many citizens- from the U.S. and around the world- who are concerned at the prospect of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. Nuclear proliferation is a grave concern to international stability, and in the hands of the sponsors of terorism is entirely unacceptable.” (Statement to the Israel Project, July 19, 2007)

“Iran with the bomb could spark an arms race in the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Syria joining in. Given the fault lines - between Sunni and Shia, Israelis and Palestinians, Persians and Arabs, Turks and Kurds, fundamentalists and moderates - that's the last thing we need. And it's the last thing Israel needs.

No President should take any option off the table, including force. But we have time: Iran is years away from having a bomb and a missile to deliver it. We need to use the time wisely.

We have to keep our eyes on the prize: preventing Iran from getting the bomb. This administration spent five years obsessed with the idea of getting rid of the Iranian regime.

None of us like the regime, but think about the logic: We want you to renounce the bomb - and by the way, when you do we're still going to try to take you down. The result: Iran accelerated its efforts to get the bomb and it is much closer now than it was when President Bush took office.

We need a policy that isolates Iran, not America and tips the balance in Iran against pursuing nuclear weapons. That means keeping our allies, Russia and China on the same page as we ratchet up economic and diplomatic pressure on the government to stop pursuing nuclear weapons. At the same time, there are growing fissures within the ruling elite - we need to exploit them.

Above all, we have to recognize that our biggest allies in this effort are the Iranian people. They're open to America. They don't like a regime that denies them basic political and social rights and that can't deal with corruption, unemployment and inflation. The Iranian people need to know it is their government, not the US that is choosing confrontation over cooperation. So we should tone down the rhetoric and talk. It's amazing how little faith this administration has in America's ideas and ideals.

Force must be the last option because it's a bad option. First, with our forces bogged down in Iraq, our threat to use force doesn't look very credible. Second, we can set back Iran's program but not stop it. Using force would lead to retaliation by Iran, including against our troops in Iraq. It would cause the Iranian people to rally behind Ahmadinejad and the extremists. Third, even a 'limited' strike would be perceived as something much bigger by the Iranians and could spark a real war. The only thing worse than a poorly planned intentional war is an unplanned unintentional war.” (Jerusalem Post, June 7, 2007)

“The bottom line here is, if regime change is the operative element of this administration's policy [in Iran], you are never going to get to the point where you end up with a diplomatic solution. There may be no diplomatic solution, in the end. That's possible. We may have crossed the line, or they may have crossed the line...while we fool around with this, you're going to see Japan go nuclear, and you're going to see China react to Japan going nuclear, and you're going to see a chain of events set in motion that are going to be significantly damaging to the next generation of Americans. And so, it seems to me we should get off this wicket of suggesting that we won't talk. I mean, what are we afraid of in talking?” (FOX News Sunday with Chris Wallace, October 22, 2006)

“It seems to me what we have to do is continue to push to see if we can hold this coalition together to increase gradual sanctions [on Iran]. Without that, we don't have a whole lot of options here...This is a test for the diplomacy. This is a test for the United Nations. If it fails, then what we're going to have to do is begin to come up with a serious containment policy, here.” (August 27, 2006)