BEIRUT, Lebanon — Saudi Arabia’s powerful crown prince has compared the supreme leader of Iran to Adolf Hitler, and said that his country would acquire a nuclear bomb “as soon as possible” if Iran developed nuclear weapons.

The comments by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ratcheted up the rhetoric in the increasingly volatile rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which has fueled sectarianism and war across the Middle East. His statements were in an excerpt, released on Thursday, of a prerecorded interview with “60 Minutes,” the CBS News program.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry responded by calling the prince a delusional and devious novice who “has no idea of politics.”

Saudi Arabia, a Sunni monarchy, blames Iran for funding militias to undermine Arab states, while Shiite Iran accuses Saudi Arabia of backing Sunni extremist groups. Their struggle for regional dominance has put the two nations on opposite sides of conflicts in Yemen, Syria and Iraq that have killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions.