Angus King

On Thursday’s broadcast of NPR’s “Morning Edition,” Sen. Angus King (I-ME) said that “if there are people in Iran, they’re scientists and engineers that have been working on this problem for years, the question is, how do you, ultimately, prevent them from racing toward a bomb, which this whole war that we’ve been in may provoke them to do?”

King said, [relevant remarks begin around 4:10] “Well, the question is, how are they going to ensure that Iran never gets a nuclear weapon? The nuclear material that’s there — there are two pieces of this: The nuclear material that’s there, that we know of, is buried under I don’t know how many feet of rubble. Getting that out is either — there [are] only two ways: One is diplomacy, one is agreement with the Iranian government to give up that material. The other is troops. You can’t do it from the air. You can’t do it by bombing. And so, that’s one of the pieces of this that we’ve got to consider.”

He continued, “And the other piece is — and I’ve been learning this for years — you can’t bomb knowledge. And if there are people in Iran, they’re scientists and engineers that have been working on this problem for years, the question is, how do you, ultimately, prevent them from racing toward a bomb, which this whole war that we’ve been in may provoke them to do? So, I think the answer has to be some kind of diplomatic solution. And it would make me feel better if our negotiators were people that had some expertise in nuclear matters, because I think there could be a deal to be had. But we’ve got to have people on our side that know what’s being offered and what the implications are.”