Saudi Arabia’s heir to the throne has some fighting words for Iran’s Supreme Leader: If you get a nuclear bomb, so will we.
Oh, and you’re Hitler.
In an interview with “60 Minutes” set to air Sunday, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, 32, said Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khameini “wants to create his own project in the Middle East, very much like Hitler.”
“Many countries around the world and in Europe did not realize how dangerous Hitler was until what happened, happened. I don’t want to see the same events happening in the Middle East,” Mohammed told Norah O’Donnell.
Asked whether Saudi Arabia needs nuclear weapons to counter Iran, Mohammed said that if Iran develops a nuclear bomb, Saudi Arabia will “without a doubt … follow suit as soon as possible.”
Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons has been, at best, delayed for 10 to 15 years by a 2015 nuclear agreement that President Obama said “permanently prohibits Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.”
President Trump has repeatedly bashed the deal and indicated that he may unilaterally withdraw the United States from it.
“The deal allows Iran to continue developing certain elements of its nuclear program. And importantly, in just a few years, as key restrictions disappear, Iran can sprint towards a rapid nuclear weapons breakout,” Trump said in October. “What is the purpose of a deal that, at best, only delays Iran’s nuclear capability for a short period of time?”
On Tuesday, Trump fired Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and nominated CIA Director Mike Pompeo to replace him. Tillerson departed from Trump’s line on Iran, arguing that Iran was complying with the letter of the deal, but not with its spirit.
But Pompeo has long been a hawk on Iran, calling it “a thuggish police state” and a “despotic theocracy.”
“They’re the vanguard of a pernicious empire that is expanding its power and influence across the Middle East,” he said in October.