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IN PHOTO: Director of the Central Intelligence Agency John Brennan pauses while he holds a rare news conference at the CIA Headquarters in Virginia December 11, 2014. Brennan said on Thursday some agency officers used "abhorrent" methods on detainees captured following the September 11 attacks and said it was "unknowable" whether so-called enhanced interrogation techniques yielded useful intelligence. REUTERS/Larry Downing

Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism, according to CIA Director John Brennan. He said that the United States would learn from its mistakes in the past and continue to pressurise on the Middle Eastern country to prevent its nuclear program.

Brennan said that U.S. authorities were hoping to be able to halt Iran’s nuclear program. However, he said that Iran was still a “state sponsor of terrorism.” Whether the nuke deal is on or not, he said that the United States would make sure that Iran was not able to continue to destabilise a number of the countries in the region.

According to the CIA director, Iran is aware that there will be “tremendous costs and consequences and implications” in case it does not meet the terms. He said that the United States could do a number of things to prevent Iran from getting nuclear power. “President Obama has made it very clear that we are going to prevent Iran from having that type of nuclear weapon that they were going on the track to obtain,” Brennan said, “So if they decide to go down that route, they know that they will do so at their peril.”

According to Brennan, U.S. authorities have learned from their past mistakes. He said that they had “gone to school on some of those developments over the last decade or so.” That is why they are better prepared now. Brennan said that the United States had an opportunity to verify if Iran was going to do what it said it would.

Brennan said that there was no difference between Iran and Islamic State in terms of the threat those posed against the United States. Brennan refused to consider Iran as an ally at the moment even though both Iran and the United States intended to fight IS forces. Brennan was asked if he would describe Middle Eastern radicals as “Islamic extremists.” He said that he would prefer “extremists” only. Those “violent terrorists” misrepresent what Islam is all about, he added.

The CIA director also dismissed the claims that U.S. authorities were withholding documents related to the killing of Osama bin Laden because they might be embarrassing for them. He said that the claim was “hogwash.”

Contact the writer: s.mukhopadhyay@ibtimes.com.au

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