In an interview, Secretary Pompeo argued that "there was a lot of wealth created for Iran by lifting the sanctions and giving them the capacity to pay scientists, bring in materials, do all the things you need to do to build out a full suite of nuclear weapons capabilities, from the weapons systems to the delivery vehicles and the fissile material that goes with that". He went on to state that "I'm very hopeful that we can get to a place where we can get to a real outcome that prevents Iran from threatening the U.S. and our allies, including Israel, in the Middle East".