James Clapper: “There was a difference between skepticism and disparagement.”

The frequency with which they are occurring, tells me that they're kind of in - they realize they're kind of in a jam.

Ties with Tehran offer some regional governments a means of staking an independent position on Iran, thereby mitigating its isolation while also attempting to extract Iranian financial aid and investment for economic and social projects.

I've gotten very concerned about it. There are Chinese, Russians and others so we traditionally thought about it as people coming from Central America, South and Central America. Well, it's much broader than that. So this is a serious…

I think it has more to do with the psychology of Putin, and Russia. And he needs to assure his own people, Parliamentarians, he was talking to, and for that matter, himself, that Russia is still a great power.