James Clapper: “I certainly agree the Congress, no pun intended, gets a vote here I think.”

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.

I think this reflects Russian insecurity. And it's almost like, Putin needs a rhetorical security blanket, of making threats, like this.

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…

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.