Title: John Kiriakou: Israel Humiliates Itself - Middle East on the
Show: Dialogue Works
Date: 2025-09-12
URL: https://youtu.be/SbOKQqFcexU
Duration: 58:00

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[00:05] Hi everybody. Today is Friday, September 12th, 2025 and our new friend John Kyaku is here. Welcome, John, to the >> Thank you. Thank you, Nema. So glad to be with you. >> Yeah. Please subscribe and hit the like button to reach more people. And John, I want to start with what has happened in the United States which somehow was so much shocking to the people. What has happened to Charlie Kirk? He was they

[00:37] call him a far right but he was somebody in my opinion that he when you criticize his sort of opinion he was listening to the people. He was trying to communicate with the people. >> Exactly. Right. And everybody was trying to picture him as the far left, far right. And Netna came out said that it's the Islamist killed him. Then then he was asked if Israel was behind it. He said no it it wasn't Israel. But it's all about speculation on part of the

[01:09] people who is more interested in geopolitical issues one in domestic issues. Everybody was picturing Choliker in his own point in in his sort of point of view. But what is your understanding of this phenomenon in the United States? Because after all, I would argue that he was a very important >> character in the in today's situation that we're witnessing in the United States, >> especially with young people and most especially with young conservatives. You

[01:41] know, it's funny to me how many people my age, I'm 61. How many people my age who had never heard of Charlie Kirk and I say, "Really? How's that even possible? You've never This guy created the youth movement for Donald Trump. He came out of the out of the Tea Party movement, the anti-ax movement and uh created this organization Turning Point USA where he would target uh university campuses and promote Trump's uh MAGA

[02:12] conservative message. He became very very important in contemporary Republican politics. It was amazing to me. I've said before and I I'll say it again to sort of lay some groundwork. I probably disagreed with Charlie Charlie Kirk on I don't know 90% of the issues, 75% of the issues, I don't know. But what you said about him is exactly true and it's why I actually had respect for the guy because he was always interested

[02:43] in dialogue. That's what these campus events were. People saw them as provocative. I didn't see them as provocative. I saw them as engaging. So, for example, he would say something that is that's unpopular among um progressives, but he would want to engage in a talk, in a debate, in a dialogue about uh about the issue, whatever it was, trans rights or, you know, anything, whatever it was, education.

[03:14] Um, in the days following his assassination, Stanford University's Center for the Study of Extremism came out with a poll. It's a poll that that shows almost identical numbers to four other polls. And those numbers show that 34% of American college students advocate violence against people whose opinions they don't like. That makes me ashamed to be an American.

[03:46] The country, the Constitution is founded on the pillar of freedom of speech. Whether we like or dislike each other's positions, we should be able to go to our deaths to protect the right to express those positions. And to have fully onethird of college students say, "No, I would rather kill you than listen to your position on an issue," I think is one of the most dangerous things I've heard in my lifetime.

[04:18] As you know, uh the alleged killer was caught um either last night or this morning. Uh he is 22 years old. He hated Charlie Kirk. He fits perfectly in this 34% that we're hearing about. And now the process is going to do what the process does. We'll see what happens. >> Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. >> John, shifting the gear to what's going on in the Middle East before the whole

[04:50] situation with Charlie Kirk, which somehow overshadowed what has happened >> in the Middle East. It was a somehow it was I talked with with the case of Charlie it was shocking but that was after what has happened in the Middle East with the case of attack on Qatar. Qatar is one of the most important one of the most critical allies of the United States in the Middle East which after all Israel has

[05:22] decided to attack them. Donald Trump. It seems that he knew about it. The administration said they they informed the United States before attacking them. How what do you make of what's going on in the Middle East with the case of Israel? There's literally nothing good that we can possibly say about this decision. I mean, there's nothing good we can say about the genocide that's taking place in Gaza or the slow motion genocide and ethnic cleansing taking place in the

[05:52] West Bank. You know, I think that everybody has a right to criticize, for example, the the murder of civilians in Lebanon uh or or elsewhere besides Gaza and the West Bank uh even in Yemen. But then the Israelis have the unmititigated Gaul to attack the country that is not just host to peace talks but also host to the largest American

[06:23] air force base on the planet. The shame here and this is this is why I think that this is so dangerous. The shame here is that Donald Trump did nothing to protect the Qataris. nothing. At the very least, fire some Patriot missiles to intercept the rockets coming in from the Israelis. And I would like to ask the Saudi government, where were you when these 15 uh Israeli fighter jets were crossing your territory?

[06:55] Why didn't you stop them? Why didn't you scramble jets? Why didn't you try to shoot them down? Because you hate Qatar that much? because you want to preserve the ability to join the Abraham Accords that much. The day that the Israelis attacked uh Qatar, I said on my own podcast, I'm not sure that the White House understands just how important this is. All of the Arabs are looking at us

[07:27] saying, "What are you going to do about this?" Right? The Qataris have major non-NATO ally status which means they're not members of NATO but as a member of NATO would be we have to defend them. It doesn't say in the agreement we have to defend them against Iran. Iran's not going to attack the the Kataris. We have to defend them. Well, the attack was by the Israelis. So why didn't we defend them? Finally, today in the Washington

[08:00] Post and the New York Times, there are questions like what what's the benefit for the for for Qatar to be an ally of the United States if the United States is just going to stand by and allow them to be attacked? So if I were Amir Tamim, I would give very serious thought as to the future of this alliance because if if I'm the leader of this country and I'm not getting anything out of this partnership, then I would just rather be

[08:31] left alone and let somebody else worry about it. We know that they were attacking the negotiations room in which they were trying to negotiate and we don't know what has happened. Why did they let leave the room before the attack? >> Right. >> There's some rumors that they Turkish intelligence somehow managed to inform them or it was somehow by accident. >> Mhm. They they got lucky and they

[09:03] but when you look at the behavior of Israel in terms of we had the same sort of attitude on their part when they were negotiating the United States was negotiating with Iranians if and their officials to bring some sort of sanity to what's going on in the Middle East with the case of Iranian nuclear program and all of that and they attacked Iran and right now it seems to me John that Donald Trump is somehow It's some sort of they're gambling. They don't have a strategy. They don't they

[09:36] somehow the Israelis managed to convince Donald Trump and his administration to trust them to let them do whatever they want to do in the Middle East in order as they the Israeli ambassador to the United States said they're changing the face of the Middle East. But I don't see that face is changing. >> No. and and and and the change would benefit them in a long run. >> How do you see that? >> I agree with you. They're killing a lot of people, but they're not changing the

[10:06] face of the Middle East. What they're doing is they're turning the West against them. You know, here in the United States now, a majority of members of the Democratic Party, a majority, more than 50% support the Palestinians. It's now split among Republicans. But but the Israelis are losing the American voter because their strategy is just to kill as many people as they possibly can. Look what's happening with uh with the Gaza

[10:38] Palestinians and these these rumors or leaked reports that the United States and the Israeli and the Israeli government are talking to the Albanians, the Malaysians, the Indonesians. uh to just move all Palestinians out. That is the actual legal definition of ethnic cleansing. That's a war crime. It's a crime against humanity. You can't do it. Every time Donald Trump says we

[11:10] have this wonderful program to turn Gaza into the next Monaco, actually it's going to be better than Monaco. That is a war crime. You can't do it. And then the US response is to put sanctions on the international criminal court or to put sanctions on the United Nations special uh interlocutor for u for uh counterterrorism and refugees and and everybody else. It's just wrong. If you're a president of the United States

[11:41] who has his heart set on winning the Nobel Peace Prize, you don't win the Nobel P Peace Prize by encouraging war and attacks on civilians and the murder of women and children and non-combatants and the ethnic ethnic cleansing of an entire people. That's not how you win the Nobel Peace Prize. You know, the Israelis say all the time about what great support they have, but look at a map of the world. They don't have great support. They have support among Western

[12:13] countries that are allied with the United States, but there are 144 countries around the world that already recognize Palestine. You know, we act like when we see reports Canada's going to going to uh recognize Palestine or Australia or or Ireland, people say, "Oh my gosh, Palestinians are going to get recognition." They already have recognition. >> It's the West that's late to the game. And I can't help but to think that as

[12:43] these Western countries fall like dominoes and recognize Palestine, that the Israelis very quickly are going to finally realize that they're standing alone. not really alone because they have the United States behind them, but alone to the point where they're not going to be able to accomplish this change in the construct of the Middle East like they say is is underway. I agree with you, Nema. It's not underway. The only thing that they're accomplishing, quite literally, the only thing they're accomplishing is just

[13:15] widescale murder. Do you John when you look at their attack on Iran, do you think the main objective of that attack was regime change? Was something or something else? What's your understanding on that? >> I do think it was regime change because the the Israelis benefit from chaos just like the Israelis benefited from chaos surrounding the fall of Saddam Hussein, the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. Um, but

[13:45] if you are an anti-Iran westerner, your only conclusion was the overthrow of Saddam Hussein served the interests of Iran. Well, the only reason we overthrew Saddam Hussein was because the Israelis demanded that we overthrow Saddam Hussein. And I'll add something. I was in the CIA for a long time and literally every single time that Benjamin Netanyahu came to the United States over the course of decades, he would ask

[14:17] whomever happened to be president, "Please attack Iran. Please attack Iran. Please attack Iran." And every president said, "No, I'm not going to attack Iran just because you want me to." Until Donald Trump. So they can put they can put lipstick on a pig, as the saying goes, and say, "Well, we only did it because Iran is an existential threat to Israel. They have this uh this nuclear program. They're going to build a nuclear uh bomb and

[14:47] they're going to launch it on Israel." No. If I were the Iranians, I would say that Israel is an existential threat to me and I need a nuclear program as a deterrent because it's the Israelis who bomb me. I haven't bombed the Israelis. It's the Israelis that have an arsenal of whatever it is 200 220 whatever uh nuclear uh nuclear devices. So, this is something this is something

[15:17] that most Americans just don't understand. There there really are two sides to this story. And it's not the Iranians who are who are militarizing the Middle East. And may I come back to something that you said a moment ago about uh about Doha, the bombing of Doha? I I just don't understand how it is that senior American policy makers couldn't come to the conclusion

[15:49] that Israeli actions are going to make American foreign policy exceedingly difficult. As I said, if I were Amir Tamim, I might be angry enough to say, "You need to get out of this air force base enough. We brought you here to to protect us. You didn't protect us. You have to leave." I was living in Bahrain when I was there from 1994 to 1996.

[16:20] And the Qataris asked us, they said, "If we build a an enormous navy base, would you move from Bahrain to uh Qatar?" And we said, "No, we can't because we've been in Bahrain since the 70s and we're very, very close to the Bahraini government and we just can't do it." And they said, "Fine. How about if we build the world's biggest air base?" And we said, "Hey, that will take. That's why we're there.

[16:50] Not because you know there's nowhere else. We can spread out around all over the region if we want. But the Kataris invited us and in part it was to protect them and we failed to protect them. So why do the Israelis get a pass? Because you know if Iran bombed Qatar, which would of course never happen in a thousand years, but if that were to happen, the United States would have been launching missiles and fighter jets at Iran within an hour.

[17:21] So why not protect our friends and allies against the Israelis? There's going to have to be a price that comes with this decision. I think I think we are living a very important you know the changes that are happening in the Middle East in the west Asia not only there but in Europe in the eastern part of Europe what's going on John we are seeing the rise of bricks SEO summit

[17:53] >> you look at China today their military their economy so powerful >> the war in Ukraine put Russia in a far better position that they were before the war started. And you see the United States, I look at the United States policy in the West Asia, in the Middle East, which is so much important for the security >> of the world. >> Yeah. For the world. It's the heart in my opinion. >> And you see these stupid decisions on

[18:23] the part. You remove just two or three leader of Hamas, leaders of Hamas. How is that going to change? You attack Yemen. What? How is that going to change the policy of Houthies? You kill the prime minister of Yemen. You know, I cannot bring I cannot find any strategic mindset behind behind what's going on with the Trump administration. We were I was hoping I was one of the people who was somehow hoping that the new

[18:53] administration would bring some sort of fresh air to the foreign policy of the United States, >> right? >> Which is not happening and it's not going to happen. >> No. No. There are no big thinkers. Marco Rubio is not going to go in history as the big thinker who conceptualized this new American foreign policy. He's just it's not going to happen. Steve Wyoff, who I'm sure is a very nice man, is not going to be the big strategic thinker who solves all of the problems that the United States has in

[19:24] the Middle East. And then at the same time, you have Benjamin Netanyahu who knows that he has so much political support in the United States, in the Congress. He has he has so much bipartisan support covering both the Democrats and the Republicans that he can do anything he wants, anything. And with Apac and the Israel lobby in the United States, if you are a member of Congress and you don't tow the Israeli line, they will primary you. They'll

[19:55] spend millions of dollars and they will defeat you and you won't be in Congress next year. And so it's like people are held hostage. our our political system is held hostage by this by this little tiny country of European settlers that just decided they're the ones that have the rights to this land because God told them so. It's just not it's not realistic. That's why there's never going to be peace. I I don't think not not if the

[20:27] status quo uh isn't changed. You made another important point and I think this is something that the American government really does not understand. Nema is the advent of the bricks uh countries. I think that the United States initially initially thought that the creation of bricks was a joke for what we call outcast countries to band together. These are some of the biggest economies in the world. China, Russia, India, Brazil. We should be worried and we

[20:58] should be very worried at talk of a unified currency. If the BRICS countries come up with a unified currency like the euro and oil producing countries, whether they're in the Middle East or elsewhere, begin selling oil in that currency, the dollar is done and the United States is no longer the global hedgeimon. Another point too, and I'm I'm disappointed that people in the mainstream media aren't talking about this, and that is the misuse and the

[21:28] overuse of sanctions. There used to be this joke at the CIA where we're going to add sanctions against Iran. I remember saying one time, "How many more sanctions could there possibly be? We've been sanctioning Iran since 1979." Well, now the sanctions are nonsensical. You know, they say, "Well, there's an Iranian guy and he's the head of this lab and so he's not going to be allowed to open a bank account in the United

[21:58] States." Okay. Well, he doesn't want a bank account in the United States. So, your sanctions are meaningless. We've gotten to the point where we have so many sanctions on so many people in so many countries that they just don't matter anymore. I went to China last year and um I wanted to buy something. I wanted to buy souvenirs for my kids and nobody would take a Visa card, but they would take this thing called the octopus card.

[22:30] I never I never heard of this thing before. So I asked one of the shopkeepers, "What is this octopus card you guys take? I can't I can't buy anything with my Visa card. I have to pay cash." And he said, 'Yeah, the Octopus card is the Chinese credit card.' I said, 'Why don't you just use Visa card? And he said, 'Ah, because every Visa card transaction goes through New York and makes us liable to American sanctions. The Octopus card goes through Shanghai, so we don't care what the Americans think. And I said, Aha,

[23:03] that makes sense. And it also shows the weakness of the United States because if the Chinese are able to attract other countries like the countries in bricks into a China based financial system, the US control of international banking is done. And that's where we're headed. When we talk about Israel, many people argue that these are very smart people,

[23:34] very smart organizations in each and every part of the government. But looking at the behavior of Israel so far, how much of that sort of smartness, intelligence comes out of their action? You see, they have failed in Iran. And if it wasn't because of the United States and the attack that Donald Trump somehow attacked Iran to put an end to the conflict, that's why he attacked Iran. >> Mhm.

[24:04] >> Yeah. You look at Yemen, even Donald Trump has decided to go to the Red Sea and back down. And they said he said that they capitulated and all this. >> No. Yeah. No, they didn't. But how Israel, when it comes to Israel, how do you find these people who are smart, who know what they're doing? And how do they believe that they're going to get something out of these stupid bit decisions that they're making? In your opinion,

[24:36] >> I think that politically they're smart in their short-term uh actions and objectives. you want to you want to get a pro-Israel candidate elected, you put a million dollars into the campaign. You put TV advertisements, you're going to get that person elected. But over the long term, Israel is becoming more and more conservative, more and more militarized to the point where convicted criminals,

[25:06] criminals convicted of hate crimes are your most important ministers and cabinet members. So, I think that they're they think they're so smart because they're good at politics. The the opposite is true in terms of uh Israeli foreign policy. They've put themselves into a box where even the most pro-Israel European countries are saying, "Well, the Israelis have gone too far. We have

[25:36] to say something at the United Nations. We have to send a message through the ambassador. Enough is enough." So, I I think that I think that this incremental move to the right actually hasn't been that incremental over the last couple years. I think it's been a very hard hard move to the right. It's alienating a lot of people, especially in Western Europe and among Democrats in the United States. And the Israelis are approaching a point of no return where they're going

[26:06] to turn enough people against them that they're not going to be able to guarantee their own safety no matter how many people they kill. And another thing too, I am a Greek Orthodox Christian, a practicing Greek Orthodox Christian. Greek Orthodoxy is one of the oldest faiths in the world. One of the oldest, it's the oldest denomination in Christianity. And I will not sit by while the Israelis bomb St. Borfidio's church in Gaza, for

[26:38] example, the oldest continuously operating church on the planet where there are 24 women and children inside who have taken refuge. The Israelis bomb this 1600year-old church and kill everybody inside. And I'm supposed to say what? That I support Israel? Not a chance. This is a problem in the United States where you have Zionist evangelical Christians and Zionist conservative

[27:09] Catholics who ignore the mass murder of Palestinian Christians in the name of what? helping uh Jesus come back uh at the end of time because all the Jews have returned to who knows what their odd, you know, crazy ideology is telling them. But this is unsustainable. It's untenable. We're getting to the point where it's all going to fall apart and the Israelis are

[27:40] blind to it. John, they have managed a huge network of spies in Iran before the attack. >> Yes, >> it was huge. Look at what has happened in Iran. It was somehow shocking in the initial hours of the attack on Iran. >> Yeah. >> How how do you find how could they manage that? It was all because of Afghanistan with the the situation in Afghanistan. >> That was a big part. Yeah, that was a

[28:11] big part. You know, people ask me all the time if I would talk about the the best intelligence services that I encountered over the course of my career. That's an easy one. But among the worst is the Iranian service. >> And and I'm not blaming the Iranian government. What I'm blaming is the fact that the West has so isolated Iran for such a long time that they don't have these natural highlevel relationships with other intelligence services that can train them in things like counter

[28:41] intelligence which is a very big problem for the Iranian government. Right now, the government is completely infiltrated by by spies. Not because these spies have any love of Israel, but because they need the money, and money is always the greatest motivator to convince people to commit espionage. Well, if you're an Afghan refugee that has no money and no home and no medical care, no no uh no way to make your life better and you have no formal status in Iran.

[29:15] And this Mossad person comes up to you and says, "Hey, I'll give you $100 a month if you tell me what time this scientist who lives in this building, what time he leaves every day, what time he comes home every day, and which route he takes when he leaves." That's very important intelligence and it only cost $100. And so the the Israelis have been very good in exploiting poor, desperate people to work against the Iranian government, even if they don't realize that they're

[29:46] working against the Iranian government. Even if they don't have a desire to work against the Iranian government, that's how cynical the Israelis are. The Iranians need to work with the Russians and the Chinese and others on counterintelligence. They need to tighten up the flow of information uh in Iran. There was another uh uh incident that we learned after the Israeli bombing of Iran. You know, the Israelis have had this active program to kill Iranian scientists for years. And so we

[30:18] learned after the most recent bombing that the scientists were not permitted to carry cell phones. Great. great idea, but their bodyguards were carrying cell phones. And so rather than target the scientist, you just target the bodyguard or you target the wife or you target the daughter. The Israelis, I said this in a speech last night here in Washington, the Israelis, if they want to target one person and they think that one person is

[30:48] in an apartment uh building, they will blow up the entire city block and kill a thousand people if they think they're going to get that one scientist. So don't underestimate the viciousness of the of the Israeli Mossad. Protect yourself and you protect yourself through good trade craft. Carrying a cell phone is very bad tradecraftraft. That's just one example. Um, not being able to take care of refugees is bad

[31:21] tradecraftraft because it allows an opening for the Israeli Mossad to move in and exploit uh, refugees. The Iranian government, of course, doesn't have money to be able to handle all of these refugees. Maybe this is something you talk to the Chinese about. The Chinese have lots of money. Maybe you engage with the Chinese intelligence service to advise on how to tighten up counter inelligence so that the Israelis

[31:51] don't have free reign to infiltrate the government and then to bomb the people who are, you know, the most important to the government. It's it's a long road. It's going to take 20 years, but they have to start now. >> Do you feel that Israel would attack again? Would attack Iran? They said that they're going to attack Qatar. At least what they've learned from the the reactions from the their talk in the aftermath of the attack on Qatar. They said, "We're going to go find these people each and everywhere. It doesn't

[32:21] matter which country is that, >> we're going to attack them." I >> I was on a show a couple of days ago in which I debated the former IDF spokesman. And um you can't debate Israeli officials, either current or former. They they don't let you speak. They they throw out lie after lie after lie. They accuse you of being a terrorist or of supporting terrorism. And uh I finally I had to say to this guy, I will put my career up against yours any day of the week. And I said

[32:52] the first thing I I said was literally everything you said in your in your opening statement was a lie. The Muslim Brotherhood has never been classified as a terrorist organization. Never. Not by anybody. You can dislike somebody's politics, that doesn't make them a terrorist organization, as one example. So, one of the things the Israelis are really good at is being so inflammatory, and I mean this especially in the United

[39:36] every NATO country would have to go to Turkeykey's uh Turkeykey's rescue against Israel >> but you you're right and you make an important point here Nema where for like a minute there was this very close cooperation in Syria between the United States, Israel, and Turkey. Now, they all did that for a different reason. The the Israelis wanted Assad out. Uh the Turks wanted some sort of victory over the Kurds. And the United States just I don't know what the heck

[40:07] we wanted. It's impossible to even figure out what the policy is from one day to the next. um they hated Assad, but but Assad was really the only thing protecting the Christian community uh in in Syria. So whether you liked his politics or not, in my view, Assad was a force for stability. And then he was gone in just a matter of a week or two. He's just gone. So now what? The Turks got what they wanted uh as far as the Kurds and what really amounts to a deacto buffer zone uh along

[46:52] neighborhood. So yeah, why are we not counting on this on this NATO ally to help us engage with Iran or with, you know, the Syrians or No, well, not the Syrians, that's a bad example. Uh or with the Palestinians or or whomever. And then on top of all that, we make very stupid, unnecessary mistakes. There's a famous quote from Gamal Abdaser, the former president of Egypt. I actually had it hanging over my desk

[47:24] in at the CIA and I've I've researched this so I know that it's true. I found the the actual speech. But he said this. He said, "The thing about you Americans is that you never make clear-cut stupid decisions. You only make complicated stupid decisions." Which then makes us wonder if there's something about them that we're missing. And it's so true. Yeah, >> that's he just described American

[47:56] foreign policy. So why don't we rely on the Turks? Why don't we tell the Israelis, "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. You can't bomb Iran. We're engaged in talks with Iran right now. Let us deal with the Iranians. We'll try to negotiate something." That conversation never took place. We just said, "Oh, Netanyahu wants to bomb Iran. Okay. All right. Oh, the bombs didn't do enough damage. Okay, we'll bomb Iran, too. What is that? That's not foreign policy.

[48:29] It's amazing. Yeah, I I I was just when I was thinking of Israeli attack on Iran and the whole regime change mindset, that could somehow be used to convince the Trump administration. But when it comes to attack on Yemen, >> prime minister together with the whole cabinet members were assassinated >> and these people you look at Yemen today, these people >> somehow they have nothing to do. We

[49:01] cannot say nothing to do but they're not that much connected with Houthies. >> No, no, not at all. >> You bring pain to Houthies by attacking the government in Yemen. >> You know, >> I'll tell I'll tell you something funny. I' I've been to Yemen five times. The first time I went, there were two Yemens uh uh the Yemen Arab Republic and the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen. And then I went right after unification, people were literally dancing in the streets because they had uh joined and unified

[49:34] one Yemen. The third time I went, things aren't going very well. The fourth time, they're firing Scud missiles at one another. The fifth time was so dangerous that an armored convoy had to take me from the airport to the hotel to the embassy and then back to the airport. Uh but you're right, the Houthies are a minority in uh in Yemen. Oh, I know why I was telling you this. So, the last time the last time I went I I arrived in

[50:05] Sana from Djibouti. little a little five minute plane ride to Djibouti and I was in a taxi. I wasn't supposed to be you're only supposed to take armored cars, but I like Yemen and I speak Arabic and so I wanted to go to the Suk and uh just look around. So I said to the taxi driver, "So how are things going with uh with the Houthis?" And he said, "Oh, we're we're fighting the Houthis every day, but the Saudis are helping us with their

[50:36] drones. They bomb the Houthis all the time. And I said, "The Saudis don't have drones." And then I said, "Oh my god, we have drones in Djibouti." And then I just stopped talking. So I went back. I was working on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee at the time and I said to John Kerry, he was the chairman. I said, "Did you know we're bombing Yemen with drones? There was no congressional vote to allow us to bomb Yemen." and he said, 'Yeah, that's

[51:07] that's something that's above your pay grade. Don't talk about that. That's American foreign policy. But I'll tell you, I I I have friends who are in the the Trump White House right now, and and the way they explain the administration's policy toward Yemen is is kind of funny to me. You mentioned that they came to this agreement with the Houthis and declared victory, right? So they were just angry that the Houthies the Houthies had fired

[51:40] rockets or sent drones to fire rockets at American um military ships. Well, how can you not see that it's an American military ship? It's all painted gray and it's completely covered in rockets and missiles and guns and has the American flag flying. So the deal was you stop attacking our ships and we'll stop bombing you. The Israelis were furious because the Israelis wanted us to bomb the Houthis at every opportunity. We don't have a fight

[52:12] uh with the Houthis. We just don't have a fight. You know, it's funny. My first time that I ever went to Yemen, I was meeting with the American ambassador who was a lovely old man. He was a diplomat. He he died many years ago now. But I said to him, "Ambassador, I have a question. It's a real question, not a rhetorical one. what national interests do we have in Yemen? And he went like this. None. We don't have any national interests here.

[52:43] And you know what? Even all these years later, that was 1990. I asked that question. Even all these years later, except for the security of the Babal Mandeb, >> we we don't have national interests in Yemen. What we should be doing is digging water wells, helping them build roads or hospitals, upgrade the electrical grid, but that's never going to happen.

[53:13] John, I think with the war in Ukraine and what has happened between somehow Iran and Israel, we can argue that major wars cannot be cannot be the main policy in Washington because of the conflict in Ukraine. You cannot afford. You go to Ukraine, you bring everybody there and you you're trying to put everything there and after all you cannot provide the way you cannot produce the way that Russia is

[53:45] producing weapons. That's why you're failing. You're >> That's right. >> They did everything. Ukrainians, I think after all, we have to see Ukraine. They fought so well. They did everything to >> defeat Russia. They couldn't do it. >> Couldn't do it. >> Yeah. You go to China the same way. I think the somehow do you feel that the the policy of in Washington in the west is somehow shifting from new wars to new coups, new new

[54:18] >> probably color revolutions. >> Sure. But that's very, very dangerous because you never know what it's going to look like at the end. And this is a problem that I've always had with American foreign policy. And I saw it with my own eyes when I was on the seventh floor of the of the CIA. I was the executive assistant to the CIA's deputy director for operations. It's easy to invade a country. It's easy. It's easy to to overthrow a government, but it's very very difficult

[54:50] to get out. And so, as a result, I mean, just take Iraq as an example. We killed a million Iraqis, most of whom were civilians. We lost 5,000 American troops. Was it really worth it for what? for for the anti-American chaos that we left behind. Was it worth it? We have nothing to show for it. And that's really American policy. We always have an idea of how we

[55:24] want to attack a country and there's never a clue how to get out or how to define what victory looks like. So, I agree with you. color revolutions are probably cheaper than spending500 billion dollars on military assistance to uh to Ukraine. But still, what does that look like in the end? If if the past is any guide, it doesn't look like anything that benefits the United States.

[55:54] >> I think there is a lot to be learned from the behavior of China. >> They're buying allies. They're buying partners. They're making new friends. >> They're doing everything. >> The Chinese, this is a master class in diplomacy that the Chinese are showing the world. The Chinese have one foreign military base. I've been there because they share it with us. It It used to be called Camp Lemon in Djibouti. There's a there's a

[56:24] fence that goes right down the middle and one side is Chinese and the other side is American. We have 191 military bases in 144 countries. So why did the Chinese have a 300 mph bullet train? Why did the Chinese have better roads? Why did the Chinese have nicer airports? Why did the Chinese have have a strangle hold on uh on global shipping? It's because we spend all of

[56:56] our money on weapons. So, you're right. The Chinese know how to do this and they know how to win and we should be taking a lesson from the Chinese. >> It was a great pleasure, John, to talk with you. >> Pleasure was mine. I'm so glad we got the chance to meet. I've been looking forward to this for a long time. >> I'm going to talk I'm going to contact you. We're going to continue these sort of talks and fantastic thing. There is a lot to learn from you. you have a lot of knowledge from the Middle East from

[57:27] what's going on. >> Thank you so much. >> In terms of the West Asia and the huge problem that geopolitical problem that we're facing today's in the Middle East in >> May may may I shamelessly plug my my two podcasts. Um if people I have a daily podcast called Deprogram. It's on YouTube and Rumble. DProgram with Ted R and John Kiryaku. And then I have one that's a little bit deeper look at these exactly these issues called deep focus with John Kuryaku. So thank you very much

[57:57] >> John. You you can send me the links. I'm going to put it in the description of this video. >> Fantastic. Thank you. >> Yeah. >> Thank you. >> Great pleasure John. >> Thanks for having me. >> See you soon. Bye-bye. >> Bye bye. Bye.
