Hillary Clinton
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Hillary Clinton is a former U.S. Secretary of State and the Democratic Party's 2016 presidential nominee. John Kiriakou describes her as arguably the most neoconservative candidate the Democrats could possibly have nominated, not only in the mold of Barack Obama, but, in his assessment, even more militarist than her own husband. He cites Bill Kristol and Robert Kagan discussing an endorsement of her candidacy as early as 2014. Kiriakou separately credits Clinton with removing the MEK from the State Department's list of designated terrorist organizations, after which prominent Democrats and Republicans alike began taking MEK money to lobby on the group's behalf.

Agreeing with her on Iran

Despite that broader critique, Kiriakou says Clinton got one specific point about Iran exactly right: that Iran is not actually a theocracy but a military dictatorship, run day-to-day not by the Ayatollah but by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a structure he calls more dangerous than genuine clerical rule. Kiriakou had made a closely related argument himself years earlier, describing Iran as essentially a military dictatorship rather than the theocracy it is portrayed as, while noting that ordinary Iranians, on a people-to-people level, very much want good relations with the United States.

Post-Athens: the Parthenon scowl and the Senate return

Extending the Athens 1999 account already cited from other appearances, John Kiriakou recounted the same scene again on the PBD Podcast: Hillary Clinton stepped off the elevator with Chelsea "with this puss on her face," and cut short her husband's attempt at small talk about their morning at the Parthenon with "Jesus Christ, Bill, it's raining all day. I'll be in the room." Kiriakou adds a further characterisation from his own time on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff: Clinton, who had briefly sat on the committee before becoming Secretary of State, "used to come back all the time and she was impossible", "impossible at that level."

The 2020 vice-presidency rumour

Asked in February 2020 whether Clinton was returning to the field, Kiriakou did not soften the answer: "I loathe Hillary Clinton. I think Hillary Clinton was one of the most dangerous political figures of the last generation."

The rumour he had heard was that she might accept the vice-presidency on a Michael Bloomberg ticket. His comment on the prospect was arithmetic rather than ideological: "we just have to keep our fingers crossed that we don't trade one corrupt billionaire for another corrupt billionaire." He was voting for Bernie Sanders, and expected the party machinery to do to Sanders in 2020 what he says it did in 2016.

The apology to Berlin

Kiriakou cites Clinton's trip to Germany after the NSA was found to be intercepting Angela Merkel's mobile phone as an example of an apology that settled nothing. The revelation was, he says, big news, Merkel being "one of our closest allies", and Clinton went and apologised. "And then we did it again."

See also

- MEK
- 1953 Iran coup
- John Kiriakou
