Title: \"The CIA Is Silent On Iran And Their Plan Should Terrify You\" - John Kiriakou
Show: The Paper Trail
Date: 2026-03-17
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUt5sYEcxO8
Duration: 984

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[00:00] This is a no-win situation for the United States, collapse and replacement of the Iranian government. And to see that replacement be a pro-American, pro-Israeli Zionist regime, that will never happen in a million years. 27% in the one poll and 4% in the other poll of Americans support the war. So the vast majority of Americans this war. So when you come come to it in 2016, this

[00:32] is one of the important reasons that Donald Trump got elected president because we were involved in these forever wars. We had transitioned into a full-time wartime economy and the Democrats were just as pro-war as the Republicans. And so the Republican party split into the traditional neoonservative side embodied by John McCain who Lindsey Graham who I call her majesty Lindsey Graham.

[01:04] >> On the other side the Democrats were pro-war and so there was a large anti-war faction in the American electorate and they voted for Trump because Donald Trump promised no new wars. And so we got through the first uh the the first term without any new wars. Although he did kill two senior Iranian intelligence and military officials in Iraq. Um he did wage warency but these

[01:34] were seen more as counterterrorism operations. Um somehow Donald Trump forgot who he was and he forgot what his constituents were demanding. And so Donald Trump every Republican, every Democrat before him, decided that war was pretty good and we could use a little bit of an economic boost. And so he was going to wage war alongside the Israelis again. He's, you know, Trump

[02:05] person is such that he needs glorification, constant glorification. One thing about Donald Trump's personality is that he he craves glorification. Um, for example, in the in the middle of the night, he added his name to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, one of the most beautiful buildings in in the entire country. So now it says the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy

[02:36] Center for the Performing Arts. He um is holding up highway funds unless we change the name of our airport from Dulles International Airport to the Donald J. Trump International Airport. He won't he won't allow New York City to complete its subway tunnel unless they change the name George Washington Bridge to the Donald J. Trump bridge. Real glory to him can only come with war. He can only go down his history books. the

[03:06] president who overthrew the Iranian government when every other president since Jimmy Carter failed that he was the one that overthrew the Iranian government and he brought peace and prosper Middle East and now it's the land of milk and honey and everybody's going to live happily ever after. The reason why we're we're already bogged down is because he believed that as soon as we fired the first shot, the whole Iranian government would collapse like a

[03:36] house of cards. Because these wealthy Iran Iranian Americans, mostly in Southern California, most of whom happened to be Jewish, convinced him that the hole was a house of cards and that it was so unstable. the first rocket would make the whole thing fall apart. And it didn't. It didn't. And they're not afraid of our missiles. And they have 92 million people. And the country is the size of all of Western Europe. And so what are you going to

[04:07] keep launching pin prick missile attacks because they can take those for the next hundred years? >> Yeah. >> Or you going to put boots on the ground and then tell Americans to expect 10,000 dead soldiers in the next 6 months? So now we're stuck. That's why they had to use a 30tonon bomb uh last year when uh when bombing Iran because they had an idea where it was. They weren't sure if there was anything in it. And then Trump being Trump said last year that the entire Iranian nuclear program had been

[04:40] obliterated. That was his word, obliterated. So, either he lied, he was tricked, or he's too stupid to know that he wasn't able to obliterate it. And let me let me add something, too. The Russians made a statement today that made perfect sense. The Russians said that they will no longer engage in uh settlement talks with the Ukrainians that are that are headed by the United States because the United States can't be trusted. It was engaged supposedly in

[05:12] talks with Iran, pretending to go through talks with Iran, and then they attacked Iran. So the Russians said, "Why should we trust the Americans to broker talks with Ukraine when they could just as soon turn around and attack us in the middle of the talks?" And I think that's exactly right. I think that the Israelis have guaranteed that Lebanon will be a failed state. I don't think any Israeli government is going to allow Lebanon to flourish as a nation. Um I think we will continue to

[05:43] see Israeli attacks, Israeli forced displacement of civilians. I read a statistic yesterday that by the end of the week as many as 700,000 Lebanese will be internally displaced. This is a humanitarian disaster and and the world, most of the world isn't focused on it because they're all watching what's unfolding in Iran. Well, Lebanon already doesn't have enough food, enough medical uh care, enough

[06:14] clean water. Uh it's it's only going to get worse. So take that and couple it with these these incredibly provocative statements made by the by the fascist evangelical American ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabe, uh to Tucker Carlson two weeks ago that he has no problem with greater Israel and said, quote, "They should just take it." And what what he meant by it was all Arab land from the Euphrates

[06:47] River to the Nile. Just take it. He doesn't care. So if that's the attitude of the of the representative of the president of the United States, then I think we should all be living in fear. If the Israelis believed that the state of Israel was untenable because of, you know, Arab advances, for example, that there were Arab or Iranian threats that could lead

[07:18] eventually even to the end of the state of Israel. Yes, I think they would use the Samson option. You know, I I gave an interview yesterday in which I said that even a year ago, I would have said that was ridiculous. It was it was it was a a a doom uh ideology. And now I I have to say that yeah, I I believe the Israelis would would carry this out if they really believed they

[07:48] were in threat of collapse. Yes, they would take everybody out with them. And analysts say, even though the Israelis have never have never acknowledged the existence of a uh of a nuclear uh program or nuclear arsenal, analysts tell us that they have between 80 and 200 warheads. That's enough to kill everybody. Everybody. Should I buy a place overseas just in case things turn to [ __ ] I haven't done that, but never before in my life, and I'm almost 62 years old. Never before in my life have

[08:20] I have have I ever asked that question and I hate that I'm asking it up myself. I was fascinated as a college student by Envhoja. And Verhoa was so radical that he broke off relations with both the Soviet Union and China because they were too liberal. Can you imagine? That's why that's why Albania at the time was not just the poorest country in Europe. It was among the three poorest countries in the world. Imagine it. I I did quite a bit with Albania. When I was stationed

[08:51] in Greece, Albania fell fell apart. And so I volunteered to do a quick 2 week lateral assignment for the United Nations just processing refugees. You know what? I'm even going to back up from that. In 1991, the communist government fell. Hoja had died in like 1985 or ' 86. there were there was a string of weak communist uh dictators that came after him and the whole thing just collapsed in '91. The Greek prime minister at the time who was very conservative open the border. Even all

[09:22] these years later, Greeks acknowledged this was the stupidest thing that the Greeks ever did in modern Greek history because it was just a wave of humanity that came into Greece from Albania. Now fully onethird of Albanians are ethnically Greek and they're in the southern one-third of the country. Even the mayors of many of the towns and villages are Greek. They have Greek names. They speak Greek. And most Greeks see them as brothers and sisters. But the Greek economy wasn't strong enough to accommodate all of these people. And

[09:54] so it helped to crash the Greek economy. And the Greek government collapsed. The socialists came back to power. They tried to close the border. But by then it was too late. The Albanians had already come in. In the meantime, Albania is a majority Muslim country. Even though it's European, like Kosovo, it's mostly Muslim. And so sometimes Muslims self-radicalize. Now, this is a holdover from from the Ottoman Empire where where they they forced people to

[10:25] convert to Islam, you know, under the threat of the sword. So, a lot of these Albanians self-radicalized, became mujahedin, fought in Afghanistan in the '90s, joined al-Qaeda in the '90s and the early as fought in Kosovo against the uh the Serbs, and it kind of took the CIA by surprise because we were trying to build a strong working relationship with the Albanian government, but then, you know, it's like, well, this Albanian's a good guy. This Albanian's trying to blow up my

[10:56] house. you know what's going on in this country. They've finally gotten to a point where they're relatively stable, although they're still, you know, the poor cousin of Europe. It's going to be a very, very long time before they're ever invited to join the European Union, but they'll get there one of these days. And uh, you know, I think that the government at least is trying to better and more easily integrate into into Europe. I think this radicalism is on its way out. You know, I I am a I am an eternally optimistic person. I really

[11:27] am. I've always been a glass half full guy, but I've never been this pessimistic about the future of the country like I am today. I just don't see any area in which we're moving in the right direction. Whether it's on, you know, the economy, the national debt, civil liberties, civil rights, human rights, the defense budget, personal freedoms. Did I say the environment? I think I didn't. Like, there's nothing that makes me

[11:58] optimistic. But then I tell myself, our system is cyclical. These guys aren't going to be around forever. And it's all about the system that we've given ourselves in that it's all about getting out there and making the change that we want. We've got to vote. We've got to march. We have to write. We have to petition our elected officials. You know, I know this sounds kind of naive, but it's true. And I'm going to say it. I worked on the House side for several years and I worked on the Senate side for several years. on the House side as

[12:30] like the juniormost person in the office of Congressman Joe Coulter and on the Senate side as one of the four seniormost people on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee staff and the staff of Senator John Kerry. And if there's one thing that I learned, it's that if people write in today's world, email their member of Congress and say, "I want you to take this position on this issue." Nine times out of 10, they're going to do it. They may need to receive multiple emails from multiple people,

[13:00] but nine times out of ten, they're going to do it. And we used to get I remember we used to get letters, physical letters, where people would say, "Please sign on to HR 1049, the National Save the Bald Eagle Act." Okay. None of us had ever heard of this National Save the Bald Eagle Act. So, I would look it up. Yeah, it's an act. it was sponsored by this congressman over here. I'd go to the congressman. I'd say, "Listen, we have a constituent from Beaver Falls who wants you to support

[13:32] the Save the Eagle Act." He's like, "Sure, whatever." And so, we make a little notation that when it comes up for a vote, our vote is yes. It was as simple as that. Now, there were things like, you know, tax issues or foreign policy issues that, you know, the contras at the time that that required more more leg work, but we did what the constituents wanted us to do. One thing I've noticed is that the demonstrations around the war in Iran right now are very small. I went to that first

[14:02] demonstration after October 7th when the Israelis started really pounding civilian targets in Gaza. Um Brian Becker was the organizer from the answer coalition and he he wrote on the application for the demonstration permit with the department of uh the interior that he expected between 20,000 and 30,000 demonstrators. There were 350,000 people there and they stretched from the White House to the Capitol building. Why aren't why aren't we seeing that today?

[14:34] We're involved in an active war that only 33% of Republicans support and overall only 27% of Americans support. And yet we're like, we're at war. That's a shame. Oh well, I think I'm going to watch this movie on HBO now. It's like, what's wrong with people? So, we've got to be out there leading the fight. If we want something, then then damn it, we we have to take it or demand that it be given to us. This is going to be a constant fight, like a neverending

[15:06] fight. You Somebody asked me the other day who I considered to be a giant on Capitol Hill, and there are none. When I was in college, I was an autograph hound, and I never had Friday classes. So, I'd go straight to Capitol Hill and just hound these guys for autographs cuz I was so starruck by politicians. But we had giants back then. Ted Kennedy, Daniel Patrick Moahan, Barry Goldwater, Bob Dole, I mean Warren Magnusen, these guys were were were like historic figures. I can't name a single historic

[15:37] figure. Not a single one. Like occasionally Thomas Massie does the right thing. I like him. Occasionally Roana does the right thing. I like Roana, too. The rest of them are all bums. All of them. And they should all be thrown out. So keep up the fight. That's all we can do. I I want to say another thing about this question. This is another thing that I agree with. I have found my thoughts recently going to the question, should I buy a place overseas just in case things turn to [ __ ] I haven't done that, but never

[16:09] before in my life, and I'm almost 62 years old. Never before in my life have I have I ever asked that question. And I hate that I'm asking it up myself.
