Carving up Iran
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Carving up Iran is John Kiriakou's description of what he understands the Israeli objective in Iran to be, beyond regime change: not a replacement government but the elimination of the country as a single state.

The demands that cannot be met

Kiriakou set the partition goal against the public negotiating position. The Israeli demands, he said, "are clear. They've made them public and that is no uranium enrichment period, no ballistic missiles period." Agreeing with the objection that no sovereign nation can surrender its missiles, he asked what such a country would even be: "you cease to be a country if you can't defend yourself and can't have a missile system."

The five countries

What lies behind the unmeetable terms, in his account, is a further goal. "The Israelis have also talked increasingly less discreetly about the end goal being to divide Iran up into five small countries. There would be Balochistan, Arabistan, Kurdistan, you know, five little rump countries because then they're much more easily controlled."

He listed the relationships that would serve such a plan: good relations with Azerbaijan, including "a base in Azerbaijan from which they can attack Iran"; good relations with the Kurds of Iran and Iraq; and the funding of "the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, the MEK terrorist group that we're now in bed with."

The expected route

Kiriakou's forecast was that the objective would be pursued through Washington: "this end goal of the Israelis to carve up Iran into five different countries is what they're going to try to eventually get Donald Trump to do. And this is nothing but catastrophe for all of us."

His prior objection stood underneath it. Asked how a war of choice could serve the American national interest, he answered that it could not, and that if Israel genuinely believed Iran to be an existential threat it should engage "the Omanis, or the Algerians, or the Saudis, or the Emiratis, or even the Qataris" toward a diplomatic solution, rather than have Netanyahu fly to the United States every two months "begging whoever happens to be president to destroy Iran for him."

The personal ledger he attached: "I have five children. I have four sons... Three of the four are of military age. I wouldn't want my sons fighting and dying in Iran to protect Israel's... long term security goal."

See also

- "Iran posed no threat"
- Chaos as the Israeli objective
- Killing Khamenei
