Title: The World This Week with John Kiriakou — War on Iran
Show: Consortium News
Date: 2026-03-15
URL: https://youtube.com/watch?v=vTOcUUkZgXY
Duration: 59:43

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[00:06] [music]

[01:19] >> Welcome to the world this week. I'm Joe Lauria, the editor in chief of Consortium News. This week, Iran, war rages, destruction spreads in Iran, Israel, and on US bases as the Gulf Arabs reconsider US ties and the US considers a ground invasion. At the end of the second week of this nightmare in the Middle East, we welcome John Kiriakou, a former CIA officer who blew the whistle on the agency's torture program. He's an author, a public

[01:51] speaker, and a columnist for Consortium News. John Kiriakou, welcome to the world this week. Thank you, Joe. John, I want to start by talking about the preparation for this war, I should say lack of preparation perhaps for this war. Now, you you were in the agency in 2003 when the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq began, the last major US adventure in the region. Uh tell us what role intelligence agencies played, like the CIA, like the

[02:22] Defense Intelligence Agency, uh to prepare a country to go to a war on this scale. And what do you remember from that period if you had any involvement? Jordan. Sure. DIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, takes the lead in um in bringing together a list of potential targets. Then they share that that list with CIA military analysts. The CIA military, political, and economic analysts prepare

[02:54] uh analyses for the president, the secretary of state, and the secretary of defense, the national security advisor, uh trying to more or less predict what the responses are going to be from the Iranian leadership, the Iranian government, the Iranian oil sector, the intelligence service, etc., etc. And then operationally, the CIA in the lead-up to the to the war and immediate af- and the immediate aftermath of the initial attacks is trying to recruit

[03:25] Iranian ambassadors, Iranian intelligence service uh station chiefs around the world, um anybody inside the IRGC to try to get that inside information and disrupt the decision-making process. But Joe, I can't help but to think that this this time was much different. You know, you hear a lot about off-the-shelf, what are called off-the-shelf war plans. And certainly, there are plans to invade almost every country in the world. They can just

[03:56] pull them off the shelf and implement them and then they're updated every year. It seems like there was just simply no plan this time. They this was done almost on a whim and it was done in a way that seriously damaged American credibility in that we engaged the Iranians in apparently in talks to to head off an armed conflict and instead we just use that as cover

[04:26] to keep them back on their heels so that they wouldn't expect the invasion not invasion but the attack that eventually came. Joe, I happen to be in in Abu Dhabi and Dubai just a few days before the attack and I met with I met with both government ministers and with very senior members of the royal family and they all asked me the same thing. They said do you think he's going to attack?

[04:57] Because we genuinely don't know. Wait a minute, you're talking about now? Trump you're talking about? Not the not 2003. Okay. Right. Sorry about that. So just a few weeks ago they asked me do you think he'll he'll actually attack? We don't know because you'll recall a year ago Donald Trump dismissed dozens and dozens of career ambassadors. Non-partisan professional diplomats dismissed them all and has never replaced them. There

[05:28] is no American ambassador in Abu Dhabi. There is no American ambassador in Bahrain. There is no American ambassador in Kuwait or in Dubai. They're gone. Those positions are vacant and so there's no dialogue going back and forth between these ostensible allies. And so they genuinely don't have any idea what the White House is planning to do. Are there any military attaches in these embassies that are that are functioning? There are, but military attaches belong

[05:59] to the defense attache program, which is an intelligence collection position. They aren't there to offer intelligence. They're there to collect it. And then there's something called FMC, foreign military I forget what. It's They're there just to sell weapons and weapon systems. So, the diplomacy has to has to be done at the ambassadorial level, or if there's no ambassador at the charge d'affaires level, but the charge d'affaires is whoever happens to be the

[06:29] senior most person in the embassy, and it can change from day to day. This is no way to run a war. It's no way to run a State Department. So, this kind of preparation that you discussed should take place. Should be First of all, as you said, the plans are They're already there, but they have to be brushed off. And they have to be put into action, and that should be months before any kind of action. And as far as you know, very little of that, if anything, was done. Yeah, in fact, in in 2003,

[06:59] um we we started planning the Iraq War like in earnest, planning the Iraq War, building staffs, um doing analyses, moving equipment 10 months before we invaded Iraq. And it was clear what we were going to do, because we had the Secretary of State just dashing all around the world to to bring allies into line. There was this policy called burden sharing, where we went to every single one of the Arab Gulf countries and uh and got them to

[07:30] pay in advance for for the start of the war. None of that happened this uh this month. None of that. And on top of that, President Bush, politically, in 2003 and very early 2004, crisscrossed the country trying to to whip up public support for an attack on Iraq. President Bush hasn't left the White House except to go to Mar-a-Lago or to go golfing. Yeah, well, his father got went to the

[08:02] UN Security Council and got a resolution to authorize in the chapter 7, the first Gulf War. He put together a coalition of about 30 countries, I think. Um and uh and he went to Congress and got got a resolution there. And he made speeches across the country, at least two or three major speeches to get public support. He had a reason, at least. Even some of us disagreed with that war, but it wasn't invasion of another country. I think that April Glaspie, the American ambassador there, signaled to Saddam that uh US wouldn't

[08:33] do anything if he invaded. May have been a trap he was set. That's something we can discuss another time. Then in the second in second Gulf War, George W. Bush uh made speeches across the country, told a bunch of lies about WMD, went to the UN Security Council, didn't get a resolution, but invaded anyway, and then went to Congress and did get a resolution, and had three countries in this coalition, which was Poland, Australia, and the US. And and then Europe opposes, we know French and Germans on the Security Council did not agree. Uh and this time none of this

[09:05] has happened. But what did happen, John, is that over the last 30 40 years since the revolution in 1979 in Iran, the US has game planned a war of this scale against Iran, and it seems like they came back with the understanding that what would happen if the US invaded Iran is what we're seeing playing out right now. And therefore, no president until this one, despite the pressure from not only Netanyahu, but also the Saudi leadership as well, I think, at certain points

[09:35] anyway, to do this, the they resisted Israel's pressure, which is not something you often see in the United States government. What happened this time, John? What is different about this president? Why did he do what no president would do before? I can tell you what the rumor is at the White House. The rumor is that Benjamin Netanyahu told Trump, "If you don't do it, I'm going to use nuclear weapons." And that Trump decided to do it to head off an Israeli use of nuclear weapons.

[10:06] Now, with that said, um I spoke with a friend of ours, yours and mine, last night at over dinner, a friend who knows these issues very deeply. And he said that he was convinced that Trump did it because he wants to normalize the use of nuclear weapons, that he intends to use a nuclear weapon. I know I I disagreed, uh but he he was pretty confident in in his analysis. I think what happened here, Joe,

[10:38] is that Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, and Pete Hegseth somehow convinced themselves, probably because this was Netanyahu's analytic line, that as soon as the first rocket was fired, the Iranian government would collapse like a house of cards. And that was never going to happen. Never. Look at it this way, too. Iran is the size of the whole of Western Europe. It's surrounded by forbidding mountains on three sides.

[11:08] And it has 92 million people, and you can't overthrow a government like that with 25 or 50,000 troops and two aircraft carriers. I was shaking my head before, not because I didn't believe that he wants to normalize, but that that is he might want to do that. I was I didn't believe he would do it. >> Um >> Yeah. What about the idea There's another reason Max Blumenthal at The Grayzone has written that the FBI worked with Israel to create this idea that uh and to put in Trump's head that the supreme egotist that they the Iranians try to kill him a couple of times which

[11:40] there's really no evidence for. So that might be part of it and then there's the old standby right now which is don't forget Jeffrey Epstein. I don't want to talk about Epstein in this show except to say that we've had the former military intelligence officer Ari Ben-Menashe on our program and he's told us and others that he believes that >> Israelis have the entire unredacted files whether they got it directly from from Epstein himself working for them or they hacked into it. They've got it and that as he could have

[12:11] and Netanyahu met many times over to Mar-a-Lago and the White House suggested that this could be winding up on the front page of the New York Times if certain thing doesn't happen like invading like bombing and attacking Iran. I think that's a possibility as well. So there are these different reasons all amount to blackmail basically. Um which something Israel's probably pretty well known for. So this is not a big deal. This could very well have been the case but that nonetheless it happened and there wasn't this preparation. There wasn't an attempt also to turn I

[12:42] remember in the um I think in the invasion 2003 there were they they were able to turn a bunch of high-level Iraqi intelligence people maybe military people. That didn't happen here, did it? No one within Iran that we know of No that that didn't happen here. And you know I think one of the reasons why that didn't happen here is that um the Israelis killed everybody. I mean they've they've essentially decapitated the the Iraq the Iranian nuclear program. They they

[13:13] killed almost every member of the senior military command. Uh I think that uh that that has actually inspired the remaining officials uh to to fight to the death just for their own honor, the honor of their country. Uh I don't think anybody wants to be in the in the pay of the Israeli intelligence service. I mean, no no right-thinking Iranian would. Um it was different for the Iraqis. They genuinely hated and feared Saddam Hussein. And while they considered us to

[13:45] be invaders and occupiers, um they knew that we wouldn't execute them were they to switch sides. And that's why we had the, you know, the Iraqi ambassador to the United Nations uh defect to Canada. The Iraqi ambassador to the United States defected to the UK. The Iraqi ambassadors all over the country. I worked I I worked personally on Iraqi intelligence service station chiefs who were practically lined up to come over to the side of the CIA. That is not happening this time around.

[14:17] Another thing that's different is on the ground. If you I I I recall a lot of Amer- Iraqi soldiers turned around and didn't fight for Saddam. And they were shot in the back. Thank you very much by the United States, the famous turkey shoot, of course. One of the more disgraceful episodes in the long history of disgraceful behavior by the United States in abroad and also Yeah, they buried alive. You know, you may not remember this. It was a front page, I think, on the one of the New York tabloids at the time. They buried some Iraqi soldiers alive with bulldozers in their

[14:49] in in the sand. They just bulldozed people. Well, so they didn't fight. They ran. Uh there was a civil war later, and that's a very complicated story in Iraq. But I think Iraqis they don't understand anything about Iran or the especially this group. And that goes back to intelligence again. But I think if you look at the conduct of the Iranian people and state during the Iran-Iraq War, which was imposed on them by the United States backing Saddam to try to put down the revolution. Look at the way they fought.

[15:20] The hundreds of thousands of young men who died defending Iran and they fought Iraq but armed by the US. Both sides were armed to some degree to deplete both sides but they they held Iraq to a standoff. So this is a different situation. They did they did did they expect do you think did did they expect in the White House that the Iraqis would just lay down? You said that that they would lay down their arms that they would not fight back. How could they? You know Joe I I'm I'm amazed even at

[15:52] the mainstream media outlets here that sort of reinforced this false White House analysis where CNN for days after we started the attack would show clips from the same demonstration in Los Angeles of between 200 and 300 people waving the flags from the time of the Shah of Iran. Most of the Iranians that that went from Iran to Southern California happen to be Jewish.

[16:22] These are not sort of mainstream Iranian Iranians. They're royalists. They're not Muslim. They identify primarily as Americans. And if you're taking your cue from these people you're in for a rude awakening and I think that's what happened. You know even even commentators on the likes of CNN and MS now were saying well you know there was this large demonstration in Los Angeles. No actually there wasn't. It was 200 or 300 people.

[16:56] This is ridiculous. They did the same thing inside Iran. I think there was a picture of a small celebration when the Ayatollah was killed in Iran and they you never you never got a wide shot to see how much how many people were there. That's right. >> celebrating but but how this goes back to the intelligence question. Is Is that they they don't exist? There aren't people who are specialists in Iran at the agency or at the DIA who who understand the country and how they would react and what was needed to

[17:27] prepare to do such a hairbrained scheme like this to unleash what did they have unleashed or is it there wasn't they weren't listened to? Yeah, I I will admit to you that my that my information is dated. I left the CIA quite some time ago, but I assume that [clears throat] the caliber of of analysts are the same as they were 20 years ago when I was there and they were outstanding. They knew as much about Iran and Iranian culture and Iranian politics and Iranian

[17:59] history as as anybody in any, you know, foreign country or think tank or or university. Um, my guess is that the White House just decided they had a policy and they didn't care what the intelligence said. And God knows we've seen that in other countries around the world. So, I think that's what it was. They just made a a decision. They're going to do this. It's going to be easy because it it's going to fall like a house of cards. Everybody hates the Ayatollahs. They're they're dying for freedom. They'll welcome us as

[18:30] liberators. It's the same nonsense we heard um from the neocons in the run-up to the Iraq war. I I've told the story many times. I think it bears repeating here that uh the night before we invaded Iraq, I was CIA Director George Tenet's note-taker in what's what was called a principals committee meeting. It was the final principals committee meeting. The principals committee is usually chaired by the president. In this case, the president was off doing something, so it was chaired by Vice President Cheney.

[19:01] And other attendees were uh National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and her note-taker, two or three NSC officials, uh Secretary of State Colin Powell and his note taker, the chairman and vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and their note taker, um, General Tommy Franks, the head of CENTCOM, and his note taker, and George and me. And, uh, the vice president kicked off the meeting by saying, uh, "General Franks, why don't you give us an order of battle briefing?" I always hated these order of battle briefings

[19:32] because they're so boring and they mean nothing to me. I don't care where the little men are moving on the map. I don't care if elements of the second mountain division are moving here and the armored division's moving there. I don't care. They're going to change in an hour anyway. So, at the very end of the briefing, General Franks said, quote, "If all goes as planned, we can be in Tehran by August." And George George very discreetly shut

[20:02] off his microphone and he turned to me and he said, "Did he say Baghdad or did he say Tehran?" And I said, "He said Tehran." And then George turned the microphone back on. At the end of the meeting, I went back to my office and the deputy director asked me, "How did the meeting go?" And I said, "Did you know we were going to attack Iran?" And he said, "Are they still talking about that? We're not going to attack Iran." And I said, "Do these people know nothing about history?" And he said,

[20:33] "No, they know nothing about history." And now we have history repeating itself 23 years later. You mean that was a Freudian slip? Oh, no, it wasn't Freudian at all. The plan was and and this this was the cherry on top. As we got up to walk out of the meeting, one of these stooges from the NSC said, "When we cross that border tomorrow, they're going to throw flowers at us." And it was the same attitude 2 weeks ago

[21:04] that we would be seen as liberators. They would throw flowers at us. And it's like no, nobody in the Middle East will ever see us as liberators. They see us as invaders and occupiers and thieves of their natural resources. We're not going to be greeted as liberators. And we haven't been. So the person who was telling Trump that that's going to be a cakewalk essentially had to be Netanyahu because uh you It had to be. Nobody else. >> Netanyahu with Rubio and Hegseth nodding

[21:38] their heads like bobbleheads. Well, that's the thing. We have a collection of numbskulls and amateurs and fanatics. And I have to I want to talk to you a little bit about Hegseth because this is a creature that I have never seen in government before. I met people kind of like that in the United States. I know there are American men with this type of gung-ho I mean over-the-top gung-ho mania, but this guy just takes the cake. But so if Netanyahu said on the record when about a day after this operation began, he said he's been

[28:21] A lot of which they haven't used yet. Let's talk about how this war is going. Um you're not surprised that Iran has been able to fight back so badly and so well, have you are you? No, I'm not surprised at all and I think that that it was all part of a of a bigger plan where well, you know what? It's not that John thinks so cuz John's so smart. It's because of the Israeli leadership has come right out and said it that once Iran is is defeated and pacified, the Israelis are going to turn and look at Turkey. I happen to have

[28:53] dinner a couple of nights ago with the Turkish Deputy Foreign Minister. And I said to him, "What What would Turkey do if the Israelis decided that they wanted, you know, a hotter conflict between the two countries?" I said, "Oddly enough, if Israel attacks Turkey, Turkey being a NATO country, the United States would have to come in on the side of Turkey and would have to fight Israel." Now, you and I both know that that's never going to happen. And he said very confidently that

[29:24] the Turks would not invoke Article 5, that the Turks would wipe out Israel, hm, and they wouldn't need anybody's help to protect them. That they're not afraid of this this tiny country to their south. They're not afraid of the Israelis. That's interesting. If they did invoke Article 5, maybe Spain would go and help them because Spain. Yeah, maybe Spain. And that's it. So, tell me about what you know about the what the how the war has been going. There's no information coming out of

[29:55] very little anyway coming out of Israel about what damage they're actually suffering. If you look at the Haaretz newspaper, Yeah, so heavy. We're learning nothing. Yeah, you look at Haaretz and it every 5 minutes on their update is sirens heard in Galilee, sirens heard in the gap, sirens heard in Haifa. And then no reporting. What happened? What happened after those sirens? So, there was a video that came out yesterday, you may have seen it. It's quite long and it's It's one of the airbases and it's getting quite a lot of heavy fire. Um, so there's obviously

[30:27] damage going on there. There was a report this morning that an Israeli general, I believe, was saying let Netanyahu and Trump should say they won, just declare victory, and let everything stay. Don't lift sanctions, don't change anything, go back to the status quo ante. Now, that tells you that there are people in Israel who realize we can't take this anymore and we're running low on interceptor missiles and we better put an end to this. Except, Iran has a say in this and they last time in June of last year, as we know, the US asked

[30:59] for a ceasefire because the Israelis asked for the same reasons they were running low on the interceptors. The US went through a third of the THAAD missiles and the Israeli interceptors were going and Iran agreed. This time they said they won't. They won't agree. This is situation we're in, right? And they shouldn't agree. I I heard yesterday that the United States and Israel have used so far in the last 2 weeks more Patriot missiles than the Ukrainians have used in the last 4 years. There aren't any more Patriot missiles.

[31:29] We can't make them fast enough. And as you noted a moment ago, the Iranians have not yet used their hypersonics. You know, so many of us were afraid that they might use it against the USS Abraham Lincoln or the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carriers. Why would they now? They would be better off sending these five or ten thousand dollar, you know, cheap suicide drones to Israel, let the Israelis exhaust their supply of defensive weapons,

[32:01] and then send hypersonics to Dimona and and Tel Aviv. That's what I would do. And I think that's exactly what the Israelis are afraid the Iranians might do. Now, the US reached out a week ago to the Italians and asked the Italians to weigh in with the Iranians. The Iranians ignored us. So, day before yesterday we went back to the Omanis and asked the Omanis to engage with the Iranians. The Iranians came back and said, "We have demands. Uh an immediate ceasefire before talks

[32:31] even start. Uh they want um uh the US to pull all all bases out of the Middle East, which of course is a non-starter. Um, they want sanctions lifted. And the fourth one was, uh, oh, $25 billion in reparations. So, there won't be any ceasefire talks. And it's because the Iranians don't need for there to be ceasefire talks.

[33:02] No demands for the, for nothing for the Palestinians. Nothing for the Palestinians. >> Yeah. So, Iran would be in the driver's seat if they deplete all the interceptors. Israel will lie, lie before them vulnerable and open. At that point they can dictate the terms. They may even increase some from what you just said. But that would be for starters right there. And when you kill the supreme leader like that, which was the biggest mistake they could have made on the first day, let alone killing the school children. Um, how do you expect

[33:33] Iran to say, "Okay, we'll agree to a ceasefire at this time?" This is all-out war. They've prepared for it. They wish not to have to do this, but they are implementing it right now. And you see the enormous courage of the Iranian people standing in the street on Al-Quds Day on Friday with bombs bursting nearby. Now, you have to believe that the Israelis or the Americans, whoever were doing that, could have hit the crowds. They didn't, but they were trying to scare the hell out of them and they did not scare, John. Those are some of the most extraordinary things you could see.

[34:04] I saw that video yesterday and, uh, and today and it really is remarkable. They're not afraid. They're not afraid to die for their country. They're just not. And, and another thing, too, is they're, they're they're so well read uh, on these issues, on these foreign policy issues. I don't think there was a single Iranian out of the 92 million of them that was surprised when we began this attack. They've been expecting it.

[34:36] They expect behavior like this from the United States and Israel. And you said now that you don't think the it's a it's a non-starter you said for the US to remove its bases. But what we've learned now from satellite imagery, which even the New York Times did a piece on, there's been extensive damage to a number of the US bases in the region. The Arab monarchies in the Gulf made a deal going way back to FDR on that boat in the Suez with the

[35:08] King Saudi King that you will provide oil to us with buying it in dollars and we will give you security. Basically, that's the deal and they made that deal with all of the Gulf monarchies in which the British set up by the way and the deal was that you have local autonomy, but Britain would run the foreign policy and the defense of these five countries in the in the Gulf region. And of course, the US just took that over. Basically, that's the same deal. The US runs the foreign policy and the defense. They were not defended, John. The you've seen

[35:40] this letter from this Al Habtoor, this billionaire in the UAE. You've seen Reuters had a big piece the other day about how they're reconsidering their relationship with the United States because the deal didn't work. They weren't defended. They didn't We talked about the lack of preparation. Clearly, these monarchies were not informed enough that what would happen, what could happen if the US went to war against Iran, but they everybody knew that this is what Iran could do and they dragged these guys into it. Now, what do

[36:10] you about the relationship between the Gulf Arab states and the US after this? Yeah, like I said, I was in the Gulf 2 and 1/2 weeks ago and another 2 weeks before that. I went to I went to Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, Abu Dhabi, and Dubai. And and they come right out and say exactly the same thing, Joe, that the deal is they were going to host these bases, which include the headquarters of the Fifth Fleet in Bahrain. They include Al

[36:42] Udeid Airbase in Qatar, which is the largest airbase in the world. As many as 25,000 troops in Kuwait, another 15,000 or so troops in the United Arab Emirates. And the idea was all of those installations and and personnel are supposed to protect these countries. And we haven't we haven't protected them. Everybody's been hit. Airports have been destroyed in Kuwait and Bahrain. Um the hotels in in Dubai are being hit, which is going to cost a fortune in

[37:13] terms of economic loss. Um and and uh uh I forget the economic term. Anyway, the this is what the Wall Street Journal's reporting. And um and in in Doha, this gigantic The the Iranians are able to hit it at will. And so I think every one of these these royal or ruling, in the case of Kuwait, families um are going to have to reconsider the relationship, at least renegotiate the

[37:44] relationship. Um so it's I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that they'll ask the US to leave and maybe look towards Iran for protection, not only from the United States, but from Israel. Israel is the threat to these countries. Not Iran, basically. I think that maybe they're starting to wake up to that. They've made their deals and their peace without a formal peace treaty with Israel, without the stupid Abraham Accords. But we've known that there was a story the other day that about five the first 5,000 Israelis from Dubai were

[38:14] being flown out. So who knew that there were at least that many and there were many more. >> Yeah, I had no idea. No idea there were that many Israelis in Dubai. I was shocked by that number. And now um they're they're landing by the 747 load in Cyprus to the point where a Cypriot contact of mine told me just day before yesterday, there are street signs in Hebrew now, there are menus in Hebrew, there are Hebrew-speaking real estate agents. They're all going to Cyprus.

[38:46] And that's in the last in the last months then or years? Yeah, now Recently. >> Yeah, just just since August. This has been going on since August. In Greece in Athens specifically, there's been a real run-up in real estate prices, not because the Greek economy is any good, but because Israelis are all buying the real estate there and and driving prices up. So where does this go, John? Where does this war lead to if it continues the way it is right now and they run out of the

[39:17] missiles and by the way by the radar those very expensive radar that were taken out, they can't use the THAAD missiles I understand to bring down 50 minutes. Um this goes on for another 2 weeks. Where do you Where do you see this war being if let's say it goes another 2 weeks? Where are we going to be at? I honestly believe that at the end of this Donald Trump is just going to declare victory and go home. And leave the wreckage for the next president whoever that happens to be. I really think that's what he's going to do. He's going to say we won, we crushed

[39:50] them, we allowed this Ayatollah to remain in in power, and we've we've cowed this government, and they're going to do what we say, so we've we've won this thing and we're going to go home. Well, if I were the Iranians, the very first thing I would do is to seek a nuclear weapon. You somebody said to me the other day, and this was so simple and so powerful, we're not talking right now about North Korea. Do you know why? Because North Korea has a nuclear weapon.

[40:21] Iran needs one. Well, they might change the man that who put out the fatwa against it has been killed on the opening hours. That's right. of this war. Um what about the idea of a ground invasion? There's a lot of talk still about that. First it was going to be the Kurds from the north, but they wised up it seems like the Kurds. They uh know the history of how the US and other Western governments have used the Kurds for short-term interests and then kicked them to the curb once they were not no longer needed. They were very much the

[40:52] way the British did with all the Arabs in the First World War to fight against Turkey. But um they wised up. They said we're not going in unless the US is with us. Well, that talk died down pretty quickly. But now there's this expeditionary force of 2,500 Marines [clears throat] on the USS Tripoli go being sent. And what is that? Is that just optics? Is that just or is there really something being planned here? What what could they do with 2,500 Marines? Almost nothing except protect American embassies. Ah. >> That's just about it. Yeah. Yeah, you

[41:23] can't do 2,500 Marines against 92 million Iranians. I mean, it's laughable that we're even having this conversation. No planning went into this at all. No planning. You remember Joe in 1990, August 2nd, 1990, Iraq invaded and occupied Kuwait. And we sent 565,000 troops to the Gulf. 565,000, not 2,500 Marines.

[41:55] And not a couple of plane loads of, you know, THAAD systems. 565,000 ground troops and six aircraft carrier strike groups. Well, this what we're doing now is like a like a a joke. We can't do anything with two aircraft carriers, 22 ships, with two more on the way, 2,500 Marines, maybe 40, maybe 50,000 ground troops who have never, you know, who have never left base except to go

[42:26] into town to do some shopping. So, what's that going to do for us? We can't overthrow the Iranian government and occupy a country that's the size of Western Europe with 40 or 50,000 troops. That's how many are in the region now, 50,000 apparently. Or 52,500 when the Marines arrive. It's a joke. >> [laughter] >> It's an absolute absolute joke, but this entire administration is a joke. And that Netanyahu found the saps that he's been waiting for to for them to do this.

[42:58] Yes. >> and he's imperiled his own country, Iran Israel. The smoke will clear, we'll learn about the damage that's been done, and it's not over yet. And uh I I just want to look What do you think the Middle East is going to look like when this is over? You know, odd as this sounds, I think it probably is going to look the same. And the reason I say that is Here, we used to use this term in our CIA analysis, muddling through. That these governments, these countries,

[43:30] they always seem to just muddle through these catastrophic problems. If you look at the at the first Gulf War, Joe, literally none of the leaders changed. You have Iraq attack Kuwait, and 565,000 troops push him out, and wipe out the Iraqi military, and Yasser Arafat endorsed Saddam, and Ali Abdullah Saleh in in Yemen endorsed Saddam.

[44:00] And then, when the last shot was fired, everybody just kind of went back to their palaces and and everything was exactly the same. I think that's what we're going to see here, too. That everybody's just going to muddle through. We may see, as we said, this questioning of of the value of having the US military in such big numbers, heavy presences in these countries. Um and and this might all be part of a slow decline of American hegemony in the

[44:31] region, whether it's military or economic or both. But I think in the in the near term, we shouldn't expect to see much in the way of change. So, the US will rebuild these billion-dollar radar systems and rebuild the bases the way they were before? Well, Max Blumenthal reported today that uh the end-of-the-year budget for the Pentagon last year, millions and millions of dollars were spent on uh lobster dinners and uh cracked crab

[45:02] because you had to you have to spend the money uh at the end of the fiscal year. So, there's money there. Every year, Congress approves appropriates more money than the Pentagon asks for. And they have to spend it on something. I think they'll just rebuild. But the Gulf states will say, "Uh we're not certain we want these targets here, Admiral, because you didn't protect us. And now you're just a target on our back." Mhm. >> [clears throat] >> I think that's going to be the big problem. It's going to be a diplomatic one. Yes. Yeah. And uh because Iran is going to

[45:33] First of all, when are they going to give up? They may go all the way for the kill because they're in the driver's seat. They will be shortly if those interceptors run out and there's no no ground invasion. And there's no will They the will of the country is strong to keep fighting, it looks like. Um so, that will Iran, you know, how could Iran cannot allow the status quo to remain because they will rebuild and rearm, like you just said, and attack them again, maybe. And in Trump's he's got 3 more years left. I mean, God help us,

[46:03] but there's three more years of this Trump administration. Now, our future president may realize don't go after Iran like the previous presidents did. But, we slept three years with this guy. Yeah, we do. We do, and he's so unpredictable. And I think that I think that one of the most dangerous figures in this whole equation is Marco Rubio. Marco Rubio is an old-style neo-conservative communist-hating And that hatred of communism extends to

[46:35] to Islam. And I think that like, you know, John McCain before him and Barry Goldwater and and so many of the others that have, you know, that have for years made up the Republican Party's uh foreign policy and defense establishment, he's a true believer. This guy is a serious problem. And don't forget Lindsey Graham. Uh everyone >> Graham Oh, but Lindsey Graham is such a clown. I I have trouble wrapping my brain around the idea that

[47:06] people actually take him seriously. You remember his sidekick Sorry, go ahead. Yeah, but they do, and he's perfectly He's perfectly happy to send your son and my son and anybody else's son off to die for Israel. You remember his sidekick John McCain singing bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran to the Beach Boys song Wouldn't It Be Nice. He got what he wanted. Um Yeah. I I think rebuilding the bases will just invite

[47:37] another attack from Iran. So, I I I let's move on to the BRICS issue because this war is not just about Israel and US and Iran. And Iran is a member of BRICS. This is a front line in a worldwide movement right now to to resist the US dominance in the world. And what we're seeing this war is about is not only greater Israel, but greater America. The an American global empire and a regional Israeli empire. This is what the logic of this war is. So, Iran is

[48:09] a wall that the empire is hitting against right now. This could be one of the most historic uh wars uh in our lifetime, much more than the first two Gulf wars. This could be because of what's behind Iran, Russia, China, and the entire global south really, or the BRICS matters, who are trying to resist and have a world where people are uh countries relate to each other more or less in an equal manner, and resist one unipolar power, the United States. So, what about this the the role of not only

[48:41] is the Iran war so historically important, but this battle on Strait of Hormuz could be a battle talked about for centuries. Oh, yeah. If it happens, if it happens. You know, I I think it's funny in in the in the mainstream media, we hear these comparisons to um to the Iranian threat to close the Strait of Hormuz back in the middle 1980s, and Ronald Reagan sent naval escorts to to escort these oil tankers. That you might remember the SS Bridgeton

[49:12] was hit. It was the biggest oil tanker in the world at the time. It burned for weeks, and Reagan sent these ships to escort um ship cargo ships out. It's not the 1980s anymore. The technology is far advanced. Uh it's not just mines that ships have to worry about. There aren't enough ships in the US Navy to escort all of the oil tankers and all of the cargo ships that need to go in and out of the Gulf. And so, this is another thing Joe also

[49:43] that I I think the administration just hasn't really given thought to. Now, getting to BRICS, I agree with you. BRICS BRICS ought to be an existential threat to the United States because these are some of the the biggest countries in the world they're some of the biggest economies in the world. They include the economic powerhouses of the global south like South Africa and Brazil for example. And they're talking about and granted

[50:14] this is years away but they're talking about a unified currency. Well, if there's a a unified BRICS currency you think the Chinese and the Russians and the Indians are are going to want to carry out international trade in US dollars? Why would they? Of course they would use a unified currency probably pegged to to the current yuan. I would. And so I I think you're right. I think that part of the calculation in this attack on Iran was to try to

[50:45] disrupt what so far has been the rapid growth of of the BRICS countries. I don't think there's any doubt about that. I don't think Trump knew what BRICS were when he entered the second term but he's found out quickly and he knows what a threat it is to the United States. Just the challenging their own sovereignty against a global monster like the United States is. What can do you let's talk about inside the US right now? What impact if they could dress this up as a victory

[51:15] all they want. And by the way, Netanyahu yesterday I believe said that it's up to you Iranian people. We're doing everything we can and Trump said that the night that he announced the war as well when his golfing cap I look like he just walked off the golf course and he wasn't really into this war because I think he was forced into it. Probably through the reasons we gave earlier something to do with blackmail maybe but he he said, you know, it's up to you. We're going to do whatever we can. Now, let's see how you respond. I thought right away he was setting the Iranian people up for the failure. If this doesn't work, we're going to blame the Iranian people. We we did

[51:46] everything we could but it was up to you to overthrow the government, and you didn't. Netanyahu said the same thing yesterday. So, I think they're setting up an exit there by blaming the Iranian people. Yes. We gave them the chance to rise up, and they didn't. They were probably too frightened. Yeah, sure. I could see them saying that. Hey, I have a question for you, if you don't mind. Where in the world is Benjamin Netanyahu? There were reports that he was in Germany last week. He's hiding in Cyprus this week. Nobody seems

[52:17] to know. He He ran away and left his people to face Iranian bombs and missiles, and he went to protect himself, and that seems to be okay with everybody. Well, the plane wing of Zion, let's call which I just learned their Air Force One went left Israel right away when the war began and was flying over the Mediterranean for a while looking for a place to land, it looks like, and then they landed in Berlin. But, there's no evidence that Netanyahu was on that plane or that he's in Berlin. Right. >> They put out videos saying he was holding a meeting in Berlin, but it was

[52:48] a cabinet meeting in Israel, but only Israeli flags. There was no So, I don't think he's in Germany. I think he's in Israel. I think he's still alive. There's all these rumors now. There's a >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. This I just Somebody set up a Twitter account that says or an X account says, "Is Netanyahu dead?" Question mark. So, there's all this Somebody sent me an email, somebody I know, that there's going to be an announcement Sunday that he's dead. I mean, I don't buy any of this. I think he may be at Mar-a-Lago. If he goes anywhere, that's where he's going

[53:19] to be. That's right. [laughter] And you know, you know, we're saying saying, "What are we going to do now, Don?" You know, "What are we going to What are we going to do now?" I think also there's a story that the Israelis are prepared for the war in Lebanon. The other front that they opened to go longer than the one in Iran. So, you think there's no chance of a US ground invasion. And there's no chance of the US beating Iran it looks like right now despite what what Hex had said this morning, we're kicking their ass, they are dying, they're

[53:50] crying for mercy, etc. So they have to blame the Iranian people ultimately and say well we we've knocked it all out, we destroyed their ability, you know, they said that they have 90% reduced their launching of drones and missiles. That was five or six days ago and there are still barrages going on. Yes. Out of the 10% that's that's left? Yeah, as recently as just two or three hours ago. Yes. So they're lying to us and they're going

[54:21] to have to say, okay, well we did what we can and we we really defanged them and we're going to just go on and concentrate on Lebanon. But the Iranians again have something to say about this and there are a lot of people around the world who want the Israel to get payback for what they've done to the Palestinians. There's enormous anger out there. You could see it on social media and a lot of joy although because of the censorship law in Israel which was by the way a British law under the mandate that was adopted in '48 by the Knesset where you can go to jail now for five to

[54:51] 15 years and pay a fine for filming, let alone putting out on social media evidence of the damage inside Israel. So we don't really know what's going on in Israel about how much they've heard except a lot of these missiles are landing. They're getting through. Yes, they are. So much for the vaunted Iron Dome. When when a five or 10,000 dollar Iranian drone, a slow motion drone can penetrate the Iron Dome, then you've got a serious problem. And like I said, you know, if the Iranians

[55:23] are smart and I think they're very smart, what they're going to do is just send wave after wave after wave of drones, deplete the Israeli defensive missile capabilities and then use hypersonics on what's left? Absolutely. So, when when that happens, and Iran still has plenty of missiles left, they have decision to make whether they're going to go for the kill or let them walk away from this, declare victory cuz Trump said on Friday, I

[55:54] believe, we won in past tense. So, he's already trying to say that the game is over. We won. And they're going to walk away. Will the Iranians allow them to walk away? Or will Iran become the graveyard of the US empire, the way they always said about Afghanistan? Can Iran play that role? Right. You know, that's really the $64,000 question. If If the Iranians are able to finish them off, do they finish them off? And then what about the Samson

[56:24] option, their directive? Do Do the Israelis just take everybody with them? I I wouldn't put it past this leadership, you know? Even even post Netanyahu, then what do we get? Itamar Ben-Gvir? Itamar Smotrich? They're even worse. I think it stops there, John, because I think they would threaten to uh to use the nuke. >> think you're right, Joe. I think so I think you're right. They'll threaten to do it, and they'll mean it. They'll mean

[56:54] the threat. Yeah. You can't take those lunatics lightly when they say that. As you said, if Israel's going to go down, they'll take everyone with them. And they could even hit Europe as well with their missiles. >> Yeah. The Israelis. And they have 200 warheads at least, right? That's right. But, you know, I asked a person yesterday who knows about these things. I said, "I've read that they have between 50 and 200 warheads." And he said, "No, I think it's more like 100 to 250 warheads." Yeah. That's a lot. >> underground in a base west of Jerusalem.

[57:26] So, that they're The plutonium is created and they're fitted in the heads in Dimona, which the Iranians have I think threatened to hit with the hypersonic missile. But that wouldn't put the end to the to the warheads they already have in their stockpile. I I think that that would be maybe the end of the war right there. I think Iran may stop short if that threat is made by Israel. And then the Israelis and the Americans will have to lick their wounds. Yes. Yes, indeed. And that could be

[57:57] not necessarily the end of US imperialism, but a big bloody nose that they uh um that they could suffer to the US. And And if I were the Chinese and the Russians, I would then do everything I can to arm the Iranians with as much as they can handle so that this doesn't happen again. And Iran would get you'd think Iran will get a nuclear weapon this time to prevent I repeat. I think they would be fools if they

[58:27] didn't seek one. Yeah. John Kiriakou, thank you very much for spending a little bit of your Saturday evening with us to talk about this horrendous uh situation going on in the Middle East. And we'd love to have you back on again. >> I look forward to it. It's always good to see you, Joe. Okay, John. So, for CN Live and for The World This Week, uh and for our producer Kathy Voghan, and thank I thank you audience, this is Joe Lauria saying goodbye until next

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