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.[1] 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.[2]
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.[3] 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.[4]