# Hope is not a strategy > **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou. > > Cite as: "Hope is not a strategy," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/hope-is-not-a-strategy/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia. *Opening a February 2025 commentary with a maxim he attributes to business school — that hope is not a strategy — John Kiriakou nonetheless set out four things he was hoping the second Trump administration meant, on the grounds that if they did not come from Trump he did not expect them from anyone else in American politics.* - **Ukraine:** That Trump was sincere about ending the war - **Generally:** Staying out of other countries' business - **Syria:** Leaving it to its own devices - **Iran:** Some sort of eventual agreement - **Told to:** CovertAction Magazine, 6 February 2025 Kiriakou's assessment of the incoming administration opened with a disclaimer against his own optimism. Remember what they say in business school, he said: hope is not a strategy.[1] ## The four hopes Having said so, he proceeded to hope anyway, and was specific about what for. He was hoping that Donald Trump was sincere about ending the war in Ukraine. He was hoping Trump was sincere about staying out of other countries' business. He was hoping he was sincere about leaving Syria to its own devices. And he was hoping for some sort of agreement, eventually and somehow, with the government of Iran.[1] ## Why he settled for hope The justification he gave is not a claim about Trump's intentions at all. It is a claim about the alternatives: otherwise, he said, he did not think the country was going to get it from some of these other players.[1] That reasoning is the substance of the position. Kiriakou is not a Trump partisan — in the same commentary he went on to say he was mystified by the choice of Marco Rubio as Secretary of State, described Rubio as a neoconservative in the mould of George W. Bush, and predicted no improvement whatever on Cuba or Venezuela.[2][3][4] What he is describing is a judgment about where restraint could possibly originate. On his account of the permanent foreign policy establishment, the appetite for withdrawal does not exist inside either party's professional ranks; if a president who campaigned against foreign wars would not deliver it, no successor drawn from the usual pool was going to. ## The pattern The formulation — an explicit warning against wishful thinking, followed immediately by a wish — recurs in Kiriakou's political commentary. He applies the same structure to Russia policy, where he welcomed a planned call between Trump and Putin on the general ground that diplomacy is always a good thing, while flatly denying that anyone in the American government was sincere about improving relations with China. The hope, in each case, is attached to a single reversible act by a single person, and the pessimism to the institutions that outlast him. ## See also - [Donald Trump](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/donald-trump) - [A virtual state of war with Venezuela](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/a-virtual-state-of-war-with-venezuela) - [The Putin call and the China exception](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-putin-call-and-the-china-exception) - [Marco Rubio](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/marco-rubio) ## Sources 1. Former CIA Counter Terrorism Specialist John Kiriakou on Rub (2025-02-06), at 00:09. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3kxtqefUPg&t=9s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-02-06-covertaction-magazine-former-cia-counter-terrorism-specialist-john/ 2. Former CIA Counter Terrorism Specialist John Kiriakou on Rub (2025-02-06), at 00:40. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3kxtqefUPg&t=40s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-02-06-covertaction-magazine-former-cia-counter-terrorism-specialist-john/ 3. Former CIA Counter Terrorism Specialist John Kiriakou on Rub (2025-02-06), at 01:11. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3kxtqefUPg&t=71s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-02-06-covertaction-magazine-former-cia-counter-terrorism-specialist-john/ 4. Former CIA Counter Terrorism Specialist John Kiriakou on Rub (2025-02-06), at 01:44. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3kxtqefUPg&t=104s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-02-06-covertaction-magazine-former-cia-counter-terrorism-specialist-john/ --- From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/hope-is-not-a-strategy/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt