South Pars and the North Dome are the two names for a single gas field beneath the Persian Gulf, and the subject of John Kiriakou’s explanation of one of the sharpest disagreements between Washington and Israel during the 2026 Iran war.
The naming is the whole point. “We call it South Pars. Only a third of it is called South Pars. The southern two thirds are called the North Dome. And they’re in Qatari waters.”[1] The consequence follows directly: “if you’re going to hit one, the other one gets hit, too, kind of automatically. And it just leads from one problem to another problem. And the Qataris are like, ‘What are you guys doing?’”[2]
Not an accident
Kiriakou identifies the strike as one of the few things Israel did that the Americans had not wanted done — his estimate of the daylight between the two governments in the war being “only a little bit,” with this as one of the exceptions.[1]
He does not accept that it was a mistake. Israel resents Qatar because “the Qataris are pro-Hamas,” so “they’re happy to bomb the gas field and then say, ‘Oh, sorry. You know what? We didn’t realize that the Americans didn’t want us to bomb that. Sorry.’” Trump’s public account — that they bombed it, he told them to stop, and they stopped — Kiriakou rejects outright: “No, they knew exactly what they were doing.”[2][3]
Asked later whether Trump’s public finger-pointing at Israel meant the relationship was fracturing, he said it did not: “I think there are always disagreements in times of war, and I think Trump is probably getting a little sick and tired of Netanyahu pushing all the blame onto him.”[4]