# Strategic patience > **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: "Strategic patience," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/strategic-patience/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia. *The doctrine John Kiriakou uses to describe a state that absorbs an attack and answers with a response calibrated to be smaller than the provocation — Iran's telegraphed drone waves against Israel, and India's refusal to escalate against Pakistan, which he says kept a war from becoming a nuclear one.* - **Definition:** Responding to attack below the level of the provocation - **Kiriakou's examples:** Iran against Israel; India against Pakistan - **Purpose:** Satisfying domestic opinion without escalation **Strategic patience** is the term [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) uses for a state that answers an attack with a response deliberately calibrated to fall below the level of the provocation — enough to satisfy domestic opinion, not enough to escalate. ## Iran His primary case is Iran's response to Israeli strikes on its military sites. Because of public opinion, he says, the Iranians had to respond; what they did was send six or seven hundred slow-moving drones, and telephone the Israelis through the Jordanians beforehand to say that this was what was coming, *"just so that they don't raise the stakes."* The [Iron Dome](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/iron-dome) shot almost all of them down.[1] Kiriakou's summary of the pattern is that the Iranian response was always far less than the Israeli action that required it, and that the Iranians *"really really hoped that this would just go away."*[2] ## India He applies the same admiration to India. Describing a round of India–Pakistan fighting, he says Washington expected the Indians to strike back and they did not — and that observers were saying the Indians were exhibiting *"a very mature foreign policy here."* That restraint, in his account, is what kept the exchange from becoming something far worse.[3][4] The implicit contrast in both cases is with the side that escalates. Where Iran's restraint failed, in Kiriakou's telling, was not in Tehran: the Israelis attacked again, and when the Iranian government did not collapse after the American strike, Israel pressed for a larger war.[5] ## The response that surprised the world Reviewing the exchange months afterwards, Kiriakou described the Iranian response as the clearest case of the doctrine he has: *"the Iranians have exercised something that everybody's calling strategic patience. Honest to God, when the Israelis first began attacking Iran, I think the whole world was surprised at how patient the Iranian government took its response — to the point where the Iranian people were in the streets demanding that the government respond."*[6] His assessment of it is unqualified: *"I think that the Iranian government did everything right in the way it responded to these Israeli attacks."*[7] He expects the same posture to be tested again. Anticipating a further Israeli attack — preceded, he predicts, by propaganda that Iran has restarted its nuclear programme, begun rebuilding sites, or taken delivery of *"gyroscopes or whatever"* — he judges that the Iranians *"probably either will not strike back, or will do something symbolic like drones again. And I think that is really the way to go."*[8][9] ## See also - [The Iron Dome](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/iron-dome) - [2026 Iran war](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/2026-iran-war) - [American Missile Stockpiles](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/american-missile-stockpiles) ## Sources 1. Unfiltered With S.A.M. (2026-05-07), at 03:02. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSDydqdERPQ&t=182s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-05-07-unfiltered-with-s-a-m-unfiltered-with-s-a-m/ 2. Unfiltered With S.A.M. (2026-05-07), at 03:34. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSDydqdERPQ&t=214s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-05-07-unfiltered-with-s-a-m-unfiltered-with-s-a-m/ 3. 'Pakistan Will Lose Any Conventional War Against India': Ex- (2025-10-24), at 01:34. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJXG3YkVdGY&t=94s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-10-24-toi-bharat-pakistan-will-lose-any-conventional-war-again/ 4. Pakistan's Nuclear Secrets, CIA Lies, ISI's Double Game: Ex-CIA John Kiriakou (2025-10-24), at 25:30. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIyrvsi1nTw&t=1530s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-10-24-pakistan-nuclear-secrets-cia-lies/ 5. Unfiltered With S.A.M. (2026-05-07), at 04:46. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSDydqdERPQ&t=286s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2026-05-07-unfiltered-with-s-a-m-unfiltered-with-s-a-m/ 6. Charlie Kirk's Story Crumbles — Iran (2025-10-11), at 42:42. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V5GlZ4IodQ&t=2562s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-10-11-dialogue-works-charlie-kirk-s-story-crumbles-iran/ 7. Charlie Kirk's Story Crumbles — Iran (2025-10-11), at 43:12. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V5GlZ4IodQ&t=2592s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-10-11-dialogue-works-charlie-kirk-s-story-crumbles-iran/ 8. Charlie Kirk's Story Crumbles — Iran (2025-10-11), at 43:43. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V5GlZ4IodQ&t=2623s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-10-11-dialogue-works-charlie-kirk-s-story-crumbles-iran/ 9. Charlie Kirk's Story Crumbles — Iran (2025-10-11), at 44:16. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V5GlZ4IodQ&t=2656s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-10-11-dialogue-works-charlie-kirk-s-story-crumbles-iran/ --- From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/strategic-patience/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt