Is Iran the 'Leading State Sponsor of Terrorism?' (w/ John Kiriakou) | The Chris Hedges Report

Summary

The Chris Hedges Report Episode: Is Iran the 'Leading State Sponsor of Terrorism?' (w/ John Kiriakou) Date: April 3, 2026

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Episode Overview

Chris Hedges, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, interviews John Kiriakou—former CIA analyst, operations officer, and noted whistleblower—on the US government’s labeling of Iran as the “world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.” The conversation probes the nature and double standards of terrorist designations, historic and current US and ally involvement with proxy groups, targeted assassinations, the politics of failed states, and the dynamics of Shia communities across the Middle East. Throughout, both speakers bring personal anecdotes and sharp critiques of prevailing narratives.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Defining "Terrorism" and Double Standards

• Definitions Matter: Kiriakou emphasizes the “generally agreed upon definition of terrorism” as:
  “the act of carrying out violence in the civilian population for the purpose of creating terror for a political purpose.” (05:54)
  Supporting national liberation organizations, Kiriakou argues, is not the same as supporting terrorism.
• Hypocrisy in Application:
  • The US and its allies—Saudi Arabia, the UK, France—have engaged in acts that “any reasonable person would consider to be acts of terrorism.” (04:53)
  • Examples from history: US-backed death squads in Latin America, support for Contras in Nicaragua with “an estimated 1,300 terrorist attacks,” and the arming of Islamist militias in Syria, some linked to atrocities. (01:25)
• Meaninglessness of the Label:
  • “Because we’ve manipulated the definition so many times over the years and we’ve used that designation as a cudgel against countries that we don’t like...it’s become meaningless to place a group or a country on the list of terrorists.” (07:44, Kiriakou)

Iran Compared to Others

• Iran as a Rigid, Not Especially Violent External Actor:
  • Hedges, who has faced imprisonment in Iran, states:
    “It doesn’t appear to carry out the spate of targeted assassinations against opponents, especially outside its borders, that Israel does.” (08:13)
  • Kiriakou agrees, calling Israel “an extreme example” of extraterritorial assassination, using “cutouts” (recruited assets who give plausible deniability) to kill in Tehran and elsewhere. (08:37-09:30)
• Context for Proxy Groups:
  • Hedges recounts that Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthis arose as resistance movements, paralleling insurgencies elsewhere, including Jewish militias and the African National Congress, all whom used terror as a tactic but were not nihilistic. (00:10–02:30)

The Curious Case of Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK)

• History & Rehabilitation:
  • The MEK is called “more of a cult than anything else,” noted for attacks against both Iranians and Americans.
  • US removed its terrorist designation (2009, Clinton/Obama period) after heavy lobbying; the MEK then gained powerful Western supporters. (10:40–13:34)
  • “Now we have this terrorist, this murderer, this cult leader, Miriam Rajavi, arriving in Washington and being treated as a conquering hero. Why? Because she hates the Ayatollahs and our government hates the ayatollahs.” (13:22, Kiriakou)
• Israeli-Supplied “Intelligence” and Manufactured Narratives:
  • Allegations of “Iranian sleeper cells” in the US, widely circulated, originated with Israel, Kiriakou claims, and have no evidence. (14:13–15:00)
  • The Israelis and MEK perpetuate myths to urge US action against Iran.

Blowback, Failed States, and Regional Chaos

• Israeli Strategy:
  • Kiriakou and Hedges agree that Israel benefits strategically from failed or chaotic neighboring states—Iraq, Syria, Libya, Iran, Lebanon.
  • “If Iraqis are busy killing each other, they’re not going to be a threat to Israel. They won’t threaten to kill Israelis. We saw the same thing happen in Libya. Now we’re seeing the same thing happen in Iran.” (18:17, Kiriakou)
• Failed States Breed Terrorism:
  • Hedges: “It’s those failed states that really spawn terrorist groups, isn’t it?” (17:09)

Opportunities for US-Iran Cooperation—Missed

• Historic Collaboration:
  • Iran, despite its post-revolution posture, has cooperated with the US on parts of Iraq policy—especially against the Taliban and Sunni militants. (19:29–20:03)
  • Kiriakou laments:
    “We’ve missed issue after issue after issue on which we could have cooperated with the Iranians...on counterterrorism, on counter proliferation, even counternarcotics.” (20:04)
• Dark Policy Choices:
  • Kiriakou’s experience in Afghanistan revealed a US willingness to allow heroin production destined for Iran/Russia to “weaken their societies.” (20:48–23:40)
  • “Rather than go to the trouble of cooperating…we elected instead to try to get their people addicted to heroin, maybe have some of them die...” (23:05)

The Logic and Consequences of Assassinations

• Assassination Hardens Movements:
  • Targeted assassination campaigns (e.g., of Hamas leaders) only seed more extremist, intransigent leadership.
  • Hedges: “What it does is inevitably strengthen or see the solidification of the hardliners, the most fanatic. Because the message is, why negotiate? Why speak? Why try to make deals? They’ll just kill you.” (24:32)
  • Kiriakou: “Because then those people are easier to attack politically and easier to isolate.” (25:37)
• Conflating Dissent with Anti-Semitism:
  • Kiriakou recounts being told by an ex-IDF friend about the tactic of accusing critics of Israel of anti-Semitism to chill dissent:
    “He was actually taught in school to automatically accuse anybody who criticized Israel in any way of anti Semitism, that it served to silence dissent.” (26:03)

Intelligence Agencies and Global Proxy Terror

• Iranian Intelligence is “Not Very Good":
  • “It’s considered to be one of the less effective services. Part of the problem is that it’s tough for them to find decent training.” (27:05, Kiriakou)
• Examples of Other State-Sponsored Terror Proxies:
  • Pakistan’s ISI supports terrorist groups (Jaish-e-Muhammad, Kashmiri militants) while also cooperating with US on Al Qaeda/Taliban (28:22–29:51)
  • India has also engaged in assassinations and support for extremist groups abroad.
• US Shift Post 9/11:
  • After 9/11, the Church Commission’s limitations on CIA assassinations evaporated, as did other constraints (31:11–32:34).
  • “Skyrocket. I wish there was even a stronger word,” Kiriakou says of post-9/11 CIA assassinations (32:43–34:16)
  • The CIA even created a career pipeline for assassins, tracking metrics for promotions.

Reactions, Blowback, and the Future

• Iranian Retaliation is Likely:
  • Hedges asks if Iran will “pay us back” for assassinations:
    Kiriakou: “I do, I do. It’s something that I think we should be thinking of.” (34:48)
• “Blowback” as the Pattern:
  • Shia populations across the Middle East may mobilize in response to events in Israel, Iran, and elsewhere—beyond just “Iranian citizens.” (40:01–40:48)
  • “It’s what they call blowback.” (40:48)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Bias in "Terrorism" Designations:
  • “It means nothing now in the end.” (07:54, Kiriakou)
• On US Policy to Destabilize Iran via Drugs:
  • “We want them to be addicted to heroin. It. It weakens their societies.” (22:54, attributed to a DEA contact by Kiriakou)
• On Targeted Assassinations:
  • Hedges: “You go from...Dr. Abdel Aziz Rantisi...to a Yaya Sinwar...all of these targeted assassination campaigns...creates people who are much more rigid.” (24:32)
• On the Routine Use of Accusations of Anti-Semitism:
  • “I have a good friend who was an IDF Special Forces officer...he was actually taught in school to automatically accuse anybody who criticized Israel in any way of anti Semitism, that it served to silence dissent.” (26:03, Kiriakou)
• On US Global Reputation:
  • “The United States, no matter its intent, will never be seen as a liberator. It will be seen as an invader and occupier.” (15:58, Kiriakou)
• On Shia Solidarity and Threat to US Interests:
  • “There are Shia in Afghanistan, the Hazaras. There are Shia in Pakistan...I could see it.” (40:12, Kiriakou)
• On Future Reprisals:
  • “If I were an Iranian leader or Iranian intelligence officer, I would be plotting my revenge starting right now.” (39:00, Kiriakou)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:10–04:53 — Introduction; background on US campaign against Iran’s IRGC and “terror proxies”; comparison to US history of proxy terror
• 04:53–07:54 — Kiriakou’s definition of terrorism; how the term is manipulated
• 08:13–10:21 — Iran vs. Israel: real-world examples of assassination and the "cutout" tactic explained
• 10:40–16:26 — History and Western rehabilitation of the MEK; Israeli “intelligence” claims and lobbying pipelines
• 17:09–19:29 — States’ interest in neighboring chaos and how failed states incubate terrorism
• 19:29–24:32 — Missed opportunities for US-Iran cooperation; heroin as a weapon of social weakening
• 24:32–26:53 — Impact of targeted assassinations; chilling dissent with anti-Semitism accusations
• 27:05–31:11 — Assessing Iranian intelligence; Pakistan, India, US history with terror proxies
• 31:11–34:16 — US post-9/11 assassinations and institutional change within CIA
• 34:16–40:48 — Will Iran retaliate? Walk-ins, intelligence probes, Shia networks, and “blowback”

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Conclusion

Through wide-ranging, candid discussion, Hedges and Kiriakou deconstruct the simplistic narrative of Iran as the unique or predominant “state sponsor of terrorism.” The conversation exposes how such designations are wielded as instruments of policy, are selectively applied, and often obscure a far more complex game of proxy warfare, state violence, and unintended consequences—blowback—that ripple across the globe.

Transcript

[A]

A State Department cable signed by Marco Rubio has ordered US diplomats to pressure allies to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard and Lebanon's Hezbollah as terrorist organizations. The March 16 cable instructs U.S. diplomats to raise the issue with foreign counterparts by March 20 and coordinate with Israeli officials. The campaign is part of the effort to brand Iran as the world's leading sponsor of state terrorism because of its support for Shiite militias in Iraq, the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon, as well as Hamas in occupied Palestine. But is Iran, by supporting proxies, doing anything the US has not engaged in for decades? And can the groups that Iran supports always be classified as terrorist organizations? Hamas, which is Sunni rather than Shia, was not formed as a terrorist group. It was formed as part of the Palestinian struggle for liberation when the secular leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization failed to deliver on its promises to create a Palestinian state. Hezbollah also was not formed as a terrorist organization. It was birthed as an opposition force to fight against Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon from 1982 to 2000. The Houthis as well rose up to fight a repressive Saudi backed regime in Yemen. While these groups, like all resistance groups, including Jewish militias that founded the State of Israel and the African National Congress and have carried out acts of terrorism including bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and hijackings to achieve their goals of liberation, they are not strictly speaking terrorists or nihilistic killers. They are fighting in their eyes for an end occupation and liberation. How is this different from the US backing of proxy organizations the CIA has long funded and armed groups. They used terrorism as a tactic. Cuban anti Castro organizations funded by the CIA, for example, placed a bomb on a Cuban commercial airliner in 1976 that killed all 73 passengers on board. The CIA helped form and fund death squads in Chile, Argentina, El Salvador, Guatemala and later during the war in Iraq. Armed and trained murderous Shiite militias the US backed right wing terrorist organizations in Italy during the so called years of lead from the late 1960s into the early 1980s. From 1979 to 1990, Washington provided financial, logistical and military support to the Contra rebels in Nicaragua. The Contras, seeking to overthrow the leftist Sandinista government carried out an estimated 1,300 terrorist attacks. The US also provided extensive military aid to Syrian militias, including the notorious Nur Al Din Al Zenki Islamist group and isis. In Syria, fighting against the Syrian regime, these Islamist groups abducted and tortured journalists and foreign aid workers and carried out executions by beheadings. Joining me to discuss the designation of Iran as the world's greatest sponsor of terrorism and is John Kiriakou. John worked for the CIA from 1990 to 2004, first as an analyst and later as a counterterrorism operations officers overseas in Bahrain, Athens and Pakistan, where he was the CIA's chief of counterterrorist operations. He led a series of military raids on Al Qaeda safe houses in Pakistan, capturing dozens of Suspects, including the 2002 raid that captured Abu Zabaydah, then thought to be the third ranking member of Al Qaeda. He was also the first CIA officer to publicly confirm that the CIA waterboarded prisoners and that such an action was torture. He also confirmed that torture was an official US Government policy rather than wrongdoing by a few rogue agents. He became the sixth whistleblower indicted under the espionage act by the Obama administration and was sent to prison for two and a half years. I have this question, John. Is there any intelligence agency anywhere in the world that you know of that does not contract out either with individuals or proxy groups who I think would fit the classical definition of terrorism or being a terrorist?

[B]

Oh, I think just about every country does things that may be illegal others might. Might object to. Certainly the United States and its major allies, the U.K. france, for example, others that are. That are close to the United States have committed acts even recently that I think you or I or any reasonable person would consider to be acts of terrorism. Certainly.

[A]

The designation of Iran as the world's leading sponsor of terrorism, and I tried to make that point in the introduction. The groups they sponsor are not nihilistic terrorist groups per se. Where does that come from? And can you compare Iran and its support for proxies or quote, unquote, terrorist groups with other countries, including Saudi Arabia?

[B]

Sure. First, you know, I think we. I think we owe viewers a definition of terrorism. The generally agreed upon definition of terrorism is. Is the act of instilling the act of carrying out violence in the civilian population for the purpose of creating terror for a political purpose. So terrorism supporting national liberation organizations is not an act of terrorism. It's just not. Whether we disagree with that or not is a separate issue, but it's just not an act of terrorism. I would add that. That there are close US Allies. You name Saudi Arabia, for example. That if we were to hold the Saudis to the same definition, would be at least as guilty as the Iranians. Look at the havoc that the Saudis have wreaked, for example, in Yemen. It's incalculable and it's gone over the course of decades. Look at what the United States has Done. You mentioned the Contra rebels. The, that's a, that's a great example. But, but look at others. Look at the, let's say the Greek military junta, for example, that carried out acts of terrorism against its own people. Look at Israel, that has carried out assassinations all over the world. We could even point the finger at the, at the government of India, for that matter, for carrying out assassinations and terrorist attacks in Canada, blowing up a 747, no less. So really the complaint that I have with this designation, this terrorism designation, is that because we've manipulated the definition so many times over the years and we've used that designation as a cudgel against countries that we don't like or whose policies we disagree with, it's become meaningless to, to place a group or a country on the list of, of terrorists. It means nothing now in the end.

[A]

Well, Iran does not appear to, It's a very repressive regime. I've thrown in jail there once and deported in handcuffs another time. But it doesn't appear to carry out the spate of targeted assassinations against opponents, especially outside its borders, that Israel does.

[B]

Right. I mean, Israel is in my view an extreme example. I mean, if you happen to be an Iranian military official or nuclear scientist or businessman who is carrying out trade that the government of Israel disagrees with, and you happen to be in Vienna or London or Dubai, for example, you can easily be assassinated by Israeli officers there as you could be in the center of Tehran. And let's talk about the center of Tehran. The Israelis use cutouts. They use recruited assets on the ground to carry out acts of terrorism in the center of Tehran targeting military officials.

[A]

Explain what a cut, Explain what a cutout is.

[B]

A cutout is a person recruited to carry out an action that gives the initiator of the action plausible deniability. So, for example, if you don't want to send an Israeli government, an Israeli intelligence officer into Tehran, you assess that the risk is too high. You recruit, let's say an Afghan refugee to do it. He might do it for $100. Or you recruit somebody that's already in Iran, maybe an Iranian national who has the ability to come and go. Perhaps you recruit that person in Dubai and send it back to Tehran to carry out this act. But there are a million ways to commit acts of terrorism and the Israelis use a lot of them.

[A]

Well, we have long supported a Mujahideen Al Haq, which was based in Iraq and I think was, it's an anti Iranian resistance group. But I think that was on the list of designated terrorist groups for, oh, decades.

[B]

Decades. Chris, I'm so glad that you brought up the MEK because I feel like. I feel like I've been the only one talking about the MEK in recent months and nobody knows what in the world I'm talking about. The mek, the Mujahideen Khalk is a. Is a terrorist group that's been around since the 1960s. It's more of a cult than anything else. It was formed by a husband and wife team in the late 1960s to carry out terrorist attacks in Iran. Now, these attacks weren't just against the Shah and the Shah's governmental officials. There were attacks against Americans. Against the American Ambassador, for example, in Tehran, against the highest ranking U.S. army general posted in Iran, a lieutenant general. They were based in the mountains of.

[A]

Am I right, John? That they were killed. Right?

[B]

They were killed.

[A]

They were killed.

[B]

That's right. At least the ambassador was killed. You're exactly right. The Mujahideen e Khalq was based in the mountains camps in the mountains of northeastern Iraq. And Saddam Hussein even gave them a radio station with which to. To transmit their propaganda to Iran. Now, it was. It was set up as a communist group, but it wasn't really communist. It was, as I said, more of a cult. The founder, Rajavi, his first name escapes me, disappeared one day. Just disappeared. Was never seen again. His wife, Miriam Rajavi, was rumored to have assassinated him and had his body buried. But in any event, she took over the organization and immediately started working to open a channel of communication with the West. It was in 2009, Chris, during the Barack Obama administration, with Hillary Clinton as the Secretary of State, that the US Government decided to lift that terrorism, that terrorism designation from the mek. And immediately the MEK was fetid. In Washington, in New York, in London. Hillary Clinton used her influence to get the Brits to lift the terrorist designation, the French and others. And then the MEK leadership was very smart in that it recognized the need to hire high powered lobbyists in Washington. And so they hired the likes of Rudy Giuliani and Howard Dean, a Republican and a Democrat. They spent millions and millions of dollars on Capitol Hill trying to win friends and influence people. And they were successful. And so now we have this terrorist, this murderer, this cult leader, Miriam Rajavi, arriving in Washington and being treated as a conquering hero. Why? Because she hates the Ayatollahs and our government hates the ayatollahs. Now this led to a bigger problem, in my view. We Know that the Israelis have provided an inordinate amount of so called intelligence to the US Government since the beginning of this conflict with Iran. I use air quotes around intelligence because in my view a great deal of it is just made up out of thin air. For example, this ridiculous assertion that there are Iranian terrorist sleeper cells in cities all across the United States. I can't tell you how many emails I've received from people in such disparate locations as Cleveland, Ohio and Honolulu, Hawaii and Oklahoma City and Denver and Miami asking, is it true that there are Iranian terrorist cells embedded in my city? No, it's not true. That was a lie that the Israelis made up to convince the American people that we needed to overthrow this government in Tehran, number one. Number two, Miriam Rajavi takes Israeli money. The Israelis brag about it in their media. Miriam Rajavi tells the the Israeli government that the people of Iran are on the brink of an uprising. All the government needs is a little shove. It's a house of cards. It's going to topple when the first missile flies and there will be democracy and everybody will live happily ever after. And anybody with any brain, anybody who has ever followed developments in Iran would have been able to say that that was preposterous, that no such thing would happen. A third point. I was intimately involved in the planning for the 2003 Iraq war, something of which I'm not at all proud. I was the executive assistant to the CIA's deputy director for operations. One of the things that I learned then, I mean, I, I guess I already knew it, but I learned it definitively was that the United States, no matter its intent, will never be seen as a liberator. It will be seen as an invader and an occupier. And so for the average Iranian, it is better for them to live with the system that they have now than to risk the chaos that invariably comes from an American Israeli. I can only imagine what the average Iranian thinks about a joint invasion by the United States and Israel.

[A]

The Israeli objective appears in Iran different from the American objective. I mean, who knows what the objective is? I'm not sure Trump knows, but they would like to see the regime changed. I think Trump foolishly thought that decapitating the top of the Iranian regime would give him a Venezuela type situation. The Israeli goal is really to do what they to create a failed state, to destroy. They destroyed Iraq, of course. We were urged by the Israelis to start the Iraq war. Iraq is fractured into antagonistic factions. Syria is a failed state. They're carrying out A Gaza like obliteration of southern Lebanon as I speak. And it seems clear, and Netanyahu has been lobbying for the war with Iran for almost four decades, that what they would do is like to splinter, destroy, fragment. And only 60% of Iranians are Persians. People don't know that it's a very diverse, ethnically, religiously diverse country. But as somebody who's dealt with, you know, studied terrorism for a long time, it's those failed states that really spawn terrorist groups, isn't it?

[B]

It really is. You know, you're exactly right about the Israelis. The Israelis benefit. The Israelis believe that they benefit from surrounding countries being mired in chaos. For example, in Syria, the Israelis benefited from never ending war there. I always maintained that the devil you know is better than the devil you don't, and that Bashar Al Assad was no threat to Israel. But then you put the former co founder of ISIS in charge, a man who was a longtime member of Al Qaeda in charge. He immediately begins pogrom against minority communities, whether they're Druze or Christian or what have you. And that's supposed to be better for whom? In Iraq, the same thing. The Israelis were threatened by a central government led by Saddam Hussein. They benefited from chaos. Their view was if Iraqis are busy killing each other, they're not going to be a threat to Israel. They won't threaten to kill Israelis. We saw the same thing happen in Libya. Now we're seeing the same thing happen in Iran. I think that you're exactly right, that the Israelis really want, at the end of this, a failed state. They want to see decades where Iranian is pitted against Iranian and they just simply take years and years to kill each other.

[A]

I want to raise something that you know and I know, but most people who follow the Middle east don't know. And that is that at certain pivotal moments, Iran was our ally. Iran has a very antagonistic relationship with the Taliban. And when the Sunni militias were ascended, Iran worked with the United States to support Shia groups, including sending armed Iranians into Iraq with our blessing.

[B]

Yes. Yeah, that's, that's exactly right. And we're not talking about the period of the Shah of Iran. We're talking about post Shah Iran. You know, this is something that I've always felt very strongly about. We've, we've missed, we've missed issue after issue after issue on which we could have cooperated with the Iranians, we could have cooperated with the Iranians on counterterrorism, on counter proliferation, even counternarcotics. I, I'VE told a story, Chris, many times. When I was the. When I was the senior investigator in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, I told the chairman, Senator John Kerry, that I wanted to go to Afghanistan to do a study on the cultivation of heroin poppy. And. And so I flew out to Bagram Air Base. They were waiting for me. They weren't happy about it, but I said that I needed to fly to Kandahar and then to Helmand Province, the capital of Lashkar Ga, in order to do this study. I wanted to go into the poppy fields. I wanted to interview farmers. They hated the idea. It's the only time in my career that I ever pulled rank on someone. And I said, look, with all due respect, because I'm a senior congressional staff member, I have Brigadier General status, and I am ordering you to fly me to Kandahar and Lashkarga. And we got in the helicopter and we went, well, when we get to Lashkarga, we get into a couple of jeeps, I'm with a translator, a security detail. We go into the poppy fields, and we stumble on a poppy farmer. And I asked him what, in retrospect was a very naive question. I said, why do you grow poppy when instead you could grow things with two growing seasons, like onions or tomatoes or pomegranates? He was very frustrated with me, and he said angrily, he said, the Americans told me in 2001 that if I told them where the Arabs were, I could grow all the poppy I wanted. I said, what? Americans told you you could grow poppy? And as soon as those words came out of my mouth, my military handler said, meeting's over. We're under threat. Which we weren't. He pulled me back to the jeep, and we went back to the base. And then I had to fly back to Helmand Province to. To the air base at Bagram. In any event, I fly back to Washington, I write a very strongly worded report, and I send it to a friend of mine at the Drug Enforcement Agency. And he calls me back a few days later, and he said, buddy, you know you're never going to get this published, right? And I said, why not? And he said, Afghanistan produces 93% of the world's heroin. Almost all of that heroin goes to Iran and Russia. And we want them to be addicted to heroin. It. It weakens their societies. And of course, Senator Kerry would never allow it to be published. And I had to kill it. Well, here we are, all these years later, and we cannot get a handle on our fentanyl problem. The fentanyl that we deal with is made in China. And why won't the Chinese work with us to stop it? Because they want us to be addicted to fentanyl. It weakens our society. So here we're in this position where we tried to wreck Iranian society for decades, rather than to go to the trouble of cooperating, rather than going to the trouble of trying to identify common ground where we could work with them and maybe begin to improve relations which have been so poor since 1979, we elected instead to try to get their people addicted to heroin, maybe have some of them die, work with the Israelis to assassinate their scientists and their military leaders, and just let them devolve into a chaos that we hoped would last for many years.

[A]

The other thing about targeted assassinations I know, because I've intimately followed Israel's assassinations of Hamas leaders, some of whom I knew, of course, is that what it does is inevitably strengthen or see the solidification of the hardliners, the most fanatic. Because the message is, why negotiate? Why speak? Why try to make deals? They'll just kill you. And you go from. I knew Dr. Abdel Aziz Rantisi, one of the co founders of Hamas, and then after he was assassinated in 2004, along with Sheikh Yassin, the other co founder, I knew his successor, Nizar Rayyan. You end up with a Yaya sinwar, that, that. And this is just true, inevitably, that all of these targeted assassination campaigns, and maybe that's what they want, it creates people who, who, you know, are much more rigid.

[B]

I think that's exactly right. Because then those people are easier to attack politically and easier to isolate. I think that's exactly what the plan was. Yeah. And another part of the plan, and this is something that has become. That has sort of moved into. Into the arena of public discourse, is, is the accusation that everybody who doesn't toe the line is anti Semitic. I mean, you're anti Semitic, I'm anti Semitic, Tucker Carlson's anti Semitic. Everybody who doesn't agree with the Likud line or the farther to the right line in the Likud coalition government is an anti Semite. I have a good friend who was an IDF Special Forces officer, is now an American citizen and married to an American. And he told me that he was actually taught in school to automatically accuse anybody who criticized Israel in any way of anti Semitism, that it served to silence dissent. And so we see that now to the point where it's beginning to backfire and people just aren't buying it anymore.

[A]

Do you have Any idea or had you heard in your years in the CIA, what is the quality of Iranian intelligence? Is it considered a good or weak or do you have any idea?

[B]

Yeah, it's considered to be one of the less effective services. Part of the problem is that it's tough for them to find decent training. They'll get a little bit of training from the Russians, they might get a little bit of equipment from the Chinese, but that's about it. The rest of it is sort of done in house and they're, they're just not very good at it

[A]

in terms of the, you know, using this stick of Iranians. And of course, that has been one of the reasons for the sanctions. Using this stick of Iran being, you know, the world's, I think they call it the, the world's greatest sponsor of terrorism. Are there other, you know, factors that, you know, essentially mitigate that profile? Are there, Are there, You know, I don't know if you can do comparisons, but are there ways by which we can put Iran in some kind of perspective given other nations that, you know, support groups that we consider terrorist groups?

[B]

Sure. Let's, let's look at, let's look at Pakistan. One of the most memorable tours that I ever had in the CIA was in Pakistan. I loved every minute that I was in Pakistan and I enjoyed working with the Pakistani intelligence service and the Pakistani military. That is not to say that they don't actively support a myriad of terrorist groups. They do. I've always said that it's as though there are two parallel Pakistani intelligence services. Isi. There is the half that I worked with, every one of which, every one of whom was trained at Sandhurst. And then you go to the ISI headquarters and you see some of these guys with very long beards. They're the ones who formed these groups like the Jaishi Muhammad or the Kashmiri Liberation groups. They're the ones that financed the attacks on the Jewish center in Mumbai and the western hotels in Mumbai. Bona fide terrorists. But the Pakistanis are our friends when it comes to Al Qaeda and working against the Taliban. Never mind that they created the Taliban, now they're working against the Taliban.

[A]

Yeah, that's, that's an important point, John, because the Saudis and the Americans funneled, I don't know, billions through the isi. And the ISI consciously funded the most radical elements of the Taliban and refused to support, you know, more moderate or democratic resistance movements.

[B]

That's exactly right. And not only funneled billions of dollars, gave them state of the art weapons to use against the Soviet military. It turned the tide of the war, but then they kept the weapons

[A]

to

[B]

eventually use against us. So yeah, there's a lot of very poor planning. We could say the same thing about the Indians in that, you know, the Indians support their own Kashmiri separatist groups, extremist groups, and, and it's the Indians that BLEW up the 747 in Canada. It's the Indians that carry out hits or attempted hits against Sikh activists or, or Indian leftists or anti Hindu nationalists in places like Canada or the uk. There's plenty of blame to go around and not to even begin to discuss what the CIA does on a daily basis.

[A]

Well, I remember interviewing you before and you talked about after the attacks of 9 11, the gloves were off. I mean everything the Church Commission had tried to prevent, which were assassinations and torture and everything else, it just evaporated.

[B]

It really did. It really did. You know, we used to, we used to always hear about this, this golden age of the CIA as a law abiding pillar of our democracy that began in 1975 with the advent of the church and pike committees and that just simply wasn't true. Yes, they did clear out a lot of the, of the, you know, the old timers, the assassins, the coup plotters, the MK Ultra, Dr. Mengele's. Sure they were fired in 1975 and 1976, but then Ronald Reagan was elected President in 1980 and everything changed because he was obsessed with communism and obsessed with Central America. And the next thing you know the CIA is okay overseeing a secret war in Central America and cocaine is somehow magically finding its way into American society. So was there really a golden age? If there was, it only lasted for a minute.

[A]

Did we put after 9 11? Didn't the raid of assassinations by US intelligence officials skyrocket? Or am I wrong?

[B]

Oh no, no, you're absolutely right. And skyrocket. I wish there was even a stronger word. Executive Order 12333 which was signed by President Ford in 1975 as one of its provisions, banned assassinations by the CIA. The CIA was out just killing everybody it didn't like. Until 1975 President Ford put an end to that. 12333 was amended by Ronald Reagan to allow targeted killings of any person posing a clear and present danger to the United States, an American citizen or an American installation. 12333 was again amended just in the days after 911 to allow the CIA to assassinate opponents at its discretion. And so skyrocket it did to the point where the agency set up teams, formal offices, you know, with an administrative structure, even, you know, a career panel, a promotion panel, where your job was to fly around the world and kill people. And then you would get a. You would get a fitness report that, yes, he killed these people and he missed this one and he couldn't find that one. So we'll pass him over for promotion this time, we'll promote him next time if he kills the next five people. I mean, this is the craziness that we adopted at the CIA post 9,

[A]

11, just to close on the war with Iran. I'm curious what your thoughts are, but given the fact that Israel and the United States have assassinated, including of course, the Supreme Leader, these major figures, and before that, in the first Trump administration, they assassinated Soleimani, the general. Do you see the Iranians essentially attempting to pay us back?

[B]

I do, I do. It's something that I think we should be thinking of. You know, Chris, one of the very first things that I learned in my CIA operational training was how to handle something called a walk in. A walk in is someone who literally walks in off the street into an American embassy and says, I have information that I want to pass to the CIA. And so I was frequently the walk in officer because I have multiple foreign languages. I would put on a disguise. I would go to the walk in room, which was usually outside the hard line. Not always. 95 times out of 100. And I'm specific about this 95 because studies have been done internally. 95 times out of 100. These were just crazy people. You know, the CIA has a chip in their head. They have a message, the head of Al Qaeda is Queen Elizabeth, that kind of thing. We used to get that all the time.

[A]

I just want, I just want to interrupt because those people always come to journalists and want you to write up exactly that. Just so, just so you know, you're not the only one plagued by those people.

[B]

It was very frustrating. It was a great waste of my day.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So. But you have to take every one of them seriously just in case that one is the real McCoy. Now, of the other five, some are what we called intelligence brokers, where they actually do have a little nugget of intelligence and they'll give it to you and they want $500, but then they're going to go to the British embassy and sell it to them. And the French embassy and the Chinese and the Russ, they'll sell it to all of them. And that's a month's salary. They did Pretty well for themselves for that week. Some are the real McCoy. Usually it's about 1 out of 100, maybe less than 1 out of 100. That's the real deal. A nuclear scientist, an intelligence officer, a military, a senior military officer. But then the other one out of 100 is called an intelligence probe. This is somebody sent by the Russians, the Chinese, the North Koreans, the Iranians, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda. They're coming in to pretend that they want to be a walk in, but really they're looking to see where the cameras are, how much of the, of the glass is bulletproof or bomb proof, how heavy the door is. Is the door armored? How far inside the embassy can they get? How many people that they encounter have sidearms. And they amass this intelligence in their databases just in case they need to attack the United States. It helps them to identify the weak link in the chain. And so, for example, in Pakistan, a walk in could never get anywhere near the actual embassy itself. There's a little hut out in the parking lot, and we're going to meet with that person out in the parking lot. But there were some embassies that I worked in where we welcomed them right inside the building. In one case, we met with walk ins inside the msg, the Marine security guard uniform room with the guns in their racks on the wall, which was lunacy to me. But then they know that, well, if the United States attacks, let's say Iran in this example, they know that the American embassy in XYZ country is a weak link, and then that's the embassy they're going to hit.

[A]

Do you think that, I mean, it's a kind of, you know, for every reaction, there's a reaction. I am certain that the genocide in Gaza will eventually spawn what we will call terrorism. The, you know, these Palestinian militants don't have an air force. They don't have the ability to carry out what we would consider state terrorism. I'm just wondering if you see that coming.

[B]

I do.

[A]

Vis a vis Iran.

[B]

I do. If I were Iranian, if I were an Iranian leader or an Iranian intelligence officer, I would be plotting my revenge starting right now. Yes. Yeah. And I said a moment ago that there are no Iranian sleeper cells in the United States. They don't need to have sleeper cells. They need to have a cell in a country or a city where the United States has diplomatic interests. Let's say there's a huge Iranian population in Dubai. Is there an Iranian cell in Dubai? Probably. I would guess that there would be and I would want to hit an American interest in Dubai or in Islamabad or in Manila or someplace where it's less likely to be protected?

[A]

Well, I think throughout the region, many Shia, certainly in Iraq. Iraq is about 60% Shia. Bahrain is primarily Shia. They see this as a war on Shi'. Ism.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

And we have already seen a series of attacks by Shiite militias in Iraq on American interests. So I think it's important to understand that you can recruit beyond Iranian citizenship.

[B]

That's exactly right. Yeah. Many Lebanese are Shia. Most Bahrainis, as you said, are Shia. There's a large minority Shia population in Kuwait. There's a Shia population in the Emirates. Most of them are expatriates. There's a large Shia population in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia. So, sure. Around the oil facilities, around the oil fields. That's right. There are Shia in Afghanistan, the Hazaras. There are Shia in. In Pakistan. So, sure, I. I could see it.

[A]

It's what they call blowback.

[B]

It's exactly what they call it.

[A]

Great. Thanks, John. And I want to thank Sophia Thomas and Max, who produced the show. You can find [e-mail] Do.

[B]

Sam.