John Kiriakou

God forgive me for quoting Hillary Clinton, but I'm going to quote Hillary Clinton.

She said when she was Secretary of State that she had come to the realization that Iran was not a theocracy.

It was a military dictatorship.

there was this theocratic group that sort of sat on the top of the heap.

But the day-to-day operation of the country was run by the IRGC.

And the IRGC being a military organization was gonna run the country as a military dictatorship would.

I think we should have addressed it that way.

We shouldn't have gotten wrapped around the axle on theocratic issues.

We shouldn't have been afraid to engage the Iranians, or maybe not even afraid, just refusing to engage the Iranians.

We should have been constantly engaged, whether it was through the Qataris or the Omanis or even the Algerians.

There were different ways in which we could speak with the Iranians, and we just never bothered.

I will add...

I do not have rose-colored glasses when thinking about the Iranians.

I know what the Iranians have done.

The Iranians made an attempt to kill me several decades ago.

I haven't forgotten that.

I know that they're bad guys.

I know that they've carried out terrorist attacks and that they've killed Americans in many of those terrorist attacks.

But we're talking single digits over the last several decades.

Now, support for Hezbollah in the 80s, the 90s, yes, very bad, very big problem.