John Kiriakou

The Houthis are a little bit of a thorn in our side.

The Hamas thing, the CIA was late to the game on the Hamas thing because the analytic judgment for a long time was incorrectly, I might add, that the Iranians are not supporting Hamas because the Iranians are Shia Muslim and Hamas is Sunni Muslim.

That was wrong.

They were supporting Hamas.

I get all that.

But again, Hamas has never carried out an anti-American terrorist attack.

So was it in U.S.

national interest to attack Iran for supporting Hamas?

I think not.

Hamas has designated a terror group in the U.S.?

I think just recently.

It was maybe Trump 1, maybe early Trump 2.

I don't recall.

But I think, yeah, recently it was designated a terrorist group.

Yeah, and the Muslim Brotherhood, which also has never carried out a terrorist attack on Americans.

Ah, you know, it's been my experience.

I first came to this realization when I, when I first joined the CIA, we always have this need to have a boogeyman.

whether it was Bolshevism in the 1910s, whether it was socialism in the 20s and the early 30s, Nazism, legitimately so.

But then in the 70s, the 80s, it became Islamism.

It's like we always have to have an enemy to rally around.