John Kiriakou: CIA Hit in Iran’s Retaliation Strike — Breakdown of WAR

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9 out of 10 people

or a personal history of the family of Colombo.

Hi, everybody. Today's Monday, March 9, 2026, and our dear friend, John Criaco,

is here with us. Welcome back, John.

Thank you, Nima. It's good to see you again.

John, let me start with the war between the United States and Iran. It started with the

assassination of the Supreme Leader Iran together with one of the most tragic events so far,

which was the hit, you know, the attack on a primary school in Iran, mostly girls,

schoolgirls were assassinated, were killed by the attack.

And Donald Trump, he said he was asked if it was the United States that did this attack.

Here is what Donald Trump said.

States bomb a girls elementary school in southern Iran on the first day of the war in

175 people. Based on what I've seen, that was done by Iran.

Is that true, Mr. Hexson?

It was Iran. You do that?

We're certainly investigating, still investigating.

But the only side that targets civilians is Iran.

We think it was done. We think it was done by Iran.

They're very inaccurate, as you know, with their munitions.

They have no accuracy whatsoever. We're just done by Iran.

John, later on, there are videos released by the Iranian media.

You know, the Mayor News is an outlet in Iran.

It shows the exact moment of the hitting of that building.

Here is the footage.

Yeah.

Then they slowed down the frame.

It shows that it was most probably a Tomahawk muscle which hit the building.

When it comes to such a huge, huge mistake or such a huge problem with these targets

or many people would say, why would someone do that?

And what is the main goal of these sort of attacks?

You can hit the military targets, all of these.

But when it comes to the kids, what is the main point?

What is your understanding of what has happened?

First, I want to correct something that Donald Trump said.

The Israeli is almost exclusively target civilians.

It's not that Iran targets civilians.

It's Israel that targets civilians.

And there are tens of thousands more than 100,000 dead in Gaza to prove exactly that.

Listen, as an American, I want to believe that this was a terrible mistake.

But my brain won't allow me to believe that.

My brain wants me to believe that either we did this on purpose or the Israelis did it on purpose.

It's to traumatize the Iranian people to take the fight right out of them.

I was talking about this on a podcast a couple of days ago.

And I said, the problem that we're already facing as a country here in the United States

is that Donald Trump genuinely believed that as soon as we launched the first missile,

the Iranians would be dancing in the streets.

And the government would fall like a house of cards.

And everybody would live happily ever after.

And he would win the Nobel Peace Prize.

And the Israelis would forever be grateful for our actions.

But he was the only person that believed that.

Anybody who follows these issues, anybody could have told him,

we would not be seen as liberators.

We would be seen as invaders and occupiers.

Nima, I happened to be in Los Angeles the last couple of days until, until last night.

And the Southern California media keep replaying this demonstration

with 200 or 300 Iranian Americans, mostly Jewish, which is quite common in Southern California.

Dancing in the streets, waving the Shaz flag, waving the Israeli flag.

And then our friend, Max Blumenthal.

Released a video of one of his journalists interviewing some of these pro-shaw, pro-Israel

demonstrators, Iranian-American demonstrators.

And asking them specifically about the girls that were killed in this strike.

And like ghouls, like demons, they say, oh no, that's okay, we're okay with that.

Because greater good in the end, it's all going to be for the best.

Yeah, it's a shame maybe that these girls were killed.

But probably the Iranians did it.

But we're okay with it.

It's okay to kill children.

On the one hand, that is so sick that I don't even have words for it.

On the other hand, if you are Benjamin Netanyahu, or Donald Trump,

or Pete Hegseth, or Marco Rubio, or Idemar Ben Gavir, or any of these other crazy people

that are involved, embrace what you believe in.

If you're so certain that you're right, embrace it and say, yes, we killed those children.

Yes, and we don't apologize, and we're going to kill more children.

Own it, at least be honest about it, and they're not even being honest.

John, since the war started, we've seen Iran started with attacking

Persian Gulf Arab states, and mostly American bases in those states.

And how did you find the way that Iran and military started the war?

And the United States, you know, first, the United States, together with Israeli strike, Iran,

and then they came in and struck on Iran.

Then we see Iranian attack on Persian, mostly the Persian Gulf Arab states with the American

bases. You've been to the region, you know the region, you know what's going on there.

What was the strategy on the part of Iranians with the counteroffensive?

Well, I think this was actually a very sophisticated strategy.

I was in the Persian Gulf two weeks ago. I spent a week in Dubai and Abu Dhabi,

and then two weeks before that, I spent a week in Kuwait.

And this was all anybody wanted to talk about. They wanted to know, are the Americans going to attack?

And I said, I hate to say it, but I think, yes, I said, if there was one thing that I learned

in my years at the CIA, it was that if you really want to understand what American military

strategy is, watch the movement of American naval vessels. If the United States sends an aircraft

carrier with 11 or 12 associated ships, that's an aircraft carrier strike force, or an aircraft

carrier battle group, or two of them, it's because we're serious about attacking.

So I told my friends and contacts in the Persian Gulf that, yes, I believe the United States would

attack. And they did. Now, the Iranian response has been remarkable. First of all, the Iranians

are outgunned. They know they're outgunned. They just don't have the sophisticated, for the most

part, hypersonics aside. They don't have the sophisticated technology that the United States and

Israel have. But they have these cheap, plentiful, reliable suicide drones. Drones where

you don't launch a missile from them, you just strap explosives to them and just crash them into

the target. And of course, being drones, you operate them remotely. Well, they're very cheap.

You can build one of these for five or $6,000. $10,000 for a really good one that can go

a long distance, like all the way to Israel. It's the future of warfare. It's something that the

United States has not fully come to appreciate and understand, but the Iranians do. And so,

rather than just heave a rocket at Dubai, which admittedly they've done, and they've hit a

couple of hotels, an apartment building, for the most part, they've guided these drones into

more sensitive targets. U.S. military bases, U.S. Air Force bases outside of Doha, the headquarters

of the Fifth Fleet in Manama, the U.S. Army base in Kuwait, and most importantly, oil facilities

in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia. So, again, Donald Trump, Benjamin Netanyahu,

Pete Hegg, Seth Marco Rubio, they all believe that as soon as we start hitting Iran, the whole

country is just going to collapse. And it didn't. And then keep this in mind. Trump is on right now,

as we're speaking, and he just said, the war could be over soon because it's very complete already.

Whatever that means. He just said that. It'll be over soon because it's very complete already.

Okay, so with that interruption, keep it this in mind, for the United States and Israel to win,

they have to completely topple the Iranian government and remove all of their leaders. And we're

talking about hundreds and hundreds of people that have to be removed. And then when I say removed,

I mean, likely killed. And then they have to install a pro-American pro-Israeli government in

its place. That is virtually impossible. Number one, but number two, for the Iranians to win,

all they have to do is survive. That's it. If they could just survive this, they win

Israel and the United States lose. And I think that we're very quickly coming to that.

Isn't that funny? This Trump press conference lasted about 60 seconds. He just came to the podium

to say the war could be over soon. It's very complete.

Yeah, John, I think what one of the outcomes of this conflict, of this war, it's a war,

yes, it would be how this war can change the face of the Middle East, the face of the policies

makers in the Middle East. Because before we had the conflict in Gaza, majority of the people

to public opinion was against Israel, but the politicians mostly in the Arab states were somehow

trying to play both sides. Yes. But right now with the war on Iran, they see how fragile,

how vulnerable they are against a country that can fire back, that can hit them.

And it's not, we're not talking about it's Iran and Saudi Arabia comparing the defense budget

of these two countries. Iran is not even comparable to what Saudi Arabia has 10 times the defense

budget of Iran, but they're not capable of defending themselves. This is a huge fragility within

a society that they can, they can buy the arms, but they cannot defend themselves. That's why

they need the American base in their country. What is the future for these American bases?

Because they were calling Putin, asking him to do something about what is going on.

And we learned from Lover, from his latest press conference, he said,

did you condemn what Israel and America is doing against Iran?

So why are you expecting we do something about it? You are the main reason of this

war happening. What is your understanding of the calculation of these Arab states, the leaders,

those decision makers in these countries? I have to say they must be very, very disappointed in

themselves and very disappointed in the wisdom of this policy because the whole reason for having

the United States in the Persian Gulf in such significant numbers after the liberation of Kuwait

in 1991 was so that something like this wouldn't happen, right? If you've got the world's largest

air force base for the Americans, if you have the headquarters of the Fifth Fleet for the Americans,

if you have multiple army bases with 50,000 ground troops for the Americans and then the Americans

can't stop a $5,000 drone from crashing into your luxury hotel or into their own bases.

I remember in the days after the 9-11 attacks, President Putin said to President Bush

that he was shocked that the Pentagon didn't have any surface-to-air missiles to protect it.

Well, guess what? It's almost 25 years later and we don't have surface-to-air missiles to protect

much of anything that we have. So here we are in the Persian Gulf and in an active war zone

with bases that have been there for two and a half decades, three and a half decades,

and we can't even protect them against a $5,000 drone. So the United States is going to have to come

up with a serious re-evaluation of its military position, its defensive military position,

and the countries of the Arab countries of the Persian Gulf are going to have to reassess

just how much value added the U.S. military provides if the U.S. can't even protect itself.

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Most of the people who voted for Donald Trump, he said he's anti-globalist. All of these policies,

the new policies are coming to Washington. We're going to have some sort of change in Washington.

So far from what we've seen in Venezuela, in Syria, right now with the war in Iran,

do you recognize Donald Trump as against who is Donald Trump today?

I don't know who this man is. Well, you know what, I can tell you who he is. He is a man

who has been influenced heavily by Marco Rubio. And Pete Hegseth, frankly, I mean, the

conventional wisdom was that Hegseth was an idiot. And maybe he was underestimated. Maybe he's

not an idiot. Maybe he's just a typical John McCain neo-conservative. Marco Rubio certainly is.

He's a cold warrior, anti-communist, anti-cuba pro-military cold warrior. And one of the big

complaints that people have had about Donald Trump over the course of years was that Trump tended

to parrot back what the last person that he spoke to told him. And when Marco Rubio is both

Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, and you're speaking to him every day,

and you're speaking to Pete Hegseth every day. And the person that you named Chairman of the

Joint Chiefs of Staff, you named because you know of his complete loyalty to you,

then you're going to essentially turn into John McCain. And I think that's what's happened.

John, we are... Do you think... You just mentioned that Donald Trump said we have completed

whatever he had in his mind. But are we in a war of attrition? Are we in some sort of war? Because

on the part of Iranians, when we talk with them, they say that they were prepared for at least

one of the commanders today said, with at least eight years, because they have this long history

of war against Iraq. They know what is that. The economy of Iran has entered. In this week,

they are getting back to the same policies, considering the economy that they had during the

Iranic war, you know, just to subsidize everything, helping the people, receiving the basics.

And it seems that Iran doesn't feel that this is the end for the conflict. They have to continue

the conflict. They don't see a reliable adversary on the other side to talk with, to negotiate.

This is one of the basic problems with the United States. We've learned today from one of Iran

official, Harazi, one of the main, you know, officials, one of the main advisors to the Supreme

Leader of Iran. He said that the negotiation is not the goal anymore for Iran. We are going to

bring some sort of problem to the global economy that the whole country, all countries understand

that there has to be a solution, a permanent solution to what's going on. Because negotiation

two times you don't try to negotiate with the United States. Both times they have failed because

the United States attacked them while negotiating. I think that's right. The United States is not a

reliable negotiating partner. It's just not. We pretend to negotiate. And then in the midst of

the negotiations, we just launch military attacks. We've done that more than once. We've done that

more than once in the past, you know, nine months. So yeah, the United States is not a reliable

negotiating partner. The Iranians really could inflict serious harm on the global economy by

closing this straight. It's not a permanent hurt because eventually pipelines are going to be

built across Saudi Arabia and countries are going to figure out, excuse me, how to get around it

eventually. But for a period of time, it could be a serious problem for the global economy.

You mentioned the Iran-Iraq war. And I think that's very important, Ima. Because this is something

that Americans don't understand. First of all, most Americans have never heard of the Iran-Iraq war.

And even the ones that remember the Iran-Iraq war have probably forgotten just how bravely

Iranians fought. It was the Iranians that were the victims of aggression. It was Iraqi aggression.

And it wasn't just that the Iraqis were aggressors. The Iraqis were electrifying the swamps.

To electrocute Iranian soldiers in southern Iran or along the Shat al-Ara. It was the use of

chemical weapons against Iranians and against the Kurds in the north of Iraq. And the Iranians still

couldn't be defeated. So that's why I said a few minutes ago that the United States and Israel

to actually declare victory would need an unequivocal clear-cut victory where Israel opens an

embassy in Tehran and everybody is friends. It's never ever going to happen. And instead, I think

what's going to happen is the Iranians are going to prove to be far more resilient than the West

gave them credit for being. And they're going to fight back and bog the West down. And in the end,

the West is going to have to withdraw like the U.S. did from Iraq, like the U.S. did from Afghanistan,

and Somalia, and Libya, and Syria, and all these other places where things have gone wrong.

John, what the Trump administration, the United States, under the Trump administration,

trying to do reminds me of what has happened during the 1953 against Muhammad Mosadah.

He was the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran. There was a coup d'état by the CIA

and my six. And how is, do you think the same policies that eventually led to the collapse of the

British Empire are the serious problems that the American Empire is dealing with? Are they

suffering from the same sort of, you know, policies, the same sort of strategies?

I'm glad you brought that up, actually. I think the answer is a clear yes.

You know, Nima, the U.S. defense budget is untenable. The U.S. defense budget now is $1 trillion.

It is bigger than the next, now, nine countries, nine largest countries combined.

And in the meantime, here in the United States, we have third world-level airports.

Our hospitals are outdated. Our roads are in terrible condition. Our bridges are falling into

the rivers below them. Why do the Chinese have bullet trains that go 500 kilometers an hour? Why

don't we have bullet trains? Because we spend all of our money on weapons. Donald Trump said,

as recently as a year ago, that he wanted to cut the federal budget by 50%. Sorry, the Pentagon

budget by 50%. I celebrated. I actually wrote an op-ed about it. And then he just completely changed

his mind, did a 180 and said he wants to spend an additional half a trillion dollars. Well,

we're only a few years away from the interest payments on the national debt being the number one

biggest expenditure in government. We can't keep doing this. We don't have the money.

We've mortgaged future generations. And for what, we have nothing to show for it.

So I don't think this is tenable. And at the same time, another thing is

the fact that Iran is a member of BRICS. Eventually, not tomorrow, but eventually, there's

going to be a unified currency. And when that happens, it's going to pose a significant, serious

challenge to the international domination of the dollar, especially the Petro dollar.

And that's going to be the beginning of the end for the U.S. empire.

John, how do you describe the relationship between Benjamin Netneau and Donald Trump today?

Because Donald Trump is begging, simply begging the president of Israel to pardon Benjamin Netneau.

Why is that? What does Benjamin Netneau have on Donald Trump?

That he tries so hard every time. He tries to do everything Benjamin Netneau is asking for.

I think what it is is that Jewish Americans have such a financial hold over American elections

that if you want to run for office in this country, you have to be not just Zionist, but you have

to be an unquestioning down the line 100% Zionist. And we know that Donald Trump in his three different

campaigns for president received hundreds of millions of dollars from Miriam Adelson, for example,

and Sheldon Adelson before her. It was Sheldon Adelson who paid out of his pocket to move the

American embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. It was Sheldon Adelson who sent his private jet to

take the traitor Jonathan Pollard from his prison to Israel, where he promptly got off the plane,

kissed the ground, was met by Benjamin Netneau, and then advocated Jewish Americans using violence

against the American government. I feel like we're practically occupied. Our politics are occupied

here because of the role of money in our elections. And I think that's why Donald Trump is so

under the spell of Benjamin Netneau. It's not necessarily that it's Netneau who personally,

it's those rich American Jewish oligarchs with their checkbooks out,

telling Trump, look, if it's worth it for you, I'll give you 100 million dollars, but you have to

do what I say when it comes to Israel. And I think that's what we've seen.

How do you see the war continuing? And is that going to be a, because many people are arguing

that this could get nuclear? What are the conditions under which you feel that war can get nuclear?

And what would be the objective of that sort of attack?

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I hate to even speak these words, Nima, but I think that there is a possibility that it could

go nuclear. It would be, of course, on the part of the Israelis.

Independent analysts believe that the Israelis have between 80 and 200 nuclear weapons.

The Israelis deny, they don't deny, they just refuse to comment on whether or not they have a program.

The Israelis are not signatories to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, so nobody's doing

inspections, for example, of Israeli nuclear sites, but they've had nuclear weapons since the 1950s.

I think that if an Iranian military victim, if an Iranian military victory were

increasingly clear, and if the Iranians were successful in destabilizing the Arab countries on

the peninsula side of the Persian Gulf, or if the Iranians posed a genuine threat,

that military threat to Israel, I could see the situation going nuclear, yes.

What would be the outcome? Let's assume that they're going to use a nuke on Iran, or two,

five, so how is that going to help Israel?

It doesn't. I think it starts World War Three, but I think for the Israelis,

they've calculated that chaos is to their benefit. I don't think they, for example,

have any real thoughts of defeating Hezbollah, for example, but they can turn Lebanon into a place

of chaos. Chaos is good if you're Israeli. I think that their calculation is if they can turn Iran

into Libya, that's to their benefit, because then the Iranian people are going to be fighting each

other, or they're going to be more worried about where to find food, or water, or medical care,

than they're going to be about fighting Israel. Chaos is to Israel's benefit.

One of the most interesting moves on the part of the United States today is sending

invading Iran on the ground. They're talking about using Kurdish groups in Iraqi Kurdistan and

then bringing them down. Today, we've learned from Erdogan. Turkey said that these people are not

going to do that, because they know they're smarter than going, than being used by the United

States in that direction. Is that a warning in your opinion on the part of Erdogan? Because it's not

just a threat against Iran. It's going to be a threat against Turkey, Iraq, but after all, John,

when it comes to Iran, when I was in Iran, I was in Iran for 40 days. I talk each and every

aspect of the war. If it happens, what would you do? When you talk with officials, they're not

saying the way it is, but they're giving you some sort of understanding of what would happen.

They said that there is no possibility of the ground invasion in Iran, because they're going to be

if the United States decides to do it, they saw this. It's not going to happen by the United States.

It's going to be like the way that Trump is trying to do by Kurdish people, these people.

And they said that they're not going to do anything. They're not worried about this. This is the

last thing to be worried about. What is your understanding of that? I think, I have a couple of

thoughts. First, I think Donald Trump would have to be clinically insane to put US troops

on the ground in Iran. That would be a death wish. And I can't believe that anybody in any

position of authority in the American government wants to see that happen. That just is crazy to me.

Like, did we learn no lesson at all in Afghanistan and Iraq? It just, I can't imagine it happening.

With that said, I would take that Kurdish argument far more seriously if it had come

out of the mouth of somebody other than Erdogan. Erdogan hates all Kurds. And this is

something that he's always been wrong about. Erdogan pretends that the Kurds are a monolith,

that Iran's Kurds are the same as Iraq's, they're same as Turkey's, they're the same as Syria's.

That's just not true. There are different cultures, they're different dialects and vastly

different politics. I remember when we were getting ready to attack Iraq in 2002, 2003, Erdogan

hated that we were working with Iraq's Kurds. He hated it. Well, of course, we were working with

Iraq's Kurds. They were going to provide much of the fight against that Am Hussein, which they did.

Well, it stands to reason that if you don't want to put your own boots on the ground,

that what you might want to do is convince Iran's Kurds to attack,

to make a faint toward Tehran, they would never make it to Tehran, of course, but at least make

a move to make it look like they're moving toward Tehran, to draw out the IRGC so that Israel and

the United States could hit the IRGC. I can't wrap my brain around American boots on the ground

in Iran. It makes no sense. But I could definitely see the United States talking or tricking

Iran's Kurds into making a move. Actually, there was a, you know, they invited on Fox News,

the Patriot Union of Kurdistan leader, Taliban, and on Fox News. He was asked about, you know,

using the Kurdish people to do some sort of invasion in Iran. Here is what he said, John.

I forgot there is a head. The president is suggesting that he would only accept unconditional

surrender in his words to a reporter. So you don't see that right now that this is on the

cusp of happening. I don't know. I don't see that right now. I think that the regime has

been planning for this for 45 years and you can expect a fierce resistance. The definition

of regime change is important. What is the definition of regime change? And is there an off ramp?

Because some could argue that most mission parameters have been achieved. So is there an off ramp

where now perhaps we can try to resolve this diplomatically? Yeah, I think that from the administration

at least listening to them, taking out the ballistic missile capability, making sure that Iran

never gets a nuclear weapon was the original objective. Exactly. Exactly. The Israelis clearly

are more wanting specific regime change to get a different leave in this place that the U.S.

and Israel can work with. I understand that. And I think that Mr. Bear, the conditions I keep

hearing the comparisons to 2003. I think the conditions are very different to 2003. In 2003,

there was legitimate well-known respected opposition to Saddam among the Shiites, among the Kurds.

And don't really see that in Iran now. There isn't a standard, a symbol for people to follow.

And that will make it very difficult. Troops on the ground with the country, the size of Western

Europe. I'm not sure if that's feasible either. But there are many options. And I think the U.S.

administration is wise enough to modify their position as the battle changes and as the battlefield

changes. Yeah. Buffalo Taliban, listen, Buffalo Taliban is an important guy. And he has been around

for a long time. He and his family. And they really understand the situation on the ground.

You mean that he's his party, John. He's from Iran. He's from Iraq. He's from Iraq. His father was

Jalal Talibani. He was the founder of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and became president of Iraq

after Saddam's execution. So there were two primary Kurdish parties in northern Iraq.

The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the KDP, the Kurdish Democratic Party. So it was Jalal

Talibani and Masoud Barzani. They were rivals, but they basically worked together. And now that Iraq

free and independent, they have autonomy for the Kurdish people in the Kurdish areas of the north.

One of the things that was used, the terms that Donald Trump loves to use, is unconditional

surrender. Yeah. Pete Hexet was asking his latest interview on 60 minutes. He was asked,

what does that mean? He said that it means we are fighting to win. What does it mean to you, John?

We're fighting to win. You know, only an old man would say something like that. Or somebody who's

mentality is that of an old man. What Donald Trump is talking about when he says, unconditional

surrender is sitting across a table from whoever happens to be the leader of Iran at any given time

and forcing them to sign articles of surrender, just like we did to the Japanese at the end of

World War II or just as we did to the Germans at the end of World War II. That's not real life

anymore. That's not the way the world works anymore. There won't be any more scenarios where

all the generals from the American side are here, all the generals from the Iranian side are here.

The Iranian generals take out their guns and hand the guns to the Americans to signify surrender.

They put the contract in front of the Iranians and the Iranians sign the contract saying we

surrender the Americans are in charge now. That will never, ever happen. So when Pete Hickseth says

unconditional surrender, I genuinely believe Nima that he doesn't have any idea what he's talking

about. He genuinely doesn't know what he's supposed to say when somebody says, what does that mean?

What does that term mean? He doesn't know.

John, what was the understanding of the Trump administration? What is the understanding that they

have removed the Supreme Leader of Iran and his son right now is the Supreme Leader of Iran?

Yeah, you know, Nima, this is to say, have any understand because before all of these sadness, all of

this chaos happening, we were talking about what is the point of killing the Supreme Leader of Iran

and they've done that and right now what was the outcome? Is there anybody asking Donald Trump

this question? No, nobody's asking him, but many of us can speculate. Donald Trump, again, he

truly believed that if he killed Ayatollah Hamani that the whole government would just fall apart

within 24 or 48 hours, Iranians would take to the streets chanting USA, USA and everybody would

live happily ever after. I was on a podcast last week and I likened this to killing the Pope.

If you kill the Pope, you're not going to bring down global Catholicism. They just choose a new

Pope. Well, if you kill the Supreme Leader, they just choose a new Supreme Leader. That's all. He

was 86. He wasn't going to live forever. There had already been discussion about who would

rise through the ranks to take the position after he departed the scene. There was never any

possibility that Iran would just collapse because you killed an 86-year-old man.

Yeah, it's, but it seems that John, this is the failure on the part of the intelligence who

are giving Donald Trump this sort of question. Listen, after 15 years in the CIA, either working on

Iran or adjacent to Iran, I spent most of my career on Iraq, but you can't do Iraq without doing

Iran. I can tell you that at the CIA, they have a very deep understanding of Iran and Iranian

politics and Iranian history. It's a, it's a neo-conservative understanding. So at the end of the day,

it's flawed, but I'm confident that Donald Trump's position that Iran would fall apart did not

come from the CIA. With that said, he has so politicized analysis from the CIA. It is possible

that CIA analysts were afraid to tell the truth because they didn't want to lose their jobs

and be fired if he didn't like the analysis. You mean that he was receiving the intelligence

from Assad instead of receiving from Assad? 100%. 100%. Yes, he was receiving intelligence from Assad.

Yes, I don't think it was any kind of accident that Netanyahu came here seven times in 11 months.

That's a long trip. That's like an 11-hour trip. And he did it seven times in 11 months. Yeah.

Yeah. It's unbelievable. John, it was a great pleasure to talk to you today.

Pleasure is always mine. It's good to see you again.

You too. John, are you going to, I think you've mentioned that Donald Trump is still talking.

He just wrapped it up or he's just, oh no. He spoke for like three minutes.

No. He just, he came out and said, we're launching new strikes right now.

The war's almost over and we've just about won everything.

See, but that's also a very Donald Trump thing to do. Just declare victory and go home.

Yeah. Let's see what would happen. Yeah. Okay. The strange, strange. Yeah. See you soon, John.

Thank you. Good to see you, Neema. All the best.

Bye.

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