Former CIA director calls conflict with Iran ‘war of choice,’ not regime change
Newsy
Ex-CIA Director Bill Burns calls the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran a “war of choice,” warning it may strengthen hardliners and slow the regime’s collapse.
Former CIA Director Bill Burns has described the U.S.-Israeli war launched against Iran as “a war of choice” that may have only further empowered the most hard-line elements within its theocracy.
Burns, a former State Department diplomat, made the observation in a podcast by Foreign Affairs magazine.
“This is a regime that is inept at many things like managing its economy, but it is designed to preserve itself and designed to repress its own people and designed to withstand even the decapitation of its senior leadership,” said Burns, who secretly negotiated with the Iranians ahead of the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers during the Obama administration.
Burns also disagreed with U.S. President Donald Trump’s assessment that there had been a “regime change” in the airstrike campaign killing top leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
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