The Trump Administration Has No Idea What It’s Doing With Iran
Intelligence officials say U.S. claims about Iranian hostility are misleading
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo spent the last week engaged in a flurry of diplomatic meetings with Iraq, Russia, and Belgium, all meant to drum up support for the Trump administration’s increasingly hard-line stance toward Iran and its nuclear program.
The meetings did not go well.
A NATO military intelligence official who was briefed on Pompeo’s claims about increased Iranian aggression in the Middle East said the substance of the intelligence that the Americans briefed was utterly unconvincing — even insulting.
“Do they think that we are stupid?” asked the NATO official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Tensions between Washington and Tehran have risen dramatically in recent weeks as some U.S. officials fear that Iran is preparing to attack several U.S. government facilities in the region. The U.S. has already preemptively deployed an aircraft carrier group to the area to “send a clear and unmistakable message to the Iranian regime that any attack on United States interests or on those of our allies will be met with unrelenting force,” in the words of the hawkish National Security Adviser John…
