This Is What They Don't Tell You About Iran | Harry Berger & John Kiriakou

The conversation makes a sharp, unsettling case: much of what passes for urgent national security policy—especially about Iran—is driven less by imminent threats than by politics, habit, and powerful external interests. What emerges is a consistent pattern: alarms raised about nuclear programs or terrorism, followed by calls for harder military responses, while diplomatic avenues and the long-term consequences of intervention are downplayed or dismissed. If one reads the exchange as a single argument, it contends that policymakers repeatedly mistake fear for strategy, and that the costs of those mistakes cascade far beyond any immediate battlefield. ## Iran's Alleged Nuclear Threat The exchange challenges the familiar narrative that Iran is always "weeks away" from a nuclear weapon. The conversation highlights repeated findings by U.S. intelligence bodies that Tehran’s weapons program has not been active for years and that the country lacks a credible delivery system. This point is not presented as an abstraction: it is set against the drumbeat of political rhetoric and media alarmism that sell the public on preemptive strikes and regime-change fantasies. The discussion reframes the problem by asking a simple question: even if Iran had nuclear ambitions, whose interests would a U.S. military attack serve? From the vantage offered in the conversation, the answer is revealing. An assault on Iran would not significantly enhance U.S. security; it would mostly align with the strategic anxieties of regional actors who perceive Tehran as an existential rival. That mismatch—between the ostensible protectors' stated interests and the likely beneficiaries of war—casts a long shadow over the credibility of hawkish arguments. Finally, the conversation invites readers to consider deterrence as a rational response. If past U.S. actions—most notably, the Libya case—demonstrated that handing over weapons programs did not spare leaders from violent overthrow, it is predictable that vulnerable states would hedge by developing indigenous capabilities and closer ties to great-power patrons. Policymakers who fail to understand this incentive structure are likely to misread the signals they claim to worry about. ## The Influence of External Lobbying Perhaps the most politically combustible claim in the exchange is that external lobbying and allied pressures distort U.S. strategic choices. The conversation suggests that foreign governments and well-organized interest groups have consistently pushed for escalation against Iran, sometimes overriding sober intelligence assessments. The story offered is not conspiratorial in the sense of secret cabals, but rather a public, well-documented pattern in which certain allies amplify worst-case scenarios to shape U.S. action. This dynamic helps explain why American policy oscillates between restraint and intervention. When allied leaders present their security concerns as existential, those appeals gain traction inside the corridors of power, especially among officials whose political survival is tied to hawkish constituencies. The conversation argues that this creates a perverse feedback loop: allies lobby for aggressive options, hawks inside the U.S. embrace them, and the result is policy that serves external preferences more than American strategic interests. Crucially, the exchange emphasizes that the presence of such pressure should prompt institutional safeguards—a stronger emphasis on independent intelligence assessment, public transparency, and checks on personnel with potential conflicts of loyalty. Absent these guardrails, the conversation warns, national security decisions risk being outsourced to foreign agendas. ## Diplomacy vs. Military Options One of the most consequential themes is the comparative effectiveness of diplomacy versus kinetic force. The conversation highlights recent indirect talks (shuttles facilitated by third parties) as evidence that engagement can yield progress even after long periods of hostility. The cautious optimism is explicit: when both sides can claim dignity and reciprocity in talks, seemingly intractable problems can be mitigated. Against this, the hawkish alternative—the so-called "Libya model" of coercive disarmament—is presented as self-defeating. The exchange points out that Qaddafi’s fate after giving up weapons of mass destruction served as a stark deterrent to others. That historical lesson, the conversation argues, helps explain Iran’s determination to maintain indigenous capabilities and resist unilateral demands for dismantlement. Far from resolving the danger, coercion can entrench adversaries’ motivations to conceal or proliferate. The conversation also surfaces the political calculus of who can make peace. Drawing a parallel to a historic détente among global rivals, the discussion contends that often only politically unexpected figures can broker breakthroughs because they are credibly unsympathetic to the counterpart—thereby neutralizing domestic accusations of softness. The implication is that diplomatic creativity and political theater both matter; peace sometimes needs an unlikely figure to make it palatable at home. ## Intelligence, Security Clearances, and Loyalties A recurrent anxiety in the discussion concerns the integrity of the institutions that generate policy advice: intelligence agencies, national security councils, and the clearance process. The exchange raises alarms about staff appointments with close ties to foreign governments and questions how such individuals acquire sensitive positions. The argument is institutional: foreign influence is not a mere abstraction when people with dual loyalties occupy high-level advisory roles. The conversation suggests that the current vetting and oversight mechanisms are insufficiently robust. If true, the result is a weakening of public trust in the independence of intelligence and policy recommendations. The remedy, as implied in the discussion, would be stricter enforcement of counterintelligence standards, greater transparency about conflicts of interest, and a public reckoning with acceptable sources of policy advice. Without such reforms, the conversation warns, policymaking will continue to reflect the interests of well-placed outsiders as much as it does objective assessments. ## The Perpetual Wars: Somalia and Beyond The discussion broadens the critique of interventionist policy beyond the Middle East to include places like Somalia. Here, the conversation interrogates the logic of extended military engagement in failed or fragile states: the familiar promise that more troops, better training, or a new surge will produce stability. The refrain is wearying because history furnishes repeated disproof: in Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, and elsewhere, escalations produced protracted conflict, not durable peace. Somalia serves as a case study. The conversation emphasizes the complexity of local dynamics—clan divisions, semi-autonomous regions seeking independence, and weak central institutions—that render simple military fixes ineffective. It also points to the geopolitical risk of underestimating great-power reactions: military action can become entangled with rivalries involving other states, producing unintended escalations. The concluding warning is clear: repetition of failed templates, dressed up with new justifications, will likely reproduce earlier disasters rather than solve contemporary problems. ## Gaza, Counterterrorism, and Blowback Perhaps the most morally and strategically urgent portion of the exchange examines the link between mass violence against civilian populations and the production of terrorism. The conversation rebuts the "sledgehammer" theory—that overwhelming force deters future attacks—and instead argues convincingly that civilian-targeted campaigns generate fresh grievances, radicalize populations, and recruit new generations of militants. Historical testimony from combat zones,

This Is What They Don't Tell You About Iran | Harry Berger & John Kiriakou [Part 1 of 2] ANNOUNCEMENT: SUBSCRIBE to Harrison Berger's new page on Rumble, "No Tribe" for more content. Thanks to Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, the US may soon sign a nuclear deal with Iran. But sinister forces in Washington are working overtime to prevent that from happening, mainly Israel and their lobbyists who have long wanted a regime change war in Iran. Meanwhile, national security officials like Sebastian Gorka want to send even more US soldiers to Somalia, risking yet another American war. And as the prospect of even more Middle East warns grows, US support for Israel's campaign in Gaza deepens. All this despite Trump's promise to end the wars. To explain why all of this is happening, independent journalist Harrison Berger is joined by CIA Whistleblower John Kiriakou. SUBSCRIBE to John Kiriakou on UNIFYD TV and WATCH his show CIA Declassified #M3 My entire life, I've heard this refrain that Iran is only weeks away from acquiring a nuclear weapon, that we have to bomb that country preemptively to stop them. But our own intelligence agencies say Iran's nuclear program was shut down in 2003 and hasn't been restarted. That's what they said last month. So if Iran poses no real threat to the U.S., why are we constantly told that it does? Which country is Iran actually a threat to? And if we went to war with Iran, whose interests would that war really serve? #M2 Israel. You know, it was my experience when I was in government that literally every single time Benjamin Netanyahu came to the United States—literally every single time—he asked whomever happened to be in the Oval Office to bomb Iran and to do Israel's dirty work. If Iran is an existential threat to Israel, okay, that's Israel's problem. There's no reason why the United States should bomb Iran. Now, every president—I mean, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, even Donald Trump, and Joe Biden—have told Netanyahu over the years to go fly a kite. We're not going to bomb Iran. Benjamin Netanyahu came here a couple of weeks ago. It was on a Saturday. Saturday visits are unusual. But he came here because there was some sort of crisis, some emergency. There probably wasn't. He just wanted us to think that there was. And he comes here and he says Israel has intelligence that Iran is going to begin bombing Israel imminently, and we need to bomb Iran to stop them from bombing Israel. Okay, we don't have such intelligence. There's no indication that there's going to be a war between Israel and Iran. And indeed, the Iranians would get nothing out of that. Nothing. -- 1 of 6 -- They don't accomplish anything by just arbitrarily attacking Israel, knowing that the Israelis have as many as 200 nuclear weapons. What do the Iranians get out of it? Now, on the other hand, we used to say in the '70s that only Nixon could go to China. And what that meant was the only way there was going to be peace between the United States and China, or even just a normalization of diplomatic relations between the United States and China, was if Richard Nixon, who was the most anti-communist president in history, the most anti-Chinese president in history, reached out to the Chinese and made that peace. And that's exactly what happened. Now, if the Democrats had done it, they would have been accused of being soft on communism. They would have been called pinkos. They would have been accused of weakening the United States. But Nixon—Nixon was so anti-communist, he would be the last person you could accuse of being soft on communism. He went to China and established diplomatic relations. Well, I would posit that only Trump could go to Tehran. Not necessarily literally, but if anybody's going to make peace with Iran, wouldn't it stand to reason that it would be the most anti-Iran person? So what happened? Two Saturdays ago, Benjamin Netanyahu comes to the United States, emergency visit straight to the White House. "Please bomb Iran." And they come out of the meeting, and Donald Trump announces talks with the Iranians. Talks. The Iranians, for months, have been planning for some sort of attack, either by Israel or by the United States. But again, what does the U.S. get out of attacking Iran? Nothing. We accomplish nothing by attacking Iran. And so... There were talks, mostly indirect talks, in Muscat. The Iranians were in one room, the Americans were in another room, and the Omani foreign minister shuttled between the two rooms. At the end of it, there was a photo opportunity where the two sides came together just for a few minutes, and they spoke just for a few minutes. But that is direct contact. Both sides lauded the fact that these were serious talks. And they scheduled a second round of talks in Rome that took place this past Saturday. Now, the Omani foreign minister also flew to Rome, shuttled between the two rooms, and then that shuttling was followed by direct talks. The Iranian foreign minister made a statement afterwards. I think that was far more important than what the American special envoy came out and said. The Iranian foreign minister said that the Iranian delegation had been treated with respect and that the Americans had never raised the Israeli position. So it's not like the Israelis were looking over our shoulder in those negotiations. And now both sides said that they're looking forward to the next round of talks. Well, you made an important point too. The Iranians don't have a nuclear weapons program, despite what you've heard from the Israelis. There have been repeated National Intelligence Estimates and Special National Intelligence Estimates coming out of the intelligence community going back to 2003, in which the conclusion of all 18 members of the U.S. intelligence community—not just the CIA, all 18 members—has been that the Iranians are not pursuing the development of a nuclear weapon. They're just not. And besides, even if they were, they don't have a delivery system. And so somebody's been lying. I think it's clear that all these years it's been Benjamin Netanyahu. And I think that war with Iran is not only not -- 2 of 6 -- imminent, I think that for the first time in 46 years, we may actually see a breakthrough in diplomatic relations. #M3 There's kind of a tug of war, as you mentioned, within the Trump administration regarding Iran. There are these people like Steve Witkoff, mainly, who are taking steps to engage in actual diplomacy, talking with Iran and trying to solve these issues. And then there is another large faction of Iran hawks, mostly Israel lobbyists, and they're pushing for what they call the Libya model, which is the complete dismantling of Iranian nuclear facilities in exchange for not being bombed by the United States. But isn't the Libya model exactly why Iran would want nuclear weapons? Exactly. #M2 In 2002—not 2002, 2003—Steve Kappas, who was the deputy director of the CIA (actually, at the time he was the associate deputy director for operations of the CIA), made a secret trip to Libya and met with Muammar Gaddafi. He told Gaddafi that we were going to attack Iraq—this was in February of 2003—we were going to attack Iraq and overthrow Saddam Hussein. And if Gaddafi didn't want to meet the same fate, he was going to have to turn over all of his weapons of mass destruction. And that's exactly what he did. And then we overthrew him anyway. So it's not like the rest of the world is blind to what the United States says versus what the United States does. The Iranians saw what happened in Libya. They saw what happened to Qaddafi, who was then lynched by his own people at the insistence of the United States. And so, what do you do to protect yourself? You develop a homegrown weapons industry, and then you forge the closest possible relations with Russia and China. And that's what the Iranians have done. Also, these Israel hawks don't have a real appreciation for Russia—or for several things pertaining to Iran. One is the cohesion of Iranian society. The Iranians are true believers in uniting against a single enemy. This notion, for example, that we foolishly maintained in 2002 and early 2003—that when we crossed the border into Iraq, the Iraqi people would throw flowers at us—was so nonsensical as to be funny, but people inside the administration believed it. Well, to believe today that as soon as we cross the border, as soon as we start bombing Iran, the Iranians are going to throw flowers at us and get on their knees to thank us for liberating them from their theocratic overlords—that's just simply not true. It's just not. They're going to unite against an invading army, and they're going to fight us like the Iraqis did. They're going to fight us like the Afghans did. They're going to fight us like the Vietnamese did. There's not going to be any thanks for the liberation, because there's no liberation. In the meantime, Iran is huge. This isn't Afghanistan we're talking about, or even Iraq. It's a gigantic country with a lot of people, and we haven't taken that into consideration. And finally, we really don't know what the response would be to an American attack on Iran from the Russians and the Chinese. I, for one, -- 3 of 6 -- don't think that they'll just sit by and let it happen without there being some sort of response. And that response could be catastrophic. #M3 National Security Advisor Mike Waltz is a leading figure in Trump's cabinet pushing for this war with Iran. Dropsite News today revealed that his new director for Israel and Iran is Mehmet Karin from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, but who, more importantly, was previously an employee at the Israeli Ministry of Defense. John, how does somebody like that get a security clearance? That seems highly unusual. #M2 It's highly unusual. And, you know, it's not unique to Donald Trump, although it's inexcusable. It's inexcusable no matter who the president is. But Bill Clinton did the same thing, where he named a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen to be ambassador to Israel, for heaven's sake. I honestly don't know how something like this happens unless either the FBI is ignored or the FBI is told to ignore the fact that this person may have dual loyalties. I think it's very, very dangerous because the Israelis are rated as a critical threat for counterintelligence in the U.S. intelligence community. They're rated at the same level as the Russians, the Chinese, the Iranians, the North Koreans, and the Cubans. And so I wouldn't want anybody with ties to Israel anywhere near the National Security Council, let alone to be one of the deputy directors of the National Security Council. I don't know how this happens. I don't know why this person isn't already being investigated for espionage or for some sort of violation of the Espionage Act. But this is the situation we find ourselves in. And I think people get away with it because there's no public outrage. To me, this is huge news. I saw this at Dropsite as well. Where I didn't see it was in the New York Times, the Washington Post, or the Wall Street Journal. And that's, I think, part of the problem. #M3 I want to ask you about another country that we're at war with right now, which is Somalia. We've been at war in Somalia for over two decades, yet most Americans know next to nothing about it. The New York Times recently reported that some in the State Department wanted to pull out of Mogadishu, but hawks like Sebastian Gorka are pushing to send more troops, escalate strikes, and install a friendly regime. The Atlantic Council says that withdrawal is too risky. Haven't we heard this argument before—that if we just try a little harder, use more force, train more troops, peace will follow? Doesn't this feel like the same failed playbook we've seen over and over again, with the surge, for instance, or Ukraine's counter-offensive, or with the war in Afghanistan? #M2 -- 4 of 6 -- Oh, yeah. We did