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CIA director Burns admits US knows Iran has no nuclear ambitions

Architect of ‘Iran nuclear deal’ seems miffed Trump cancelled the pact he put together

Alameen Templeton
We could put it down to personal chagrin, but whatever the reason, outgoing CIA director William Burns has admitted the US knows Iran is not seeking nuclear weapons, nor does it have a nuclear weapons programme.
In an interview with the off-beat state broadcaster National Public Radio, Burns made the frank admission, knowing it will snarl up any plans Donald Trump may be harbouring to demonise the Shiite state once again.
Observers are bound to reference Burns’s admission if the White House ever again turns its sights on Teheran.
‘Weakness is strength’
Burns was asked whether Iran may accelerate its efforts to obtain nuclear weapons given the setbacks the Islamic Republic and its allies in the regional Axis of Resistance have sustained over the past year.
He replied: “The Iranian regime could decide in the face of that weakness that it needs to restore its deterrence as it sees it and, you know, reverse the decision made at the end of 2003 (an oral fatwa issued by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei) to suspend their weaponization program.”
However, Burns clarified, “We do not see any sign today that any such decision has been made, but we obviously watch it intently. ”
He added that Iran’s weakness could also go in the opposite direction, opening the way negotiations for a nuclear deal similar to the one signed by Iran and the United States under President Obama in 2014.
Burns was personally involved in cobbling together that deal that was welcomed by the world as an opportunity for wider peace in Arabia.
Trump later withdrew from the deal following intense lobbying by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, so Burns’ rare moment of truth may well have been motivated by personal resentment he may feel after seeing all his hard work undone.
“You know that that sense of weakness could also theoretically create a possibility for serious negotiations, too. And, you know, that’s something the new administration is going to have to sort through. I mean, it’s something I have a lot of experience in with the secret talks a decade ago, a little more than a decade ago with the Iranians. So, you know, that’s that’s also a possibility,” Burns stated.
Career diplomat
He served in America’s diplomatic corps throughout his service, making Burns the first director of the CIA drawn from the ranks of career diplomats. He knows Trump will have no interest in leaning on his experience, that he’ll be watching from the sidelines as the career billionaire settles into his presidential chair this coming Monday.
Burns also said he believed a ceasefire in Gaza is not far off, saying Iran’s weakness and the setbacks its “Axis of Resistance” had suffered in the last six months had opened up a rare chance to go for peace.
“So there’s every reason for political leaders to recognize that enough is enough. That perfect is rarely on the menu in the Middle East, and that, you know, it’s time to make a deal.”
“Enough is enough” is typically duplicitous, a routine feature of America’s tendency to wrap up complex, inconvenient facts in idiom and banality. It begs the question: When is genocide ever “enough”; surely it should always be “too much”?
But, it’s a bit late for Burns to ask that question; it never occurred to ask it while he had a hand on the steering wheel of the seventh-most-powerful spy agency in the world, so why bother now?
His army of economic hitmen were unable to discern that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza throughout.
But don’t lean your hopes for a change under Trump.
Remaining studiously blind to inconvenient facts is probably the pre-eminent requirement for the job of a CIA director, but it’s not something Burns’ replacement, John Radcliffe, will seemingly have to worry about.
Career ‘yes man’
He’s not a career spook, nor a career diplomat. While some point out he has “intelligence experience”, that was just for a brief period during the final months of Trump’s last administration.
He was also criticised for lacking experience on his first appointment as director of national intelligence. Radcliffe’s previously served as a prosecutor in Texas and has excelled only as a blind, Trump loyalist.
He’s accused Iran of trying to interfere in US elections and has remained welded in unquestioning sycophancy to Trump’s hip.
Whatever Trump says or decides in the coming days about Iran, Syria, Gaza, Yemen, Sudan, Chad and the West African “Coup States”, Radcliffe is bound to support and amplify, much as Burns did throughout his blood-soaked stay at “the top”.

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