Former CIA head James Woolsey said that the deal with Iran is worthless and will lead to a surge in global terror and a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. 

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohamad Javad Zarif jokes around. (AP/Ronald Zak)

The agreement with the Islamic Republic will provide Iran with billions to fund its global terror network and enable it to pursue nuclear weapons, warned former CIA head James Woolsey.

Speaking on “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio” on Monday, Woolsey, former director of the US Central Intelligence Agency and current chairman of Foundation for Defense of Democracies, stated that neither the negotiations nor any agreement that grows out of them “are going to substantively … do anything to stop the Iranians from having a nuclear weapon.”

This is in contrast to what the White House has stated on the subject, he said.

A State Department report from last month confirmed that Iran’s “state sponsorship of terrorism worldwide remained undiminished” and their operations are conducted in over 30 countries around the globe.

When asked whether the negotiations are merely an attempt by President Barack Obama to secure a legacy for himself, Woolsey replied, “whatever he’s interested in, his behavior is not restricting terrorism by Iranian-backed entities such as Hamas or … any others, and it is not moving us toward any important restrictions on Iran’s development of nuclear weapons.”

Woolsey stated the negotiations did nothing positive at all. “If the negotiations on Iran are halted, Iran will end up getting up to $150 billion to finance … terrorism and their nuclear weapon,” he said.

The ex-spy master noted that the Obama administration had relinquished any red lines or objectives in the negotiations. When the current round of negotiations began “we had some very solid objectives to get [Iran] away from having a nuclear infrastructure.” This included a limit on uranium enrichment and the inspection of suspicious sites, including military bases.

“All of these are gone,” said Woolsey. “We’ve been negotiating with ourselves. Since the Iranians won’t make any changes in the directions we needed, I guess the administration’s negotiators or the administration itself, decided we would negotiate with ourselves – and we have defeated ourselves. We have conceded to the Iranians virtually all of the major points in the negotiations.”

Existential Threat to Israel

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon. (Alex Kolomoisky/POOL/Flash90)

In an interview with VOA’s Persian News Network, Woolsey said Iran has been “completely unhelpful” on the issues of UN inspections and the arms embargo, which was imposed in 2007 under a UN resolution to prevent Iran from importing and exporting conventional weapons.

Woolsey, who served as CIA director from 1993 to 1995 in the Clinton administration, opposes lifting the arms embargo.

“Why the United States should loosen up on the world’s number one terrorist state and make it easier for it to export conventional weapons,” he said, “including those that can be used to attack Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, a whole host of places that we do not want the Iranians and the Iranian proxies such as [the Lebanese terror group] Hezbollah to attack … they have a great many weapons already that they have obtained in one way or another over the years, and they are the major threat as a nation-state to the stability of the Middle East. They’re also a major reason why we’ll have a nuclear Middle East.”

Woolsey was asked to comment on Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon’s criticism of the potential nuclear agreement. Ya’alon told Israeli defense officials Monday that “even if there are some last-minute improvements, the agreement as we understand it is bad, allowing Iran to legitimately become a nuclear threshold state. The bottom line is, a bad deal is coming, and after it, we will have to be prepared to defend ourselves on our own.”

“Israel has always had to defend itself,” Woolsey said. “It’s done so successfully since it was attacked by its neighbors in 1947-48 at its birth. I think it’s possible that what was implied there was military action to set back or destroy the Iranian nuclear program and perhaps other instruments of state power. I think that’s something that Israel would have to very seriously consider, and they have to consider it even more seriously because we have not been effective in working alongside them to try to constrain Iran’s behavior in any way at all.”

“Iran is running free in its support of terrorism, and its work on nuclear weapons and nuclear infrastructure,” Woolsey added.  “That is an existential threat to Israel.”

By: United with Israel Staff

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