Trump “tends to be naive.” Former CIA chief criticizes US performance in Iran operation, sees president caught between 'a rock and a hard place'
Leon Panetta, who was part of the administrations of Democrats Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, said that the current president of the United States, Republican Donald Trump, has no clear way out of the war launched against Iran on February 28, and his actions have caused a crisis in the global energy market.
Former head of the CIA (February 2009 – June 2011) and then of the Pentagon (July 2011 – February 2013), a position from which he oversaw the operation to kill Osama bin Laden, Panetta said in a telephone interview with The Guardian that US national security officials were always aware of Iran's ability to create a crisis by blocking the Strait of Hormuz.
A fifth of the global supply of oil and liquefied natural gas normally passes through there. In addition, for the Persian Gulf countries, it is the main route of food imports.
“That's what kids do. Presidents don't do that”
Leon Panetta accused Donald Trump of “tending to be naïve about how things can happen.”
“If he says it and keeps saying it, there's always hope that what he says will come true. But that's what kids do. Presidents don't do that,” the former official said.
He suggested that killing Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was not a timely decision either. He was killed in a US-backed Israeli attack early in the war. In the meantime he was succeeded by his son, Mojtaba Khamenei.
“We replaced an old man, a supreme leader who was close to death, at a time when the Iranian people were willing to take to the streets with the hope that they could eventually change the way they are governed. And instead we have today a more entrenched regime, we have a younger supreme leader who will be there for a while and has a much tougher stance than the first supreme leader. It didn't turn out very well,” the former defense secretary added.
Panetta, metaphor on Trump: “Iran holds the weapon of the Strait of Hormuz to his temple”
In Panetta's opinion, the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, blocked by Iran in response to attacks by the United States and Israel, was caused by Trump's actions, because it was easy to understand that the situation there would be “one of the big vulnerabilities” in the event of a war against Iran and that “it could create a huge oil crisis.”
“In every national security council I've been on where we've talked about Iran, this topic has always been brought up. For some reason, they either didn't think there could be any consequence, or they thought the war would be over quickly and they wouldn't have to worry about it,” Panetta added.
He believes that Trump “can declare victory all he wants, but if he doesn't get a ceasefire, he has nothing.”
“And he won't get a ceasefire as long as Iran holds the Strait of Hormuz weapon to his temple,” Leon Panetta concluded.
