{"id":186929,"date":"2019-04-18T06:50:48","date_gmt":"2019-04-18T06:50:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=186929"},"modified":"2019-04-21T07:22:45","modified_gmt":"2019-04-21T07:22:45","slug":"pompeo-is-setting-the-stage-for-a-war-with-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=186929","title":{"rendered":"Pompeo is \u201cSetting the Stage for a War with Iran\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<div align=\"center\">\n<h1>The Real News Network \u2013 April 17, 2019<\/h1>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/FtqAjAp1KL0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Last week, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggested that the Trump administration would not rule out going to war with Iran even though there is no explicit authorization from Congress to do so. Pompeo said this in the context of being asked whether the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF) could be used to attack Iran on the basis that Iran supported the 9\/11 attacks and is connected to Al Qaeda, which carried out the 9\/11 attack.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u201cDo you believe that the 2001 authorization to go to war with those who attacked us on 9\/11 applies to Iran or Iran&#8217;s Revolutionary Guard?\u201d Senator Rand Paul asked Pompeo on April 11 during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u201cI&#8217;d prefer to just leave that to lawyers,\u201d Pompeo said, dodging the question.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u201cSo you&#8217;re unwilling to state unequivocally that you, that the resolution in 2001 to have retribution and stop people who attacked us, that Iran had something to do with the attacks on 9\/11?\u201d Rand asked.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u201cThe factual question with respect to Iran&#8217;s connections to Al Qaeda is very real,\u201d Pompeo said. \u201cThey have hosted Al Qaeda, they permitted Al Qaeda to transit their country. There&#8217;s no doubt there is a connection between the Islamic Republic of Iran and Al Qaeda.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Then on Monday, April 15, the Trump administration&#8217;s decision to designate the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization went into effect.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u201cIran is not a sponsor of terrorism,\u201d Colonel Larry Wilkerson told The Real News Network&#8217;s Greg Wilpert. \u201cSo to say that Iran sponsors terrorism of any sort, let alone Al Qaeda, is just preposterous. The greatest state sponsor of terrorism in the region and indeed in the world is Saudi Arabia\u2014our ally.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/therealnews.com\/stories\/whos-the-real-terrorists-trump-intensifies-economic-war-against-iran\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><strong>In a previous interview with The Real News<\/strong><\/span><\/a>, Wilkerson criticized Pompeo\u2019s initial declaration that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard was a \u201cforeign terrorist organization\u201d and called the Secretary of State \u201ca fool.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Wilkerson observed that the elements in this possible lead-up to war\u2014from a president who does not seem to know the inner workings of his own administration\u2019s military strategy to the involvement of hawkish National Security Advisor John Bolton\u2014recall the invasion of Iraq in 2003 under President George W. Bush, where nonexistent Al Qaeda connections were used as justification for war.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u201cWe&#8217;re operating in a way that&#8217;s inimical to, injurious to, U.S. national security interests,\u201d Wilkerson said. \u201cTo watch this as an academic and to watch it even more so, more profoundly, as a military professional is really jarring. This is truly stupid.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">Wilpert observed that \u201cgiven that all of this groundwork &#8230; being laid with the terrorism mission for Iran&#8217;s Revolutionary Guard and the claim of connections between Iran and Al Qaeda,\u201d the U.S. was likely preparing for an attack on Iran, which would fall conveniently in the months leading up to the 2020 election.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\">\u201cPresident Trump wants the tension, the pressure on Iran to bring Iran back to the negotiating table so he can claim\u2014just prior to the 2020 elections\u2014that he&#8217;s done the impossible: He&#8217;s brought Iran back to the table and we&#8217;re negotiating again, and that the deal he will produce will be much better than the deal President Obama produced,\u201d Wilkerson said. \u201cI&#8217;m crossing my fingers and hoping that that&#8217;s the case and that at the end of the day none of this happens\u2014that we won&#8217;t go to war.<strong>\u201d <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ccffff;\"><a style=\"color: #ccffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/therealnews.com\/stories\/pompeo-is-setting-the-stage-for-a-war-with-iran\">Transcrip at source&#8230;<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The U.S. might have been able to do this 15 years ago, at a push. But since then Iran has developed an array of weapons and should America strike now it will pay a heavy price  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-186929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Iran"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=186929"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":186953,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/186929\/revisions\/186953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=186929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=186929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=186929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}