{"id":188727,"date":"2019-05-23T06:36:11","date_gmt":"2019-05-23T06:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=188727"},"modified":"2019-05-26T08:19:29","modified_gmt":"2019-05-26T08:19:29","slug":"pompeos-briefing-on-iran-threat-to-nato-europeans-went-over-like-a-lead-balloon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=188727","title":{"rendered":"Pompeo\u2019s Briefing on Iran \u201cThreat\u201d to NATO Europeans Went Over Like a Lead Balloon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Daniel Larison \u2013The American Conservative May 17, 2019<\/h1>\n
\"\"<\/a>

U.S.Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Click to enlarge<\/p><\/div>\n

The Trump administration\u2019s overhyped claims of an increased Iranian threat\u00a0went over like a lead balloon<\/strong><\/span><\/a>\u00a0with allied officials this week:<\/span><\/p>\n

A NATO military intelligence official who was briefed on Pompeo\u2019s claims about increased Iranian aggression in the Middle East said the\u00a0substance of the intelligence that the Americans briefed was utterly unconvincing\u200a\u2014\u200aeven insulting<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDo they think that we are stupid?\u201d<\/strong> asked the NATO official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pompeo has a record of making false and exaggerated claims<\/strong> about Iran and its involvement in other conflicts, especially in Yemen, so he probably didn\u2019t have much credibility among allies going into this.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t surprising that his presentation of the latest administration spin didn\u2019t go over well. Our treaty allies don\u2019t share the administration\u2019s Iran obsession and don\u2019t want to be drawn in to a new conflict,<\/strong> so to convince them the evidence of new and unusual Iranian behavior would have to be very strong.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the same time, the Secretary of State has been so used to getting away with making outrageous false statements to Congress and the public for more than a year that he probably didn\u2019t expect to encounter so much skepticism when he tried to pass off weak evidence as if it were solid proof of increased threats.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The information Pompeo provided predictably didn\u2019t back up the administration\u2019s alarmist statements and provocative behavior:<\/span><\/p>\n

The NATO military intelligence official said Pompeo\u2019s clumsy attempt to gin up support for the U.S.\u2019s dealings with Iran fell on deaf ears.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201c[The briefing] was a dog\u2019s breakfast of things that happen every day, rumors, poorly-sourced things we suspect are planted information, and of course, some pictures of boats<\/strong> that the Iranians have put some missiles on,\u201d he said, referencing the photograph of an Iranian missile on a small boat in the Persian Gulf that was recently declassified, according to the New York Times, by U.S. intelligence agents who wanted to prove that Iran is indeed a threat. \u201cIranians have been putting missiles on boats in the Gulf since the 1980s.<\/strong> That\u2019s what you do when you don\u2019t have proper blue water navy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

In short, there was no good reason for the panicked administration reaction this month, and it has shown how eager some administration officials are to seize on absolutely anything as an excuse to move towards conflict with Iran.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Trump administration\u2019s response over the last two weeks has been a bit like the cartoon where the giant elephant shrieks and jumps up on a chair when it spots a mouse on the floor.<\/strong> That doesn\u2019t bode well for how the administration will respond to an accidental collision or clash.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is why the U.S. and Iran should maintain regular lines of communication to avert potential misunderstandings and to make sure that our governments can calm things down before they get out of control.<\/span><\/p>\n

Pompeo had no better luck during his recent trip to Iraq:<\/span><\/p>\n

When asked if Pompeo and his staff accepted this analysis, the Iraqi official laughed.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou Americans aren\u2019t always good listeners in the Middle East,\u201d he said. \u201cWe are telling them that the Iranians weren\u2019t behaving unusually and they ignored us.\u201d<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The Trump administration has pursued a policy of relentless hostility towards Iran, and then they misread normal Iranian actions as a new threat, blew that threat out of proportion, and then massively overreacted.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pompeo thought they’ll eat out of his hand like Congress and American media do. How wrong he was<\/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":[58,51,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-188727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Current_Affairs","category-Iran","category-Iraq"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188727","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=188727"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":188731,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188727\/revisions\/188731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=188727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=188727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=188727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}