{"id":298312,"date":"2024-11-10T08:24:12","date_gmt":"2024-11-10T08:24:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=298312"},"modified":"2024-11-12T08:03:31","modified_gmt":"2024-11-12T08:03:31","slug":"trump-will-give-israel-blank-check-which-may-mean-all-out-war-with-iran-says-ex-cia-chief","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=298312","title":{"rendered":"Trump will give Israel \u2018blank check\u2019 which may mean all-out war with Iran, says ex-CIA chief"},"content":{"rendered":"

Martin Pengelly \u2013 The Guardian Nov 7, 2024<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Donald Trump will as president give Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a> a \u201cblank check\u201d in the Middle East, possibly opening the way for all-out war between Israel and Iran, the former CIA director and US defense secretary Leon Panetta predicted.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith regards to the Middle East, I think he\u2019s basically going to give Netanyahu a blank check,\u201d Panetta said of Trump, who won the presidential election<\/a> this week and will take office again in January.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Whatever you do, whatever you want to do, whoever you want to go after, you have my blessing.\u2019 I mean, he basically said that [before the election].\u201d<\/p>\n

The Israeli prime minister has overseen attacks<\/a> on Iran and its assets as part of a growing conflagration since Hamas attacked Israel on 7 October last year. He and the US president-elect were reported<\/a> to have spoken during the US election campaign. Netanyahu congratulated<\/a> Trump on Wednesday, after Trump\u2019s victory over Kamala Harris was confirmed.<\/p>\n

Panetta continued: \u201cAnd so the real question there is whether Netanyahu decides to continue to try to expand that war, go after Iran<\/a>, or do things that basically create an even greater concern about whether or not the Middle East is ever going to resolve itself or be in constant conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking on the One Decision podcast<\/a>, which he co-hosts with Sir Richard Dearlove, a former head of MI6, the British intelligence service, Panetta also said he expected Trump to favour allowing Russia to retain control of areas of Ukraine held since its invasion two years ago.<\/p>\n

Most observers think Trump\u2019s election is bad news for Ukraine, which the Biden administration has backed with military aid. Many analysts suggest Trump will be less constrained by advisers than during his first four years in office, free to do as he pleases while in thrall to Vladimir Putin<\/a>, the Russian president he has long admired.<\/p>\n

Panetta, however, said he doubted Trump would be given a free hand.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s going to take some negotiation,\u201d Panetta said, of Russia-Ukraine. \u201cAnd I would not put Mr Trump in charge of that because, you know, he sat down with [the North Korean dictator] Kim Jong-un for three meetings<\/a> and wasn\u2019t able to cut a deal.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd so what I would do is \u2026 select somebody with experience, a secretary of state, secretary of defense, and put him to work to try to really develop what would be a fair deal for Ukraine<\/a> and allow Russia to sign off on the thing as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that would be the way to go. But that\u2019s going to take time. It\u2019s going to take a lot of negotiation. It\u2019s going to take a lot of dealing. But that\u2019s the one issue. I think if I were Trump, I would focus on how to resolve the Ukrainian war.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now 85, Panetta is vastly experienced, having been a congressman from California (1977-1993), White House budget chief and chief of staff to Bill Clinton (1993-97), and CIA<\/a> director (2009-11) and secretary of defense (2011-13) under Barack Obama.<\/p>\n

Considering Trump\u2019s return, Panetta outlined a challenging foreign policy picture.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs I\u2019ve often mentioned in the past, we\u2019re living in a very dangerous world. There are a number of flashpoints \u2026 whether it\u2019s Russia<\/a> and Ukraine, whether it\u2019s China and Taiwan, whether it\u2019s the Middle East, whether it\u2019s Iran, whether it\u2019s North Korea, whether it\u2019s terrorism.\u201d<\/p>\n

Panetta also had a jab just for Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump basically said during the campaign: \u2018Don\u2019t worry about it. I can basically cut a deal and every one of these problems, things are going to be fine.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, yeah, he could by simply capitulating to tyrants and to adversaries and to autocrats and letting them have their way. But I\u2019m not so sure even his own party, Republicans, are going to be willing to let him simply let tyrants do whatever the hell they want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Former CIA Director Panetta says Trump will also cut back on military support for Ukraine and allow Russia to retain to control of the east of the country and Crimea. Is this part of Trump\u2019s deal with Russia? In return for which he will ask Putin not to intervene when the U.S. and Israel launch strikes on Iran with the aim of regime change? <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":214156,"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":[41,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-298312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-Inside_the_White_House_and_Washingtons_Beltway","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298312","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=298312"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":298313,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298312\/revisions\/298313"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/214156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=298312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=298312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=298312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}