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Former CIA Operative Michael Sheuer discusses Iran’s nuclear probability and whether the U.S. Government is showing enough concern.
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Here's what -- have the top of the stack.
The vice president is the latest to claim we still have.
Plenty of time to -- and place embargoes on Iran in order to convince them to stop what -- program to make nuclear bombs.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu drew that red line on his cartoon bomb indicating that they are closer than we thing.
So what do we know and when -- Ron have the capability to not only make a -- bomb but also.
The missile or the rocket system to drop -- on another nation.
Joining me now is former CIA operative and head of the bin Laden unit Michael Joyner and Michael.
You know the vice president was very quick to say -- -- everybody's been talking about this the intelligence.
Dating get the intelligence on bin Ghazi but they've got the intelligence down to the second it seems like on Iran view.
You coordinate those two together somehow.
I yet.
There this administration has great capacity for not seeing things it doesn't want to see.
At at Iran the you know the Iranians have been trying to build a nuclear weapon for a long time both.
Because they're afraid of the Israelis and because the Sunnis have -- the pakistanis have a bomb in the Muslim world.
And I really think -- where we were we going to stop them from building that -- we would have done it in 1990s.
When our allies in France and Germany were selling the components.
For developing the weapon to them but we didn't.
Now it's just a matter of time there's no way to stop them getting the weapon.
Well that's you know I'm I'm not a foreign policy expert by any stretch of the imagination.
But it seems like they are looking at us with impunity -- and they continue to make progress every single month.
What -- right and there's no there's no real reason to be scared of the United States.
We've never been able to win a war with only airpower.
If you look at Iran and I'm on the map they know we're not coming in terms -- -- on the ground force.
But I think more importantly.
The Iranians are too Smart to ever to attack costs directly but if we or the Israelis attacked them.
They have a tremendous capacity in the United States.
To eggs to to exact every -- revenge sort of campaign.
Via terrorism.
They have brought so many people into this country and so much material across our southern border in the last fifteen or twenty years.
That it's that they're very capable of doing that.
And perhaps just as important.
What does that kind of fragile or or -- shattered economy that we're trying to patch together at the moment.
They can ruin that with a couple of old fashioned bounds that they drop or or launch.
Into a Saudi oil production field or -- Saudi oil refinery.
It would drive the cost of oil up through the roof.
And -- -- economic progress we're we're making would certainly go into a sharp reverse it probably for a long period.
Do you by -- by what you said so far do we just.
Go ahead and say find they're gonna have the bomb acknowledge it and move on and then get into a Cold War era where.
You can't shoot yours and we can't -- -- because we can't of eliminating each other.
Well even if they had a problem.
They're Packard uses her there -- their they -- for the last twenty years as they say they're going to.
Well yeah.
And we say we're gonna fix social security and we say we're gonna win in Iraq in none of that ever happens.
But I think the point is that debt we pictured the Iraq and -- may -- people.
For the last twenty years they've lived with -- Israeli American and British nuclear target tears focused on them.
And I think they really think that it's a defensive necessity and when that's the case they'll be like the pakistanis.
The Pakistan he said they weren't eat grass before they stopped developing -- -- and I think that's where the Iranians are -- right.
But I think I think that the point we miss Hearst -- is -- Iran is fully contained.
Iraq was fully contained also was a threat to no one but we we went there but Iraq.
There's it's surrounded by military bases of the United States and its allies -- shattering its economy.
And most important it's an island of she is an enormous world of Sunnis that would rather kill them and kill lots aren't -- just before we let you go I just gotta get your comments on big Ghazi.
Why the mixed messages coming out of Washington.
What becomes -- of the president's administration has lied consistently to the American people.
About the threat from al-Qaeda.
They want to hang up that Latin scalp as the end of it.
And you know I don't know what's wrong with mr.
Romney's -- -- policy advisor.
But if you had a map from 2000 and winding you colored in where al-Qaeda head -- major operating base.
And he had a map from 2012.
That -- did the same thing.
The American people would be shocked.
By the side is in the geographical dimensions of the growth that al-Qaeda has achieved in the last eleven year I'll tell you what I'll take you -- -- that.
That need a map will show next week on this program and that our rates -- it would be in -- for you want Michael Sawyer thank you always always good to talk to you.
A pleasure sir thank you you bet.
