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CIA Director John Brennan says U.S. will ‘keep pressure’ on Iran - The Washington Post
By Hunter Schwarz March 22 at 12:15 PM
CIA Director John Brennan speaks at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on March 13, 2015. (Brendan McDermid/Reuters)
CIA Director John Brennan said Sunday that regardless of the outcome of negotiations with Iran, the United States will keep pressure on the country.
"The nuclear program is one issue that we're hoping to be able to halt, but also, we see that Iran is still a state sponsor of terrorism," he said during an appearance on "Fox News Sunday." "And so what we have to do, whether there's a deal or not, is continue to keep pressure on Iran and to make sure that it is not able to continue to destabilize a number of the countries in the region."
Brennan said Iran and the Islamic State are "both threats" to the United States. When asked by host Chris Wallace whether the rise of the Islamic State militant group could be tied to the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, Brennan said, "The fault really lies with a number of the Iraqis who wasted and squandered the opportunity they had after the government was reconstituted not to put at rest some of these sectarian tensions and not to be more inclusive as far as bringing the Sunni community in."
He said that the Islamic State is "not on the march as they are several months ago" but that "this is going to be a long, hard fight."
Brennan also denied that the CIA played down threats ahead of the 2012 election for political reasons. "There was no sense that either I or the president or others gave to the American people that terrorism was going away," he said.
By Hunter Schwarz March 22 at 12:15 PM
CIA Director John Brennan speaks at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on March 13, 2015. (Brendan McDermid/Reuters)
CIA Director John Brennan said Sunday that regardless of the outcome of negotiations with Iran, the United States will keep pressure on the country.
"The nuclear program is one issue that we're hoping to be able to halt, but also, we see that Iran is still a state sponsor of terrorism," he said during an appearance on "Fox News Sunday." "And so what we have to do, whether there's a deal or not, is continue to keep pressure on Iran and to make sure that it is not able to continue to destabilize a number of the countries in the region."
Brennan said Iran and the Islamic State are "both threats" to the United States. When asked by host Chris Wallace whether the rise of the Islamic State militant group could be tied to the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, Brennan said, "The fault really lies with a number of the Iraqis who wasted and squandered the opportunity they had after the government was reconstituted not to put at rest some of these sectarian tensions and not to be more inclusive as far as bringing the Sunni community in."
He said that the Islamic State is "not on the march as they are several months ago" but that "this is going to be a long, hard fight."
Brennan also denied that the CIA played down threats ahead of the 2012 election for political reasons. "There was no sense that either I or the president or others gave to the American people that terrorism was going away," he said.
