October 2006: Former CIA Counterterrorism Official: Iran Is ‘Iraq Redux’

Former CIA counterterrorism specialist Philip Giraldi says that the 2002-2003 run-up to war with Iraq was chillingly similar to what the administration is now doing with Iran. “It is absolutely parallel,” he says. “They’re using the same dance steps—demonize the bad guys, the pretext of diplomacy, keep out of negotiations, use proxies. It is Iraq redux.” [Unger, 2007, pp. 344] In June 2006, Larry Wilkerson, the former chief of staff of ex-Secretary of State Colin Powell, echoed Giraldi’s sentiment. Noting that Vice President Dick Cheney and his office essentially drive the US’s foreign policy (see June 16, 2006), Wilkerson said of Cheney and his staff, “They are incapable of diplomacy” and determined to strike Iran. [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 185]