Pompeo’s lie of al-Qaeda link raises risk of conflict with Iran

Mike Pompeo just lied to the American people and raised the risk of conflict with Iran — because he’s already competing in the 2024 (Miriam) Adelson primary for president.

The outgoing Secretary of State dishonestly said today that al-Qaeda, the group that attacked the U.S. on September 11, 2001, was now based in Tehran and is plotting to attack the United States and “western targets” from there. Pompeo said:

[T]he Islamic Republic of Iran has given a new operational headquarters to al-Qa’ida, the terrorist network with more American blood on its hands than any other.  For al-Qa’ida, Iran is the new home base.  Tehran gives sanctuary to the terror group’s senior leaders as they plan attacks against America and our allies.  Indeed, since 2015, Tehran has allowed al-Qa’ida figures in the country to freely communicate with other al-Qa’ida members and perform many functions that were previously directed from Afghanistan and Pakistan, including authorization for attacks, propaganda, and fundraising.

Even if there is no outright conflict with Iran, Pompeo is doing his utmost to poison relations between the U.S. and Tehran so that there is no chance of Joe Biden reinvigorating the Iran deal.

Secretaries of State can be impeached, and if the U.S. Congress were not busy with other matters Pompeo’s deceitful statement should qualify him for consideration.

The National Iranian American Council, which is no friend to the regime in Iran, immediately issued a response challenging Pompeo’s assertion, noting

. . .the American people still remember the consequences of falling for Dick Cheney’s lie that Saddam Hussein was harboring al-Qaeda terrorists that were plotting against the United States.

In 2018, Barbara Slavin of the Atlantic Council explained that a study of documents retrieved during the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan showed that “Iran and al-Qaeda had a largely hostile relationship and the Sunni jihadi group saw Shiite Iran as a ‘postponed enemy.’”

Pompeo knows better, but his desire to be president won out. He plotted his move while the billionaire mega-donor Sheldon Adelson was still alive, but there’s no reason to think that Adelson’s widow, Miriam, an Israeli citizen, will cut off the spigot to Republican candidates who advocate extreme pro-Israel measures. Toward the top of the Adelson family wish-list was continued confrontation with Iran; Adelson himself famously said that the U.S. should fire an “atomic weapon” at Tehran instead of negotiating.

A footnote to the breaking news: Politico reporter Meridith McGraw tweeted out last night that she spotted Pompeo and the head of Mossad, Israel’s spy agency, in a Washington, D.C., restaurant. But the mainstream media accounts of Pompeo’s dishonest statement will surely downplay the Israel angle, or leave it out entirely.

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