Michael Morell, Washington Post: Iran’s grand strategy is become a regional powerhouse
One of the interesting aspects of international affairs is that states and nonstate actors will occasionally say publicly exactly what they are thinking, doing and planning to do. No need for spies, no need for diplomats — just a need to listen.
In the mid-1990s, Osama bin Laden said repeatedly that he saw the United States as his most important enemy and therefore as his key target. Bin Laden delivered on these warnings in August 1998 in East Africa, in October 2000 in Yemen and in September 2001 in New York and Washington.
In a hotly contested election campaign in early 1998, India’s Bharatiya Janata Party told voters in its platform that, if elected, it would openly deploy nuclear weapons. Once the BJP was in office, analysts played down the nuclear plank as campaign rhetoric. They were proved wrong in May 1998 when India conducted multiple underground nuclear tests, becoming a declared nuclear weapons state.
WNU Editor: One of my early mentors told me the following sound advice years ago .... how I see the world is not exactly how the world sees things, and what is my mindset on a situation is probably not the mindset on what the other person may think of the same situation. Case in point .... U.S. and Iran. Some in the White House see calls for "Death of America" and discount it as political posturing .... because that is what these White House advisers do all the time .... spin and obfuscate. However .... these leaders in Iran see the world differently .... and some of them do not only believe in "Death to America" .... but are actively pursuing policies to accomplish this. This is why this Washington Post commentary is a must read, former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell is suggesting that maybe .... just maybe .... we should seriously consider the fact that they may mean what they say in Tehran.
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