Press TV - President Donald Trump’s hawkish National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo were put in power by the Zionists to further the neocon agenda with “regime change” in Iran, says an American scholar.

"They were of course put in power by the international Zionist crime syndicate that attacked the United States on September 11, 2001 with the express purpose of launching a war that as General [Wesley Kanne] Clark revealed would destroy seven countries in five years,” Dr. Kevin Barrett said on Monday.

“Iran was the seventh and the most important country on that neocon hit-list,” the author added.


“So they murdered 3,000 Americans in a false-flag attack designed to essentially inflame the American people against Islam and Muslims so they could take out these seven countries that were threatening to Israel,” he noted.
“And of course Iran is definitely the most important geopolitical opponent that Israel has,” Barrett pointed out.

Trump late on Sunday threatened Iran with hardship "the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered before." The US president’s all-caps threat on Twitter came after Iranian President Hassan Rouhani warned him not to “play with the lion’s tail.”



Addressing a group of Iranian diplomats in Tehran Sunday, Rouhani said, “America must understand well that peace with Iran is the mother of all peace, and war with Iran is the mother of all wars.”

Even before Trump's tweet, his administration had already intensified the rhetoric against the Islamic Republic.

Pompeo said in a speech on Sunday that the Trump administration had launched a "maximum pressure campaign" targeting Iran and its economy. Pompeo described Iran's leaders as a "mafia" and promised unspecified support for Iranians unhappy with their government.

Barrett said that the Trump administration’s threats against Iran are largely empty rhetoric as the president’s “fire and fury” threat against North Korea "did not amount to very much."

"Trump and the US government have now essentially recognized North Korea as a de facto nuclear weapon state," he said. "So that threat was utterly and completely empty."

“And now Trump is lashing out at Iran with his crazy tweet,” the analyst said.