'Not a good sign' Trump's White House was blindsided by CIA's Iran report: ex-diplomat

Expressing both bemusement and concern at the same time, former Undersecretary of State Richard Stengel stated on MS NOW on Friday morning that a bombshell CIA report that Iran still has the ability to stand up to the U.S. is bad news, but it is even worse that it caught the White House by surprise.

Citing the Washington Post report, host Anna Cabrera asked, “So, Rick, given this CIA assessment suggesting Iran can withstand a lot more pain and they can hold off if the U.S. has a blockade for more months, in fact, and given other reporting that U.S. military assets were more severely, severely damaged by Iran than the administration has let on, what does that mean for the kind of leverage Iran might have in any negotiation?”

“Well, they do have leverage,” Stengel replied. “I mean, Iran's calculation from the start was we can withstand more military pain and more economic pain than the U.S. can withstand economic pain — that they're witnessing that all the time. They've had sanctions against them for 20 years and have suffered. I would always count on a people who have an existential threat against them, who have had to live with very little to outlast it.”

“I just also want to bring into your last question, I mean, the intelligence community basically has been pretty accurate about Iran's capabilities and it doesn't surprise people … you know, people in international policy," Stengel added. "You know who it did surprise? It surprised the White House; the White House didn't think that Iran was that resilient. They didn't understand why Iran attacked the other gulf countries to kind of try to separate them. So it's coming as a surprise to President Trump and his close advisors, and that's not a good sign.”

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