Khamenei curbed Iran’s nuclear ambitions before death, says ex-US official

Former Director of the US National Counterterrorism Center, Joe Kent, has said that the late Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had been moderating the country’s nuclear program ahead of his death.

“I’m no fan of the former supreme leader, you know, Ali Khamenei, however, he was moderating their nuclear program. He was preventing them from getting a nuclear weapon,” Kent told former Fox News host and influential conservative podcaster Tucker Carlson in his first interview since his resignation on March 18.

“If you take him out, if you kill him aggressively, people are going to rally around that regime,” Kent added.

Asked by Carlson if Iran was on the verge of getting a nuclear weapon, Kent replied, “No, they weren’t,” before adding that Iran’s strategy was “to not completely abandon the nuclear program.”

Khamenei, who ruled Iran with an iron fist as its supreme leader for nearly four decades, was killed last month in joint US and Israeli strikes.

Kent also said that key dissenting voices were sidelined before the start of the war with Iran. “In the lead up to this last iteration, good deal of key decision makers were not allowed to come and express their opinion to the president [Donald Trump].”

The former counterterrorism chief noted that there was “robust debate” preceding US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites last year.

By contrast, the intelligence community’s ability to offer a “sanity check” when briefing the president “was largely stifled in this second iteration,” Kent said.

“They had that discussion, you know, behind closed doors, and there wasn’t a chance for any dissenting voices to come,” he said later on in the podcast.