Iran is "acting like pirates" to carefully and strategically draw the U.S. into something it "could blame on us," but it "may not be careful enough," former CIA Director James Woolsey told Newsmax TV.
"I think what they would like to do is to drag us into something that they could then blame on us," Woolsey, the CIA director under former President Bill Clinton, told Tuesday's "Newsmax Now." "And that's one reason they're being somewhat careful in trying not to actually get a shooting war started, but they may not be careful enough."
Woolsey calls this a campaign for worldwide support against President Donald Trump's sanctions and maximum pressure against violations of the Obama-era nuclear agreement the administration has pulled out of, but European nations are still working to maintain.
"Iran is doing everything they can to make themselves essentially able to throw their weight around, and throw people, particularly the Middle East, around and to get the respect they believe they deserve," Woolsey told host John Bachman.
"Instead, they're essentially acting like pirates."
Woolsey denounced Iran's recent provocations as an effort to build its "empire."
"They're a serious problem because they're theocratic, totalitarian, genocidal imperialists –each of those words is, I think, accurate," he added.
"And they're trying to build up a small empire to essentially be in a situation where they get to make their weight."
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