Secretary of State John Kerry's controversial statement that Israel could become "an apartheid state" if it doesn't make peace with the Palestinians will come back to haunt him, former CIA officer Peter Brookes says.
"He will come to regret those words, and I don't think it's going to warm any hearts in Israel," Brookes, now senior fellow for national security affairs at the Heritage Foundation, told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV.
"Things have not gone well for his diplomatic efforts there. Fatah and Hamas are together now, which is going to be an increasing challenge.
"There wasn't the progress that he had promised early on, and those are regrettable words, and once again he'll come to regret them," Brookes said Monday.
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According to The Daily Beast, Kerry warned in a closed-door meeting of the non-governmental Trilateral Commission that Israel risks becoming an "apartheid state" if efforts to reach an Israeli-Palestinian peace pact fail.
"The situation in the Middle East is as dire as I've seen it in quite some time, and I have serious concerns about the administration's policies toward that important and strategic part of the world," Brookes said.
He is also skeptical of how well newly announced sanctions against Russia will work, as the United States attempts to stem Russian President Vladimir Putin's growing military aggression in Ukraine.
"We're not making a lot of progress, from what I can tell. Putin is doing quite well. He's already taken Crimea," Brookes said.
"I believe [Putin] feels that the president and the United States [are] not willing to exercise international leadership . . . He may see the president as weak, and so he just continues to do what he's doing."
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