James Woolsey, the former Director of Central Intelligence, told Newsmax TV on Tuesday the United States has a "real chance" of improving the government of Iran due to the recent protests.
"We have not done a good job in the past," of supporting the Iranian people, Woolsey told Tuesday's "America Talks Live." "In '09, President [Barack] Obama dropped the ball very much on standing up for the Iranian people, and they need us to stand up for them. They're a great people, a terrible government, the government is made up of theocratic, totalitarian, genocidal, imperialists, and that's about the nicest thing I could say about them.
"But we are looking at a situation which could erupt – it's already begun to erupt – but it could become very incoherent, riots and the rest," he added. "Helping the people of Iran, both with words and deeds, would be one of the best things we can do to promote stability in the Middle East, to promote Iran into not moving into having nuclear weapons – there are lots of good things that happen if this government goes away."
When asked about U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell's recent tweet about supporting the Iranian people, Woolsey said, "I'm pleased with it. It does sound like a tough stance.
"I think it's symptomatic of a lot of other things going on in the Middle East, in Lebanon, in Egypt; it's a chaotic situation now, but the place where the chaos could breed radical improvement in the nature of the state and in its ability to move towards the rule of law. I just think we've got a real chance here with Iran that we haven't had since '09."
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