Steve Malzberg Show

The White House brush off of the Iranian Ayatollah's call for “death to America” as being made for “domestic political audience,” is akin to sweeping aside the ravings of Adolf Hitler, former CIA director James Woolsey told Newsmax TV.

“Temporarily, until he got full control of the country, Hitler in the early 30s was saying he meant to kill all the Jews and establish an empire over Europe for a thousand years,” Woolsey said Tuesday on “The Steve Malzberg Show.” 

“It was mainly for a domestic audience, until he got to control things more, and then it was meant for everybody.”

In Tehran last Saturday, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told a raucous, chanting crowd, “Of course, yes, death to America…”

The White House, now negotiating a nuclear limitations deal with Iran, said the jolting remark was “intended for a domestic political audience.”

“This is ridiculous. These people aren't like that. This is an ideology. They are fanatics,” said Woolsey, who led the CIA under President Bill Clinton and is chairman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on foreign policy and national security.

He said the Middle East nation's ultimate goal is to “start the wars that will end the world and they all go to heaven and we will all go to hell. They believe that.”

Woolsey said that as soon as it is established that Iran has serious nuclear capability, then other countries will follow.

“They can buy a nuclear weapon, even if they don't have the technology to make it themselves, like Saudi Arabia … Egypt — once who is running the country is clear — then maybe Iraq,” he said.

“[There] will be a cauldron of nuclear states and there are lots of rivalries and hatred. Sunni versus Shia, ISIS versus Iranian-backed terrorists. All of that. And a number of these people will have nuclear weapons.

“So the possibility of a crisis — which we have quite a few of in the Middle East — turning nuclear, is entirely possible.”

Woolsey says the current draft of the Iran nuclear deal is a “terrible agreement.”

“Unless Iran capitulates and makes some complete change and our negotiators get some backbone and are able to completely change the agreement, which is just not going to happen, then this will be an agreement that really ought to be under all circumstances reviewed and voted on by the Congress and rejected by the Congress,” he said.

“It's the only defense left in a way which the administration has to hurdle, but if Congress gets its back up, it can stop this from taking effect.”

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