US-Israeli “war of choice” on Iran could backfire, says former CIA chief

AP , Friday 3 Apr 2026

Former CIA Director Bill Burns has described the US-Israeli war launched against Iran as “a war of choice,” arguing that this unilateral war by Israel and the US may serve to prolong the regime's survival rather than end it.

Journalists from foreign media based in Tehran document damage from U.S.-Israeli strikes in a residential area of the town of Fardis, west of Tehran, Iran. AP

Burns argued that the US-Israeli war on Iran may have only further empowered the most hard-line elements within its theocracy.

Burns, a former State Department diplomat, made the observation in a podcast by Foreign Affairs magazine.

“This is a regime that is inept at many things like managing its economy, but it is designed to preserve itself and designed to repress its own people and designed to withstand even the decapitation of its senior leadership,” said Burns, who secretly negotiated with the Iranians ahead of the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers during the Obama administration.

Burns also disagreed with US President Donald Trump’s assessment that there had been a “regime change” in the airstrike campaign killing top leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“In some ways, it’s certainly a much weaker regime, but it’s also one that’s even nastier and more radical and, you know, less open,” he said.

He added that Iran’s theocracy thought “victory is survival.”

“I’ve believed for a long time that this is a regime that’s on a kind of one-way street to its eventual collapse, but I worry that, you know, in this war, what we’ve done rather than accelerate that moment of collapse is slow it down a little bit,” Burns said.

Burns also warned that the crisis over Iran’s chokehold on the Strait of Hormuz could become a case of “we break it, you own it” for America’s allies.

He noted US President Donald Trump could try a ground operation to take Iran’s Kharg Island, its main oil terminal, or territory along the strait, but both carry significant risks.

“Then there’s the third option, which is effectively declaring victory and the inversion of the old Colin Powell Pottery Barn rule, which was ‘we break it, we own it,’” Burns said, referencing a comment attributed to former US Secretary of State Colin Powell before the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.

“Instead, it would be, ‘we break it, you own it, and it’s over to you guys,’ whether it’s European allies or Gulf Arabs or anybody else to ensure safe passage through the Strait of Hormuz.”

*This story was edited by Ahram Online.