Pakistan will lose against India in a war, no point in provoking Indians: Ex-CIA officer

Former CIA officer John Kiriakou has warned that Pakistan would lose any conventional war with India and urged Islamabad to acknowledge that an open conflict would bring no benefits.

In an interview with ANI, he said, "Nothing, literally nothing good will come of an actual war between India and Pakistan because the Pakistanis will lose. It's as simple as that. They'll lose. And I'm not talking about nuclear weapons, I'm talking just about a conventional war. And so there is no benefit to constantly provoking Indians."

Kiriakou, who spent 15 years at the CIA and led counterterrorism operations in Pakistan, told ANI that Washington could have taken out Abdul Qadeer Khan, the scientist behind Pakistan’s nuclear programme and a known nuclear proliferator, had it adopted an Israeli-style approach. He added that Khan enjoyed backing from the Saudi government, which had urged the United States to leave him alone.


The former officer also recalled that during his posting in Pakistan in 2002, he was unofficially informed that the Pentagon had control over Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. He noted that opinions within Pakistan have since hardened, with officials now publicly insisting that their generals retain sole authority over the weapons.

"The United States has nothing to do with the Pakistani nuclear arsenal, that Pakistani generals are the ones who control it," he said.

When asked whether the Americans had ever informed India about the alleged U.S. role, Kiriakou said he doubted it. He added that the State Department at the time was urging restraint on both sides, essentially advising that if a fight were unavoidable it should be kept short and strictly conventional, because the introduction of nuclear weapons would transform the situation for everyone.

Kiriakou also pointed to India's stated posture on nuclear coercion, saying New Delhi has warned it will not tolerate nuclear blackmail and will respond decisively to any terror attack.

He highlighted a string of Indian responses to terrorism over recent years, including surgical strikes across the Line of Control in 2016, the Balakot airstrikes in 2019, and Operation Sindoor in May of this year, when India said it struck terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir. Operation Sindoor, Kiriakou noted, was carried out in response to the Pahalgam terror attack that killed 26 people.

Kiriakou described his CIA career as split between analysis in the first half and counterterrorism operations in the second.

He also recalled his public whistleblowing in 2007 over the CIA's interrogation programme, which led to legal consequences and a 23-month prison sentence, a period he says he has no regrets about, maintaining he "did the right thing."