Former CIA officer John Kiriakou has stirred a fresh round of debate and reflection on the fraught relationship between India and Pakistan, issuing a blunt warning to Islamabad: any conventional war with India would end in Pakistan’s defeat. Speaking in an interview with ANI on October 25, 2025, Kiriakou—who spent 15 years with the Central Intelligence Agency, including a pivotal period leading counterterrorism operations in Pakistan—offered rare insights into the calculations, fears, and behind-the-scenes maneuvering that have shaped South Asia’s most volatile rivalry.
Kiriakou’s remarks, as reported by multiple outlets including ANI and Hindustan Times, come at a time when memories of past crises between the two nuclear-armed neighbors remain raw. He recalled the intense U.S. anxiety following the 2001 attack on India’s Parliament, which left nine security personnel dead and brought the subcontinent to the brink of war. “Family members had been evacuated from Islamabad. We believed India and Pakistan would go to war,” Kiriakou said, referencing the dramatic days of Operation Parakram in 2002. According to Kiriakou, U.S. agencies were so concerned about a potential conflict that they began evacuating American civilians from Pakistan’s capital.
He described India’s response to such provocations as one of “strategic patience,” a policy that saw New Delhi exercise restraint not only after the Parliament attack but also in the wake of the 2008 Mumbai attacks. “At the CIA, we called the Indian policy strategic patience. But India has gotten to the point where they can’t risk strategic patience being misunderstood as weakness,” he said. Kiriakou emphasized that while India has historically shown restraint, it has also demonstrated a willingness to respond decisively to cross-border terrorism. He cited the 2016 surgical strikes, the 2019 Balakot operation, and Operation Sindoor after the April 2025 Pahalgam attack—which killed 26 civilians—as examples of India’s evolving posture.
But what of the specter of nuclear escalation? Kiriakou’s revelations on this front are especially striking. He claimed that during his posting in Islamabad in 2002, he was unofficially informed that the Pentagon had effective control over Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. “That Musharraf had turned control over to the United States... But the Pakistanis in the intervening years, and remember, I was there 23 years ago... over the last 23 years, the Pakistanis have come to say that is absolutely not true. The United States has nothing to do with the Pakistani nuclear arsenal, that Pakistani generals are the ones who control it,” he explained. Kiriakou doubted whether the U.S. ever shared this sensitive information with India, given Pakistan’s public insistence on nuclear autonomy.
He added that the U.S. State Department urged both sides to keep any conflict “short and non-nuclear,” warning, “If nuclear weapons are introduced, the whole world is going to change. And so I think there was restraint on both sides.” Yet, he was unequivocal about the likely outcome of a conventional conflict: “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’s assessment is rooted not only in military calculations but also in his understanding of the political dynamics within Pakistan. He claimed that the U.S. effectively “purchased” then-President Pervez Musharraf with millions in aid, securing a relationship that allowed the Americans considerable latitude. “Our relations with the Pakistani government were very, very good. It was General Pervez Musharraf at the time. And look, let’s be honest here. The United States loves working with dictators. Because then you don’t have to worry about public opinion and you don’t have to worry about the media anymore. And so we essentially just purchased Musharraf,” Kiriakou said. He elaborated that Musharraf, while cooperating with the U.S. on counterterrorism, also had to keep the Pakistani military satisfied—a balancing act that meant tolerating, or even supporting, terrorist activities against India. “The military didn’t care about Al-Qaeda. They cared about India. And so in order to keep the military happy and keep some of the extremists happy, he had to allow them to continue this dual life of pretending to cooperate with the Americans on counterterrorism while committing terror against India,” Kiriakou noted.
Delving further into the internal instability of Pakistan, Kiriakou expressed concern about the country’s volatile politics, warning of the potential for violence, assassinations, and unrest. “I’m worried about continued disagreement in Pakistani politics that has the potential to spill into the streets because the Pakistanis have a tendency to get themselves spun up and people die during demonstrations and there are attacks against political figures and assassinations and the country is not known for its transformative leaders making positive decisions,” he said.
His interview also touched on the U.S. focus during these tense years. Kiriakou admitted that American intelligence was largely preoccupied with Al Qaeda and Afghanistan, often neglecting India’s security concerns. “We were so busy and focused on Al Qaeda and Afghanistan, we never gave two thoughts to India,” he reflected.
Among the more startling claims was Kiriakou’s assertion that the U.S. could have assassinated A.Q. Khan, the architect of Pakistan’s nuclear program, but refrained due to Saudi Arabian intervention. “If we had taken the Israeli approach, we would have just killed him. He was easy enough to find. But he had the support of the Saudi government. The Saudis came to us and said, please leave him alone,” Kiriakou stated. He speculated that Saudi Arabia’s request may have been motivated by their own nuclear ambitions, adding, “We often wondered if it was because the Saudis were also building a nuclear capability.”
Kiriakou did not shy away from discussing his own controversial past. In 2007, he publicly exposed the CIA’s torture program in a nationally televised interview, claiming, “the CIA was torturing its prisoners.” He served 23 months in prison for his role as a whistleblower but maintains, “no regrets, no remorse,” insisting he “did the right thing.”
In a final anecdote, Kiriakou recounted how Osama bin Laden, the mastermind behind 9/11, managed to escape from the Tora Bora mountains in Afghanistan disguised as a woman, thanks to a compromised U.S. translator. “We did not know that the translator for the commander of Central Command was actually an al-Qaeda operative who had infiltrated the US military... What ended up happening was bin Laden dressed as a woman and he escaped under the cover of darkness in the back of a pickup truck into Pakistan,” he said. By dawn, bin Laden and his followers had vanished, forcing the U.S. to shift its pursuit into Pakistan.
Kiriakou’s candid revelations offer a rare window into the shadowy world of intelligence, diplomacy, and conflict in South Asia. His message is clear: for all the bluster and brinkmanship, war between India and Pakistan would be catastrophic—and, in his view, a losing proposition for Islamabad.
