John Brennan has once again emerged from the shadows, taking to MSNBC to deliver a diatribe against JD Vance and Donald Trump for daring to advocate a pragmatic, negotiated resolution to the bloodshed in Ukraine. In Brennan’s mind, any deviation from full-throated, open-ended military engagement is tantamount to appeasement. In reality, it is a simple acknowledgment of geopolitical reality: Ukraine cannot win a war of attrition against Russia, and continued Western intervention only prolongs the suffering while draining American resources.
But, I ask, should anyone take foreign policy advice from Brennan, a man whose hands are stained with the blood of failed wars, covert destabilization, and reckless warmongering?
No. John Brennan should not be appearing on TV as an expert.
He should be standing trial for his actions.
To understand why Brennan has no credibility, one must examine his record, a sordid chronicle of reckless interventionism and duplicity. He played a central role in some of the most catastrophic military blunders in modern history, from Iraq to Libya to Syria. And yet, despite these failures, he still carries himself as a moral authority, as if his judgment has not already led to ruin.
Brennan was a key advocate of the Bush administration’s invasion of Iraq, a war based on a lie that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. This lie led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, the destruction of a country, and the rise of ISIS.
The war destabilized an entire region, fueled anti-American sentiment, and created a breeding ground for terrorism that persists to this day. It was a disaster by every conceivable measure, yet Brennan has never expressed real contrition for his role in advancing the false intelligence that justified the war. Instead, he continued to ascend the ranks of the intelligence bureaucracy, rewarded for his loyalty to the war machine rather than his competence or wisdom.
Brennan’s influence only grew under the Obama administration, where he became one of the chief architects of the U.S. drone program—a program that operated with almost no oversight and resulted in the deaths of thousands, including innocent civilians. Under Brennan’s guidance, the CIA carried out drone strikes across Yemen, Pakistan, and Somalia, killing not just terrorists but also wedding parties, children, and American citizens without due process. This was extrajudicial assassination on an industrial scale, but Brennan’s only defense has been that such actions were necessary for national security.
Then there is Libya, a nation that, under Brennan’s influence, the Obama administration helped turn into a failed state. Sold as a “humanitarian mission,” the intervention toppled Muammar Gaddafi and plunged the country into chaos. Libya swiftly turned into a breeding ground for jihadists and human traffickers. The brutal murder of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens in Benghazi was a direct result of this reckless operation.
Syria was another one of Brennan’s pet projects. The CIA, under his guidance, armed and trained so-called “moderate rebels” in a covert operation that turned out to be a colossal failure. Many of these rebels ended up joining al-Qaeda-affiliated groups, effectively meaning that Brennan and his allies armed and funded jihadists.
Beyond his foreign policy disasters, Brennan played a key role in manufacturing and promoting the Russiagate hoax, the greatest intelligence deception of the 21st century. As CIA Director, Brennan was instrumental in pushing the fraudulent Trump-Russia collusion narrative, a baseless conspiracy theory that consumed the media and political class for years. He worked closely with figures in the intelligence community to frame Trump as a Russian asset, despite knowing full well that the so-called evidence was flimsy at best and outright fabricated at worst.
His goal was clear: To delegitimize and undermine an elected president, weaponizing intelligence agencies against a political opponent in a move that smacked of Soviet-style tactics. Brennan openly admitted that he wanted Trump removed, and he used his position to push a false narrative designed to cripple his presidency. In any functioning democracy, such actions would have resulted in legal consequences. Instead, Brennan secured comfortable contracts with outlets like the aforementioned MSNBC.
John Brennan is not a man of wisdom or integrity. He is a failed intelligence officer, a warmonger, and a professional liar. He has been wrong about every major foreign policy decision of the last two decades. When he appears on media outlets to attack the president and vice president for wanting to avoid another prolonged conflict, he does so not from a place of principle but from a place of self-interest. America should not be taking advice from Brennan. It should be investigating him. A man with his record should not be pontificating about diplomacy and democracy. He should be answering for the lives lost and the wars prolonged by his reckless, deceitful policies.