Israel gives CIA chief Burns dossier claiming Iran's Raisi is 'demented extremist'
US foreign intelligence chief visits ME at time of great tension between Jewish state, Islamic Republic
CIA Director William Burns arrived in Israel Tuesday for talks focused on Iran and its destabilizing operations in the Middle East, which included Jerusalem reportedly providing documentation that painted Iran's new president as a "deranged misfit," according to The Times of Israel.
No specific information was released about Burns' trip, although the Walla news agency said that he would meet with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, new Mossad chief David Barnea, as well as other senior intelligence officials.
In the meeting with Barnea, the Israeli presented Burns with a dossier detailing that Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi was untrustworthy and incapable of sticking to any nuclear deal. Burns was a key figure in driving the attempted rapprochement with Iran, culminating in the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal.
Raisi, an ultra-conservative former judiciary head who was Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s choice for the role in an election that witnessed a very low turnout, and has been accused of ordering the execution of thousands of prisoners toward the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1988, providing him with the nickname the "Butcher or Hangman of Tehran."
Burns' visit coincides with a marked uptick in tensions between the Jewish state and the Islamic Republic, with the so-called shadow war seemingly breaking out into more direct conflict. The recent attack on the Israeli-owned merchant vessel Mercer Street in the Gulf of Oman has been attributed to Iran, via a drone launched from Yemen.