‘Tremendous Own Goal!’ Ex-CIA Officer Warns Morning Joe Trump’s Gaza Idea Is A ‘Counterterrorism Nightmare’

Former ranking CIA officer and NBC national security analyst Marc Polymeropoulos warned that President Donald Trump’s “triggering” idea for the US to “take over” Gaza was a “generational counterterrorism nightmare.”

Trump announced during a press conference Tuesday that the US would “own” and develop Gaza but offered no details on how he envisions assuming control of the territory but declared.

Appearing on Morning Joe on Wednesday, Polymeropoulos told host Mika Brzezinski that in just using the language that he did, Trump will have triggered Islamic extremists and that Americans would be “less safe” as a result.

I think every CIA station chief in the Middle East woke up with a migraine headache because there’s a potential for a generational counterterrorism nightmare here. You have to look at the words that Donald Trump used yesterday, quote, take over Gaza, own Gaza. These are triggering mechanisms for Islamic extremist groups.

Remember Osama Bin Laden’s biggest beef with the United States decades ago was the US troop presence in Saudi Arabia. Al Qaeda in Iraq, same thing, the insurgency based on US troops in Iraq. So this kind of language only is going to galvanize groups that want to kill Americans.

And if I was in the CIA, still in the CIA and the counterterrorism community, I’d be monitoring the Islamic extremist forums, because this is just a tremendous own goal. And I worry that even if these are just words, perhaps part of some strange negotiating gambit, Americans might be less safe now, and I can’t imagine anybody in the CIA or the State Department who would have advocated this approach.

Watch above via MSNBC.