Title: US lacks long-term Middle East strategy
Show: Dialogue Works
Date: 2025-12-12
URL: https://youtu.be/Dnc4DmtWkGw
Duration: 13:00

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[00:00] When you look at the situation in the Middle East today and you you have a lot experience and you know the region, these officers, CIA officers that go to the Middle East, do they have any sort of strategy? Do they know of the US strategy in the Middle East or they're they're giving them some sort of missions, some sort of, you know, duties to to

[00:30] >> right? >> What is that? Because after all, when you are a a CIA officer or someone who's working for CIA, you you just see that as a duty or you want to know a bigger picture of what's going on because >> that's a great question, Nema. That's that's an important question. Um, first of all, most of the officers that the CIA sends to the Middle East um are not Middle East experts and do not speak

[01:01] Arabic. >> Um, almost none of the CIA's officer officers in the Middle East have a longterm view. And it's because the American government usually does not have a long-term view. The CIA has something called operating directives, OD, and it goes from a level zero, which means they're coming over the embassy walls right now, to level five, which means, you know, if you happen to hear anything about, you

[01:33] know, growing corn in Morocco, just send us a a little message. So tier zero level zero is the most important that is like nuclear proliferation uh Iran uh the war in Russia and Ukraine that kind of thing is tier zero tier one means drop what you're doing and focus on this and it's things like terrorism for

[02:04] example uh or threats to an American embassy And then it goes down from there, tier 2, three, four, to the point where it's nobody really cares about the lower tiers. But that's not to say that any of these tiers are for a long-term view. This was one of the things that I enjoyed the most when I was serving in the Middle East as an as an analyst. It's because your job was to look at the long-term view. I was interested in,

[02:34] let's say, Saudi stability over the next 30 years. That's interesting to me. What's not interesting is what's going to happen in the next 24 hours in Sudan, for example. I I I really don't care. But a lot of CIA people do care. And so, they're going to be focused on Sudan in the next 24 hours or the next 48 hours or what happens in the next round of talks in Libya, as another example. um or what's happening is Yemen going to

[03:05] split back into two different Yemens. Um and I think that that frankly it does a disservice to the policy maker because the policymaker for the most part can get that information by reading the New York Times or Al Jazzer or the Washington Post. So the CIA is not adding anything to the body of intelligence. It should be focused on the long term and it's not. And whose decision is that for this sort of policy? >> Is that coming from the president and

[03:37] his office? >> Yeah, it it originates in the National Security Council. So these are supposed to be the issues that are the most um important for the president and for policy makers at that level, the Secretary of State, the Secretary of Defense, the the National Security Adviser. And then those orders come down to the CIA director. and from the C CIA director to the um operational division directors. So every year in December, let's say I'm working for Neareastern

[04:09] operations, the division director is going to say, "Okay, everybody in the near east division, this is what we're going to collect on over the next year. We're going to collect on Iran and the nuclear program and Syria and what's what China's doing in the Middle East, things like that, things that that are the most important. And then if you happen to pick up something that is less important but still interesting, write it down, send it in, and we'll let the analysts have it.

[04:40] Then are they going to do they consider the feedback they're getting from their anal their officers in their for example in the region you see what is their take what is your understanding of what this the situation there because after all when you have someone on the ground gathering information his view his sort of understanding would be important is that >> you are so right you are so right and the the obvious answer should yes, that

[05:10] they're very focused on that. Unfortunately, the true answer is no. They don't care. And I'll give you an example. This is a dated example. I I was writing a paper. I was still on the analytic side. I was writing a paper um that touched on women's uh role in politics in a Middle Eastern country. And there was one woman in particular that I was very interested in because she she was out there in the media all the time, fighting for the women's right

[05:42] to vote and um and a real leader where the international media were seeking her out and getting her opinion and she was very outspoken. She would come to the United States and speak to women's groups. So I sent a cable through uh there's a uh a a tasking office at the CIA. So I went to this tasking office and I said, "I have these eight questions about this woman. Could you send the questions to the station and have the station assign an officer to find the information that I need?" So

[06:14] they did and about 3 weeks later I got a very short cable in response to my questions and it said, "Oh yes, uh, this woman is well known to us. We call her the hot dog lady because we understand that when she was living in the United States, she loved hot dogs. And here in the Middle East, it's hard to find hot dogs. And so she has them shipped from somewhere, Beirut or something. And she likes them with mustard and relish and

[06:46] this and that. And I'm like, "What the [ __ ] are you talking about? This I can't send this to the president." And so I went back to the tasking office and I said, "This was a complete failure to collect the information necessary to send to the president. I can't tell the president in response to his question, should I take this woman seriously because she wants to meet at the White House?" I can't say, "Oh, well, I don't know if you should take her seriously, but she really loves hot dogs and this is what she likes on her hot dogs."

[07:18] That was when I learned that there was a real split between the director of operations and the director of intelligence. And the director of operations was going to do its thing. And it didn't care what the director of intelligence was writing and sending to the president. >> Yeah. John, one of the the reason I ask you this question is the situation in Ukraine because we know what's going on in Ukraine in terms of the what is happening to the military of Ukraine is you know Russia is somehow

[07:52] advancing underground but how how do you see the role of the CIA in gathering information from Ukraine on the ground, the information that are firthand information. I'm not talking about they're getting it from, you know, British or any other intelligence. Are they really getting the information directly from from Ukraine or they're getting through these channels? It's

[08:24] it's my understanding that there are CIA officers, senior CIA officers stationed inside the Ukrainian intelligence service to provide support and liaison. Uh and there are CIA officers on the ground with Ukrainian um military or special forces units. In addition, we know that the CIA is training Ukrainian uh military officers here in the United States at bases in te Texas and I think North Carolina. Uh so yeah, the the CIA

[08:56] is getting the information directly from the horse's mouth. But uh but the Ukrainians are losing. This war is untenable. Every observer will tell you that the Russians control the the line of demarcation and in the end CIA or no CIA, the Ukrainians are going to have to come to some kind of an agreement with the Russians. This is one of those situations, Nema, where the CIA is not going to be able to to win this thing

[09:28] for for the Ukrainians. This is going to have to be between the Russians and the Ukrainians. And sure, CIA help may have may have delayed a Russian victory, may have cost the Russians, you know, more casualties, but it can't go on forever. >> Yeah. John, we know what has happened in 2014 in Ukraine with the coup, >> but do you see the same sort of policy

[10:00] happening in the aftermath of any Ukrainian settlement? Because what Russia sees in Ukraine today is they want a permanent solution to the case of Ukraine and a security architecture for the region. You you cannot you know make obstacles for CIA, MI6 or these intelligence. So Russian intelligence as well. They're doing their job. You know it's it's common. It's you know it's normal to do that. But when it comes to the

[10:30] securities of these superpowers, you have to have some sort of limitation to the activities that you're, you know, committed to. Is that going to be considered? Do you do you see that sort of will in the Trump administration to consider that? >> I think so. I agree with you. Whatever solution the two sides come to, in the end, it has to be a permanent solution. And I think we've seen the indications of what that solution is going to be. It's going

[11:02] to have to be that the Russians keep Donetsk, Luhansk, uh, Kerone, Crimea. The Russian speaking areas that they control de facto now, I think they'll end up controlling uh, uh, formally once this is over. I think that another Russian red line is that Ukraine cannot ever be a member of NATO. But that's a misnomer, Nema, because Ukraine doesn't have to be a

[11:33] member of NATO. Uh Australia is not a member of NATO. Japan, South Korea, Saudi Arabia, UAE, they're not members of NATO. They're what's called major non-NATO allies. That's an official status. And I wouldn't be surprised if the United States agrees with the Russians that no, Ukraine should not be a member of NATO. It will never be a member of NATO, but it could be granted major non-NATO ally status, thus giving it essentially the same rights as a NATO

[12:05] country. And I think what the Russians will concede is that Ukraine will get fasttrack um uh membership in the European Union. And then the EU begins the rebuilding of Ukraine >> and that's going to be the end of it. But I I really do believe that we're nearing the end and the end is not going to be what the United States and Ukraine have hoped for, but it's going to be enough to put this thing to to

[12:35] rest. >> Yeah. Many people believe, at least in our audience, that CIA is part of deep state. CIA is, you know, do you think that the leadership usually in CIA is part of the establishment or the the establishment has a lot of leverage on CIA in the way that they're using CIA? >> No, I I I agree that there is a deep state and the CIA's an important

[13:06] probably the most important part of the deep state. But let's let's define what a deep state is. In my view, a deep state is a group of unelected, very powerful bureaucrats that can do what the president wants or they can ignore what the president wants because presidents come and go every four years or every eight years. And these deep state leaders are in their positions for 20, 30, even 35 years. Presidents come and go and these deep

[13:37] sters remain. And so if there's a policy that a president supports or wants and it's a policy that the deep state leadership does not like, they just wait until the president's not president anymore.
