Something is changing in our country, and most
people feel it before they can explain it. Hello,
you're listening to the Steady State Sentinel
from the Steady State. I'm Jim Lawler, a former
senior CIA operations officer. I've worked some
of the most sensitive counterproliferation and
espionage cases in the agency's history. And
today, I'm pleased to say that I'm joined by
my friend and former CIA colleague, Mark Fowler.
Mark is a decorated CIA case officer and one
of the most experienced Iranian operations officers
of his generation. He's a Middle Eastern expert.
He's a veteran of the U .S. war on terror. He's
an Iran specialist. And he's a Farsi speaker.
And Farsi is not an easy language. Mark, you
spent 22 years at CIA, and you rose to be the
number two position on Iran operations. So for
our listeners who may not fully appreciate what
that means, what does an Iran operations officer
actually do, and what makes Iran such a uniquely
demanding target? Well, thanks, Jim. Pleasure
to be here. Happy to participate in steady state
issues. Yeah, in terms of... I was an Iran specialist,
as we call it. I don't use the term expert because
that's probably a little bit of hubris. But at
the same time, how are you ever a true expert
on something as complicated and nuanced as Iran?
But I was a specialist in terms of. Iran operations
officers. I was specifically an Iran operations
officer. And what that means is where you're
a case officer like everybody else, like you
were, like most officers are within the agency.
But I had a specific specialty in my back pocket,
if you will, that I could focus on under certain
circumstances, depending on what I was working
on at the time. For example, my first tour was
actually specifically on Iran only. I spent a
number of years basically flying around the world,
chasing Iranians, if you will. And at different
times in my career, I did regular case officer
work. against normal targets as you did. But
I always seem to come back to the Iranian specialists.
It's like people who are Chinese experts or Russian
experts or Korean or whatever, North Korean,
if they have the language, usually they bring
you back to it because it's a little bit unusual.
It's hard to get the language, as you said. So
most Iranian ops officers. have Farsi. Not all
of them, actually. It's not 100 % required, but
it's a good idea. Obviously, if there's someone
who doesn't speak any English at all, you need
to be able to speak Farsi, and you need to be
able to speak Farsi well. So that's what an Iran
operations officer is, a regular operations officer
at CIA with a specialty in their back pocket,
if you will. OK. And what made Iran such a such
a uniquely demanding target, such a difficult
target or maybe it's not a difficult target?
Give me your opinion and tell me what you think
on that. Well, I mean, it's a hard target, as
we call them. You know, it's up there with the
harder targets. But the reason a lot of the reason
for that is not simply they're so hard to recruit.
It's not that they're easy, but. Well, we don't
have a presence inside Iran, obviously, since
79, when the embassy closed down after they took
the hostages. So basically, a lot of the hardest
part of working on Iran is actually getting to
them, getting to an individual. It's not, it's
normally not going to be like your, you know,
your six month, year, two years developmental
process. in terms of how we might normally do
something, like a lot of what you did, simply
because you don't have time on target. So a lot
of these were walk -ins. A lot of these were,
I want to call them cold pitches, which is kind
of like when you walk up to someone and say,
you know, I know about you, we want you to work
with us, et cetera, et cetera. That actually
didn't work very well most of the time. But it
made it hard. The hardest part was getting to
them, actually recruiting them. Not easy, but
certainly probably easier than some because so
many Iranians have antipathy towards their government.
They love their country. They love their culture.
But they do not like the regime. A lot of them.
Obviously, some do. They're invested and they're
highly and they're also scared. They're scared
of the regime. So getting them to actually even
consider talking to you could be hard. You're
right. I sometimes chafe at the description of
some particular nationality as being a hard target.
I think most targets are human beings that will
respond to human problems. What's hard is what
you just described, hard access. you know, getting
the access to them. Once you've got the access
to them, especially if you can get some sustained
access, I think they're just like anybody else.
So I'm glad that you clarified that for us. And
I noted earlier that you're a Farsi speaker.
How much did your language ability shape your
ability to understand the Iranian mindset, not
just communication, but read the culture and
the regime? Tell us about that. Yeah, it's very
important. You can't learn a language, truly
learn a language without understanding the culture
and the history. It's sort of part and parcel
of the same process. Normally, when we take a
language, I didn't come in with Farsi. It's not
there's not that many people who look like me,
frankly, who speak Farsi. So I got it when I
got into the agency. That's a whole nother story
how I got there. Serendipitous. But when you
sit for, you know. months and months and months
up to a year. Sometimes it's two years for programs.
It's more of a year -long program. When you sit
that long with native speaking, obviously Iranian
language instructors, you talk about so many
different things, just learning the language.
So you have to know the history. You have to
know the mentality. You have to know the culture.
And it's very important, especially with a target
or a country like Iran, because of their long
history, thousands of years of history. magnificent
history in some cases, some really tremendous
things they've done over the years. It's been
a while since they've had a regime like that.
You know, they go back to Cyrus, to Great Darius,
et cetera. But it's been a while since they've
had a government that they could be proud of.
But you have to understand their culture and
their history because it's always going to come
up. And even recent history, the whole issue
of Mossadegh in 53, the overthrow of the elected
government or prime minister. I don't remember
almost any case where I was working with somebody,
an Iranian, who didn't at least mention that.
So why did you do that? It was always a question.
Of course, I would say long before my time, but
needless to say, it always came up. You had to
understand what it was about. You don't want
to get lost in that because we're not talking
about what happened. 50 years ago or a couple
of hundred years ago. We're talking about what's
happening now. But you certainly need to understand,
and it also helps them feel confidence in you,
that you are a person they can talk to and who
understands where they're coming from. That's
very important. It's part of the empathy of being
a good case officer, frankly. I think part of
our mistake in tackling the Iranian problem has
sometimes been underestimating them. We forget
the fact that Iranians... at least Persians,
invented whole fields of mathematics when...
Some of our ancestors were still painting their
faces blue. Exactly. These people are incredibly
bright. You look around at a lot of the expatriate
Iranians in the United States, and they're frequently
doctors, they're physicians, they're financiers.
They're incredibly bright people. And I think
we make a mistake sometimes when we say, well,
these people are backwards or something like
that. They're not at all. Not at all. No. They're
very, very bright. They're very bright. They're
very accomplished. very, very, very proud. That's
a big word, madrur, pride. Exactly. So their
country, the current regime, the Islamic Republic,
it's survived now for over 45 years, and sure,
it's had its internal dissent, economic pressure,
repeated confrontations with the West. But from
your vantage point, what has kept this regime
in power when so many folks have predicted its
collapse? Yeah, that's a good question. First
of all, they did things inside Iran with their
own country. It wasn't all bad, let me put it
that way. They did things like they improved
transportation, they improved health, they improved
education. Fluency in reading, et cetera, is
very high, even among women. It's not like the
Taliban or something like that. Even if they
cover their hair, that doesn't mean they're not
educated. You meet many Iranian women who are
doctors or PhDs or certainly college educated.
So they did a lot of good things over the years.
But what they did was they gave them certain
things they could do, and they gave them internet,
et cetera, et cetera, to the world. So they gave
them access. But they used... social moors as
a sort of a safety valve. So that allowed them
to sort of like let off pressure or increase
pressure depending on what was going on inside
Iran. And in terms of surviving from external
threats, it's simply because they've... One of
the things that was very important was the Iran
-Iraq War, obviously. That's when the IRGC, the
Revolutionary Guards, came into being, and that
really formed the core. And we're still seeing
people at the highest levels of the IRGC, the
Revolutionary Guards, who fought in the Iraq
War. In fact, that's many of the leaders there
right now. Most of the leadership that was there
before the revolution or as the revolution happened,
most of them are gone. Not all of them, but a
lot of them. And so they're smart about how they
approach this. They're a big country. They're
powerful in their own way. They are strong internally.
And they're very smart about how they do this.
One of the ways they've actually been able to
survive is through their proxy network and also
self -sufficiency. They don't want to count on
anybody because they've come to believe they
can't count on anybody. And you could make that
argument. And so they make their own weapons.
They have their own industrial weapons industry.
And also the proxies have helped them sort of
like push out the threat to others to keep others
at bay. Hezbollah, of course, is focused on.
Israel. The Houthis, they're pretty new. They're
pretty new. Iraq, they came in and it helped.
It just provides them with a defensive circle,
if you will, almost like a picket line, and it
pushes it farther out. So it makes it harder
for people to, for other countries to sort of
threaten them, if you will. We're seeing a little
different situation right now. But, you know,
for many, many years, they were very adept at
managing internal internal opposition and internal
protests. We've seen that recently in the last
several decades, almost a regular series of major
protests. The most recent one, of course, was
just before the war started, essentially. And
they'll let them go on at a certain point until
they get out of hand, but they're willing to
kill their own people to do that. And that's
really the key in terms of putting down protests
within the country. And what they usually do
is they'll The Internet's there, of course, and
they'll use the Internet initially to gather
information on the leadership, if you will, the
social apps and everything. And they'll figure
out who the leaders are because they're using
these to gather, et cetera, et cetera, because
they can monitor everything on the Internet.
It has to go through central points. And then
they'll shut off the Internet and then they'll
go after the leadership. So they're able to sort
of identify and crush. the leaders that do appear
from among the people, if you will. It's not
external. It's internal. And frankly, they're
just really good at survival. And their focus
has always been the regime itself. And they've
done certain things for the population. Like
I mentioned before, the standard of living was
rising and rising. But at the same time, They
were also, things came home to roost, if you
will. The high inflation, the environmental issues
they're suffering, and of course, their hostility
towards Israel and others in the region has brought
down war on them, if you will. So one of the
reasons they've been able to manage internally
very well, which is really the biggest threat,
that's what scares them the most. Other than...
A full -scale invasion by the U .S., I guess,
boots on the ground, but we're not talking a
couple of dozen soldiers. We're talking hundreds
of thousands. That's what it would take. That
scares them. But the other thing that scares
them is the streets in Tehran, because that's
where they came from. So that's where they focus
most of their effort, and that's how they managed
to survive for so long. If you were to just take
a wild guess, what... Do you think what percentage
of the Iranian population supports the current
regime or at least is silent about it? What percentage
would actually strongly supports the current
regime? Just do you take a guess or do you know?
I mean, I don't really know, but I would say
it's probably in the range of 20 ish or, you
know, something like that. I mean, it's real
hard to tell. I mean, to get obviously polling
data, but it's. But that's still a lot of people.
I mean, you know, it's like 20 million -ish or
something like that, a little less. And that's
a lot of people. And some of them are really
completely invested and embedded within the regime.
Others are simply going along to get along. They're
sort of they have relatives or they're doing
OK and it's all right. And it doesn't really
affect their or didn't in the past. Things are
different now, obviously. So they they sort of
just. They don't get involved in politics. It's
kind of like things were in Iraq for years. I
talked to Iraqis, and they were not happy with
it. But they said, as long as we stay out of
politics, life is not that bad for a lot of Iraqis.
It got worse, obviously. Things changed. But
similar in Iran, life has been in the past. It's
changed. But it was getting really bad in the
lead up to the war. The environmental issues
were really, they were running out of water,
literally. And obviously, power, et cetera, hydroelectric
power. There were a lot of things that were really
coming to a head when this war came along. And
sadly, the 20 percent you describe as either
regime supporters or at least tacit supporters,
they're the ones who have the weapons and the
guns. Exactly. Exactly. I used to laugh that
it's not a joke, but especially people like the
Basij who are the sort of the street thugs that
they use. They're almost like a reserve. A lot
of these people are in some are, you know, completely
because they come from the villages. A lot of
these people, they're less educated and et cetera,
not illiterate, but less educated. a joke that
a lot of them were in this because they got dental
and they got benefits, literally special stores
they could shop at. You know, they got consideration
for jobs and other things. And and, you know,
how it is a lot of people in the communist regimes
as they were. They didn't really they were communists
only or BAF party members, because that's the
only way they could get a decent job. They didn't
believe in it. They didn't truly support it.
But they knew the only way that they could sort
of. take advantage of what was out there, and
there were things out there, was to be a member,
at least outwardly. Yeah. Now, I know we have
fond memories of you serving as the chief of
station in that region. We worked together on
some things, very successful things, and your
support was key. But without getting into anything
you... reluctant to discuss. How did allied intelligence
services view Iran differently than we did? And
where did those differences matter? Is there
anything, any comment on that? Yeah. Yeah, there
were, obviously in the region, the Iranians are
a boogeyman, but there's an issue that a lot
of this was, first of all, they were terrified
of the Iranians. Let's be very, very clear about
that in the sense of what the threat actually
was. Early on after the revolution, the Iranians,
and they announced it, they were going to export
the revolution. And obviously the revolution
is the Shia revolution, not a Sunni revolution.
Shias are about 15 % of the Muslim world, more
or less there. They're a persecuted minority.
They have been for a couple thousand years since
Islam came along and the split a couple of hundred
years later. And so most of these, the countries
in that region, most of them are Sunni, first
of all, almost all of them are. Iraq is an example.
You know, they were run by Sunnis, but they were
two -thirds -ish Shia. But they were terrified
of these guys and what they could do. They knew
they had capabilities, real capabilities. And
a lot of them, frankly, I love a lot of the other
people that I worked with, but they just didn't
have the capabilities, at least not the same
way. They couldn't do stuff. the way the Iranians
could do stuff on their own. So they, and they
approached sort of the Iran issue as much as
anything through the lens of Sunni Shia, the
Sunni Shia history, which is, it was difficult
to break through that because of course, you
know, they were Sunni and those guys are Shia
and there's a lot of history there. And so you
kind of had to punch through that to actually
talk to them because frankly. I mean, obviously,
I'm a Christian, you're a Christian, and we're
dealing with Shia, they're Muslims, and it's
like, ah, you know. No, we never talked about
religion, or at least barely. That was not the
issue. So they had a hard time kind of punching
through the religious piece to get to the actual
pieces that mattered, which were nationalism,
I love my country, I love my culture, I hate
this regime, they killed my brother, or, you
know, my kids, I want them to have a future,
et cetera, et cetera. terrified, and trying to
get them to look around the lens of the Sunni
-Shia conflict, because they didn't know what
to do. They just didn't know how to get past
that half the time, so it kind of stymied them,
to be frank. Okay. The Islamic Revolutionary
Guard Corps and the intelligence apparatus that's
around Khamenei, Khamenei Jr., they're often
described as a state within a state. How did
that internal power structure complicate both
collection, basically recruiting and analysis.
Yeah. It was both a challenge and frankly, a
bit of a vulnerability for them. Obviously, there's
massive internal security organizations. There
was the MOIS, the Ministry of Intelligence and
Security. They call it MI, Ministry of Intelligence.
They always used to say, what's this MOIS stuff?
We're MI. But, yeah, I know. It's just like that's
how we are. We think about it that way. They
have another way of looking at it. When they
first, they didn't dissolve them. They were the
former SAVAK guys, and they went through a couple
of iterations until they sort of landed on that.
And the IRGC grew up, and initially they were
simply the guardians of the revolution, and they've
developed tremendously, and they have their own
intelligence organizations. Where it really becomes
tricky, to say the least, and very difficult,
is all of these organizations. have their own
counterintelligence, counterespionage apparatuses
for a variety of reasons. And it's a question
of the MOIS is involved in internal security
less and less over the years, simply because
of the growth of the IRGC and the besiege. But
there's a tremendous, there's overlap, but also
compartmentation. They didn't really talk to
each other. But frankly, Part of the challenge
was there were just so many people working on
counterintelligence. And they're not stupid.
They know who we're interested in. They know
who the people are, pretty much, that we're looking
at. And we weren't there. And they would look
at people who traveled and or had at least the
potential to be contacted. And it provided them
with a shortened list of who they should be keeping
an eye on, if you will. And they did. There were
ways to get around it, as you know. But it was
tricky and it was difficult. One thing to keep
in mind, even at the revolution, the Savak guys,
the counterintelligence people were trained by
the Russians, so they were good. They actually
knew what they were doing. They actually kept
those guys around, most of them, not all of them,
but they kept a group of that around, and those
guys trained. subsequent counterintelligence,
counterespionage cadres. So they had good grounding
in their training, and they got better training
over the years. And they're very good. It's like
the whole issue of the spy den books. They basically
weave together all these cables that we tried
to shred, like carpet. like making carpets, et
cetera. And so they're very patient. They're
very detail -oriented when they want to be. But
okay, at the same time, vulnerabilities, different
groups, very, very much sometimes at odds with
each other. A lot of the MOIS, MI guys. felt
like they were sort of being pushed aside and
or ultimately they were going to be dissolved,
if you will, you know, taken out, not physically
necessarily, but as an organization. So there
was a lot of rivalry there. And I mean, strong
rivalry. When things got really bad as they are
probably right now, they kind of. came together
and worked together. But otherwise, half the
time they were fighting against each other as
much as anything. So that provided opportunities.
So does that make sense? It's kind of both sides.
No, that's fascinating. It's something, you know,
that we're always looking at is the SVR cooperating
with the GRU or loggerheads jealous. I mean,
yeah, exactly. So in 2004, you were the Director
of Operations Senior Representative to the WMD
Commission following the Iraq WMD failure. And
I know that had to be a sobering assignment.
What did that experience, though, teach you about
the dangers, really dangers, of mirror imaging
and analytical assumptions? And how should those
lessons apply to how we assess, say, Iran's nuclear
intentions today? Yeah, that's a good question.
That's a hard one. Yeah, the whole WMD thing
was interesting. I actually just wrote an article
on that in my sub stack, and it referenced that.
It wasn't on that whole issue, but it was about
the misuse of intelligence, if you will, following
the president's speech last week on domestic,
when he released the documents, et cetera. It's
around that. That's a whole other issue. Yes,
it was a massive failure on our part, if you
will. I was still in the field. I'll just say
that right up front. I wasn't involved in the
actual, you know, the lead up to the war. I came
in the summer of 2003 and took over as number
two on CIA for Iraq. And then I watched the whole
thing collapse later on due to a whole nother
set of things. But yes, we mirror image them
to an extent that was just astounding, frankly.
I'll tell you a quick story. on the Iraq side
is I was talking to one of the most senior WMD
leaders from Iraq. He wasn't on the cards. He
wasn't on the deck of cards, but he was a guy
we all wanted to, and we were talking to him.
And frankly, he told us there is no WMD and we
didn't believe him, but it turned out he was
true. It was true because obviously there wasn't.
But we put, I don't know if you remember the
guy with the aluminum tubes. I can't remember
his name. I want to say Joe, but whatever. But
he was 100%, 1 ,000 % convinced that these aluminum
tubes that the Iraqis were buying could be used,
therefore were being used for centrifuges. And
that's centrifuges. And you know all about that.
I know you do. And we put this guy, and this
is after the war, we're inside, et cetera, obviously,
and looking desperately, increasingly desperately
for the WMDs here somewhere still. He came out
and talked. I put him in front of this gentleman,
if you will, very senior, actually very educated,
highly educated man, spoke perfect English. I
put him in front of him and I let them talk.
I just let him, I just. I didn't even sit there
and listen the whole time because it was very
technical. And our guy made the entire case for
the tubes, et cetera, and all the reasons and
all the analytical stuff and all his reasoning
why this was this. And I remember the doctor
saying, well, you know what? He says, I understand
how you might have come to that conclusion, but
you're wrong. That's not the case. You came to
a faulty conclusion. It was that simple. So we
did. completely mirror image what we thought.
They had it. They used it. They would never get
rid of it. Therefore, they must still have it,
et cetera, et cetera. And the other thing he
explained, and this may, I'm jumping a little
bit. He said one of the reasons, and they did
get rid of it. And as we know, they actually
got rid of their WMD, including their nuclear
program. They buried a couple of centrifuges
or whatever it was, something that's pretty much
all they had left, if I remember correctly. I
said, why did you get rid of it? He said, well,
Saddam, obviously, the regime, realized that
the use of WMD, especially nuclear, but almost
any WMD, was a regime -ending incident. In other
words, if we do that, us, and probably the Israelis
as well, understandably, it would end the regime.
And that kind of, I think, flows into the next
issue of lessons learned in how looking at the
Iranians. taunting us for several decades now
with, you know, we have a right, technically
they do, right, under the non -proliferation
treaty. Technically, they have a right to enrich,
if I'm not mistaken. And you know more about
that than I do. But that doesn't mean they should
or how they're doing it, and certainly not to
the levels they were at recently. They were taunting
us with this for years and they were playing
a dangerous game, but they were, we need to be
careful how we look at this. What are they actually
looking for? Do they actually think they need
a nuclear weapon? We keep saying, oh, now they
do. Well, I'm not so sure because as people are
saying, they have a weapon of mass destruction
now, which is the Strait of Hormuz. They don't
really need a nuclear weapon per se. We'll see.
We need to keep an eye on that as well. And that's
where intelligence comes in, as we know. Sometimes
you really need to dig really deep to get to
the plans and the intentions just because they're
enriching to a much higher level than they need.
Some of that's just taunting or I can do this.
And it's almost like touching a hot stove, you
know, dare me, dare me, dare me. And that's what
they're doing. And they're paying a price now
for that to a degree. But we have to be careful.
not to over -analyze what they're doing as well,
not to attribute, okay, this is what it would
mean to this. If we're enriching this, there's
no reason otherwise. So obviously they must be
going for a nuclear weapon. Not necessarily.
It's a lot more nuanced here. It's like, we have
the right, therefore we could do it. And of course,
the whole history of President Trump abrogating
the JCPOA, which was, as far as I understand
it, We had them pretty much under control, at
least in terms of the very intrusive inspections,
etc. They were doing what they were supposed
to be doing, at least at that time. So does that
make sense? We need to be careful not to attribute
this, this and this. I used to call it must be
intelligence. And it's like we know this and
we know this and we see this and we see this.
Therefore, it must be that. And we have to be
very careful. We did that in Iraq. We have to
be very careful. um not to over i want to say
overreact but we need to be careful how we attribute
that um with iran because it's not easy as we
see right now we're people say we're stuck we
are kind of stuck it's a stalemate to a degree
but uh yeah does that make sense no it makes
that makes incredible sense one of my other good
cia friends once laughingly said, you know, we
probably have more analysts studying the Iranian
nuclear program than there are people in the
Iranian nuclear program. Right. Well, you know,
as you know, it's like, it's really hard to get
inside and to figure out what's going on. There's
ways to do it and it can be done. But then again,
you've got, you know, you've got what they're
doing and then you've got, what are their actual
intentions? And that's where, you know, that's
where we, That's where we shine in my historically.
You try at least to get to the point where, OK,
they're doing all this stuff and they actually
have, you know, a bunch of enriched uranium,
which is virtually weapons grade. Do they have
a weapon, an actual device? Do they have a way
of delivering this other than putting in the
back of a boat or on a donkey and literally,
you know, walking it into the city or something
like that? You know, missile. That's a whole
different issue. you know, getting it to the
size where they could put it on a missile, as
you well know. So, I mean, this is these are
very complicated, very involved processes. And
just because they're doing that doesn't necessarily.
Not that we should allow that. I'm not saying
we should. We cannot let this one. The only time
I'm probably going to ever agree with President
Trump on this, we can't allow them to have a
nuclear weapon. But it's not that simple. And
we that doesn't justify, in my view, what what's
recently happened. But we have to be careful
not to attribute what we would do to them. So,
yeah. Okay, so this is going to be a really impossible
question to answer. Oh, thanks. Yeah, I know.
I know. I'm your buddy, Mark. I love you too
much, Jim. Yeah, I know. You've been writing
in your Substack column about the current U .S.-Iranian
conflict, and it changes every day. If we had
recorded this a couple of weeks ago, you'd have
said one thing, and now I'm sure you're going
to say another. Give us kind of a thumbnail.
Where do you think we are? And you've made the
point about... negotiating with Iranians is like
negotiating with somebody in the bazaar. Can
you give us some of your thoughts on this? Yeah,
thanks a lot for that question. There are graveyards
full of analysts trying to predict what Iran
is going to do. Yeah, we're not in a good place.
Obviously, as the administration says, you know,
we've taken out this, we've taken out that. The
Navy doesn't matter. It never did. You know,
they got some small boats left, but even without
those. You know, you could get a fishing dow
to do some of these things as well. But they've
still got, obviously, they've still got some
missiles. I don't know how many, but there are
certainly some missiles left. And the drones
are probably the thing that they could just make
those in a shack someplace at this point. And
they have thousands of those, as far as I know.
We're kind of stuck in a dead end, but it can't
stay there. First of all, it appears the administration
is primarily focused on... reopening the Strait
of Hormuz, which is understandable. The fact
that it was never closed in the first place,
a whole different issue. That's probably a whole
other podcast to talk about that. But the fact
is, it will open at some point, somehow. The
Iranians need it open as well. There's only so
long they can't go indefinitely. I'm not sure
we can stand the pain longer than they can. That's
another issue. I think I wrote an article, a
sub stack on this, and it was saying, basically,
I think we do need to make sure we either blunt
and or diminish or take out completely their
ability along the coast to control the Strait
of Hormuz. We need to do that. As long as they've
got that capability of lobbing a drone or a missile
or whatever, cruise missile at a passing oil
tanker, they're going to control the state. the
straight because, you know, insurance costs and
everything else. So we're in a difficult position.
And I think right now we're sort of in an escalatory
loop, if you will. And when the MOU came out,
which was a disaster, frankly, I've got to be
honest with you. I don't know how the Iranians
were actually, as far as I can see, more or less
interpreting the MOU as it was written. They
had. a right to control the straight to some
degree, because that's how it was written. I
don't know how they came away with an MOU so
overly advantaged to Iran. It was truly ridiculous.
And the one thing I said is, this MOU guarantees
we'll be back. Well, we're back already. It wasn't
clear that it was going to be quite this quickly.
So you're saying, in a sense, the Iranians were
very content with the MOU the United States had
helped draft. Well, yeah, they got it said it
gave them almost everything. It said sovereignty.
It mentioned Hezbollah in Lebanon or Lebanon.
It mentioned, you know. No more interference
in sovereign affairs. It mentioned after 60 days,
Oman and us get to sort of work out the administration
of the—now, it didn't say we're going to charge
tolls, but this gave them—they must have been
flabbergasted when we accepted it and the president
signed it. I don't know. He must not have read
it. That's all I can say. I guess he doesn't
read very much, but he should have read this
one because it's so clear that it essentially
gave them permission. to in some manner have
administered the Strait of Hormuz. Now, that's
where they interpreted more for tolls, et cetera,
et cetera. But we gave them permission. I don't
understand how our negotiators, such as they
are. allowed that to be the document that we
accepted. Maybe this is the secret of the art
of the deal. You just give your opponent what
he wants. I guess. I mean, and then you don't
pay him later on. Maybe that's the way things
work. You fool them into it. So, I mean, we're
in a tough spot right now. And people say it,
and I've said it many times, and I've been writing
on this for several months now in my sub stack,
but I called it Groundhog Day, and then I did
Groundhog Day 2. You know, we're back to where
we are because... the way they went to this in
the first place. And we're in a tough spot. And
I'm not sure how it's going to go. I don't think
we can escalate indefinitely, obviously. And
if we start to hit civilian targets the way discussions
have been sort of out there, that's a really
tricky path to go down. I got to be honest with
you. I hate almost hesitate to use this term,
but when you say if you hit, you know, if you
hit a ship or hit something, we're going to take
out this, you know, that is civilian, a bridge,
a power plant, et cetera, et cetera. They're
saying it's dual use. There's a little bit of
a hint, a whiff of collective punishment going
on there. And I hate to say that, but they need
to be very careful where they go with this kind
of thing. So I think we're going to have to get
back to the table. The administration is going
to have to accept them, frankly, really hard.
They're going to have to drink the poison like
Khomeini did after the Iran -Iraq war. They're
going to have to take a deal they really don't
want to take, I guess, because I don't know if
he's capable of doing that because he could pretend
it was a good deal, but it's not going to be
a good deal. And we're going to have to come
back in the future in terms of the actual issues,
because it doesn't really talk about the nuclear
program. Or it kind of makes references, I think,
to the nuclear program and maybe even some inspections
if I'm I don't have it here in front of me. But
there's a lot of ways that can be interpreted.
And, you know, so we're going to have to eat
some crow that all these words have been used
out there. But we're going to have to the president's
going to have to admit he won't admit he's wrong,
but he's going to have to take a deal that is
overly advantaged towards the Iranians. And we're
probably going to have to come back at a later
date to address. all these issues that we can't
address now. And whether that's militarily or
otherwise, you know, I'm not sure that's a satisfactory
answer. It's not. I think it's about as good
as we can do. And so I'm going to switch gears
now. And I want to talk about your debut novel,
A Prince of Mirrors, which draws heavily on your
CIA experience and which I'm enjoying reading
as I say this. Without giving away too much,
what truth about the intelligence business did
you most want to convey through fiction that
you couldn't say in any other form? Give us a
few words about your book. Yeah, we've talked
about our fiction writing and it's kind of cathartic.
And I think you said that and I 100 percent agree.
It allows us to talk about things that we did,
saw, heard about, you know, et cetera, in a way
that, you know, it allows us to portray these
things and sort of get it off our chest, if you
will. A lot of what I focused on and, you know,
the subtitle, it's called A Prince of Mirrors.
which is, well, it's a historical thing. It was
a document written by an old Persian prince years
ago, thousands of years ago. But a CIA odyssey
of trust and betrayal. It's the dichotomy between,
for CIA officers or handlers, frankly, DIA too,
anybody who's a human, a real human officer,
is the sort of dichotomy between handling assets
and it's the trust and the suspicion, et cetera.
You have to develop trust with the people in
order for them to trust you. And then also for
us to trust them enough that their information
is vetted and valuable, can be used. But it's
very, very, it's difficult. It's a constant dance,
if you will, going back and forth, you know,
because I always just, a lot of people think,
oh, we're, you know, CIA, you're just a bunch
of liars. You always lie about everything. Actually,
no, we use lies to get maybe in front of them.
But I always used to. And it's in the book. And
one of the things is, you want to get to the
point where you're dealing only in truths, real
truths, deep truths. And I'm talking about with
assets. And I saw this very often. Iranians are
very suspicious. And they, you know, CIA and
America looms very large in their minds and their
history, because Mossadegh and Shah and all the
rest of it. And the British before us, you know,
all that. We live very large and they're very
suspicious because, frankly, they've been they
have been taken advantage of for many, many years,
decades and hundreds of years recently. And they
always used to tell me, I know what you're going
to do. You're going to use me like a Kleenex
and throw me away, which is a horrible image.
But they used to really think that. And so I
would spend a lot of time dealing with them to.
prove that they could actually take what I said
to the bank, if you will. I mean, literally sometimes,
but also. I wanted to be able to get to the point
where I was telling them the truth, that they
would say, I want to do this or I want to go
to America. I said, no, that's not going to happen.
I didn't say, oh, sure, I can make that happen.
I said, maybe you can at some point later on
down the road. But I was very honest as much
as I could be. And so that's part of what the
book is about. It's about how you work with assets.
They all have different motivations. Some of
them are more transactional than others. Sometimes
it's like. I'll give you the money. I'll give
you the information. You give me the money. Others,
it's like I have a family, my country. I love
my country. They're destroying my country. They're
holding us back, these damn mullahs. And I've
just been, others, like one of the characters
is a Quds Force officer who's just so disappointed
in his country after giving so much during the
Iran -Iraq war and heavily wounded, et cetera.
And now he's seen what the regime has become.
So it focuses on what it's like. like from the
CIA side in terms of being a case officer and
a handler and the difficulties and the inherent
difficulties and how this can tear at you, frankly,
because you are doing things, you are manipulating
people, and sometimes you're sending them not
to their deaths. I don't want to put it that
way, but sometimes they die. You are sending
them into very dangerous situations. And at the
same time, I try to portray from the other side
based on my pretty pretty extensive experience
dealing with Iranians and a lot of assets, how
they think about it and what they do and why
they do it and what it means to them. Yeah, you
know, like you, Mark, I never made any promises
to my assets that I felt I couldn't keep. I always,
I think, you know, this is the foundation of
any relationship is trust. And that goes both
ways. I had to trust them and they had to trust
me. And I wouldn't make commitments I couldn't
keep. So you're already working on your second
novel, a second protocol. Can you give us a small
taste of which way you're headed with that one?
Yeah, it's a second in the series. The primary
character, the protagonist in my first is Victoria
Vick O 'Bannon, her name. She's a CIA case officer.
She and an Iran specialist. And we do have them.
It's not impossible. It's not easy, but it's
not impossible. I knew. Some and they were extremely
accomplished. And we've both known female case
officers who were just like unbelievable. And
they could do everything and sometimes a little
differently. But man, could they do the job?
Bottom line is the second novel is the first
novel is mostly with her, mostly with her outside
working from, you know, remotely into into into
her assets. And the second one, she's actually
in Tehran for for most of the. actual book. And
it's a whole story. And it brings together Iran
and China. There's a China, major China angle
there, and a threat to the United States, kind
of a cyber weapon kind of thing. And so it's,
without giving too much away, she has to go in
and work with a variety of people. And there's
lots of surprises along the way, but she needs
to stop and or steal. this cyber weapon being
developed by the Chinese and the Iranians. Well,
I can't wait to read that one. That one sends
chills up my back just thinking about it. It's
pretty good. A CIA officer inside Iran. That's
amazing. So one last question. You know, Americans,
we're trying to make sense of Iran right now.
So if you cut through the noise, the politics
and the headlines, what's one thing you wish
that Americans understood that virtually nobody
gets right? From your perspective of all those
years, 22 years in the agency working this issue,
what would be something that if you could tell
Americans? Most Iranians simply want to live
their lives. They're not. crazy ideologues or,
you know, I want to be a martyr or anything like
that. One of my Substack articles does address
the whole martyrdom issue and everything, but
we don't go down that. That's kind of a rabbit
hole. But most of them, even if they're good
Muslims, if you will, and they go to mosque,
et cetera, they simply want to live their lives.
They're trying to, most of them want Iran to
be, to live up to its potential, which it's not
now because this regime has never, has not allowed
it to. through its ideology. So they simply want
to, I wouldn't say get along to go along, et
cetera, but they want to raise their families.
They want to raise their kids. They love their
children. They are incredibly proud of their
country, what it has been, what it sort of was
heading towards being and what it could be. It's
being derailed right now for a variety of reasons.
It's really important to realize how normal they
are. And they're not a bunch of crazy, you know,
Shia, I want to die kind of people. It's just,
there's a few of them, certainly. And a lot of
them are at the top, unfortunately. But they
just want to be, I don't want to say like us,
but they admire, and a lot of Iranians, tremendous
number of Iranians, admire the United States.
Even ones that have never been here. I told a
quick story. This was in one of my Substack articles.
I was sitting with a rev guard, young rev guard,
years ago. We were just talking. I was debriefing
and blah, blah, blah, et cetera, et cetera. This
is way back when this is the Iran -Contra thing.
And it came up and he kind of looked at me and
he said, what's going on? I didn't even know
because, frankly, it was just I hadn't been read
in on it. It wasn't evolved, thank God. This
was under Reagan. And it. He asked me, so what's
going on? What are you doing? Because it was
already coming out that we had provided them
with weapons, et cetera, et cetera, tow missiles,
if I'm not mistaken. I said, I'm not really sure.
I can't really. I don't know the details. Maybe
it's a mistake. We'll just have to see. And so
he said, but you're America. In other words,
how could you make a mistake like this? He'd
never been. He'd never met an American before.
Never mind into America. They have an oversized
view. In terms of CIA, our reputation exceeds
us. In terms of America, they have a shining
city on the hill, at least they used to, vision
of who we are. So this is something we need to
understand is they're normal people, most of
them. They simply want to sell their, if they're
a rug seller, sell their rags. They want to do
business. They want to raise their families.
They want to have a good life. Mark, this has
been incredibly fascinating and educational for
me, and I'm sure for our listeners, and we really
appreciate you coming on today. Tell us how we
can find your Substack column. Yeah, it's on
Substack, and it's under Mark A. Fowler, Mark
A. Fowler, and at Malfow5 is also the handle,
at Malfow5. So, yeah. Okay, great. Well, we're
going to try and put a link to that and also
to your book, The Prince of Mirrors. Hopefully
coming out later this summer or early fall. Yeah.
Okay, great. So very, very much appreciate you
coming on. And for our listeners, if you like
today's conversation, please subscribe to the
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