Interview about Obama's Nomination of John Brennan
Deutsche Welle, Germany's international broadcaster, interviewed me about John Brennan and his nomination for CIA Director. The article is available in various languages, including Arabic, Turkish, German, Albanian and Chinese, because my opinion about the CIA is so super important that folks need to read it in their mother tongue. ;-) Not In English though.
My argument was in a nutshell that Brennan is a good choice for CIA Director because he worked for the agency in the operative and analytical divisions, has Middle East expertise, and is close to Obama. Better than a politician or a general.
When military leaders run US intelligence agencies there is a danger that they focus on killing terrorists. With Brennan, I said, the CIA would focus on providing the US government with the information and analysis (!) to understand important developments and long-term trends around the world better and then direct its civilian and military policies accordingly. That's anyway the CIA's primary mission: "to collect, analyze, evaluate, and disseminate foreign intelligence to assist White House, the President and senior US government policymakers in making decisions relating to national security." In recent years, public perception about the CIA seems to have changed in the sense that it is focusing on killing operations, especially with the reports about the increasing drone strikes. The interview was published on January 9, 2013.
Pretty cool, but also strange to see my name in a Chinese Tweet about this interview. And I did not think David Petraeus and I would ever be mentioned in the same Tweet.
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