What do two great authors have in common besides their background as agents for the CIA and Britain's MI6?
Both John LeCarre (pen name for David Cornwell) and Robert Baer believe that human intelligence is the essential component missing from post-Cold War intelligence.
Baer spent most of his 20-year career as a case officer in some of the world’s deadliest locations, including Beiruit and other Middle East hot spots. He’s now the intelligence columnist for Time and a frequent guest commentator on CNN shows like Anderson Cooper 360.
He chronicles the inability of the CIA to adapt to modern threats in See No Evil, and proposes an alternate theory of who’s responsible for 9/11 and other terrorist atrocities. (The book was the basis for the film Syriana.) A common thread throughout is the linkage of Iran to just about every conflict, major or minor in the region.
Fiction vs. non-fiction aside, the two authors complement each other like bookends, referencing the role of big oil in geopolitics. Both authors' recent works educate about the impact of pipeline mega-projects through regions Americans know little about like the Caucasus. (An excellent primer and/or companion book is Parag Khanna’s The Second World: How Emerging Powers Are Redefining Global Competition in the Twenty-first Century.)
Both lament the abilities of their respective agencies to change after the Cold War and how all nations
have suffered as a result. As one of the CIA’s few fluent Arabic speakers, Baer was horrified as he surveyed the increasingly radical tracts for sale in London’s bookshops during the late 80s and 90s. 9/11 was not a surprise to him--it was a matter of when not if. London resident LeCarre also chronicled the bubbling discontent in some of the City’s densest neighborhoods. Recent works such as A Most Wanted Man, offer cautionary tales about the value of human intelligence and the folly of torture.
In addition to overt terrorist attacks, neither author was surprised by the suicide bombing of a remote Afghanistan base in late 2009. (Marie Claire did an outstanding piece revolving around the life of a 30-year agent.) The bomber, an agent cultivated by inexperienced case officers working remotely at headquarters instead of in the field, breezed past security without so much as a pat-down. Even before Baer left the CIA, he was harshly critical of analysts with no field experience running the show. This lack of following even basic tactical procedures ultimately caused the death of seven CIA agents and dealt a severe blow to intelligence in the region.
I often wonder what both authors think of the current wave of populist uprisings across the Middle East. Based on their writings, both surely agree that the absence of agents on the ground greatly hampers the understanding of what’s happening and who may ultimately prevail.
Even the best satellite photos never tell the whole story.
Comments