Jim Lawler (00:01.452)
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 US war on terror, he’s an Iran specialist, and he’s a Farsi speaker, and Farsi is not an easy language. Mark, you spent twenty two 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?
Mark Fowler (00:58.466)
Thanks, Jim. pleasure to be here. Happy to to participate in steady state issues. yeah, in terms of
I was a an Iran specialist, as we call it. I I don’t use the term expert because that’s probably a little bit of hubris, but it 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 a specifically an Iran operations officer. And what that means is we’re you’re a case officer like everybody else, like you were, like most officers are within the agency, but I had a specific special.
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. and it but I always seem to come back to the to the Iranian specialists. It’s like
You know, people who are Chinese experts or Russian experts or Korean or whatever, you know, North Korean, you know, if they have the language, usually they bring you back to it because it’s it’s a little bit unusual. You know, 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 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.
Iran operations officer is a regular operations officer at CIA with a specialty in their back pocket, if you will.
Jim Lawler (02:45.897)
Okay, and 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 and tell me what you think on that.
Mark Fowler (02:52.32)
Right.
Mark Fowler (02:56.513)
Well, it I mean it’s a hard target as we call You know, it it 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
But we don’t have a presence inside Iran, obviously, since 79, when the embassy closed down after they took the hostages. so basically the 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 gonna be like your, you know, your six-month, year, two years developmental process in terms of, you know, how w 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 can even consider talking to you could be hard.
Jim Lawler (04:22.091)
You know, you’re right. I sometimes chafe at the description of some particular nationality as being hard targets. 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.
Mark Fowler (04:32.141)
Exactly.
Jim Lawler (04:50.817)
How much did your language ability shape your a ability to understand the Iranian mindset, not just communication, but read the culture and the regime? Tell us about that.
Mark Fowler (05:03.051)
Yeah, it’s it very important. you can’t learn a language, truly learn a language, without understanding the culture and the history. It’s 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 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 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 in a in a 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 since they’ve had a regime like that. You know, they go back to Cyrus the Great, Darius, etc. 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 of the
elected government or prime minister. that I 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 I would say well long before my time, but you know, needless to say, you know, it 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, you know, fifty 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
Mark Fowler (06:56.377)
helps them feel confidence in you, that you are a person they can understand 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.
Jim Lawler (07:08.831)
I think part of our mistake in tackling the Iranian problem has sometimes been underestimating them. we forget the fact that Iranians, or at least Persians, invented whole fields of mathematics when
Some of our ancestors were still painting their faces blue. And these 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 are, you know, backwards or something like that. They’re not at all. They’re they’re f very, very bright. So
Mark Fowler (07:26.4)
Exactly.
Mark Fowler (07:47.179)
Not at all. No. They’re very bright, they’re very accomplished, and they’re very, very, very proud. That’s a big word. Mugrur. Pride. So
Jim Lawler (07:54.496)
Right. Exac exactly. So their country, the current regime, the Islamic Republic, it’s survived now for over forty-five years, and it sure it’s had its internal descent, 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?
Mark Fowler (08:18.155)
Yeah, that’s a that’s a good question. first of all, they did things inside Iran with the with their own country. It was it wasn’t all bad, let me put it that way. They they did things like they improved transportation, they improved health, they improved education,
Fluency in in reading, et cetera, is very high, even among women. They’re not 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 you meet many Iranian women who were doctors or or PhDs or you know, certainly college educated. So they did a lot of good things over the years. but what they did was they what they did was they they gave them certain things they could do and they gave them internet, etc. etcetera, to the world, so they gave them access, but they used social.
Moors to 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 they managed 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 Ira the Iraq War. That’s in 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 trem a lot of them. And so they they’re not they’re smart about how they approach it, approach this. They’re they’re a big country, they’re powerful in their own way, they’re 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 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
Mark Fowler (10:37.333)
the the the the threat to others to keep others at bay. Hezbollah of course is focused on Israel. the Houthis are new they’re pretty new they’re they’re pretty new. Iraq they came in and it helped it it just provides them with a defensive circle if you will almost like a a picket line and it pushes it farther out. So it makes it harder for people to for come 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 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 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
Of putting down what protests within the country. And they’re 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 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 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 they’re 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, and turn like I mentioned before. The standard of living was rising and rising, but at the same time, they were also things came came home to roost, if you will. The high inflation, the environmental issues.
They’re suffering. and of course, their their hostility towards Israel and and others in the region has brought home brought down
Mark Fowler (12:41.323)
war on them, i 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 US, 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 the streets in Tehran, ’cause that’s where they came from. So that’s where they focus most of their their effort and that’s how they managed to survive for so long.
Jim Lawler (13:11.156)
If you were to 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 s silent about it? What what what percentage would actually strongly supports the current regime? Just do you take a guess or do you know?
Mark Fowler (13:29.313)
I mean, I I don’t really know, but I would say it’s probably in the range of twenty 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 it’s a but that’s still a lot of people. I mean, you know, it’s what, twenty twenty million ish or something like that, a little less, and that’s a lot of people. And some of them are some are really completely invested and embedded within the regime. Others are simply going along to get along, they’re sort of they have relatives.
Jim Lawler (13:36.717)
Yeah.
Jim Lawler (13:45.015)
Yeah.
Mark Fowler (13:59.29)
Or they’re doing okay and it’s all right and it doesn’t really inf 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 they were not happy with it, but they said as long as we stay out of politics, life is not that bad for the for a lot of Iraqis. Got worse, obviously. Things changed, but similar in in Iran, life is has been in the past, it’s changed, but it it was getting really
bad in the lead up to the to the war. The environmental issues were really, they were running out of water, literally. And and and 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.
Jim Lawler (14:47.466)
And sadly the twenty percent you describe as either regime supporters or at least tacit supporters, they’re the ones who have the weapons and the guns. So yeah.
Mark Fowler (14:56.051)
Exactly. Exactly. I used to laugh that naugh it’s not a joke, but especially people like the Besiege who are the sort of the street thugs that they use, they’re almost like a a reserve. Yeah, 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 etcetera. Not illiterate but less educated. I used to joke that a lot of them were in this because they got dental. and they they got benefits, literally. Special stores they could shop at, you know, they got consideration for jobs.
jobs and other things and and you know how it is. A lot of people in the communist regimes as they as they were coming, 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.
Jim Lawler (15:49.526)
Yeah. Now I know with I have fond memories of you serving as a chief of station in that region. we worked together on some things, very s very successful things, and your support was key. but without getting into anything you are 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?
Mark Fowler (16:01.208)
Thank you.
Mark Fowler (16:15.508)
Yeah. yeah. There were
Obviously in the region, the the Iranians are a boogeyman, but there’s an there’s an issue that a lot of this was first of all they were terrified of the Iranians. Let’s let’s let’s be very very clear about that in the sense of what 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 a Shia revolution, not a Sunni revolution. Shias are about 15% of the Muslim world, more or less there. They’re persecuted by Norni.
Been for thousand, couple thousand years since Islam came along and the 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.
So but they were terrified of these guys and what they could do. They knew they had capabilities, real capabilities. And a lot of the frankly, I love the a lot of the other people that I work 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 kinda 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, you know. No, I 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.
Mark Fowler (18:11.02)
I love my culture. I hate this regime. They killed my brother, or you know, my my kids, I want them to have a future, etc. etc. So terrified and trying to get them to look through, to look around the lens of the Sunni Shia conflict. And because that just that 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 f to be frank.
Jim Lawler (18:34.89)
Okay. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the intelligence apparatus that’s around Khamenei, Kamene Jr., they’re often described as a state within a state. How did that internal power structure complicate both collection, basically recruiting, and analysis?
Mark Fowler (18:53.772)
Yeah. it was both a both a challenge and frankly a a l a bit of a vulnerability for them.
obviously there’s massive internal security organizations. there was the MOIS, the the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, they call it MI, Milit 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 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 till they sort of
Landed on that.
And the RGC 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 they really, where it really becomes tricky, 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 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
Mark Fowler (20:08.044)
They 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. So and we weren’t there. And they would look at people who traveled and or had the at least the potential to be contacted. And it provided them with a 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 it was tricky and it was difficult. But the
When the one thing to keep in mind, even at the revolution, the Sabak guys, the 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 that a lot group of that around. And those guys trained subsequent counterintelligence, counterespionage cadres. So they had good grounding in their in their training, and they got better training over the years, and they’re very good. It’s like the whole issue of the the spy.
Books, you know, they basically weave together all these cables that we tried to shred, like carpet, like like making carpets, etc. And so they’re very patient, they’re very detail-oriented when they want to be. and so but okay, that 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 pro 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.
Jim Lawler (22:05.896)
Absolutely. No, that’s fascinating. It’s something, you know, that we’re always looking at is is the S VR cooperating with the GRU or are loggerheads jealous? I mean, yeah, exactly. So in 2000 and in 2004, you were the directorate 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 de the
Mark Fowler (22:16.404)
Right. Right.
Jim Lawler (22:34.872)
d 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?
Mark Fowler (22:46.456)
Yeah, that’s a good question. That’s a it’s a hard one. yeah, the the whole WMD thing was interesting. I actually just wrote an article on that in my substack and you know, it 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, etc. It’s it’s around that. That’s a whole nother 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
damage 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 the cards. He wasn’t on the you know the 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, and I can’t remember his name. I want to say Joe, but whatever. But he was he was 100%, thousand percent convinced that these aluminum tubes that the Iraq
Jim Lawler (24:08.642)
Yeah.
Mark Fowler (24:18.172)
We’re buying were used for could could be used, therefore were being used for centrifuges. And that centrifuges. And you know all about that. I’m I know you do. and we put this guy, and this is after the war, we’re inside, etc., obviously, and looking desperately, increasingly desperately, for the WMDs here somewhere still. he came out and talked. I put him in front of this 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, etc. And all the reasons and all the analytical stuff and that all his reasoning why this was this. And I remember the the the doctor saying, well you know what he says I understand how you might have come to that conclusion.
You’re wrong. That’s not the case. That you you came to a faulty conclusion. It was just it was that simple. So we did completely.
mirror image what we thought they had it, they’d 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 it 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 they actually got rid of their WMD, including their nuclear their nuclear program. They buried a couple of centrifuges or whatever it was, something. That’s pretty much all they had left, if I’m if I remember correctly. He said, I said, why did you get rid of it? He said, well Sedan
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, would end the regime. So they, and that kind of I think flows into the next issue of lessons learned in how looking at the Iranians.
Mark Fowler (26:18.252)
They have been taunting us for several decades now with, you know, we’re we can, we have a right, technically they do, right? under the the non-plurici non-proliferation treaty. Technically they have a right to enrich, if I’m not mistaken. you know more about that than I do. and so, but that doesn’t mean they should or how they’re doing it, and certainly not to the levels they were at recently. But they were taunting us with this for years and and they were playing a dangerous game.
But they 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, 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. So it’s so, and it 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 to a degree. But we have to be careful not to over
an analyze what they’re doing as well. Not to attribute
Well okay, this is what it would mean to this. If we’re enriching this, there’s no reason otherwise. So off there obviously they must be going for a nuclear weapon. Not necessarily. There’s a 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 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, etcetera. They were applied they were
Mark Fowler (28:17.644)
it they were doing what they were supposed to be doing at least at that time. So does that make sense? It’s it’s 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 ha 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 and we have to be very careful not to over I wanna say overreact, but we need to be careful how we attribute that with Iran because
It’s not easy as we see right now. We’re we’re people say we’re stuck. We are kinda stuck. It it’s a stalemate to a degree, but yeah. Does that make sense?
Jim Lawler (28:56.086)
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. And
Mark Fowler (29:09.824)
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, okay, 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 and or on a donkey and literally, you know, walking it into the city or something like that? You know, a missile, that’s a whole different issue.
you getting it to the size where they could put it on a missile as 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. W we cannot let this once the only time I’m probably gonna ever agree with President Trump on this is we can’t allow them to have a nuclear weapon. But it’s not that simple and we we that doesn’t justify, in my view, what what’s recently happened. But we have to be careful not to attribute what we
We would do to them. So yeah.
Jim Lawler (30:30.634)
Okay, so this is going to be a really impossible question to answer and yeah, I know, I know. I’m your buddy, Mark. you’ve been writing yeah, I know. You’ve been writing in your Substack column about the current US Iranian conflict, and it changes every day. If we had recorded this a couple of weeks ago, we you’d have said one thing, and now you know, I’m sure you’re gonna say other. Give us you know, kind of a thumbnail. Where do you think we are? And you’ve made the point about
Mark Fowler (30:34.475)
thanks.
Yeah, I love you too much, Jim.
Jim Lawler (31:00.308)
negotiating with Iranians is like negotiating with somebody in the bazaar. Can you give us some of your thoughts on this?
Mark Fowler (31:08.046)
Thanks a lot for that question. there are graveyards full of analysts trying to predict what Ron is gonna do. yeah, we’re we’re not in a good place.
Jim Lawler (31:10.029)
Ha ha.
Mark Fowler (31:19.946)
Obviously the as the 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 they’re certainly some missiles left and the drones are probably the the thing that they could just make those in a shack someplace at this point, and they’re they have thousands of those as far as I know. We’re
kinda stuck in a dead end, but it that it can’t stay there. First of all, the 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, whole different issue. And we could that’s a whole nother probably a whole nother 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 they they can’t go indefinitely. I’m not sure we can
stay in the pain longer than they can. That’s another issue.
I think I I wrote an artic a substack on this and it was saying basically, I think we do need to make sure we either blunt and or diminish or 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 lobbying a a drone or a missile or or whatever, cruise missile at a passing oil tanker, they’re gonna control the state, the strait because, you know, insurance costs and everything else.
So we’re in a we’re in a difficult position. and I think it 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 gotta be honest with you, I don’t know how the Iranians are actu we’re actually, as far as I can see, more or less interpreting
Mark Fowler (33:16.834)
the MOU as it was written. They had a right to control the strait to some degree, because that’s how it was written. I don’t know how they I don’t know how they came away with an MOU so overly advantaged to Iran. It was it was truly ridiculous. And I and I it the 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.
Jim Lawler (33:41.896)
So so you’re saying in a sense the Iranians were very content with the MOU the United States had helped draft, and so
Mark Fowler (33:48.013)
Well yeah, they got it it said it gave them almost everything. It said sovereignty, it sa it mentioned Hezbollah and Lebanon, or Lebanon, it it mentioned, you know, no more interference in sovereign affairs, it mentioned after sixty days Oman and us get to sort of work out the administration of the now it didn’t say we’re gonna charge tolls, but this gave them I I they must have been flabbergasted when
The act 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 gave it essentially gave them permission to in some manner have administer the the Strait of Hormuz. Now that’s where they interpreted more for c for tolls, etc. etc. But we gave them permission. I d I don’t understand how our our negotiators, such as they are, came aw allowed that to be the the
So,
Jim Lawler (34:47.618)
So maybe this maybe this is the secret of the art of the deal. You just give your opponent what he wants and then
Mark Fowler (34:52.468)
I guess. I mean, and then you don’t pay later on. Again, that maybe that’s the way things work. You fool them into so I mean we’re in a tough spot right now. And and people say it and I’ve said it many times and I’ve been writing on this for several months now in my substack, but we’re in I called it Groundhog Day, and then I did Groundhog Day two. You know, we’re back to where we are because of 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 gonna go. I I don’t think we can escalate you know, indefinitely, obviously.
Jim Lawler (34:55.448)
Right. Yeah.
Mark Fowler (35:22.352)
And if we start to hit civilian targets the way discussions have been sorta out there, that’s a really tricky path to go down. I gotta be honest with you, you know
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 gonna take out this, you know, that is civilian, a bridge, a power plant, etc., etc., 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 I they need to be very careful where they go with this kind of thing. so I think we’re gonna have to get back to the table, and at some point, the administration’s gonna have to accept a frankly.
Yeah.
a really hard they’re gonna have to drink the poison like Homeini did after the Iran-Iraq war. They’re gonna 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 gonna 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 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 gonna have to eat some crow that all these words have been used out there by we’re gonna have to the the president’s gonna have to admit he won’t admit he’s wrong but he’s gonna have to take a deal that is overly advantaged towards the Iranians and we’re probably gonna 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
Mark Fowler (37:05.936)
Not but
Jim Lawler (37:06.592)
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.
Mark Fowler (37:32.695)
Yeah, we’ve talked about our our fiction writing and it’s it’s kind of cathartic. and I think you said that and I a hundred percent agree. It allows us to talk about things that
We did, saw, heard about, you know, etc., 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 and you know, that 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, d thousands of years ago. but a CIA Odyssey of Trust and Betrayal. It’s the dichotomy between
I mean
for CIA officers or handlers, frankly, DIA too, and you know, anybody who’s a humid, a real humid officer, is is the sort of dichotomy between handling assets and it’s the trust and the and the the suspicion and etc. You have to develop trust with these peop with the people in order for them to to trust you. and also for us to trust them enough that their information is is is vetted and valuable, can be used. but it’s very, very it’s difficult. It’s a it’s a constant dance, if you will.
back and forth, you know, because I always just a lot of people think, 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 and what I always used to, and it’s in the book. And one of the things is you get you want to get to the point where you 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
Mark Fowler (39:15.3)
And 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 loom very large. And they’re very suspicious because frankly, they’ve been they have been taken advantage of for d many, many years, decades and or hundreds of years recently. and they always used to tell me, he says, I know what you’re gonna do. You’re gonna 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. If 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, sure, I can make that happen. I said, I 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. or and I’ve just been others like one of the characters is a Kutzforce officer who’s just so disappointed in his country after giving so much during the Iran-Iraq war and heavily wounded, etc. And, you know, and now he’s seen what the regime has become.
So it’s a it focuses on what it’s like from the CIA side in terms of being a case officer and a handler and the difficulties and the inherent difficulties and 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
Of 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.
Jim Lawler (41:22.656)
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 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?
Mark Fowler (41:29.004)
Right, exactly.
Mark Fowler (41:38.19)
Right.
Mark Fowler (41:49.43)
Yeah, it’s a it’s a second in the no in the in the series. the the the primary character, the protagonist in my first is Victoria Vick O’Banin, her 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 I I knew some and they were extremely accomplished. and we’ve both known female case officers who were just like unbelievable. 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 in 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 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 the this cyber weapon being developed by the Chinese and the Iranians.
Jim Lawler (43:04.26)
I can’t wait to read that one. That one that one sends chills up my back just thinking about yeah, a CI a CIA officer inside Iran. That’s that’s amazing. So one one last question. you know, Americans we’re trying to make sense of Iran right now. So if you cut through the noise of 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, twenty-two years in the agency working this issue?
Mark Fowler (43:04.395)
So
Yeah, it’s it’s it’s pretty good, actually.
Mark Fowler (43:14.123)
Yeah.
Jim Lawler (43:33.43)
What would be something that if you could tell Americans?
Mark Fowler (43:39.643)
most Iranians simply want to live their lives. they’re not
crazy ideologues or 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 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 j they simply want to I don’t want to say get along to go along, etc. But they want they want to raise their families, they want to raise their kids, they love their children, they are incredibly proud of their their country, what it has been, what it sort of was headache towards being and what it could be. it’s being derailed right now for a variety of reasons. so
It’s really important to realize how how normal they are, and they’re not a bunch of crazy, you know, Shia, I wanna die kind of people. It’s 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 they 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. I this was in one of my Substack articles. I was sitting with a RevGuard, young RevGuard, years ago. we were
just talking, I was debriefing and blah blah blah etc etc. 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 it 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 what’s going on? What are you doing? Because it was already coming out that we had provided them with weapons, etc. etc. of tow missiles if I’m not mistaken. I said I’m not really sure. I I can’t really I don’t know the details but
Mark Fowler (45:41.185)
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 been to America. So they have an oversized view. In terms of the 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 we this is something we need to understand is they’re normal people, most of them. They simply want to, you know, sell their, if they’re a rug seller, sell their rags.
do business, they want to raise their families, they want to have a good life.
Jim Lawler (46:20.864)
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.
Mark Fowler (46:33.397)
Yeah, substa it’s on Substack and it’s under mark a dot Fowler, Mark A Fowler, and at at Malfow5 is also the the the handle at Malf M-A-L-F-O-W five. So yeah.
Jim Lawler (46:47.734)
Okay, great. Well we’re gonna try and but we’ll put a link to that and also to your book A Prince of Mirrors in this
Mark Fowler (46:50.999)
Thank you. Thank you. Hopefully coming out later this summer or early early fall.
Jim Lawler (46:56.46)
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 Steady State Sentinel. Leave us a five star review and join us again next week for the Steady State Sentinel. I’m Jim Lawler, still standing watch.
Mark Fowler (47:17.198)
Thank you.
This transcript includes AI generated material