OPINION:
About 20 years ago, I was on home leave in the U.S. when I had some pieces of detached bone removed from around my nose, the result of an old high school injury.
The surgeon told me I needed to have the stitches removed in a week. The only problem was that I was going to be in Baghdad, so she gave me the green light to receive post-op care in Iraq.
Late one evening, one of our U.S. doctors met me at the Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad’s Green Zone.
As the doctor unpacked his medical instruments and removed my stitches, I asked how his day had gone. He recounted to me how he and his medical team had saved the lives of three Iraqi National Intelligence Service officers who had been seriously wounded in the line of duty earlier that day. They were all recovering from gunshot wounds in the nearby medical unit.
Created in 2004, the Iraqi National Intelligence Service has been an exceptionally valuable partner to the U.S. intelligence community, especially on counterterrorism. Its officers earned a well-deserved reputation as courageous and capable collectors of intelligence — necessary assets in detecting and preempting threats.
Relationships such as the one with the Iraqi National Intelligence Service are embedded in cooperative agreements between countries to share information and often resources for mutually beneficial intelligence purposes.
Historically, the most impactful has been the Five Eyes alliance, composed of the U.S., Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The U.S. intelligence community also maintains hundreds of other highly valuable relationships that serve as powerful force multipliers for our national security.
Retired Gen. David H. Petraeus, a former CIA director and my former boss, emphasized in recent remarks to Britain’s House of Lords that “trust in allies is best built long before crises through shared training, shared hardship, common professional standards, mutual respect and ultimately shared sacrifice.”
Intelligence collaboration, especially in active war zones, is the foundation for collective defense, deterrence and strategy, which nurtures relationships between allies and partners.
Intelligence sharing with our allies and partners is crucial to countering, defending and deterring Iran.
It all starts with collecting raw intelligence on Iran’s plans to strike U.S. bases in the region and our regional allies, disrupt global trade through the Strait of Hormuz and Red Sea, direct proxy terrorists to launch attacks on critical infrastructure and innocent civilians, reconstitute its nuclear program and rearm its ballistic missile and drone inventories.
Al Qaeda’s leader, Saif al-Adel, is reportedly enjoying sanctuary in Iran, which has maintained decades-long relationships with al Qaeda and its affiliates. The Houthi terrorists, an Iranian proxy, have been growing their strategic cooperation with Somalia’s al Qaeda-aligned al-Shabab terrorists.
Initially focused on maritime smuggling, the two terrorist groups are now engaging in joint training, including on drone technology and manufacturing improvised explosive devices.
The U.S. intelligence community is also on the hook to assess the impact of the unprecedented level of U.S.-led economic pressure. This includes an effort to sever Iran from the global financial system, especially after the European Union’s decision to augment its sanctions on Iran’s nuclear and ballistic programs and military alliance with Russia by joining the U.S.-led sanctions campaign.
Hanging in the balance is the Trump administration’s strategic objective to induce Iran to negotiate an agreement superior to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, from which President Trump withdrew the United States during his first term.
As my former colleague David McCloskey wrote in his recent spy thriller, “London Station,” intelligence sharing helps us “look at the world through the same lens.” That is how we uncloak Iran’s relationships with its axis of dictatorship allies Russia, China and North Korea.
These nations support one another with military, diplomatic and economic collaboration and intelligence sharing, including satellite-based geospatial intelligence used to strike U.S. targets.
With our allies and partners, the U.S. intelligence community must also accurately assess the revolution in military affairs currently taking place on the battlefields in Ukraine, the Strait of Hormuz and throughout the wider Middle East. That means collecting intelligence on how our adversaries are transforming their tactical and strategic doctrine.
“The concept of war is changing fundamentally,” Gen. Petraeus emphasized to the House of Lords, because “strategic success depends not only upon courage on the battlefield but also upon the ability to rethink how wars are fought and how military institutions prepare for future conflicts.”
That strategic success happens only when the U.S. intelligence community joins forces with our valued foreign partners around the globe.
• Daniel N. Hoffman is a retired clandestine services officer and former chief of station with the Central Intelligence Agency. His combined 30 years of government service included high-level overseas and domestic positions at the CIA. He has been a Fox News contributor since May 2018. He can be reached at danielhoffman@yahoo.com. All statements of fact, opinion or analysis expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official positions or endorsement of the CIA or any other U.S. government agency.
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