Former CIA analyst David McCloskey on Syria conflict - "Intelligence Matters"

In this episode of "Intelligence Matters," host Michael Morell speaks with David McCloskey, a former CIA analyst and author of "Damascus Station," a spy novel centered on the civil war in Syria. Morell and McCloskey discuss the history of the Syrian conflict and the United States' engagement there, including key inflection points and how policy decisions made during the Obama administration paved the way for realities on the ground today. McCloskey details his time as an analyst at the agency and decision to become an author. 

Highlights Obama's "Red Line": "[W]hen it comes to the Red Line and our posture there, I think that we could have conducted a set of punitive strikes on Assad that would have stopped short of having to depose his regime. And I think it was a real mistake not to do that, especially after we had sort of committed U.S. credibility to stopping him from using those weapons or at least punishing him for doing so." 

Possibility of deposing Assad: "[I]f I look just at our track record in Afghanistan and Iraq and Libya, we are adept at breaking things. And we could have no doubt broken Assad, but we have not shown a track record of being able to really build cohesive, stable, really representative governing entities back from the rubble of what we destroy. And I think in Syria to believe that it would have been different, you would have to think that there was a set of local partners who would have been able to come alongside us in that effort. And when we looked at the opposition in those early years, the most credible actors on the ground were unfortunately Salafi jihadist groups that were well-organized and well-trained and well-funded. And the opposition that we would have found more amenable to US interests was fragmented and weak and would not have been able to carry water on the ground for us in a fight against Assad."