{"id":8967,"date":"2018-01-05T17:33:11","date_gmt":"2018-01-05T15:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/?p=8967"},"modified":"2018-01-05T17:35:34","modified_gmt":"2018-01-05T15:35:34","slug":"c-i-a-names-the-dark-prince-to-run-iran-operations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/2018\/01\/c-i-a-names-the-dark-prince-to-run-iran-operations\/","title":{"rendered":"C.I.A. Names the \u2018Dark Prince\u2019 to Run Iran Operations"},"content":{"rendered":"

nytimes<\/a>\u00a0– WASHINGTON \u2014 He is known as the Dark Prince or Ayatollah Mike, nicknames he earned as the Central Intelligence Agency officer who oversaw the hunt for Osama bin Laden and the American drone strike campaign that killed thousands of Islamist militants and hundreds of civilians.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Now the official, Michael D\u2019Andrea, has a new job. He is running the C.I.A.\u2019s Iran operations, according to current and former intelligence officials, an appointment that is the first major sign that the Trump administration is invoking the hard line the president took against Iran during his campaign.<\/p>\n

Mr. D\u2019Andrea\u2019s new role is one of a number of moves inside the spy agency that signal a more muscular approach to covert operations under the leadership of Mike Pompeo, the conservative Republican and former congressman, the officials said. The agency also recently named a new chief of counterterrorism, who has begun pushing for greater latitude to strike militants.<\/p>\n

Iran has been one of the hardest targets for the C.I.A. The agency has extremely limited access to the country \u2014 no American embassy is open to provide diplomatic cover \u2014 and Iran\u2019s intelligence services have spent nearly four decades trying to counter American espionage and covert operations.<\/p>\n

The challenge to start carrying out President Trump\u2019s views falls to Mr. D\u2019Andrea, a chain-smoking convert to Islam, who comes with an outsize reputation and the track record to back it up: Perhaps no single C.I.A. official is more responsible for weakening Al Qaeda.<\/p>\n

Continue reading the main story
\nRELATED COVERAGE<\/p>\n

Deep Support in Washington for C.I.A.\u2019s Drone Missions APRIL 25, 2015<\/p>\n

Tillerson Toughens Tone on Iran After U.S. Confirms Nuclear Deal Compliance APRIL 19, 2017
\nReport Portrays a Broken C.I.A. Devoted to a Failed Approach DEC. 9, 2014
\nRECENT COMMENTS
\nAirMarshalofBloviana June 5, 2017
\nAre we to believe that is the only biographic image NYT has of Mr. D’Andrea, holding a propaganda poster of John Kerry’s extorter and the…<\/p>\n

Richard Marcley June 5, 2017
\nLoons, liars, losers are now running US agencies!This will not have a happy ending unless these hard-right war hawks are driven from power…<\/p>\n

Vaez June 4, 2017
\nWhen you start a regime change project in a country with 70% turn out in its latest presidential election, you should look in the mirror to…<\/p>\n

SEE ALL COMMENTS
\n\u201cHe can run a very aggressive program, but very smartly,\u201d said Robert Eatinger, a former C.I.A. lawyer who was deeply involved in the agency\u2019s drone program.<\/p>\n

The C.I.A. declined to comment on Mr. D\u2019Andrea\u2019s role, saying it does not discuss the identities or work of clandestine officials. The officials spoke only on the condition of anonymity because Mr. D\u2019Andrea remains undercover, as do many senior officials based at the agency\u2019s headquarters in Langley, Va. Mr. Eatinger did not use his name. The New York Times is naming Mr. D\u2019Andrea because his identity was previously published in news reports, and he is leading an important new administration initiative against Iran.<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump called Iran \u201cthe number one terror state\u201d and pledged throughout the campaign to dismantle or revise the landmark deal between Iran and six world powers in which Tehran agreed to limit its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.<\/p>\n

The president has not gone through with that threat, and his administration has quietly recertified Iran\u2019s compliance with the deal. But he has invoked his hard line on Iran in other ways. Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson has described the deal as a failure, and Mr. Trump has appointed to the National Security Council hawks eager to contain Iran and push regime change, the groundwork for which would most likely be laid through C.I.A. covert action.<\/p>\n

Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, the national security adviser, was an armored cavalry commander during the early years of the war in Iraq, and he believes that Iranian agents who were aiding Iraqi insurgents were responsible for the deaths of a number of his soldiers. Derek Harvey, the senior director for the Middle East at the council, is also considered an Iran hawk.<\/p>\n

And Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the council\u2019s senior director for intelligence \u2014 the main White House liaison to intelligence agencies \u2014 has told other administration officials that he wants to use American spies to help oust the Iranian government, according to multiple defense and intelligence officials.<\/p>\n

Mr. Pompeo, who represented south-central Kansas in the House, was among the fiercest congressional critics of the Iran deal. Two months before the election, he published an essay in Foreign Policy magazine titled, \u201cFriends Don\u2019t Let Friends Do Business With Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n

He pledged during his Senate confirmation hearing in January that should the deal remain in place, he would keep a fierce watch to ensure Tehran was sticking to the terms.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Iranians are professionals at cheating,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In Mr. D\u2019Andrea, the director has found a workaholic to be his Iran sentinel. Mr. D\u2019Andrea grew up in Northern Virginia in a family whose ties to the C.I.A. span two generations. He met his wife, who is Muslim, on a C.I.A. posting overseas, and converted to Islam to marry her, though he is not known to be particularly observant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

nytimes\u00a0– WASHINGTON \u2014 He is known as the Dark Prince or Ayatollah Mike, nicknames he earned as the Central Intelligence Agency officer who oversaw the hunt for Osama bin Laden and the American drone strike […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":8968,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,7,11,122,88,10],"tags":[478,819],"class_list":["post-8967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editor-selection","category-iran","category-issues","category-politics","category-slider","category-world","tag-iran-politics","tag-us-intervention","country-iran","country-usa"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8967"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8967\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8971,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8967\/revisions\/8971"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/openasia.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}