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OPINION:
During my decades serving in the CIA, I spent countless hours testifying to the House and Senate intelligence committees and briefing top agency and White House officials.
If there is one thing I learned, it’s that the most astute recipients of those briefings took the time and effort to ask insightful questions and incorporate the answers they received into clear-sighted deliberations — without rushing to make hasty decisions regarding complicated problems.
With the shocking collapse of Bashar Assad’s dictatorship in Syria, the U.S. intelligence community is once again on the hook to produce the intelligence that will inform national security policy. The daunting list includes how to secure Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles; how to deal with terrorist groups in the country, especially the Islamic State group; how to ensure that Iran can no longer use Syria as a land bridge to transport weapons and financial assistance to its terrorist proxy Hezbollah in Lebanon; how to secure the release of wrongfully detained American journalist Austin Tice; and how to evict Russia, an ally of both Iran and Mr. Assad, from its military bases on Syrian territory.
U.S. bilateral relations with state and nonstate actors, both adversaries and allies, resemble a Venn diagram, with shaded space of shared interests, unshaded space where our interests will never intersect and a gray area where opportunities exist to find common ground. It’s in that gray area that CIA officers serving overseas, especially those in war zones, often operate.
The CIA should be poised to turbo-boost its efforts in Syria, where a U.S.-designated terrorist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, has emerged as the most powerful faction of the Syrian opposition coalition that toppled the Assad regime. Under the leadership of Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, who is also a designated terrorist, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, known as HTS, is the foundation of Syria’s de facto transition government. Formerly known as the al-Nusra Front and once aligned with al Qaeda, HTS joined forces with southern rebel militias, who were the first to enter Damascus, to overthrow Mr. Assad last month.
The CIA should not hesitate to embark on a liaison with the new director of Syria’s General Intelligence Service, Anas Khattab, even though Mr. Khattab is also a former member of al-Nusra Front. The U.S. government designated Mr. Khattab as a terrorist because he “communicated periodically with [al Qaeda’s Iraqi] leadership to receive financial and material assistance and helped facilitate funding and weapons for al-Nusrah Front.”
In 2017, HTS engaged in internecine fighting against both the Islamic State group and al Qaeda. Mr. Khattab played a key role in targeting IS terrorists in Idlib province, a rebel stronghold during the long civil war with the Assad regime. HTS claims to respect ethnic and religious groups and no longer claims any allegiance to al Qaeda or IS. Yet questions remain about the extent to which terrorists, including some foreign fighters, are still part of HTS.
The benefit of U.S. engagement with HTS far exceeds the risk as Washington tries to navigate Syria’s complex current landscape. Backed by Turkey, the Syrian National Army holds territory in the northwest of Syria, where it has been both an ally and adversary of HTS while fighting a separate campaign against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF.
Overseeing the detention of thousands of IS terrorists, the SDF, in turn, has been a key ally of the U.S. military in the battle against still-dangerous IS forces operating in Syria.
But the situation remains fluid: Turkish troops have deployed in a self-proclaimed safe zone along the border with Syria. Mr. Assad’s ally Russia still controls a naval base in Tartus and an air base in Latakia. After Mr. Assad’s ouster, Israeli troops moved to occupy a larger buffer zone in Syria near the Golan Heights to protect against the chaos next door.
The Biden administration recently announced its intention to remove the $10 million bounty it had placed on Mr. Jolani after meetings between U.S. diplomats and HTS in Damascus after Mr. Jolani promised to ensure terrorist groups in Syria would not pose a threat to the United States and its allies. The administration is also reportedly exploring options to remove HTS from the U.S. terrorist list.
The Biden administration should delay any formal recognition of the new Syrian government. Better to make it clear to the new Syrian leadership in Damascus that recognition and terrorist delisting will be up to the incoming Trump administration, which will need to see some proof that HTS can deliver on key promises it has already made to the U.S.
With funds for postwar reconstruction also hanging in the balance, Syria’s new leaders should take some meaningful steps against Iranian militias, IS and al Qaeda terrorists, and they should share what they know about the Assad regime’s chemical weapons program and the whereabouts of Mr. Tice.
That’s how the U.S. intelligence community could buttress a Trump administration “trust but verify” strategy on Syria, which would put maximum pressure on Iran and defend our national security interests.
• 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.
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