 Welcome to New America online event. I'm Peter Bergen, the Vice President for Global Studies and Fellows. We're delighted to be hosting David McCloskey and his new book, Damascus Station, which is a novel somewhat based on his own career at the CIA. The novels receive great reviews, including from General David Petrez, the best spy novel I have ever read. Not a man who usually gives a lot of great inflation. Publishes weekly a star review. And David had joined the agency in 2006. So that's in 2014 spent much of his career either working in the Middle East or on the Middle East. And he's going to spend a few minutes discussing or laying out kind of the themes of his new book. And also discuss a little bit how that intersects with his own career, and maybe make some general observations about the state of play in the Middle East right now. He and I will then have a discussion and will then open it up to Q&A. And I will be servicing questions from you the audience. As you go so please don't hesitate if you do have a question. Drop it into the Q&A function or the chat function. So tell us a little bit about, let me let me start with, you know, how did you come to write the book, why did you decide to write a novel, rather than a nonfiction book. Yeah, so, I mean, first off Peter, thanks for being in discussion with me about this today. This is really exciting. I'm still a, I'm an alumnus of two fairly secretive organizations, the CIA and Mackenzie so it still is a bit surreal to be out. I haven't been a while talking about a book that I've actually published but it's great to be with you today and thanks to New America for hosting this. I, so, you know, the novel really came out of my experiences at the CIA, and I joined pretty young. I was, I took my first polygraph I think when I was 19 years old I was an undergrad intern which I think is not so well known. Little feeder program into the agency, and, and joined my first summer was the war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006. The second summer was the run up to the Israeli strike on Al Qubar, the Syrian nuclear reactor. And I was pretty hooked, obviously after those two experiences so when I joined full time. I mostly did work on Syria, I spent a little bit of time in our counter terrorism center working on a topic that at that point was pretty hot button issue in the region which was the flow of foreign fighters from Syria into Iraq. And when we had, you know, much greater numbers of troops there, and I had a front row seat for the Arab Spring and the start of unrest and protests in Syria in early 2011. So that experience of watching kind of the first few years of the war, a really of the, you know, protests, devolving into war, I think was a very formative experience for me not just as an analyst but as a, as a person, and, you know, kind of watch the hope and the optimism and the sense that, you know, something could be different in Syria which characterized a lot of the early months in particular of that. And that movement shift completely over time into, you know, Civil War and really the fragmentation of the state. You know, in the, in the intervening period they're half a million Syrians that are dead, the UN stopped counting five years ago so that number is almost certainly too low. So, the state is broken apart and watching that was a very emotional and kind of formative experience for me and it was one that when I finally got around to actually being able to sit down and kind of write. A lot of the book came out of a desire to tell some of those stories through fictional characters through, you know, to punch windows and all sides of the conflict which is exceedingly complex and we'll talk more about. And I felt like fiction for me was a way to. I think to work through a lot of those feelings and emotions that just wasn't possible, if I had sat down to write a book that was, you know, history or some kind of nonfiction, you know, memoir of working on the war just wouldn't have let me deal with that in the same way which is why I went down this route. Yeah, and, you know, the one of the big problems if you have as a former agency employee is the pre publication, which often, I mean, the native ACOS who wrote the target or she took years for her to get her book published she of course was the main target and I'm not sure how far that case went in quotes but I know that she had a lawyer and it was a messy experience or difficult experience and that's she's not alone in that. So I'm wondering how your experience was given the fact that you were writing a novel. Yeah. My experience was a lot cleaner than than that is that's for sure. Because the CIA, the PRB, the publication review board tends for very good reasons to look differently on on fiction and on nonfiction accounts. And, you know, so I had that going for me. I also was, I think, fairly judicious in what I knew I shouldn't include or couldn't include or would be irresponsible to include. And then to, you know, I think when I submitted the manuscript, I must have had closer to 250 to 300 footnotes in there to show where I'd gotten particular pieces of information, you know, not from WikiLeaks not from unnamed senior US officials right but very much from stuff that's out there in the open and academia and field research and. I like to think I was somewhat smart about how I went about it. They read the first manuscript I think in four or five days and got it done. I like to think that was because it was so compelling but Well, I think that sounds I mean that's a miracle that they read it so quickly. They went quickly and you know the, the, the edits they had I thought were reasonable they were not major structural kind of things they didn't black out a whole chapter. It's easy to do I do think my favorite little tidbit about working with the PRP is that they will return the manuscript to you with black highlighter through the stuff that you can't say so it's got this kind of wonderful cold war vintage kind of thing going on that's always fun to see something that you wrote on your laptop come back with redacted, you know black highlighter over top of it but overall it was a pretty straightforward experience for me. So you. So when did you, you did the undergraduate internship when did you formally join as a as an employee. So I would have formally joined in the summer of 2008 that right after I right after I graduated. So, obviously the uprising against Assad and sort of its failure and we recently hosted in New America some of the Syrian opposition leaders and the meeting was, you know, Chatham House rules, but I won't get into who said what but I mean it was pretty and I don't have any expertise on Syria at all it was a meeting led by Joel Rayburn, who's also a new marker who was a Syria and boy under the Trump administration that you know they feel that the whole world is sort of decided the Assad's there to stay, and that they, you know, they, you know, obviously they're not happy about it and the Caesar Act sanctions aren't being enforced, and then secondarily Ben Hubbard in the New York Times had a piece of six or seven days ago, making some of the same points but also, you know, reporting it in such a way that it was very clear that a lot of the Arab states have essentially acquiesce in the idea that Assad is going to just be around for for the foreseeable future so do you do you think that is the case be should that be the case and see if not what should be done about it. Well I think, you know, I, I guess at this point I've been watching Syria long enough to see a couple of these rotations of this one obviously is far more extreme but there was similar dynamics at play when the Bush administration tried to isolate the Syrians around, you know, they're meddling in Lebanon and and their sort of problematic stance vis a vis us in Iraq and, you know, eventually, sort of everyone got tired by that or thought that it was feudal and came back around to re engaging the Syrians we're kind of seeing I think some seeds of that beginning again I mean you know the Jordanians have opened what appears to be some kind of not normal but some kind of dialogue with the Syrians the Emirates have done the same thing. You rightly note that, you know, we're likely to all signs seem to be pointing to us sort of waving a lot of the Caesar Act provisions to allow for the export of Egyptian natural gas through Syria Lebanon. So, you know, I think that what we're seeing is probably the region acknowledging that the Syrian government is the strongest militia, if you I think it's actually just kind of easier to think about it as they are the largest and most powerful militia in the country. In certain cases it will make sense to deal with them. And they're likely not going anywhere, which I think are all just, you know, realities of the conflict today now, where it gets hard for folks like me have been watching this for a long time and certainly for those in the Syrian people who have, you know, extensive experience on the ground in Syria is that, you know, you really wish this weren't the case. This is a deeply corrupt thuggish awful government slash militia. And yet, there aren't practical things right now that I think we can do to change to significantly change behavior to push for some kind of reasonable political settlement. You know, I think that the, the era when that was possible, maybe earlier in the uprising, it sort of passed us. And at this point in time, you know, I don't see a particular need right now for the, there's no need for the US to normalize relations with Assad or to engage with him, you know, maybe in any meaningful at the same time, I'm not sure exactly what we get by, you know, preventing Eric partners from doing that and certainly at this point we've abandoned all practical energies behind actually achieving some kind of political transition in Syria so I think what we're seeing is a lot of our Eric partners sort of acknowledging that, you know, that time has passed. And the kind of implosion of Lebanon kind of strengthens his hand is that what you're suggesting a little bit. And in, in, you know, in the specific case of the gas pipeline it does, you know, there's a, the Syrians have drawn typically their sort of regional influence from the geographic proximity that they have to other potentially more important or problematic issues. So Lebanon here is one of them just by virtue of being a neighboring state. You know, we're sort of in a position where do you want to punish the Lebanese for some, you know, to maintain the provisions against the Syrians you sort of get into a self defeating position there pretty quickly so I think you know it absolutely strengthens their hand here just by virtue of being you know sitting in Damascus and still, you know, still being in power. And do you think that there was a, you know, as you know there was a drone strike against us forces in Syria in the last three, I guess, 48 hours or so. Yeah. I mean that is almost certainly by an Iranian backed militia or and what's the point of that strike. I think, you know, obviously neither the Syrians nor the Iranians want us there. You know, we're, we're effectively one of the major, you know impediments to them retaking or having the potential to retake parts of the country that they consider to be theirs. So I can't I don't know this any of the specific kind of tactical thinking behind this type of attack but certainly, you know, both the Syrians and their Iranian backers have an interest in over time. You know making it more difficult for our presence to exist there and for sort of uprooting us pushing us out, reaching some kind of political settlement that that gets us out they would prefer to slowly unwind the fact that the country is effectively you know the Turks control part of the north along with their allies we are occupying part of the northeast with our allies there's a part of Northwestern Syria and it live that's effectively governed by, you know, some offshoots so it's, you know, that are part of the Syrian opposition so I think for them is as a part of a kind of longer term program and by long term I mean like generational to retake slowly the parts of the country that are outside of their their control right now. So I think that the Russian al-Qaeda, which is obviously gone through a lot of different main iterations but let's just for the sake of argument for al-Qaeda in Syria. Yeah. I mean how do you score their relative strengths and weaknesses today and are they simply focused on the local issues. You know, the Khorasan group back, you know, many years ago which did seem to have an interest in attacking the West and as far as I can understand it the Khorasan group essentially got whacked by the United States as more of a business so. And, you know, and in addition is the al-Qaeda and Syria affiliate. I mean they seem by sticking to these local grievances maybe that's a better long term approach but, you know, might that change. Are they stronger weaker than they were several years ago. What's the state of play. Yeah. This is kind of the evergreen debate of Syria CT analysts I mean this was probably no secret I mean this is something that we would always we were thinking about, you know, for years at Langley with respect to these groups in Syria where, you know, it is, I guess I'd probably break it into into the kind of two conversations when we talk about Syria that one is that they're continued to be small fairly battered but obviously still problematic. You know, Islamic State cells in the center of the country in the desert, largely in unpopulated areas they've been pushed there by the, you know, the SDF so that that is a, you know, I think our continued sort of presence and and the support for the SDF and the Kurdish militias that make up its backbone have fairly effectively kind of driven them out of most of the populated areas but, you know, those groups maintain a much more sort of, I would say global perspective about their target list in general, and are a little bit different from the ones in the in the Northwest. I think that, you know, hiats are all sham HTS the sort of, you know, for lack of a better word I'll kind of, you know, sort of inspired group there I mean, I honestly don't, I don't know the answer to the question right around, the balance between focusing locally versus having a cell or capability that could do, you know, or conduct transnational attacks I think, you know, a lot of really good thinking and research has been done on this group. You know, in recent, in recent years and I think there does seem to be a general feeling that they're focused locally in terms of how they govern and, and, you know, extract resources from the part of idlib that they control. I do think that it's not, it's certainly not outside the realm of possibility that there could be the development of, or at least the sort of tacit acceptance of, you know, a much more transnationally focused operational capability and obviously they control the territory. You know, it, that kind of development becomes, you know, potentially more likely so I think well, I haven't seen anything at least in the open sources that would suggest that that's, you know, sort of entrenched today there. You know, it's certainly not outside the realm of possibility. And do they control the areas of around the al-Qaeda in Syria controls or manages. Do they do that with kind of a consent of the governed or is it kind of more or less by fiat or some combination of I mean are they, are they seen as pretty legitimate. Yeah, I mean, I think it's some combination of, you know, sort of the carrot and the stick what I will say is that when a lot of these groups started to sort of develop governance and service provision capabilities in some of the early phase earlier phases of the war. You know, they were viewed in some areas by the locals as fairly legitimate actors that were able to, you know, actually deliver services the regime in many of these places had stopped doing that. And, you know, they were viewed as sort of an alternative to, you know, what I call more broadly sort of warlord governance that had popped up in many parts of the country but, you know, I think that as with all things in Syria. You know, you ask any particular person about this in any particular place and get one answer and then you'll, you know, go 10 blocks down and you get a different one so I think it's pretty very depending on the piece of territory we're talking about. So the regime still delivering salaries to government employees in these areas controlled by the rebels. I mean, I don't, I don't think so. So that that was a that was a feature of the conflict that was quite interesting in some of its earlier phases where they were continuing to like places that were controlled by the rebels there would still be sort of government employees they would still get paid that were granted, because of the collapsing value of the pound that sort of made on a matter as much but you know I tend to think it's not as common today, just given how can't nice, it's become but it wouldn't surprise me if it were still happening in some places. And then with ISIS, what's your take on where they are right now and obviously we have the whole camp, which I think 70,000 people many of them women and children think have been 70 murders there by seems by women sort of enforcing Isaac dictated dictating in some cases so you know is there a scenario where ISIS can come back in Iraq or Syria, or are they mostly done. Well, I mean I would tend to take the Syrian side of it. I would tend to think that that probably depends to a large degree on on the sort of continued robustness of our partners on the ground in in northeastern Syria. You know, there are the SDF, the SDF and the YPG the Kurdish militias that you know that are really backbone. I mean didn't we sort of, to what extent, I mean we famously sort of abandoned them to the Turks did. In the end of the Trump administration was that a real thing or was that overblown I mean to a why they still cooperating with us if we kind of pulled the plug on them. I think it was one of those sort of kind of classic Trumpian foreign policy pronouncements where you sort of pulled the plug and then you sort of don't. You know, so I mean we have a US military presence there that in its, you know, it's not large. I think it's about 900 or so. I think it functions in many respects similar to the way that are relatively small presence in Afghanistan function which was providing, you know, the prospect of close air support providing sort of, you know, capability building providing a sense that there's a larger force at play here that's bucking me up that has a psychological impact. And I think that's all very continues to be very important in the, in the sort of counter ISIS fight in Syria but I mean, I think the bottom line answer to your question around their tape ISIS continued capabilities inside Syria. It's not zero but it's gone underground, I think in a similar manner to the way that, you know, the former AQ I did in Iraq, when they were beaten back toward the sort of end of the end of the surge where it became much more like a much less like a conventional military force and much more like a clandestine terrorist network that is capable of conducting attacks but not fully gone but you know, not able to control a lot of territory. But that's a very interesting answer because obviously AQ I did come back because it took advantage of this. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, the right set of circumstances but but also the right now the circumstances don't really apply right because society is more or less in control as much as Syria, and in Iraq, I guess the Iraqi election was sufficiently not a disaster so it's not like the country's going to collapse more if there was an Iraqi civil war that would be good for these groups but right now we don't have one right now. Right. Yeah, exactly exactly so that would feed off of, you know, the collapse of Kurdish control in northeastern Syria or at least its fragmentation they would feed off of, you know, military sort of setbacks for the Syrian regime that would reduce its ability to control some of the more populated areas, you know. But I think, you know, right now I'd put them more in ISIS more in the category of, you know, sort of underground terrorist network capable of conducting attacks inside the country but without a really clean operational safe haven like they had for much of the past, you know, seven eight years. I want to want to return to the your novel to master station. Talk, talk us through kind of what the process was for writing the book and give us a sense of kind of the the key plot points to the book without like, you know, giving too much away without being too much away. Yeah, so I am. I think I, in terms of the process I. Well actually let me let me maybe just explain a little bit about I'll tell you a little bit about what it's about first and then explain kind of why why and how I wrote it. So it's a it's a spy novel. Obviously it is set in the early years of the Syrian civil war so you could kind of think 2011 to 2013 sort of as you go from, you know, protests on one end to sort of full scale conflict on the other. So it is about a CI case officer Sam and his Syrian recruit, Maryam, who breaks sort of the cardinal rule of espionage or one of them and fall into a forbidden relationship. They, they go into the mascus to hunt down the killer of another CI case officer, and really kind of come face to face with a lot of the conflict and attention and the passion their own relationship, as well as come face to face with a pretty brutal and interesting pair of Syrian brothers, who are in the military and the security services and who are guarding a very kind of dark secret at the heart of the Syrian regime. So it's really it's obviously it's a spy novel it's about espionage, but it's also about love it's also about what it means to be, or at least I hope readers take away that you know it's about what it means to be human in the middle of a very in human And I really wrote it like I said earlier to get I wanted to get Syria right I wanted to show the conflict through many different lenses and bring it to life through the eyes of the characters so that you don't feel I hope like you're reading a book that's not a history book or nonfiction or anything like that but that you're sort of propelled through the narrative through the eyes of these, you know Syrian characters. I also wanted to show, I think the like brutality and inhumanity of the conflict but at the other end of the spectrum to show a lot of the heroism the self sacrifice and the bravery that's characterized. So many people's response to it. And then I think, you know, to is I wanted to get the CIA right I mean. Peter there's so much spy fiction out there that's wonderful and fun and, you know, the protagonist would be arrested by the third page for, you know, doing all kinds of illegal things I kind of wanted this book to. You know it's fiction, but to render authentically the work of the CIA and in particular its case officers and to get a little bit closer I think to the sort of guts of the place to leave readers with the feeling that they understand the work of the agency and its moral code a little bit better after having read the book. It isn't part of the moral codes, you know, essentially stealing secrets and disembling and lying. I mean it's interesting. I mean I'm not I'm not attacking the agency I'm just saying it's an interesting. I mean you're, you're obliged to do things that would not be part of the moral code of the FBI, for instance. For sure. No and I think it's it's one of the very interesting paradoxes about the agency and I think it's one of the. It's a reason why the place is so misunderstood in a lot of respects publicly is because, you know, you're exactly right there is this very widely held perception that, you know, see officers or liars and the places, you know, sort of corrupt it's highly secretive you know, it's highly bungling and I don't say any of what I'm about to say to paper over many of the very real issues with the CIA and with the work of intelligence but what I do think is that when you look at the work of a case officer when you look at the work of an analyst. You know you're effectively engaged in the search for truth, really. And the, you know, case officers just to take an example because as you know Sam, the protagonist of my book as a case officer and he talks about this with his fictional chief of station in the you know, they have to be people who are of extreme integrity who are trustworthy who Langley can trust to send out and recruit and meet with assets and come back and report accurately on that meeting. And to give those officers such wide berth, they have to be extremely honest. And I think that that that paradox of sort of the search for truth and honesty being at the heart of the work, but the place being cloaked in secrecy is kind of an important concept when you're talking about the work of the CIA. And it's what I wanted to get across in the book. And what are other other writers that you feel like kind of get the agency correct. Even if it's, I mean, on a fictional level. Yeah. I mean on a fictional level that the, the two guys that I really, really love, love reading who I think get the agency. I think does a wonderful job in his books of really portraying the work accurately. I mean I still think to this day that agents of innocence which was, I think his first novel is probably the closest thing out there. Other than my book of course to the actual work of a CIA case officer. You know, it's a wonderful book it's very realistic. I also love, there's slightly more dramatic and fictionalized but you know Jason Matthews has a one, you know, since sadly deceased has a wonderful trilogy called the Red Sparrow trilogy which I think does a similar, you know, similarly he's he's capturing the life of a case officer in the work and what it's like to be at the CIA. Those two guys I think do a wonderful job of really bringing to life the actual CIA. And in terms of TV, you know, my wife and I were enjoying the bureau. Which obviously is about French, but it seemed to have the ring of truth or maybe it's any other other TV or film that you think also kind of. There's obviously been a whole raft of zero dark 30s and homeland and, you know, and then also founder and the bureau which respectively treat the Israeli and French services. Other is other other portrayals of intelligent intelligence services getting better or worse. What is there anything on TV. I mean obviously TV is probably even more exaggerated in terms of than say a novel but right. Is there anything that kind of rings true for you. I so the bureau is great. But you're right. It is about the French. I think, you know, I, I think there are pieces of different series or movies that get parts of it. Right. So I think like the Americans, right. There's a lot of stuff in that in that series that's crazy. But a lot of the street trade craft, particularly from a Cold War standpoint was was pretty good. And, and, you know, they did it fairly accurate. I mean Joe Weisberg is ex agency right so there was there's some technical expertise that he brought to that. So I think that the spy the Netflix limited series that had Sasha Baron Cohen as you like, as Ellie Cohen, did a very good job of kind of portraying the, you know, some of the psychology of being, you know, under this kind of very elaborate cover in a pretty historical place. And then I do think, you know, the, the, and it's personally my favorite spy novel is John looker a little drummer girl. Yeah, is a great job with the psychology that the intimacy the manipulation that goes into, you know, asset recruitment, and really kind of slow burn in the rehearsal around a big operation so I think a lot of other things in that book that are, you know, completely unrealistic but he gets the core of that I think quite right. So how was your process for writing the book. And when did you start and when did you finish and you write in the morning, the evening. Yeah, how does that work you got three kids I think. I do have three kids, and they tend to discourage extended blocks of time where I can sit right and concentrate. And there was also COVID in the middle of this I presume and COVID that's right I to the sort of germ of the novel goes back to the summer when I left the agency so back in 2014 I didn't have any kids at the time. And I had a whole summer where I was just sort of in between agency and my consulting job and so I sat down every day and I started writing and really found that I enjoyed just be you know, sitting there for seven eight hours putting words on paper. And I thought I think like a lot of first time writers probably do at least I did. When I looked at it I was like oh this is pretty good you know maybe someone will be interested in this. And I put the manuscript aside. When I started consulting and then I had an opportunity. I think about it a few years ago to kind of come back and spend more time writing and I dusted it off and looked at it. And, you know, I thought well this is really terrible like this is really awful I mean this is no one no one is going to want to read this buy it. Take a look at it. And I, but you know it was all Syria focused and I still wanted to write the book and so I got much more serious at that point about writing something that I wanted to write and read. And then on the other hand, you know, other people would want to read it want to buy it and those two things don't always go together when you're when you're writing so my process was every day I sat down for eight hours from about 830 to 430. And I would just write and, you know, some days, some days you get a lot down on paper and you know you feel like the creativity is really flowing and you're moving and then other days it's you know you're banging your head against the wall of the screen and doesn't really I found that it was basically impossible to predict based on the feeling that you get when you sit down at the keyboard, if it's going to be a good day or bad day that had no bearing on whether it actually was a good day or bad day so you just had to write. And so I just did I just kind of wrote every day. And my part of my process is I get up early and start writing and I because I sort of feel like, I think your unconscious mind when you're sleeping does a lot of writing for you, at least sorting out of problems and I feel like, often when you hit the keyboard. It's at the beginning of the day that's because you could you have been working on it subconsciously is that do you find that to be the case. I do, I do and, you know, it's sort of like a trite thing to say but I do think that a lot of the aha moments come immediately after like when you've gotten some space from actually sitting there in front of the keyboard and you're doing something else but your to your point your brain is still working through a problem whether it's a plot problem or a character problem or whatever it might be. And I found that I would sit down every day and the first thing I would do is just long hand I'd write like three or four pages down in a journal and it would just be what's what's going on in my head it could be about the book it could be about other you know family stuff whatever it might be. But that really, I think did some work to kind of churn out of my brain, some of the problem solving that it happened overnight to help facilitate getting it on paper as I wrote later that day. I have written a number of nonfiction books I've never written a fiction book and I, I admire you for writing a fiction book because I think. I mean there's advantages and disadvantages I think we're writing fiction, the advantage of course is you can make it up disadvantages you have to make it up to I mean so. So, in the case in your case you wrote the entire manuscript and then found an agent and then a publisher or what was the process for that. Well, so I was. I think the general rule that I have heard is like if you're a first time writer, and you're doing fiction you basically have to have the manuscript done before anyone's going to make a decision on it whereas if you are doing nonfiction and you have to write background. You have to get into the commercial process sooner by having a few chapters in an outline. I think that's probably true. I was fortunate enough that through some connections my wife had I was in conversation pretty early on with an agent about, you know, here's kind of the concept for the book here's a couple chapters. In a way he would provide help and encouragement to just kind of, you know, steer the process a bit which is exactly what he should be doing. But it's still I still had to finish the manuscript. You know, and go through a bunch of revisions with a small group of readers that I had before getting it to the agent to then read it and said okay I want to rep this and then eventually taking it to publishers so I the whole thing was. And then there was another rewrite after we, after we submitted and and the editor that we were working with had some feedback that I thought was reasonable and then we kind of did another rewrite so you know you get to a point multiple points along the way and you think oh I'm done and you know that's tends to be a delusion. Writing is about rewriting. That's right. It really is I mean that that first draft you know there's the classic and Lamont line about shitty first drafts and then there's, you know, I kind of intended to view it as it you're like getting all the ingredients down on the counter to figure out what it is you're going to cook you haven't actually started yet so you think you have the whole story done you actually don't you just have like, you know, I'm cooking Italian food but it could be 10 different things and you have to work through the passes or the drafts to kind of get the cook appropriately. That's a good metaphor. So do you have another one in the in the all thing. So I do I have. I have a follow on to Damascus station outline that continues the story at least for the characters that survive but I haven't been working on that what I've actually been spending my time on is a another one focused on Russia that has a totally different subset of characters it's in kind of the same universe but it's, it's present day, it's, it's focusing on really the kind of next phase of the US Russia spy war and trying to answer the question of what would it look like if the CIA got really serious about sticking it to Vladimir Putin, which has been a fun topic to explore so I'm most of the way through the first draft on that one. And excited about where it's going. You know, I mean you mentioned you wrote to Mackenzie. Are you still there were you. No writer or what I am a full time writer right now. So I left Mackenzie earlier this year to focus full time on getting the second book done and making sure that I could you know, give Damascus station a good shot once it got out in the book. I've been, it's, it's been, it's been a lot of fun to just focus on the writing. So on your, on your Putin book that is not what you focus on. So what's what's the process in terms of homework. Yeah. A lot more a lot more homework, I would say, I think I probably underestimated how much of the serious stuff I just had in my head as I was writing that one so you know I've. I've read just dozens and dozens and dozens of Russia books. You know I'm finding, you know, former agency folks with experience on Russia who can help talk through some of the stuff with me. Russians, you know, like really anyone that has some bit of information in their head that you know it's been helpful for the book I'm talking to you there's a extensive sort of plot that involves. Basically cyber crime against a bank and cryptocurrency and so I'm having a lot of technical conversations about that so the number of topics that you have to do research on as you write one of these things they just quickly proliferate so it's been a much more extensive. I've had to do a lot more homework to make this one I think feel as as real as an authentic and as authentic hopefully as domestic station feels. I'm just going to remind people if they have a question to drop it in the q amp a document. And so the domestic station was published, it came out. What was it October, what was a pub day. October 5. October 5. And have any of your colleagues read it. Yes, a number of a number of them have a number of them read it, you know, before it before it came out. And I would say the reaction has been very good. You know, both to getting the serious stuff, you know, right and I did, I did, you know, I wasn't a case officer I was an analyst, but I like to think that I have observed them in their natural habitat for a long period of time. And I had a number of them who were advisors on the book who read early versions of the book and who have read it since it came out and I think the feedback on kind of capturing the trade craft and the experience has been has been positive so far. And you mentioned you were tracking the foreign fighters do you see. I mean, you also mentioned Afghanistan we have the drawdown. Is it possible. I mean, you know, I'm reminded of the summer of 2014. When I see what's going on in Afghanistan but you know, history doesn't repeat itself and sometimes rhyme. And, and of course Afghanistan is in Syria and Afghanistan is a lot further from United States and Europe and, you know, you can drive from Damascus to Syria would be pretty hard to drive from. You can't drive from Damascus to Paris, you can't drive from Kabul to Paris, you could but it would be. Yeah, it's a lot harder. So you wouldn't probably go through Iran so I guess my question is, you know what. What, what do you think the likely outcome is obviously we've got this new Taliban government. The first round of appointments were kind of Taliban 1.0 was not a 2.0. They were, you know, one of them is actually Sirat al-Kharni as you know is UN described as being on the leadership council of al-Qaeda. And so, you know, what, what, what could develop there and I'm not talking about, you know, a month from now for like two or three years down the road when everybody's had time to kind of dig into whatever position they're going to dig into. How do you see it kind of playing out. Yeah. Well, I, you know, it seems unlike it seems unlikely to me that in the near term, the Taliban controls the whole place. So you are just as a starting point there you kind of have some of the grist or fodder for a variety of different actors, some of whom that they may sort of tassel the Taliban may tassel except some of them they may not, but they don't have the capacity or the willingness to go after them to sort of, you know, take to kind of take root there right and I think that's a, that's a sort of real concern. And I also think from a, you know, CT perspective, you know, we hear a lot of the buzzword over the horizon, but the reality of it is that when you don't have a footprint locally, and when you don't have basing rights to my understanding with any current state, you're sort of in a, you know, nasty position of, in order to deliver in order to disrupt a, you know, any group from from planning or conducting an attack there your intelligence actually has to be better, because you have a longer period of time from, you know, you have longer to go to deliver a military capability so, you know, I think that what we will still and furthermore, I think there's an open question around whether, you know, future presidents will have sort of the willingness to strike as well, given that the, you know, the potential civilian casualties could be higher because intelligence is good. The more is refined so I, you know, it seems to me I would agree with the Taliban 1.0 assessment I haven't seen anything to suggest that there's a, you know, new and better sort of crew in town. And I think we have to acknowledge the fact that our CT capabilities will be degraded by virtue of geography. So it feels to me like with both of those recipes and the fact that no one entity will control the country and we will not have troops there feels to me like you're right it's not, you know, you can't drive to Paris but at the same time, you're probably going to have a festering sort of ungoverned, you know, safe haven for prospective jihadis for, you know, the foreseeable future. Here's an interesting question from audience member anonymous. How do you deal with things you know are still classified but are also publicly published. And how do you approach such issues. Yeah, so I think the answer there is very awkwardly is how that's managed I mean. So from a PRB standpoint, like, and I made this sort of offended comment about not citing with the leaks but it's true. I mean if something is officially classified but is out in the open. I as a former CIA officer and not allowed to use that. You know, as sort of the proof that hey it's already out there so can you let me write about this no, you know, that's not an acceptable answer even though everyone else has access to that information. So if you're talking about something that's widely known but so classified, you know, it just you kind of, it tends to be a little bit weird and there's really no way around it. There's a number of, which I won't mention a number of things related to Syria that I'm sure everyone can use their imagination on that are very publicly well known and have been cited in official memoirs on the part of Hillary Clinton and former Defense Secretary and DCI Panetta that I also cannot comment on and no one, you know, the agency can comment on but that are pretty well known and out in, you know, for public consumption. It's a little bit weird. Yeah. And another question we often hear about the impenetrability of Islamist groups or Western intelligence agencies. Can you comment on that in the Syrian context. Impenetrability I mean, I think that from a sort of human intelligence standpoint. Nothing is really impenetrable I mean, it's so I probably but yeah, there must be degrees right I mean we know. I mean, we know by name a number of Westerners who penetrated jihadi groups and but it's obviously a hard target story. I remember interviewing a CIA official long before 911 and he was he said, look, you know, in the old days I could go and have a beer with a Palestinian terrorist, you know, guy, but I can't do that with these I mean he he was saying it was was harder but so but you're saying it's far from impossible it's not like penetrating King John Goons, you know, I presume. No, absolutely and I think what you what you find when you start looking really at any group of humans anywhere, whether they are, you know, North Koreans, or, or Russians or members of the battle in Syria, like you, you realize that there are vulnerabilities from a human standpoint there are there are members of the group who are less ideologically committed there are members of the group who owe people money and don't like other people in the group there, you know, it's the sort of realities of human nature. You have more people. It's a hard target precisely because in those inner sanctums of the actual operational commanders and folks who are making the decisions. They are very ideologically committed and very tight knit communities but at the same time, they are humans and so you have the practical vulnerabilities that all humans have. When you start to look closely at those groups and so I think from an intelligence standpoint, you know, the agency, they're harder for sure but but it doesn't mean that there aren't handholds or vulnerabilities that can be exposed and exploit it. We're close to the end of a lot of time. Is there anything that you'd like to say just in wrapping up. Well, what I will say is I, you know, everyone should take a look at the book. I'll put that shameless plug out there. I do think that the book, you know, will appeal to people who to a pretty wide range of people I think if you like spy novels and just having fun reading. It hopefully does that. And on the other hand, you know, I think that if you're looking for, you know, some insider knowledge on Syria and on the agency, and how that works, you know, you can you get that too. So I think there's a little bit of something for everybody both from a sort of, you know, pure fiction, you know, let's have fun reading standpoint and then more of a, you know, maybe nonfiction focused audience. But no, I think, you know, this is, this has been really wonderful Peter to be in conversation with you and I hope that folks, you know, do come away from this with some understanding of, you know, the complexities and in Syria, and, and an appreciation. I hope that the conflict there is a lot more than a, you know, sort of bad guys versus good guys thing although it does have that for sure. It's a lot. The shades of gray or are, you know, much more common than, than the black and white. David, thank you for. Again the book is the master station. It's received stellar reviews. Good luck with the book tour, and we'll sign off and thank you everybody who tuned in to listen to this. Thank you. Thank you.