{"id":218323,"date":"2025-01-18T11:05:06","date_gmt":"2025-01-18T11:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/18\/u-s-spy-chief-took-on-role-of-negotiator-in-gaza-war\/"},"modified":"2025-01-18T11:05:07","modified_gmt":"2025-01-18T11:05:07","slug":"u-s-spy-chief-took-on-role-of-negotiator-in-gaza-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/01\/18\/u-s-spy-chief-took-on-role-of-negotiator-in-gaza-war\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Spy Chief Took on Role of Negotiator in Gaza War"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/01\/16\/multimedia\/00dc-burns-gaza-01-gqwz\/00dc-burns-gaza-01-gqwz-facebookJumbo.jpg?ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"U.S. Spy Chief Took on Role of Negotiator in Gaza War\" title=\"U.S. Spy Chief Took on Role of Negotiator in Gaza War\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-0\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">For his first three years as the head of the C.I.A., William J. Burns was relentlessly focused on tripling the agency\u2019s resources devoted to understanding China, and on countering Russia and its mysterious partnerships with Iran and North Korea.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But in the last 16 months of his tenure, the diplomat-turned-spy was plunged back into his old life.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Over four decades at the State Department, Mr. Burns came to be regarded as the master of creating \u201cthe back channel\u201d \u2014 the title of his memoir \u2014 the invisible, essential outreach to allies and enemies alike.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">As the Israel-Hamas war threatened to pull the Middle East into a larger conflagration, President Biden asked Mr. Burns to swim in that back channel once again, blending his intelligence role with his experience as a Middle East negotiator to help find a way to a cease-fire and the release of hostages held in Gaza.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-1\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Soon he was, by his own account, \u201con the phone every day\u201d with David Barnea, the head of Israel\u2019s foreign spy agency, and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani of Qatar, the link to Hamas, searching for an opening, for some leverage to bring about a truce and maybe a new Middle East.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The distinction between a diplomatic negotiator and an intelligence operative is vague in the region, and Mr. Burns\u2019s arrivals and departures could be stealthy. \u201cIt makes it easier to come and go,\u201d he said in his office on the 7th floor of the C.I.A., with its memorabilia of the agency\u2019s operations and successes, and a framed map of the Russian plan to move in on Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Burns is a singular figure in Washington. He has worked for Republicans and Democrats; in the early 2000s, he was George W. Bush\u2019s ambassador in Moscow, where he got to know Vladimir V. Putin, making him the only member of the Biden inner circle who knows the Russian leader well.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Current and former officials said that had Kamala Harris been elected president last November, Mr. Burns was her selection for secretary of state, something he declined, with some diplomatic aversion, to confirm or deny. It would have been a return to the institution that defined his career \u2014 and where he met his wife, Lisa Carty, who is now at the U.S. mission to the United Nations. (They sat next to each other in the Foreign Service training institute. Students were seated alphabetically.)<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">When he arrived at the C.I.A., several veterans there concede that they were suspicious: Why was a career diplomat leading a spy agency?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-2\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">By the time he packed up on Friday, the deal between Israel and Hamas barely holding together, and new conflicts on the horizon, several said he had won over the agency.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">As Mr. Burns and his deputy, David Cohen, left the building for the last time, thousands of C.I.A. employees lined the corridors for a \u201cclap out,\u201d a sign of the respect they had achieved.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"css-13o6u42 eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-467556\">A master negotiator faces a critical moment<\/h2>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Burns\u2019s career has included many tense negotiations, from Israeli-Palestinian conflicts to the Iran nuclear agreement, which he and Jake Sullivan, Mr. Biden\u2019s national security adviser, launched secretly in 2013.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But nothing, he says, matched the urgency of the effort to halt the Israel-Hamas conflict before it spread through the region.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThis probably has been the most complicated negotiations I have been involved in, in the sense it was indirect talks twice removed,\u201d Mr. Burns said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-3\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Burns and Mr. Barnea negotiated with the Qataris and the Egyptians, who spoke to the Hamas leadership based in Doha. Those Hamas leaders negotiated with the Hamas leaders in Gaza, who were hiding underground and held the remaining 95 or so hostages, some alive and some dead.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-4\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cLots of negotiations are passionate, but here you had this human predicament of hostages and their families, innocent civilians in Gaza suffering terrible conditions for the last 15 months,\u201d Mr. Burns said on Wednesday. \u201cThis wasn\u2019t just about texts. It was about real human beings whose lives were in danger.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Burns made 19 trips to the region after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, to work on the issue of the Gaza war and the hostages. Until this week, the talks loomed as the major unfulfilled mission, or even failure, of his time leading the spy agency.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But under pressure from President-elect Donald J. Trump, the opportunity negotiators were looking for appeared. With a last-minute push by Mr. Burns and the rest of Mr. Biden\u2019s team, negotiators announced on Wednesday that they had reached a deal.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-5\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Biden put Mr. Burns in charge of the hostage negotiations after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put Mr. Barnea, Israel\u2019s spy chief, in charge of Israel\u2019s negotiations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Over the course of negotiations, both Hamas and Israel prevented an agreement at various points.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In the end it was an approach Mr. Burns and the American team developed that carried the day: a multiphase plan to release some hostages in return for prisoners and aid. Some Israeli troops will be pulled back. The thorny issues of governance of Gaza were left for later negotiations.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Burns and Mr. Biden had pushed this formulation for months. But what changed, Mr. Burns said, is that Hamas\u2019s military commanders were feeling \u201cbeleaguered,\u201d and their forces had been degraded. On the other side, the blows Israel landed against Iran and Hezbollah had created political space for an agreement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-6\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe Israeli political leadership is beginning to see that perfect is not on the menu here, but they have achieved a lot of what they wanted to achieve,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-7\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The question now for the Israelis, Mr. Burns said, is how to turn their tactical victories against Iran and Hezbollah into a strategic win. And Mr. Burns and his colleagues argue that a cease-fire and hostage release is a vital part of that transformation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Talking to his fellow intelligence chiefs helped in pressing that case. \u201cI think with intelligence work in general, you\u2019re able to be a little bit more discreet than if you\u2019re a diplomat,\u201d Mr. Burns said.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"css-13o6u42 eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-4a259bca\">Winning over the spies<\/h2>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">There was a degree of wariness among the C.I.A.\u2019s rank and file about Mr. Burns when he arrived at the sprawling Langley campus in early 2021.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Not every senior C.I.A. officer stationed abroad gets along with the ambassador overseeing an embassy \u2014 and thus American operations. But in his time in Amman, Jordan, and in Moscow, where the C.I.A. station chiefs interact with the ambassador almost daily, his management style won over analysts, case officers and even the military veterans in the paramilitary arm of the agency.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Rob Richer, the agency\u2019s chief of station in Amman when Mr. Burns was the ambassador, recalled that Mr. Burns \u201cnever, ever says something was his idea.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-8\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cHe is like a vacuum cleaner in terms of what he sucks in,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd then he bounces ideas off of the people around him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Current C.I.A. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they work undercover, said Mr. Burns earned loyalty when he made two key decisions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The first was during the fall of Kabul in 2021, when Mr. Burns vowed that the 9,000 commandoes who had worked with the agency would be evacuated, along with 25,000 family members.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The second was when he persuaded Mr. Biden to allow a handful of C.I.A. officers to remain in Ukraine after the president had ordered all American government personnel to leave the country. Their presence, Mr. Burns said, was key to the partnership and the C.I.A.\u2019s success.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-9\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<h2 class=\"css-13o6u42 eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-be773f8\">The Putin whisperer<\/h2>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">By the end of his first year, it was the war in Ukraine that tested Mr. Burns, just as he was beginning to restore morale at an agency after near-constant turmoil during Mr. Trump\u2019s first term.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-10\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">It played to his strength: All those years in Moscow, as Mr. Putin consolidated power (and interacted with the American ambassador) made him the government\u2019s chief expert on the Russian leader.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Starting with a \u201cmother lode\u201d of new intelligence that arrived in the early fall of 2021, Mr. Burns became convinced that his old nemesis intended to try to take Kyiv, a step toward restoring Peter the Great\u2019s empire. .<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Over objections inside the intelligence community, Mr. Burns \u2014 along with Mr. Sullivan and Avril D. Haines, the director of national intelligence \u2014 authorized declassification of the material, in hopes of convincing allies who thought Mr. Putin was bluffing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The depth of the data demonstrated that the C.I.A. had penetrated deeply into Russia\u2019s military, obtaining its plans and later even considerations about deploying nuclear weapons. Satellite photos, accounts from sources who were clearly close to the Kremlin and communications laid out what the Russians were planning.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-11\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWhat we collected at this agency, but also elsewhere in the intelligence community, was exquisite, that was quite detailed in terms of not just the military buildup in the late fall of \u201921, but also the planning for the day after,\u201d Mr. Burns said. Still, he acknowledged, most NATO allies were skeptical. \u201cIt was pretty lonely in the late fall of \u201921 because we and the Brits were the only two services who were convinced\u201d of the Russian leaders\u2019 intentions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Biden sent Mr. Burns \u2014 rather than the secretary of state or the national security adviser \u2014 to Moscow on a mission to warn Mr. Putin and try to head off war. But he found a Russian leader who had stewed in his grievances over the years and was only more intent on his goal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Burns made his case about the damage Mr. Putin would do to his own country if he invaded Ukraine. \u201cI found Putin utterly unapologetic about what we laid out in front of him,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The warning did nothing to stop the invasion. But Mr. Burns\u2019s early warnings made it easier to rally the allies, and Congress.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-12\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Still, Republicans have said that even if that call was accurate, the C.I.A. failed in understanding other key events: how quickly the Afghan government could collapse, how Bashar al-Assad would flee Syria and how Hamas was preparing to attack Israel.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"css-13o6u42 eoo0vm40\" id=\"link-12a1cbcc\">The long game: China<\/h2>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">One of Mr. Burns\u2019s first acts was to create a mission center dedicated to China. It would be a place where analysis of China\u2019s economic future, its technical prowess, its intentions toward Taiwan and the C.I.A.\u2019 s operations would come together. But he also poured more money and people \u2014 and Mandarin speakers \u2014 at the problem; today China-related work accounts for about 20 percent of the agency\u2019s classified budget, officials say.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Burns attended a weekly meeting with top officials from the China center. The meeting, said one C.I.A. officer who has worked on the China issue for 30 years, was \u201ca great concrete manifestation of his personal commitment when everything else was going on.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-13\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">John Ratcliffe, Mr. Trump\u2019s choice to lead the C.I.A., has promised an agency that takes more risk and more aggressive covert action. But he has praised Mr. Burns\u2019s focus on China and pledged to build on his efforts.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div data-testid=\"companionColumn-14\">\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Mr. Burns said the agency has made progress recruiting spies. That would mark a significant comeback, 15 years after many of the C.I.A.\u2019s operatives in China were caught, and some executed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cChina is the biggest long-term geopolitical challenge our country faces,\u201d Mr. Burns said. \u201cAnd it\u2019s the biggest intelligence priority. It is a concerted effort on the part of the agency that is aimed at collecting intelligence. And it is beginning to pay dividends.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Keeping focus on priorities like China while giving \u201cthe overflowing inbox\u201d of immediate crises the attention they need has been the trick of the past four years, he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cIt is often the hardest thing in government,\u201d Mr. Burns said. \u201cBut I think we have managed the balance pretty well.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/01\/18\/us\/politics\/cia-director-william-burns.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For his first three years as the head of the C.I.A., William J. Burns was relentlessly focused on tripling the agency\u2019s resources devoted to understanding China, and on countering Russia and its mysterious partnerships with Iran and North Korea. But in the last 16 months of his tenure, the diplomat-turned-spy was plunged back into his [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":218324,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/01\/16\/multimedia\/00dc-burns-gaza-01-gqwz\/00dc-burns-gaza-01-gqwz-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[401,4757,45,32837,169297,302,168,165576,171065,171066,163487,43,5552,3096,128438,24106,4758,266,202,2536,23203,221,128437,3102,169299],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218323"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218323"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":218325,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218323\/revisions\/218325"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/218324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}