Damascus Station: Spy Fiction and the Syrian War
Channel: New America
Date: 2021-10-21

In Damascus Station, David McCloskey, a former CIA analyst, provides a spy novel that follows CIA case officer Sam Joseph as he is dispatched to Paris to recruit a Syrian palace official, falls into a forbidden relationship, and enters Damascus to find the man responsible for the disappearance of an American spy. Damascus Station has drawn praise from former CIA Director Gen. (ret.) David Petraeus, who has called it “the best spy novel” he's ever read.

To discuss his novel, how it connects to the Syrian war, and the broader foreign policy and security challenges facing the US in the Middle East,  New America welcomes David McCloskey, who is a former CIA analyst and former consultant at McKinsey & Company. While at the CIA, he wrote regularly for the President’s Daily Brief and worked in CIA field stations across the Middle East. He holds an M.A. from the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, where he specialized in energy policy and the Middle East. 

Join the conversation online using #DamascusStation and following @NewAmericaISP.

Speaker:

David McCloskey, @mccloskeybooks
Author, Damascus Station

Moderator:

Peter Bergen, @peterbergencnn
Vice President, New America


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