John Daniel

It's an extraordinary moment because it underlines the depth of the relationship between the US and Israel, and it shows us how the CIA fits into a stack with both the US military and the heart of American political power, with the State Department and the White House.

In 2019, Susan Miller was CIA Chief of Station for Israel.

Put a pin in that, we'll definitely come back to Susan Miller's dealings with President Trump because she's now basically in open conflict with him.

Anyway, she says Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu goes to Donald Trump in 2019 and Trump signs off on the assassination of Qasem Soleimani.

But there are then questions about exactly how it's going to go down.

So Susan Miller has to go and talk to Yossi Cohen, the head of MOSAD, the Israeli External Intelligence Service, equivalent of CIA, in order to coordinate a plan.

Susan Miller wants to walk through the reasoning for such a major escalation, but I think it's fair to say that for Mark Milley, this time, it's personal.

10 other people in the same convoy were also killed.

Yeah, it's really worth noting now because before President Trump and Israel launched a full-scale air war on Iran, much of the commentary was about comparing it with the much more surgical approach taken in Venezuela.

But in fact, this strike on Qasem Soleimani towards the end of Trump's first term was probably the more relevant comparison.

And there is later a reported assassination attempt on Mike Pompeo, who had been CIA chief but was Secretary of State at the time of Soleimani's killing, and seems to have been the key advocate of the operation.

There's even reports of assassination plots against President Trump himself as revenge attacks.

Iran denies this.

Now, it's important to say this level of high-impact military operation isn't necessarily the norm here.

Intelligence work is often invisible to the naked eye.

It's more about quiet pressure and behind-the-scenes maneuvering.

The important thing with this story is for us to see how CIA plugs into the wider American government and understand that the agency is always thinking about pushing American political goals.

He's a bit coy about this meeting at the White House.

We just don't know any more about it.

But in a later episode, we'll come to a different high-level meeting where Kit Bennett sits down with the director of CIA.