Former CIA officer blasts Biden admin. for being 'overly tentative' on global crises

Career CIA clandestine officer Dan Hoffman says that the Biden administration has been too tentative regarding the global crisis in Russia. 

"This administration has allowed Vladimir Putin to deter us from doing the right things and giving Ukrainians the artillery they need with the range they need," Hoffman said on the John Solomon Reports podcast, referring to the war in Ukraine.

"We couldn't impose a no-fly zone over parts of Ukraine," Hoffman continued. "We could have allowed Poland to send MIGs. We didn't do that either. And Putin got used to the fact that if he threatened the use of nuclear weapons and threatened to take that sort of action if Russian territory were attacked, that would have the intended effect on the United States."

Hoffman served as a station chief in Moscow as a CIA clandestine officer. 

"We've been overly tentative in my view," Hoffman said. "And we've failed to recognize that we are a nuclear power ourselves. We have a lot of power and a lot of control over how this war ends, and we just didn't do enough." 

Hoffman went on to explain that the Biden administration is a lot like the Obama administration, in that they would take a long time to take action on the world stage, and by the time they came up with a solution, it was too late. He went on to give examples of administrations that took more action in the time of crisis. 

"Other administrations like the Reagan administration were just quicker about things," Hoffman explained. You've got to be quick, especially when its war time in Ukraine. "You got to step in with the intelligence collection, the analysis, and make your decisions and execute those decisions as fast as you can and we just aren't doing that."

Hoffman said that the Biden administration had not done a good job of getting out in front of other issues on the world stage such as Iran and Afghanistan.

"That's been a challenge for the administration with Afghanistan and a huge challenge getting out in front of the protests in Iran and how you deal with that," said Hoffman. 

Hoffman was referring to the protests over the death of the young Iranian woman Mahsa Amini, who was fatally beaten by the Iran regime's "morality police" for "improperly" wearing her hijab and as a result, the hair on her head was showing.