Mr. Amir Asmar is currently an adjunct Instructor of Middle East strategic issues at the National Intelligence University. He retired from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and federal service in January 2023. Prior to his retirement, Mr. Asmar was Deputy Chief, Office of Partner Mission Integration in DIA’s Deputy Directorate for Global Integration (DDGI). In this capacity, he provided expert advice to the DDGI and other DIA senior leaders on the Agency’s foreign and domestic partnerships. Prior, he had been the Deputy Director of DIA’s Office of Partner Engagement overseeing a variety of foreign engagement issues.

In 2020, he completed a national intelligence fellowship at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he engaged with Council staff and members on the Intelligence Community (IC) and used his longtime Middle East experience to contribute to Council blogs and discussion. In 2018-19, Mr. Asmar spent 18 months as Deputy Director of ODNI’s President’s Daily Brief (PDB) staff, helping to oversee IC PDB production and managing the staff of briefers for the highest level policymakers in the US Government. Previously, he had been Chief of DIA’s Executive Production Staff, leading a team of some 20 content and technical editors and reviewers who prepared DIA’s Defense Intelligence Digest and DIA contributions to PDB and National Intelligence Council (NIC) production.

Mr. Asmar was the Defense Intelligence Officer (DIO) for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), from fall 2010 to early 2017, after being appointed to the Defense Intelligence Senior Level in January 2010. As the DIO, Mr. Asmar maximized defense intelligence support to senior customers in the Department of Defense (DoD), the IC, other executive branch departments, and Congress; developed analytic engagement strategies with foreign partners; promoted integration across intelligence functions; and postured defense intelligence to meet future requirements by developing a MENA Strategic Intelligence Plan. He briefed high-level audiences, including the Director of National Intelligence, the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, the Defense Policy Board, National Security Council seniors, Congressional committees, and the 2016 major party nominees for President and Vice President of the United States.

Before becoming the DIO, Mr. Asmar was DIA’s Senior Defense Intelligence Analyst for Iran, managing the analytic production of a cadre of more than 70 Iran-focused officers. From 2007 to 2010, Mr. Asmar served as the Senior Intelligence Officer for DIA’s Middle East and North Africa Analysis Office, substantively reviewing the production of some 300 analysts. He also deployed to Iraq in 2009 as the Senior Intelligence Officer for Analysis and Production for Multinational Forces–Iraq. From 2005 to 2007, Mr. Asmar was at the NIC, serving as Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and producing a variety of IC products, including a National Intelligence Estimate on Iran and a number of items selected for briefing to the President. In early 2004, Mr. Asmar began an assignment as Senior Intelligence Officer for the Persian Gulf in DIA’s Office of Middle East and South Asia.

Mr. Asmar had begun his DIA career in 1998 with the Office for Counterterrorism Analysis (later the Defense Combating Terrorism Center). In 2002, he assumed the duties of senior analyst and Chief of the Middle East terrorism branch. Mr. Asmar began his U.S. Government career as a Middle East analyst at the U.S. Army’s 4th Psychological Operations Group (Fort Bragg, NC). He deployed or spent extended-duty rotations in support of Operations DESERT SHIELD/DESERT STORM (Saudi Arabia) and Operations RESTORE HOPE/CONTINUE HOPE (Somalia) and at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo.

Mr. Asmar taught history at Fayetteville State University (1989–1998) and published a variety of papers, commentaries, blog posts, and book reviews on Middle East issues. He has spoken to a variety of government audiences, including at the Foreign Service Institute, the Joint Military Intelligence Training Center (DIA), the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School (Ft. Bragg, NC), and the U.S. Military Academy (West Point, NY). Mr. Asmar completed his undergraduate studies in government at Pomona College (Claremont, CA) and earned his Master of Arts at the University of Chicago’s Center for Middle East Studies. Mr. Asmar also served in the U.S. Peace Corps as an instructor of English in the Republic of Niger, West Africa.