Clare M. Lopez

  • Senior level intelligence consultant and strategic policy analyst

  • 27+ years experience in government, the Intelligence Community, and the private sector

  • University lecturer, public events speaker, and published author on Middle East, Iran, Arab and Islamic culture, WMD, and transnational terrorism issues

  • Strong expertise in HUMINT project management

  • Vice President of The Intelligence Summit, a non-profit educational forum

  • Member of the Board of Directors, Institute of World Affairs

  • Former Visiting Researcher and guest lecturer at Georgetown University

  • Member of the Intelligence Research & Analysis Degree Program Board of Advisors and guest lecturer at Notre Dame College of Ohio

  • Former Executive Director of the Iran Policy Committee, a Washington, DC think tank 

  • Professor, Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies

CI Centre Professor Clare Lopez served in the CIA for 20 years, from 1980 to 2000, as a senior Directorate of Operations case officer. She served four tours overseas and multiple TDY assignments worldwide including Africa, Central/South America and the Balkans, with a focus on the USSR/Russia. Her primary responsibilities included production, implementation of operational plans to fulfill national-level HUMINT requirements in counterintelligence, counternarcotics, counterproliferation, WMD, and Advanced Conventional Weapons threat arenas. Lopez’s key success was development and management of a highly productive operations unit to target WMD programs of critical national security concern to the U.S. She supervised and performed research/analysis of target programs; directed, produced detailed targeting studies, managed complex intelligence operations to implement the targeting objectives.

After retiring from the CIA in 2000, she worked as a senior intelligence analyst for private sector companies, including Chugach Systems Integration, HawkEye Systems, LLC and Battelle Memorial Institute.

At Chugach Systems, she worked in the Countermeasures Program Division (DS/CMP) of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, Department of State, where she reviewed the Technical Threat environment for U.S. Posts worldwide and produced Technical Threat Analysis and Threat Level Recommendations for the InterAgency Technical Threat Working Group.  Her all-source research and analysis included consideration of the CI threat from Foreign Intelligence Services, terrorist and organized crime groups worldwide and contributed significantly to an upward revision in the Threat Level for one key Latin American country.

At HawkEye Systems, she served as project manager and provided intelligence analyst, counterterrorism and Middle East subject matter expertise to a small technology company for development of an ONI-funded decision-making intelligence fusion and uncertainty management system. She also contributed substantive subject matter expertise to a successful proposal for the same firm for the validation of a related DARPA-funded software system that features a forecasting and prediction model. In support of another small technology firm’s software development program, she directed the creation of Red Cell terrorist attack scenarios related to homeland security. During a year-long DARPA contract, she performed in-depth, all-source research and analysis of national and transnational terrorism groups and counterterrorism operations for the Wargaming the Asymmetric Environment (WAE) Program. A principal focus of the WAE Program was the creation and analytic exploitation of a massive database of significant events related to the Al-Aqsa Intifada and the Arab-Israeli conflict. She also conducted analytical tool validation related to predictive analysis, established processes and procedures for analytical methodology and produced Middle East group profiles and leadership behavior analysis. 

At Batelle, she supported a major government contract as a senior level analyst, researcher and subject matter expert for this global science and technology enterprise. Project work focused on WMD and Middle East issues. She wrote a white paper proposal to conduct research and analysis on the phenomenon of suicide bombing as a tactic of asymmetric warfare. 

From 2005 to 2006, Lopez was a member of the Iran Policy Committee (www.iranpolicy.org), a leading WDC think tank dedicated to bringing policy issues related to Iran to public and federal government attention. She served as Executive Director and Director for Research to conduct and direct extensive research/analysis on the Iranian Revolution, expansionist ideology, regime leadership, terrorist support, nuclear program, & opposition groups, which has been produced in four major white papers and two published books that were briefed to Congress, the Executive Branch, and WDC academic, think tank, diplomatic, and media communities.

Lopez is the Vice President of the Intelligence Summit and member of its Advisory Council (www.intelligencesummit.org) where she contributes intelligence and Middle East expertise in support of the Executive Leadership of this non-profit educational forum. She serves as a speaker and panel moderator at the Intelligence Summit’s annual conference event as well as a liaison to intelligence, law enforcement, and media.

Lopez has a M.A. in International Relations from the Maxwell School, Syracuse University, New York and a B.A. in Communications and French, Notre Dame College of Ohio. She received the Alumni of the Year at Notre Dame College of Ohio in 2006, and is listed on Cambridge Who’s Who of Executive and Professional Women, 2005-2006 and the International Who’s Who of Public Service, 2001-2002.

Lopez is a member of Association For Intelligence Officers (AFIO), City Club of Washington, D.C., International Association for Counterterrorism & Security Professionals (IACSP), Middle East Institute (MEI) and Women in International Security (WIIS). She speaks Spanish, Bulgarian, French, German and Russian and is studying Farsi.

Interviews featuring Ms. Lopez have appeared in a variety of media outlets, including CNN, al-Hurra and al-Jazeera TV, Russian (RTVI) TV, the Japanese Kyodo News and JIJI Press, United Press International (UPI), the Washington Times, the Christian Broadcast Network (CBN), WMAL-AM and TalkRight radio, at online websites including American Thinker, Global Politician, and Israel Insider, and in the French weekly, “Le Reforme.” She also contributes frequent op-ed pieces to the Middle East Times.

Her presentations and publications include:

  • "Score one for the Muslim Brotherhood," Middle East Times, 28 April 2008

  • "A Benedict for the Future Jihad," Human Events, 22 April 2008

  • "Jihad Means Offensive War to Spread Islam: Osama Bin Laden’s Warning to Europe" , Family Security Matters, 3 April 2008

  • "Military wins friends", Middle East Times, 28 March 2008

  • "U.S. Failure to Lead Creates Dangerous Global Instability", Middle East Times, 25 January 2008

  • “Is the Bush Administration Abandoning Israel?” Middle East Times, 5 December 2007

  • “IRGC: Vanguard and Guardian of the Revolution”, Women’s Freedom Forum presentation, NYC, 15 November 2007

  • “Bhutto and the Iranian End Game” Middle East Times, 12 November 2007

  • “Mind War Victory for Iranian Nukes,” published on the Gerard Group International website, 11 October 2007. Available online at: http://www.gerardgroup.com/newsletter/nl2007-10-11.php#MindWar

  • “Know Thy Enemy,” published on the Stand Up America website, 20 September 2007. Available online at: http://www.ospreymedia.us/wordpress/?p=734#more-734

  • Stand Up America Radio, live broadcast from the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya, Israel, 10 September 2007. Archived podcast available online at: http://www.ospreymedia.us/osprey-media-radio-shows.php

  • Politicking the Terror List, Human Events, 24 July 2007

  • “Intelligence Education for the 21st Century: The Iran Example,” 9th Intelligence Colloquium, Notre Dame College, 10 July 2007

  • “Radical Shi’ism Ascendant,” Intelligence Summit 2007 presentation, 6 March 2007.

  • “Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Are the Regime,” American Thinker, 22 February 2007.

  • “Carrots or Sticks for Iran? There’s a Third Option: Set Free the MEK”, Intelligence Summit website (www.intelligencesummit.org), 6 November 2006

  • “What Makes Tehran Tick: Islamist Ideology and Hegemonic Interests” Iran Policy Committee, Washington, D.C. (book co-author, published November 2006)

  • “Appeasing the Ayatollahs and Suppressing Democracy: U.S. Policy and the Iranian Opposition,” Iran Policy Committee, Washington, D.C. (book co-author, published May 2006)

  • “Bioweapons, Rogue Regimes and Terrorism: Threat Nexus for U.S. Policy,” INTEL SUMMIT Conference, Hyatt-Regency Hotel, Crystal City, VA (18 February 2006).

  • “True Monsters of Tehran: Terrorist Theocrats, Not the Mujahedeen-e Khalq,” Global Politican (31 January 2006).  Reprinted on the website of US Alliance for Democratic Iran: www.usadiran.org    

  • “U.S. Foreign Policy Options for Iran”, National Meeting of Americans for Democracy in the Middle East, Capitol Hill (14 July 2005).

  • “Defending the Homeland Against Bioweapons in the Hands of Terrorists.”  Counterterrorism: The Journal of Counterterrorism and Homeland Security International (IACSP Journal).  Summer 2005, Vol. III, No. 2.

  • “Islam and Iran in the Global War on Terrorism and Extremism,” presentation to the staff of USA Today (Gannett Bldg., McLean, VA), 25 May 2005.

  • “U.S. Policy Options for Iran” (Regime Human Rights Abuses and the Iranian Opposition), Iran Policy Committee presentation to the U.S. House of Representatives Human Rights and Democracy Caucus, Capitol Hill (6 April 2005).

  • “Abu Musab al-Zarqawi: Street Thug in the Global War on Terror.”  Counterterrorism: The Journal of Counterterrorism and Homeland Security International (IACSP Journal).  Spring 2005, Vol. III, No. 1.

  • “Defending the Homeland: Bioweapons in the Hands of Terrorists,” presentation given at INTELCON, Hyatt Regency, Crystal City, 10 Feb 05.

  • “Women and Policy in the Middle East,” Women’s Forum Against Fundamentalism in Iran (WFAFI), National Press Club (10 February 2005).

  • “A Selective Kind of Outrage”, Israel Insider.  (September 10, 2004). 

  • “Terrorist Tentacles in Europe”, Counterterrorism & Homeland Security Reports.  (Vol. 11, No. 3), June 2004.

©Copyright 2009 The Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies (CI Centre)®

Premier Education and Training in Counterintelligence, Counterterrorism and Security

A David G. Major Associates, Inc. Company

Alexandria, VA  |  703-642-7450  |  1-800-779-4007  |  Contact Us

 

The CI Centre provides dynamic, in-depth and relevant education, training and products on counterintelligence, counterterrorism and security. Our programs are designed to enhance your organization's mission and to protect your information, facilities and personnel from global terrorists, foreign intelligence collectors and competitor threats.