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Nadeem Iqbal - Founder & Analyst
Nadeem Iqbal - Founder & Analyst

Meet The Team

ABOUT NADEEM IQBAL

Founder & Analyst

EXPERIENCE BEHIND THE ANALYSIS.

Nadeem Iqbal is a former U.S. intelligence and defense professional with more than fifteen years of experience in all-source intelligence, political-military analysis, defense policy, insurgency, and international security.

His career included extensive analytical work on the Middle East and South Asia, as well as assignments involving broader international security issues.

He served as an intelligence analyst with the Defense Intelligence Agency, worked on Syria and Middle Eastern defense policy within the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy, served as a Syria military analyst during a rotation at CIA Headquarters, supported strategic intelligence work with Joint Special Operations Command, and served as an Asia-Pacific Watch Officer at the National Military Command Center.

Nadeem also completed five overseas deployments across Iraq and Afghanistan.

Tal Shiar brings the analytical discipline developed through that career to a public platform focused on understanding an increasingly interconnected world.

Our Mission

CLARITY IN A COMPLICATED WORLD.

Tal Shiar exists to provide thoughtful, independent analysis of international affairs without reducing complex events to simple narratives.

Our approach is built around four principles:

Context Before Conclusions

Understanding history is essential to understanding today’s events.

Analysis Before Reaction

Speed should never replace substance.

Evidence Before Narrative

Analysis should follow available facts rather than force facts into predetermined conclusions.

Global Perspective

Viewing conflicts and strategic decisions through multi-regional analysis.

DIR

DEFENCE INTELLIGENCE REPORT

As Heard On

PODCAST APPEARANCES

Conversations and expert analysis on regional security, defense strategy, and the conflicts shaping the world.

CELIA'S CORNER

What Most People Get Wrong About Military Intelligence

Listen on Apple Podcasts
JOURNEY BEYOND DOUBT

How Geopolitics, Military Conflict and Foreign Policy Shape Our World

Listen on Apple Podcasts
All Episodes

Press & Media

IN THE NEWS

Policy Wire

Defense Veteran Nadeem Iqbal on Gulf Chokepoints, U.S.-Iran Escalation and Pakistan’s Strategic Weight

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International Business Times

Former DIA Analyst Nadeem Iqbal Shares an Intelligence-Based Approach to Separating Facts From Noise

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WRAL

Former DIA Analyst Nadeem Iqbal Shares an Intelligence-Based Approach to Separating Facts From Noise

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International Business Times

Former DIA Analyst Nadeem Iqbal Shares an Intelligence-Based Approach to Separating Facts From Noise

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Los Angeles Daily News

Former DIA Analyst Nadeem Iqbal Shares an Intelligence-Based Approach to Separating Facts From Noise

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Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Former DIA Analyst Nadeem Iqbal Shares an Intelligence-Based Approach to Separating Facts From Noise

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Policy Wire

Defense Veteran Nadeem Iqbal on Gulf Chokepoints, U.S.-Iran Escalation and Pakistan’s Strategic Weight

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Star Tribune

New Book Syriana: One Conflict, 10 Wars Reframes the Syrian Conflict as Ten Overlapping Wars

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WRAL

Former DIA Analyst Nadeem Iqbal Shares an Intelligence-Based Approach to Separating Facts From Noise

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Syriana Book Mockup

Syriana

ONE CONFLICT. TEN WARS.

One country became the battleground for local grievances, regional ambitions, international intervention, ideological movements, and competing visions of the future.

Syriana explores the extraordinary complexity of the Syrian conflict and the forces that transformed a domestic crisis into an international struggle.

Written from the perspective of an analyst with years of professional experience studying the region, Syriana goes beyond the chronology of war to examine the actors, decisions, alliances, and competing interests behind it.

Syria is one story. The forces that shaped it are global.

Discover Syriana