Last Friday, the world awoke to news that the long-simmering conflict between Israel and Iran had reignited with dangerous new intensity. Explosions rocked strategic sites inside Iran in what analysts believe was a calculated Israeli response to Tehran’s escalated proxy attacks across the region. This cycle of strike and counterstrike has destabilized oil markets, rattled global alliances, and raised the risk of wider war.
While President Trump has worked to contain the fallout through diplomatic backchannels, the national security implications for the U.S. are immediate and undeniable. Iran’s state-backed terror networks do not draw lines on a map. And neither do the cyber intrusions, disinformation campaigns, and lone-wolf threats they help inspire here at home.
Americans are right to ask: are we ready?
The answer, in part, lies with the FBI. But if we expect the Bureau to meet this moment, we must also be honest about what it has become—and what it must return to.
Make no mistake: the FBI’s core mission—to protect Americans from terrorism, espionage, and transnational organized crime—is more urgent than ever. Foreign adversaries don’t care about our politics—unless they can use it to divide us. They seek out weakness and distraction. And they find it when the FBI is pulled off mission.
As a retired FBI Special Agent who served 22 years in the Miami Division, and as someone who has spoken with hundreds of recently retired agents nationwide, I can tell you: the rank and file haven’t lost their way. Too many in leadership have.
As Joe Garbato, a retired FBI Special Agent, former senior Bureau strategist, and USMC War College graduate, put it: “The FBI requires a cultural reformation—strategically, operationally, and tactically.”
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He’s right. The Bureau has allowed form to override function. Instead of building leaders who prioritize national security and public service, it has promoted bureaucrats who chase metrics and headlines. Meanwhile, the most critical counterterrorism and criminal work continues to be done by field agents—those who develop sources, knock on doors, and assess threats before they strike. That work doesn’t show up on a spreadsheet. But it’s what keeps Americans safe.
One retired Supervisory Special Agent said it best: “The backbone of the FBI is the Special Agent. End of discussion.”
Over the last two decades, however, that backbone has been sidelined. The Bureau has prioritized a bloated upper management staffed with friends, coordinators, and careerists over real field work. It surrendered its traditional lead federal status to partner agencies—not for operational efficiency, but to inflate credit and appearances. That’s not public service; it’s gaming the system.
The result? When global threats rise, the FBI’s ability to respond suffers—not from a lack of talent, but from misaligned priorities and paper-pushing paralysis. In today’s world—where missiles fly in the Middle East and malware infects servers in the Midwest—we need a Bureau that is decentralized, nimble, and laser-focused on the Constitution and the public it protects.
That’s why we’re encouraged by the early restructuring efforts under Director Kash Patel’s leadership. He is beginning the hard work of correcting years of internal drift—re-centering the Bureau’s focus on national security, violent crime, and constitutional enforcement. And while agents cannot publicly comment on these reforms, we at Reform the Bureau will continue to say what they cannot—exposing what’s broken and offering solutions forged in the field.
Our agenda is simple: Restore the Bureau’s mission, and return authority to those who do the work. We support relocating key operational units—like counterterrorism and criminal enforcement—out of Washington and back into the hands of experienced agents in the field. We support a return to merit-based advancement. We support rooting out politicized leadership. And we support reinvesting in the case agent—the beating heart of every successful investigation.
This isn’t nostalgia. It’s readiness. And the situation in the Middle East makes that case more clearly than any think tank white paper ever could.
We support the FBI’s mission. We support the agents who carry it out. But we will not stay silent when that mission is undermined from within.
As one retired SAC put it: “Every success I’ve had, I owe to old-school agents who taught me the job was about integrity, not advancement.”
We agree. And we owe it to the next generation to ensure that job still exists.
The world is watching. So are our enemies. Now is the time to stand with the FBI’s mission—not as it has been politicized, but as it was meant to be. At Reform the Bureau, we’ll keep fighting for that version of the FBI—because America still needs it.
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