Mr. Cohen, a fastidious Yale Law School graduate who is known inside the White House as the administration’s “financial Batman,” is a first line of attack against the Islamic State. His title is under secretary for terrorism and financial intelligence and he may be more important in the fight against the Islamic State than the Tomahawks fired off American warships or the bombs dropped from F-16s. He has become a fixture in Mr. Obama’s Situation Room.
.. Before the Islamic State rose to prominence, Mr. Cohen was best known in the administration as the point man in shaping and carrying out a set of sanctions meant to cripple Iran’s economy and force its leaders into talks to halt its progress toward developing a nuclear weapon. “It’s safe to say that without David’s relentless efforts, we would not be where we are in terms of getting the Iranians to the negotiating table with the chance of reaching a diplomatic solution,” said Antony J. Blinken, the deputy national security adviser.
.. 13 years ago Treasury’s intelligence operations consisted of a single person sitting in a cramped room churning out reports for senior officials. Today Mr. Cohen presides over a 700-person, $200 million-a-year counterterrorism office within Treasury that was created after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. He likes to point out that it includes the only in-house intelligence unit in any finance ministry in the world.
.. “I never dreamed of this job in particular because it didn’t exist,” Mr. Cohen, 51, said during the interview, conducted in his cavernous office at Treasury, next door to the White House. “But it is my dream job. I’m able to touch pretty much every single national security issue we’re facing.”