Why is our intelligence on Iran so disastrously bad?

It is likely that Obama’s diplomacy-and-sanctions effort to stop the clerical regime’s quest for nuclear weapons will fail. If it does, the administration will inevitably default to some kind of containment strategy. Covert-action programs, which will oblige Langley to become more intimate with Iran’s internal dynamics, will probably be a part of the administration’s efforts to check the mullahs’ designs in the Middle East. If we are serious about what we are doing (and Langley has a history of approaching covert action haphazardly), the White House and Congress ought to know whether the CIA has been able to perform its primary mission. Human-source intelligence and covert action use the same skill set.