Obama to U.S. intel: Why didn’t you see this Egypt mess coming?

One American official familiar with classified intelligence assessments defended the spy agencies’ Tunisia analysis.

“Everyone recognized the demonstrations in Tunisia as serious,” said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was discussing classified intelligence reports. “What wasn’t clear even to President Ben Ali was that his security forces would quickly choose not to support him.”

One former American official said that in recent weeks Mr. Obama urged intelligence officials to ensure that spy agencies were devoting as much effort to “long-term analysis” as they were to carrying out operations against Al Qaeda, including the C.I.A.’s bombing campaign using armed drone aircraft.