ABSTRACT
Claims of an American intelligence failure began even before the triumph of the Iranian Revolution. In November 1978, US president Jimmy Carter complained to his national-security team: ‘I am not satisfied with the quality of our political intelligence.’ 1 Stansfield Turner, the director of the CIA, followed up with a confession of his own: ‘What we didn’t forecast was that … a 78-year-old cleric who had been in exile for 15 years would be the catalyst that would bring these forces together, and that we would have one huge volcano – a truly national revolution.’ 2 The theme of intelligence mishaps gained more traction after the mullahs’ triumph, as Carter and his senior aides looked for someone to blame for the disaster in Iran. Today, it is widely accepted that the CIA missed the Islamist storm that swept away one of America’s most consequential allies in the Middle East.
