A New and Better CIA

Among its many unpleasant side-effects, this winter’s debacle in Iran delivered another body blow to the prestige of U.S. intelligence. Through most of the Iranian travail, American policy was tilted in favor of the Shah, in the apparent belief that he was somehow going to weather the storm. Only toward the end did this assessment change, permitting us to make our marginal contribution to his overthrow. The whole affair was chalked up as a failure of intelligence: we had woefully overestimated the power of the Shah, underestimated the strength of his opponents, and failed to identify the sources of Iranian unrest.

Even if one accepts the peculiar ethical framework of this indictment, it comes with curious grace from the liberal critics of our foreign policy. The crippling of U.S. intelligence capabilities has been, of course, a major goal of liberal forces in recent years—a goal that they have triumphantly attained. Thanks to a steady drumfire of criticism in the press, congressional exposes, denunciations by defecting agents, and agitprop from Communist sources, the Central Intelligence Agency, along with the FBI and other security agencies, has been effectively throttled.

MS

About the Author

M. Stanton Evans

Among its many unpleasant side-effects, this winter’s debacle in Iran delivered another body blow to the prestige of U.S. intelligence. Through most of the Iranian travail, American policy was tilted in favor of the Shah, in the apparent belief that he was somehow going to weather the storm. Only toward the end did this assessment change, permitting us to make our marginal contribution to his overthrow. The whole affair was chalked up as a failure of intelligence: we had woefully overestimated the power of the Shah, underestimated the strength of his opponents, and failed to identify the sources of Iranian unrest.

Even if one accepts the peculiar ethical framework of this indictment, it comes with curious grace from the liberal critics of our foreign policy. The crippling of U.S. intelligence capabilities has been, of course, a major goal of liberal forces in recent years—a goal that they have triumphantly attained. Thanks to a steady drumfire of criticism in the press, congressional exposes, denunciations by defecting agents, and agitprop from Communist sources, the Central Intelligence Agency, along with the FBI and other security agencies, has been effectively throttled.