The pressure to perform is enormous. The CIA works with national intelligence agencies across the Middle East to get the job done. It devotes virtually all of its available resources to the task. Working with national government agencies throughout the region, the agency takes its eye off of what is happening in those countries.
As a result, the CIA misses the roiling popular uprising brewing across North Africa and in the Middle East. And everyone asks: How could it have missed such an important development? How did we not know?
