The World's Hardest Target: United States Intelligence on Iran

Despite more than thirty years of trying to collect significant information, the United States intelligence community is not well informed on many important questions relating to Iran. Decision-making by the Iranian government as well as its political alignments, capabilities, and intentions are poorly understood. Many intelligence professionals consider Iran to be the hardest intelligence target in the world. Solid intelligence does exist about the regime's nuclear program, as reported in the 2007 Iran National Intelligence Estimate. There is no evidence that Iran has decided to develop a nuclear weapon, but the decision to reactivate a weapons program could be made at any time.