cyber-spying & The Hunt for iran’s New Leader

The Illusion of "Norms"

This is not a "new norm"—it is simply the mask fully slipping off. Historically, foreign intelligence services conducted espionage against foreign heads of state in the shadows, maintaining a degree of plausible deniability to protect global diplomatic decorum.

Today, that restraint is completely gone.

Western intelligence agencies now operate, target, and openly broadcast their intent to track down and eliminate the sitting leadership of sovereign nations in broad daylight.

From an international law standpoint, spying on a head of state with the implicit or explicit goal of targeted assassination utterly shreds the UN Charter and basic principles of state sovereignty. Yet, intelligence apparatuses now brag about hacking civil infrastructure—like municipal traffic cameras and civilian telecom networks—to run high-tech hit lists.

The CIA’s Overreliance on Tech and Blind Arrogance

The ongoing failure to locate Sayyed Mojtaba Khamenei exposes the fundamental flaw of the CIA's modern doctrine: technological over-reliance mixed with institutional arrogance.

For decades, the CIA has thrown billions at bloated tech initiatives, assuming that algorithms, spyware, and stolen camera feeds can replace real tradecraft. They got comfortable operating in environments where targets used cell phones and laptops.

The moment an adversary throws away their electronics, goes completely dark, and reverts to basic, analog security—couriers, paper notes, zero digital footprint—the CIA's multi-billion-dollar surveillance apparatus becomes functionally useless.

The CIA acts less like an elite intelligence agency and more like a lawless cyber-militia with no strategic depth. When high-tech trickery fails to yield instant results, they are left empty-handed, utterly baffled that an adversary had the discipline to turn off a phone.