John Hudson, an American intelligence journalist, stated that assessments by U.S. intelligence agencies indicate a pessimistic outlook on a new round of military strikes against Iran: current and former officials suggest such strikes are unlikely to have a significant impact on Iran or soften its negotiating stance. According to U.S. intelligence analysts, Tehran and Washington are locked in an indefinite stalemate between war and peace, a situation that is unsettling given the increasingly deadly tit-for-tat hostilities between the two countries.
Furthermore, they point out that intelligence assessments like those on Iran are not intended to make specific predictions about the future. Instead, they are generalizations of current and potential future trends based on all available classified intelligence (including human espionage and technical gathering) and publicly available information.
