On the cusp of a new book release, Zbigniew Brzezinski writes in the Post: America is preponderant in the world today, but it is not omnipotent. Thus America must have the capacity, when needed, to mobilize the genuine and sincere support of other countries, particularly of its closest allies. It can do so only if it is trusted. ... a worldwide drop in support ... manifest resentment ... pervasive distrust ... The sad fact is that US intelligence was not up to par. There are many reasons for that failure, but the most obvious one is the absence of an effective human clandestine intelligence service. I recall a conversation with Whit Diffie in the late 1990's (around the time that Tenet declared "war" on Al Qaeda). Although perhaps each for different reasons, we both agreed that HUMINT would/must be the central element of a 21st century national intelligence capability. I believe that we also agreed, implicitly, that this fact was intuitively obvious even to the most casual observer. Perhaps we should have written a memo. Restoring Trust in America | 
