Re this ABC News leak that the Administration has not yet denounced: As I was reading the original article yesterday, it immediately occurred to me to wonder if it was even true, or if the leak itself was most of the covert op. Given the paranoia exhibited by the leadership of Iran (the entire world is run by a small cabal of Zionists, etc.), it could be an effective strategy just to claim that we're going to begin large-scale covert ops, and see if they start eating themselves from the inside.

We might even help things along, by sending "secret communiques" out of the blue to people perfectly loyal to Iran, in a way that guarantees they will be caught. Who will believe them when they claim they are not working for the enemy?

This could act as a force multiplier on otherwise minimal true espionage. You need at least a few real espionage events to make this work; the ratio of true espionage to faked espionage you could get away with would be directly proportional to the paranoia level of the target.

Per my previous comments, Iran's culture produces nothing like a strong, cohesive society. There are better ways to take advantage of that then bombing, if you're clever.