[A. Pole]

I don't think this is the same thing at all. If the Israelis were unaware of the presence of Silkworms, that's an intelligence failure on their part, but not insuperable.

Shiites/Iran have relatively good track of having success in intelligence warfare. They are somehow more brainy and clandestine than Sunni.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

In this context I meant "intelligence" to denote "information", or the process of systematically collecting, analyzing and disseminating information, not the more general notion of "cognitive ability".