The CIA's wrong-footed about American meeting old European leader (9)
I believe the answer is:
taoiseach
'european leader' is the definition.
(the Taoiseach is the Irish head of government)
'the cia's wrong-footed about american meeting old' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'the' could be 't' (the is pronounced as a 't' sound in some dialects) and 't' is present in the answer.
'about' could be 'c' (abbreviation for 'circa') and 'c' is located in the answer.
'american' could be 'a' (common abbreviation - e.g. in organisation names) and 'a' is found within the answer.
'old' could be 'o' (abbreviation) and 'o' is found in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for taoiseach that I've seen before include "I 'ate chaos (anag) - Irish Republic's prime minister" , "Irish premier" , "Irish head of government" , "Western PM" , "Irish PM" .)