A new twist was added to the longrunning media theme of a threat by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to go to war with Iran when news stories seemed to suggest Monday that Netanyahu had ordered the Israeli military to prepare for an imminent attack on Iranian nuclear sites in [...]]]>
A new twist was added to the longrunning media theme of a threat by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to go to war with Iran when news stories seemed to suggest Monday that Netanyahu had ordered the Israeli military to prepare for an imminent attack on Iranian nuclear sites in 2010.
Netanyahu backed down after Israeli Defence Forces chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi and Mossad director Meir Dagan opposed the order, according to the reports.
But the details of the episode provided in a report by Israel’s Channel 2 investigative news programme “Truth”, which aired Monday night, show that the Netanyahu order was not meant to be a prelude to an imminent attack on Iran. The order to put Israeli forces on the highest alert status was rejected by Ashkenazi and Dagan primarily because Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak had not thought through the risk that raising the alert status to the highest level could provoke unintended war with Iran.
All the participants, moreover, understood that Israel had no realistic military option for an attack on Iran.
Most stories about the episode failed to highlight the distinction between an order for war and one for the highest state of readiness, thus creating the clear impression that Netanyahu was preparing for war with Iran. The stories had to be read very carefully to discern the real significance of the episode.
The Israeli Ynet News report on the story carried the headline, “Was Israel on verge of war in 2010?” and a teaser asking, “Did Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak try to drag Israel into a military operation in Iran without cabinet approval?”
AFP reported that Netanyahu and Barak “ordered the army to prepare an attack against Iranian nuclear installations.”
The Reuters story said Netanyahu and Barak “ordered Israeli defence chiefs in 2010 to prepare for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities but were rebuffed….”
And AP reported that the order from Netanyau was for a “high alert for a looming attack on Iran’s nuclear program” and that the episode “indicated that Israel was much closer to carrying out a strike at that time than was previously known.”
Washington Post blogger Max Fisher certainly got the impression from the press coverage that Netanyahu and Barak had “attempted to order the Israeli military to prepare for an imminent strike on Iran but were thwarted by other senior officials….” Fisher concluded that Netanyahu was “more resolved than thought to strike Iran….”
The coverage of the story thus appears to have pumped new life into the idea that Netanyahu is serious about attacking Iran, despite clear evidence in recent weeks that he has climbed down from that posture.
The details of the episode in the original Channel 2 programme as reported by the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth suggest that none of the participants in the meeting believed that Netanyahu had decided on actual war with Iran.
The incident occurred, according to the programme, after a meeting of seven top cabinet ministers at an unspecified time in 2010. As Dagan and Ashkanazi were about to leave the meeting room, the programme recalls, Netanyahu ordered them to prepare the military for “the possibility of a strike” against Iran by putting the IDF on the highest level of readiness.
Netanyahu used the code word “F Plus” for the alert status, according to the Channel 2 programme.
Ashkenazi and Dagan reacted strongly to the order, and Netanyahu and Barak eventually backed down. But both Ashkenazi and Barak appear to agree that the issue was not whether Israel would actually attack Iran but the alert itself. Ashkenazi’s response indicated that he did not interpret it as a sign that Netanyahu intended to carry out an attack on Iran. “It’s not something you do if you’re not sure you want to follow through with it,” Ashkenazi was quoted as saying.
Barak sought to downplay the order for the high alert status, asserting that raising the alert level “did not necessarily mean war”.
“It is not true that creating a situation in which the IDF are on alert for a few hours or a few days to carry out certain operations forces Israel to go through with them,” the defence minister said.
Ashkenazi was not asserting, however, that Netanyahu would be forced to attack. Rather, he feared it would have the unintended consequence of convincing Iran that Israel did intend to attack and thus trigger a war.
The former IDF chief highlighted that danger in commenting, “This accordion produces music when you play with it,” according to “sources close to” Ashkenazi – the formula usually used when an official or ex-official does not wish to be quoted directly.
Barak also said Ashkenazi had responded that the IDF did not have the ability to carry out a strike against Iran. “Eventually, at the moment of truth, the answer that was given was that, in fact, the ability did not exist,” Barak is quoted as saying on the programme.
Significantly, Barak made no effort to deny the reality that the Israeli Air Force did not have the capability to carry out a successful attack against Iran. Instead he is blaming Ashkenazi for having failed to prepare Israeli forces for a possible attack.
Ashkenazi angrily denied that obviously political charge. “I prepared the option, the army was ready for a strike but I also said that a strike now would be a strategic mistake,” he is quoted as saying.
Israeli military leaders are still saying publicly that the IDF can carry out a strike. But while Ashkenazi is quoted as saying the army was “ready for a strike”, that is not the same as claiming that Israel had a military option that had any chance of success in derailing Iran’s enrichment programme. And in February 2011, he told then Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen that references to such a military option were “empty words”, because “Israel has no military option,” according to an earlier report by Yedioth Ahronoth.
Despite the public political feud between them, both Barak and Ashkenazi implied that the purpose of the high alert was to achieve a political effect rather than to prepare for an actual attack.
Both Ashkenazi and former Mossad director Dagan were apparently shocked that Netanyahu and Barak would be so irresponsible as to run the obvious risks of feigning preparations for a war with Iran. Dagan concluded that Netanyahu is unfit for leadership of the country – a point that he had made repeatedly since leaving his Mossad post in 2011.
Netanyahu sought to manipulate the supposed threat of military force against Iran to put pressure on U.S. President Barack Obama to adopt harsh sanctions against Iran and even get him to pledge to use force if Iran did not yield on its nuclear programme. The firm rebuff to that ploy by Obama last summer brought that phase of the Netanyahu military option ploy to an end, as indicated by his failure to include any implicit threat in his U.N. address in late August.
Netanyahu continues to insist publicly, however, that he is considering the military option against Iran. In an interview for the Channel 2 programme, he said, “We are serious, this is not a show. If there is no other way to stop Iran, Israel is ready to act.”
Israeli political observers have suggested that Netanyahu’s belligerent posture has now become primarily a theme of his campaign for reelection as prime minister. But as the coverage of the 2010 episode indicates, the news media have not yet abandoned the story of Netanyahu’s readiness to go to war against Iran.
*Gareth Porter, an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy, received the UK-based Gellhorn Prize for journalism for 2011 for articles on the U.S. war in Afghanistan.
]]>1. Meir Dagan. The [...]]]>
]]>1. Meir Dagan. The former head of the Mossad, who served from 2002-2011, called a unilateral Israeli attack on Iran “the stupidest thing I have ever heard” in March. He said that full success in destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities is unlikely, and that the likely outcome would be for the country to redouble it’s clandestine nuclear efforts in response to attack and remove all supervision from the International Atomic Energy Agency. He also worries about a broader war. “It will be followed by a war with Iran. It is the kind of thing where we know how it starts, but not how it will end.”
2. Yuval Diskin. Mr. Diskin ran the Shin Bet from 2005-2011. In April, he declared both Netanyahu and Barak unfit to lead Israel, accused them of “misleading the public on the Iran issue,” and said that contrary to their position that military action would deter Iran “many experts say that an Israeli attack would accelerate the Iranian nuclear race.”
3. Gabi Ashkhenazi. Gen. Ashkenazi, who was chief of staff of the IDF from 2007-2011, said in April that an attack on Iran would be a bad idea now, while expressing grave concern about Iran’s nuclear program. “I think we still have time. It is not tomorrow morning” when Israel needs to act, he said. “It is better to persuade our friends in the world and the region that it is a global threat and [the government] has done a good job on this.”
A growing number of current and former Israeli officials are voicing concern that attacking Iran may prove counterproductive in deterring Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon. Last week, former Israeli internal security chief Yuval Diskin warned that attacking Iran may “encourage them to develop a bomb.”
A growing number of current and former Israeli officials are voicing concern that attacking Iran may prove counterproductive in deterring Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon. Last week, former Israeli internal security chief Yuval Diskin warned that attacking Iran may “encourage them to develop a bomb.”
In an interview on Tuesday, former Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) intelligence head Shlomo Gazit joined the chorus warning against attacking Iran. Gazit agreed with Diskin that attacking Iran would not destroy Iran’s nuclear program, and could even accelerate it, the Jerusalem Post reports:
The public discourse over a strike largely neglected the likelihood that Iran would resume its program after being attacked, Gazit noted.
He said he agreed with Diskin that an Israeli attack would not destroy the program, and could even accelerate it, while enabling Iran to legitimize its efforts diplomatically.
Diskin raised eyebrows last week when he slammed Barak and Netanyahu as “our two messiahs” and charged:
[Israel's leadership] presents a false view to the public on the Iranian bomb, as though acting against Iran would prevent a nuclear bomb. But attacking Iran will encourage them to develop a bomb all the faster.
But Gazit urged those who agree with Diskin’s assessment to direct their criticisms to the electorate:
Even if they have messianic considerations, this is not important. They were legally elected through a ballot, and Diskin should direct his claims [against them] to the electorate.
In New York on Friday, former Mossad Chief Meir Dagan backed up Diskin’s criticisms, telling the Jerusalem Post that Diskin was speaking his “internal truth” and characterized him as a good friend and serious person.
Sources “close to the prime minister” told the Jerusalem Post that Diskin’s attacks were “irresponsible” and “motivated by personal frustration that he wasn’t chosen to lead the Mossad.” But another former head of Israel’s internal security service, and current member of the Knesset, Yoel Hasson, was reported by the Jerusalem Post as warning that Netanyahu should be concerned about the criticms he is facing from former heads of the security establishment, such as Diskin, Dagan and Gabi Ashkenazi.
While a potential Iranian nuclear weapon is widely considered a threat to both the security of the U.S. and its allies in the region, as well as the nuclear non-proliferation regime, those estimates give the West time to pursue a dual-track approach of pressure and diplomacy to resolve the crisis. Like their Israeli counterparts, American officials including President Obama vow to keep “all options on the table” to deal with the Iranian nuclear program, but questions about the efficacy and consequences of a strike have led U.S. officials to declare that diplomacy is the “best and most permanent way” to resolve the West’s crisis with Iran.
]]>As reported last Friday in the Huffington Post by M.J. Rosenberg, Robert Baer, a former CIA operations officer (1976-97), told radio talk show host Ian Masters on July 12:
There is almost “near certainty” that [Israeli Prime Minister Bernjamin] Netanyahu is “planning an attack [on Iran] … and it will probably be in September before the vote on a Palestinian state. And he’s also hoping to draw the United States into the conflict…”
Baer is now expressing astonishment that anyone could have construed his comments as predicting an Israeli strike against Iran. In Time Magazine today, Baer offers his version of the unfolding of events since the radio interview was picked up and publicized:
Last week, my friend Ian Masters, who hosts the Los Angeles talk-show Background Briefing, called me up to talk about the Arab spring, and especially what would happen if Israel were to attack Iran. He was struck by the comments of recently retired Mossad chief Meir Dagan, saying that an increasingly paranoid and isolated Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was considering launching a reckless attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, and doing that soon… I noted there have been other recently retired senior Israeli security officials who’d said much the same thing, including the well-respected chief of staff, Gabi Ashkenazi.
Then “as these things go on radio, fact quickly turned to speculation,” Baer explains:
Warming to the subject, I chattered on about how I’d heard there was a “warning order” at the Pentagon to prepare for a conflict with Iran. I was about to add that that this was not unusual; there are warning orders all the time, and it could have nothing to do with Israeli or anything it was or wasn’t planning for Iran. (Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, after all, is accusing Iran of being behind the sharp uptick in deadly attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq.) But time was short, and the host needed to finish up for the next guest.
According to Baer, the easygoing banter had no reliable basis in fact, and was purely speculative:
This was a wide-ranging speculative conversation on a local radio station, two like minds kibitzing, as media pundits so often do, with no inside information to back our interpretations of the significance of the flood of former senior Israeli security officials warning that Netanyahu is crazy and likely to do something rash. “If I was forced to bet,” I ventured, “I’d say we’re going to have some sort of conflict in the next couple of months, unless this is all just a masterful bluff — which I can’t believe the Iranians would succumb to — I think the chances of it being a bluff are remote.” Not exactly claiming to know any more than any other tea-leaf reader.
And when Masters asked me when I thought this hypothetical attack might hypothetically occur, I blithely suggested September. I was only adding two plus two: a September attack would allow Netanyahu to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities and wreck plans for a U.N. vote on Palestinian statehood, which is slated for September. I would have added that in the Middle East, two plus two rarely adds up to four. But I was definitely out of time.
Baer insists his offhand remarks not only were taken out of context, they were disseminated as though he were “some sort of unimpeachable authority, talking with the certainly of an insider looped into the plans and intentions of the key decision-makers.”
…what I’d said was a tedious rehash of various media reports. I would have forgotten it altogether were it not for the blogosphere’s version of a Pacific hurricane. I don’t know where it started, but soon the choice bits of our conversation were being rebroadcast as a danger signal flashing bright red: “Former CIA Official: Israel Will Bomb Iran in September,” read the headline in the Huffington Post.
This was followed by hate mail, accusations that he had “gone rogue” and become “a loose cannon,” and a tweet by former State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley that Baer didn’t know what he was talking about:
Crowley is right about me speculating about things I don’t know a lot about. (Isn’t that what commentators do more often than not?) … I wondered why Crowley and everyone else didn’t notice I hadn’t drawn a government check in more than 12 years, and therefore wasn’t bringing any inside knowledge to the subject. And I’d certainly never claimed a back-door access to Netanyahu’s inner circle that would give me any privileged knowledge about a planned attack.
But Baer has apparently staked his entire post-CIA career on being taken for an expert on matters about which, he now confesses, he doesn’t know very much. Baer’s claim that he doesn’t promote himself as an expert with inside knowledge or privileged access, however, rings hollow.
After leaving the CIA in 1997 after two decades as an operative in India, North Africa, Central Asia, Bosnia, Lebanon and Northern Iraq, Baer’s first literary venture was his memoir See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA’s War on Terrorism, published in January 2002. The book was generally well received. In the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Baer proffered a plausible explanation, based on personal experience, of how and why the U.S. government could have allowed such a catastrophic attack to take place on U.S. soil. The book won praise from New Yorker investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, who wrote its Foreword and gave See No Evil his endorsement with the review quote, “Robert Baer was considered perhaps the best on-the-ground field officer in the Middle East.”
Saudi Arabia was the subject of Baer’s second book, Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude, published in July 2003. Baer then tried his hand at writing a novel, Blow the House Down (2006), a supposedly fictional “alternative account” of how the events of 9/11 had transpired, with Iranian involvement as its major premise.
“The scenario that he sets forth reads in these pages like an alarming hodgepodge of the plausible, the speculative and the absurd,” wrote Michiko Kakutani in an acerbic New York Times book review. “…(I)f Mr. Baer’s intention in his new novel is to goad readers into a serious consideration of Iran’s possible terrorist connections (a timely subject, given current worries about Iran’s nuclear program), he fails in this mission by cavalierly mixing fact and fiction, the credible and the preposterous.”
While promoting the novel, Baer hinted that his “alarming hodgepodge” of speculations about Iran ought to be taken more seriously than those of a thriller novelist. Baer told Seymour Hersh (New Yorker, April 17, 2006) that Ahmadinejad and his Revolutionary Guard colleagues in the Iranian government “are capable of making a bomb, hiding it, and launching it at Israel. They’re apocalyptic Shiites. If you’re sitting in Tel Aviv and you believe they’ve got nukes and missiles—you’ve got to take them out. These guys are nuts, and there’s no reason to back off.”
Baer apparently concluded that mixing the plausible and the speculative with the absurd would be more easily tolerated in pseudo-punditry than in fiction. In September 2008, The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower, Baer’s fifth book, was published. Baer outlined three policy options the U.S. has for dealing with Iran” 1) permanently stationing U.S. troops in Iraq; 2) instigating a Shia-Sunni civil war; or 3) negotiating with Iran: “(T)reat it like the power it has become, and see what it has to offer.” Baer himself recommended the third strategy. While not an unreasonable approach, it contrasted sharply with other assessments Baer was offering about Iran.
An op ed piece for the New York Daily News, “Bet on Israel Bombing Iran” (Sept. 27), 2008, offers an interesting parallel to the current kerfuffle. Baer wrote, “What many Americans miss is that Iran is a threat to Israel’s very existence, not an imagined danger used by politicians for political advantage. Every Israeli city is within range of Iranian/Hezbollah rockets. To make matters worse, since the July 2006 34-day war, Hezbollah may have as much as trebled the number of rockets it has targeted on Israel.”
Three weeks later, a promotional blurb for lecture by Baer with the title “Iran’s Grip on America’s Future,” for the Commonwealth Club of California on Nov. 5, 2008, breathlessly hyped the event:
Don’t miss this opportunity to hear from and meet the man who was the basis of George Clooney’s character in “Syriana” — and find out why reality is even more riveting than film. Considered one of the world’s foremost authorities on the Middle East, Baer will explore the gap of information between what is going on in Iran and what Americans know. Bear [sic] visited Iran to interview suicide bombers [sic], a grand ayatollah, the hard-line chief of staff of Iran’s military forces and the terrorist chief of Hezbollah. Baer will discuss how and why Iran will control the most vital oil and gas trade routes, how it became a hero to the Palestinian Sunnis, and how it plans to seize oil from the Persian Gulf.
Yet in an Inter Press Service interview in Jan. 2009, Baer told Omid Memarian that an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities was “totally out of the question.” Commenting on a New York Times report that US President George W. Bush had vetoed such an attack despite the urging of Israeli leaders to launch one, Baer emphasized the futility of a military approach to resolving the clashes of interest between the U.S. and Iran:
We could bomb Tehran, but what does that get you? Nothing…You can bomb all military bases in Iran over a period of two weeks, but Iran is still there – it still has the ability to project power, project its will and maybe even come out of that type of conflict even stronger.
Baer is currently promoting his sixth book, The Company We Keep: A Husband-and-Wife True-Life Spy Story, published earlier this year, and co-authored with his wife Dayna. The couple met in Sarajevo, while both working for the CIA and married to other spouses. In a Fresh Air interview with Terry Gross on NPR back in March, Baer described writing the book as a “purgative.” (Apparently the first five books hadn’t done the job.)
After Baer said that he and the U.S. intelligence community had been taken by surprise by the “Arab spring,” Gross asked him, “So, do you expect you’re going to be surprised by Iran?” Baer responded, “I think now the street rising in Tehran is a neocon fantasy. I talked to people com[ng out] of Tehran, it’s not quite as bad as the exiles say. Yes, the regime has repressed the street and this Green Revolution, but I think what we’re going to see in Iran is a much more stable state…”
Exactly what that might mean for Iran’s future wasn’t at all clear, but then again, as we’ve just found out in Time today, Baer really doesn’t know what he’s talking about anyway. He is, however, selling his books.
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