by Jasmin Ramsey
Another Israeli expert has contradicted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s assessment of Iran’s nuclear program.
“The Iranian nuclear program will only be operational in another 10 years,” said Uzi Eilam, the former head of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, during an interview with Ronen Bergman published today in the Israeli [...]]]>
by Jasmin Ramsey
Another Israeli expert has contradicted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s assessment of Iran’s nuclear program.
“The Iranian nuclear program will only be operational in another 10 years,” said Uzi Eilam, the former head of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, during an interview with Ronen Bergman published today in the Israeli daily, Ynet.
“The main issues are still ahead of us, but it is definitely possible to be optimistic. I think we should give the diplomatic process a serious chance, alongside ongoing sanctions,” said Eilam, who has held senior roles in the Israeli defense establishment.
“And I’m not even sure that Iran would want the bomb — it could be enough for them to be a nuclear threshold state — so that it could become a regional power and intimidate its neighbors,” he added.
Netanyahu has implored the international community to set a “red line” on Iran’s nuclear program, which he says is aimed at a nuclear weapon. The Israeli PM used a “cartoon bomb” prop to make this argument during his Sept. 27, 2012 UN General Assembly speech. Two weeks earlier, Netanyahu had said that Iran was 6-7 months from being 90% of the way to building a bomb during an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” program.
The next year, during his Oct. 1 2013 address to the UNGA, Netanyahu admitted that Iran had not crossed the line he had drawn on his diagram, but said Tehran was still positioning itself to be able to create a bomb and that this “vast and feverish effort has continued unabated” under Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.
Netanyahu has also called the interim deal on Iran’s nuclear program that was reached on Nov. 24, 2012 between Iran and the P5+1 (the U.S., Britain, France, China, and Russia plus Germany) a “historic mistake.”
The Israeli PM, who has been warning about an impending Iranian nuclear bomb for almost 20 years, has been relatively quiet during this year’s round of talks toward a comprehensive deal with Iran, which are set to resume on May 13 in Vienna Austria.
US officials have also detected a shift in Tel Aviv’s position toward a somewhat more reasonable stance, according to a report in Al-Monitor.
Several current and former Israeli defense and intelligence officials have cast doubt on Netanyahu’s statements on Iran’s nuclear program, which Tehran, a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, insists is peaceful.
“[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,” said Israel’s former Internal Security Chief, Yuval Diskin, at an Israeli forum on Apr. 26, 2012.
“[Iran] is going step by step to the place where it will be able to decide whether to manufacture a nuclear bomb. It hasn’t decided to go the extra mile,” noted the head of the Israeli military, Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, during an interview with Haaretz on Apr. 25, 2012.
“I don’t think [Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei] will want to go the extra mile. I think the Iranian leadership is composed of very rational people,” he said.
“[Attacking Iran is] the stupidest thing I have ever heard…It will be followed by a war with Iran,” said Meir Dagan, the former head of the Mossad, during a May 2011 Hebrew University conference.
“It is the kind of thing where we know how it starts, but not how it will end.” he added.
]]>The Times of Israel reports on Bibi Netanyahu’s attempt to increase poll ratings ahead of the Jan. 22 Israeli election:
“Overcoming Iran’s nuclear threat is the main goal for the next term. There are other important goals, like blanketing the country with Iron Dome [missile defense systems], strengthening the [...]]]>
The Times of Israel reports on Bibi Netanyahu’s attempt to increase poll ratings ahead of the Jan. 22 Israeli election:
“Overcoming Iran’s nuclear threat is the main goal for the next term. There are other important goals, like blanketing the country with Iron Dome [missile defense systems], strengthening the economy by adding jobs and lowering the housing prices just like we lowered the cost of cellphones,” Netanyahu said. “But to achieve all these goals, I need a large ruling party behind me. Prime ministers in Israel, from [David] Ben-Gurion to [Menachem] Begin, made their important steps with large parties behind them. You can’t make serious decisions when you’re divided into factions.”
Last week, Yuval Diskin, a former head of Israel’s Shin Bet security service, said he distrusts Netanyahu’s motives with Iran in an interview with the leading Israeli newspaper, Yediot Aharonot:
“My colleagues and I were very unsure of whether Netanyahu and Barak can lead an Iranian campaign. We didn’t trust their motives. We were worried that they might pursue various moves that would compromise Israel based on irrelevant considerations or via underhanded ways. We had a feeling that they were trying to sneak something under the radar,” he said in the interview, published on Friday.
For now, Netanyahu seems to have somewhat toned down his aggressive campaign against Iran, which reignited ongoing speculation in 2012 that Israel may attack its long-time foe (despite the likely ineffectiveness of a lone attack). But as Jay Newton-Small reports, Washington is still receiving ultimatums from Israel:
Israeli Finance Minister Dr. Yuval Steinitz parachuted into Washington Monday for two days of meetings focusing mainly on Iran. Steinitz’s main message to the Obama Administration: it’s time to give Iran an ultimatum.
“They need something in addition to the sanction and in addition to the statements” made thus far by President Obama, Steinitz told reporters over breakfast at the Mayflower Hotel. “They need a credible ultimate, a credible threat. They are waiting for something like this to happen.”
Meanwhile, Israeli analyst Yossi Melman writes in Al-Monitor that Israel’s election promises little change for the Israel-Palestine conflict.
A new poll conducted by the Pew Global Attitudes Project finds that 63 percent of respondents in the U.S. “would turn to military force to prevent Iran from going nuclear.” But the pollsters questions contain unproven assumptions about the effectiveness of military strikes and suggest that failure to act militarily [...]]]>
A new poll conducted by the Pew Global Attitudes Project finds that 63 percent of respondents in the U.S. “would turn to military force to prevent Iran from going nuclear.” But the pollsters questions contain unproven assumptions about the effectiveness of military strikes and suggest that failure to act militarily may hasten an Iranian nuclear weapon.
Respondents were asked to choose [PDF, page 27] between “preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons, even if it means taking military action,” or “avoiding a military conflict with Iran, even if means Iran may develop nuclear weapons.” Built into these questions is the assumption that military action can prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons or, conversely, that the lack of military action may ensure an Iranian nuclear weapon. Policy experts in Israel and the U.S. have consistently challenged this understanding of the Iranian nuclear showdown.
Last month, former Israeli internal security chief Yuval Diskin warned that :
[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.
Indeed, the pollsters at Pew could take some lessons from Diskin about avoiding false trade-offs between bombing Iran and preventing an Iranian nuclear weapon. They could also have listened to Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor who observed that “an attack on Iran wouldn’t add anything to our security.” Or they could have watched former Israeli spy chief Meir Dagan’s warnings on 60 Minutes that an attack on Iran would “ignite regional war” and “there’s no military attack that can halt the Iranian nuclear project. It could only delay it.”
In the U.S., Secretary of State Hillary Clinton emphasized that “giving diplomacy a chance” is the best “way forward,” and former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. (appointed by George H.W. Bush) Thomas Pickering warned that “[A military strike] has a very high propensity, in my view, of driving Iran in the direction of openly declaring and deciding [...] to make a nuclear weapon.”
Finally, and from perhaps the least political source, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) found that “an attack could have considerable regional and global security, political, and economic repercussions” but “it is unclear what the ultimate effect of a strike would be on the likelihood of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons.”
This uncertainty was nowhere to be found in Pew’s questions which posed a clear tradeoff between taking military action to destroy Iran’s nuclear program and “avoiding a military conflict” at the expense of Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon. This tradeoff presented to poll respondents fails to take into account the overwhelming evidence that no such trade-off exists. President Obama has committed to “preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon” and said it was “unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon.” But the willingness of politicians and pollsters to portray a tradeoff between military action and Iran’s acquisition of a nuclear weapon promotes an inaccurate set of policy choices which, ultimately, may undermine efforts to resolve the Iranian nuclear crisis.
]]>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.
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