1.
News
World news
Binyamin Netanyahu
ISRAELI P.M. ORDERS INVESTIGATION INTO IRAN LEAK
By Ian Black
Guardian (London)
November 3, 2011
** Kuwaiti paper says Binyamin Netanyahu believes the heads of the Mossad and Shin Bet may have leaked plans for attack **
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/nov/03/israeli-pm-investigation-iran-leak
Israel's prime minister has ordered an investigation into alleged leaks of plans to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, it has been reported.
According to the Kuwaiti newspaper al-Jarida, the main suspects are the former heads of the Mossad and the Shin Bet, respectively Israel's foreign and domestic intelligence agencies.
Netanyahu is said to believe that the two, Meir Dagan and Yuval Diskin, wanted to torpedo plans being drawn up by him and Ehud Barak, the defense minister, to hit Iranian nuclear sites. Tzipi Livni, leader of the opposition Kadima party, is also said to have been persuaded to attack Netanyahu for "adventurism" and "gambling with Israel's national interest".
The paper suggested that the purpose of the leaks was to prevent an attack, which had moved from the stage of discussion to implementation. "Those who oppose the plan within the security establishment decided to leak it to the media and thwart the plan," it said.
Both Dagan and Diskin oppose military action against Iran unless all other options -- primarily international diplomatic pressure and perhaps sabotage -- have been exhausted. In January the recently retired Dagan, a hawk when he was running the Mossad, called an attack on Iran "the stupidest idea I've ever heard."
The Kuwait paper has a track record of running stories based on apparently high-level leaks from Israeli officials.
Even well-informed Israeli observers admit to being confused about what is going on behind the scenes.
"It seems that only Netanyahu and Barak know, and maybe even they haven't decided," commented Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff, both respected Haaretz writers. "While many people say Netanyahu and Barak are conducting sophisticated psychological warfare and don't intend to launch a military operation, top officials . . . are still afraid."
The idea that something significant is going on in this highly sensitive area was rekindled last week in comments by columnist Nahum Barnea, who wrote in Yedioth Ahronoth that the officials running Israel's military and intelligence services were opposed to a war with Iran.
"Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak are the Siamese twins of the Iranian issue," he wrote. "A rare phenomenon is taking place here in terms of Israeli politics: a prime minister and defense minister who act as one body, with one goal, with mutual backing and repeated heaping of praise on each other . . . They're characterized as urging action.
"Netanyahu portrayed the equation at the beginning of his term as: [Iranian president Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad is Hitler; if he is not stopped in time, there will be a Holocaust. There are some who describe Netanyahu's fervor on this subject as an obsession: all his life he's dreamed of being Churchill. Iran gives him the chance."
The debate in Israel was further fanned on Wednesday when Israel successfully test-fired a missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and striking Iran.
2.
EX-MOSSAD CHIEF'S COMMENTS ON IRAN PLACE HIM ON COLLISION COURSE WITH NETANYAHU
By Aluf Benn
** Meir Dagan's warnings at Tel Aviv University Wednesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's leadership 'is absent of vision and responsibility' places him in opposition role, advocating 'military restraint and political initiative.' **
Haaretz
June 3, 2011
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/ex-mossad-chief-s-comments-on-iran-place-him-on-collision-course-with-netanyahu-1.365619
Meir Dagan's public warnings that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is leading Israel into disaster places the former Mossad chief in a new role -- head of the opposition. After two years of the prime minister's complete control over the political message coming out of Jerusalem, there is finally someone who is standing up and warning the public of the risks inherent in a leadership that "is absent of vision and responsibility."
Dagan's message during a speech Wednesday at Tel Aviv University can be summed up in a single phrase -- "military restraint and political initiative." In Dagan's view, Israel must not attack Iran, and it must accept the Arab peace initiative -- a simple message that every Israeli can understand.
Dagan has some advantages when it comes to entering contemporary politics. He is a new product on the political shelf and has not been worn out in his public appearances. Second, he carries the security glory that comes with a mythical Mossad assassin. Third, at 66, and with his military and intelligence experience, he reminds us of Ariel Sharon, the most admired leader of the past generation. And finally, he is seen as a student of Sharon and enjoys the support of those who surrounded the former prime minister.
Dagan also has shortcomings. First, he lacks political experience. Second, as is the case with retired chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi, Dagan is bound by the law that bans him from elected office for three years after leaving his previous post. He could be defense minister but not prime minister.
And third, Netanyahu may be a problematic politician, but in his second term as prime minister, he is proving to be successful and forceful. The minute he identified Dagan as an enemy, he began a campaign to destroy him, beginning with claims that the former Mossad boss talks too much and can therefore undermine state security -- or, in brief, that Dagan is unreliable.
Further down the line, if Dagan continues to attack Netanyahu, the prime minister is likely to step up the pressure with claims that would make the former Mossad chief appear to have been incompetent or, even worse, a liar.
If Dagan withstands these attacks and carries on with his assault, he may prove a suitable leader for the opposition. His patron, Sharon, withstood many attacks that were much more severe, and kept at it. Now, Dagan is being tested.
3.
Middle East
ISRAEL FACES QUESTIONS ABOUT NEWS REPORTS OF EYEING IRAN STRIKE
By Isabel Kershner and David E. Sanger
New York Times
November 4, 2011 (posted Nov. 3)
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/04/world/middleeast/israel-is-scrambling-over-news-reports-of-seeking-iran-strike.html
JERUSALEM -- Israel’s top leadership has spent the week answering and evading questions about widespread reports that it is once again considering a strike on Iran’s nuclear complexes, while President Obama said Thursday that he and his allies would maintain “unprecedented international pressure” on Tehran to keep it from producing a nuclear weapon.
Israeli officials would not confirm or deny multiple reports in the Israeli news media that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak were pressing for a decision on whether and when to strike a uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, the centerpiece of Iran’s known nuclear-fuel production, and related sites across the country.
Several Israeli ministers have publicly placed blame for the leaks on Meir Dagan, the former chief of Israel’s Mossad intelligence service, who after leaving office this year said that Mr. Netanyahu was intent on launching such an attack, and had to be restrained by opposition from top intelligence and military officials, almost all of whom have since left office.
Mr. Dagan, who is believed to have played a central role in unleashing the Stuxnet computer worm that set back Iran’s nuclear efforts by disabling about a fifth of its nuclear centrifuges, has argued that military action is unlikely to do enough damage and could set off a new war in the Middle East.
Speaking to an audience in Tel Aviv on Wednesday night, Mr. Dagan challenged the government to indict him. “Have I violated information security?” he asked. “Then let them prosecute me. Let them say, ‘Dagan has broken the law.’ I’ll get a good lawyer.”
Israel has debated the viability and effects of attacks many times in the past seven years, often to Washington’s consternation. Obama administration officials, in private conversations with the Israelis, have argued that the combination of economic sanctions and covert sabotage of the Iranian effort has been more effective than an attack could be, without the risk of provoking counterattacks or a war.
But the most recent debate has been prompted by the confluence of three events that has made the issue seem especially urgent in Israel, according to American officials who have been worried about whether Israel might conduct a surprise attack.
The first is Iran’s continued production of low- and medium-enriched uranium: it now has enough fuel for roughly four bombs, though producing them would require more time, more enrichment, and more risk of exposure. The second is Iran’s declaration that it is moving much of its production to a well-protected underground site near the holy city of Qum.
“The Israelis fear that once it’s moved underground they won’t have the ability to see it, or reach it,” one American official said recently.
But perhaps the most important event is a forthcoming report from the International Atomic Energy Agency, expected next week. For the first time, the agency is expected to describe, in detail, the evidence it has collected suggesting that Iranian scientists have experimented with warhead designs, nuclear detonation systems and specialized triggering devices that can be explained only as work on a nuclear weapon.
Iran has said the data is fabricated, and vowed to publish its own evidence of Western terrorist plots against Iran.
Mr. Obama and NATO allies, at a summit meeting in Cannes, France, have steered clear of any talk of military strikes, and said they remained focused on economic sanctions and other forms of diplomatic pressure, including enforcement of several United Nations Security Council resolutions that demand that Iran stop all uranium enrichment.
The secretary general of NATO, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said Thursday that “NATO has no intention whatsoever to intervene in Iran, and NATO is not engaged as an alliance in the Iran question,” according to the Associated Press.
The British newspaper The Guardian reported on Wednesday that Britain’s armed forces were stepping up their contingency planning for potential military action along with the United States against Iran. The Guardian added that the British Ministry of Defense “believes the U.S. may decide to fast-forward plans for targeted missile strikes at some key Iranian facilities.”
Mr. Obama discussed Iran on Thursday with the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy. Mr. Obama told reporters that the International Atomic Energy Agency “is scheduled to release a report on Iran’s nuclear program next week, and President Sarkozy and I agree on the need to maintain the unprecedented pressure on Iran to meet its obligations.”
One of his deputy national security advisers, Benjamin J. Rhodes, told reporters later that Mr. Obama’s comments had to be separated “from any type of speculation or hypothetical situation as it relates to military action.”
But at the same time he said the atomic energy agency’s report would probably renew the opportunity for “ratcheting up” sanctions that “have slowed the Iranian economy to a halt.”
“They’re the only treaty member of the NPT,” he said, referring to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, “that cannot convince the International Atomic Energy Agency that their program is peaceful. And that’s precisely why they’re facing the type of international pressure that they’re facing.”
The treaty also applies to five powers that have possessed nuclear weapons for decades: the United States, Britain, France, Russia, and China. Three countries have refused to sign the treaty, including Israel, which is widely known to have its own nuclear stockpile.
In Britain, officials and academics cautioned against mistaking the drumbeat for actual preparations for a strike in the near or medium term. The common view is that the United States, Britain, and Israel have all been engaging in a concerted effort to step up the pressure on Iran.
Dana Allin, a scholar and author who is a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, said it seemed clear that Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Barak “really are convinced that now might be a good time” for a strike, in view of the convulsions of the Arab Spring and the fact that American troops will be out of Iraq by Dec. 31, removing them as hostages to a possible spike in attacks by Iranian-supported militias. But as for an increased tempo in planning for an actual attack, he said, “That strikes me as implausible.”
The speculation about possible military action began last Friday with a column by one of Israel’s most prominent journalists, Nahum Barnea, that dominated the front page of the newspaper Yediot Aharonot. Mr. Barnea posed the question of whether Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Barak had privately decided on a military strike, a question that Mr. Barnea said was preoccupying many in the Israeli government and the security establishment, as well as many in foreign governments.
The Israeli prime minister’s office refused to comment on a report in the newspaper Kuwaiti *Al-Jarida* on Thursday that said Mr. Netanyahu had ordered his security services to investigate Mr. Dagan and the former chief of the internal Shin Bet security agency, Yuval Diskin, in connection with the leaks.
But while Israeli ministers berated the news media for what was described as irresponsible behavior, the government on Wednesday tested what experts said was a long-range ballistic missile. The same day, the Israeli military announced that its air force had just completed a weeklong joint exercise with Italy’s air force in Sardinia, practicing for operational capabilities in conditions that do not exist in Israel.
--Isabel Kershner reported from Jerusalem, and David E. Sanger from Washington. John F. Burns contributed reporting from London, and Helene Cooper from Cannes, France.
4.
Opinion
WILL ISRAEL PULL THE TRIGGER AND SEND IRAN THE ULTIMATE MESSAGE?
By Michael Rubin
Fox News
November 3, 2011
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/11/03/will-israel-pull-trigger-and-send-iran-ultimate-message/
Israel’s test on Wednesday of a new missile able to reach Iran, and the International Atomic Energy Agency’s forthcoming report that exposes the military dimension to Iran’s nuclear program have renewed speculation that Israel’s patience with Obama’s diplomatic efforts to counter Iran’s nuclear program has run out.
Against the backdrop of the crisis, the White House seeks to double down on diplomacy. "What we're focused on is a diplomatic strategy which . . . increases the pressure on the Iranians, through financial pressure, through economic sanctions, through diplomatic isolation," explained deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes.
The truth is that while the White House may believe it has still more time for robust diplomacy, but after years of threatening biting sanctions, neither Iran nor Israel believe Obama to be credible.
Add to that differing threat assessments, calculations, and the ticking clock of Iranian nuclear developments, and there is much that will get in the way of U.S. diplomatic efforts.
The United States, the Europe Union, and Israel may all share concerns regarding Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, but each has remarkably different threat assessments.
For the United States, a nuclear weapons capable Islamic Republic is strategically untenable: A nuclear Iran would set off a cascade of proliferation while Iranian authorities, secure behind their own nuclear deterrent, might launch a terrorist campaign unseen in the region since the 1980s.
For the European Union, Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons would signal a defeat for Europe’s multilateral philosophy: The Iranian nuclear portfolio, after all, was the first issue outside European borders on which the European Union took the lead. European diplomats wanted to show that they could resolve the Iran crisis through quiet dialogue and with the assistance of international organizations such as the United Nations.
European officials know their failure will be the death knell for the internationalist approach and will provide red meat for Americans who believe that unilateralism is the only effective way to handle rogue regimes.
For Israel, however, the Iranian threat is existential. Israeli officials do not forget that Iranian officials have repeatedly suggested not only that Iran seeks to build a nuclear bomb, but also may use it.
On December 14, 2001, former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani observed, “The use of an atomic bomb against Israel would totally destroy Israel, while the same against the Islamic world would only cause damage.”
On February 14, 2005, Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer Kharrazi, secretary-general of Iranian Hezbollah, declared, "We are able to produce atomic bombs and we will do that,” adding, “The U.S. is not more than a barking dog."
Then, three months later, Gholam Reza Hasani, a confidante of the Supreme Leader, declared possession of nuclear weapons to be one of Iran’s top goals.
Finally, in February 2006, Rooz, an Iranian website close to Iran’s reformist camp, quoted a Qom theologian as saying it was only "natural" for Iran to possess nuclear weapons.
While some American professors say that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s promise to “wipe Israel off the map” was a mistranslation from Persian, they ignore that the Iranian presidency used the phrase in its own English translations, and repeated it on more than two dozen occasions.
The Iranian plot to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington only adds to Israel’s concern. After all, while Iran experts dismiss the plot as a rogue action, Israeli officials note that the presence of rogue elements within Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) does not bring comfort, especially since it would be the IRGC that would have custody of any Iranian nuclear weapons.
Many military analysts question Israel’s capability to strike unilaterally at Iran’s nuclear facility. Certainly, a strike would be messy and its success uncertain: Iran is much larger than either Iraq or Syria, where Israeli warplanes previously struck at nuclear facilities. Even if Israel went in with surprise, Israeli bombers could not fly out with surprise once they had dropped their bombs. This mandates a wider campaign -- one which would target anti-aircraft batteries, command-and-control centers, and perhaps missile batteries and arms caches in third countries through which Iran might retaliate.
Still, analytical concerns that Israel does not have enough bunker-buster bombs to destroy facilities buried deep under mountains are misplaced: Israel needn’t demolish those facilities; it only needs to destroy their entrances.
Likewise, hand-wringing about "unknown" nuclear facilities is misplaced. Should the IRGC rush to defend what previously analysts believed to be merely random mountains, Western intelligence agencies would reap a windfall.
A military strike, however, would not be clean. As I said earlier, it would be messy. There would be collateral damage. Iranians may oppose their leadership, but they are fiercely nationalistic and will rally around the flag.
I will sell the Brooklyn Bridge to anyone who argues Iranians would welcome bombing. Iran will retaliate.
The tragedy, here, is that this crisis could have been avoided.
While President Obama blamed the Bush administration for the failure of diplomacy, the truth was that Iran’s leadership was never sincere.
On October 24, the Iranian newspaper Etemaad published an interview with Hassan Rowhani, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator from 2003 to 2005, a period when reformists controlled the presidency. Rowhani admitted that he used diplomacy to run down the nuclear clock. “Two goals become our priority,” he declared, “The first goal was to safeguard the national security, and the second goal was to support and help the nuclear achievements.”
After bragging about how Iran used his period of negotiation to expand its enrichment and heavy water capability, Rowhani explained “The reason for inviting the three European foreign ministers to Tehran . . . was to make Europe oppose the United States so that the issue was not submitted to the Security Council.”
Obama entered office asking Iran to unclench its fist, and said the United States would not take no for an answer.
Obama may believe his national security successes -- killing Usama Bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki, and Muammar Qaddafi -- immunize him from dealing substantively with Iran until after the 2012 election, but the rest of the world is not willing to operate according to Washington’s political calendar.
Israeli unilateral strikes will be messy and cause immense bloodshed, but Israeli leaders may calculate this to be the least bad option when faced with genocidal leaders on the verge of nuclear weapons capability. Israel believes it faces an existential threat and absent a credible sign that Obama understands that, it will take matters into its own hands.
--Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a senior lecturer at the Naval Postgraduate School.
5.
ISRAEL CONSUMED BY DEBATE OVER WHETHER TO ATTACK IRAN
By Karl Vick
Time
November 3, 2011
http://globalspin.blogs.time.com/2011/11/03/israel-consumed-by-debate-over-whether-to-attack-iran/
All week Israel has thrummed with talk of launching a military strike on Iran. It began with published hints that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was preparing to move forward on plans to attack Iranian nuclear facilities, a pre-emptive move that he, along with his defense minister, Ehud Barak, long have been described as advocating. Word that mooted aim might be moving toward action came from Nahum Barnea, the most respected columnist in the country, whose heads-up ran across the front page of the weekend edition of Yedioth Ahronoth.
Next came solemn but elliptical remarks from members of his inner cabinet, which would have to approve an air strike on a foreign country. “This strike is complex and intricate, and it is best not to talk about how complex and intricate it is,” Eli Yishai, the interior minister and head of the religious Shas party, was quoted saying. “This operation leaves me sleepless.”
What followed seemed to confirm that something was indeed afoot in the top levels of government: A flurry of senior ministers began shouting that these things should not be discussed in public. “Debates like this cannot be held in front of the camera,” said Dan Meridor, whose portfolio is intelligence and atomic energy. “It's as if we've lost our minds here.” Benny Begin, another Likud member of the inner cabinet lamented “there has never been a media campaign like this. It's a crazy free-for-all. . . . simply disgusting.”
What's actually happening is far from clear, and perhaps meant to be that way. There could be actual fire -- a fuse being lit by a country that, after all, sent jets to knock out nuclear installations in Iraq and Syria, albeit with no warning. Or all this could be not fire but smoke, a rustling of papers meant both to unnerve Iran and steel the resolve of global powers to enforce punishing sanctions against it.
The timing is likewise ambiguous. Within days, the International Atomic Energy Agency is expected to report evidence that Iran continues in efforts to weaponize its nuclear program. It's also a matter of weeks until winter, with the overcast skies that will impede an airstrike, closing the window for months.
Israel's military stoked speculation. The Israel Defense Forces announced that pilots had just completed a drill for a long-range strike, including mid-air refueling and navigating in unfamiliar skies. It also staged a rare missile test launch, sending a contrail over the Mediterranean that was visible from much of central Israel. Meanwhile, the Home Front Command held a drill, also said to be long planned, simulating a rocket attack on Central Israel.
The net effect of all this was to open a public debate in Israeli society over exactly what Netanyahu's cabinet so strongly preferred to want to keep to themselves -- the wisdom of striking Iran. It's a debate Barnea, for one, has strongly encouraged. Last year the columnist wrote about a study estimating what would follow a strike on Iran: “The war could be long,” its author said. “The length could be measured in years.” Many expect that, once attacked, at the minimum Iran would encourage its proxy in Lebanon, Hizballah, to begin launching its tens of thousands of rockets into Israel. In the Gaza Strip, Iran has also supplied rockets to Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
“Imagine [an attack] from the north, the south and the center,” minister Yishai was quoted as saying. “They have short-range and long-range missiles. We estimate there are about 100,000 missiles and rockets.”
These sabres have been rattled before. Last year Jeffrey Goldberg's cover story in the Atlantic rang at least as dire. But only now is the debate being seized inside Israel. The political opposition smells blood: “I am warning Netanyahu and Barak not to engage in a megalomaniacal adventure in Iran,” said Labor Party chair Sheli Yehimovitch. Wednesday's Haaretz carried an opinion piece urging the head of Israel's air force to use his influence to halt any attack by flatly saying it could not be guaranteed effective. Thursday's paper led with an opinion poll showing Israelis evenly split on the question: “Should Israel attack Iran's nuclear facilities.” On the next question -- “Do you trust Netanyahu and Barak's handling of Iran?” -- the numbers showed a majority of 52 percent do, though it's a majority within the margin for error.
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