Almost twenty years ago, as the spokesman of the Israeli government, I ushered a British journalist to the office of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. The topic of the interview— what a déjà vu — was the failed peace process between the Israelis and the Palestinians (this was in early 1993, just before the Oslo Process). Rabin spoke without great enthusiasm about the subject, but suddenly leaned forward, looked the journalist in the eye, and said emphatically: “We must settle this issue before Iran gets the nukes.”
We were both stunned. Iran? This country had just emerged
from a decade-long bloody war with Iraq. What nukes? Then the British
journalist, fishing for the scoop of his life, fired a daring question. “Prime
Minister,” he asked, “are you planning to bomb them like you did in 1981 with
the Iraqis?” Rabin leaned back. “Nuclear Iran is the problem of the whole free
world,” he said calmly, moving to the next subject.
On our way out, the journalist, knowing I was a colonel
in the reserves of the Israeli Air Force (IAF), asked me if the maneuver the
IAF had been conducting the same week in the south of Israel was in any way an
indication of Israel preparing an attack on Iran. I answered that the IAF was
always preparing for all contingencies. The headline in his paper the following
day screamed: “While Prime Minister Rabin says that nuclear Iran is the problem
of the world, Col. Dromi confirms that Israel is preparing for all
contingencies.” Earned me a brutal reprimand from Rabin and an important lesson
in journalism.
Two decades later, nuclear Iran is still a concern for
the free world, and at the same time, as before, the IAF keeps preparing for
all contingencies. Today, however, it seems more justifiable to link between
the two issues then it was in Rabin’s time. The rhetoric in Israel has shifted
lately from “The world, and especially America, should solve the problem of
nuclear Iran,” to “Nuclear Iran is an existential threat to Israel, and we will
not let it happen.” The question is who is this “we,” namely, who should knock
out Iran’s nuclear facilities — the United States of America? NATO? Israel
alone? The answer to this question was ambiguous in the past; today more people
talk about the option that Israel might act alone.
This week, Israel launched a ballistic missile — a clear
indication of its long range capabilities. Talks with Germany about a purchase
of another submarine were leaked, as a reminder of Israel’s second-strike
capability. In a well-orchestrated move, censorship was lifted and it was
revealed that the IAF had conducted a complex maneuver in Italy. One doesn’t
need to be a great strategist to understand that if IAF fighters and air
re-fuelling tankers can fly 1,000 miles to the west, they can equally fly the
same distance to the east.
Last but not least, an unprecedented public debate about
a possible Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure erupted in Israel.
It started with Meir Dagan, former head of the Mossad, who, immediately after
his retirement, launched something close to a personal crusade against what he
feared was a determination of Israel’s prime minister and defense minister to
strike at Iran.
Dagan felt that the repercussions of such a strike would
be much more damaging than the benefit gained by it. And we are talking on
slowing down the Iranian nuclear program, not shutting it down completely.
Unlike the air strike in 1981, which destroyed in one stroke the main nuclear
facility of the Iraqis, the Iranian facilities are dispersed and concealed, and
to knock them out completely will be an awesome task.
Dagan and others warned that Iran has amassed a whole
array of measures to retaliate against such a strike, from closing the Straits
of Hormuz , thus threatening the supply of oil, through terror activities
world-wide and activating Hezbollah and maybe even giving the beleaguered Assad
of Syria a pretext to attack Israel.
The Israelis these days are perplexed. On the one hand,
they have been told once and again that on the Iran front Israel shouldn’t act
alone. On the other hand, their leaders always gave them the assurance that at
the moment of truth, if the world fails to act, Israel will be able to defend
itself. Are we now at this moment of truth?
Dagan isn’t sure, and Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer,
goes even a step further, believing that a nuclear Iran is not the end of the
world. “Iran will behave like a normal nuclear weapons state,” he wrote. “It
will not be a crazy or suicidal state. It will try to use its nuclear status to
intimidate non-nuclear weapons states but will avoid conflict that could
escalate into a nuclear exchange with another nuclear power. It is highly
unlikely that Iran will initiate nuclear war with Israel or give control of
nuclear weapons to proxies it does not fully control.”
So who is right? Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who
seems keen about Israel stopping the Iranian threat? Former Mossad chief Meir
Dagan, who is against? Or former CIA man Bruce Riedel who calls this fuss
exaggerated? The only good news is that I’m not the government spokesman these
days, having to explain all this.
**Uri Dromi is a columnist based in Jerusalem.
DROMI@MISHKENOT.ORG.IL
