Israeli experts back Bibi's
bluff By Gareth Porter
TEL AVIV - A striking feature of the
Israeli political landscape in recent months has
been the absence of a serious debate on the issue
of the threat of war with Iran led by national
security figures. It is well known that many
prominent former military and intelligence
officials believe an attack on Iran would be
disastrous for Israel. After an initial blast at
the idea of striking Iran by two former
high-ranking officials last year, however, very
little has been heard from such national security
figures.
The reason for this silence on
the part of the national security sector, just as
the Israeli threat of war was escalating sharply,
appears to be a widespread view among Israeli
national security analysts that Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu's threat to attack is a highly
successful bluff.
Some critics of
Netanyahu's threat to go war against Iran have
expressed concern about
the failure of national security figures to speak
out publicly against the policy. Former Jerusalem
Post columnist Larry Derfner, who now blogs for
the independent web-based magazine 972, wrote last
month that there are "crowds" of former military
and intelligence officials who privately oppose an
attack on Iran and who could slow the "march to
war" by speaking to the news media.
But he
complained that "Israelis aren't hearing their
voices".
Yossi Alpher, a former Mossad
analyst and later head of the Jaffee Center for
National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University,
has noted the same problem. "Plenty of people are
calling for public debate on the issue of striking
Iran," he told Inter Press Service (IPS) in an
interview. "But it isn't happening."
Former Mossad director Meir Dagan launched
the first attack on Netanyahu's policy by a former
national security official last June, asserting
that an attack on Iran would provoke a regional
war and would ensure that Iran would acquire
nuclear weapons. (See When
Meir Dagan speaks ..., Asia Times Online, Mar
13, 2012)
Major General Shlomo Gazit, who
was chief of military intelligence in the 1970s,
also disassociated himself with the policy,
declaring, "An Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear
reactor will lead to the liquidation of Israel."
Like Dagan, Gazit warned that it would
cause Iran to immediately decide to become a
nuclear power and he added that it would increase
international pressures for the abandonment of
"the territories".
Those shots across
Netanyahu's bow have not been followed, however,
by similar criticisms by other former military and
intelligence figures.
In fact, Gazit
himself appeared to backtrack from his earlier
harsh verdict on the option of attacking Iran in a
recent television interview.
On Russia
Today on March 12, Gazit did not voice any of his
previous objections to the threatened Israeli
strike against Iran. Instead he emphasized the
readiness of Israel to carry out a strike, even
without US approval if necessary, played down the
cost to Israel of an Iranian response, and said an
Israeli strike would result in delaying the
Iranian nuclear program by "two or three years at
least".
Gazit reaffirmed to IPS, however,
that he had not changed his mind about the dangers
to Israel attending a strike against Iran he had
raised last June.
The publicly discussed
reason for the absence of dissent from the
national security sector is lack of information.
Nathan Sharony, who heads the Council of Peace,
with over 1,000 former high-ranking security
officials with dovish views, told Derfner the
reason ex-national security officials were not
speaking up was that they lack the "solid
information" necessary to do so.
Gazit
gave IPS the same explanation for the failure of
former officials to oppose a strike against Iran
publicly.
But the main reasons for
opposing war with Iran do not require access to
inside information. The more compelling
explanation for the silence of former military and
intelligence officers is that they, like
journalists and other policy analysts, think that
Netanyahu is probably bluffing and that they
perceive the bluff as working.
Retired
Brigadier General Uzi Rubin, the former head of
Israel's missile defense program, recalls being on
a television program a few months ago with Ari
Shavit, senior correspondent at Israeli newspaper
Ha'aretz, on which Shavit declared, "Netanyahu is
playing poker for all of us. We shouldn't call out
his cards."
Shavit was suggesting that the
success of the prime minister in the high-stakes
poker game requires that influential Israelis not
question his claims about Israel's willingness and
capability to attack Iran's nuclear sites.
That struck a Rubin as a significant
factor in the politics surrounding Netanyahu's
policy. "People who think we shouldn't attack Iran
believe Netanyahu is playing poker," said Rubin in
an interview with IPS. "So they think they
shouldn't speak up."
"Netanyahu speaks
like he's very convinced Iran has to be stopped by
force," said the former missile defense chief.
"Does he mean it?" Rubin said he doesn't know the
answer.
Alpher agrees. He told IPS the
reason high-profile expressions of dissent by
Dagan and a few others have not provoked more
lively debate on Iran policy among national
security figures is that "they don't want to spoil
Bibi's successful bluster".
Netanyahu's
bluffing on Iran has "kept the international
community on edge", Alpher suggested, and thus
achieved the latest round of sanctions and heavier
pressure on Iran.
Both the poker game
metaphor and the view that he has been successful
at it have been central elements in media coverage
of Netanyahu's policy in recent weeks.
While the prime minister was in Washington
last month, Aluf Benn, the editor-in-chief of
Ha'aretz, wrote that Netanyahu had "managed to
convince the world that Israel is on the verge of
a preemptive war" and that he is "playing poker
and hiding his most important card - the Israel
Defense Forces's true capabilities to destroy
Iran's nuclear installations".
Just last
week, Benn's colleague, Ari Shavit, referred to
threats to attack Iran's nuclear facilities before
the end of 2012 that he and a handful of other
journalists had heard from senior officials.
Shavit acknowledged, however, that "we cannot
exclude the possibility that senior Israeli
officials briefing us are bluffing", noting that
the officials had a "vested interest" in
exploiting such a threat.
One factor that
may have fed the reluctance of some former
military and intelligence officials to go public
with criticism of the option of war against Iran
is that Netanyahu has a reputation for being far
less aggressive on Iran in practice than his
rhetoric would indicate.
Benn told IPS
there is a perception of Netanyahu as a "hesitant
politician who would not dare to attack without
American permission".
A former national
security official, who did not wish to be
identified, told IPS some people who have worked
with Netanyahu have said he is less decisive than
former prime minister Ehud Olmert on Iran,
although he personally disagrees with that
assessment.
The widespread impression
among the Israeli national security elite and
press corps that Netanyahu's threat of war against
Iran is a bluff does not guarantee that Netanyahu
will not attack Iran. But it does help explain why
there has not been a much bigger outcry against a
war option that is widely regarded as irrational
for Israel.
Gareth Porter is an
investigative historian and journalist
specializing in US national security policy. The
paperback edition of his latest book, Perils
of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to
War in Vietnam, was published in 2006.
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