When Will Israel Act?
In the Wall Street Journal today, Bret Stephens asks why Israel hasn't already bombed Iran:
[F]or a long time I was confident that an attack would happen in the first six months of this year....Israeli planners understood that the longer they delayed a strike, the harder it would be to achieve meaningful effects. Iran would have more time to harden its facilities, improve its defenses, and disperse its nuclear materials.
Read Stephens's column. Read his essay, "Iran Cannot Be Contained," in the summer issue of Commentary. And then listen to former CIA agent Bob Baer and our own Victor Davis Hanson. Do that, I think, and you'll find yourself reaching unnerving conclusions: Obama has no real intention of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons; Iran is only months, not years, from doing so; Israel cannot--simply cannot--accept a nuclear Iran.
If anyone could talk me out of it, I'd be grateful. But for the life of me, I can find no way of disagreeing with Bret Stephens. Will Israel bomb Iran? That's not the question. The question is when.
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Jun '10
Re: When Will Israel Act?
There's also the possibility that those "critical bomb parts" that Iranians think they got from North Korea, actually came from North Tel Aviv, and don't work so well. All kinds of things are possible if you have the right agents in the right place.
May '10
Re: When Will Israel Act?
Last year, I was confident Israel would strike before Christmas. As I recall, Israel's defense minister publicly stated something along those lines. When the strike didn't come, I was sure it would happen within the early months of this year. Now, I'm a little more humble.
At this point, I'm not even sure it's a question of when. Israel's history is full of concessions which were never more than wishful thinking. Perhaps they are making that mistake again.
Jun '10
Re: When Will Israel Act?
My best answer would be an aggressive campaign aimed at regime change in Iran. I mean more than sanctions, everything from encouraging the "greens" with material support to covert action. I understand that Iran has only one oil refinery and must import refined gasoline. Seems to me that it would be an easy target for some sort of skulduggery.
I understand that just before the US launched Operation Iraqi Freedom that US intelligence had the cell phone numbers for numerous regular Iraqi army commanders. They were warned to stay in the barracks if they wanted to survive. Most complied. Meanwhile, units of the Republican Guard that did move were annihilated from the air. I'm suggesting that if the "greens" rise again, we might try the same tactic. Put our air force over Iran and threaten to bomb command and control centers should security forces attempt to confront the demonstrators.
I'm not an expert, but I am suggesting that there is an entire spectrum of possibilities not currently being discussed, at least in public.
Re: When Will Israel Act?
Hmm.
I've only had time to read Stephens's piece from today, so that's all I can respond to at this point. It's curious that he places as the least plausible theory (out of four) to explain our not yet having hit Iran the conclusion by Israeli military planners that a strike probably wouldn't succeed. I'd have thought that would be number one, no? I'm just guessing, but my expectation is that a strike would both fail to destroy (or only marginally delay) Iran's nuclear capability and result in carnage inside Israel. (It would also result in yet more vast, steaming piles of opprobrium heaped on our heads, but that would be the least of our worries with Iranian missiles landing in Tel Aviv.)
Part of my difficulty with his point is I can't tell if he means that it's implausible that the IDF has indeed reached the conclusion that a strike would fail, or that it's implausible that that conclusion would stop the IDF from acting. I'd say both are, in fact, highly plausible.
Re: When Will Israel Act?
Small, trivial thing, Peter -- Bob Baer's a former case officer, not a former agent. As for the bigger questions, I'm reading the transcript of that interview with great interest. I'll comment when I've had a good think about it.
Re: When Will Israel Act?
Stephens discounts an assessment of the relatively high likelihood of failure as a brake on our striking Iran on the grounds that it "fails to appreciate the depth of Israeli fears of a nuclear Iran." I don't get that. The fact that we have a profound fear of a nuclear Iran does not alter the empirical calculation that a strike would likely fail. Does he mean we're so frightened that we would take a wild risk on the paper-thin chance that it might succeed?
Jesus, I hope not.
His second and third theories -- that we're biding our time until a) we get better offensive and defensive hardware in place and b) Netanyahu replaces Ashkenazi and Dagan -- appeal because they're based on hard information that we all have at least partial access to. Netanyahu's choices of staff replacements will tell us a lot. And I'll keep my eyes open about that business Stephens mentions about Israel possibly buying F-15s instead of F-35s because they'd be delivered faster. That's very interesting. That kind of datum is worth a lot more than vague speculation about what assorted people might be thinking.
Edited on Jul 20, 2010 at 5:13pmRe: When Will Israel Act?
Peter, forgive me for monopolizing the thread! One more thing and I'll pipe down. For what it's worth, I'm not detecting any particular dread, or even grim determination, on the streets here at all. Things feel normal. People are much more worked up about Gilad Shalit's fourth anniversary in solitary confinement in a Hamas prison cell than they are that we might be weeks or months away from full-scale regional war.
May '10
Re: When Will Israel Act?
Do you spies have an alumni association where you can check up on each other's status? Or maybe a Facebook group? That would be handy.
May '10
Re: When Will Israel Act?
Even without the threat of a missile storm, why does Israel even consider the bigoted ravings of the United Nations or Al Jazeera? It's crystal clear that the constant condemnations of Israel having nothing to do with Israel's actions. I can understand why Israeli citizens will always be irked by the injustice. But why should the government take such criticisms into account if the lies and demonizations will come regardless?
Jul '10
Re: When Will Israel Act?
Perhaps President Obama is an adherent to the argument - articulated here by Thomas P.M. Barnett (http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/189472-1) - that a nuclear-armed Iran would be a positive advancement for the Middle East, and he is just afraid to admit it. His actions have been perfectly congruous, as Peter states, with a president who has not interest in stopping Iran from becoming a nuclear power. I find Barnett's line of argument to be flawed, and the ramifications of allowing Iran to develop nuclear weapons to be dire, but it's certainly the type of position which Obama embraces, where "balance" takes the place of unfettered US power. For once, I don't think Obama is merely being weak, naive, or fickle; I think he may be advancing a deliberate agenda through his passivity.
Re: When Will Israel Act?
A note for Claire:
Claire, I use "CIA agent" to mean, simply, somebody who served as an agent--i.e., an employee--of the CIA, with the implication (now that I think of it) that some part of the agent's work was clandestine or under cover. But to you, who actually know something about that world, I've got it wrong. How come? What's the diff between an "agent," a "case officer" (which is your term for Bob), or a "field officer" (which is--I just checked--the term in the Wikipedia article about him)? I'm not asking to be tendentious. I'm asking because I love it when I have an excuse to ask you anything.
Re: When Will Israel Act?
And now a note for Judith:
I can't tell you how reassuring it is to hear you say that life in Israel is proceeding in a completely normal way. Here's what happens with me:
I'll talk to Victor Hanson or read an essay by Bret Stephens--his long article in the summer issue of Commentary is a doozie--and find myself feeling forced to conclude that the situation for Israel is going to get really, really ugly very, very soon. For days, I'll walk around anxious and depressed. Then I'll run into a friend who has family in Israel.
"How can everyone in Israel stand it?" I'll ask.
"Stand what?" my friend will reply.
"The tension," I'll explain. "The sense of danger. The foreboding."
"What are you talking about? Life in Israel is good. The economy is strong. People are going about their lives. Tension, foreboding? Please. You worry me."
And so I'll relax.
Until the next time I run into Victor or see something Bret Stephens has written about Iran.
Re: When Will Israel Act?
Yeah, things feel normal here, too. If a full-scale regional war does break out any time soon, we'll both look back and think, "Isn't it weird how normal things felt?"
If we survive, that is.
Re: When Will Israel Act?
Peter Robinson: A note for Claire:
What's the diff between an "agent," a "case officer" (which is your term for Bob), or a "field officer" (which is--I just checked--the term in the Wikipedia article about him)? I'm not asking to be tendentious. I'm asking because I love it when I have an excuse to ask you anything. · Jul 20 at 4:45pm
You don't need an excuse, Peter; I live to lecture. Case officers are the CIA's own employees, the insiders--US citizens. The foreign nationals they handle are the agents, or assets. Say Bob Baer recruits Ali X, the Turkrapistani Minister of Internal Affairs, to spy on his fellow Cabinet members and report back to Bob. Ali X would be the CIA agent, not Bob. Case officers spot, assess, develop, recruit and handle the agents. But both would be considered spies.
Re: When Will Israel Act?
Aaron, I didn't mean to suggest that Israel does "consider the bigoted ravings of the United Nations or Al Jazeera" in its strategic decision-making. Global condemnation is just another negative I expect to result from an Israeli strike, and the American in me couldn't help but mention it.
Israelis in general are amazingly unperturbed by the non-stop vilification of pretty much everything Israel does, not even when it's really beyond the pale -- the UN responding to a suicide bombing inside Israel that kills and maims scores of Israeli civilians by issuing a resolution condemning Israel, that kind of thing. I walk around with steam coming out of my ears; the natives shrug.
Peter, I did a little checking around last night, and was glad to see that the new Iron Dome defensive shield technology that Stephens mentions is going to be deployed in Sderot soon. The Iron Dome provides protection only against short-range missiles, though, so while it'll hamper the efforts of Hamas and Hezbollah to do Iran's work for it from close by, it will not protect us in any way from Iran's long-range missile capability.
Re: When Will Israel Act?
Also, Peter, I had to smile at your description of the rollercoaster you ride about Israel. It's so familiar to me. The best way to get out of an Israel-is-doomed funk is to come here for a visit. I'm much more calm about Israel's prospects living here than I was living at home in the States. That might suggest that I've slipped inside a collective delusion, but hey, there are worse things, right?
In all seriousness, there's some logic to the notion that Israelis are living in a dreamworld since they're not perpetually grinding their teeth and tearing their hair out. But Israelis are the least delusional people I've ever met. They manage to look straight at what's facing them and still go to the beach and the theater and dance clubs and enjoy great food and play with their kids and come up with crazily brilliant ideas for start-ups and generally embrace life. They have political discussions all the time, but these consist of people screaming at each other and failing to convince each other of anything until somebody starts talking about soccer. Normal life, in other words.