Another Israeli Official Speaks Out
The BBC has another report on dissension inside Israel: Israel ex-security chief says leadership ‘misleading public’ on Iran
The former head of Israel’s domestic intelligence agency has accused the country’s leadership of “misleading” the public on the merits of a possible military strike on Iran.
Yuval Diskin said an attack might speed up any attempt by Iran to obtain a nuclear bomb.
The comment follows remarks by other leading figures contradicting the prime minister and defence chief’s views on the subject.
Iran denies it is seeking nuclear arms.
Mr Diskin, who stepped down as Shin Bet chief last year after six years, said he had “no faith in the current leadership” of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak, according to Israeli media reports.
“I don’t believe in a leadership that makes decisions based on messianic feelings,” he said at a public meeting.
Juan Cole has an Israeli newspaper article on the remarks that goes into more detail.
For so many high ranking officials and former officials in the Israeli military and intel community to come out and speak about this in public, they must be very confident of their information. I suspect that it goes beyond the absence of any evidence of an Iranian weapons program. They may have well placed sources within Iran who are telling them that there is no program. Being wrong about this would have such serious consequences for these people, they must be sure of what they are saying. An absence of intelligence generally leads to equivocation, not confidence.
2 comments
Much as I loathe the Iranian regime, Bibi’s sabre rattling is foolish
An attack has been ‘war-gamed’ and the conclusion was that an Israeli strike would set back a nuclear program by a year at most. The problem being, that if there was no program, it might make Iran start one, in addition to the huge spike in fuel prices, and probable attacks on Israel by Hamas and Hezbollah.
It does not make any sense to take the chance, given the cost, even if the strike were successful.
The Iranian government is a bunch of repressive religious whackos, but they tend to keep to themselves. If Israel would like to reduce the influence of the Iranians, all they have to do is pull out of other people’s territory and settle with the Palestinians based on the 1967 borders. That would end the problems with their neighbors and eliminate a major justification for Islamic terrorists. Given that the current Israeli government is also a bunch of repressive religious whackos, that is unlikely to happen.