The former heads of two of the most powerful intelligence agencies in the world, speaking Sunday, Dec. 1, in different parts of the world, were of the same opinion: Iran has reached the point of a nuclear threshold state and can build several nuclear bombs in a matter of weeks. By this diagnosis, Gen. Michael Hayden, former director of the CIA and NSA, and ex-general Amos Yadlin, ex-chief of AMAN, Israeli military intelligence indicted their respective governments of the US and Israeli for their failure to stop this happening.
Asked in a FoxNews interview in New York about the interim accord the six powers reached with Iran in Geneva, Gen. Hayden was terse: “Iran is a nuclear threshold nation and we can’t stop this,” he said. America has moved its red lines and “all but conceded Iran has the right to enrich uranium.” He went on to voice the hope that “We have hit the pause button. Now we’ve got to negotiate hitting the delete button.”
Yadlin, who heads a national security think tank, had this to say: “Iran is approaching breakout point to a nuclear bomb.” On the Geneva accord, he commented: “… this is only a first step, not a final agreement, although it contains elements which predetermine the final accord.”
Speaking in Tel Aviv, Yadlin said: “The fact that Iran is a nuclear threshold state is not the fault of this agreement. Iran spent many years developing this capability and no one managed to stop it. Iran is a step before breakout to a bomb. This is unfortunate but true.”
It was the first time that a former high-ranking Israeli intelligence officer had admitted the responsibility of successive Israeli governments, defense ministers and heads of its various intelligence agencies for the failure to pre-empt Iran’s drive for a nuclear weapon.
MK Tzahi Hanegbi , a senior lawmaker who has the ear of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, expressed concern that the interim deal with Iran would be left standing as the final accord, and so leave the Islamic Republic in place as a nuclear threshold state with the capability to assemble a bomb within six to seven weeks.
In Rome, Netanyahu was heard to say for the umpteenth time that Israel would not allow Iran to attain a nuclear bomb. He seemed to have forgotten the diagram he exhibited to the UN General Assembly in September 2012 accompanied by a resounding pledge not to let Iran accumulate enough enriched uranium for a weapon.
Hanegbi, in his comments Sunday, put the record straight: Iran has built a uranium stockpile of 7.2 tons, enough for several bombs.”
Former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, after criticizing his successor for daring to argue with US President Obama, was of the opinion that Israel would not attack Iran’s nuclear facilities. He was saying that Israel has decided to accept a nuclear-armed Iran.
@ mar55:
Point well taken. However, I doubt that either one of them is really a strategic thinker of substance — nor been around long enough to have developed a sense of working strategy on a geopolitical scale.
She may be on hand to catch the flak if he fouls up on the foreign polcy front, but I suspect an eminence grise calling the shots from offstage
— my money’s on Geoge Soros.
Yet it was this very same Amos Yadlin who gave an interview at the New Republic this past September, published in October, who claimed that at least for the next few months, give or take – until late winter/early spring of ’14 – Israel could set back Iran’s nuke weapons program at least five years with 95% confidence. And with no help from the U.S.
Whatever one thinks of the man’s politics, his opinion is at least credible. This is a man who participated in the ’81 Osirak raid, and who helped plan the ’07 Syria strike.
I note that he did not say above that ‘Iran could not be stopped’, that Israel must ‘accept’ a nuclear-armed Iran.
He said himself, in the interview I reference above, that he had advised against an Israeli strike in the fall of ’12, even though Bibi was ready to go. He said there was “still more time”. He apparently felt that it was not yet a situation where Israel should feel she had no choice but to risk alienating the U.S.
This was the problem Bibi has faced until fairly recently. Never mind calling him ‘all talk, no action’, etc. Bibi did not have his government, nor public opinion in Israel behind him. There were too many internal disagreements with his military commanders over the necessity/feasibility of a strike, and Israeli public opinion had long been opposed to unilateral Israeli action, expecting that the U.S. would/should do the job.
Today, so far as I am aware, this is not the case. Those of you on this forum who live in Israel correct me if I’m wrong, but my impression now is that the Netanyahu government is resigned to the fact that if Iran is to be stopped, then it is up to Israel to do this. Ditto for the Israeli public.
Add this to Mr. Yadlin’s assertions in the interview he gave at New Republic, and the result is that it is too early to write Bibi off on this issue. I don’t know, one way or the other, if it really is “too late” to carry out an effective strike on Iran, and I don’t know if Bibi is going to ultimately act. But now he at least has the country behind him, and that counts for something, as it would with any elected political leader.
This story is not over yet.
Bibi is all bombast and has no intention of attacking Iran.
A real leader would have threatened the west that if Iran strikes Israel, Israel will strike London, Paris etc. Perhaps the west might have actually had an incentive to stop Iran.
Israel fears Obama is leading region towards catastrophe
Small, ideological group encircling Obama, calling for final deal with Iran, regardless of price, forcing US to lose international leadership position. In Israel, officials believe Israel lost ability to influence White House on deal with Iran, pointing to greatest crisis of confidence in 20 years
Read More
Israel fears Obama is leading region towards catastrophe
Small, ideological group encircling Obama, calling for final deal with Iran, regardless of price, forcing US to lose international leadership position. In Israel, officials believe Israel lost ability to influence White House on deal with Iran, pointing to greatest crisis of confidence in 20 years
The way things look from Israel now, the assumption is that Obama has fortified himself behind a small and closed ideological circle. This circle believes in partial non-interventionism and has an aversion to international conflicts – not only in the Middle East but also in South East Asia. In regards to Iran, this circle believes in pursuing a permanent deal that allows Iran to reach the nuclear threshold, while containing the nuclear program in such a way that will bar Iran from ever crossing the threshold or attaining a nuclear weapon without the West noticing.
In Israel, officials say that if this outline becomes a reality, then it would be nothing short of a disaster for Israel. It would mean Iran will be three months away from creating the material it needs for a first nuclear bomb.
Nonetheless, officials will admit that as far as they know there has been no real progress in Iran’s “arms group” – the group which develops the prototype for the Iran’s nuclear centers and then its warheads. Read More
Tehran: Mossad and Saudi intelligence are designing super-Stuxnet to destroy Iran’s nuclear program
Posted December 3, 2013
Tehran: Mossad and Saudi intelligence are designing super-Stuxnet to destroy Iran’s nuclear program.
DEBKAfile Special Report December 3, 2013, 9:31 AM (IDT)
Iran checkmates the P5+1
Al Arabiya News
“In the deal between Iran and the six world powers, it appears that a rogue regime marching towards nuclearization has outmaneuvered the West. In disarming the sanctions regime so painstakingly put together over the last few years, the Iranians have given almost nothing meaningful in return. Instead, they are employing the same playbook that brought the mullahcracy to power and the very strategy that allowed North Korea to get the bomb. Above all, Iran now has an international mechanism that will allow it to effectively play for time.”
If Ya’alon had any credibility with the Israeli right he has now lost it.
Ya’alon: Israel’s relations with US are excellent
Defense minister says relations with Washington did not suffer even in wake of differences over Iran nuclear agreement, discusses humanitarian aid to Syria
@ yamit82:
The Wars Of The Jews – not Israel’s enemies – is the greatest impediment to preserving Jewish indepedence.
@ yamit82:
Yamit, as much as I despise Olmert, I believe he is correct in his conclusion. Netanyahu will never attack Iran. And in any case, that ship already sailed.
Israel’s Top Brass Torn Over Possible Iran Attack
Nahum Barnea and Shimon Shiffer /August 13, 2012
If it were up to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, an Israeli military attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would be launched in the coming autumn months, before the US election in November. Of course, the fact that Israel’s two most senior figures are determined to adopt the decision and pass it in the cabinet is of immense significance. It is no less significant that not one high-ranking official in the Israeli establishment — not in the Israel Defense Forces’ (IDF) top echelons, nor in the defense establishment and not even the President of Israel — currently supports an Israeli attack.
Read more: http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/politics/2012/08/for-and-against-an-attack-the-pr.html##ixzz2mPUiNH28