[NYTr] Will Israel Strike Iran on its Own, Now that the Truth is Out?

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Newsweek - Dec 20, 2007
http://www.newsweek.com/id/81215/output/print

What Will Israel Do?

A unilateral military strike against Iran is much more likely following
the latest intel report about Tehran's nuke program. 

By Michael Hirsh
Newsweek Web Exclusive

Ehud Olmert, like George W. Bush, is trying hard to make it seem that
nothing has changed, and that the international diplomatic coalition
against Iran is still intact. "The state of Israel is not the main
flag-bearer against the quirks of the regime in Tehran," the Israeli
prime minister declared testily last week, after officials in his own
government seemed to suggest that Israel had been left on its own by
Washington. Olmert said that the recent U.S. National Intelligence
Estimate (NIE) on Iran--which stunned leaders around the world by
concluding, after years of bellicose rhetoric from Bush officials about
Iran's nuclear ambitions, that Tehran had halted its weapons program in
2003--has "generated an exaggerated debate" in Israel. "Some of us even
interpreted the report as an American retreat from its support of
Israel," Olmert said. "This is groundless …  I trust and am confident
that the United States will continue to lead the international campaign
to stop the development of a nuclear Iran."

But Olmert is not Moses; he can't hold back elemental forces all by
himself. And a rising tide of opinion in Israel's intelligence and
national-security circles believes that the NIE does signal American
retreat--and, more profoundly, renewed Israeli isolation over what is
deemed an existential threat out of Tehran. Gen. Ephraim Sneh, a former
deputy defense minister who has warned for years that Israel would
eventually have to confront Iran alone, told me that "today we are
closer to this situation than we were three weeks ago ... we have to be
prepared to forestall this threat on our own." Some prominent American
experts think that the NIE all but assures Israeli military action at
some point. "I came back from a trip to Israel in November convinced
that Israel would attack Iran," Bruce Riedel, a former career CIA
official and senior adviser to three U.S. presidents--including
Bush--on Middle East and South Asian issues, told me Thursday, citing
conversations he had with Mossad and defense officials. "And that was
before the NIE. This makes it even more likely. Israel is not going to
allow its nuclear monopoly to be threatened."

Riedel said the Bush administration compounded the problem by failing
to signal to the Israelis that the NIE assessment was coming.
"Something like this should have been presented to the Israelis through
professional intelligence channels," he said. Yuval Steinitz, a member
of the right-wing Likud Party, told me that he had led a delegation of
Knesset members to Washington a few weeks before the NIE was made
public Dec. 3. Steinitz said he met with Vice President Dick Cheney,
national-security adviser Stephen Hadley and other administration
officials, but not even they seemed aware that their 2005 estimate that
Iran was definitely pursuing nuclear weapons was about to be
repudiated. Even though Iran was discussed, he said, "no one seemed to
have any sign this was forthcoming," he says.

Many Israeli experts are appalled by the tone of the report, which
concludes with "high confidence" that Iran halted its "nuclear weapons
program." The NIE arrived at this finding even though it also asserted
that Washington now had concrete evidence of that program, and despite
Tehran's brazen pursuit of uranium enrichment. Even formerly moderate
European and Russian officials suggest that the report went too far,
especially in concluding that the U.S. intel community still has
"moderate confidence" that the suspension of the program continues. Uzi
Arad, a former Mossad official and adviser to Benjamin Netanyahu, the
former Likud prime minister, said that on a recent trip he made to
Moscow, a Russian general poked fun at the naiveté of the NIE,
commenting that if the Iranians had halted weapons development in 2003
it was partly because they were satisfied with progress there and
wanted to devote investment to harder parts of the nuclear equation,
like enrichment. In the end, these critics say, Iran is likely to be
further emboldened by the report (Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
lost no time in boasting of America's "surrender"). "The irony is that
the effect of this report may be self-negating--by itself it will
accelerate Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons," Arad said.

Some experts question whether the Israelis have the capability to
seriously damage Iran's nuclear program, which is secured in secret,
hardened facilities around the country. But others point out that the
new NIE gives evidence of far better intelligence on Iran--possibly
including the whereabouts of its facilities. "It did state for first
time that a military nuclear program was in motion until 2003," said
Sneh. "That was a major revelation that should have been picked up, and
it was very damaging incriminating evidence, justifying much harsher
action against Iran."

A few experts, such as David Albright of the Institute for Science and
International Security in Washington, say the intel still seems scant
on the location of Iran's secret centrifuge development and
manufacturing complex. Still, Albright points out that the Israelis are
likely encouraged by the nonreaction to their September airstrike on
what is reported to have been a Syrian nuclear facility, which may have
been a test run for Iran, or at least a warning directed at Tehran.
"Israel has gotten away with it in a sense," says Albright. He suggests
that any Israeli pre-emptive action might not be a "traditional strike"
but could involve more "sabotage of equipment." The Israelis also know
that the Arab states are terrified of an Iranian nuclear power,
possibly to the point of looking the other way at another such strike.

Sneh, like others, isn't conceding failure yet on the official Israeli
and U.S. approach, which involves isolating Iran diplomatically and
economically. A third U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing
economic sanctions against Iran is expected to pass next year, but it
is likely to be fairly hollow because of Russian and Chinese
opposition. One reason for Bush's abruptly announced nine-day visit to
the region in mid-January is to deal with the fallout from the NIE,
which includes not only the possibility that Israel will act
unilaterally but also that Bush's prized Annapolis peace process will
stall. The Bush trip is, in part, an implicit concession to U.S. hawks
that the NIE went too far in absolving Iran. It is also a conscious
effort to reassure both Israel and the Arab states that Washington will
stand up to Iran's increasing intrusiveness and hegemonic tendencies. A
dominant conspiracy theory in Arab capitals in the wake of the NIE is
that Washington is seeking to cut a deal with Tehran--one that would
effectively allow it to keep its nascent uranium-enrichment
capability--in exchange for Iranian help in stabilizing Iraq.

Bush may also reassure the Israelis and Arab allies that the NIE
overstated things in letting Iran off the hook. In yet another briefing
to angry congressmen Wednesday, Director of National Intelligence Mike
McConnell conceded that "we could have written parts of it more
clearly," according to a senior congressman who was there. The ranking
Republican member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence,
Rep. Peter Hoekstra, says he's calling for an independent commission to
probe the report. "Most of the world looks at it and says it's an
embarrassment to the United States because once again the U.S.
intelligence community has dramatically changed its position," Hoekstra
told NEWSWEEK. And it may well be that Washington must take back its
words one more time to prevent the Israelis from acting on their own.

©  2007 Newsweek.com