by Dan Raviv
The assassinations also had a strong psychological objective: sending a loud and clear message to Iranians and scientists of other nations that working for the nuclear program was dangerous. The Mossad was telling them, in effect: Stay in your classrooms. Do your academic work. Get your research published. Enjoy the university life. But do not help Iran go nuclear. Otherwise, your career could be cut short by a bullet or a bomb.
Indeed, Israeli intelligence noticed that the assassination campaign was paying off, with what it called “white defections”: Scientists were worried, many contemplated leaving the program, and some actually did. They did not depart Iran and defect to the other side, but they dissociated themselves from the nuclear program. There were also signs of scientists being reluctant to join the program, despite lucrative terms offered by the regime.
The intimidation campaign definitely showed an impact on foreigners. While in the past, Chinese, Russians, Pakistanis and some others were happily accepting invitations—and high pay—to work in Iran, the only ones who still seemed attracted were North Koreans.
Dagan was pleased by the missions and the “cleanliness” of their execution: no clues, no fingerprints, not even motorcycles left behind. Iranian authorities could only guess who was attacking, in broad daylight, in their capital.
The Israeli intelligence chief’s mode of warfare was unusually bold. In addition to the operations inside Iran, he had sent assassins to eliminate Palestinian radicals and the elusive operations chief of the Lebanese Hezbollah party. The new element in the assassinations attributed to the Mossad under Dagan’s leadership was that more killings occurred in “target” countries—Lebanon, Syria, Iran, and the United Arab Emirates—than ever before.
Dagan was proud of that change. This was the “dagger between its teeth” that his patron, Sharon, had wanted. In the previous 40 years, with few exceptions, lethal operations had been conducted in safer “base” countries. The Mossad, for instance, had fought a “war of the spooks” against Palestinian militants in the 1970s. Shootings and bombings had turned parts of Europe into a battlefield for Middle Easterners, and the Israelis had a continental headquarters in Paris that moved later to Brussels. Only rarely were murderous incursions made into Arab nations.
As far as Dagan and the Mossad were concerned, assassinations were a legitimate tactic, but not an objective in and of themselves. They had to be considered part of a comprehensive strategy, one of many tools in the multi-pronged battle against Iran.
In a meeting in 2007 with a U.S. official, Dagan did not give details of any acts of violence. But he did urge America to join immediately in a “five-pillar” plan to destabilize the ayatollahs’ regime. The pillars were listed as “political approach,” “covert measures,” “counterproliferation,” “sanctions,” and “force regime change.”
Encouraging the Mossad’s research department not to leave high-level analysis to Aman—so that he could hear from what the Bible called a “multitude of counselors”—Dagan engaged his staff in discussion of all the factors to consider.
Dagan was a great believer in the potency of international pressure, especially sanctions. He told Mossad staff members, during analytic discussions, that economic factors in the modern world were powerful. He explained that he carefully studied the motivations of American presidents in formulating foreign policy and realized that the United States went to war in Iraq—twice—because of its energy interests.
Dagan thus reached the conclusion that the U.S. would not allow Iran to have nuclear weapons—not only out of concern that a messianic Shi’ite regime might use the bomb or intimidate Israel—but mainly because Iran would become the most powerful nation among energy producers.
He figured that a nuclear Iran would vastly expand its sphere of influence to the south and west, to envelop Gulf nations such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates; and also to the north and east to such secular Muslim countries as Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan.
According to this scenario, Iran could then control 60 percent of the global energy market. The United States, in the world according to Dagan, would not permit that to happen.
In any event, U.S. military capabilities were many times more powerful than Israel’s. Dagan favored, and even predicted, a situation where Israel would not need to stand alone. If there was no other way to stop—or keep delaying—the Iranians, then the best solution to him would be for the huge American military to strike at the nuclear facilities.
After Dagan retired in December 2010, he told the Israeli news media—breaking his years of silence—that if Israel were to attack Iran, it would be “the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.” Just over a year later, he told CBS’s 60 Minutes that he trusted President Barack Obama. “The military option is on the table, and he is not going to let Iran become a nuclear state,” Dagan said on CBS.
Dagan added that the issue “is not an Israeli problem; it’s an international problem.” He confirmed, too, that if he wanted anyone to attack Iran, “I will always prefer that Americans will do it.”
Obama, however, seemed to be delaying any military moves for as long as he possibly could. Yet, in part because he was facing re-election in 2012, the president aligned himself with Israel in declaring that it would be unacceptable for Iran—as an oppressive nation supporting terrorist groups—to possess nuclear weapons.
Although he had personality and policy clashes with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, when they gave separate speeches to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (the powerful pro-Israel lobby, AIPAC), in Washington in March 2012, Obama practically echoed the Israeli leader’s worrying analysis: that if Iran were to become a nuclear power, other countries in the Middle East would rush to build their own matching arsenals. Turkey, perhaps Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and other Gulf sheikdoms would all want the apparent security of a nuclear umbrella. The most volatile region on Earth would then be replete with mankind’s most dangerous weapons.
Obama also said that he was “not bluffing” about possible use of a “military option” against Iran.
American military commanders chose to say little about what could be done against Iran, and leaders at the Pentagon kept insisting that there was “time and space” to try all other options before resorting to armed force.
Israeli officials worked themselves into a rhetorical frenzy of warning that their patience with Iran was running out. Even more urgent, they pointed out, was the fact that Israel had a limited number of missiles, airplanes, and bunker-buster bombs that could penetrate hardened and buried Iranian facilities. That meant that Israel’s window of opportunity was rapidly closing in 2012.
Defense Minister Ehud Barak, a former prime minister and before that a commando soldier with plenty of behind-enemy-lines irregular missions, coined the phrase “zone of immunity”—his way of suggesting that if his country waited too long, it would be too late for an Israeli strike on Iran to have much effect.
Barak’s and Netanyahu’s comments were part of a concerted campaign to keep the American media, politicians, and people highly engaged in this topic, as though to let the notion gain wide credence that someone would have to bomb Iran. Sharing intelligence data with their U.S. counterparts, the two Israeli politicians stressed that even as Iran bought more time by agreeing to negotiations, it was secretly moving forward in uranium enrichment, bomb design, and missile construction.
Wielding some powers of persuasion and helped by the congressional access of the AIPAC lobby, Israelis kept reminding the U.S. that Iran was a growing threat. Israeli leaders were attempting to manipulate public opinion and government decision making, but this could also be seen as urging America to pay attention to something big that might otherwise go unnoticed in the noisy background of Iraq, Afghanistan, terrorism, and economic issues.
The official Israeli message was that Iran’s nuclear program endangered American interests all over the Middle East, the shipping lanes for oil, and even targets in Europe that could be reached b
y Iranian missiles. The Mossad joined in hammering home the message—in Washington—that if Israel did agree to restrain itself and do nothing overt, then the United States should guarantee that America would do everything necessary to take care of the problem.
The pitch was partly aimed at intimidating Iran’s leaders, of course, so that they would believe that refusing to stop their nuclear program could trigger devastating attacks. The message was also directed at Europe and especially at Russia and China, which were reluctant to tighten sanctions against Iran. Surely they would not want Israel to take military action, with all the consequences for oil supplies and other disruptions.
The Mossad, even before Dagan’s retirement at the end of 2010, helped lead a campaign to leak information about Iran’s clandestine nuclear labs and weapons factories. But Dagan felt that Netanyahu and Barak were saying too much in public. It did not seem useful to be extremely alarming, huffing and puffing but perhaps never blowing the enemy’s house down.
The Mossad director continued to hope that delay or destruction could be accomplished by sabotage, low-intensity covert warfare, and more efforts to bring down the radical Islamic government in Tehran. He predicted that if Israel were to bomb Iran, the people of that country would “rally around the mullahs,” and that would set back hopes of a regime change that could make Iran far more friendly.
Dagan certainly agreed that a nuclear-armed Iran, with a radical Islamic government, would pose a threat to the existence of his country. He always sought to honor the memory of his grandfather and other Holocaust victims by taking a strong stand against enemies of the Jewish people. Yet, along with his analysts at the Mossad, the agency chief concluded that Israel should not find itself standing alone on the front lines in a war against Iran.
He was echoing a repeated dictum of his patron, Sharon: to lower your profile. As highly creative army generals, Sharon and Dagan excelled at hiding their troops until the moment of action arrived.
The truth was that Dagan, as a soldier who had witnessed the horrors of war, was very reluctant to see nations engage in armed conflict. He believed that all-out war, especially against Iran, should be a last resort—only when “the sword is on our neck,” he said.
According to Dagan, as Mossad director, covert action against Iran had been highly effective. He refused to elucidate publicly, but the Stuxnet computer worm had done a terrific job. And daring assassinations and sabotage in Teheran were missions accomplished. Dagan estimated that the delays caused in Iran’s nuclear program, when totaled, came to between five and seven years.
He was certain that Iran’s leaders had intended to have a nuclear bomb by 2005 or 2007, but they continued to be a couple of years away. For Dagan, the greatest achievement of his time as Mossad director was delaying Iran from gate-crashing into the nuclear club.
When he stepped down, somewhat disappointed that Netanyahu did not extend his tenure, Dagan was replaced by one of his former deputies, Tamir Pardo. Pardo was a veteran of many years of Mossad operations, and he was expected to continue Dagan’s balance of being careful and attentive, while emphatically active.
Most top commanders of the Israel Defense Forces, including Aman, agreed with Dagan’s analysis that an international campaign to put non-violent pressure on Iran should be given more time—though strong sanctions needed to be coupled with as much sabotage as possible inside Iran. And, though without official acknowledgment, sabotage would likely be coupled with carefully selected acts of violence.
The IDF loyally drew up plans to strike Iranian facilities, to be ready in case Israel’s political leaders ordered them to strike, but the military had severe doubts about how much damage an Israeli attack could do. They were also concerned about the likely retaliation by Iran and its regional allies, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Palestinian terrorists of Hamas in Gaza. Life in much of Israel could become a living hell, with missiles raining down as never before if war were to break out.
Although Israeli intelligence’s conclusions had, at times, differed from the CIA’s, the two allies were by 2012 in agreement on what the Iranians were likely to achieve—and when. Iran might be able to build a nuclear device in 2013, but at most that would be a raw, crude bomb. It would take until 2015 for an Iranian bomb to be made small enough to fit into a warhead on a Shihab missile that could reach Israel.
In other words, Israeli intelligence was telling its political masters that there was still room for a solution without going to war. Mossad experts wanted to see what could be accomplished by tougher sanctions, including a decision by large European nations to stop buying Iranian oil in the summer of 2012, plus more rounds of sabotage by Israel and its covert allies.
Netanyahu and Barak considered the intelligence analysis to be wrong. In speeches, off-the-record briefings with journalists, and interviews, they kept beating war drums. They acted as though they had no doubt about Israel’s military capability to smash Iran’s nuclear program. But their primary message seemed aimed at the Americans: You had better be on top of this. If you don’t act, we will!
Was that a genuine threat or an Israeli bluff? United States officials kept asking for specific plans and to be told in advance of any Israeli attack. Washington yearned not to be surprised. Yet, it appeared that top Israeli politicians wanted America to be left guessing.
The divisions between the Israeli security and political establishments mirrored cracks emerging in Iran. There were signs that the Iranian people were suffering from the sanctions—growing unemployment, cuts in government subsidies, soaring prices, and fuel shortages—and many were blaming their misfortune on the nuclear program.
According to Mossad analysts, Iranian senior echelons were enmeshed in a critical debate. The main issue was the wisdom of pursuing or dropping the military nuclear path.
Iran’s leaders wanted nuclear weapons as a tool that would ensure the survival of their regime. They looked at North Korea and saw that by having nuclear weapons, that rogue nation created a cloak of immunity for itself. World powers would not dare attack North Korea, and its dictators—Kim Jong-Il and later his son—got away with almost everything they did.
This Iranian point of view also took note of Muammar Qaddafi’s fate. The Libyan dictator had started a nuclear program, but he never built a bomb. He then meekly dismantled his nuclear program in order to reestablish diplomatic relations with the West. Within a few years, however, American and other Western aircraft were supporting a rebellion against him; Qaddafi was overthrown, hunted down like a dog, and ignominiously killed. No bomb equaled no protection. Hard-line Iranians vowed not to make that mistake.
There was another faction in Iran, however, which the Mossad hoped would win the argument. These were senior Iranians among the Muslim clerics, the Revolutionary Guards, and the government who contended that if Israel, America, or both were to attack, it could lead to calamity for the Islamic Republic.
Spotting a possible Iranian rhetorical route for abandoning a nuclear arms program, Mossad analysts noted with great interest that several senior clerics—including the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei—issued edicts that such weapons were un-Islamic.
The Israeli experts knew that this could simply be a lie, and also that religious leaders in Iran could decree that exceptional circumstances justified building nuclear bombs. But the analysts held on to the hope that Iranian leaders might reach a less aggressive conclusion: that instead of protecting the regime, building nuclear weapons could hasten its downfall.
Israeli intelligence felt that it had very good and up-to-date information from the inner circle around Khamenei, who ultimately would make the decision. He was the successor to Khomeini, the mystically charismatic founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Yet, Khamenei was more of a modern politician, with potentially talkative courtiers all around him in the sacred city of Qom.
The Mossad’s nuclear proliferation department believed that Iran’s scientists in 2012 would inform Khamenei—and the smug, radicall
y loquacious President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad—that they would soon be ready for a “breakout,” a headlong rush to use Iran’s enriched uranium to create a bomb. That process might take a year to accomplish, and in the process Iran would almost surely expel international atomic inspectors.
In that sense, Israel and the United States would have some time left for a military attack to disrupt and delay the enemy’s fateful move.
The now retired Dagan opined that Iranian leaders were “rational” and could calculate the consequences of their decisions and actions. He and current Israeli intelligence officials fervently hoped—though they could not predict the decisions of Iran’s top zealot—that Khamenei would reject the notion that nuclear bombs were the way to guarantee the regime’s survival.
The Israeli strategy for a peaceful way out of this crisis was to push Khamenei to embrace the starker point of view: that a breakout would likely trigger a strike on Iran—perhaps a gigantic pounding by America. Instead of securing the Islamic Republic, the breakout could, ironically, trigger the regime’s downfall.
The Mossad wanted to keep up the pressure, without all-out war. Pressure already included actions that many other nations’ intelligence services would never consider: smuggling Israelis into Iran, targeting individual Iranians for assassination, and in a multitude of ways violating the canons of international law.
To a foreigner, many of these covert activities might have seemed outrageous. But to Israelis in the intelligence community, it all made a lot of sense—in particular, when the alternatives were either bombing Iran, or Iran having the bomb.
Israel’s next moves could prove to be more momentous, risky, and potentially damaging than anything the country had faced since declaring independence in 1948.
The actions taken against Iran, so far, bore the unique hallmarks of Israel’s espionage agencies. Intelligence gathering, sabotage, assassinations, psychological warfare—and other measures that were kept even more secretive—reflected the modes of operation that were designed, developed, and executed by Israeli security agencies over more than 60 years of trial, error, and success.