Focus
NEWS ANALYSIS
New Tactics
U.S. report on Iran forces Israel to alter strategy.
Greenberg's View
Leslie Susser
Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Jerusalem
A
fter the shock of last week's U.S.
intelligence estimate that found
that Iran halted its nuclear
weapons program in 2003, Israel is reshap-
ing its Iran strategy.
Israel essentially is arguing that the U.S.
assessment is dangerously misleading and
that Tehran is as determined as ever to
acquire nuclear weapons.
The Israeli dilemma is how to prove Iran
is cheating without being accused of trying
to push the United States into war. That is
why the official strategy is to work quietly
behind the scenes.
Israel's top intelligence agencies all
believe Iran is still at full throttle to pro-
duce a nuclear bomb and will be capable of
doing so by 2009 or 2010.
The new Israeli strategy is based on four
main elements:
•Actively pushing for stiffer interna-
tional sanctions on Iran, despite the U.S.
report.
• Working quietly behind the scenes
to convince others through Israel's own
intelligence material that Iran is intent on
producing nuclear weapons.
• Refraining from arguing with the U.S.
assessment in public, lest Israel be seen
to be trying to push the United States into
military action against Iran.
• Keeping open its own military options.
The U.S. National Intelligence Estimate
is likely to affect more than Israel's strategy
on Iran. Although they won't say so openly,
Israeli officials feel a deep sense of aban-
donment by the United States in the face
of this existential threat to the Jewish state.
This sentiment could have implications for
the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and in
the Israeli domestic political arena.
The emerging policy is the result of close
consultations among Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.
In a Cabinet meeting Sunday, Olmert
stressed that Israel would work to "expose
Iran's clandestine operations!' Barak earlier
had advised the prime minister not to get
into a public spat with the United States
over its assessment.
Livni is determined to ensure that the
international alliance for sanctions against
Iran does not crumble in the face of the
C28
December 13 2007
report.
Barak has hinted that Israel will keep all
its options on the table. "It is our respon-
sibility to ensure that the right steps are
taken against the Iranian regime he
declared. "Words don't stop missiles."
In questioning the American intelligence
assessment, Israeli analysts point to three
indisputable facts:
• In defiance of the international com-
munity, Iran continues to enrich uranium.
•Iran has an advanced missile program
that it continues to develop.
•Iran could quickly reactivate its mili-
tary program — assuming it has been
stopped — to produce a bomb within a
relatively short time span.
The Israelis say that the Jewish state,
which is within range of Iranian missiles,
cannot afford to take as sanguine a view of
the potential threat as the Americans, who
are not within range of Iran's missiles.
Israeli analysts agree that right or wrong,
the U.S. intelligence estimate will prove
a seminal event that reduces to zero the
possibility of a U.S. military strike against
Iran.
Some see the assessment as an attempt
to tie the hands of an activist U.S. presi-
dent; others see it as providing support to
a president looking for a way to back down
from an increasingly unpopular military
option against Iran.
If Israel can no longer count on the
United States when facing major security
threats, it will be less inclined to take
chances for peace with the Palestinians,
pundits say. Moreover, the scenario that
would have had the United States "take
care" of Iran in return for Israeli conces-
sions to the Palestinians has been blown
out of the water.
The new situation could have implica-
tions for Israeli politics, too.
If it becomes clear that Iran does
not intend to go nuclear, Likud leader
Benjamin Netanyahu, who has built a
career around the Iranian threat, could
be in trouble. Conversely, if Israel seems
alone in the battle against a nuclear Iran,
Netanyahu could become the man of the
hour.
Does Israel have a genuine military
option against Iran? Some Israeli and for-
eign experts are skeptical, given the large
number of widely dispersed and well-forti-
fied nuclear targets in Iran. Moreover, Iran
would be able to retaliate with missiles
fired from its own territory, as well as by
its proxies in Syria, Lebanon and Gaza. The
Islamic Republic also could unleash ter-
rorist attacks on Israeli and Jewish targets
abroad.
Nevertheless, Israel has built a highly
sophisticated elite strike force capable of
hitting a wide range of Iranian targets.
The Israeli estimate is that it could put the
Iranian program back several years. Israel
probably would need U.S. approval for any
such strike.
With U.S. forces active nearby, the Israel
air force would find it extremely difficult
to operate over Iran without first receiving
American "friend-or-foe" flight codes for
the airspace over Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
These codes were withheld from Israel
during the 1991 Gulf War; a clash over the
codes in the Iranian context would be far
more serious.
It could mean back to square one: Even
though Israel rejects the new U.S. reading
of Iranian intentions, it remains dependent
on U.S. cooperation for any future opera-
tion concerning Iran.