Former IDF intel chief: Israel lacks ‘legitimacy’ for Iran attack
Maj.-Gen. (res.) Aharon Ze’evi Farkash is worried.
So worried that he decided this week to break his
longstanding silence on Iran and to share his concerns with the world.
As head of Military Intelligence from 2001 to 2006,
Farkash is intimately familiar with Iran’s nuclear program and oversaw a large
part of the intelligence work done in 2002 that led to the concrete evidence
Israel had been looking for to prove that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon.
He was later sent by prime minister Ariel Sharon on a number of diplomatic
missions throughout Europe to present Israel’s smoking gun.
What prompted Farkash to speak out this week? A concern
that an Israeli attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities could take place
within the near future, a move that he says would be premature.
As a 40-year veteran of Israel’s intelligence service,
Farkash bases his assessment on what he reads and hears between the lines in
speeches given by the Israeli political leadership and primarily by Prime
Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
Israel, he explains, will likely not want to attack right
before the US presidential elections on November 6.
“I think that within this window it is difficult to imagine
that something will happen a month before elections,” he said.
Farkash added that from what he is reading and hearing a
decision is not far off.
But, he warns, a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities
now would be wrong.
“The timing is not now since, even if it is successful,
it will ruin the legitimacy that is needed,” he said, suggesting instead that
Israel wait six to eight months or even until spring 2013 before deciding on
such an attack.
One word that repeats itself throughout the interview with
Farkash is “legitimacy,” a reference to the required diplomatic support Israel
will need after a strike to ensure that the Iranians are not allowed to rebuild
their facilities and race toward the bomb – something he believes they will
definitely and immediately do.
“An attack is not a single strike and once it happens we
are in a whole other world,” he said. “Iran will pull out of the
Non-Proliferation Treaty, [Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei and
[President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad will reunite and it will be clear that they
need a bomb now so that we cannot attack them again.
This means that Israel will need legitimacy to be able to
maintain the operation with more attacks within weeks, months and years after.
Otherwise what did you do?” “Israel needs to know if it can, over time, ensure
that the attack is maintained,” he added. “This is the key to success or
failure.”
Another reason for Israel to hold off on attacking Iran,
according to Farkash, is due to the enormous additional challenges that the
country is currently facing.
“We are standing before five decisions on security... and
we confront them all by ourselves at once,” he said.
These situations that must be dealt with include a
possible attack against Iran, a possible attack to stop the proliferation of
Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal, a growing terrorist threat in the Sinai
Peninsula, a looming operation in the Gaza Strip to stop rocket attacks and the
constant need to be prepared for a possible confrontation with Hezbollah and
its 50,000 missiles.
While he is currently opposed to a strike against Iran,
Farkash said he understood Netanyahu and Barak’s ultimate concern that Israel
would be left alone to deal with the Iranian threat. He also praised the
current government for its success in turning Iran into a global issue and
making the world understand that with a nuclear weapon, the Islamic regime
would be a threat to all countries and not just to Israel.
“The prime minister and the defense minister look at
Syria, where more than 20,000 people have been killed and [President Bashar]
Assad is massacring his people, and no one is doing anything,” he said. “The
lesson they learn is that we need to take our fate in our hands; but for me
this doesn’t have to mean an attack against Iran.”
He admits that the sanctions have not yet had the desired
effect, as is demonstrated by Iran’s continued enrichment of uranium and the
failure of the last three rounds of talks between Iran and the P5+1.
But, he adds, there is a process in play that should not
be stopped, which includes Assad’s eventual downfall, the Muslim Brotherhood’s
rise to power in Egypt, the European Union oil embargo on Iran, the removal of
Iran from the SWIFT banking network and the new round of sanctions imposed this
week by President Barack Obama.
“All of this tells me: let the process run its course and
don’t break the legitimacy,” he said.
But what exactly is legitimacy? As an example, Farkash
refers to the Second Lebanon War. “We had unbelievable operational freedom then
because five times Hezbollah tried kidnapping soldiers and we were restrained,”
he said.
Right now, he adds, European and Asian countries are
paying a heavy price for agreeing to the sanctions and stopping to do business
with Iran.
“If Israel attacks, we will find ourselves being asked
why we attacked when the world was imposing tough economic sanctions and was
paying for this and was hurting as a result,” he said.
But what about the argument made by Barak that if Israel
waits too long Iran will enter the socalled immunity zone – with the
fortification of its facilities and centrifuges – and Israel’s military option
will no longer be viable? Farkash does not accept the “immunity zone” argument
– he is not alone; the Pentagon has also dismissed it – but ultimately says
that when the immunity zone is up against the question of legitimacy,
legitimacy should take precedence.
“This window [of the immunity zone], which some leaders
say is irreversible, either has passed or is not as significant as they are
making it out to be and if I put it up against the question of legitimacy then
legitimacy is more important,” he claimed.
In addition, Farkash added, the Iranians have not yet
gotten to the breakout stage and are still enriching uranium to 20 percent and
lower while military-grade uranium needs to be enriched to over 90%.
“The assessment is that we will know when they do this
and therefore the significance is to not ruin the legitimacy,” he said.
“Israel without legitimacy will not be able to – over
time – maintain the results of a successful attack.”
Farkash believes that what will ultimately stop Khamenei
and Ahmadinejad is a feeling that the Islamic regime is facing an “existential
threat” that endangers its future existence as the government of Iran.
This can be done by imposing more sanctions, by further
isolating the Islamic regime and by making it clear that the military threat is
real and capable. One way to do this is by the US sending four aircraft
carriers to the Persian Gulf and by Israel holding civil defense exercises and
long-range air force drills.
“They need to know that there is not just a glove but
there is a fist behind it,” he said.
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