Avi Dichter, Israel’s public security minister, said today that the Iran NIE could result in another Yom Kippur War.
Dichter is referring to the surprise 1973 attack on Israel led by Egypt and Syria on Yom Kippur, the most important Jewish holiday. Israel ultimately clobbered the Arab coalition, although not before losing some early battles. The war has had a huge impact on Israeli strategic thinking.
Dichter’s is certainly the harshest criticism of the NIE offered so far by an Israeli official. But it is also extremely interesting for two additional reasons. First, because of its source. Time Magazine once called Dichter, who used to run Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic spy and security service, the Tough Guy Behind Sharon. This dude doesn’t mess around.
Second, and to me most interestingly, the criticism offers a window into how some in the Israeli government believe Iran will behave if (when?) it acquires a nuclear weapons option. Dichter clearly thinks that Iran would be so emboldened that it might launch a war against Israel.
I don’t know how much detail Dichter went into on this provocative claim — all I have to go on so far are news reports. (If someone finds a transcript in English, please let me know!) But Dichter can really only have one threat scenario in mind: nuclear terrorism against Israel.
Think about the means and the ends of an Iranian attack on Israel. No country in the Middle East — including Iran — could hope to take on Israel in a conventional war. They’d get clobbered. And terrorist proxies can fight guerrilla wars, but they can’t exactly threaten the viability of the Israeli state.
Possession of a nuclear weapons option wouldn’t change this. What it would do, however, is give Iran the ability to threaten the existence of Israel. If nuclear terrorism is what Dichter has in mind, then he must think Iran is essentially undeterable, given Israel’s near-certain second strike capability.
I think he’s dead wrong on this — Iran is not about to commit national suicide. The Iran NIE agrees. As Joe Cirincione and I have argued, the Iran NIE’s most important contribution is the notion that Iran’s leaders aren’t suicidal, that they operate according to a cost-benefit calculus.
Have another look at the article in context of Annapolis. Dichter’s statement is posturing over the security guarantees Israel should receive in return for a peace-deal with Syria and the Gulf Arab states. I think Dichter is reminding the gulf states they have a security interest similar to Israel’s. Nuclear terrorism is a peripheral worry, but the core issue is: Does anyone trust Iranian command, control and security over its nuclear materials? clandestine proliferation, accidental use, accidental discharge, premature use – all should be real concerns throughout the region. I’m beginning to view a nuclear Iran as a galvanizing force bringing Israel interest in alignment with a number of Arab states. I don’t want to overstate it, but based on Rice’s appearance and mood at Annapolis, I think a deal was struck the details of which are being settled on… just in-time for the ’08 election I should ad.
I found this part of his speech the most interesting:
Is this clever misdirection, or is he saying that Israel won’t act?
Whether Iran poses a threat to Israel is the wrong question to ask; you’re missing the real picture:
Either “suicidal” or “using a cost-benefit calculus” is a false choice. Would that it were so simple. Few people are suicidally reckless, but probably fewer still make more than a tiny handful of decisions based on more than the vaguest approximation of the weighing of costs and benefits. When was the last time you booted Excel before deciding, well, anything?
In other words, people aren’t either “crazy” or “rational.” They’re neither, by and large. And regimes and countries are more complicated than single individuals.
That line of the NIE was a throwaway.
As for Israeli concerns about Iran, let’s not dismiss guerrilla forces too lightly. Through artillery rocket fire, Hezbollah was able to rearrange the lives of a large fraction of Israelis for weeks in the summer of 2006. Hamas continues to do the same thing continuously to the populace of the Israeli town nearest Gaza. If the Iranians ever concluded that they had a free hand to bring the same terror to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, Israel would be in a bad position indeed.
You and I may not believe that this scenario is terribly likely, but unlike Avi Dichter, we don’t live within rocket range.
Israelis: no one should do anything that can even vaguely, possibly, 10 years from now, result in them maybe reaching 1/10th of the ~60-200 nuclear warheads we now possess. We want a complete monopoly on nuclear arms in the region, even though we promised we would never be the first to introduce nuclear weapons in the middle east.
Give me a break!
Their proliferation fears are unfounded since Pakistani bombs have not made it to the extremists. Why should I believe any putative future Iranian nuclear weapons (which are NOT even under development according to 16 US intelligence agencies) would ever make it to extremists if Pakistani ones have not?
Suppose Iran or an Iranian-backed group smuggled nuclear weapons into Israel and then let them off in a city – in the ensuing chaos, how would the Israelis know for sure who to strike back against? How would they know the weapons were supplied by Iran and not stolen from Pakistan (or even made in Syria if that strange building really was a bomb factory)?
It seems to me that the prospect of delivering bombs with suicide terrorists undermines the effectiveness of MAD.
Of course you still have the risk of the bomb being found on the way in. I don’t know how hard it would be to get a (presumably relatively bulky and primitive) device into Israel.
Dear Mr. Grotto,
What you have written betrays a complete lack of understanding of Israel’s strategic situation and an astonishingly crude view of the calculations of its enemies.
First of all, you note that the Yom Kippur War had “a huge impact” on Israel’s thinking, without elaborating. The major consequence of the Yom Kippur War was in fact the change it brought about in Arab, not Israeli, thinking. The Arabs understood that under certain circumstances they can fight victorious limited wars against Israel, like Anwar Saddat did. It is essential to understand that the Arabs consider Egypt to have won the war, because it regained the Sinai and agreed only to a ‘cold peace’ with Israel. Since the majority of Arabs have not accepted the existence of Israel, the corollary to this, as far as they are concerned, is that Israel can eventually be destroyed.
Secondly, the fundamental issue which makes the Israeli-Arab and the Israeli-Iranian conflicts irresolvable is anti-Semitism. The governments and the majority of the people in the Arab countries and in Iran do not recognise Israel’s right to exist. Egypt and Jordan have conceded this issue because of domestic economic pressures, rather than a change in their ideology. Therefore, the Arabs and Iran seek Israel’s destruction. This does not mean that they are willing to imperil their lives to achieve this goal. Rather, they are constantly seeking ways to destroy Israel by proxy.
The conclusion to be drawn from the above is that you are wrong when you write that terrorists “can’t exactly threaten the viability of the Israeli state”. They can, and the goal of the Arabs states since 1973 has been to bring this about. The concept is simple and consists of two elements. The first is to force Israel to withdraw to the 1948 ceasefire line, which is essentially indefensible against conventional attack. The second is to use Israeli Arabs to destabilise Israel from within, by demanding that Israel ceases to be a Jewish state, and then to destroy Israel by brute force. The key enabler in this plan is the acquiescence of most of the international community to egregious and profoundly illegal demands that the Arabs make on Israel, such as the termination of Israeli sovereignty over the Temple Mount. If Israel is forced to accept these demands, it will become unviable.
Iran’s role in these calculations is that an Iranian nuclear weapon provides an alternative method of destroying Israel. A single nuclear attack would immediately make Israel unviable and thus obviate the need for complex long-term planning. The limiting factor is that Iran faces the threat of destruction in the process of attacking Israel. However, the Iranian leadership may well think that if the nuclear strike is carried out by Hezbollah, Israel will not be able to summon up the will to launch a massive nuclear attack on Iran. Since Iran’s regime can survive any conflict apart from a major nuclear one or a war with the United States, it can be very confident of success.
The fundamental issue from Iran’s point of view is whether the United States and Europe will stand by Israel. If they do not, and recent history suggests that such a turn of events is likely, than the risks to Iran are within acceptable limits.
Re: “Iran’s leaders are not suicidal” Some of them aren’t…others I am not so sure of. In this case religous fervor may trump rationality.
Yale, where did you find the transcript of his speech? Can you provide the URL?
Karl — there’s no question Israel faces a severe security dilemma. But anti-semitism alone cannot bring about the destruction of Israel; that evil must be accompanied by the means to act on it. Suicide bombings and rocket attacks are one way, but as terrible as these acts of terror are, Israel is simply too strong and resilient to fall to these methods alone.
Indeed, I think you vastly underestimate Israel’s resolve — if they are attacked with a nuclear weapon, they will respond with everything they’ve got. It may take them some time to figure out who to hold responsible, but that list is pretty short and I’m told that nuclear forensics — though not as advanced as I would prefer — could attribute materials made in Iran because the IAEA has samples. (I’m curious to hear what others think about the state of nuclear forensics, particularly in the case of Iran.)
hass — I agree with your points, but the Israeli government is not of one point of view on a whole lot of issues, including Iran. That’s why I was very careful to say that Dichter’s comments provide a window into how “some” in the Israeli government are responding to the NIE and the broader Iranian issue.
All the best…Andy G
Really now! Who is an actual nuclear threat to whom, guy?
The comparison between the 1973 War and a nuclear Iran doesn’t work. Dichter’s argument lacks substance. He may only be referring to a potential first strike.
A nuclear armed Iran would behave no differently than a nuclear powered India, Pakistan or China. To date, the United States is the only country to use nuclear weapons.
Some in Israel see Iran as the only viable power of resistance to the occupation of Palestine. Through propaganda, they demonize Iran. This is the true reality of Dichter’s message.
I’ve travelled to Iran. It is home to many Jewish Iranians. Even Ayatollah Khomeini issued a fatwa protecting Iran’s Jews.
Andy,
The quote wasn’t from a transcript, just a news piece from Yedioth News
Ben G:
“Have another look at the article in context of Annapolis. Dichter’s statement is posturing over the security guarantees Israel should receive in return for a peace-deal with Syria and the Gulf Arab states. I think Dichter is reminding the gulf states they have a security interest similar to Israel’s.”
Here’s an interesting article from Debka voicing concern that the result of Annapolis is to draw the Islamic world closer together against Israel:
“Monday night, Dec. 10 Cairo announced plans to resume diplomatic relations with Tehran. An Egyptian emissary was sent to Iran to discuss the resumption of relations after 27 years. DEBKAfile’s Middle East sources report that this step was part of an initiative for Saudi Arabian, Jordanian and Egyptian leaders to come together in a new summit to embrace the Syrian ruler and bridge their policy differences with the radical Syrian-Tehran line.
Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas will be invited and urged still more emphatically to starting patching up his Fatah’s quarrel with the extremist Hamas and adapt to the newly emergent Arab reality with a tougher line against Israel. DEBKAfile’s Middle East sources report: The road to radicalization embarked on by this central Arab bloc is the direct result of the dialogue Washington has opened with Tehran, while also reflecting the ubiquitous Arab drive for unity.
Saturday, Abbas sent Ahmad Qureia, head of the Palestinian negotiating team with Israel, to Damascus for guidance from Syrian officials on future tactics in these negotiations.
He was preceded by Bassam Iwadallah, personal adviser to Jordan’s King Abdullah, who informed Syrian officials of the king’s initiative for a new Arab summit to restore their ruler to the Arab fold. The Jordanian official disclosed that the king was fully engaged in bids to heal the rifts between Saudi Arabia and Syria, and the Palestinians and Syria.
Bashar Assad responded favorably by sending Syrian foreign minister Walid Moualem to Amman Sunday, Dec. 9, where he was personally received by Abdullah. He also sent the Damascus-based Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal to Riyadh Saturday, on two errands:
1. To let Hamas’ Saudi bankers hand out the directive for a nod to Fatah overtures to his movement for a reconciliation – with effect in Gaza and Lebanon.
2. To embody the Assad regime’s willingness to begin coordinating its policies with fellow Arab rulers.
DEBKAfile reports that Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert will find a different Abbas when they meet Wednesday, Dec. 12, to start the talks for a Palestinian state that were kicked off at the Middle East conference in Annapolis last month. The Palestinian leader will now be following fresh guidelines from the Arab bloc which is emerging from the chrysalis of Washington’s direct engagement with Tehran, rather than conforming with the spirit of Annapolis.”
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=4847