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| A member of Iranian Border Guards wears a protective face mask |
A massive internal
storm may be coming that the coronavirus may
delay, but cannot stop.
If it does, it will
pit Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mossad Director Yossi Cohen and others
against Blue and White leaders Benny Gantz and Gabi Ashkenazi, as well as IDF
Chief of Staff Lt.- Gen. Aviv Kochavi, over how to deal with Iran.
According to numerous
interviews by The Jerusalem Post with current and former Mossad, CIA and
other national security officials in the US and Israel, a point may get closer
where the Islamic Republic of Iran will escalate its levels of uranium
enrichment dangerously close to levels where it could weaponize within a short
period.
This will draw
Netanyahu, Cohen and their camp closer to a desire to preemptively strike Iran,
while Gantz, Ashkenazi, Kochavi and their camp are more likely to define the
“point of no return” – after which Tehran cannot be stopped from going nuclear
– as a good bit later.
This debate would echo
the all-out fight between Netanyahu and Gantz and Ashkenazi in 2010 and
afterwards.
During that period,
the Blue and White MKs followed each other as IDF chiefs and, especially Ashkenazi,
helped block an Israeli preemptive strike, along with then-Mossad chiefs Meir
Dagan and Tamir Pardo.
Pardo has since
confirmed that he even discussed the issue with then-attorney-general Yehuda
Weinstein. He explained that he believed a Netanyahu order to move pieces in
place for a near-immediate attack on Iran without full security cabinet
approval was illegal and said Weinstein confirmed his position.
There are multiple
narratives, with one involving confusing moves by Netanyahu and then-defense minister
Ehud Barak to merely scare the world into thinking they would attack.
But the majority
public narrative is that the defense establishment’s opposition blocked
Netanyahu and Barak from launching an attack.
Most expert estimates
already have Tehran’s time to break out for a nuclear bomb – if it chooses to
do so, which all agree it has not yet – down from 12 months to between three
and a half to six months.
In early March, the
usually relatively Iran-friendly International Atomic Energy Agency reported
that the ayatollahs already had enough low-level (between 3.67-5%) enriched
uranium for a nuclear weapon – should Iran make the decision to enrich to
higher levels.
Multiple intelligence
sources have indicated to the Post a belief that the Islamic Republic may jump
to 20% enrichment, a step it took before the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.
Some sources even
speculated that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei may green light a small
amount of enrichment at the 60% level (uranium becomes weaponized at the 90%
level) – an idea the country already played with months ago, but has not yet
carried out.
But sources have
indicated that top intelligence officials in favor of an earlier military
option to stop Iran from getting a nuclear bomb are not looking at just one specific
factor.
Rather, they are
looking at the full picture of Tehran’s actions, which will indicate whether it
has made the decision to go to the threshold.
According to
intelligence officials who view the point of no return as an earlier point in
time, they look at nuclear enrichment as a more decisive factor for
interpreting Iran’s intentions than the ability to deliver a nuclear weapon.
Put differently, they
believe Israel would need to act militarily once Iran has enough nuclear
material for a weapon, and that it could not wait for the point at which it is
confirmed that Iran can properly fire the weapon.
The rationale of these
intelligence officials is that enriching uranium and working on weapons
delivery issues, though separate skills to master, do not need to happen in a
chronological fashion.
Instead, intelligence
officials have noted to the Post that the Islamic Republic could be working
through problems with delivering a nuclear warhead on its Shahab 3 missile or
other missiles in parallel to its uranium enrichment.
Further, these
officials said once Iran gets to within a certain proximity to enough
weaponized material for a nuclear bomb, the uncertainties – which might drag
out the process by some period of weeks or might be solved immediately – are
too fluid.
THERE IS a lesson from
the North Korea case.
With North Korea, at
some point the world was surprised by how slow it moved forward with developing
nuclear weapons. However, later it shocked the world by being months ahead of
what was expected. Exporting this lesson to Iran, it means the point of no
return cannot wait for the clock to run out entirely.
Those intelligence
officials in this camp are also keeping a careful eye on relations between the
IAEA and the ayatollahs. Relations have gotten shakier since the March report,
which used harsher language than usual against the regime.
In contrast, in
January, Kochavi publicly laid out that he did not view Iran as a real nuclear
threat until deep into 2021.
The Post has asked the
IDF if Kochavi might move his calendar up by nine months since he also
predicted in January that Tehran would not have enough low-enriched uranium for
a bomb before December. Yet, the regime crossed that threshold already in
March.
The IDF did not
respond and has not issued a revised timeline.
This suggests that the
IDF will not change its calendar as long as Iran is not enriching uranium to
higher levels.
However, even more
significantly, Kochavi explicitly treated the issues of uranium enrichment and
nuclear weapons delivery as separate and chronological. He said weapons
delivery pushed the nuclear threat off until deep into 2021.
It appears that this
was the position of Ashkenazi and Gantz back in the 2010 era when they held
Kochavi’s job.
At that point – and
leading up to the 2015 nuclear deal – Iran went far beyond where it is today
with nuclear enrichment, yet they were still dead set against Netanyahu and
Barak’s discussion/order to attack.
Before the 2015
nuclear deal, Iran had enough low-enriched uranium for around 10 nuclear bombs
and had substantial amounts of uranium enriched to the 20% level – which it has
not done yet this time.
So even if Khamenei
brings Iran far beyond its current uranium stock of low-enriched uranium for
one weapon, and if he orders uranium enrichment at the 20% level, a rematch
could mean Netanyahu’s Blue and White partners trying to hold him back from an
attack.
Kochavi in the
present, and Gantz, Ashkenazi, Dagan and Pardo from the past and present, in
part represent an IDF mentality of needing to juggle short-term threats, like
Hezbollah and Hamas, with long-term threats. They also represent an
intelligence perspective beyond the IDF that even a surgical strike solely on
Iran’s nuclear facilities could likely lead to a broader war with Iran and its
proxies.
In contrast, Netanyahu
and Cohen now, and Barak in the past, represented a mentality that the risks of
Iran developing a nuclear weapon are so great (that it might use a weapon or
that it could use the weapon to act more aggressively in the region) that it
trumps other risks and warrants acting sooner.
This future internal
war, a rematch of the 2010 era, could decide the fate of the country.
