Nuclear calculations
The Iranian nuclear question has once again moved back to centre stage through the intervention of former Israeli Mossad chief Meir Dagan, who said on 6 May at a public meeting at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem that a possible Israeli attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities is “the most stupid idea I have ever heard”.
This is not Dagan’s first public intervention in the debate about Iran’s nuclear capability. In a clear reference to the Stuxnet virus attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities (first detected in June last year), Dagan said in January that Iran would not be able to produce a nuclear weapon before 2015 because of “measures that have been deployed against them”.
Perhaps the reason for Dagan’s return to the public debate is that, since his January comments, some Israeli experts have attempted to counter that assertion by saying that only 10% of Iran’s centrifuges were destroyed by the Stuxnet computer worm, that they have been replaced already, and that Iran is maintaining its rate of production of enriched uranium.
On 11 April, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told European Union ambassadors to Israel that Iran had recently accelerated its nuclear programme as it appeared to sense a reduction in international pressure. There have also been hints from Jerusalem that both Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak favour an early strike.
Dagan’s objections are threefold. First, he thinks initiatives such as the Stuxnet virus attack, targeted killings of scientists, and the recruitment of insiders can continue to push back the moment when Iran acquires nuclear weapons. Second, he believes that Iran has learnt the lessons of the Israeli attack on the Iraqi reactor at Osirak in 1981 and dispersed its facilities in such a way that any attack would only provide a short respite. And, thirdly, he fears that an Israeli military attack on Iran would spark a war.
Dagan said: “Anyone attacking Iran needs to understand that it could start a regional war which will include missile fire from Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Iranian problem must be made an international problem, and we must continue to work to delay the nuclear program.” He also believes that Syria could enter any such war.
Interestingly, the day before Dagan’s remarks, Defence Minister Ehud Barak said that he did not believe Iran would use a nuclear weapon against Israel. But then he seemed to contradict himself by saying that the Iranian regime was irrational and that “with such a leadership sitting in a bunker in Tehran and thinking it’s going to fall in a few days...I don’t know what it would do”. A few days later Barak also contradicted Dagan directly, saying: “I’m not sure this stance is correct.”
Our own view is that Dagan is probably right about the difficulty of completely destroying Iran’s nuclear programme with a military strike. However, evidence from other sources does suggest that he could be overly optimistic about how much time there is left. Thirdly, when warning about the regional consequences of an Israeli attack on Iran, he is overlooking the strong private support that such an attack would be given by the Gulf states.
On the other hand, as far as Barak’s views are concerned, there is more in his half-held belief that Iran would never strike Israel first with nuclear weapons than he himself believes. It is surprising how many analysts appear to miss the point about the Iranian nuclear programme. It is not intended for first use against Israel; it is intended to prevent Israel’s own use of nuclear weapons.
A strong argument (supported by 66 years of history) can be made for the proposition that nuclear weapons are unusable against any state that can retaliate in kind. What is thought possible, however, is that Israel might resort to nuclear defence if it were faced with an overwhelming conventional attack, as in 1973, and felt that total defeat were imminent. A nuclear-armed Iran could remove that option from Israel.
It is for this reason that Egypt’s likely next president Amr Musa, when asked about Iran’s nuclear programme in his 9 May interview with The Washington Post, said: “The nuclear issue in the Middle East means Israel – then Iran.” JdeC .