Courcy’s Intelligence Brief

The arguments against a unilateral Israeli attack on Iran can now be summarized as fivefold.  They are that an Israeli attack could only be partially successful, delaying the nuclear programme by only a relatively short period; a unilateral attack would hugely strain relations with the United States; there is too much current instability in the Middle East (the Sinai, Syria, the Kurdish question, Jordan’s future, Shia unrest in the Gulf, etc) to risk a further massive escalation; sanctions have only just been ratcheted up to the required degree of severity and should be given time to work; and the political situation in Iran is delicate ahead of next year’s presidential election and nothing should be done to undermine the chances of the reformists.

The latest indications from informed sources in Washington are that the US would be prepared to launch an all-out assault on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, but not for 18 months.  This would fit in not just with giving sanctions time to work but with a timetable of waiting to see what the presidential election brings in just under a year’s time, and (if a reformist wins) what compromises a reformist president would be willing and able to accept.

Those arguing for this timetable are pointing to the fact that moderate hopefuls for the presidency are beginning to put themselves forward on a platform of improved relations with the West.  For instance, Mohammad Reza Khatami, brother of the former reformist President Mohammad Khatami, has already declared: “The best way to put an end to foreign threats against our country is to return to the people’s support [for moderate policies] and to regain their trust.”

Khatami has been drawing parallels between now and 1997, ahead of his brother’s election.  He points out: “In those days...all the cruise missiles in the Persian Gulf were pointing towards Iran.  It took just one set of elections to turn the missiles away and make the world want to have constructive relations with Iran.  And this is the way forward now.”

President Khatami’s interior minister, Abdollah Nuri, has been making similar noises, saying: “The harm and pressure being exerted on Iran under the pretext of the nuclear issue have gone beyond limits.  In order to get out of this dead end, the government must adopt a rational and wise decision to safeguard the country’s overall national interests...If maintaining our nation’s right to a nuclear capability means that our other rights and interests are compromised, then we have to think clearly about the consequences of this approach...The people must be the final arbiters regarding the decisions to be made with respect to the dispute between Iran and the West.  They must have the final say.”

It may also be significant that Nuri appears to be making a priority of adopting a more moderate approach on the nuclear question ahead of other reformist policies such as liberalization and the release of political prisoners.  He has said: “Repeating mantras such as ‘democracy and freedom of speech are good’ and ‘political prisoners must be freed’ will not solve anything.”

This point about political prisoners is important as two reformist candidates in the 2009 presidential election, Mehdi Karrubi and Mir Hoseyn Musavi, remain under house arrest, and reformists are divided over whether or not to make the release of Karrubi, Musavi and other political prisoners a prerequisite for returning to the political process.   Informed sources say that all Nuri means by his statements on liberalization and the release of prisoners is that reformists should not boycott the elections because of the continuing existence of political prisoners.  Nuri, they say, is a pragmatist, and his comments are an indication of how important he believes resolving the nuclear issue to be - and for Nuri achieving power comes before political liberalization.

Other possible reformist contenders in next year’s presidential election include Eshaq Jahangiri, former industry minister under Khatami; Mohammad Reza Aref, President Khatami's first vice president; Kamal Kharazi, Khatami's foreign minister; former President Khatami himself; and  Ayatollah Khomeini's grandson Hasan Khomeini.  Local sources are saying that Aref is the most likely flag-bearer for the reformists, but the obstacles remain huge.  Candidates have to pass a vetting process by the Guardian Council before they are allowed to stand, and there is no guarantee that any electable reformist will be allowed to participate.

The final say will lie with Supreme Leader Khamenei, and his views are unknown.  However, Eshaq Jahangiri has said that a reformist president could be “welcomed by the supreme leader “, and that assertion will have been well noted by those US policymakers who are arguing for an 18-month delay in any attack.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak are persuaded by none of this.  They don’t believe in the Iranian reform movement, they don’t believe in sanctions, and they don’t trust the US (particularly under President Obama) to fulfil its promise once Iran’s nuclear programme has entered the “zone of immunity”, that is the time when it is too well protected or advanced to be vulnerable to Israeli attack.

The debate rages on, but our own sources still believe that the odds marginally favour a relatively early attack on Iran by Israel on its own if the US cannot be persuaded to join in.  This view is supported (but of course by no means conclusively, given the growing volume of disinformation) by two recent interventions.

On 3 August, former Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy warned that if he were Iranian he would be very concerned over the next 12 weeks.  At the same time, Aharon Zeevi-Farkash, head of Israeli military intelligence from 2002-2006, said that he believed an attack would be ordered soon by the government although he added in an interview with the Hebrew-language Internet portal Walla! that he was “not sure” that Israel had yet “crossed the threshold of ordering an attack”.

Zeevi-Farkash is one of the least voluble of Israel’s former security chiefs, and his intervention after years of silence would suggest he is genuinely concerned the government is close to ordering an attack.  He believes it would be a mistake to attack without “international legitimacy”, by which he presumably means waiting for as long as possible for sanctions to work.