Courcy’s Intelligence Brief

The Arab Spring has treated Israel well.  The upheavals have weakened all its Arab neighbours, undermined the Iranian-led rejectionist axis, and focused the attention jihadist terrorists on domestic Arab struggles.  This point was recognized by Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at a meeting in late January with Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon and Chief of Staff Lt-Gen Benny Gantz.  At this meeting Netanyahu noted that Israel was suffering from “a regional upheaval the likes of which has not been seen since the foundation of the state”, but he added that paradoxically “2013 was the quietest year vis-à-vis Israel’s security in over a decade”.  It is likely, however, that this period of relative security calm for Israel is coming to an end.  The two biggest threats for 2014 are the instability in Sinai and the Iranian question.  The former could lead to a serious crisis with Egypt and/or increased threats to Israel’s southern border, while the latter could lead to the biggest military confrontation in the Middle East since the Iraq war.

The problem in the Sinai is a consequence of three main factors, namely the years of marginalization of the region’s 300,000 Bedouin under President Hosni Mubarak’s regime; the further radicalization of the Bedouin since the ousting of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Muhammad Mursi and the associated influx of foreign jihadists; and the political/security complications created by the demilitarization of the Sinai under the 1979 Camp David accords between Israel and Egypt.

It was the years of marginalization that pushed the Sinai Bedouin closer to Hamas in the Gaza Strip.  Largely excluded from the Sinai tourist trade, the Bedouin used the Israeli blockade of Gaza as an economic opportunity, creating a vast smuggling network which in turn brought the Bedouin into closer contact with Hamas-style Islamic radicalism.  According to a recent paper from Israel’s Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), in 2011 the black market economy in Sinai was worth as much as $300m.  It is the main source of income for the Bedouin, who make up 70% of the Sinai’s population.

The paper notes that originally the Barikat tribe in al-Madeya in northern Sinai were one of the few Bedouin communities to be supportive of the global jihadist cause, but that is now changing as well.  Islamization began in the mid-2000s and accelerated rapidly after the downfall of the Mubarak regime.  Israeli intelligence sources reckon there are now 15 groups operating in the Sinai which have links to al-Qaeda, and their ranks are being swelled by foreign jihadists from countries such as Somalia, Yemen, Algeria, and Libya.

The problem for Israel is twofold.  The first is that the Sinai is now providing ‘strategic depth’ for Hamas in the Gaza Strip.  The second is that there is no easy answer to the insecurity in the Sinai.  Israel itself has for the most part resisted taking direct interventionist measures, in order to protect relations with Egypt.  On the other hand, Israel sees dangers in renegotiating the Camp David accords to allow Egypt more freedom of action in the Sinai given how unpopular the peace treaty is with Egyptian public opinion.  But if nothing is done there is the threat that events in the Sinai could lead to a sharp, and even permanent, deterioration in relations between Egypt and Israel.  It should be remembered that in August 2011 an Israeli anti-terrorist incursion led to a clash with Egyptian troops in which five were killed.  And this week’s warning from a jihadist group to tourists to leave the Sinai or face attack is a clear indicator that the scope for escalation continues to grow.

The other issue that could come to a head in 2014 is, of course, Iran.  Iran and the six major world powers (the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany) have just concluded three days of talks in Vienna, the purpose of which is to move closer to an agreement that, on the one hand, removes the threat that Iran’s nuclear programme could lead to the acquisition of nuclear weapons and, on the other hand, leads to a lifting of sanctions against Iran.  Commenting on the first day of the Vienna talks, a European diplomat said: “The focus was on the parameters and the process of negotiations, the timetable of what is going to be a medium- to long-term process.  We don’t expect instant results.”  The interim accord reached in November expires in late July, and that is the target date for a new agreement.

Whether an acceptable agreement can be reached between now and July is an open question, not least because no one quite knows what will constitute “acceptable” for Israel.  The spokesman of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), Behruz Kamalyandi, is on record as saying that “with goodwill” an agreement can be reached within six months.  But he has also said that Iran will never allow its “red lines” to be crossed, which means maintaining the right to enrich uranium and to maintain its research reactors.  And Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said that while he is “not opposed” to the talks he is “not optimistic about the negotiations” which he believes will “lead nowhere”.

In another sign that Khamenei does not believe the talks will lead to a satisfactory outcome, on 19 February he reiterated his call for building a “Resistance Economy”.  He said: “If Iran follows an indigenous and scientific economic model driven from the revolutionary and Islamic culture, ie Resistance Economy, not only will it overcome all economic problems, it will also defeat the enemy and make it surrender – the enemy who has lined up against the great nation by imposing an all-out economic war.”

Israel’s response to whatever is agreed at the talks is the key, and an indication of how it is thinking can be found in a Strategic Assessment published by the INSS in January.  This assessment contains one of the few open references to the real reason that Israel is so viscerally opposed to Iran acquiring a nuclear capability, namely the fact that it could nullify Israel’s ability to counter an overwhelming conventional military attack with nuclear weapons.  The report notes: “Iran presumably believes that eliminating Israel’s nuclear advantage would give it reason to hope that Israel could be defeated some day in conventional warfare, especially given Israel’s quantitative inferiority.”  A little further on it adds: “Iran also seeks to undermine the foundations of the peace process, which is based on Arab recognition that Israel cannot be destroyed in part because of the nuclear force attributed to it, which restricts the scope of conventional warfare.”

For Israel this is the vital point, but it is nevertheless clear that Israel has had to modify the extent of its opposition to Iran’s nuclear programme in the face of President Obama’s desire to compromise with Tehran.  Whereas Israel has been demanding that Iran’s nuclear infrastructure be completely dismantled, Obama is willing to accept a limited enrichment capability for civilian purposes under strict international supervision.

For the moment, Israel is continuing to emphasize that leaving Iran with any enrichment infrastructure is a major risk because Iran has not changed its intentions and because (in the words of the INSS) “any civilian project remaining in Iran is…liable to grow into a military project”.  However, there is an acceptance that removing all of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure is an unobtainable objective given Obama’s December 2013 declaration that Iran should be allowed to conduct a curtailed civilian nuclear programme.

The goal, now, says the INSS, is “to put Iran at a maximum distance from a bomb, so that the tactical change in the regime’s position will gradually become strategically significant for Israel and the rest of the world”.  If the optimum is not achievable (which Israel has not yet accepted publicly) the goal should be to ensure that the restricted enrichment capability is tightly supervised, that Iran would not be able to break out to a military project without discovery, and that the “distance from the threshold” will be maintained.

That Israel has its diplomatic work cut out for it can be seen in a commentary ahead of the Vienna Talks from the highly influential Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri).  The commentary, written by its non-proliferation programme director Tariq Rauf, argues for a “pragmatic approach” to the talks, saying that “maximalist demands can lead to only one result: stalemate and failure”.

Sipri argues for an agreement that would allow Iran to continue to enrich uranium to 5% under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), but that would require it to “convert with international assistance the Arak reactor to run on 5% low-enriched uranium; continue to refrain from separating plutonium; fully implement the Additional Protocol to its safeguards agreement; and cooperate proactively with the IAEA in the implementation of safeguards, verification, and monitoring”.

On the face of it, this looks like a reasonable basis for an agreement, but the Sipri commentary also inadvertently reveals exactly why Israel is so distrusting of the international community on the Iran question.  The commentary adds: “Given Iran’s full cooperation with the IAEA’s ongoing verification efforts, Iran will soon be no different to Japan, Belgium or the Netherlands in terms of its possible ‘break out’ capability.”

But the whole point, Israel would say, is that Iran can’t be compared with “Japan, Belgium, or the Netherlands”.  After all, if Japan, Belgium, and the Netherlands had similar internal politics, foreign-policy objectives, and strategic goals as Iran then their neighbours would no doubt be a great deal less sanguine about their ‘break out’ capabilities.

And there is no real indication of any serious move towards moderation in Iran.  Even ostensibly moderate President Hassan Rowhani is more accurately described as a pragmatic conservative than as a reformist.  Only this week, in a meeting with Palestinian parliamentary speaker Salim Zanoun, he was calling for the liberation of Jerusalem from the “Israeli yoke”.

The balance of power in the key institutions of state also remains conservative or extremist.  In the 46-strong Expediency Council, for instance, only eight members can really be described as reformists while at least 15 are regarded as extremists.  There are said to be only two “pragmatic conservatives”, with the rest categorized as traditional conservatives.

So Israel is continuing to prepare for the worst, but the danger is that Iran no longer believes in the Israeli military threat given how long it has been bandied about but not used.  Israel would argue that this is not a sign of weakness and that, on the contrary, its military threats to-date have secured what was required of them, which is increased great power pressure on Iran to come to the negotiating table.  But whether Iran believes this is open to doubt, which is another reason for supposing the Middle East could be heading towards a serious crisis from July onwards.  In any event, with the worrying developments in the Sinai on the one hand and the uncertainty over Iran on the other, it seems certain that 2014 will be a far more testing year for Israel than 2013.  JdeC.