Letter From Tel Aviv: Netanyahu’s Iranian Dilemma

At a recent symposium at Tel Aviv University, Major General Aharon Zeevi Farkash, the former chief of military intelligence, described Israel's public perception of the Iranian nuclear threat as "distorted." His view -- which is shared by many in Israel's security and intelligence services -- is that Israel is not Iran's primary target, and therefore, Israel must not attack Iran unilaterally. Members of the audience took issue with his analysis. One woman, speaking with a heavy Farsi accent, said of the Iranian regime, "They're crazy, and they will drop a bomb on us the moment they can. We need to deal with them now!"

Her sentiment reflects the public mood in Israel, where many are convinced that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wants to annihilate them and is willing to risk the destruction of his own country to do so. For most Israelis, the question is not whether Iran will attack but when. Polls consistently show that Israelis are overwhelmingly in favor of striking Iran's nuclear facilities. A recent survey commissioned by Tel Aviv University's Center for Iranian Studies found that three out of four Israelis believe the United States will not be able to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, and one in two supports taking immediate military action.

It is impossible to separate such convictions from their historical context. The fear that Jews -- having escaped the furnaces of the Holocaust -- could face annihilation in Israel has always haunted the public psyche. Long before Ahmadinejad's outbursts, therefore, Israelis were already attuned to hearing echoes of the Wannsee Conference in Tehran's inflammatory rhetoric. Historical comparisons between Tehran and Nazi-controlled Berlin are common, as is linking the Allied forces' refusal to bomb the concentration camps with the present international reluctance to take effective action against Iran. In April 2008, Benjamin Netanyahu, then leader of the opposition, made such an explicit comparison in a conversation with Stephen Hadley, then national security adviser in the Bush administration. "Ahmadinejad is a modern Hitler," Netanyahu told Hadley, "and the mistakes that were made prior to the Second World War must not be repeated."

But this visceral fear of Iran among the public and elected politicians is not shared by the intelligence community. Experts on the Iranian regime are quick to point out that Ahmadinejad does not call the shots in Iran; the real power lies with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country's supreme religious leader. Furthermore, these experts note, throughout its 30 years of existence, the Iranian regime has shown pragmatism and moderation whenever its survival was at stake. And the Iranians clearly understand that a nuclear attack against Israel would lead to a devastating Israeli counterstrike that, among other things, would mean the end of the revolutionary regime. Finally, the Mossad and the Military Intelligence believe that the real reason the Iranians are intent on acquiring nuclear weapons -- aside from the obvious considerations of prestige and influence -- is to deter U.S. intervention and efforts at regime change.

Despite its assessment of Iran's motives, the Israeli intelligence community nonetheless believes that everything must be done to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power. To begin with, Israel cannot afford to risk nuclear weapons falling into the hands of someone less pragmatic than Khamenei; given its tiny size, Israel would be unlikely to recover from even a single nuclear blast. This makes the risk of relying on the rationality of the Iranian regime intolerable. In addition, a nuclear Tehran could provide assistance to terror organizations -- especially those active against Israel -- without fear of reprisal. Lastly, an Iranian bomb would draw key regional players such as Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia into a regional nuclear arms race.

But ultimately, the intelligence community believes that Israel's military options are limited. No matter how great a success in tactical terms, even under the rosiest scenario, an air strike against Iran's nuclear installations would set its nuclear program back by only two or three years. Moreover, intelligence suggests that Iran would retaliate to such a strike by using its proxy forces -- in particular, Hamas and Hezbollah -- to unleash a wave of terrorist attacks against Israeli and Jewish targets around the world.

Israel's isolation on the question of Iran haunts both the public and the experts. If anything is to be done to thwart the nuclear ambitions of the regime in Tehran, Jerusalem will have to do so unilaterally -- and bear the consequences. As Ariel Levite, the former deputy director general of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, told a closed forum in April 2007, "The worst scenario of all would be if the president of the United States tells us: 'If you want to attack, then go ahead and attack. I won't stop you. But if you do attack, you will pay the price. It's up to you.'"

Israeli policymakers, then, are left to parse exactly how far President Barack Obama is willing to support Israel in its efforts to counter the Iranian threat. For the moment, Obama has made it clear that his focus is on talking with Iran. An Israeli attack would seriously undermine any hope of substantive dialogue. But the parameters of this dialogue are largely unknown, which makes Israel worried. Does the administration have clearly defined criteria for success? How will it decide that talks have failed, and how long will it tolerate a lack of progress? And perhaps the most worrisome question of all: Is a successful outcome of dialogue, as judged by Washington, compatible with Israel's security needs?