Bomb Iran
Could there be a better time?
An Israeli intelligence officer who shares information with London recently told me how the main source of frustration was the difference in emphasis. “Iran is the big focus for us. But for the British, it is maybe third on their priority list,” she said.
This is only to be expected. Tehran may be a grave threat to Britain but, due to the Ayatollah’s apocalyptic obsession with Jerusalem, it poses a greater danger to Israel. But there is sufficient overlap in the two nation’s security agendas for the bilateral intelligence collaboration to be fruitful.
When I visited him at his home a few years ago, Ram Ben-Barak, the former deputy director of Mossad, told me that in the early-2000s, MI6 had alerted Mossad to rumours about a nuclear programme in Deir ez-Zor in eastern Syria.
London thought the reports unlikely, he said, but passed them on anyway. Mossad, however, viewed even a slim chance as a great danger and investigated the matter urgently. Thank God they did. On September 6, 2007 the Ehud Olmert government ordered the bombing of Bashar al-Assad’s nuclear programme.
At the time, many voices, both domestic and international, opposed the attack due to fears of escalation and instability. Even George W Bush – hardly a shrinking violet when it came to military action – refused to give it his blessing. Undeterred, Olmert and his defence minister, Ehud Barak, elected to go it alone.
Now that the contemptible Assad regime has collapsed, that decision looks especially prescient. If those nukes had not been destroyed by Israeli jets 17 years ago, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the obscure 42-year-old terror chief who seized power in Syria last weekend, might well have found himself in control of them today.
It doesn’t bear thinking about. This is a man who took up the cause of jihad after being radicalised by the Second Intifada. This is a man who literally named himself after the Golan Heights. The BBC may be determined to portray him as a kind of Liberal Democrat – Allison Pearson’s joke – but would Jolani have been able to resist placing Tel Aviv in the crosshairs and pulling the nuclear trigger?
Olmert’s crucial 2007 decision was taken in accordance with the “Begin doctrine”. This was a pre-emptive counter-proliferation policy established by Prime Minister Menachem Begin in 1981, when he ordered the bombing of the nascent nuclear reactor in Osirak, Iraq.
History proved Begin just as right as is later did Olmert. Imagine Saddam Hussein with an atomic bomb, or such weapons falling into the hands of Al Qaeda, Islamic State or other fanatics who later roamed Iraq. Again, it doesn’t bear thinking about.
Fast-forward to the present, and – as the Israeli intelligence officer pointed out to me – Israel once again faces a potentially existential nuclear threat. MI6 and the CIA may not share Mossad’s urgency but many sensible voices are calling for the Begin doctrine to be dusted off in dealing with Iran.
Yesterday, The Wall Street Journal reported that Donald Trump is considering bombing the regime’s nuclear facilities when he comes to power. IDF officials pointed out that the evisceration of Hezbollah, the obliteration of Tehran’s Russian-made air defences by Israeli strikes in October and the fall of Assad offered a golden opportunity.
The recent constellation of events has led Iran to its weakest position in decades. At home, activists are raising Israeli flags in Tehran; restive Iranian women are emboldened by the likes of heroic Parastoo Ahmadi, who recently released a video in which she sang without wearing a hijab, crimes that could lead to a flogging, imprisonment or execution. As brutally as the regime tries to repress its own people, it can’t eliminate their desire for freedom.
Iran’s economy has declined sharply over the last year, with inflation soaring. Bread prices have surged by 200 per cent and other necessities, including housing and water, have risen steeply. The country’s energy infrastructure is working at 70 per cent of its capacity at best and blackouts are a feature of life.
Steel production, one of Iran’s largest exports outside oil, has fallen by 50 per cent. In 2023, its trade with Russia declined by 17 per cent, India by 26 per cent and Turkey by 33 per cent. Exports to China have plummeted, too. All of this is undermining the regime’s support. Add to this Mossad’s comprehensive intelligence penetration of the security apparatus and the Ayatollah is sitting atop a papier mâché fort.
This week, Rafael Grossi, head of the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, said that Tehran had dramatically escalated its uranium enrichment programme. A wounded animal is most dangerous when cornered. Are the mullahs making a dash for the bomb? This question is preoccupying Israeli, American and British intelligence analysts. Their answer may determine whether Iran is hit before or after Donald Trump returns to the White House on January 20.
Ideally, any attack would be a joint Israeli-American mission (with British and European support), or what the Mossad calls “blue, white and red”. The United States could provide unmatched levels of power, such as the Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) – nicknamed the “Mother Of All Bombs” – and the gigantic B-52s. Britain could provide search-and-rescue backup.
Israeli officials, however, have always insisted that if necessary, the IDF could do the job. After the astonishing pager operation in September, who would doubt them?
If there has been one message to have emerged in intelligence circles in recent weeks it is that Iran’s feared “axis of resistance” was not all it was cracked up to be. Did Russia and China come to Iran’s defence when Israeli planes attacked? They did not. When Tehran rained missiles on the Jewish state last April, however, a coalition of friendly democracies pitched in. It is clear where the true alliance lies.
For years, the Biden administration has been trying to appease the despots of Tehran. Why? They have never been any match for Western might. The time is approaching to point out that the emperor has no nukes.
For now. History may never repeat itself but certain lessons may be drawn. If the timing of a strike is misjudged and Iran manages to go nuclear, there are two possible futures. Either the regime gets to wield new muscle across the region under an atomic umbrella or it collapses under the weight of its own brutality and the weapons fall into chaotic hands. For Israel, neither would be tolerable.
One of Biden’s shameful legacies – one of many, including the deplorable Afghan withdrawal – has been to cravenly feed the Iranian beast. But another lesson from history teaches that appeasement never works.
Whether the White House will get onboard or not, Jerusalem must rip apart the paper tiger of Tehran before it crosses the atomic threshold. Remember when the late John McCain sang “bomb bomb Iran” on the campaign trail? That was 16 years ago. The Begin doctrine worked in Iraq and Syria. The time is coming to dust it off again.
As it happens, I've just started reading Michael Oren's 'Six Days of War'; the parallels are striking. Then as now, (as I recall) Israel faced a bellicose and seemingly formidable enemy, backed by a ruthless superpower. Israel's allies, then as now, were determined to constrain it. Then as now, the enemy's power was a chimera and Israel's actions were more than justified by subsequent events.
Yet, then is not now and Israel, it seems to me, is in a weaker political position than 1967, not least of all because its allies are markedly more pusillanimous. China is unlikely to threaten to send in its paratroopers to back Iran, but it can certainly punish Israel in other ways.
In the end, though, Israel may have little choice but to act boldly - then as now.