ed note–as we have said often on this website and accompanying radio program, Israel and her supporters are absolutely in panic mode over the fact that Iran’s elections are next month, Ahmadinejad will be gone, there have been no attacks on Israel by Iran and now they are going to have to ‘re-Hitlerize’ whoever the next Iranian president turns out to be.

The following, by the VERY Jewish and VERY pro-Israel Michael Gerson is indicative of this panic and how they are already setting the stage for the ‘new Hitler’ about to be made president in Iran.  

BY MICHAEL GERSON

Over the years, Americans have come to discount statements on Israel and Zionism by Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Repetition has rendered them unremarkable.

Israel must be “wiped off the map.” Zionism is a “germ of corruption” that “will be wiped off the face of the earth.” It is a “cancer cell” that must be “removed from the body.” The Zionist regime is “heading toward annihilation.” “They should know that they are nearing the last days of their lives.” “Israel is destined for destruction and will soon disappear.”

One is tempted to add: blah, blah, blah. It is easy to dismiss this rhetoric as being designed for domestic consumption. And soon after Iran’s June election, Ahmadinejad will be out of a job — history’s single most persuasive argument in favor of term limits.

But the problem is this: Ahmadinejad’s language is not exceptional within the Iranian regime.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has also referred to Israel as a “cancerous tumor.” “The perpetual subject of Iran,” he has explained, “is the elimination of Israel from the region.” “There is only one solution to the Middle East problem, namely the annihilation and destruction of the Jewish state.” In recent weeks, Khamenei has promised, if the Iranian nuclear program is attacked, to “level down Tel Aviv and Haifa.”

Senior Iranian military leaders, presidential advisers and religious authorities can be quoted endlessly in a similar vein. Zionists are “microbes” and “bacteria” and a “cancerous growth.” “Jews are very filthy people,” who are responsible for spreading disease and drug abuse. There is a religious duty to “fight the Jews and vanquish them so that the conditions for the advent of the Hidden Imam will be met.”

Such arguments are deeply embedded in the Iranian regime — as a statement of mission, an organizing principle. This won’t be changed by a single election.

It is possible to overplay such rhetoric. The Iranian government is not simply an irrational, apocalyptic cult. It may eventually respond to sanctions. It is sometimes necessary for America to engage in diplomacy with very nasty people.

But it is possible to underplay this language as well. It is not merely hate speech. It has the hallmarks of incitement to genocide: the dehumanization of a targeted group and the use of code words to cover genocidal intent. (In Rwanda, Tutsis were described as “snakes” and “cockroaches” who should be sent “down the river.” The rivers were eventually clogged with corpses.)

One interesting theoretical question: Is such Iranian rhetoric a crime under the Genocide Convention of 1948 — to which Iran is a signatory — which forbids the “direct and public incitement to commit genocide”? The language of Iranian leaders is certainly direct and public. When forced to defend themselves, they often claim (unpersuasively) that their target is Zionists rather than Jews. But in the determination of genocidal intent, this doesn’t matter. Genocide can be directed against any group — racial, ethnic, religious or national.

Yet the (rather thin) case law on incitement to genocide also requires an imminent threat of violence from the audience. In the Iranian case, the threat comes from government action — providing long-range missiles to Hamas or (down the road) the use of nuclear weapons.

In any event, a prosecution of Iranian officials for incitement to genocide is an exceedingly theoretical prospect, since it would require a referral from the United Nations Security Council — something Russia and China would not entertain.

But Iranian incitement should not be glossed over. It is not common, culturally excusable or normal among nations. “How many other states do we know,” asks Michael Abramowitz, director of the Center for Genocide Prevention at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, “that talk about other human beings in the way the Iranian leadership speaks of Israelis and Jews? They are conditioning generations of young people in their own country and the broader Middle East to think of Jews as subhuman, which makes acts of terror by groups like Hamas and Hezbollah seem more thinkable.”

Several years ago, during an Iranian military parade, a Shahab-3 missile was decorated with the banner: “Israel must be uprooted and wiped from (the pages of) history.” This can’t be reasonably construed as a vivid political metaphor. It is the depiction of a twisted ideal, broadly shared within the Iranian regime. And it is one reason that President Obama is right to draw his red line. Such a banner must never hang on an Iranian nuclear weapon.

By Pepe Escobar

Asia Times

This eminently Bushist Obama “red line” business, applied to Syria, Iran or both, is becoming a tad ridiculous.

Take Pentagon head Chuck Hagel’s tour of Israel and the “friendly” GCC (the de facto Gulf Counter-revolution Club) last week. US defense contractors had the Moet flowing as Hagel merrily congregated with that prodigy of democracy – United Arab Emirates (UAE) Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed – to celebrate the sale of 25 F-16 fighter jets.

There’s more on the way; 48 Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD missile interceptors, at a cool US$1 billion. The Pentagon is sending one of its only two of such systems to Guam this month to counter that other threat – missiles from North Korea.

The weaponizing free fest to Israel and the Gulf petro-monarchies – missile defense, fighter jets, mega-bombs – could not but be duly hailed as the proverbial “message” to “counter Iran’s nuclear ambitions”, or “the air and missile threat posed by Iran”, or the general “worry about Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon” or “Washington’s determination to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.”

There’s no “red line” here; just hardcore weaponizing of Israel and the GCC. Any doubts, blame it on Iran. And this while Saudi-controlled media in the Middle East – roughly everything except al-Jazeera – was breathlessly spinning that Tel Aviv is pursuing a deal to use Turkish soil for an attack on Iran.

Wait; there’s more weaponizing on the way – bound to neighboring latitudes. Kraus-Maffei Wegmann (KMW) from Germany closed another $2.48 billion deal with Qatar – five years in the making – to deliver 62 Leopard 2 tanks and 24 self-propelled howitzers. Qatar is not exactly using them for the 2022 FIFA World Cup; they are bound to “friendly groups in other countries” – as in Syria’s “rebels”, via Turkey.

Ask the Nenets 
Now take the Syria chemical weapons charade. The White House now seems to be convinced that the CIA believes, with “varying degrees of confidence”, that the Syrian government has used chemical weapons. Secretary of State John Kerry – an “intervention” cheerleader posing as a dove – was already convinced.

But then Hagel said, “Suspicions are one thing; evidence is another.” Just to flip-flop a little while later, during his visit to Israel, he became convinced Bashar al-Assad was using sarin gas. Of course; after all, Hagel finally had unimpeded access to Israeli – not US – intel.

And now for the beauty of Hagel’s marketing; what about embarking as a traveling salesman to “our bastards” with a sales pitch of ” Look, Iran and Syria are both crazy, you might consider stacking up on this, this and this.”

The Nenets of Siberia – crossing the Ob river to enter the Arctic Circle – could teach a thing or two about real strategy to those limping armchair warriors in US Think Tankland. Even the Nenets would know that the current chemical weapons hysteria is a total fabrication by the CIA, MI6 and Israeli intelligence – corroborated by zero evidence. Still, the prevailing Washington “wisdom” is that a “red line” must be enforced over Syria so a “red line” must be enforced on Iran.

The fact is that the al-Assad government initially accused the “rebels” of using chemical weapons – and asked the United Nations for an official investigation.

Even the New York Times was forced, grudgingly, to admit the “rebels” acknowledged an attack happened in territory controlled by the government, with 16 Syrian Army dead, plus 10 civilians and over a hundred injured. But then the “rebels” changed the narrative, blaming Damascus of bombing their own soldiers. It was Moscow that introduced a measure of reality, detailing how Washington was stalling the UN investigation.

Our Nenets of Siberia would also know there’s hardly anything secular leading the “rebels” in Syria; it’s a motley crew of varying degrees of fanaticism. Once again, the Nenets would not need to freeze to death reading the New York Times to find out that the CIA is “secretly” funneling a free for all weaponizing to the “rebels” via Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Still the Obama administration peddles the fiction that Washington only supplies “non lethal” aid as Capitol Hill nutters keep insisting that Obama install a “no fly zone” over Syria – as in Libya-style NATO war remix.

Follow-on strike package, anyone? 
US Think Tankland nonetheless is ecstatic that the GCC petro-monarchies now have access to precision-guided munitions to “strike Iranian targets”.

But nothing compares to the cheerleading of Israel’s new access to KC-135 aerial refueling tankers – or Stratotankers. Then there’s the imminent transfer of anti-radiation missiles as well – advanced versions of the AGM-88 HARM missiles. These toys will “reduce the threat to Israel’s follow-on strike package.”

No, this is not exactly about “US circumspection”, or “US resolve in the campaign against Iranian nuclear weapons”; it’s unqualified Dog of War barking.

Meanwhile, that police state run by King Playstation, also known as Jordan, has opened its airspace to Israeli drones now engaged in “monitoring” Syria.

As Asia Times Online has repeatedly warned, Obama in Syria is fast becoming a remix of Reagan in 1980s Afghanistan. We all know what came out of those “freedom fighters” afterwards. In this context, Robert Ford, Obama’s alleged Syria expert, telling the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that it’s important for Washington to “weigh in” to affect “the internal balance of power in Syria” qualifies as a joke line, not a red line.

There’s wild speculation that after the Boston bombing Obama and Russia’s Vladimir Putin made a deal; Washington lets Moscow do whatever it wants in Chechnya like, forever, but gets a nod to install a “no-fly zone” and further mayhem in Syria. There’s no evidence to that. What a geopolitically savvy Putin wants to know is what does he get out of Syria in practical terms (and Obama does not have a clue). Crumbs from a NATO banquet don’t apply.

As for allowing Syria to become a “Western-friendly” Wahhabi emirate or yet another failed Muslim Brotherhood fiefdom, one needs to go no further than Hezbollah’s Sheikh Nasrallah … “the goal of anyone standing behind the war in Syria, is destroying Syria so that a strong, centralized state would not be established in it, and so that it would become too weak to take decisions related to its oil, sea, or borders.”

Now that’s what a red line is all about.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

By Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett

The outlines of a nuclear deal between the P5+1 and Iran have long been obvious: Western recognition of Iran’s nuclear rights in return for more intrusive monitoring and verification of Iranian nuclear facilities. With agreement so readily at hand, the Obama administration’s refusal to take it is baffling to many international observers. But the reason for American obstinacy becomes clearer when one considers that that the Iranian nuclear issue has at least as much to do with the future of international order as it does with nonproliferation.

Conflict over Iran’s nuclear program is driven by two different approaches to interpreting the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). These approaches, in turn, are rooted in different conceptions of world order.

In one concept, the rules of international relations are created through the consent of independent, sovereign states and are to be interpreted narrowly. This model is understandably favored by non-Western states — for it is the only way international rules might constrain established powers as well as rising powers and the less powerful. But it is at odds with the model favored by America and its Western partners, which emphasizes the goals motivating states to create particular rules in the first place — not the rules themselves, but the goals underlying them. This model also ascribes a special role in interpreting rules to the most powerful states — those with the resources and willingness to “enforce” their concept of global order.

Which interpretation of the NPT ultimately prevails in the Iranian case will go a long way to determine whether a rules-based model of international order can replace a model in which the goals of international policy are defined mainly by America and its partners — frequently in defiance of international legal obligations that Western powers once voluntarily embraced.

The NPT is appropriately understood as a set of three bargains among signatories: non-weapons states commit not to obtain nuclear weapons; countries recognized as weapons states (America, Russia, Britain, France, and China) commit to nuclear disarmament; and all agree that signatories have an “inalienable right” to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. One approach to interpreting the NPT gives these bargains equal standing; the other holds that nonproliferation trumps the other two.

There have long been strains between weapons states and non-weapons states over nuclear powers’ poor compliance with their commitment to disarm. Today, though, disputes about NPT interpretation are particularly acute over perceived tensions between blocking nuclear proliferation and enabling peaceful use of nuclear technology. This is especially so for fuel cycle technology, the ultimate “dual use” capability — for the same material that fuels power, medical, and research reactors can, at higher levels of fissile isotope concentration, be used in nuclear bombs. The dispute is engaged most immediately over whether Iran, as a non-weapons party to the NPT, has a right to enrich uranium under international safeguards.

For those holding that the NPT’s three bargains have equal standing — including the non-Western world, virtually in its entirety — Tehran’s right to enrich is clear. It is clear from the NPT, from the treaty’s negotiating history, and from at least a dozen states having developed safeguarded fuel cycle infrastructures potentially able to support weapons programs. On this basis, the diplomatic solution is also clear: recognition of Iran’s nuclear rights in exchange for greater transparency.

Those holding that nonproliferation trumps other NPT goals — America, Britain, France, and Israel — claim that there is no treaty-based “right” to enrich, and that weapons states and others with nuclear industries should decide which non-weapons states can possess fuel cycle technologies. From these premises, in the early 2000s the George W. Bush administration sought a worldwide ban on transferring fuel cycle technologies to countries not already possessing them. Subsequently, the Obama administration pushed the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group to make such transfers conditional on recipients’ acceptance of the Additional Protocol to the NPT — an instrument devised at U.S. instigation in the 1990s to enable more intrusive and proactive inspections in non-weapons states.

Under both Bush and Obama, America has pressed the UN Security Council to adopt resolutions telling Tehran to suspend enrichment, even though it is part of Iran’s “inalienable right” to peaceful use of nuclear technology; such resolutions violate UN Charter terms that the Council act “in accordance with the purposes and principles of the United Nations” and “with the present charter.” Washington has also defined its preferred diplomatic outcome and, with Britain and France, imposed it on the P5+1: Iran must promptly stop enriching at the near-20 percent level to fuel its sole (and safeguarded) research reactor; it must then follow Security Council calls to cease all enrichment. U.S. officials say Iran might be “allowed” a circumscribed enrichment program, after suspending for a decade or more; London and Paris insist that “zero enrichment” is the only acceptable long-term outcome.

Non-Western states have, in various ways, pushed back against these efforts by America and its European partners to (in effect) rewrite the NPT. The “BRICS” (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) and the Non-Aligned Movement (with 120 countries representing nearly two-thirds of UN members) — have unequivocally recognized the right of Iran and other states to develop safeguarded indigenous fuel cycle capabilities. Since abandoning nuclear weapons programs during democratization and joining the NPT, Brazil and South Africa have used their status as nonproliferation exemplars to defend non-weapons states’ right to peaceful use of nuclear technology, including enrichment.

With Argentina, they resisted U.S. efforts to make transfers of fuel cycle technology contingent on accepting the Additional Protocol (which Brazil has refused to sign), forcing Washington to compromise. With Turkey, Brazil brokered the Tehran Declaration in May 2010, whereby Iran accepted U.S. terms to swap most of its then stockpile of enriched uranium for fuel for its research reactor. But the Declaration openly recognized Iran’s right to enrich; for this reason, Obama rejected it.

At the same time, important non-Western states have, to varying degrees accommodated Washington on the Iranian issue. Officials in China and Russia, the two non-Western permanent members of the Security Council, acknowledge there will be no diplomatic solution absent Western recognition of Tehran’s nuclear rights. Yet China and Russia endorsed all six Security Council resolutions requiring Iran to suspend enrichment. They did so partly to keep America in the Council with the issue, where they can exert ongoing influence — and restraint — over Washington; at Chinese and Russian insistence, the resolutions state explicitly that none of them can be construed as authorizing the use of force against Iran. Still, they acquiesced to resolutions that make a diplomatic settlement harder and that contradict a truly rules-based model of international order.

China, Russia, and other non-Western powers have also accommodated Washington’s increasing reliance on the threatened imposition of “secondary” sanctions against third-country entities doing business with Iran. These measures violate U.S. commitments under the World Trade Organization, which allows members to cut trade with states they deem national security threats but not to sanction other members over lawful business with third countries. If challenged on this in the WTO’s Dispute Resolution Mechanism, America would surely lose; consequently, U.S. administrations have been reluctant actually to impose secondary sanctions on non-U.S. entities transacting with Iran.

Nevertheless, companies, banks, and even governments in non-Western states have cut back on their Iranian transactions — feeding American elites’ sense that, notwithstanding their illegality, secondary sanctions help leverage non-Western states’ compliance with Washington’s policy preferences and vision of (U.S.-dominated) world order.

If non-Western states want to move decisively from a still relatively unipolar world to a genuinely multipolar and rules-based order, the more powerful among them will soon have to call Washington’s bluff on Iran-related secondary sanctions. They will also need to be more willing to oppose, openly, America’s efforts to unilaterally rewrite international law and hijack international institutions for its own hegemonic purposes. By doing so, they will underscore that the United States ultimately isolates itself by acting as a flailing — and failing — imperial power.

Flynt Leverett is professor of international affairs at Penn State. Hillary Mann Leverett is senior professorial lecturer at American University. Their new book, Going to Tehran: Why the United States Needs to Come to Terms With the Islamic Republic of Iran (Metropolitan Books), will be published in January 2013

Islamic Republic reiterates calls for United Nations to investigate assertions by Assad regime that Syrian insurgents have used  chemical weapons, says Damascus government not guilty of such use.

Haaretz

Iran said on Tuesday it regarded the alleged use of chemical weapons in Syria’s civil war as a “red line,” echoing major adversary the United States but saying Syrian rebels were the main culprit and not the Damascus government.

Last week Washington said it had “varying degrees of confidence” that Syrian government forces had likely used the nerve agent sarin on a small scale against rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar Assad.

U.S. President Barack Obama has warned Damascus that deployment of chemical weapons could trigger consequences for Assad – language widely interpreted to include military intervention so far shunned by Washington. Obama has also called resort to chemical arms a “red line” Assad must not cross.

In calling chemical weapons use a “red line” for Iran, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi did not indicate what action Tehran – one of Assad’s staunchest political and military allies – might take in the case that a poison gas attack by either side in the conflict were to be proven.

“We have always emphasized that the use of chemical weapons on the part of anyone is our red line,” Salehi said, according to the ISNA news agency. “Iran is opposed to the use of any kind of weapon of mass destruction, and not just their use but their production, accumulation, and use.”

Salehi also reiterated calls for the United Nations to investigate assertions by the Syrian government that Syrian insurgents had used chemical weapons.

“On Syria,” he said, “we have also requested that in accordance with the Syrian government, which emphasizes that the opposition has used these weapons, the United Nations…identify the main culprit in this regard, which is the opposition.”

The Syrian government and the opposition blame each other for alleged chemical attacks in Aleppo in March and Homs in December. Syria wants UN investigators to look into only the reported Aleppo attack, but UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon wants the inquiry he has ordered to cover both incidents.

Ban said on Monday that investigators have been gathering and analyzing available information on alleged chemical attacks in Syria, but access to the war-torn country was essential for a “credible and comprehensive inquiry.”

Iran counts itself as the biggest victim of chemical weapons attacks in recent history, saying up to 100,000 Iranians were exposed to the effects of Iraqi poison gas during the two neighbors’ 1980-88 war. Other studies have estimated that around 60,000 were affected.

Tehran, however, is suspected by Western powers of seeking another form of mass-destruction weapons capability – nuclear – with its shadowy uranium enrichment program. Iran denies this, saying it seeks nuclear energy only for peaceful purposes.

“All [nations] must be vigilant because arrogant powers want to pit everyone against each other and break up Iraq, Syria and Pakistan. We are aware of their plots,” Ahmadinejad said.

He made the remarks in an address to a large gathering in the northwestern city of Tabriz, East Azarbaijan Province, on Sunday.

The president stated that regional nations should protect their countries and rights through negotiations.

Ahmadinejad warned that enemies are turning the wealth of nations into bombs and weapons, adding, “It is obvious they want to create conflict in East Asia.”

He noted that the era of arrogant powers has come to an end and their plots will not save them as “the future belongs to the nations.”

Top US analyst says all of Islamic Republic’s population centers now within range of Israeli missiles with hydrogen warheads

Times of Israel

Iran, not Israel, faces an existential threat, according to a top US analyst who is considered one of the world’s leading scholars on the Iranian nuclear issue.

In a research paper published earlier this week, Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said that in preparation for a nuclear Iran, Israel had been working in recent years to extend the range of its missiles, and that it now poses a real threat to all of the Islamic Republic’s major population centers.

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Cordesman, a former national security aide to Senator John McCain, said Iran is now within the range of Israeli missiles carrying hydrogen warheads, which are far more powerful than standard atomic warheads. According to the report, each bomb with a hydrogen warhead has about a hundred times more power than a conventional nuclear bomb.

Israel has never admitted to having hydrogen warheads, much like it has never admitted to holding any nuclear weapons.

According to Cordesman’s report, Iran will not have the ability to threaten Israel with a long-range nuclear warhead for several years. Today, the Islamic Republic can attack Israel with small bombs from the sea, or with long-range non-nuclear missiles, he noted.

Iran maintains that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only and has no military component, a claim that Israel and Western powers reject.

On Saturday, Iran claimed it had information tying U.S. to the incident; Senior Zio-Naziofficial tells Time Magazine he ‘doesn’t feel bad’ for scientist killed.

Haaretz

Western intelligence sources told Time magazine on Friday that Israel’s Mossad is responsible for the latest assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist.

A magnetic bomb was attached to the door of 32-year-old Mostafa Ahmadi-Roshan’s car during the Wednesday morning rush-hour in Tehran. His driver was also killed. Sources tell the magazine Israel was behind three previous assassinations of scientists.

A senior Israeli official told is quoted in the report as saying “yeah, one more… I don’t feel sad for him.”

On Saturday, Iranian state television said that Iran had evidence the United States was behind the latest assassination. We have reliable documents and evidence that this terrorist act was planned, guided and supported by the CIA,” the Iranian foreign ministry said in a letter handed to the Swiss ambassador in Tehran, state TV reported. 
“The documents clearly show that this terrorist act was carried out with the direct involvement of CIA-linked agents.”

The Swiss Embassy has represented U.S. interests in Iran since Iran and the U.S. cut diplomatic ties shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution. 
Tension has mounted between Iran and the West as the United States and European Union prepare measures aimed at imposing sanctions on the Iran’s oil exports, its economic lifeblood.

The United States and Israel have not ruled out military action if diplomacy fails to resolve the nuclear dispute.

Also on Saturday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. has stepped up contingency planning in case Israel launches a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

According to the report, U.S. defense officials are becoming increasingly concerned that Israel is preparing to carry out such a strike.

rt.com

RT: How involved are Israeli spies inside Iran?

Yossi Melman: Iran is considered by the Israeli government and intelligence as the number one priority and therefore there is a lot of intelligence involved in order to get information. But when you say Israeli spies it doesn’t necessarily mean that Israel is recruiting and trying to send its own spies into Iran. There are other means of collecting information.

RT: Is Israel behind the assassination of Iranian scientists and also hacking the Iranian computer systems?

YM: I can’t reveal my sources but it’s our understanding that Israel was behind it. It’s based on some logic that it was a pattern identified with previous operations in other parts of the world. It’s part of the Mossad tradition in some rare cases to carry out its assassination attempts, and some other information which I don’t want to detail.

RT: The western world tried to use diplomacy to prevent North Korea from acquiring nuclear power, but it didn’t help. Do you think it’s the same situation with Iran?

YM: This is the point. Iran wants nuclear weapons for various reasons. They want to have hegemony in the region. Nuclear weapons in the hands of a country means national pride, scientific infrastructure, technological development. But also it gives the regime guarantees of survival.  We see the North Korean example. They have developed nuclear weapons. They even tested it though unsuccessfully. But they know that if you have nuclear weapons no one is messing with you.  This is the precedent, and Iran wants to repeat it. Diplomacy has failed with North Korea and is also failing with Iran.

RT: Do you think Israel is trying to maneuver the US to attack Iran?

YM: I wouldn’t use the word maneuver. Israel wants America to attack Iran as a last resort. If diplomacy fails, and it has failed so far, if the sanctions aren’t working. At the end of the day Iran wouldn’t cave in to the pressure and would assemble a bomb. In such a case Israel prefers the US to do the job not only because it’s more convenient. Above all the US has the capability to inflict a major blow on Iran’s nuclear sites, while Israel’s capabilities are very limited.

RT: What do you think was happening behind the scenes during President Obama’s recent visit to Israel? Who exactly was putting pressure on who vis-à-vis Iran?

YM: I think Obama simply asked Israel not to do anything not coordinated with Washington. In other words, not to attack Iran unless it is coordinated with the US. 

RT: Could Israel carry out an attack without coordination?

YM: I don’t believe so. I wrote it in my book, I’ve been writing it in my newspaper articles. I don’t think Israel will attack Iran, because Israel’s capabilities are limited. We can do it, but the damage we can inflict upon Iran and its nuclear sites is very limited. The big question is the if the damage would be that low that Iran will be able to rebuild its nuclear sites in 12-18 months then I think it’s not worth taking the risk.

 

Israeli army officers look towards Syria from the Mount Bental observation post in the Golan Heights 07 September 2007. (AFP Photo / Menahem Kahana)

RT: What would be the difference between an Israeli strike on Iran today as opposed to the strikes Israel carried out on Syria in 2007 and on Iraq in 1980s.

YM: Huge difference. Syria was taken by surprise. There was one target. The distance was very short. Not much armament to be carried. Israel was confident that all its airplanes would return home safe. With Iran it’s the opposite. The distance is longer. Israel doesn’t have enough aircraft to carry out an effective attack on Iran. Iran would certainly retaliate and maybe drag Israel into a long conflict.

RT: At the same time when Israel carried out those strikes it was very quiet about the operation. As you say these were surprise operations. Now there is a lot of noise happening around the possible Israeli attacks on Iran. Could that suggest that the Israelis are concerned that they might not in fact be able to carry out a successful strike?

YM: That’s the argument. If you want to carry out an operation you don’t talk and especially at the level of the Israeli leaders. Netanyahu has been talking about it. That is one reason why I don’t think Israel would attack Iran.

RT: The former Mossad director Meir Dagan publicly said that he was against a strike on Iran. What was he offering instead?

YM:  They said there should be a more covert operation to try to slow down Iranian nuclear sites, but above all Israel has to coordinate such operations with the US and the international community. Israel shouldn’t take the lead in the Iranian case. Dagan’s argument is, if Israel attacks Iran the damage will be limited, Iran will be able to rebuild its nuclear capacity and will use this attack as a justification for building nuclear sites. They would have said: ‘You see, we need nuclear weapons because we were attacked’.

RT: When you wrote a book did you have any censorship problems? You don’t talk too much about Kidon, the Mossad unit that was allegedly in charge of overseas operations.  Why not?

YM: Well, the book was written by two of us – by me and an American journalist. My chapters were censored because any Israeli is obliged to do it, while my co-author didn’t have to. But I think we have this is the book. We are very proud of a chapter talking about the Kidon unit, which is the spearhead of Mossad special operations.

RT: Does Mossad get away with some of the operations because of these Israeli censorship laws?

YM: No, it has nothing to do with it. If Mossad is conducting an operation abroad and it is revealed outside Israel the censorship doesn’t work. The international media can write about Mossad overseas operations as long as they are informed. On the other hand the Israeli media is subjected to this censorship. I have said many times that it should be lifted.

 

A woman poses with an Australian newspaper showing the front page story of Ben Zygier, as Israel confirms it jailed a foreigner in solitary confinement on security grounds who later committed suicide, with Australia admitting it knew one of its citizens had been detained. (AFP Photo / William West)

RT: The Israeli journalist sometimes have to rely on foreign reports to quote on what is happening inside Israel. Do you think that the Prisoner X incident brought to the fore the shortcomings of the censorship laws in this country?

YM: Absolutely. The example of Prisoner X, the Australian who was recruited by Mossad, was arrested for betraying the country, and committed suicide, shows how the censorship is working.  Don’t forget about the gag order, because of which we journalists cannot write about some issues. I tried to fight a gag order when Prisoner X was still alive, I went to the courts, and I lost the case. I was kicked out by the judges, who said that the ruling would remain intact. But it showed the failure of the system, because the only ones who didn’t know anything about the Prisoner X were the Israeli public.

RT: Does that mean that there are other people who could be locked up?

YM: One of the damages the Prisoner X case did to Israel is that it worsened its image as a free democratic society.

RT: Is there a trust in the relationship between the Israeli and American intelligence?

YM: We exchange information and assessments. Sometimes we hold joint operations with the Americans.  But obviously the trust is not 100 percent. There is always a kind of mistrust because you don’t share even with your best friend everything you possess.

RT: Have the Israeli enemies ever managed to plant agents within the Israeli government?

YM: The answer is yes. Our history has a lot of such cases. All-in-all these are rare cases because the general trend is that Israeli society is difficult to penetrate due to a great sense of patriotism in the country. It’s a very homogenous society. Israel is more difficult to crack than other countries.