Ze’ev Palti, the former head of the Mossad intelligence directorate, warned that he does not know how long it will be before Iran’s new leader decides whether to continue on his father’s path or change course toward a bomb in an interview with 103FM on Tuesday.
The United States and Iran agreed to a framework agreement on Sunday that is expected to advance negotiations between the two sides. Palti, who previously headed the Mossad’s intelligence directorate, laid out his view of the next stage in the campaign against Iran, of relations with the United States, and of the situation in Lebanon.
“I was not around for the Sinai Campaign and things like that, but once you are dealing with powers and fighting powers, you are almost not in focus," Palti said, analyzing the implications of a war managed by great powers.
“This is the Americans’ war; their army did everything, and that is how it is presented there in the US. I mean, they decide, they close the war. President Trump is fed up with this whole affair and decides he has had enough of it.”
He added that Israel had no choice but to go to war with the US, noting, “The moment you decide, as in Iraq in 1981 or as in Syria in 2007, to take off and do things on your own, then no one interferes with you because you are not asking for favors. To a large extent, this war was enormous; we needed the US both for defense and offense. We need to look ahead; what we are talking about now is water under the bridge. We need to examine whether it is right to build power and capabilities so that in the future we will not need the Americans. I am deliberately looking ahead. Yes, we do need to investigate and understand whether we did everything right in order to reach a conclusion, and one can debate and challenge it.”
“These are things we need to deal with now because I do not know how much time we have until this young new leader decides whether he continues his father’s line of not rushing to the bomb, or suddenly changes course. We do not have time, we do not have time now. We must build power and give the IDF as many capabilities as possible to reorganize itself so it will be ready for the next campaign, and it will come,” he explained.
Later, he clarified that Israel has slightly improved its position but still needs to be ready for escalation: “When it comes to Iran, one always has to be worried. Israel is not forsaken. We have been around this threat for several decades. Our situation is a little better now after the last two rounds, but as we understand, especially in recent days and after this botched agreement, Iran is with us for a long time.
“We have a huge challenge right now. I think it is a bit of an exaggeration to say our situation is worse than it was. There are two things, one with Iran and its missile program, and part of the bitterness is in light of the strategic plan right now, certainly in the world and in the Western world. If I deal with the Iranian issue alone, I think our situation is better than it was two years ago,” he added.
“There are always things we will not know about. When it comes to Iran’s ballistic missile issue and the program that was once about thousands, which led our decision-makers to strike in the current round, even on the nuclear issue, we knew how to assess the stages over the years. Overall, we had our finger on the pulse at a good and reasonable level. But is that always true? I do not know. Right now, a great deal of money needs to be invested to make sure that if there is a change in decision-making in Iran, we can know about it a minute before. Another thing is to build real strength inside the Mossad so that we can do things we did not do in the current campaign.”
Finally, he pointed to Israel’s weak spot at this stage of the campaign: “Our weak point is Lebanon. What sparked Iran’s firing at Israel was that same equation, that if we attack in the Dahieh, they attack us. We tried to break that equation in the strike the day before yesterday, and it did not work out so well for us, and they rushed to a nuclear agreement or to the thing they signed virtually. Lebanon is a problem, and it could develop in the coming days.”
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