Bombing Iran is not the stupidest idea Meir Dagan has heard after all, the
former Mossad head made clear in an interview in the recent issue of Lochem
magazine, distancing himself from his statement earlier this year – which was
widely circulated to discredit a possible Israeli military action against
Tehran.
“This was a miserable quote that was said absentmindedly, not in
public, and which someone quotes all the time,” Dagan said in the magazine for
disabled IDF veterans. “Let’s set the record straight. I think the Iranian
nuclear capacity is a threat with strategic implications for Israel.
I
know the air force well enough to know that it will perform successfully any
task entrusted to it.”
While stepping away from that particular quote,
Dagan did not however move away from the substance of his opposition to military
action.
“I do see a nuclear Iran as a problem,” he said. “If I believed
that a military attack would solve the problem, believe me, I would be in
favor.
If I thought that an attack would stop the nuclear program, I
would be in favor. But what can you do, an attack cannot stop the nuclear
program – it can only delay it for a period of time.”
Dagan, repeating
what he has been saying for months about the military option, said it was
necessary for Israel to always consider what would happen the day after an
attack, and that this was a discussion that should take place before – not after
– military action. He added that he thought the cost of such an assault would be
greater than the benefit.
He dismissed, however, the notion that Prime
Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was using the Iranian threat to divert the public’s
attention from issues such as the social protests and the African migrants. “I
do not agree with the defense minister and prime minister [on Iran], but I do
not think they are that cynical,” Dagan said. “I believe that when the prime
minister raises the Iranian issue he is substantively very concerned about
Israel’s security, and I do not link that with any other event.”
