Israel's Secret War
By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN
Published on
DickMorris.com on December 13, 2010
The big question in the Middle East these days is: Who has time on their
side?
As Iran races to develop its nuclear bomb-making capacity, we have
always assumed that time was on the Ayatollah's side. The Iranian
strategy of delay and obfuscation in its negotiations with the West
seems to have succeeded in buying Teheran the time it needs for its
spinning Centrifuges to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a
bomb. The possibility that Iran may acquire advanced anti-aircraft
systems from Russia - even though the Kremlin denies it - seems to make
the military option of an air strike on Iranian nuclear plants harder
and harder for Israel.
But on the West Bank and Gaza, time has always seemed to be on Israel's
side. Time to build settlements, time to expand those
already there, and - most important - time to wait out Obama's
four year term in office all work for Netanyahu.
Then the worm turned! The Stuxnet worm, a Windows-specific
computer worm that spies on and reprograms industrial systems.
Iran has acknowledged that its nuclear program - the target of
the worm - has been damaged significantly. In fact, some
speculate that the worm may take a year for Iran to work
through. But, since this is the most important use of
cyber warfare thus far in history, nobody can really know its
full impact.
When one considers the worm in the context of a cruder form of
secret war - the targeted assassination of three Iranian nuclear
scientists in recent weeks, the agents of the Mossad may have
been very busy! And effective! Who knows? |
And the United States has finally
gotten focused on real sanctions against Iran. Doing what Bush
should have done but didn't, Obama and Hillary (yes - words of praise)
have gotten the international community to sanction Iran where it hurts
by undermining their capacity to produce oil, reducing their access to
gasoline, and curtailing their ability to borrow money.
When we worked for Netanyahu as he approached his election as prime
minister last year, we were both deeply impressed by his understanding
of the danger an Iranian nuclear weapon would pose to Israel. "It
is 1938," were his prophetic first words when we met in a Manhattan
hotel to begin our work. 1938. The war, the holocaust, the
slaughter of the Jews seemed to be approaching.
That's why Bibi's seeming willingness to play the clock has been
puzzling. By waltzing Hillary and Obama around the dance floor of
Middle East negotiations, an on-again, off-again settlement building
policy, and making noises about peace without actually giving anything
up, he appears to be playing for time. And, given Obama's and
Hillary's inexperience and incompetence in first demanding a settlement
freeze and then deciding it had been a mistake to do so, Netanyahu
is dancing rings around the pair.
But wasn't time on Iran's side? Maybe not.
Perhaps what Bibi is doing - we have had no contact with him since his
election - is influenced by the progress he sees in undermining Iran's
nuclear program on the one hand and in keeping Obama to a single term on
the other.
Netanyahu watches American politics very, very closely. He
probably understands that Obama is inimical to Israel's interests and
likely fully grasps his pro-Arab tendencies. But he also realizes
the magnitude of the defeat inflicted upon the president in the midterm
elections and sees the probability of his replacement by a staunch
Republican friend of Israel in the offing.
So between the worm and the Tea Party, he may figure that time is on his
side, after all.
And it may be!
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***COPYRIGHT EILEEN MCGANN AND DICK MORRIS 2010. ***
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