I
don't pretend to know one way or the other, but the fact that conditions
for an Israeli strike against Iran were more favorable a few years ago
than they are today is a relatively persuasive argument that the window of
opportunity, if it ever existed, may have passed.
In a
recent piece,
The Weekly Standard's Reuel Marc Gerecht makes this point, among many
others. But the gist of Gerecht's piece is that if the leadership of the
Israeli Air Force (IAF) believes that military success is probable, then
the widely bruited, supposedly disastrous consequences of such a strike,
(e.g. Iranian counter moves in the Persian Gulf and against American and
Israeli interests, strengthening of the Iranian regime, weakening of
opposition movements, etc.) are much overrated.
Gerecht
makes a compelling case for an Israeli strike, if
the IAF leadership thinks it is feasible. Where I think he may err
-- and many other pundits as well -- is in guessing that if the IAF
proposes a plan, that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
would be particularly inclined accept an optimistic IAF evaluation and
launch a strike.
Of
course, nobody knows the exact conditions for a successful IAF strike,
although if you want a hypothetical plane-by-plane and target-by-target
operational plan the Center for Strategic and International Studies
produced one
for general consumption. The real question is at what point Israel's
political leadership pushes past the uncertainty. Here the threshold
is likely much higher than Gerecht and other like-minded pundits imagine.
It's
true historically that Israel's leadership has put great faith in the IAF,
and that this confidence has generally been well rewarded. The IAF
is the world's only air force to have taken out enemy nuclear
installations, and it is a perfect two-for-two in that regard (against
Iraq and Syria.) Likewise, the IAF had spectacular successes in the
1967 War and the 1982 Lebanon War. On the other hand, over-reliance
in the ability of Israel's airman to solve its military problems led to
setbacks in the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the 2006 Lebanon War.
Gerecht
not only places great store on what the IAF might tell Netanyahu but on
the fact that Netanyahu is an ardent Zionist and Israeli patriot.
And for that matter, there is little reason to doubt the bona
fides of Defense Minister Ehud Barak, or any other element of
Israel's mainstream leadership when it comes to a genuine desire to
protect the nation. The radical anti-Zionist Israeli left has yet to
come to power, and hopefully never will.
Gerecht
also particularly cites the Netanyahu's family background, noting that his
father was a famous scholar of oppressed Spanish Jewry, and his brother,
the only commando to die at Entebbe. Here is an implication that
Netanyahu might be willing gamble on the IAF if he truly believes Iran is
near to producing a nuclear weapon.
But
the brother who is likely to have the most influence on Netanyahu is not
his fallen older brother Jonathan, but rather his younger brother Iddo,
who has over the past decades devoted much time and effort to detailing
the circumstances
of Jonathan Netanyahu's death at Entebbe, the results of which are
sobering. For the truth is, the military situation vis a vis Iran is in
many ways more similar to Entebbe, than it is to the surgical anti-nuclear
strikes carried out by the IAF against Iraq and Syria. And the
reasons for this are the issues of complexity and surprise.
An
Israeli attack on Iran would be an enormously complex undertaking, so much
so, that the actual point the attack, dropping bombs on Iran's nuclear
facilities, is but one facet of a gigantic political, diplomatic,
logistic, technical, and operational problem. It is similar to
the situation faced at Entebbe, when the problem of getting a rescue force
from Israel into the heart of Africa to a large extent subsumed the actual
goal of the raid -- rescuing the hostages.
The
truth about Entebbe, divorced from superficial accounts of daring, heroism
and Hollywood fantasy, is that the raid, which can legitimately be
considered the boldest and most successful hostage rescue in history, came
very close to becoming a tragic failure. There is insufficient space
here for a full detailed account
of the matter, but the actual rescue of the hostages was arguably the
weakest part of the plan, and the portion of the operation that came
closest to failure.
In
summary, Entebbe occurred in 1976, when Western armies were still
adjusting to the problem of suicidal hostage takers, and sophisticated
hostage rescue techniques were in their infancy. Many devices rescue
forces take for granted today, such as flash bang grenades or night vision
devices, were unavailable. Success, even for the best troops, was a
hit and miss affair. Two years before Entebbe, at a high school in
the northern Israeli town of Ma'alot, a botched IDF rescue attempt
resulted in scores of deaths and injuries.
The
Entebbe rescue plan sought to avoid another Ma'alot through the element of
surprise. It called for a thirty man sayeret
matkal team (led by Lieutenant Colonel Netanyahu) to immediately
drive off the first aircraft to land at Entebbe in a black Mercedes and a
pair of Land Rovers meant to imitate Ugandan President Idi Amin's
motorcade. The commandos themselves were crudely disguised in Ugandan
style uniforms and blackface, and carried AK-47s like the Ugandan army.
The vehicles were to drive up to the doors of the terminal where the
hostages were held, whereupon the commandos were to leap out, rush the
building and rescue the hostages before the terrorists knew what was
happening.
But
this was just one element of a much more complex plan, that also required
three other transport aircraft to reach Entebbe via a long dangerous
flight route, land unobserved and unmolested, seize the airport, destroy
Ugandan fighter planes, ambush Ugandan reinforcements, guard the rescue
aircraft, treat and evacuate casualties and rescued hostages, refuel the
aircraft and withdraw, all of which required 120 or so additional troops
plus vehicles. There were of course, also multiple additional
political, diplomatic, command/control and logistic considerations.
In the
event, Colonel Netanyahu's rescue convoy was intercepted by a pair of
Ugandan soldiers several hundred meters from the terminal. The
Israelis tried to kill both with small caliber silenced pistols, but one
soldier survived the assault and fled. Commandos gunned him down
with un-silenced machine guns. Ugandan soldiers then opened fire on
the convoy as it moved out again. Netanyahu, fearing that the rescue team
would be annihilated in its thin skinned vehicles, ordered the commandos
to abandon them and run to the terminal, still at least fifty meters away.
Some
commandos fired back as they ran, emptying their ammo magazines. They
arrived at the terminal disordered and sheltered in the lee of the
building, the plan a shambles. To add to the confusion, the terminal
building did not match the mock-up upon which they'd trained. The
assault came to a stop. Netanyahu then stepped out into the open to
urge on the attack and was mortally wounded. At this point the
rescue at Entebbe would seem to have failed.
What
saved it was the still overwhelming effect of surprise, and a bit of
individual courage and initiative. Inside the terminal the German
and Palestinian terrorists had been alarmed by the shooting and shouting
outside, but were so certain that they were safe from an Israeli
rescue attempt that they attributed the commotion to in-fighting among the
Ugandans, whom they held in low regard anyway. This over-confidence
had been deliberately fostered by the Israeli government, which prior to
the raid had essentially admitted surrender, and agreed (at that time
contrary to Israeli practice) to negotiate with the terrorists.
As the
terrorists stood by, a few individual commandos acted on their own
initiative and stormed the building. They killed the terrorists and
rescued the hostages.
Netanyahu
and Barak are former commandos themselves, and when briefed by IAF
commanders they will know the story of Entebbe, and countless other
operations, many from personal involvement. They will understand
that anything in a complex plan that can go wrong likely will. And
they will also know that the one thing that saved the day at Entebbe, the
element of strategic surprise, will be absent in an assault on Iran.
The only surprise the Israelis can hope for in a strike against Iran is
the precise date and time, and considering the complexities of getting
scores of aircraft through hostile airspace before even reaching Iranian
skies, they might not even have that.
If the
Israelis were serious about attacking Iran, the best thing they could do
now is stop talking about it. Indeed, ideally, the Israelis would
appear accept the position that seems to be that of the United States
under President Obama -- that a nuclear Iran is inevitable and manageable.
Then maybe they could lull the Iranian leadership and military into
complacency and hope to regain a bit of strategic surprise. But
right now, with every eye trained on Israeli skies and the world
expectantly awaiting an Israeli assault, the chances of Israeli success
must be dramatically reduced, a fact not lost on Netanyahu and Barak.
I
don't pretend to know what Israel will do, and nobody would be happier to
see a successful Israeli strike on Iran than me, but logic suggests that
if the Israelis haven't done it yet, they probably never will. And
Benjamin Netanyahu is no more likely to launch an attack than his
predecessors, for the same set of complex reasons that they were
restrained.