The brief // by Ben FrankelSkeptical Israeli, weakening Assad, predictable UN
Meir Dagan, who retired in December as head of Israel’s Mossad, is not a sandals-and-beads-wearing lefty; yet, he has emerged as the most persistent critic of the current Israeli leadership’s approach to possible military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities; he says that Israel may be able to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities, but Israel will not be able to prevent a massive and sustained Iranian retaliation: Israel’s population and economic centers will be showered by thousands of missiles and rockets from Iran and its two local agents, Hezbollah and Hamas; if necessary, Dagan says, Israel will have to absorb this punishment — and it will be able, painfully, to do so; the emphasis, though, is on “if necessary”; more and more observers have concluded that Assad’s day in power are numbered; Assad is in a no-win situation: if he makes more concessions to the anti-government demonstrators, he will appear weak and alienate the hard-liners in his circle; if he continues to kill dozens of Syrian civilians a week, his already-eroded legitimacy as the ruler of Syria will weakened even more; thirty-four civilians were killed today by live rounds in the city of Hama; in September, the UN will hold a 10-year commemoration of what is known as Durban I — the World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) in Durban, South Africa; the Obama administration has decided not to participate in the September event because, Joseph E. Macmanus, acting U.S. assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs, said, the Durban process “included ugly displays of intolerance and anti-Semitism”; the United States withdrew from Durban I ten years ago after Colin Powell, the U.S. secretary of state, harshly criticized the “hateful language” dominating the conference and the documents it produced, language that “singles out only one country in the world, Israel, for censure and abuse”
As has been the case these past couple of months, the Middle East provided the eye-catching headlines of the week. Here are three comments.
1. A new opposition voice in Israel
Meir Dagan, who retired in December 2000 from his post as head of the Israeli Mossad after eight years, is not a sandals-and-beads-wearing lefty (although he is a vegetarian and an amateur painter, who studied painting and sculpture at the Tel Aviv University). He doubts that peace with the Syrians is currently possible, and he does not believe that a permanent peace agreement with the Palestinians can be achieved any time soon.
He is a believer in aggressive covert operations as the best means to secure Israel. One of the reasons he was appointed to head Mossad was that under his more bookish predecessor, Efraim Halevy, Mossad appeared to emphasize research and analysis over covert action in the field.
Dagan delivered – on two fronts. Moassad resumed its aggressive covert operations near and far, and cooperation with the intelligence services of other countries increased considerably.
Here is one example: One of the most brilliant operations of Mossad under Dagan was the killing of Imad Fayez Mughniyah in Damascus on 12 February 2008. Mughniyah, one of the founders of Hezbollah and its operations officer for a long time, was an arch-terrorist who planned attacks that killed many Israelis and Jews. A couple of his bloodier attacks took place in Buenos Aires in the early 1990s: With the logistical and intelligence help of Iran’s intelligence services, and using the Iranian embassy in the city as a base, Hezbollah operatives bombed the Israeli embassy and a Jewish community center, killing hundreds.
In addition for being responsible for the death of many Israelis and Jews, Mughniyah had killed more U.S. citizens than any other militant before the 9/11 attacks. The FBI put him on the agency’s Most Wanted list, and the United States offered a $5 million reward for catching him.
One of the difficulties for the intelligence services looking for him was the fact that there were no current photos of him. The only picture available was a grainy photo from the mid-1980s.
Mughniyah was killed by a bomb planted in the upholstery of his car’s driver seat. When he entered the car and sat down, he activated a bomb so powerful that his body parts had to be picked up down the street and from the balconies and front yards of neighboring buildings.
This was a typical Dagan operation: to be able to track down and identify an individual whose last picture was from more than twenty years ago, and then place a bomb inside his well-guarded car, and do all this at the heart of Damascus, where the number of policemen and secret service personnel roaming the streets rivals the number of residents – now this is operational brilliance.
