Netanyahu Didn't Bluff About Wanting to Attack Iran, He Just Failed to Deliver on His Threats

In recent years many have claimed Netanyahu never really intended to attack Iran, but recent comments by former Defense Minister Barak reveal something even worse – he tried and failed.

Ha’aretz

At the end of 2010 I met in Washington with a senior U.S. administration official who was one of those responsible for the Iran file. The man told me about the deep and real concern in the White House over the possibility of an Israeli attack and asked whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would give the order. I cautiously told my interlocutor that there would be no Israeli assault in Iran and I called for support on a new MK who was then still relatively unknown.

“Do you know who Miri Regev is?” I asked him. After he shook his head, I told him that this was a back-bencher who was a member of Netanyahu’s party. The senior American official looked even more confused. “What does she have to do with Iran?” he asked. “She’s has nothing to do with it, but she has a lot to do with it,” I answered.

I told him how the year before, after reports were published about the intention of the Prime Minister’s Office and the Finance Ministry to impose Value Added Tax on fruit and vegetables, Regev launched a high-visibility and well-orchestrated media campaign. She made clear that the new tax would pass over her dead body and announced that she would fight Netanyahu on this tooth and nail. Less than a day later, Netanyahu announced that he was backtracking. “A person who backtracks over VAT on fruit and vegetables because of Miri Regev’s opposition, will not attack in Iran so quickly,” I said.

The version of former Defense Minister Ehud Barak about what happened in the most closed and sensitive meetings regarding the possibility of an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities from 2009 to 2012 shows that the reality was not that much different from the anecdote about the person who would meanwhile become one of the most powerful politicians in Israel.

Barak’s statements made clear that in 2011 the government of Israel was on the verge of giving the order to the Israel Defense Forces to attack in Iran but it did not happen because Netanyahu failed at the moment of truth and was unable to garner support for the move among the ministers in his own party, including those closest to him.

Nevertheless, it is important to say that the tapes with Barak’s remarks to his biographers Ilan Kfir and Dani Dor, represent his version of events. It is very convenient for Barak to represent himself as the one who prepared the IDF for an a attack that would lift from Israel an ostensibly existential threat in the form of the Iranian nuclear bomb, and that it did not happen only due to the weakness of his colleagues in the forum of eight senior ministers, Yuval Steinitz and Moshe Ya’alon, and Netanyahu’s powerlessness. It will be interesting to hear the three latter figures’ version of these events. Meanwhile, they are keeping mum, but we may not have to wait until they publish their memoirs.

In recent years the claim has come up again and again that Netanyahu never really intended to attack Iran. According to this theory, his public threats and arrogant statements, the orders to the army, the investment of resources and meetings of the “forum of eight” were all just part of a misleading exercise of “hold me back,” a bluff that was intended to pressure the world powers, especially the United States, to impose harsh sanctions on Iran so it would halt its nuclear program, or even to threaten U.S. military action.

Barak’s version does not entirely pull out the rug from under these claims, but it weakens them greatly. It supports the idea that Netanyahu was not bluffing , but truly meant every word he said. It provides additional evidence that the battle of titans that took place in the forum of eight during those years was completely authentic. Not for nothing did former ministers Benny Begin and Dan Meridor believe that their struggles in those meetings against an attack in Iran were among the most important in their political careers, if not the most important. If they did not think that Netanyahu was serious, they would not have fought so hard.

Mr. Iran

In the 20 years since first stepping into the prime minister’s office Netanyahu has branded himself as “Mr. Iran”. He has stood on every stage the world has to offer warning against an unparalleled existential threat and calling for the spinning centrifuges to be brought to a halt through military action. In the last six years, since taking office for the second time, Netanyahu has subordinated the entire national agenda to the Iranian issue, speaking to Israelis in apocalyptic terminology and investing some 15 billion shekel in preparation for military actions that never materialized.

In recent years Netanyahu has depicted U.S. President Obama as a Neville Chamberlain, spineless and afraid to take military action, and whose appeasing attitude towards the Iranians was leading the world towards disaster. In contrast, he, Netanyahu, was portrayed as a Churchill fighting the good fight alone against the new Nazis from Teheran. Barak’s account of the events proves there was no real Churchillian effort here. At the moment of truth and in the most important and crucial of issue for him, Netanyahu failed to deliver the goods.

The nuclear agreement with Iran has highlighted Netanyahu’s diplomatic failures in dealing with the Iranian nuclear program, but Ehud Barak’s statements only clarify that the failure was even greater, for Netanyahu failed at his attempts to stop the Iranians through military means. The same Netanyahu that tried to convince the world and Israel that the year is 1938 and that the second holocaust is upon us, failed to convince Yuval Steinitz to act to save the people of Israel from certain destruction.

That’s right, Yuval Steinitz – Netanyahu’s ultimate servant. The man who functions as the prime minister’s walking talking points machine. The necessary conclusions are that Netanyahu does not really want to attack Iran or worse that he can’t. In both cases it is deception in face of the image he has projected to the public and on the basis of which he was elected to lead Israel during the last three elections.