Iran disinformation can boomerang
Defense establishment playing with fire by leaking Iran ‘attack plans’
There are two explanations for the sensationalist (and denied) news item written by London Sunday Times Israel correspondent Uzi Mahnaimi about Israeli military action against Iran supposedly planned for the end of March.
One is that the story was a journalistic fabrication (this is unthinkable. Mahnaimi is a serious journalist working for a serious newspaper.)
The other option is that some senior official in the Israeli defense establishment has an interest in making the world think Israel is making plans for an air attack against Iran sometime soon.
Why someone senior? Because any other journalist in Israel who tried to publish so secret a report about so crucial an operation would be shot down by the censor immediately. Alternatively, tough steps would be taken if the journalist refused to submit his stories for approval.
On the other hand, mysteriously, for years the Sunday Times and correspondent Mahnaimi have enjoyed complete immunity, despite the stories they have published, including the one about Cheryl Bentov – the very same "Cindy" of Mordechai Vanunu fame – from the holy of holies of the Israeli intelligence establishment.
Iran and Israeli elections
The incredible inflation of statements concerning Iran can be attributed to the coming Israeli elections. This is not the first time Iran has played a part in Israeli elections: In 1996, for example, Shimon Peres claimed to have "verifiable information" (denied by the intelligence community) that the wave of terror attacks that lead to the election of Benjamin Netanyahu were the product of an Iranian initiative to bring down the Labor government.
But the leaks to the Sunday Times can also be explained by the desire of senior officials in the Israeli security establishment to prompt the West to act: If you don’t do something to stop Iran's nuclear project, we will take the initiative.
Boomerang effect
In intelligence slang, this is called I.W. (intelligence war) or P.W. (psychological warfare): The use of secret means to frustrate, confuse and disseminate disinformation amongst an enemy population to serve the goals of the side initiating the psychological warfare.
The Field Security Unit for Information Warfare, a subset of the Directorate of Military Intelligence, was dismantled five years ago because intelligence heads were dissatisfied with its performance. But it has made a comeback of late.
The folks responsible would do well to learn some vital lessons before reinitiating this type of weapon. They would be wise to consider the degree to which this type of weapon is given to spinning out of control, and the reasons why the unit was shut down in the first place: The problem with information warfare in a global village and the age of the Internet is that the impact of such tactics cannot be limited to the intended audience. Intelligence weapons intended to influence enemy countries come back like a boomerang to residents of your own country.
Thus, at the end of the day, the disinformation gores the wrong people – Israelis, who read the Sunday Times report in Hebrew, in banner headlines in the local press.
Those dealing with the Iranian threat would do much better to go back to dealing with the main threat – intelligence gathering and neutralizing the problem – rather than busying themselves with areas they don't understand, like spins and mass media.
