Iran's hard-line turn: Yet another unpleasant surprise
צילום: רויטרס
Averting national disaster
Sharon’s pullout may divert attention from existential threat
The senior U.S. congressman looked at me over his glasses. I was concerned my command of English wasn’t good enough, so I reformulated the question: What do you think America would do, should Israel ultimately fail to implement the disengagement plan?
“I understood the question the first time,” he reassured me. “Why do you think the administration would do anything?”
Because in Israel the prime minister makes sure to clarify, through his people, that Israel has no choice but to execute the plan, because we promised you, I responded.
“And if you don’t succeed?” he asked. “If the resistance is powerful, what will you do? Shoot the objectors?”
But what would Sharon say in Washington? I asked.
The congressman shrugged. “Let him say he tried but the people resisted. It’s like that all over the world. Look at what happened in Europe when Chirac wanted a European constitution and the people said ‘No.’”
Before we parted, the congressman, who wants to see American troops in Iraq reinforced, remarked that one must not bow down to terror.
“Withdrawing in the face of terrorism in Iraq would lead to many victims for you, too,” he said.
NSA mistakes?
The next day, I was wondering if the CIA was able to brief him ahead of time about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s expected victory in Iran’s presidential elections or whether he, too, like Israeli authorities, was surprised.
In Israel we have authorized intelligence agencies. Those include Military Intelligence, Mossad, and also the National Security Agency. About a year ago, after failing to consult any of those bodies regarding his disengagement plan, Sharon decided to task the NSA, headed by Major-General (Res.) Giora Eiland, with planning and coordinating the pullout.
Eiland drafted an impressive plan, premised on the following basic assumption: The overwhelming majority of settlers would accept compensation and leave quietly.
The NSA chief had all the intelligence he needed on the settlers; nothing was secret, everything was publicly declared. Still, the NSA failed to prepare an alternate plan, perhaps due to the assumption that if Sharon says “I’m determined” 1,000 times, the entire nation would follow with “Amen.”
If the NSA makes such huge mistakes when it comes to Jews, what does it know about Iran? If they couldn’t predict who would win in open elections, what do they know about Iran’s surreptitious nuclear facilities?
Perhaps the disengagement is the top priority when it comes to national security, even at the expense of dealing with existential threats? And if the NSA can be turned into the executor of a political plan, perhaps the agency is unnecessary?
And the prime minister, who tasked the NSA with this mission, perhaps he’s neglecting existential threats?
A thin line separates determination and obsession, and Sharon has crossed it. As a leader obsessed by one thing, he ignores the people’s objections, Islamic Jihad terrorism, and the Iranian bomb.
He says we have no choice.
Yet the choice is in our hands. We must not allow Sharon’s personal distress to turn into a national disaster.
