U.S. President Joe Biden reportedly told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that, given the fact the Iranian attack caused minimum damage, Israel should consider the incident a "win" and not respond militarily. Why does Israel want to retaliate?
I think the Israeli sense is that a new stage has started now that the Iranian government has attacked Israel directly, overtly, publicly from Iranian territory itself. Israelis widely agree that this is something new and not something that they can accept. ... Israelis feel that if they've been attacked like this, they should be able to respond and show the Iranians that there's a price to be paid, because right now the Iranians have not paid a price. They have attacked Israel and paid no price, so the Israelis are debating whether that's more important or keeping goodwill with the Americans, British, French, Jordanians, Emiratis, and others is more important. Not an easy question.
Would it not make more sense for Israel to take a breath and perhaps give a considered response at a later time when temperatures have cooled a bit?
Well, I think that's the sort of idea that is probably being forwarded in Israeli war council circles. Is it better to go right away, act while the temperature is still hot, or wait till a later date when things are cooler? Personally, I would be inclined to advise the Israelis to go and act now. I think the dangers today are much less than they will be in the future when the Iranians have nuclear weapons, and the Israelis should take advantage of this opportunity and strike at the Iranian nuclear infrastructure. The Israelis have talked about this for a very long time; they have done nothing. No one has done anything. I think the time is now.
What do you believe is going to happen in coming days or hours?
You're asking me to predict. Now, I am inclined to think that the Israelis will take some action. Whether it will be against the nuclear infrastructure or a cyberattack or something else I have no idea, but I do think the Israelis see this as an opportunity to send a message to the Iranians, as well as to destroy some important infrastructure on the Iranian side. I have no inside information – it's a prediction. I don't think the Israelis will let the Iranians attack them from Iran and let this go by.
How much do you think the U.S. elections are influencing President Biden's calls for restraint? Is he just appeasing his base and perhaps saying something quite different in backroom conversations?
I do think that President Biden is ambiguous and divided. On the one hand, he has a fundamental sympathy for Israel going back many decades. On the other hand, he has a left wing of the Democratic party that despises Israel and wants to damage Israel, and somehow he's trying to balance these two approaches.
The result is not very satisfactory and not very coherent. The joke in Republican circles is that Biden has a two-state strategy, and those two states are Michigan and Nevada, not Israel and Palestine – that he's more concerned about elections than he is about foreign policy. I think that's a bit too strong, but clearly he is divided between his own basic outlook and the demands of the left wing of his party.
That said, I'd like to point out that the passions against Israel concern Gaza and the West Bank, [they] concern the Palestinians. They do not concern Iran. You do not see a vociferous and large body on the left believing that Iran is justified. So, I think Biden has more freedom of action – and thus the Israelis have more freedom of action – when it comes to Iran than they do with the Palestinians. That makes me all the more inclined to think that the Israelis will go ahead and ignore the demands as they have done many times in the past, for example in Iraq when they attacked the nuclear infrastructure in 1981. And I think they're likely to do something dramatic now again.
You mentioned the nuclear facilities in Iran. As you say, Israel has been for many years saying it will destroy those facilities if a nuclear weapon becomes close to operational. How close to being operational are they at the moment?
As far as I'm aware it's just a matter of weeks. The Iranians could begin to deploy nuclear weapons quickly. And it's also not clear how good the intelligence on the Iranian nuclear program is. It could be quite wrong. It was wrong with North Korea; it could well be wrong with Iran.
