Special to WorldTribune.com

JERUSALEM — Israel’s intelligence community has lost confidence in
the government’s policy toward Iran.

Most of the senior members of Israel’s intelligence community were said
to have lost their trust in the government, particularly Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak. They said the two men
were preparing Israel for what they termed a disastrous war with Iran.

“I don’t have faith in the current leadership of Israel to lead us to an
event of this magnitude, of war with Iran,” Yuval Diskin, former director of the Israel Security Agency, said. “I would not want them at the helm in the event of war.”

Diskin, in an address on April 27, became the second former Israeli
intelligence chief to warn the government against its purported plans to attack Teheran. Over the last year, former Mossad director Meir Dagan repeatedly called on Netanyahu and Barak to halt their campaign for a military operation to destroy Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.

“The accusation that Netanyahu and Barak are tainted with messianism in their attitude toward the Iran issue is whispered every so often by senior officials in the security services,” Amos Harel, defense correspondent for
Israel’s Haaretz, daily, wrote. “So is the claim that the two cannot be
trusted to decide on such a sensitive issue.”

This marked the first direct criticism by Diskin of the Israeli
political leadership. As ISA director, Diskin, who spoke from notes, was
said to have stayed away from political intrigue.

“I do not believe in a leadership that makes decisions based on
messianic feelings,” Diskin said. “I have seen them [Barak, Netanyahu] up
close. They are not messiahs, these two, and they are not the people that I
personally trust to lead Israel into such an event.”

Both Barak and Netanyahu responded to Diskin’s remarks. Both ministers
called Diskin “irresponsible” and suggested that he was on a personal
vendetta. On April 29, Dagan expressed agreement with Diskin’s criticism of
the government.

“This whole discussion on the Iranian issue should be conducted
differently,” Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom said. “I have great
appreciation for Diskin. He was an excellent ISA chief. But with all due
respect, the opinions of the Mossad and the military chief of staff carry
much greater weight.”

But political and security sources said Dagan and Diskin were reflecting
the assessment by the intelligence community that the current government was
not capable of sustaining a war with Iran. The assessment raised a scenario
that Netanyahu and Barak would collapse amid international pressure and halt
any attack on Iran within 24 hours.

The sources said Dagan, Diskin and then-Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Gabi
Ashkenazi foiled a plan by Barak and Netanyahu to stage an unspecified
operation against Iran in 2010. They said the intelligence and military
chiefs were bolstered in their opposition by Strategic Threats Minister
Moshe Ya’alon, a former chief of staff.

“Everybody, including Bibi [Netanyahu] and Barak, knows we don’t have
the military capabilities to sustain an attack on Iran,” an intelligence
source said.

“So, the hope is that the United States will enter the war,
whether by hook or crook. But if they don’t we could end up with a massive
war with a nuclear Iran, Syria, Hizbullah and Hamas without U.S. help.”

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