Mossad and Israeli Army refused to prepare plan of attack against Iran

Everyone knows Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, and his defense minister, Ehud Barak, can’t wait to bomb Iran. Everyone is also aware of their failure to convince their military and intelligence regarding the inevitability of an Iranian led attack on Israel.

It is also clear that the government headed by Barack Obama is not fond of carrying out an attack on Iran — at least not right now — despite the warrior spirit shown by Netanyahu, which has become clearer during the past two or three months. Had George Bush or Mitt Romney been presidents for the last four years, the attack on Iran would have had a better chance of happening than it did during Obama’s time in office.

What we did not know and is that both Mossad and the Israeli army clearly refused to prepare a plan to attack Iran. The plan was supposedly requested by Netanyahu, according to channel 2 from Israeli television.  The current prime minister asked for the crafting of concrete plans and even ordered the country to prepare for an imminent attack in 2010. The Army and Mossad, contrary to what Netanyahu had in mind, refused to create or run such plans.

Gabi Ashkenazi, chief of staff then, and Meir Dagan, the head of Mossad at the time, stood up to the political leaders and made it clear that an attack on Iran would be tantamount to a declaration of war, which they considered a strategic error of first order.

Uvda (Done) was the program from channel 2 that made the revelations aired Monday night in Israel, as advertised by the local press. The report talks about a meeting that took place in 2010 and that was attended by the seven chief ministers of the executive.

Right after the meeting and just as Ashkenazi and Dagan were about to walk out the door, Netanyahu ordered them to raise the level of alert called “P Plus”, the code used for the preparations for an imminent military strike.

Given the uncertainty of the Prime Minister, Ashkenazi and Dagan refused, reported theYedioth Ahronoth newspaper. “You may be taking an illegal decision to go to war,” said Dagan to Netanyahu.

The Mossad chief was referring to the political implications of that alleged declaration of war. The fact that Netanyahu ordered the Army and the Mossad to prepare the country for an attack means that the prime minister tried to force his cabinet ministers to approve such decision, and gave himself the power to decide to go to war without consulting anyone.

Uvda confirmed this version of events with minister Ehud Barak himself. Defense Minister Barak apparently distanced himself from Netanyahu weeks after the meeting due to his intention to attack Iran, which Netanyahu said was necessary to stop the country from producing a nuclear weapon.

While Tehran maintains that its nuclear facilities are solely used to produce energy, the West distrusts Iranian plans and the Israeli Prime Minister considers it even an existential threat to his country.

In his recent speech to the UN General Assembly on late September, Netanyahu hinted that an attack on Iran could wait until spring or even next summer.

From that moment, as calculated by the Prime Minister, Iran’s nuclear program would reach a point of no return in which the regime in Tehran could produce an atomic bomb within weeks. Washington has been reluctant so far to participate in military adventures such as the alleged plans requested by Netanyahu.