Former Spy Chief Questions Israeli Leaders’ Judgment

[dkf]

JERUSALEM — The man who ran Israel’s Mossad spy agency until January contends that Israel’s top leaders lack judgment and that the anticipated pressures of international isolation as the Palestinians campaign for statehood could lead to rash decisions — like an airstrike on Iran.

The former intelligence chief, Meir Dagan, who stepped down after eight years in the post, has made several unusual public appearances and statements in recent weeks. He made headlines a few weeks ago when he asserted at a Hebrew University conference that a military attack on Iran would be “a stupid idea.”

This week Mr. Dagan, speaking at Tel Aviv University, said that attacking Iran “would mean regional war, and in that case you would have given Iran the best possible reason to continue the nuclear program.” He added, “The regional challenge that Israel would face would be impossible.”

Mr. Dagan went on to complain that Israel had failed to put forward a peace initiative with the Palestinians and that it had foolishly ignored the Saudi peace initiative promising full diplomatic relations in exchange for a return to the 1967 border lines. He worried that Israel would soon be pushed into a corner.

On Thursday he got more specific, naming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, but this time through a leaked statement to journalists. The statement had to do with his belief that his retirement and the retirement of other top security chiefs had taken away a necessary alternative voice in decision making.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/04/world/middleeast/04mossad.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

[ClarkUSA]

1. "Mr. Dagan is barred by law from elected office for three years" I hope he runs for PM afterwards.

[The Unawriter]

2. ABN

Anybody but Netanyahu. Ehud Olmert recognizes reality.

[Poll_Blind]

3. Even hawks like Dagan know the difference between strategy and idiocy.

Netanyahu is rapidly blowing through whatever handfull of political capital Israel has as a nation to further his own political ends, and those of his arch-fiend partners in Shas and Yisrael Beiteinu.

Make no mistake about it, the sun is setting on Israel's ability to continue the status quo as it has been for at least a decade, now. Netanyahu and his little group are dangerous enough and out of touch enough to initiate a military action which could bring about a great calamity. Such is their level of hubris. Outside of his own potential political aspirations, Dagan's words should be a warning that Netanyahu's strategies have been assessed and found wanting, if not dangerously unrealistic.

PB

[Scottybeamer70]

4. next thing you know, they will

be calling him anti semitic