Israel’s Iran Timetable in State of Constant Flux
For 15 years the Military Intelligence has been changing its assessment on when Iran’s nuclear program becomes operational. The deadline has been constantly pushed back, from the late 1990s, to the beginning then the middle of this decade, and finally 2009-2010. That changed this week.
On Tuesday, Mossad chief Meir Dagan suddenly came along and dismissed the assessment of the agency officially in charge of intelligence strategy. In saying that the deadline for an Iranian bomb is 2014, Dagan aligned himself with the CIA, that has repeatedly determined that Iran will reach the point of no return in 2015.
These frequent fluctuations damage the reputation of Israel’s intelligence agencies. They, in turn, can always say in their defense the assessments are changed in light of the new information that becomes available, but these inconsistencies nonetheless confuse the public.
If the date of the completion of Iran’s nuclear program is not that critical, there was no reason to spend so much time on it in the first place.
And if Iran will only be able to enrich uranium in 2014, it will be after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had left office, provided that the recent turmoil in the country does not scupper his re-election.
On top of the blow to his prestige delivered by the current protests, Iran’s spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s physical condition is shaky. By 2014, there may well be a new president and a new spiritual leader. In short — everything is open.
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
