Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
News

Ex-Mossad Chief Warns on Iran Attack

Former Mossad chief Meir Dagan said Israel should hold off on attacking Iran and that he would “prefer” that the United States execute any attack.

Dagan also said in an interview aired Sunday on the CBS news program “60 Minutes” that he feared an Israeli strike on Iran would lead to a regional war that would see at least 50,000 missiles fired on Israel from Hezbollah in the north and Hamas in the south.

“It will be a devastating impact on our ability to continue with our daily life. I think that Israel will be in a very serious situation for quite a time,” Dagan told Lesley Stahl. “And wars, you know how they start. You never know how you are ending it.”

Dagan began the interview by saying that “An attack on Iran before you are exploring all other approaches is not the right way how to do it.”

He went on to say, “No doubt that the Iranian regime is maybe not exactly rational based on what I call Western thinking, but no doubt they are considering all the implications of their actions. They will have to pay dearly and all the consequences for it.”

One sign of the Iranians’ forward thinking, Dagan said, is how they stall through diplomacy.

Dagan pointed out that a nuclear Iran is an international problem, not solely an Israeli one. Thus he believes that the United States could be the ones to attack Iran’s nuclear program.

“If I prefer that somebody will do it, I always prefer that Americans will do it,” he said.

Dagan added that an attack would not halt Iran’s nuclear program, only delay it, and asserted that there are dozens of sites throughout the country, not the four that are spoken about publicly.

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.

In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.

At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.

Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.

Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly. 

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.