We could lose the next war
By Ari Shavit Haaretz (Magazine section) 21 April 2006
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/707577.html

Following a briefing of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee
by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the committee chairman, MK Yuval Steinitz
(Likud) said that he and the prime minister were in complete agreement on
the subject in question. Sharon did not pass up the opportunity; he turned
toward the chairman and gave him one of his scalpel looks. MK Steinitz, he
said, you have no idea how relieved I am to hear that you agree with me. All
the MKs present, without exception, burst into laughter.

Ever since he entered politics, Steinitz, who holds a doctorate in
philosophy, has encountered belittlement. Communicating with him is not
easy. He speaks at length and is full of himself and is constantly talking
about the injustice that is being done to him. His political egocentricity
is uncontrollable and his media hunger is insatiable. Many of his colleagues
perceive him as a person who was and remains a gifted child: gifted but
childish; intelligent but immature. A person who finds it difficult to
understand the space in which he lives and his place in that space.

Nevertheless, as chairman of the Knesset's most sensitive committee,
Steinitz had a field day. His philosophy of parliamentary activism made the
committee industrious and energetic. He forced the defense and security
establishments to bow, to some degree, to the superiority of the Knesset.
While the Mossad espionage agency managed to sweet-talk him, making him
privy to derring-do secrets and transforming him into an ally, the Israel
Defense Forces (IDF) and the Shin Bet security service found him to be an
unprecedentedly fierce critic. Under the leadership of a hyperactive
parliamentarian, the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee ceased to be the
rubber stamp of the General Staff. For the first time in years, the
committee posited an intellectual and institutional challenge to the
military.

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Yuval Steinitz has two red rags: the Egyptian army and the Israel Air Force.
His fierce allegations about the dangers latent in the former and the
weaknesses inherent in the latter generated bitter arguments in the
national-security community. Some maintained that his views were baseless,
others said they were well-grounded. The fact that Steinitz is an
inexperienced outsider with no officer's insignia (a reservist sergeant in
the Golani infantry brigade) is viewed by some as a weakness and by others
as an advantage. Some thought that his lack of military background makes his
thesis ridiculous, but others thought that his different, civilian way of
thought breaks conventions and shatters dogmas.

In the living room of his home in the Jerusalem suburb of Mevasseret Tzion
this week, Steinitz sounded reflective and well-reasoned. With his wife,
Judge Gila Steinitz Canfi, away and his three children napping on the Pesach
school break, the security-oriented philosopher, wearing an orange jersey,
relaxes in an armchair and presents a coherent, disturbing and well-grounded
worldview. However, at the end of a very long day in the company of the
person who is concluding his tenure as chairman of the Foreign Affairs and
Defense Committee, the questions remain open: Are the Steinitz scenarios
solid or imaginary? Are the Steinitz warnings hallucinatory or prophetic?
One way or the other, the parallel conceptual world of Steinitz is worth our
attention. It generates new thinking.

Yuval Steinitz, you came from the world of philosophy and from politics, and
for three years you were the civilian who monitors Israel's defense and
security systems. What did you learn?

"I learned that we have a very high quality defense establishment. It has
extraordinarily high quality and intelligent people in it. The various
systems possess dedication, professionalism and internal review. There are
frequent exceptional achievements, sometimes even achievements that leave
one dumbfounded. But at the same time, the defense establishment is arrogant
and overweening. It does not subject its conceptions and its basic
assumptions to in-depth examinations. It operates in large measure by
inertia. As a result, the defense establishment is moving in incorrect and
even dangerous directions. Just as in the period before the Yom Kippur War,
the defense establishment is liable to lead us into a situation that
endangers the existence of the state and the nation."

That is a far-reaching statement. Can you illustrate?

"I'll illustrate from the intelligence sphere. Before the Iraq War there was
much pride, bordering on boasting, in the Israeli intelligence services
concerning all sorts of achievements in connection with Saddam Hussein's
Iraq. There was great amazement at the ability to know in real time what was
happening at various points in Iraq. Details that were considered vital were
conveyed to other intelligence services. But when the war ended it turned
out that we did not have true intelligence about Iraq. All the technological
and human achievements in which the defense personnel took pride led to very
partial and very poor intelligence. We didn't know the central things. We
did not have penetration of the circle close to Saddam Hussein. We did not
know if he had ballistic missiles that could endanger Israel. We did not
know if he had operative chemical weapons. We entered the war with
assessments that proved to be utterly unfounded. So, overall, even though
there really were very fine point-specific achievements in Iraq, there was a
colossal intelligence failure.

"Even more serious was the intelligence failure in Libya. Muammar Gadhafi
was very close to a nuclear bomb and we didn't know. We knew that something
was going on there. We knew there was some sort of preliminary research. But
when the full picture was revealed by the Americans and the British, it
turned out that Israel lacked elementary information on a subject of
critical importance. The intelligence failure in Libya was almost
existential in character. It is a far graver failure than the failure of the
Yom Kippur War."

No one to shake the system

What you are saying is that we are technologically excellent but
conceptually backward?

"What I am saying is that with all the admiration for the technological
achievements of the Israel Defense Forces and Military Intelligence and Unit
8200 and the Mossad espionage agency - in the final analysis we did not have
an intelligence picture. And if you don't know, you don't know. Something is
awry here. And what is awry is that there is no civilian leadership and no
civilian supervision of the security world. There's no one to shake up the
system and ask basic questions and no one to hold up a scorecard to its
achievements. In Israel, the army leads itself. The army leads the
government, and not vice versa. The army manages the Defense Ministry and
the government and the Knesset. I consider this a dangerous state of
affairs. Regrettably, the media also cooperates, by being closely attached
and going along with those in uniform. The result is the militarization of
the discourse on questions of national security. The media cooperates with a
process that causes the defense establishment to insulate itself within its
conventions and its self-confidence and its arrogance."

What you are saying is that the IDF's political power is endangering
Israel's security.

"Yes. The IDF is a good army: trained, high quality and possessing a human
and technological advantage against any adversary. But it has two flaws. One
is that the level of the senior officer corps - from the rank of colonel and
up - is lower than it was in the '50s, '60s and '70s. The second is that the
IDF is making a gross and dramatic mistake in its conception of security and
force building. That mistake is liable to result in a surprise such as
occurred in 1973. I don't see in the IDF readiness to examine itself
historically and challenge its military doctrine. The chief of staff, Dan
Halutz, is talented, but I do not see in him readiness to ask basic
questions and examine basic assumptions.

"Take, for example, the war on terrorism as it is pursued by us and by the
Americans. At the techno-tactical level, it's hats off to the IDF and the
Shin Bet security service. They have arrived at intelligence and tactical
achievements against Hamas, which far exceed the Americans' achievements
against Al-Qaida. Our intelligence is almost total, our preventive
capability is astounding, and the environmental damage we wreak is far less
than that wrought by the Americans. But in the end, after five years,
Al-Qaida is in great retreat, whereas Hamas is on the rise. Today it is
clear: we are losing in the war against Palestinian terrorism. Today no one
will say that we are 'searing the Palestinians' consciousness.' No one will
say we have won. Despite the impressive techno-tactical achievements, we
lost the war against Hamas."

Okay, but the war against Hamas is not existential. Do you see a possibility
that the IDF will lose also in a real war, a full-scale war against Arab
armies?

"If Israel does not change its security policy from the foundations up, it
is liable to lose the next war."

What you are saying is outside any reasonable context. It contradicts the
whole discourse on army and security affairs. The accepted assumption is
that the era of conventional wars has passed and also that Israel is wildly
powerful militarily.

"I don't understand the argument that says there will be no more large-scale
conventional wars. Just three years ago we went through the Iraq war, which
in its first stage was not a war on terror and not a nuclear war but a war
of planes and helicopters and tanks and artillery and antiaircraft
batteries. I do not accept the argument that Israel is wildly strong. In my
capacity as chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, I
was exposed to Israel's deepest secrets. I was exposed to information that
most cabinet ministers and IDF generals are not exposed to. I peeked into
the abysses of national security, and I can tell you that in relation to the
size of a country of seven million people our strength is indeed
astonishing. But in relation to the threats that surround us, that strength
is reasonable, and sometimes even low."

Still, the basic assumption of all of us is that an Israeli defeat is
impossible.

"Israel is a very strong country. But its strength does not guarantee it
either peace or security. Its strength does not guarantee it victory in
every campaign and every battle. That is because Israel is an anomaly ...
Israel is Gulliver in a lilliputian body."

I don't follow your meaning.

"In a war that breaks out under optimal conditions, Israel is capable of
extracting from itself the offensive strength of a middle-level power. Our
air force, for example, is not only superior to all our neighbors but in
certain senses is also superior to the British or American air forces. But
Israel's strength is compressed into a very small area. Israel's dimensions
are tiny and its borders are impossible. And size does make a difference. In
questions of modern national security, size counts. In the era of precision
weapons the importance of territory does not decrease but increase. And
Israel has almost no territory. Israel has no strategic depth. That is an
Achilles heel that is liable to put its very existence at risk."

You yourself say that our air force is very potent, that our aerial and
technological superiority is overwhelming. Can't they compensate for the
territorial puniness?

"In the Second World War it was possible to operate an airfield 10
kilometers from the front. In the Yom Kippur War it was possible to operate
an airfield 30 kilometers from the front. Today you need a distance of 50
kilometers to operate an airfield. Israel does not have any airfield like
that. All our airfields and our air control units and the power stations and
the sensitive strategic sites are within a few dozen kilometers of the
border. As such, they are vulnerable to surface-to-surface missiles and to
long-range rockets, which are liable to knock them out of action and
paralyze the Israel Air Force. The concern is about a scenario that is the
opposite of the Six-Day War. There could be an attack on all our airfields
that would be similar in its effectiveness to the attack that resulted in
the destruction of the Arab air forces on June 5 and 6, 1967. The result
will be the Six-Day War in reverse. Accordingly, I see danger of a
conventional victory against Israel. If we do not change our security
concept and our force-building principles, we are liable to lose in a war."

Is your prophecy of wrath shared by others in the defense establishment?

"What I am saying is the development of a warning sounded by Major General
Israel Tal in 1996. Talik wrote at the time that the strategic pillar of
Israel's security is the Air Force and that in the wake of the deployment of
hundreds and perhaps thousands of surface-to-surface missiles around Israel,
that pillar was liable to be broken within five to ten years. That was ten
years ago. In my view, it has been proved beyond any doubt that Talik was
right. The strategic pillar of Israel's security has been broken."

Are there solutions? Alternative pillars?

"It is important for me to emphasize that I am not a doomsayer. I see a
gloomy picture, but I believe in Israel's ability to overcome and find
solutions. But for that to happen, it is essential to look at reality
soberly. The arrogance and overweening of some of the members of the IDF
officer corps prevents this. Therefore, that arrogance and overweening is
dangerous. It forestalls critical discussion and leads to strategic neglect
and basic mistakes in force-building, which undermine the foundations of
Israel's national security. The IDF is conceptually fixated. There is some
sort of romantic conception that the war has to be won by a heroic pilot in
a plane. That romanticism sometimes recalls the romanticism of the Poles,
who thought that it was impossible to win a war without a heroic cavalryman
on a horse. That is why they prepared brigades of cavalry ahead of the
Second World War, not realizing that the world had changed. The world has
changed around us, too. What worked in the past in Israel's favor is now
liable to work to its detriment. It is therefore imperative to adjust the
force structure immediately to the new conditions and to the new strategic
environment. We must not dismiss the enemy's surface-to-surface missiles and
antiaircraft missiles as we did the Sagger missiles and the SAM 2 and SAM 3
[surface-to-air] missiles before the Yom Kippur War.

"I have two main proposals: to accord Israel maritime strategic depth by its
transformation into a sea power and to accord Israel firepower that is not
dependent on airfields and planes but is based on tactical missiles that are
cheap and precise.

"If we do this, if we turn the whole eastern basin of the Mediterranean into
an area under Israeli military control, and if we maintain in it vessels
that will become Israel's maritime fire bases, we will thus replace the old
and fragile pillar of the Air Force with a new and alternative and strong
pillar that is capable of creating firepower of thousands of missiles that
are fired from the sea and are not dependent on vulnerable, exposed
airfields."

Egypt: Not what it seems

Do you really think that we have to invest billions in rebuilding the IDF on
completely new foundations when in practice we are not facing any
significant conventional threat?

"I see an existential conventional threat based on the formation of two
military alliances directed against us: an Egyptian-Saudi alliance in the
south and a Syrian-Iranian alliance in the north. I am especially concerned
about Egypt. I think that there is a concrete danger that Israel fell asleep
and that when it wakes up it will find itself facing a very tough Egyptian
military challenge."

We have peace with Egypt, a peace that has withstood a series of tests and
has given us 30 years of quiet and prosperity.

"I suggest that we not take at face value the Egyptian declarations of peace
but that we look at the facts. The facts show that a vast army is being
built in Egypt. Egypt faces no threats and has no active border disputes and
no resources but is investing billions in creating an army that has absolute
dominance in the Arab world and in Africa. Why is Egypt doing this? The
numbers are simply astounding. The size of the Egyptian Air Force is about
the same as that of the Israel Air Force, but the number of tanks, artillery
pieces, boats and missile batteries is exponentially greater than ours. The
Egyptian army is far larger than the IDF. But beyond the fact that during 25
years Egypt forged a tremendous force, an additional process has developed
in the past 10 years.

"Since the mid-1990s, Egyptian doctrine, Egyptian indoctrination and
Egyptian training exercises have been directed against Israel. Since the
start of this century Egypt has also invested billions in relocating its
military infrastructures so they are opposite Israel. Initially its
surface-to-surface missiles were scattered across Egypt, whereas now they
are massed against us in the Suez Canal region. The same holds for the
logistics facilities and ammunition dumps. Everything is concentrated on the
two sides of the Suez Canal. There are also worrisome signs in the Sinai
desert itself - perhaps very worrisome, but I cannot elaborate on them. The
lenient interpretation says that this gigantic enterprise is being created
because the Egyptians are afraid of us. But there is also an alternative
interpretation: Egypt is preparing for war. If it walks like a duck and
quacks like a duck, then maybe it really is a duck. If it looks like
preparations for a military confrontation and sounds like preparations for a
military confrontation, then maybe it really is preparations for a military
confrontation against Israel."

Do you believe that Egypt really wants to dwarf Israel and restore it to its
natural dimensions?

"I have no doubt that if Egypt could make Israel disappear from the map, it
would not object to that. A future military confrontation with Israel exists
in the Egyptian national consciousness and in the consciousness of the
Egyptian security forces, and that is what Egyptian strategic planning is
leading toward. I am in favor of peace with Egypt. I welcome the partial
improvement that has occurred in relations in the past year. But I think
that we must not delude ourselves. A definite possibility exists that a
military confrontation between us and Egypt will take place in the future.
We have to deploy for that."

Iran is not North Korea

We haven't yet talked about Iran, which is the true existential threat to
Israel.

"Israel faces two existential threats. The Iranian existential threat is the
only we are permitted to talk about and even like talking about. The
Egyptian existential threat is the one we are prohibited from talking about.
Quite a few people are aware of it, but only a few dare to utter its name
explicitly and refer to its scale. For the same reason we ignore the fact it
was Egypt that caused the Camp David conference to fail. Ignore the fact
that it is Egypt that built up Hamas and is continuing to do so. Ignore the
fact that Egypt allows smuggling into the Gaza Strip and is effectively
arming the Palestinian people against Israel. Egypt is interested in seeing
Israel and the Palestinians bleed. Contrary to its rhetoric, it had no
interest in ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict - on the contrary."

Iran, Mr. Steinitz. Can Israel accept a nuclear Iran?

"No. You have to understand that Iran is not North Korea. It does not intend
to maintain three or four bombs in the basement. Iran intends to manufacture
54,000 centrifuges to enrich uranium and place them in a vast facility at
Kashan. Those 54,000 centrifuges can produce 20 to 25 nuclear bombs a year.
The Iranians do not aspire to be a regional power. They aspire to be a world
power. If Iran crosses the threshold, it will become a power on the scale of
China or of Britain and France."

China and Britain and France are rational nuclear actors. Why should Iran
also not be rational actor?

"Ahmadinejad's Iran is not behaving rationally. This is a regime that says
that a few million Iranians can be sacrificed for the sake of a worthy
Islamic goal. This is a regime whose missiles say Israel's destruction and
whose open declarations by its leaders talk about Israel's destruction.
There is a clear analogy here to Hitler's Germany. Therefore I think that
there is a danger of an Iranian bomb falling on Tel Aviv or Haifa. But even
if that act is not carried out, for fear of a fierce retaliation, a nuclear
Iran will achieve hegemony in the gulf, in the Arab world and in the Muslim
world. A nuclear Iran will bring about sweeping nuclearization in the entire
region. A nuclear Iran means a different strategic environment and a
different world.

"Already today Iran has Shihab-4 missiles with a range of 2,000 kilometers,
which encompasses the Balkans, Greece, Romania and the outskirts of Moscow.
They are working on Shihab-5, which will have a range of 4,000 to 6,000
kilometers. That will take in Berlin, Paris and London. They could reach the
eastern shores of the United States. And I'm not talking about Saddam
Hussein's Iraq here. I'm talking about a serious power that is doing serious
work. When I read the reports about the developments in Iran, I see a world
power in its infancy. I see a monster under construction. If Iran is not
curbed, it will have dozens of nuclear warheads within a decade. Maybe even
a hundred. It will have the ability to launch them at every relevant point
in the world."

Can that giant still be stopped? Isn't it too late?

"It's still possible to prevent Iran from going nuclear. There are two ways
to do this: either the Iranians disarm or the Iranians are disarmed by
force. The Americans are still capable of using air power to strike at
Iran's nuclear network in a way that will set it back by at least 10 years."

But it is all scattered, all buried in the ground: the lessons of Iraq were
learned.

"Nuclear industry is not high-tech industry. It is heavy industry. There is
no heavy industry on the face of the earth that is immune to air attack. A
massive and precise air attack can destroy any nuclear industry, including
Iran's."

So the United States has a military option against Iran's nuclear
facilities?

"Without any doubt."

And Israel?

"We must not send the message to the world that Israel can be relied on to
solve the problem. This is a terrible threat, not only to Israel but to the
countries of Europe and to the United States. I don't want anyone in those
countries to delude himself into thinking that he is exempt because Israel
will repeat what it did in Iraq."

How much time is there?

"None."

But for the past 10 years we have been told that we have another five years.

"In my assessment, the Iranians are two years away from a nuclear weapon. It
could be a bit more and it could be a bit less. After the success in
enriching uranium at an initial 164-centrifuge cascade, the technology is
largely in their hands. To create a first bomb they have to reach 10
cascades on 1,600 centrifuges. Now that they have the technology, the
question is one of investment. If no one interferes with them and if they
scoff at the world and invest resources and run ahead fast to accelerate the
process, we're talking about two years, maybe a year and a half. Maybe even
a year."

If so, this is a dramatic window of time. The military operation against
Iran has to take place within the coming year and maybe even in the coming
months.

"We're in the home stretch. If a massive military operation against Iran is
mounted, it will be between this point of time, of April 2006, and the end
of 2007."

You are not even talking about political options and sanctions.

"Only one thing will prevent an American military operation in Iran. Only if
the United States shows the Iranians a very big stick and waves it wildly in
front of them will it perhaps be able to prevent the use of that stick."

And the waving of the stick has to start soon?

"It should have started already."

Do you think that the United States has really reached a point where it is
ready to operate militarily in Iran?

"Public opinion is ready and Congress supports it. I assume that the
administration does, too."

And what will the implications be for Israel?

"There will be implications. If its nuclear facilities are attacked, Iran
will try to strike not only at the American forces in Iraq, Kuwait and
Qatar, but at Israel as well. The Iranian attempt to attack Israel will be
carried out by planes or by missiles or by terror."

And don't you think the public should be warned already now? Don't you think
the citizens of Israel should be told that we are flying into turbulence and
that they should fasten their seatbelts?

"In the Middle East we're always flying into turbulence. We're sailing on
stormy seas. Every Jew and Israeli should know that we are living in a
dinghy and that 'all around rages the storm.' But I hope an American attack
on Iran will succeed also in eliminating the Iranian capability to retaliate
and strike at both the United States and Israel."

So one way or the other, we're on the brink of a regional earthquake?

"An earthquake is not good and not easy. But there is only one option that
is worse than the option of a military operation against Iran, and that is
the option of doing nothing and allowing Iran to become a nuclear power."

Isn't it possible that behind the arrogant declarations of Ahmadinejad there
are mass-destruction capabilities that we're not aware of?

"It's possible. Therefore I prefer, for the good of all concerned, that the
waving of the American stick at the Iranians will be enough. But in general
our intelligence on Iran is good. In the wake of the failures in Iraq and
Libya, a new intelligence doctrine was formulated and new resources
allocated. It was decided that intelligence on the nuclear issue is Israel's
top priority. We know a great deal about Iran. Iran is a case of an
intelligence success."

But some claim that the Mossad, which is responsible for nuclear
intelligence, has become a mediocre, unimaginative body.

"In the years before the tenure of Meir Dagan [the current Mossad chief],
the Mossad became less operative and more academic. But Meir Dagan is a good
Mossad chief. He shook things up. The Mossad under him progressed
dramatically and made a very significant leap forward. The abilities the
Mossad has developed in the past few years sometimes leave one
flabbergasted."

From the Israeli point of view, is it the Mossad that is in charge of
thwarting the Iranian nuclear project?

"The Mossad is Israel's strategic long arm. Not the IDF, not the IAF - the
Mossad. And it is more and more functioning as such. More and more. Its main
task is to give Israel a warning about the development of means of mass
destruction that are liable to cause the country's destruction. That is true
with regard to Iran and it is true with regard to the entire Middle East.
Prime Minister Sharon made the Mossad responsible for prevention with regard
to Iran's nuclear project. That is its mission and that is the No. 1
national mission."

What you are actually saying is that the Mossad not only supplies
intelligence about the Iranian nuclear project but is also capable of
thwarting it if the Americans should fail or refrain from doing the
necessary work.

"Ariel Sharon defined the Mossad as a central preventive arm of the state.
That definition smacks of the truth."

You saw Sharon make those abyss-decisions that you talked about at the
start. Did he function well?

"In the Sharon period the abyss-decisions in Israel were made seriously and
judiciously. When I followed his activity in the most sensitive spheres, I
saw attentiveness, thought, sangfroid and maturity. The feeling was that the
wheel was in trustworthy and stable hands. His appearances in the Foreign
Affairs and Defense Committee were also of a virtuoso character. But in the
last nine months of his tenure there was a clear change. It did not reach a
stage of unfitness, but Sharon needed his aides and needed notes and texts
that were prepared for him in advance. Previously, it was not like that.
Sharon's performance declined visibly."

You are very close to Benjamin Netanyahu. What did Sharon have that Bibi
doesn't have?

"It has been said of Bibi that he's a great statesman and a minor
politician. That is true. He was a good prime minister. He was an excellent
finance minister. But he is off-target when it comes to the human aspect of
politics. There is no friendship within him and he has no friendship. He
does not know how to build a force with a human face. His approach is
rational, technocratic and achievement-oriented. That is why he riles those
who are close to him. He doesn't understand what Sharon understood: that
politics is not only a struggle between ideas. Life has an emotional
dimension."

Did Bibi's failure in the elections last month stem from some sort of
emotional handicap?

"Possibly. But it takes one to know one: my tendency is also very
intellectual. And people expect a politician to give hope. Give a fraternal
caress. People want politicians to console them and lie to them and describe
the situation in a rosy light. Bibi and I don't always know how to do that."