Has anyone ever said that calling the Mossad an intelligence agency is a bit of an oxymoron? From Haaretz:
According to [Mossad director Meir] Dagan, “Election fraud in Iran is no different than what happens in liberal states during elections. The struggle over the election results in Iran is internal and is unconnected to its strategic aspirations, including its nuclear program.”
How’s that again? In what liberal state that you know of does the election commission essentially announce the results and winner without providing a shred of supporting evidence of the real outcome? If Dagan truly believes that Iran’s election has nothing to do with its strategic aspirations then he should be fired for being an idiot. Of course the election has a great deal to do with Iran’s strategic goals, priorities and interests. In fact, Moussavi during the campaign explicitly criticized Iran’s foreign adventures and said the government should focus its attention closer to home. The fact is, it is in Dagan’s interest to describe Moussavi and Ahmadinejad as Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum, while they are no such thing. This is the mendacity of Israeli intelligence. You can’t believe a word they say unless you can confirm it first from a reliable source.
This is something like Aluf Benn was thinking when he wrote in Haaretz:
The prize for this week’s most stupid remark has to go to the officials, officers and experts who described Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the candidate Israel prefers to win the election in Iran, and were even happy he did. It is hard to think of a more blatant manifestation of the narrow horizons of Israeli strategic thinking.
Returning to Dagan’s remarks, if Iran’s election outcome is “no different” than what happens in other western liberal states, doesn’t that fly in the face of the campaign promoted by the Mossad and Israeli government that Iran is NOT a liberal democracy, but rather a medieval Islamist tyranny?
This type of pat “analysis” may also come back to haunt the Mossad’s top spook:
Mossad chief Meir Dagan on Tuesday told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that the riots in Iran over the election results will die out in a few days rather than escalate into a revolution. “The reality in Iran is not going to change because of the elections. The world and we already know [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad. If the reformist candidate [Mir Hossein] Mousavi had won, Israel would have had a more serious problem because it would need to explain to the world the danger of the Iranian threat, since Mousavi is perceived internationally arena as a moderate element…
It is in Mossad’s interest to make it appear as if Ahmadinejad was indeed the legitimate winner of the election. If this were not the case, then Iran might indeed be a nation within which beats a liberal democratic heart. And such a phenomenon would impede the intelligence agency’s campaign to smear Iran and gin up a war and possible regime change.
In pointing out the threat also posed by Moussavi, Dagan claimed that Iran’s nuclear program began under the reformist presidential candidate when he was prime minister in the 1980s. Actually, the program began under the Shah. Certainly, Moussavi’s government pursued nuclear research as all Iranian governments have. But the claim the Mossad chief made is simply bogus. Does the Mossad have a case of historical amnesia? Are they completely ignorant about Iranian history? Or are they willingly to be creative and cook the books when it’s in their interests to do so?
Dagan also told the Knesset committee that Iran would have a nuclear weapon by 2014, a date that is far different than what other Israeli officials have been telling the world. It even tells its own diplomats that Iran will have a bomb within a year. Does the right hand know what the left hand is doing and saying?
Speaking of Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum, guess who said this? “Well, I think first of all, it’s important to understand that although there is amazing ferment taking place in Iran, that the difference between Ahmadinejad and Mousavi in terms of their actual policies may not be as great as has been advertised. Either way, we were going to be dealing with an Iranian regime that has historically been hostile to the United States, that has caused some problems in the neighborhood and is pursuing nuclear weapons. And so we’ve got long-term interests in having them not weaponize nuclear power and stop funding organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas. And that would be true whoever came out on top in this election.”
The BBC, btw, had a paragraph which suggests that some intelligence reports are saying that Ahmadinejad did win after all. Seems far-fetched to me, but I’d be intrigued to hear more.
Yeah, Obama said it. So what? It’s true in part. Moussavi would be one tough negotiators regarding Iran’s nuclear program. But ultimately he would be far more willing to make a deal than the other bozo, as long as the former felt it was in Iran’s interests & the Ayatollah went along. But to say there would be no difference bet. the 2 candidates is ridiculous. “May not be as great as advertised” is saying something far different than Dagan.
I’ll bet you dollars to donuts the Mossad is one of the sources.
I don’t think the difference is that great – as is clear, foreign policy is not really determined by the President, it’s in Iran’s interest to go nuclear, and that isn’t going to change. If external issues were a significant factor in this election, it’s the issue of how Iran’s image is presented to the world – the Iranian public understands that Ahmadinejad’s rants don’t do it much good. But I think there is a consensus around the nuclear issue. In that sense Dagan is right.
Isn’t it Israeli intelligence that is saying Iran has nukes right now too?
Ummm…have you considered that Ahamdinejad DID in fact win the elections? And since Mousavi (or any other Iranian politician) is not likely to back down on Iran’s nuclear program, then there will be no strategic change regardless of which president is in power in Iran (especially since presidents don’t control their nuclear program–which is massively popular among the same “democratic” people there?)
You’re falling into a black-white form of thinking.
“This type of pat “analysis” may also come back to haunt the Mossad’s top spook”
This suggests that they might be worried about contradictions but habitual liars won’t of course.
The idea that there is no real difference between the candidates has to support the view that not only the regime is Israel’s enemy but that the Iranian people as such are up to no good. This would justify murdering a good many of them in the ‘collateral damage’ caused by an Israeli attack.
Good point, Arie. That’s my sense too when the right-wing-nuts claim there is no difference between Moussavi and I’m-a-dinner-jacket. It’s really about demonizing the Iranian people and justifying mass murder in the event of an Israeli attack on Iran.
Arie – it can be used in that way but it doesn’t have to. The regime is the problem, not the people suffering under it. That doesn’t mean I support regime change (I don’t), but one can say there won’t be a substantial shift in policy if Moussavi gets in without villifying the Iranian people.
Dagan must have been referring to the US 2000 presidential election.
“one can say there won’t be a substantial shift in policy if Moussavi gets in without villifying the Iranian people”
Yes, one can. But one can also do the opposite and that is what is being done in Israel.