How Netanyahu duped Trump
Netanyahu and his team outlined conditions they portrayed as pointing to near-certain victory: Iran’s ballistic missile program could be destroyed in a few weeks. The regime would be so weakened that it could not choke off the Strait of Hormuz, and the likelihood that Iran would land blows against U.S. interests in neighboring countries was assessed as minimal.
Besides, Mossad’s intelligence indicated that street protests inside Iran would begin again and — with the impetus of the Israeli spy agency helping to foment riots and rebellion — an intense bombing campaign could foster the conditions for the Iranian opposition to overthrow the regime. The Israelis also raised the prospect of Iranian Kurdish fighters crossing the border from Iraq to open a ground front in the northwest, further stretching the regime’s forces and accelerating its collapse.
Mr. Netanyahu delivered his presentation in a confident monotone. It seemed to land well with the most important person in the room, the American president.
Sounds good to me, Mr. Trump told the prime minister. To Mr. Netanyahu, this signaled a likely green light for a joint U.S.-Israeli operation.
Mr. Netanyahu was not the only one who came away from the meeting with the impression that Mr. Trump had all but made up his mind. The president’s advisers could see that he had been deeply impressed by the promise of what Mr. Netanyahu’s military and intelligence services could do, just as he had been when the two men spoke before the 12-day war with Iran in June.
Earlier in his White House visit on Feb. 11, Mr. Netanyahu had tried to focus the minds of the Americans assembled in the Cabinet Room on the existential threat posed by Iran’s 86-year-old supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
When others in the room asked the prime minister about possible risks in the operation, Mr. Netanyahu acknowledged these but made one central point: In his view, the risks of inaction were greater than the risks of action. He argued that the price of action would only grow if they delayed striking and allowed Iran more time to accelerate its missile production and create a shield of immunity around its nuclear program.
Everyone in the room understood that Iran had the capacity to build up its missile and drone stockpiles at a far lower cost and much more quickly than the United States could build and supply the much more expensive interceptors to protect American interests and allies in the region.
Mr. Netanyahu’s presentations — and Mr. Trump’s positive response to them — created an urgent task for the U.S. intelligence community. Overnight, analysts worked to assess the viability of what the Israeli team had told the president.
The results of the U.S. intelligence analysis were shared the following day, Feb. 12, in another meeting for only American officials in the Situation Room. Before Mr. Trump arrived, two senior intelligence officials briefed the president’s inner circle.
The intelligence officials had deep expertise in U.S. military capabilities, and they knew the Iranian system and its players inside out. They had broken down Mr. Netanyahu’s presentation into four parts. First was decapitation — killing the ayatollah. Second was crippling Iran’s capacity to project power and threaten its neighbors. Third was a popular uprising inside Iran. And fourth was regime change, with a secular leader installed to govern the country.
The U.S. officials assessed that the first two objectives were achievable with American intelligence and military power. They assessed that the third and fourth parts of Mr. Netanyahu’s pitch, which included the possibility of the Kurds mounting a ground invasion of Iran, were detached from reality.
When Mr. Trump joined the meeting, Mr. Ratcliffe briefed him on the assessment. The C.I.A. director used one word to describe the Israeli prime minister’s regime change scenarios: “farcical.”
At that point, Mr. Rubio cut in. “In other words, it’s bullshit,” he said.
Mr. Ratcliffe added that given the unpredictability of events in any conflict, regime change could happen, but it should not be considered an achievable objective.
Several others jumped in, including Mr. Vance, just back from Azerbaijan, who also expressed strong skepticism about the prospect of regime change.
The president then turned to General Caine. “General, what do you think?”
General Caine replied: “Sir, this is, in my experience, standard operating procedure for the Israelis. They oversell, and their plans are not always well-developed. They know they need us, and that’s why they’re hard-selling.” [Continue reading…]