Ex-CIA & MI6 Heads on What Israel Does Next

Hosted by Christina Ruffini and Sir Richard Dearlove

Guest

Episode Summary

This week, One Decision's Sir Richard Dearlove returns to the host seat to interview fellow spymaster and co-host, former Secretary of Defense and CIA Director Leon Panetta, on the growing crisis in the Middle East following Iran's missile attack against Israel. They discuss the implications of Israel's response, Iran's fragile state and influence in the region, and the role of America's next president in navigating these global crises. Plus, Sir Richard and Secretary Panetta talk about the possible intelligence methods used in the Israeli operation that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

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Transcript

COLD OPEN

Panetta: We are in a very tense moment. I don't I don't think there's any question Iran is gonna put their whole effort into high gear to try to see if they can quickly develop a nuclear weapon that they would then view as a deterrent to trying to stop Israel and The United States from going any further.

INTRODUCTION

Dearlove: I'm Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of British intelligence, otherwise known as MI6, and you're listening to One Decision, the podcast that looks at the choices that shape our lives. I'm joined by my co-host on this podcast, former CIA director and US secretary of defense, Leon Panetta. Well Leon, there's an awful lot going on in the world at the moment and we're facing what looks like a significant and escalating crisis in The Middle East. The thing I'd like to hear from you to begin with, one of my successors, John Sawers, who you probably remember, wrote a piece in the FT I think a couple of days back when he suggested that there's a real power shift now, or maybe the indications of a power shift, with Israel having to an extent called Iran's bluff over its support of proxies, and that there is a, let's say, a new set of initiatives, and we may be seeing something very significant happening. Would you agree with that assessment, or is it too early to make that judgment?

ANALYSIS: A WIDER WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Panetta: Well, Richard, one thing that's pretty clear right now is that it's not that we're headed towards a wider war. We're in a wider war, in The Middle East right now. You know, a lot has happened. Israel pretty effectively went after Hezbollah leadership, killing about 30 leaders, I believe, along with Hamas leaders, is now involved in a ground war in Lebanon. Although it's supposed to be limited, once you have a ground war in Lebanon, with the tunnels and mountains that are part of Lebanon, this could be a prolonged effort. We have Iran striking Israel with another missile attack. And now, obviously, we're waiting for Israel to respond. I think there is now a new chapter developing in The Middle East. I mean, generally, Iran could stand back, and allow Hezbollah and its other proxies to basically raise hell and try to protect itself from any direct involvement. We've crossed that threshold. Iran, last April, launched 300 missiles, and then the last few days, launched close to 200 missiles. And it says a lot about Iran struggling to try to protect its credibility in that region. I think that we're in a period where we could have, as I said, a situation where Israel does a pretty significant attack on Iran, and that could really create a whole new dynamic in terms of the Middle East, whether Iran strikes back, whether there's a full scale war between Israel and Iran, whether The United States gets involved in that war. There are a whole bunch of ifs that are now at play. But I think the bottom line is that what we assumed was kind of a steady approach by different elements in The Middle East has now been thrown into turmoil, and I'm not sure how this turns out.

Dearlove: Yeah. I agree with you. I think there's a real uncertainty about where it goes from here, and I also share your view that we're in a war now and that we're not in confrontation which is reciprocated but restrained. It's been moved to another level. But I was very struck by the comment you just made or the phrase you used about Iran struggling to protect its credibility because it seems to me that the Israelis somehow have almost sort of prized open the oyster and discovered that there is inherent weakness in Iran's strategic position. It seems to me that despite the failure with regard to Hamas on October 7, with regard to Hezbollah, they have put in place the most extraordinary intelligence coverage in the meantime. So I think that you and I would recognize that there has been a sort of qualitative shift by Israel, not only technologically, but in terms of their overall intelligence effort. I'm sure that you can comment on that Leon.

Panetta: Without question, I know what it means to use intelligence to target an enemy. That's what we largely did in Pakistan going after Al Qaeda leadership. And it's not easy. It involves, you know, not only whatever resources we have, you know, using drones, reconnaissance, but also you need spies on the ground. For Israel to have been able, in particular, to target Nasrallah and then to target other leaders as well and be able to effectively go after their leaders, including not only Hezbollah leaders, but Hamas leaders as well, requires good intelligence. We know that from our own experience. You've gotta have good people on the ground who are determining exactly where these targets are. Probably takes a lot of reconnaissance, probably takes a lot of observance as to how people are behaving and what these people are doing on a regular basis. But the attack they made on a Hamas leader in Tehran involved literally putting a bomb in a house where that person was gonna be. That's pretty damn good intelligence. The issue there, I think everybody knew where Hezbollah's headquarters were, but to have pinpointed the fact that he would be present in that building at that time took some very good intelligence. So, you have to give Israel tremendous credit for having a very effective intelligence operation. Now having said that, they also failed on October 7 to have determined that that attack by Hamas was gonna happen. And that was a big failure, similar to our failure on 9/11. But the fact that they've now come back and responded and been able to go after their enemies pretty effectively tells me that they regrouped very well and that they put some good operations into play. I agree with you. In particular, the killing of the Hamas leader in a government guesthouse in Tehran was an extraordinary operation.

Dearlove: I find it very difficult to get my head around how they achieved that because we all, I think, well you and I probably particularly understand how alien the intelligence environment is in Iran. And, of course, the pager operation too, and followed by the walkie talkie operation. These are almost events from a novel. The fact is that they aren't from a novel, they're real. And they show, you know, the thoroughness and the capability that Mossad can deploy when they get it right.

Panetta: I've seen it firsthand. I mean, you've done this, and I've done it, worked very closely with Mossad. We spent an awful lot of time working on issues related to Iran. At that time, frankly, it was the concern about Iran enriching fuel and moving towards a nuclear weapon similar to what we're concerned about right now. But their ability to be able to take all kinds of steps to try to undermine that effort and do it pretty effectively, it really showed me the kind of professionalism that they have and the fact that they've got spies that are located in, obviously, some pretty good places to be able to know exactly what's going on. I think all of that is a reflection that Israel now is in a war since October 7, and they are pushing their intelligence. They're pushing their military in a very aggressive way to take the military after having been deployed into Gaza and then quickly move ground troops into a ground war in Lebanon. You know, I have to believe that that does strain their capability. While these fighters are good and they're effective, they can also be exhausted by this constant war. And so I guess the real question now, how does Israel respond to the missile attack from Iran? Will it go after military targets? It's done that before and kind of done a more limited attack that didn't explode into a full scale war? Or is Israel going to expand their target list, go after energy resources, go after possibly their efforts to develop nuclear enrichment and a possible nuclear weapon. If it's a broader attack, then I think we really are in a much different situation in The Middle East. It's not just simply going to be tit for tat. I think it's going to be much more aggressive attacks by Iran in response, and The United States, I think, has to make a fundamental decision in that situation as to what role we're going to play when it comes to confronting Iran. United States has said that Israel should respond and that The United States will be involved in that discussion. But I have to tell you that Netanyahu has not been very cooperative with The United States. We were not told about Nasrallah. We were not told about the attacks that were made against Hezbollah. And I think the communication is strained right now. So it'll be interesting to see just how aggressively Netanyahu tries to strike back at Iran, and it'll tell us a great deal about what the next chapter looks like.

Dearlove: I mean, one of the things that strikes me in terms of what the Israeli response is likely to be is that the Iranians do not have, in my knowledge, the sort of missile defense that Israel is able to deploy. So they're much, much more vulnerable to an attack, whether it's an attack by aircraft or another attack by missiles fired by the Israelis. So they could suffer very significant logistical damage. The other thing I think that concerns me, and this is more a political issue in the medium term, is if Iran comes out of this badly, for them internally, it's the real argument to accelerate their nuclear program. So the overall effect for the Middle East and for the West generally could be highly negative if we neglect at this point in time what the political follow-ons are gonna be. And as you say, The United States is an absolutely key player as Israel's principal ally. If I was sitting in Washington, this issue would be a real conundrum, I think, in how to resolve it, what policy decisions to take, what line to take with Israel. I'd be very interested in your sort of views on the whole issue of the JCPOA, the nuclear program, you know, because it seems to me that we're doing everything to get the Iranians to accelerate their nuclear weapons production.

THE NUCLEAR QUESTION

Panetta: No. There's no question. There was the effort to try to place some constraints on Iran's development of enriched fuel and also moving towards some kind of nuclear weapon. There was the agreement to try to restrain that. President Trump then moved away from that agreement without replacing it, frankly, with anything to try to deter Iran. And so I'm sure Iran has proceeded ahead, and we know that they now have enough enriched fuel so that they can move towards developing a nuclear weapon. Iran has played this interesting game of really, as we all know, using these proxy forces, Hezbollah, Hamas, as well as Houthis in Yemen. They've kinda used those groups to keep the pressure on and keep creating instability and also protect themselves. Because I think Iran understands that if a full blown war breaks out that includes not just Israel but The United States, the regime is over. Their regime is over because they really don't have the capability to try to be able to defend against a very broad missile or air attack that could take place. That's the difference right now with Israel. I mean, Israel, we saw when 200 ballistic missiles went at them. The combination of Iron Dome, a defense system they've been using going back to, I think, 2011 when we worked on it with them. And they've got something called David's Sling as well. They've got a whole series of very capable air defense systems. I mean, to knock down, what, close to 90% of those missiles, that's pretty effective and, obviously, including The United States helping them with our destroyer capability. But Iran doesn't have that. And so the real question then becomes, what do they resort to? And I think you're right that they're gonna try to put the development of a nuclear weapon on high speed. They're gonna try to move forward as quickly as they can. Anticipating that, that's the reason I wouldn't be surprised if Israel in a retaliatory strike doesn't go after Natanz and some of their nuclear development capabilities. Whether they have the capability to be able to really hit them effectively. We went through this when I was secretary of defense and Netanyahu was threatening to attack Iran at that time. The problem was they did not have the capability to really effectively go after Natanz or other underground facilities. They might have that capability now. We are in a very tense moment. I don't think there's any question Iran is gonna put their whole effort into high gear to try to see if they can quickly develop a nuclear weapon that they would then view as a deterrent to trying to stop Israel and The United States from going any further. But to be able to do that, to be able to develop a nuclear weapon, as you know, takes time. And then the delivery of that nuclear weapon takes time in order to develop whether you're gonna put it on the head of a missile or try to put it on an aircraft of some sort. They've got some tough issues they've gotta deal with. And I think because of that, I think Israel is gonna be much more aggressive at trying to undermine any effort that Iran engages in to try to move towards nuclear capability. So I suspect that the response by Israel is going to be very aggressive and very tough and very targeted towards their nuclear capabilities.

Dearlove: Yeah. I think I agree with that. But I also picked up your comment, which I agree with, which is, let's say, the fragility of the regime in Iran. It's not in an easy position internally. We know that they've had massive problems on a whole range of social issues: the suppression of women's roles socially, the use of these gangs of praetorian guard to keep control of the street, the fact that the supreme leader is aging and has no nominated successor. So, you know, it seems to me that Israel may, I'm thinking on behalf of the West, have an opportunity, a strategic opportunity with regard to Iran. Because, I mean, let's face it, over the last ten years or so, Iran has been the primary destabilizing force in the Middle East. Although the stakes are very high, and Netanyahu clearly plays for high stakes, the possibility of, let's say, Israel forcing regime change in Iran and then having a completely different situation, that's a big prize for the Sunni Arabs. It's a big prize for the West. It's a big prize for the international community were it to go in that direction.

Panetta: You know, if you look at seventy years of war in The Middle East, it's basically the story of an attack of some kind on Israel, a response by Israel that's usually pretty strong. They usually are moving pretty aggressively to try to, as they did in 2006, go into Lebanon, try to clean up Hezbollah in Lebanon. But after they've blown each other up for a while, all the parties seem to get exhausted and then agree to some kind of ceasefire that basically kicks the can down the road. And that's why we've had a series of wars in The Middle East. So the real question today, it seems to me, is whether that scenario that we've seen play out in the last seventy years is gonna repeat itself in which Israel is very aggressive, tries to, you know, move towards Hezbollah in Lebanon, tries to move towards Iran and trying to undermine Iran. That's a lot to take on. The question is gonna be, can they really go after these various threats and effectively deal with that? Or at some point, is there going to be the kind of exhaustion that develops whereby, you know, they've kinda made their point and it's time to agree to some kind of ceasefire? That seems to me kind of where we're at. And I don't know. Netanyahu gets very aggressive. His political position is dependent on him continuing the war. And so he, you know, he may continue to be very aggressive. But at some point, you know, even Israel with its capability and its dedication could be impacted by the exhaustion of war. They've been fighting a long war in Gaza. They still haven't really effectively stopped Hamas. And Hamas will continue to be there. They're now on a ground war in Hezbollah. How far that goes? Nobody knows, but that involves a lot of tanks and capabilities. And then to have these strikes, I mean, you know, they've done a hell of a lot of strikes, not only against Hamas, but now the issue is how will they target Iran? Countries start to run low.

Dearlove: Well, I mean, that's, you know, war is also logistics, and Israel's a small country, and maintaining, you know, the logistics of fighting on various fronts is extremely complex.

Panetta: They're operating on three fronts right now. They're fighting in Hamas. They're fighting Hezbollah, and they're fighting the West Bank. I mean, they've got a three front war now. And with Iran, they'll have a four front war. That takes an awful lot out of a military capability.

THE ABRAHAM ACCORDS AND A POLITICAL PATH

Dearlove: Yeah. Yeah. But I think the last time we discussed the Middle East, Leon, we were talking about Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt. And I think there's no question that they will be rather pleased to see Hezbollah being taken down. They haven't said anything publicly, but we know very well, I think, between us the sort of attitude. We have the Syrian opposition, I see, Idlib cheering from the sidelines as they saw this disintegration of the Hezbollah leadership. There's this other aspect of the Middle East where there is solid Sunni support for Israel in terms of what they're doing. Okay, you can't express that on the Arab street because it's too tendentious, but the Arab leaderships are sitting there rubbing their hands, and I bet you they're all having private meetings with Mossad as we speak.

Panetta: Yeah. No. Without question, they will sit back and enjoy Israel, you know, going after Hezbollah, going after other terrorists. I think that what will happen is that they will relish Israel taking on Iran. I guess the one issue here, if we're looking for some kind of light at the end of the tunnel, it's whether or not at some point Israel really does decide to go after the Abraham Accords and try to get Saudi Arabia to be able to join the Abraham Accords along with others, recognize the existence of Israel, but also get the Arab groups to be able to work on some kind of governance for the Palestinians in terms of trying to develop a separate state and resolving that issue, which otherwise will continue to be a cause for future wars. If at some point, Israel is willing to engage, and certainly The United States, I think would be willing to engage as well in some kind of bold diplomatic effort that tries to build that kind of alliance in the Middle East, then, you know, some good may come out of all of the killing and damage that's been done by this war.

Dearlove: Yeah. I think I agree with you that the Abraham Accords are potentially still alive and maybe are the road when it's eventually reached to some sort of political settlement which could work on a broader peace agreement for the Middle East. And of course the Palestinian situation within that is crucial, and the Israelis would have to recognize that. But what strikes me now about Netanyahu's position is that he doesn't seem to have any political — he's got a military agenda, but he hasn't got any political — I mean, we're talking about a political agenda, but he's not talking about a political agenda. This is really what worries me. On the Israeli side at the moment, in terms of its political leadership, there seems to be a complete disregard for any political route. And I think one sees this in the way that they've discussed with The United States ceasefires, but done absolutely nothing about moving in that direction. So they've just sort of played Blinken along, and there's no content there.

Panetta: There's no question that their principal focus has been on military action and very little on trying to really promote any kind of strong diplomatic effort. And I think a lot of that is based on Netanyahu. Netanyahu has always resisted efforts to move towards a two state solution. He's always resisted efforts to try to develop any kind of more permanent resolution. And, politically, he's in a situation where the right wing has been supporting him, and they put a lot of pressure on him to continue the war in Gaza and be aggressive with regards to Iran. And Netanyahu understands that the key to maintaining his position in Israel has been to continue to be aggressive when it comes to war. I guess at some point, you can only do that so long, even for Netanyahu. Whether or not he understands that as he's conducting this war in Hezbollah and responding in Iran, whether he is willing to establish any kind of diplomatic effort to try to look at what kind of solution is there in the future that can provide a more permanent peace in The Middle East, I think it remains to be seen. His relationship with Biden is not what I would call very good, very effective. They talk to each other. I'm sure The United States continues to support Israel. But we've had a relationship in which President Biden hasn't been able to get — no matter how he's designed the ceasefire, has been unable to get Netanyahu and others to agree to that ceasefire. And so that seems to be an effort that's not going anywhere right now. The real question is, in many ways, rests with Netanyahu. Is he willing to look at what ultimately can try to resolve the situation in The Middle East? Or is it going to be like past Middle East wars where you simply ultimately achieve some kind of ceasefire just because you're exhausted and you kick the can down the road?

WASHINGTON AND THE ELECTION

Dearlove: I mean, the point on which we should conclude, I guess, is that we're in the last weeks of the Biden administration. To have this sort of geopolitical crisis and challenge in Washington when everybody is thinking about a presidential election, it must be making it hugely difficult for clean-cut, clear strategic decision making. I mean, I've been in Washington during past crises. It's bad enough when the administration is firmly in place, as it were. But I think it's almost unprecedented, isn't it, to face a global — it's not yet a global crisis, but it's heading in that direction. And, of course, if a new administration were to come in, and I mean a republican one, what on earth happens then? I mean, you're the Washington guru. I'm not. I'd be quite interested to hear your views on this, because it's an extraordinary situation.

Panetta: Having served as chief of staff to President Clinton, I understand how crisis can overwhelm the Oval Office. You're dealing with crisis all the time, no matter what you plan to do. And right now, Biden's dealing with a number of crises. It's not just the war in The Middle East. It's not just Ukraine. It's dealing with the results of a hurricane that was devastating. It's dealing with a strike that's taking place at the ports on the East Coast, that could impact on the economy. And it's dealing with the whole issue of how can we ultimately resolve the issue in The Middle East, and try to figure out a path forward. There are a lot of crises going on. I think that in some ways, it can play both ways. If The United States is in the middle of a number of crises, they may wanna continue with the leadership that country has in order not to suddenly create more turmoil. That's one possible path. The other is if they decide that it's time for a change and they're tired of all the crises and Trump keeps saying that he'll ultimately resolve these issues, it could be to Trump's benefit. But the problem is that Trump is all talk. And he's basically saying, yeah, if you elect me, I can resolve all of these crises, which you and I know, is not gonna happen. He can say that, but he has no magic. He has no key here. He could obviously appease tyrants everywhere. That's one way to peace is basically let the tyrants have what they want, but that doesn't work either. I'm not sure. I think it's fair to say that The United States is in the middle of all of these crises that are taking place. I think the average American is trying to figure out just exactly what path do we take to the future. Do we try to get The United States as a responsible world leader working with our allies, trying to figure out ways to deal with these crises that are there? Or do we go with somebody who's basically an isolationist and wants to withdraw?

Dearlove: I think that's a good note on which to conclude. And I read recently someone was writing about Trump and about his political delivery and what he says in his speeches. Their comment was, they're so weird, you can't even tell if he's getting senile. And he probably is as well. So, on that happy note, let's conclude this discussion. Leon, thanks. Great, great exchange.

Panetta: I'm sure the world and you and everybody is watching very closely to see where the hell we go. Oh God, and how, every waking moment. Great talking to you, Leon. Excellent. All right. Good to see you, Richard.

SIGN-OFF

Raffini: I'm Christina Raffini. Thanks for listening to One Decision. You can sign up on our website, onedecision.com, for access to exclusive episodes and articles and real time updates on the latest news and global affairs. Stay connected with us at 1decision.com.