‘Ball is in Iranian court’, says former head of Israel’s military intelligence

Amos Yadlin spent five years as the head of Israel’s military intelligence he joined us from central Israel.

We began by asking if an Iranian counter-strike against Israel was a matter of inevitability.

Amos Yadlin: Let’s wait and see. No doubt the ball is in the Iranian court now. But when I listen to [Mohammed Marandi], I wonder is he as connected to reality. Who initiated the war? Was it Israel, or was it a Hamas proxy from Gaza who murdered and raped and burned civilians in Israel on 7 October last year? And who joined? The Iranian proxy from Lebanon. That they invested tens of billions of dollars to be able to attack Israel, which they did on 8 October. So after these two proxies were basically defeated in the last two months, and their leaders, the terrorists, were eliminated, now Iran is attacking Israel with a barrage of 200 ballistic missiles, and they are now crying? Is he as connected to reality? So Israel has to react. Israel has to retaliate. Israel has to re-establish its deterrence. And I’m not sure the Iranians will continue to escalate. I saw today that they played down the results of the Israeli attack. And this was done by somebody who wants to close the scenario and not to escalate.

Matt Frei: But it is possible that they will escalate. And there are hardliners in the government in Tehran who want them to escalate and to retaliate. So where does this end? Because if they strike Israel, you’re going to strike them back again, and on this goes. Where do you see this ending?

Amos Yadlin: I think Israel was listening very carefully to our American allies that asked us not to attack the Iranian oil facilities and not to attack the Iranian nuclear facilities, in case of the Iranians retaliating and it will be very soon after the election. So the Americans that see Iran as part of the axis of evil, giving weapons to Russia, having alliance with China, having relations with North Korea. The Americans will have any way to re-evaluate their policy against Iran after the election. So it can escalate. Since I know that the leaders in Iran are thinking more rationally, yes they can threaten the international economy. Most of the oil that they would stop will not go to their alliance in China. But I think they will behave in a way that they will try to answer your question in a way that we end…

Matt Frei: Prime Minister Netanyahu has seen Iran as the biggest problem for Israel in the region. Do you think that at the end of the day your prime minister actually wants an all-out war with Iran that would lead, he would hope, to the defeat of the ayatollahs?

Amos Yadlin: I think Iran is the only UN member that calls to destroy another UN member. And Iran is leading the genocide, not anybody else. So Netanyahu identified Iran many years ago, and he will have to decide whether the next administration will go with him against the Iranian nuclear programme, because this is the only existential threat to Israel, because these people want to destroy Israel. But this is not the world. And we will wait to the next administration.