Dagan: Israeli airstrike on Iran nuclear plant 'foolish'

Former Mossad chief warns attack on Iranian reactors would cause regional war in which missiles from Iran, Hezbollah would be fired.

An Israeli Air Force attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities is “foolish” and will start a regional war that Israel cannot foresee how it will end, former Mossad chief Meir Dagan said Friday in his first public remarks since leaving office earlier this year.

“An aerial attack against Iran’s nuclear reactors is foolish,” Dagan was reported widely in the media as telling a conference of senior faculty at Hebrew University in Jerusalem on Friday. “Whoever attacks Iran needs to understand that it could start a regional war which will include missile fire from Iran and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The Iranian problem must be made an international problem and we must continue to work to delay the nuclear program.”

This was the first time that Dagan made his opposition to an Israeli strike against Iran public. He has in the past called for continued covert action against Iran as well as for investing in opposition groups within the country with the objective of toppling the Islamic regime run by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

This is not the first time Dagan has made controversial comments on Iran. Before leaving office in January, Dagan broke away from earlier predictions and said that in his assessment, Iran will only obtain a nuclear weapon in 2015.

Moving to the ongoing upheaval in the Middle East, Dagan downplayed the significance of toppling of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt, saying Cairo had merely seen a "change of leaders and not a revolution."

Dagan said that the same elite would continue to rule Egypt and that the chance that the Muslim Brotherhood would take power was minimal. He also predicted that a new regime would not dramatically change Egypt’s relations with Israel.

Israel, he said, would benefit from the removal of Bashar Assad as the ruler of Syria, which could lead to a stop in the flow of weaponry to Hezbollah. Iran’s influence over the region, he said, would also be curbed.

“Assad and the Alawite elite will fight until the end since they do not have an alternative. It is either win or die and they understand that,” he said.

The former Mossad chief said that the so-called "tsunami" in the Middle East, was actually giving expression to historic rifts in Arab society. He added, however, that a certain barrier of fear had been broken and that it was no longer possible to hide events taking place in the region.

Dagan said he was in favor of conducting a prisoner swap to secure the release of Gilad Schalit but “not at any price.” Prisoners released in 2004 in exchange for Elhanan Tannenbaum were responsible for murdering over 200 Israelis, he said.

Jerusalem Post Staff contributed to the report.