By YONAH JEREMY BOB
There were multiple scenarios and time periods, such as several months, but one year was the most likely estimate.
In his eve of war prediction to the Israeli cabinet, Mossad Director David Barnea predicted the regime change in Iran is most likely to take a year, The Jerusalem Post has learned.
There were multiple scenarios and time periods, such as several months, but one year was the most likely estimate.
In recent days, there have been not-so-veiled attacks on Barnea by nameless sources, seemingly accusing him of misleading both the Israeli and US governments about the likelihood of regime change in Iran.
These anonymous leaks obscure Barnea’s highly complex position on the issue and seem intent on tarring him and the Mossad with the growing likelihood that efforts to topple the regime will fail or take a very long time, the Post has learned.
Some of the sources behind the Channel 12 Uvda and The New York Times reports on the issue may be Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s or US President Donald Trump’s entourages, and some may even be from the Israeli military, in an attempt to shift any blame.
MOSSAD CHIEF David Barnea attends a conference of the Institute for National Security Studies (INSS) in Tel Aviv earlier this year. On Sunday, he met with US envoy Steve Witkoff and a senior Qatari official, says the writer.
All three offices have been fielding constant questions daily about why they have not yet succeeded – even slightly – in generating regime change.
Barnea’s cautious, qualified war predictions
In fact, anyone familiar with Barnea and his major calls during the last few years of war would know that he consistently presents predictions with many qualifications and almost never talks about a sea change event being inevitable, the Post understands.
Further, while Barnea is a creative thinker, he is also a company man who prepares policies and presentations under Netanyahu’s order and doesn’t seek to push the prime minister into any more aggressive approach to war than Netanyahu himself would want.
Moreover, any presentation that Barnea would have made to Trump administration officials during his widely reported trip to the US in mid-January or during other conversations would also have been tightly controlled by Netanyahu, not some kind of independent crusade.
In fact, the Post has learned that during prior years of Barnea’s term, there were significant points where, in theory, Netanyahu might have wanted the Mossad to undertake some kind of operation, but Barnea explained that it was unrealistic, despite pressure on him to approve.
When Uvda reported that on the eve of war, Barnea told Netanyahu he believed toppling the Iranian regime was possible, it only later in the article detailed some of the conditions that Barnea would have put on such a prediction.
The report eventually vaguely noted that the Mossad chief “had reservations regarding a developing real-time situation and regarding the amount of time that it was likely to take.”
Likewise, The New York Times report said Barnea told Netanyahu that “within days of the war’s beginning…his service would likely be able to galvanize the Iranian opposition – igniting riots and other acts of rebellion that could even lead to the collapse of Iran’s government,” adding that the spymaster made the same pitch to the Trump administration in mid-January.
The report then blames Netanyahu and Trump for taking an overly optimistic approach to the Iran war, leading to regime change against predictions by US officials, “and some other officials in other Israeli intelligence agencies.”
The report goes on to portray Netanyahu as being impatient with the Mossad’s supposed failure to bring about regime change in the early days of the war, amid concerns about the risk of losing support from Trump.
Once again, there is no evidence – regardless of attacks by anonymous sources, which may have a political agenda – that the Mossad expressed an opinion different from what the IDF has said publicly, that military force can at most create the conditions for a post-war regime change process.
Finally, the report noted one element of Mossad plans “included supporting an invasion by Iranian Kurdish militia groups based in northern Iraq.”
However, Trump himself has been publicly dismissive of such a move, which the reports seem to claim Barnea convinced him of.
There are also questions surrounding how influential Barnea was during his mid-January visit to the US.
It is possible that he was very influential regarding whatever his nuanced presentation of competing opportunities and risks might have involved.
But given that Netanyahu rushed to the US for an emergency visit on February 11, almost a month later, and that Trump continued negotiations with Iran right up to around 24 hours before the war started, it would be hard for anyone to argue that Barnea had set the entire agenda by mid-January.
Original source: https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/defense-news/article-891001