Forseeing the Storm: Shabtai Shavit's Forewarning of the Iranian Nuclear Threat

These were the words of the late Shabtai Shavit, former head of the Mossad, who would have celebrated his 86th birthday today, written in 2010:

“… The Israeli effort to persuade the world that Iran was on a path toward military hegemony in the Middle East began as early as 1991.

I recall how I would wear out my feet, moving from country to country, from one intelligence chief to another, from one military commander to another, and from one decision-maker to another, in an attempt to convince them that, on a second outer circle, a strategic threat was beginning to form against the State of Israel—one that would constitute a regional threat. I must note that at first I was received as if I were delusional, and later with responses such as: ‘Leave us be! You are speaking of a threat beyond the horizon, while we are preoccupied with a long list of more immediate threats.’”

Shabtai Shavit, of blessed memory, also wrote in 2010:

“… When Iran becomes a nuclear state, a member of the club of nations possessing nuclear capability, the situation will be fundamentally different from what prevailed during the Cold War, when the world order was dictated by two nuclear blocs that created a system of mechanisms and capabilities which ensured global stability and the ability to prevent errors. In a system of nuclear states in which there is no symmetry between them, and where the ceiling of each one’s interests lies at a different height—and the safety and well-being of humanity is not their compass, but rather a lower priority interest—it is enough for there to be a single provocation that side A regards as absorbed, while side B defines as a casus belli (cause for war), and thus you have a nuclear event, the end of which no one can foresee.

In any event, the very thought of a fanatical Shiite ayatollah with his finger on a nuclear trigger is horrifying.”

Excerpt from the book:

Shabtai Shavit, Head of the Mossad, Yedioth Books Ltd., 2018