Eli Cohen finally leaned his weight back against his chair. He was no longer red. He had calmed and now was in his analytical mode, his mind focused on the enormous challenge that fell upon his shoulders. He swiveled his chair to reach back to the credenza behind him. Everyone in the room knew what he was reaching for. But for those who would soon be offended, they would suffer in silence as their prime minister indulged his famous addiction. Cohen swiveled back to the conference table. In his right hand he had a cigar cutter. In his left hand he held a Cohiba Espléndidos cigar. He clipped the tip and immediately began rolling the now truncated end between his lips. He placed the cutter on the table and reached into his right pocket to remove a cheap lighter, expertly applying the flame to the far end of the cigar.
The only man in the room comfortable enough to respond, stood and took two steps over to the wall, turning on an upgraded air filtration system. The system had been added specifically for this prime minister and these occasions. Benjamin Raibani returned to his seat, rolling his eyes for the amusement of the other men in the room. “I thought you were giving up cigars?”
Cohen exhaled. “That is obviously an Arab disinformation campaign designed to undermine the morale of Israel.” Most in the room laughed.
“I hope you at least offered the president one of those,” replied Raibani.
“Well, at least he is a smoker. Of course, I could only offer him a cheap Dominican,” Cohen answered with a smile, to the bemusement of the room. The prime minister had publicly switched to cigars rolled in the Dominican Republic to avoid offending his American benefactors. The conference room they now occupied was not public.
Zvi Avner cleared his throat. He had not been laughing, his mind fully absorbed by the subject of this meeting. Along with the man seated to his right, Benjamin Raibani, Avner had once served as the chief of staff of the Israeli Defense Force, only more recently than the older Raibani. For the prior three years, Avner had been retired from the military and serving in the Likud Party as a member of the Knesset. He had embraced political life in Jerusalem fully, including indulging himself in the endless cocktail parties and dinners that were the province of the powerful and connected. His waistline reflected his newly adopted lifestyle, no longer the reflection of fitness expected in a senior Israeli military officer. When Cohen asked him to become the minister of defense two months earlier, Avner did not hesitate. It was the post that he had always believed he was uniquely suited for.
“Thank you, Prime Minister.” Avner opened a manila folder. He picked up a pen and held it like a drum stick in his right hand. It was a long time mannerism that no one could understand or get him to change. He had to have a pen in his hand while he spoke. “You are indeed right that our planning has, unfortunately, been U.S. centric,” Avner began. “We have hoped all along to have a strike force led by B-2 Spirit bombers of the U.S. Air Force. They are a unique asset of the United States that we simply cannot reproduce.
“With the U.S. out of the picture, I have to start with a question that this group needs to answer. What is our strategic goal now? Our planning up to now has assumed at least ninety percent destruction of Persian nuclear infrastructure and significant damage to the Persian air defense network, ballistic missile inventory, electrical grid and military command and control.” Avner had an odd custom of referring to Iran as Persia and the Iranians as Persians. “Of course, most of this destruction was coming from the American Air Force. So if it is just us alone, I need to know what we are trying to achieve.” Avner was talking directly to his boss.
“This is a fair question,” Cohen replied. “I am open to discussion on this, but I will say that if we are being realistic then we have to narrow the scope of our goals. First, forget everything other than the nuclear program itself. The question is how do we define success?” No one in the room wanted to step onto that landmine. Prime Minister Cohen scanned the room but wasn’t surprised by the silence. “Okay, I will take a crack at it. I say if we go, then we must set back their program by at least a decade. Comments?”
Benjamin Raibani spoke first. “Actually I think that is exactly right. That’s what I had in mind.”
Avi Gresch, Minister of Foreign Affairs, sat the farthest away from Cohen. He was not a military man, but was a politician with a keen sense of public relations. His response reflected his expertise. “I like it. It makes sense. It will make sense to the rest of the world.”
Eli Cohen didn’t respect a man without a strong military background. He brushed off the advice despite the fact that it was supportive. “Who else? Yavi?” Unlike his feelings for Gresch, Cohen had tremendous respect for Yavi Aitan, the up and coming star of the Israeli Defense Force.
“It makes sense as a political statement,” responded the minister of intelligence and atomic affairs. “We can claim victory if all we do is destroy Natanz and Isfahan. Of course, what it will take to achieve that goal in reality is, in my opinion, something well beyond just destroying those two targets. But we will have to come back to that.”
Cohen leaned back in his chair. Once again, the commentary of Yavi Aitan had earned the respect of his boss. “Yes, I think you are right. If no one else objects, then Zvi, you have your strategic objective.”
Avner had the green light to proceed. “I will plan for that strategic outcome and let you handle the political aspects,” the defense minister said. He paused to review his thoughts. “Everybody here understands the make-up of the IAF.” The most professional of the three branches of the Israeli Defense Force, the Israeli Air Force reflected both the tactical history of Israel’s wars and the practical realities of Israeli defense budgets. Israel had to defend its existence against a hostile neighboring population of over 145 million Arabs on an annual budget smaller than what the United States spends annually just to care for and support its veterans.
“We have built a potent force designed for fighter superiority and strike missions that are geographically very close to Israel,” Avner continued. “Our Air Force excels at fast sortie turn-around. We are ready to confront Hezbollah or the Syrian Army or the Egyptians.” Avner waved his pen-loaded hand in the air as he ticked off Israel’s adversaries. He knew when he watched the video of Prime Minister Cohen and the U.S. president meeting the press in the White House — and saw the animosity between these two men who should be allies — that this meeting would be about how Israel could destroy the Iranian nuclear program without direct U.S. military support. He had been practicing his speech.
“But none of this represents the tactical challenge posed by Persia. Our targets in Persia average sixteen hundred kilometers distance, each way. We have so far identified over twenty-five targets that must be successfully hit in order to destroy their nuclear program. Of these, most are targets that the IAF can destroy in one sortie. But two of them, Natanz and Fordow, are underground and hardened. These two targets are especially challenging as they both require bunker busting bombs. Plus we expect Persia to increase their tunnel construction as they have done in Isfahan, so time does not help us.
“Layer on top of the size and complexity of the target list, we must assume that the moment we strike, we will face a barrage of missiles from Hezbollah. We estimate their total missile arsenal at close to forty thousand. That compares to about fifteen thousand missiles in their arsenal at the start of the second Lebanon war, during which they fired about forty- two hundred missiles into Israel. If…”