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"Adel" -
I had just gotten out of a very serious meeting evaluating the current threat status to Israel from Iran, especially its nuclear program. This meeting was held at Biranit, the Israeli Defense Forces military base in the Galilee. Attending were various members of Mossad, Aman, and Shin Bet, as well as my own personal "top boss," a Major General who headed up the IDF Intelligence Corps.
Yeah, I actually worked for Aman - IDF Intelligence - though few people actually knew that. Many of even my closest allies just thought I was "Mossad". Mossad gets all the glory, but that's OK - some of my closest friends were Mossad.
I'm afraid I was the chief presenter at that meeting and went over the latest from my modest efforts running - while undercover, of course (way beyond NOC since Iran allowed no Israelis into its country) - a network of intelligence assets in Iran. Working in Iran really wasn't all that difficult for folks like me, right now. The actual competing factions of Iranians trying to outdo one another in Islamic holiness actually helped a lot. Many "just folks" type Iranians were getting real tired of it. Especially those of Arab or Turkic descent who were experiencing more and more Persian derision - like the term "Tork-e-khar" "Turkish donkey" aimed at Turkic Azeris. The strict Sharia law and the "morality vigilantes" often roaming city streets was definitely a negative.The widespread Black Market in alcohol was but one indicator of the level of covert resistance.
Also, at least there weren't really very many Russian agents around anymore. During and right after WW2 Iran was flooded with Russians and especially KGB types. Both British and Red Army forces occupied Iran to protect and utilize its oil fields but also keep the "Southern route" to the Soviet Union open for Allies' supplies - American supplies - flooding in. Millions of tons of railroad steel rails, 25,000 GMC 2.5 ton trucks (the era's famous "deuce and a half"), 5000 railroad locomotives, 13 million pairs of felt boots for the bitter Russian winters, and at least 5000 P-39 Aircobras and 5000 various other types of planes, 7000 tanks of various types, and almost 600 ships. And a LOT more. The ships mostly went the "Northern" Baltic Sea supply route, of course.
The Russians loved the little Aircobra fighter plane, though certainly their own planes and especially tanks were very competitive against the German counterparts. Stalin was a genius in protecting his economic base by moving vast production facilities East before the German onslaught - and therefore COULD maintain the supply of their own major weapons systems, as long as raw materials were available. Mostly what the West - the USA again - sent Stalin was raw material and then certain specifically requested manufactured items. Perhaps the British and Americans foolishly allowed way too many Soviets in Iran as part of the combined war effort against Germany. But hindsight is only sometimes 20/20.
Once the Soviet Camel got its nose in THAT tent, it really wanted to stay there. It wanted at least equal access to both Iranian oil and the whole Mideast, including Saudi and Kuwaiti oil, after the war ended. Even after the Red Army WAS finally expelled from Iran, there remained more KGB agents per capita in Iran than any other foreign non-communist country in the world. It was a very bitter cold war battlefield until the 1953 coup returned the Shah to power and he used his SAVAK to help expel the Soviet agents as well as control internal communist AND Islamic theocrat opposition to his otherwise rather benign dictatorship rule. At least benign for the entire Muslim world. An indignant Swedish reporter once asked the Shah, "Why don't you rule just like the King of Sweden." "I certainly would if Iranians were Swedes or merely acted like Swedes" the Shah quite truthfully answered. The reporter wasn't mollified.
The CIA coup, "Operation Ajax", pulled off by Kermit Roosevelt (grandson of President Teddy Roosevelt), replaced "democratically elected Premier Mossadeq" with the Shah. Mossadeq was a definitely anti-Western, pro-socialist and Communist leaning ruler who welcomed Soviet support and help, including the many KGB agents who weren't shy using assassination against anti-Soviet Iranians, especially fostering many attempts against the Shah and the Shah's supporters. Those were pretty hairy days for British and American agents working in Iran primarily against Soviet counter-intel pros.
All of my recent successes there really stemmed from that little caper in Tehran with the Americans - especially that Jim Johnson spook, who was just as cagey as I was in conveying who he really worked for. But I certainly guessed it wasn't CIA. The CIA of today was nothing like the CIA of Kermit Roosevelt's day. Alas.
Being able to "turn" Colonel Jafar Masdani was just the greatest serendipity. He just kind of dropped in my lap, or rather, that beautiful woman Jennifer kicked the shit out of him and into my lap. That was always a pleasant interlude memory. I really hoped to meet Jennifer again sometime in the future. Jim as well, of course, but Jim just didn't have the visual and olfactory appeal of Jennifer!
Iran was working diligently on its first bomb. No doubt about it. I had one very well placed resource, the nuclear physicist Dr. Mosseghi, as well as the good Colonel, but I, we, really needed someone with access to the ultimate Iranian policy decision makers. No less than the office and councils of the Supreme Leader, the current Ayatollah. It was possible a contact in the President's office might deliver the same level of information, but I was very concerned on the timing. The President might be informed of certain things, but only right before these "things" were initiated and too late for us.
Determining the "threat matrix" was one thing. That included merely capabilities: technical abilities, economic abilities, manpower, order of battle, logistics, etc. But determining "intentions" was even more important. The USA currently has the capability of basically wiping out the rest of the world combined, using it's own vast and highly sophisticated nuclear arsenal.
But USA intentions weren't a concern. At least USING it's vast nuclear arsenal. Other US government intentions were often matters for concern. Israel definitely needed some real insight into actual Iran intentions, both strategically and tactically. We certainly believed Iran's socio-political goals as plainly stated: destroy Israel, establish a worldwide Islamic Caliphate, punish the Great Satan. As long as the goals remained within merely "politics and economics" we could live with that. It was the whole "politics by other means" we were all worried about.
And if nothing else happened Iran would have a bomb within 10 months. The clock was ticking. Because of Jim Johnson and his team's efforts against that Grayson fellow, the initial bomb(s) probably wouldn't be much of a delivery threat, but still...And I knew for a certainty the Iranian physicists were still wanting all the little Western technical goodies TO make much smaller and more efficient and much more easily deliverable Nukes.
A 5000 pound bomb could easily be trucked around or container shipped, physically - or even delivered by civilian cargo or military bomber planes - but much harder to deliver successfully by missile. That kind of payload meant a huge missile - and larger missiles were the easiest to shoot down with our ever more capable anti-missile systems. Not just "Iron Dome" but Arrow 2 and Arrow 3 anti-ballistic missiles with greatly extended intercept ranges.
We would continually brainstorm possible Iranian usages of such weapons specifically against Israel but also secondarily. What if Iran bombed someone else, like Saudi Arabia, and then attempted to blame Israel? To merely incite yet another "unified" Muslim Arab war against Israel? These were the kinds of scenarios that kept us all awake at night.
John Keegan, British Military historian, wrote an interesting book "Intelligence in War" which pointed out just how inconsequential "great intelligence" often is, merely tactically. The German invasion of Crete is the classic case. Because British Intelligence had already broken the German Enigma radio encryption, the British Staff knew EXACTLY what the German plans were for invading Crete via airborne assaults only. They knew the when and the how and the island's commanders were fully aware, ready, and confident. At that point in military history airborne assaults on an island objective without ANY naval battle support at all was the riskiest kind of endeavor. And yet the British defenders STILL lost and the Germans won the battle and occupied the island. Part of that was just a little bad luck for the British during the fighting, but still...German resolve, the fighting spirit of elite Airborne troops, perseverance and luck carried the day.
It was enough to give people like me - well, my superiors at any rate - nightmares. I might just do everything right, everything real wise, find everything out - and my side still lose when it all went down. Shit.
As always, first thing I did after my meetings was check for messages. There were the usual, but nothing all that interesting except a rather cryptic email from "Habib Ebrahimi" - that was Jim's alias in Tehran. It was basically a warning but I also viewed it as quite possibly a need for my help.
