Former Israeli national security advisor Gen. Yaakov Amidror worries that Israel could get drawn into an Iran-US showdown

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sraeli intelligence figures say military tension in the Persian Gulf is approaching a breaking point. If the Iranians make one false move, they say, the United States will retaliate with force.

An Israeli security source added that, unlike North Korea, where there is no option of American military action on the table, an option does exist to strike Iran. Israel, he said, has been briefed on the details of that plan.

Faced with economic sanctions on their oil and petrochemical industries, a sputtering economy, and a restive population, the Iranians are under pressure. That would explain the two attacks on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf last week, which the United States, Britain, and Israel all pinned on Tehran.

Iran wants the United States to drop the most draconian of the sanctions on its economy and is prepared to take the region to the brink of war to achieve its aims. In tandem, the Iranians are sending contradictory signals to the diplomatic community over their true intentions and spreading disinformation over social media.

On Monday, the Iranians ratcheted up the tension one more notch by announcing that they will no longer place limits on the amount of uranium stored inside the country, a key provision of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). All of these separate moves are component parts of Iran’s defiant strategy to force the United States to change tactics.

It is interesting to note that Israel has remained almost totally silent as these developments have unfolded. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has denounced Iran in his usual terms, but has not referred specifically to the tanker attacks. Israel’s considerations in the matter seem clear. Jerusalem hopes America will keep up the pressure on Iran, but is doing its best to remain out of the fray. Netanyahu has no desire to be accused of goading Trump into a direct military confrontation.

Major General (res.) Yaakov Amidror, once Netanyahu’s head of the National Security Council, expressed this clearly in a conversation with Mishpacha. Israel’s most important role at this point, he clarified, is to stay out of the American-Iranian conflict.

“The Iranians understand that the Americans are not going to stop, they are continuing to strengthen the [economic] pressure,” he said. “So the [Iranians] attacked ships, and attacked Saudi oil facilities.” Iran categorically denies involvement in the incidents, and news organizations in the country even reported that Iran saved 44 of the tankers’ crew members from drowning.

But Iran’s denials are not very convincing. The possibility that Saudi Arabia carried out the attacks in order to commit the United States to war with Iran cannot be taken seriously. The Saudis have already sufficiently proven their inability to keep such an operation secret — witness the botched murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul and the near-extradition of Lebanese prime minister Said al-Hariri to Saudi Arabia.

What spurred Iran to drastic action? Until this spring, Israel and the United States believed that Iran was playing for time. Iran was hoping President Trump would lose reelection in November 2020 and that his Democratic successor would return America to the nuclear deal and cancel sanctions. But in the interim, the sanctions are biting hard.

According to intelligence sources, Iran’s provocations represent its policy of walking just on the edge of open conflict. With its 20,000 sailors and hundreds of ships commanded by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, Iran could easily have sunk the tankers in the Gulf. Still, they chose to avoid direct confrontation. The message was clear, however: If we can’t export petroleum, no one can.

Maj. Gen. (res.) Amos Gilad, former head of the Political-Security Bureau and head of the Institute for Strategy and Policy at the Interdisciplinary Center, said Iran acts in other arenas in order to reclaim its position in the oil market.

“Iran does not want to find itself isolated,” Gilad said. “[Therefore] they exert pressure indirectly in the Persian Gulf, in Yemen, in Lebanon. At the same time, they are trying to take control of the Golan Heights and turn it into a second front against Israel.”

Iran’s relations with Russia also play into the strategic equation. Moscow still stands by the nuclear deal, but its alliance with Iran in Syria is more distant than ever. Russia no longer condemns air attacks on Iranian bases in Syria ascribed to Israel, and the joint summit of the national security advisors of Russia, Israel, and the United States planned for later this month can not be making the Iranians happy. They no doubt fear that some secret conspiracy is being hatched to curtail their influence in Syria. (Indeed merely the consent of the two superpowers to meet in Jerusalem, chiefly to discuss the future of Syria, is an achievement for Israel.)

In one of his innumerable tweets, the president of the United States referred to Iran as a terrorist state. But Trump is not really demonstrating a determined and consistent approach to Iran, despite the ambitious 12-point-plan presented by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo a year ago. In several statements over the past few months, Trump has hinted that there may be room for compromise with Iran if it agrees to talk. The more hawkish elements in Trump’s administration do not relish that prospect, though, especially after the failure of his meetings with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.

If a Persian Gulf war comes, might Iran try to ensnare Israel in the fight? Gen. Amidror believes there is almost no chance. “The Iranians do not want [to fight everyone at once], but it could happen,” he said. “At a certain point, the Iranians could decide [to attack Israel] if they believe it will contribute to their struggle against the United States.”

Amidror adds that if an Israel-Hezbollah conflict comes, it would be one of Israel’s most dangerous. “I have no doubt that we [would prevail], but we have to understand that a war against Hezbollah is a very difficult war.”

(Originally featured in Mishpacha, Issue 765)