Best Defense
Thomas E. Ricks' daily take on national security.

Aid to Obama? Another Israeli security official speaks out against attacking Iran

This time it was the former head of the Shin Bet, the internal security agency. Apparently it was the first time Yuval Diskin has spoken in public about the Iran issue. These statements are more significant than they may seem, because they provide support to skeptics of the official Israeli position that Iran must be ...

By , a former contributing editor to Foreign Policy.
Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images
Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images
Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images

This time it was the former head of the Shin Bet, the internal security agency. Apparently it was the first time Yuval Diskin has spoken in public about the Iran issue.

This time it was the former head of the Shin Bet, the internal security agency. Apparently it was the first time Yuval Diskin has spoken in public about the Iran issue.

These statements are more significant than they may seem, because they provide support to skeptics of the official Israeli position that Iran must be attacked soon. And so I think this eases election-year pressure on President Obama: All he has to say to hawkish critics is, What do you think you know that the chief of the Israeli defense forces and the former head of Shin Bet don’t know?

Thomas E. Ricks is a former contributing editor to Foreign Policy. Twitter: @tomricks1

Read More On Barack Obama | Iran | Israel | Middle East and North Africa | Nuclear Weapons | Palestine

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