Exclusive interview with the former director of the foreign intelligence service of Israel "Mossad", Major General Danny Yatom

 

Mr. Yatom, you recently wrote the book "Labyrinth of Power". Please, tell us what your book is about.

 

- I wrote a book by the name of "Labyrinth of Power" that deals mainly with the peace process between Israel, Syria, Jordan and the Palestinians, during the terms of Prime Minister Rabin, Prime Minister Peres, Prime Minister Barak and Prime Minister Netanyahu. I participated in almost all the meetings and negotiations with our neighbors and decided to write about it so the public in Israel and the world will learn what happened exactly in closed rooms and behind the curtains of the negations, to analyze the decision making process by the leaders involved and to present the moments that we were very close to achieve peace with the Syrians and the Palestinians.

 

The assassination of PM Rabin by a fanatic Jew murdered also the peace process which is since in deterioration and dying. The "Arab Spring" since 2010, the results of the second Iraqi war, the dismantle of the Iraqi military force and the withdrawal of the American forces from the Middle East are the main reasons to the chaos in many Arab countries including the civil war in Syria, the rise of Al Qaeda and ISIS and for the expanding of the Iranian and the Shiite axis influence in the Middle East. The book is translated into English, Russian and Chinese in order to allow as many people as possible to read it. 

 

Recently Mossad director Yossi Cohen said that "Iran has already achieved to expand its control over the Middle East regarding the Syria crisis. Iran is moving in to fill vacuums in regions in the Middle East created by the retreat of Islamic State." What is your opinion about the Iran's role.

 

-  The supreme goal of Iran is to disseminate the extreme Islam and to build a Caliphate on the remnants of the modern world. 

 

During the last years Iran is highly involved in the Middle East. In Syria 10,000 foreign Shiites organized in militias are fighting with the backing of Iran in addition 8,000 Hezbollah terrorists and 1,500 Iranians soldiers are fighting as well with their main goal to save President Assad and his regime. Iran plans to build a division which will be deployed in Lebanon. Iranians belonging to the Al Quads force and their proxies try to build in the Golan heights a new front against Israel, Israel announced many times that this will not happen, in addition Iranian backed forces active in Iraq in order to confront ISIS, the Sunni Gangs and upgrade the Iranian influence over Iraq. Iran is present also in Yemen and backs the Houthis rebels against Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Iran continues to develop accurate missiles with ranges of thousands kilometers and with capability to carry nuclear war heads. The nuclear agreement that the western leaders signed with Iran doesn’t prevent continuation of uranium enrichment and cooperation with North Korea allows the Iranians to bypass the restrictions which should be imposed due to the agreement with the west.

 

Many people expected that Trump administration will play more active role in the region and he will take US back to the Middle East. For instance, US is inactive in Syria now and Russia dominates in the region. Why US is inactive in Syria?

 

-  American forces withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan as part of the policy of President Obama created a vacuum that was filled up by the Iranians  and by the main terror organization: Al Qaeda and ISIS. President Obama decided also not to intervene in the Syrian war which encouraged Russia, Iran and Hezbollah to take active roll and to fight for the sake of  the survivability of president Assad. 

 

President Trump declared in his election campaign the policy of "America first" which brought many to think that the USA will isolate itself from the world and will deal only with domestic problems, but the developments in the world brought the American president to understand that his country should be involved in the main Crises in the world. What we see today is that the US returns to the Middle East, participates in the war against ISIS and assists forces like the Kurdish Peshmerga in their operations against ISIS. The main goal of President Trump is to defeat ISIS and not to assist Assad’s reviles. The US sees Assad as part of the problem and not the solution. In addition we have to remember that the conflict with North Korea is of a very high priority and the same applies to the nuclear agreement with Iran which President Trump does not stopped criticizing.

My assessment is that the USA intends to return to the Middle East with a much greater intensity.

 

Russia strikes on ISIS positions, but US strikes Assad's army. How can you explain it?

 

- The US attacks mainly ISIS targets and assists the Iraqis and the Kurds in the anti-terror war, the US does not see a priority to attack the Assad military force.  

 

Which scenario do you predict for Syria? 

 

 - It is very difficult to assess what will happen in Syria, it looks as Assad will survive but it does not say that Syria will remain the same as it was in the beginning of 2011, the civil war lasts for 7 years this is very bloody war that claimed the lives of 600,000 people and caused millions OF Syrians to by refugees. I think that there are two main scenarios to the future of Syria :A. A federation based on the ethnic enclaves.

 

Syria will remain undivided with a strong backing of Iran and or Russia. I think that this scenario is less probable.

 

What do you think about ISIS defeat in Syria and Iraq? Where will it move? 

 

- ISIS lost its territory in Syria and Iraq the fall of Al-Raqqa will bring the end to the ISIS territorial control in the Middle East, but ISIS will not disappear it will carry out terror attacks in the Middle East in the western countries especially in Europe and will try to terrorize populations all over the world.

 

In the meantime ISIS builds a territorial strong hold in eastern Libya, 400 kilometers from the shores of Europe, such a strong hold will allow ISIS to ship terrorists and weapons to Europe and to carry out as big terror attacks as possible in this continent.

 

Seymur Mammadov