JERUSALEM: The former head of Israel's Shin Bet security agency has accused the country's political leaders of exaggerating the effectiveness of a possible military strike against Iran, in a striking indication of Israel's turmoil over how to deal with the Iranian nuclear program.
Yuval Diskin said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who have been saber-rattling for months, have their judgment clouded by ''messianic feelings'' and should not be trusted to lead policy on Iran. Diskin, who headed Shin Bet until last year, said a strike might actually accelerate the Iranian program.
Iran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. Israel, like the West, believes that Tehran is developing weapons technology, but there is intense debate over whether international economic sanctions accompanying the current round of negotiations might prevent Iran from developing a bomb, or whether at some point a military strike should be launched.
Diskin's comments deepened the sense that a rift is growing between the hawkish Netanyahu government and the security establishment over the question of a strike.
In Israel, security figures carry clout well into retirement. Although they frequently pursue political careers, Diskin had been seen as relatively apolitical, perhaps lending his words even greater weight.
''I don't have faith in the current leadership of Israel to lead us to an event of this magnitude, of war with Iran,'' Diskin said at a public meeting Friday, video of which was posted on the Internet the next day and quickly became the lead news item in Israel.
''I do not believe in a leadership that makes decisions based on Messianic feelings,'' he continued. ''I have seen them up close. They are not messiahs, these two, and they are not the people that I personally trust to lead Israel into an event.''
Diskin said it was possible that ''one of the results of an Israel attack on Iran could be a dramatic acceleration of the Iran program ... They will have legitimacy to do it more quickly and in a shorter timeframe.''
Spokesmen for Netanyahu and Barak both refused comment on the issue.
Further complicating the picture is the widely held belief that Israel's threats are actually a bluff of historic proportion and that indeed they have been effective in compelling the world to boycott Iranian oil and isolate its central bank.
From that perspective, criticism such as Diskin's, based on a literal approach, could be presented as simplistic and damaging.
Israeli security officials have taken issue with the political leadership on several issues: whether sanctions will make a strike unnecessary, whether a strike will be militarily effective, and whether Israel should strike unilaterally if it cannot gain American approval.
Diskin's speech came days after the country's current top military commander, Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, also seemed to disagree with the country's leadership on the likelihood that Iran will pursue a nuclear weapon.
Gantz told The Associated Press this week that Iran is seeking to develop its ''military nuclear capability,'' but that the Islamic Republic would ultimately bow to international pressure and decide against building a weapon. The key to that pressure, he said, were sanctions and the threat of a military strike.
One of the first criticisms voiced by a security figure came last summer from Israel's recently retired spy chief Meir Dagan.
He called a military strike against Iran's nuclear program ''stupid.'' Dagan, who headed the Mossad spy agency, said an effective attack on Iran would be difficult because Iranian nuclear facilities are scattered and mobile, and warned it could trigger war.
