Amit Margolis straightened his back, immediately conscious of his tendency to slouch. “Thank you, Mister Prime Minister. In my humble opinion, I would strongly argue against striking their political leadership. Their military leadership is, of course, fair game and they are on the target list as everyone can see. But with regards to Khamenei and Ahmadinejad and any political leader, I think we guarantee a reaction from the resulting leadership that is vengeful in nature against us. They will launch everything they can against Israel and seek revenge for years to come against you, sir” — Margolis was looking at the prime minister — “or your successor. If we leave them in power, then they have to live with and explain to their people how they allowed the Great Satan to come into Iran and destroy their supposedly impregnable nuclear program that they have spent so much time and money building. Plus I think they will have to consider long and hard just how many countries other than Israel they will want to bring into this conflict. And, yes, I am particularly referring to America.”
Cohen nodded his head slowly and turned his gaze to Yavi Aitan. “Yavi?”
“I think Mister Margolis just expressed my views perfectly — probably better than I could.”
“Okay then, the political leadership is off the list,” commanded Cohen. “Okay. What’s the next category on your list?”
General Schechter looked down at the sheet of paper on the table. “Ah… the next issue is China. We have identified two targets. The first is the cyber warfare center at Tehran University that is now staffed with over twenty-five Chinese nationals and growing.”
“Yavi, what are they doing at this location?” asked Cohen.
“In a concise answer, everything. The center grew up to help the Iranians defend their networks but has expanded over the last year. They are now launching attacks on Israel from this center ranging from denial of service attacks to attempts to hack into the defense network and most of our largest corporations and financial institutions. It seems the Chinese feel emboldened operating out of Tehran versus the already aggressive activities they conduct from Shanghai. I honestly think that they don’t realize that we know they are there.”
“Thank you, Yavi.” Cohen looked back at Schechter. “I see you have the Chinese embassy listed on here. You actually mean the real Chinese embassy?”
“Yes sir.”
“Why?”
Schechter turned to Amit Margolis. “Amit, this is Mossad intelligence.”
Margolis looked at Yavi Aitan. Aitan lifted his left hand with the palm up and nodded toward Margolis, indicating to him to respond. Margolis went ahead. “The Chinese are playing a dangerous game. Much of the support for the Iranian program is coming from North Korea. The Chinese, who publicly profess an anti-proliferation stance, are privately aiding and abetting this trade with the Koreans. This is coordinated inside the embassy, including running front companies in countries around the world.”
“Don’t the North Koreans have an embassy in Tehran?” asked Zvi Avner.
“Yes, but the nuclear program activity is being run through the Chinese embassy.”
“Are you sure?” Cohen asked.
“I asked that question to Director Levy. His answer to me was that he was absolutely positive.”
“Why? I don’t understand.”
Margolis thought for a moment. “I’m not sure I’m qualified to answer. I think you should talk to Director Levy on this. But my understanding is that the Chinese wanted to control this activity between a historic client state, North Korea, and a state that they increasingly view as a client state, Iran.”
Cohen looked at Danny Stein. “Danny, your thoughts on this?”
“I fully support striking the cyber center. It is easy to claim ignorance if the Chinese protest about killing their people, although I expect that they will keep quiet about it and, in fact, deny that they had any personnel there. But the embassy? I can’t support that. If it was the North Korean embassy, I might think differently.”
This view was in synch with the opinion of the prime minister. Cohen bypassed Mort Yaguda and Reuben Herzog, both of whom he knew would go along with the consensus. He turned to Avner. “Zvi, your thoughts?”
Avner surprised the group. “I agree with Danny. Attacking the Chinese embassy would bring too many negative repercussions.”
“Okay, I think we have consensus on this. We attack the cyber center. We pass on the Chinese embassy.”
Schechter nodded and bent over to take notes on his printout. He straightened back up. “The next issue is hitting the homes of leading scientists. I know the scientists are legitimate targets, but we want approval to incur collateral damage. We didn’t put in on here, but the same question applies to military commanders.”
Yavi Aitan hated that obtuse phrasing. “You mean, General, a green light to kill the families of these scientists and generals?”
“If you want to phrase it that way, then yes.”
“I prefer stating things directly and openly.” Aitan adjusted his seat. “I hate to see families killed, but this is an opportunity to drive home Dead Lead and from a military perspective, we can’t let it pass. I say yes.” Aitan was referring to Operation Dead Lead, the ongoing assassination of Iranian physicists and scientists who worked on their nuclear program. “The same, of course, applies to the military commanders on the list.”
Cohen was growing impatient with the meeting. He was always eager to move on to the next meeting, the next speech, the next challenge at hand. “I approve these targets unless anyone objects.” He looked at Stein and Yaguda, knowing that Avner would not object. Yaguda nodded his consent. Stein never looked up and never objected. He then looked to his right at Herzog.
“Yes, hit them,” responded the minister of finance.
“It is a consensus then. Targets approved. What else?”
General Schechter turned and looked at the television screen. On the slide there was a single remaining bullet point at the bottom. It had only one word: “Bushehr.” “Finally, there is the issue of Bushehr. This nuclear reactor has always been on our target list and will be attacked via cruise missile from a Dolphin submarine. But…”
“But the calculus has changed,” Eli Cohen interjected, eager to get to the point. “Yavi, please update everyone on what is happening at Bushehr.”
“Yes,” responded Yavi Aitan, “after decades of stops and starts, Bushehr is actually being commissioned. Over the next several months Iran will begin to power up the reactor, running a series of tests culminating in full power certification. At this point, any destruction of Bushehr will release radioactivity into the air and likely cause a core meltdown. Unfortunately, we have waited too long. Our destruction of the Iraqi and Syrian nuclear reactors were both accomplished while the reactor buildings were still under construction and before nuclear fuel rods had been placed in the reactor core.”
“What kind of contamination are we talking about?” asked Avner.
“If we attacked today, very little,” responded Aitan. “But every month that goes by, the Iranians will be loading more fuel rods into the reactor core at Bushehr. By the fall, this process will be complete if they keep to their timetable. At that point, we will be highly likely to trigger a core meltdown if we hit the reactor containment building. In a full meltdown, the radiation release will be quite bad. Prevailing winds come consistently out of the northwest year round and will send contamination to the southeast toward the Emirates. Much of the contamination, especially the heavy particles, will settle into the Persian Gulf or areas along the Iranian coastline that are sparsely inhabited. Most of the airborne contamination, given the weather profile of our planned attack and assuming we hit Bushehr the same day as the rest of Block G, will be carried aloft to be picked up by upper altitude winds that will carry the radiation out over the Arabian Sea and toward India. Mid-level fall-out will endanger two cities in particular, Abu Dhabi and Dubai, even though they are each about six hundred kilometers away.”