Sagiv Asulin, a former senior Mossad official, addressed the upcoming meeting between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Donald Trump in Washington at Channel 14’s security conference today (Tuesday). Asulin dismissed reports of disagreements between the leaders and predicted Netanyahu will present dramatic intelligence about Iran’s nuclear program.
2+Asulin rejected claims of diverging interests between the countries: “We need to learn from past experience. Time after time we see before the prime minister’s trips to President Trump, statements almost everywhere that there are very big disagreements, and time after time, lo and behold, we’re proven wrong.” He stressed that coordination is higher than reported: “These two—the president of the United States and the prime minister of Israel—are coordinated far, far more than it appears.”
Asulin predicted Netanyahu arrived at the meeting with fresh intelligence on Iran’s nuclear facilities: “The prime minister is going to reveal to President Trump updated intelligence on everything related to Mount ‘Pickaxe’ regarding nuclear infrastructure. From what I understand, this may involve both the transfer of relevant equipment that will be buried deep underground even more than the Fordow site. And it’s also possible that it even involves enriched uranium that some say has been transferred there.” According to him, such information could lead to necessary military action.
2+According to Asulin, joint operational cooperation between the countries is a done deal: “The integrated American-Israeli activity is only a matter of time. It’s a matter of operational opportunity, and everything we’re seeing now and will see in the near future is deception, it’s a campaign, a global campaign to create alliances.” He added that at the right moment, action will be taken with “a very high element of surprise.”
Despite President Trump’s constraints ahead of the midterm elections in November, Asulin believes the Iranians are forcing the administration’s hand: “The Iranians time after time are pushing him into a corner and not even allowing him to make it to November.”
2+He concluded his remarks with the importance of a preemptive strike: “We’re talking about Israel’s survival, Israel’s security. If we have an opportunity to strike our enemy, we need to do it, and I think we’re heading toward another such event.”