In this episode, Richard Pater speaks with Helit Barel about Israel’s recent strike on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. In this conversation – recorded during a media briefing hosted by BICOM – Barel explains the objectives and scope of the strike, how Israeli intelligence and Mossad operated with extraordinary precision on the ground in Iran, and the technical vulnerabilities Israel aimed to exploit within Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Helit served as a Director at the Israel National Security Council, heading the U.S.-Israeli bilateral desk and is a former Managing Director of the Council for Peace and Security. She also worked at the Congressional Research Service in Washington DC authoring several reports for Congress on issues related to weapons of mass destruction.
Transcript
(This transcript has been automatically generated by AI — please excuse any potential errors.)
Richard Pater:
Okay. Hello, everybody. My name is Richard Pater. I’m the Director of BICOM. And welcome to the latest bike home briefing. First of all, thank you very much indeed to Helit Barel who’s going to be our speaker for today. Thank you very much indeed for joining us.
By way of background, it is a former senior staff at Israel’s National Security Council, specifically heading the Israel, US bilateral desk.
She’s also a former managing director of the Council for Peace and Security and a member of the Devorah Forum. She’s considered an expert in non-proliferation, nuclear weapons, and also Israel, US relations so expertly ideally placed to offer some commentary analysis on what’s been happening over the last few days. Headed, perhaps. Perhaps you can start and give us your overall assessment specifically on what you think the role at the moment between Israel and the US and that the role that they may be playing behind the scenes.
Helit Barel:
Well, I think it’s obvious, considering how this attack started to be played out, that there had been much closer coordination between Israel and the United States, than was seen or considered to be publicly. And the allowance or the availability of this space to conduct military operation against Iranian nuclear facilities, and other military installations.
Surprised I think a lot of people. So one thing that we can certainly tell is that, there was close coordination on this, and so we can assume that it is continuously. So, now, I have to address what we just had popped up, which is, report from the nuclear from the Wall Street Journal claiming that Iran has urgently requested from the United States to conduct talks with the United States and Israel to end, the war fighting at this stage with no idea if this is true or not.
But once again, we can see, where the coordination here comes in. We also know that, we in Israel could not have, this level of success in defending, against Iranian, ballistic missiles, constant attacks, for several days now without, the coordination with the United States and the active help of the U.S, systems that systems in the region.
And we also know other things, such as while the United States has stated more than once that this is an Israeli operation and they have nothing to do with it, that they have at the same time also, definitely increased their presence in the region. We know that bombers, the heavy bombers, the B-2 bombers have reappeared in Diego Garcia and so on and so forth.
So, certainly what we see is while the United States, at this stage has not joined in operationally, that there is, there are very, very, close quarter, consultations and, and work on this operation.
Richard Pater:
And if I can turn to kind of the obviously the, the, the concept behind this, this, operation by Israel was to downgrade, destroy the Iranian nuclear project. I wonder if you could just talk to that and kind of where they were at and technically, what it looks like to, to to take on a mission to destroy that.
Helit Barel:
Right. So, the first caveat, I want to put it out there. The dust hasn’t said lately, and there’s a lot that we don’t know about how much, the how much. You know what exactly the result of these strikes are? There was such a wide array of facilities that had absorbed these strikes. They include, Natanz and Isfahan and Parchin, which are various facets of the Iranian nuclear program.
So, in Natanz, its enrichment and centrifuges, in is behind it was conversion and Parchin. We know it was work on the weapons group. So all of these various components of the Iranian program have been attacked. We keep getting, various reports, for example, use Natanz as a good example. Some reports were saying initially, oh, it’s been put out of commission.
Then we heard, well, the outer part of it has been, affected and all electricity has been cut off, which certainly would harm the centrifuges inside and the enrichment efforts. But the actual inner part of it that’s underground hasn’t been heard. Then we heard that it did kind of implode and, and, and, physically, took a lot of harm.
So again, fog of war, we’re not sure about exactly what those things are. And also because even some of the things that the IAEA, the EIA is putting out there are still not based on, visiting on the ground because it’s just not possible at the site. So we know that the operationally, those targets were achieved in in the sense that they were hit, in the sense that they were affected, were they hit in a way that would put them out of commission?
To create the kind of delay that we were hoping for? I think it’s, early to say, but we also have to remember that Israel really struck more than just the nuclear facilities is one of the most important things that was undertaking, in this in this, operation was the striking of means of delivery.
A lot of things to do with the Iranian ballistic missile industry, which is very advanced. So, not only trying to get at the launchers and at the actually stockpiles of missiles, but also at the reproduction capability, because one of the main concerns is not just where Iran is now. It was estimated before this operation started, at around 2000, ballistic missiles.
That where is it going? Because production was moving very quickly and, would make it hard for Israel to absorb increasing numbers of ballistic missiles. Which we see, you know, we see the implication of today in the attacks that Israel was absorbing. So we had that component. And then, and then another component to consider is, of course, taking out those military personnel and those personnel involved in the Iranian nuclear program, in the military nuclear program, in an attempt to try and, let’s say, decrease the reconstruction capability because, no, there’s nobody obviously on Earth it can’t be replaced.
But key figures, especially, I believe, in the weapon group effort, are going to be hard to replace. But again, we do know that Iran is a nation of, of many, many people, a very educated putting a lot of effort into these particular field. So we’ll have to see, how effective it was. So, on the, on the and the question of results, too early to tell.
Certainly a success operationally an amazing success from an intelligence standpoint. More, I would say even more than operationally knowing exactly where these people are at, what times, even though they’re sheltering in their hiding, to be able to get it. And we also well, I don’t know if you saw, but we saw in Israel the footage of, the work that Mossad did on the ground using many various, means of warfare, and intelligence to have very, very precise strikes on those targets that I enumerated before.
So, I’ve got a couple of technical questions just on what you said. First of all, for the for the layperson, when you remove electricity, what happens to the centrifuges? So the centrifuges are spinning at a very, very high speed. And centrifuges are basically, very large cylinders. Right. And they’re, once you mess with they’re, continuous, spinning.
So, you cut off the electricity and you make them stop. And even even if they do start again, they actually can get completely destroyed or, severely harmed by the lack of, speed and and the the, the the quick arrest of, electricity supply. So no doubt in terms of, the centrifuges that if the power was cut, some harm, probably significant harm, was done to them.
If you remember the Stuxnet operation back in 2010, which was, a cyber, kinetic combined operation. It’s exactly what it was trying to do was to mess with the the supply of power and change the speed of the centrifuges as to get them, to malfunction and get them out of commission. And it worked to an extent.
It was kind of cut short. So, it’s, it’s a similar it’s a similar kind of, consequence. I mean, it’s another technical question that you may be able to enlighten us. What happens to if, if, if kind of these some of these airstrikes hit some of the, storage of enriched uranium a it does it destroy it or is there, is there risk of leaks, radiation?
So, it’s very first of all, I just it’s very hard to tell. If the enriched uranium stockpile was, really addressed in these attacks, if it was because it’s very hard, to know where it was. I mean, there’s no particular reason you would hold it in the facilities themselves, which are known targets when, the enriched uranium takes a form that is very easy to move around and hide and separate.
So most likely that’s what you would do. But still, we’re talking about enrichment of fissile material in these, in these, facilities. And what we heard from, the ground and from IAEA, that was that there was, certain level, very low level of contamination, but, nothing, terribly significant. And no, just bombing the, the, the fissile material itself.
If it was easy as that, the Iranians would certainly already have those, devices ready. What you have to do is, create a very particular kind of explosion around, around the uranium core, to start the chain reaction, which we all know as a, as a nuclear, detonation. So, it’s nothing like that.
And it’s similar more to concerns that we had about dirty bombs in the past and things like that. But those are also intentional to increase the contamination. And this is not what’s going on. So what will from the reports that we currently have and again, this is very early, the contamination is not, very significant.
Richard Pater:
Thank you. And just going back to what you said before about kind of the, the illusion of to Mossad operations just for our, for our audience. But here online and listening, listening to this afterwards. Can you just, elaborate on what, the understanding is of Mossad’s, presence on the ground?
Helit Barel:
Well, from what we saw and again, this is, my completely external analysis to the whole situation. It was it was very, very significant involvement. The intelligence is, you know, a large part of this operation, the operational execution, you know, you have to have a target for. And the targeting was, pretty incredible. I mean, we’ve seen, the footage of, these missiles going through a particular, room in a particular building and taking out that alone with great, great precision.
Do you have to know who’s in that room and when they are? There was apparently some sort of meeting, of, very high ranking military on the first night of the strikes, which I think took out, if I believe I’m correct, about 20, very senior people in the Iranian, in the IRGC, in the nuclear establishment.
So, that requires extreme precision. But also we saw basically, these, I wouldn’t call them floating bases, but mobile bases of, of these and other, means of delivery that were being, delivered on the ground in Iran and used from within. So not just from the air. That requires a physical ground presence, guided by Mossad agents.
So, yeah, pretty incredible, intelligence achievement, which we probably, you know, we got the first cursor of that when we saw, Ismail Haniya months before that, been taken out in a very precise way, again in one room in the centre of Tehran, in the IRGC complex. So I think it was already obvious that that, that that capability existed. But that it existed on the scale that we now saw, was pretty impressive.
Richard Pater:
And just going back to the, to the US role, as I said, we’ve got we saw as we came, as we start the conversation, this initial report of a suggestion of, of mediation, I wonder if you could just outline what those what the talks have looked like between us and Iran over the last few weeks and, and where they and where they and where they reached.
And then kind of as a, as a follow up kind of if that was if there was a return to diplomacy, whether that has any bearing kind of, you know, in a post or in a post, clash, return to diplomacy.
Helit Barel:
Right. So, what we were supposed to see yesterday, was, I believe, the sixth round of talks between the United States, and, and Iran, regarding, trying to find a new nuclear agreement.
I’m staying away from using the JCPoA because it was clear, that President Trump had no interest in reconstructing that. And also, the starting point was so different with where Iran had gotten to that. That was not really a possibility. But, you know, what we saw really is on one hand was all over the place, statements that were very constructive in the beginning.
And we’re getting along and and those kind of things. But they were really mood statements. We never heard anything about the technical issues. And the technical issues on the on the table were very, very significant. We’re talking about not only in uranium enrichment, but also what happens with the advanced centrifuges. So research and development, what happens with the enriched uranium that already exists in Iran, where is it going?
And so on and so forth. So there wasn’t really a lot of detail about that. It was more sort of like, things are good, we’re getting along, we’re going to make these and then they were very, you know, kind of manic moving from one side to the other. So in the beginning it’s a good move. Then it’s like we’re not getting along and we’re not optimistic.
We saw that right before the strike. So, on the technical issues, very little is known as far what as far as what was being discussed, we did hear and again, these are reports that are not corroborated. You know, obviously the nothing came out officially from the US side or the Iranian side, but talk about, finding some solution for enrichment that would include, regional consortium in the Middle East, seeing as the Emirates have their own program, which operates according to the U.S gold standard.
Saudi very much wants its own enrichment program. Iran obviously feels like it has the right to enrich. So I think the idea that was floated around was how do you maintain this notion of Iran having the right to enrich without allowing really, vast enrichment, on Iranian soil. So that was the most creative kind of thing that we heard.
And then that there were arguments about where would it be housed? Would it be housed at the Emirates? Will we be housed in Iran and Saudi? What would it be acceptable to the international community? What would be acceptable to the United States? What would be acceptable to Iran? That really they never really came close on those issues. And that still leaves open, the question of weaponization and inspections regarding weaponization.
So ,I think President Trump identified correctly that Iran is has a very strong core weakness at the moment. So it didn’t come to the table in the same state that came when the JCPoA was negotiated. Right. First of all, financially, it was in dire straits for a while, for a long time, fearing the sanctions that that awaited.
And they await sanctions not just from the United States, but sanctions that are talked about, that have to do with the noncompliance with the NPT and being referred by the IAEA board of directors to, the UN, security Council, sanctions having to do with the snapback, which are still possibly in force and could be triggered, would have to be triggered in a very short period of time.
So, within weeks, that’s one thing. But also, having been in, over a year and a half of war, really, with Israel having lost Hezbollah basically as a proxy, having lost Hamas as a proxy, and then launching this, I think is very important to very large attacks on Israel in April of 2023 and in October of 2023 that were very unsuccessful, really, and that were a display of deterrence by denial.
So they didn’t really achieve, any kind of goal. They did not deter Israel or the United States from continuing to pursue their goals and did not deter Israel from its goals, and Gaza and so on. So, came in with a very strong, it’s funny, with a great weakness regionally, but also internally. So I think that’s what President Trump really identified and thought that considering that and the NPT, the state of the NPT and the state of snapback sanctions, that he could affect real change in the Iranian position by pressuring them at the time.
And then that didn’t really work out in the first meetings. The first five meetings, and the sense was or from what we understand, the impression that the Israeli government conveyed at least, was like, they’re just buying time to maybe rush across the nuclear threshold to make sure that, snapback sanctions aren’t in place. And so, that’s where we’re at with those negotiations, and we’ll see if it picks up there would certainly from it compromises that need to be made.
Richard Pater:
I was wondering, who do you think is driving this policy within the within the Trump administration? There were plenty of kind of known I would say, hawks on the Iranian issue, kind of within the kind of the traditional wing of the Republican Party. But they seem to have been sidelined more to kind of figures who are, kind of associated with more with, with Trumpism, let’s say, which is, I would argue, distinct.
Where do you think the kind of the power of gravity is within the US? Who’s leading that? And what would what are the main kind of policy drivers there?
Helit Barel:
So, I think you described that very well. There really is some sort of, power power struggle there within where, first of all, President Trump wants to deal.
He wants to be he wants to be able to show a good deal. He wants to bring it to conclusion. He sees this as a key part of a greater deal that he will bring to the Middle East, which would, you know, if you believe his vision or follow his vision would benefit, you know, would have a regional, a wide marginal effect, and would bring rest and stability on, on a wide range of issues.
So that’s, you know, that his, his, his driver. Now, the what we’re seeing is that the neo cons of the Republican Party that had such strong effect within the party and for a long time have really lost a lot of their influence on this. So yes, they would be, possibly supportive of, you know, striking Iran, taking military action, driving it, not just by means of diplomacy, sanctions and so on.
But then you have the other side of it, which is MAGA, and they have a lot of political clout, and they have been very, very outspoken over the last, especially over the last few days since, the start of this operation. And they’re basically saying we are about to make America great again, not about make Israel or the Middle East great again.
So don’t get us involved in the mud over there and stay out of the war. Like we’ll support Israel, but we won’t, you know, take this upon themselves. And that’s where the struggle is. And the interesting thing is that it all ultimately lies in the hands of the president. This is one of those presidents who was, really, in the end, going to do what he himself decides to do.
And I am under the impression that he simply hasn’t decided. Now, if, things have really come to, fruition this quickly, where the Iranians are willing to sit down and talk, I believe that he will. I believe that he will prefer to see if they are coming with a new willingness to compromise. But again, I think as of, you know, 20 minutes ago before we heard this and we don’t know if this is true, the only one who’s going to decide is Donald Trump, and I don’t I truly don’t think he has made up his mind.
We hear contradicting things from him. Every day, which is, actually, in terms of, deterrence and influence and others, this ambiguity could be quite fruitful for him. But, we’re not clear on where he really stands on this.
Richard Pater:
And, and just back to the kind of the nuclear project of Iran, one of the signs we didn’t mention, that is in the kind of Israeli media discourse is, is Fordow, which kind of hasn’t been struck yet, which is heavily underground under a under a mountain is you can Israel can Israel do anything to, to penetrate, Fordow? Can they do it alone, or is it kind of solely reliant on if America decides to, to involve itself?
Helit Barel:
So, we’re talking about America, the need for American, air power and striking power in for do. Because, we’re talking about a very well fortified underground facility, and we’re talking suspicious specifically about, the Moab bombs, which are, you know, the heaviest and strongest bombs, which are only, in the hands of the United States.
They don’t export them. They don’t sell them. And also, they have the, the capability to carry them. So let’s say they gave Israel this bomb. You need the actual power to you need the bombers to, to actually carry them, which is something the United States, holds exclusively. And and yes, the United States could, administer quite a bit of damage to subdue and deal effectively with that side.
But the other side of it is not just the bombs themselves, but also the ability to repeat. So the repetition of the strikes, in other words, what we call operational tempo, up tempo, and we saw what the United States did in Yemen, in terms of its ability to strike, you know, thousands of strikes in a very short period of time, which is something that, the Israeli Air Force doesn’t have the scope for.
Not that we can’t do it. You’ve seen how, strongly we’ve been, attacking within Iran over the next, over the past few days. But it’s obviously no comparison with the Operation tempo that the United States of America can keep up. So and this is something I think is key and is very important. It’s true not just of force.
Do is true of any concept of a military attack on nuclear facilities, because it’s a type of gardening, if you will. So the problem is not just what damage you do when you first attack or while you are operating, but also can you keep it up because of the Iranian? Have the Iranians have the ability to reconstruct.
Then you have to keep it up in the the attack and make sure, that in a sort of attrition, you keep your achievements going. That’s where the United States contribution is, is so critical on those things. To your question about whether Israel can achieve that and for do unfortunately, I believe not in that particular the clear side doesn’t mean we can’t do damage, doesn’t mean that we can’t delay.
But, to achieve the kind of, of results that the United States could, I think is out of our grasp.
Richard Pater:
Would you think Israel has a, has a contingency plan to, to at least try and they can’t base a strategy on. Well, let’s hope the Americans joined. There must be they must. Having launched this there.
Maybe there must be a plan.
Helit Barel:
Yeah. And I don’t think. I don’t think, I don’t think we have. I don’t think that’s, that’s any kind of plan. And I don’t think it’s correct for Israel to ask the United States. This is something that the United States has to arrive at from its own point of view, from its own interest.
I strongly believe that, maintaining Iran is a non-nuclear weapon, state is important to the United States and Europe. It a very, very high level. Sometimes we’re not sure if that’s internalized that those ballistic missiles that we’re fighting can also reach the European continent. But, that is the case. And, it’s still something that the United States needs to arrive to that.
So this should not be the situation where, oh, we got involved in this war because of Israel. And so I don’t think that was ever the expectation. I think, there was an operational opportunity and a political opportunity because of the result of the war that started with the vicious attacks of October 7th and what had transpired and how, Iran’s position came to be and all of that, the weakness, and the strong successes that Israel has had in Lebanon in, in Syria, I think led to to the, this idea that, and and in addition, of course, for the Iranian advances, towards the nuclear threshold that it would be, the
time to strike they wouldn’t have done that without, the, compliance the, the, the, the, you know, the agreement with the United States would not have done that without that, but weren’t relying on us. AirPower would have been going too far. That’s not how you plan an operation.
Richard Pater:
Absolutely. So presuming that it this remains kind of a blue and white operation solely without the Americans, what does what does kind of the operation of success look like? And what’s the what’s the exit strategy to, to end it?
Helit Barel:
So, I think, you know, we’ve seen our, national Security advisor be go on a lot of, TV shows in Israel over the last few days and talk about how, what is required now is the diplomatic, leg to finish this. In other words, the framework, that this is basically meant to really create a situation where, we can see Iran coming to the table with more, ability to compromise.
And we have the United States political and diplomatic clout behind us, rather than necessarily the military to finish this up, to create an exit strategy that allows us to maintain a situation in the Middle East where Iran does not cross the nuclear threshold, not just does not cross it today, but that it is a long term agreement. And that could only be done by the United States and not even the United States alone.
It’ll have definitely the support of Europe is necessary there. But, the the long term component of it is very, very important. And I think that’s, that’s the the idea was to push it, you know, towards that area. And I believe and maybe it’s wishful thinking, I hope that if we see and I really, you know, cannot tell if that’s really where it’s going.
But if we see some sort of conclusion in, you know, within, I don’t know, a week or ten days or whatnot, of the operations and this, movement towards a political, diplomatic solution, that it would include more than just Israel and Iran, that it would include the beginning of regional components, and, the wrapping up of what’s been going on in the Middle East since October 7th.
Richard Pater:
Thank you. Is there is there anything else you’d like to share that I haven’t asked?
Helit Barel:
Just that, you know, I think it’s a very important to note that, Israel has been generally getting, a lot of criticism for its level of war fighting and, and specifically this operation as well.
And I think it’s also very important to remember, what we think is the alternative, the fact that Iran has had was allowed to get so advanced in its nuclear, advances towards a military capability is it’s very important to keep reminding everybody this is not a threat just to Israel. It’s a threat to the Middle East, the oil supplies of the world, and into this threat to Europe and Eurasia.
So it’s just something that needs to be taken on by the international community. And, stop. Let Israel shouldering the burden by itself.
Richard Pater:
Thank you so much for your analysis and insights for today. Thank you all for joining us. Stay tuned for future briefings. And, thank you all for joining us. Helit, stay safe and wishing you well.
Helit Barel:
Thank you.
