Thursday, January 18, 2007

The next IDF chief / Mission: Iran

By Ze'ev Schiff
HAARETZ

"To correctly choose the next Israel Defense Forces chief of staff, it is also necessary to consider who the next defense minister will be, since these two are supposed to complement each other.

A chief of staff with no strategic vision coupled with a defense minister with no security expertise is a recipe for disaster - especially if the prime minister is also not well-versed in strategic matters......

On the personal level, it is necessary to pick someone who has professional authority and outstanding leadership capabilities, is apolitical and independent, and who was not associated with major failures during the war, and can therefore apply the lessons that have been learned from it.

The choice should also be determined by the threats Israel faces. The new chief of staff must, of course, be able to lead the army in an asymmetric war. But the biggest threat is Iran. The worse-case scenario is that it will acquire nuclear weapons, but even without these, Iran has proven its ability to target Israel with missile launches and terror attacks carried out by organizations such as Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. "

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