"... Mossad fell into the trap of siding with the Lebanese Christian Phalange and being drawn into the first Lebanon war.."

Link

HAARETZ, here

"Military intelligence experts have been proven wrong and even disgraced, for example, because of their assessments prior to and following the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War. Their predictions, in briefings before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, were undermined by the Iranians who initially did not collapse in the face of Saddam .........

the "Gulf curse" hit Meir Dagan, who recently had his tenure as director of the Mossad espionage service, extended to an eighth year - who made a belittling remark about the intensity and significance of the protests against the regime in Tehran.......

... A year and a half later Dagan was brought to Mossad and since then he has not stopped looking for trees at which to hurl his knife. He did not become powerful because of his assessment capabilities; sometimes he was proven right and sometimes he was mistaken. The main criteria for his job include the ability to gather information, to produce vital intelligence and to carry out operations. There is a worrying precedent, however. During Hofi's final year, Mossad fell into the trap of siding with the Lebanese Christian Phalange and being drawn into the first Lebanon war. Dagan's desire for an eighth year - as some think - because of his anticipation of developments connected with Iran, is a gamble that could end badly."

Posted by G, Z, & or B at 9:35 AM