Barak, who was the prime minister of Israel a decade ago, was clearly trying to calm a jittery public. His comments may also have been an effort to lessen growing pressure on the Israeli government to attack Iran before it gets a bomb.
Just days after Barak spoke out, a former Israeli intelligence chief said it would be 
“stupid” for Israel to bomb Iran.
Rather pointedly, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has remained silent throughout these exchanges, suggesting he is not unhappy to have these points aired. Netanyahu has helped to raise the tension within Israel by calling Iran’s nuclear program an “existential threat” to Israel.
Barak told the daily Haaretz in an interview that Israel should not spread public panic about the Iranian nuclear program—a position that seems to put him out of step with Netanyahu, who in recent years has also compared the Iranian nuclear push to the Third Reich’s development of increasingly sophisticated weapons.
When asked whether he thinks Iran would drop a nuclear bomb on Israel, Barak said: “Not on us and not on any other neighbor.”
“I don’t think in terms of panic,” he said. “What about Pakistan—some political meltdown happens there and four bombs wind up in Iran. So what? So you head for the airport? You close down the country? Just because they got a shortcut? No. We are still the most powerful [military] in the Middle East.”
All the same, Barak said Iranian rulers could not be relied upon to remain clearheaded.
“I don’t think that anyone can say responsibly that these ayatollahs, if they have nuclear weapons, are something you can rely on, like the Politburo or the Pentagon,” he said. “It’s not the same thing. I don’t think they will do anything so long as they are in complete control of their senses, but to say that somebody really knows and understands what will happen with such a leadership sitting in a bunker in Tehran and thinking that it’s going to fall in a few days—and it is capable of doing it [bombing Israel]? I don’t know what it would do.”
Though the Iranian government seems to have largely eluded the wave of revolutions in the Arab world, Barak said it too could collapse. “I think we are seeing the beginning of the end of the dictatorships in the Arab world, including the Iranian one,” he said.
Many analysts have argued over the years that Iran wants the bomb for national prestige and to enable it to throw its weight around with neighboring countries. They say Iran has no intention actually to use any bomb it develops.
Others, however, while accepting that premise, argue that if an Iranian regime armed with nuclear weapons is cornered, there is no telling what it might do; faced with an imminent overthrow, it might very well fire all its weapons indiscrinately at its neighbors.
As for Netanyahu’s comparison of Iran to Nazi Germany, Barak pointedly took exception. “I don’t like the comparison with what happened in 1938. I don’t think this is the same, because what is the conclusion to be drawn? What should a Jew who found himself in 1938 Germany have done [when Hitler started attacking Jews]? In retrospect, he should have fled. I think it’s the opposite here. I will not flee anywhere,” Barak said.
Meanwhile, Meir Dagan, who retired in January as chief of the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, said the proposal to bomb Iranian nuclear installations was “a stupid idea.” He spoke Friday, the day after Barak’s comments were published.
Dagan was long reported to have opposed the bombing proposal, but this was the first time he spoke out publicly about it. Dagan said an attack might not eliminate all of Iran’s nuclear installations and might spark a general war that would include missiles being fired by Iran at Israel. In other words, an Israeli attack on Iran might prompt the very Iranian action Israel seeks to prevent.
Dagan emphasized a policy that has actually been Israel’s policy for many years. He said, “The Iranian problem must be made an international problem,” meaning the world at large must tackle Iran and other countries shouldn’t think Israel would do the job itself, leaving other countries to sit back and carp at Israel publicly while thanking it privately.