On January 4, with the setting sun low over the Judean Hills, Meir Dagan drove into the Negev Desert past the first of the guard posts which protected the perimeter of Ariel Sharon’s most prized personal possessions, his Sycamore ranch. Blending into the barren landscape, the building reflected its owner, strong and seemingly indestructible. On the seat beside Dagan was his briefcase containing the latest reports of Shaul Mofas, the soft-spoken minister of defense, and the abrasive General Dan Halutz, the chief of staff of the armed forces. Between them they had approved ten prime targets for any preemptive strike against Iran. Mofas had written: “Iran is now the greatest challenge facing us.” The decision to launch an attack would be taken by the Committee of the Heads of Services. Dagan would provide the latest intelligence. There would be consultations with Benyamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, a former prime minister who had resigned from the Likud Party only to take over as its leader when Ariel Sharon had quit in December to form his own party, Kadima (Forward). His move had broken the mold of Israel’s two-party system, Likud and Labor, to establish a powerful new force. A number of key Likud politicians had joined him, among them Shimon Peres, another former prime minister. While Israelis struggled to absorb the upheaval, Sharon suffered a ministroke, but in days he was back at his desk and, at the age of seventy-seven, was still working a twelve-hour day. It would be his final decision to attack Iran.
As Dagan drove toward the ranch, he knew the next time he would see the prime minister after this meeting would be following recovery from an operation to repair a small hole in his heart, which had been discovered when he was being treated for his stroke. Alongside the plans for a strike on Iran was Mossad’s assessment of Hamas ending its “truce” of attacks on Israel. It came at a time when Sharon was still considering whether to allow Palestinians in East Jerusalem to vote in elections due later in the month; all the signs were that Hamas would make a good showing. But Dagan knew there were also personal troubles Sharon had to cope with. His son, Omri, had been forced to resign from the Knesset over a finance scandal that had led to criminal charges against him. The previous night’s television news carried a report that the net was closing on a police investigation into $3 million secretly donated by an Austrian tycoon to help the prime minister repay expenses from his last election.
Dagan reached the ranch, built on the ruins of a Palestinian village and covering two thousand acres. As usual Sharon was waiting for his intelligence chief before sitting down to eat a meal prepared by his daughter-in-law, Inbal. The relationship between the two men had always been close, united by their common background of having fought in Lebanon. Then, Sharon had been as trim as Dagan had remained, but the prime minister, at 280 pounds, was now massively overweight for his five-foot-seven-inch height. To discuss the plan for the Iran attack, they sat in the ranch’s spacious lounge. Afterward they had sipped coffee while Sharon reminisced; his eyes, restless and hard when he was younger, had now taken on an old man’s softness, but his memory was as sharp as ever. He recalled in detail how he had captured a fortified zone in the Sinai by dropping paratroopers from helicopters, a tactic still studied in military academies in the U.S. and Britain. And how in the Yom Kippur War of 1973, when Mossad had been caught off guard, he had virtually single-handedly turned certain defeat into a brilliant victory. Dagan, as usual, listened intently as Sharon went on to explain how he had helped form the Likud Party after Labor had refused to accept him—and how he now intended to make Kadima live up to its name. He had spoken of his dislike for Netanyahu for his fierce opposition to the evacuation of the Jewish settlements. As the evening wore on, old friends dropped in to wish Sharon well for the next day’s surgery. He told one, Reuven Adler, that he was worried about the general anaesthetic. Adler had joked, “What’s the matter, Arik, you have turned into a coward all of a sudden?” When it came time for Dagan to leave, he noticed that Sharon looked more tired and pensive.
