Book Review: Target Tehran
Target Tehran: How Mossad is Using Sabotage, Cyberwarfare, Assassination—and Secret Diplomacy—to Stop a Nuclear Iran and Realign the Middle East. By Yonah Jeremy Bob and Ilan Evyatar. Publisher: Simon & Schuster; 368 pages; $19.99
Mark Twain said that “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; truth isn’t.” Imagine a scenario where an adversary penetrates the defenses of their enemy and extracts half a ton of hard-copy documents, incriminating the enemy in what it had long denied. The adversary then drives hundreds of miles to another country to load the documents and return to their country. While that sounds like something straight out of a movie, that is what Israel is rumored to have done in 2018.
In Target Tehran: How Israel Is Using Sabotage, Cyberwarfare, Assassination—and Secret Diplomacy—to Stop a Nuclear Iran and Realign Middle East, authors Yonah Jeremy Bob and Ilan Evyatar have written a book that reads as if it were a mystery novel.
In this fascinating read, the authors detail how Mossad, Israel’s national intelligence agency, has made it a priority to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power.
While Israel’s efforts to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb are laudatory, the authors write that some observers, including some Israelis, have argued that Israel’s war against Iran is counterproductive and, in the end, bound to fail.
They posit that if a tiny country like Israel could develop a nuclear weapon despite the opposition of the United States, then an enormous country like Iran, with a population of more than 80 million people, will surely be able to do so as well. Others express the view that even if Israel’s nuclear program deters potential invaders, it also gives an incentive to countries like Iran to develop nuclear weapons of their own. That conflict is inherent throughout the book.
The authors, both military correspondents, bring a deep and broad understanding of the topics. While the Iran/Israel conflict is often presented as being black and white, they show the complexities involved and the countless conflicts within Israel’s military and intelligence on how to deal with the Iranian threat. The authors cite interviews with leaders from the highest ranks of the Israeli and U.S. governments, military, and intelligence agencies.
While Target Tehran is in the nonfiction section, it reads like an action thriller. This fascinating and engaging book will certainly enlighten every reader.
Reviewer: Ben Rothke, CISSP, CISM, CISA, is a New York City-based senior information security manager with Tapad. He has more than 20 years of industry experience in information systems security and privacy. His areas of expertise are in risk management and mitigation, security and privacy regulatory issues, design and implementation of systems security, encryption, cryptography, and security policy development. He wrote Computer Security—20 Things Every Employee Should Know.
