Who just leaked US intelligence on Israel?

A couple of highly classified US intelligence documents somehow landed in the media over the weekend, with a pro-Iran site first highlighting them on Friday.

What happened?

Some of the coverage has breathlessly described the leaked docs as Israel’s “plans” to attack Iran, so you’d be forgiven for thinking maybe they were some kind of Looney Tunes map with a big arrow pointing at Iran.

And as pictured above, the leaked documents are absolutely swimming in an alphabet soup of US intelligence acronyms: TS (top secret); TK (images captured from satellites); and NOFORN (no foreign nationals get to see this juicy juicy intel)… unless they’re from FVEY (the ‘Five Eyes’ intelligence sharing pact between 🇦🇺, 🇨🇦, 🇳🇿, 🇬🇧, and 🇺🇸).

But once you push past some of the coverage and acronyms, the reality is kinda complicated. What do the intelligence documents actually say?

Dated last week (Oct. 15 and 16), they basically describe activity at Israel’s Ramata David air base in the Jezreel Valley and Ovda naval base in Haifa: transferring munitions in preparation for an attack on Iran, dispersing naval assets in preparation for an Iranian response, etc. And some of the specific details are interesting, including references to:

• Known weapons, like the Israeli-made ‘Rock‘
• Unknown weapons, like a mysterious ‘Golden Horizon’ missile, plus
• One of the docs says “we have not observed indications that Israel intends to use a nuclear weapon“. Ie, that’s just interesting because everyone already knows the Israelis have nukes, but nobody confirms it publicly.

So how serious are these leaks?

From a legal standpoint, enough to land someone in the slammer.

But from a military standpoint? You can boil these leaks down to two things we already knew: Israel is preparing to hit Iran, and that’ll presumably involve the air force. Even Israel’s element of surprise is unscathed here — we still don’t know any targets or timing.

So then, from a diplomatic standpoint, again, how much is really new? Yes, these leaks might erode US-Israeli trust, and media attention will fan that suspicion across both publics, but inside government? The limits around international trust have long been priced in.

Okay, so then… whodunnit? Here are just some of the theories:

• An unauthorised US leak?

Unlike last year’s Discord leaks, there’s nothing here to suggest this was some junior-burger bragging to his buddies online. Rather, it’s no secret there’ve been some US officials opposed to US policy on Israel — so (the theory goes) maybe rather than resign, one has leaked these docs to disrupt US-Israel ties or discredit the White House before election day.

• An authorised US leak?

The fact these leaks don’t really reveal anything new suggests they could’ve been chosen carefully to send a signal without doing damage. The signal? The US has been trying to strike a balance between deterring Iran without emboldening Israel, in order to avoid another war. So, the theory goes, perhaps this leak could be part of a US effort to close that deter vs embolden gap, by making Israel second-guess the extent of US support.

• An Iranian hack?

Iran has solid cyber capabilities, but there’s a big difference between getting a campaign advisor to click a Gmail link, versus penetrating an air-gapped and encrypted US system. Still, there are other ways Iran could theoretically get its hands on this material, whether via a US official’s security slip-up, or actively recruiting a source on the inside. But then the question is, why would Iran compromise such juicy access with such a low-impact leak? Either way, the theory is that maybe Iran is trying to forestall any Israeli decision to attack.

• An allied leak?

As flagged above, a handful of allies might’ve had access to this material, but they’d typically treat this stuff hyper-cautiously lest their access get cut off. Still, the theory here is that, authorised or not, such a leak could reflect allied frustration that the US isn’t doing enough to rein in its own Israeli allies. That’d be unprecedented, though not impossible.

• Israel?

And really getting into 7D chess territory here, there’s another theory that Israel itself could’ve leaked this material, perhaps to fake-out Iran, which would then presumably rush to prepare for an Israeli air force attack until bam — Israel hits it some other way.

So which one is it? We’d ordinarily stick to Occam’s razor: the simplest explanation is usually the best. But while some of the above theories are simpler than others, none are particularly simple. And meanwhile, there’s the risk that if someone is already willing to leak two highly classified US docs, they might be willing to leak more.

INTRIGUE’S TAKE

There’s something very ‘2024’ about these two foes taking weeks or months to line up each shot, rather than hitting in the moment. One way to interpret this is that, yes, while there’s big talk and bigger speculation, neither side is rushing to push this to an all-out war. Rather, despite all the fireworks, we’re still arguably in an era of slow, methodical, telegraphed, and performative – though increasingly massive – volleys of fire.

Anyway, our sense is that, whatever the intent of this leak, it’s unlikely to shape Israel’s next move. And what will that be? Our sense is it’ll be less than what the Israeli public wants, but still more than what the US needs right now.

Also worth noting:

• Before boarding Air Force One home from Germany on Friday, reporters asked President Biden if he knew how and when Israel will hit Iran next. Without elaborating, Biden answered “yes and yes“.
• Some have drawn comparisons with the 2012 leaks of US intel on Israel’s reported plans to hit Iran’s nuclear capabilities, which many Israelis concluded was a US attempt to deter Israel.