The annual Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Military Intelligence assessment shared with decision-makers at the start of each year and presented to the public on Jan. 14 has never been vaguer. Even senior intelligence officials conceded the difficulties and virtual impossibility of issuing a sober threat and development assessment these days with any reasonable degree of accuracy. “The pace of events occurring in the region is dizzying, surprise follows surprise and decision-making is not rational the way it was in the past,” a former senior intelligence source told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity.
Indeed, the past year has been marked by dramatic surprises, culminating in the reverberating Jan. 3 assassination of Iran’s Gen. Qasem Soleimani, who engineered the expansion of the Shiite axis in the region. “The US willingness to assassinate a key figure such as Soleimani surprised the Iranians,” an Israeli intelligence official told Al-Monitor this week on condition of anonymity. “On the other hand, Iran’s September 2019 strike on the Saudi oil infrastructure, its magnitude and precision, surprised the Americans, the Saudis and everyone in the West. God only knows what surprises await us as 2020 proceeds.”