모사드, 자초한 패배: 이란 전쟁의 실패와 내부 개혁
The Mossad Suffers a Crushing Defeat Entirely of Its Own Making - The Intercept
지정학적 불안정성과 내부 기관 실패는 광범위한 시장에 상당한 시스템적 위험과 불확실성을 야기합니다.
핵심 요약
이란 전쟁 실패로 인해 모사드가 내부적으로 대대적인 변화를 겪고 있으며, 이는 과거의 실패 사례와 대비됩니다.
핵심요약
- 모사드는 새로운 국장 임명과 함께 정보국 및 이란 부서 책임자들을 해임했습니다.
- 1997년의 실패 사례는 모사드의 작전 실패가 국가적 위기로 이어진 전례를 보여줍니다.
- 이란 암살 시도는 원하는 결과를 얻지 못하고 오히려 새로운 최고 지도자의 등장을 초래했습니다.
- 이란의 전략적 자산은 호르무즈 해협을 이용한 세계 경제의 인질극 능력입니다.
도입
본 기사는 이스라엘 정보기관인 모사드의 내부 변화가 이란과의 전략적 실패라는 거대한 지정학적 맥락 속에서 어떤 의미를 갖는지 분석합니다. 투자자들은 단순한 군사적 사건을 넘어, 정보기관의 전략적 실패가 어떻게 국제 질서와 에너지 안보에 영향을 미치는지에 주목해야 합니다. 모사드의 내부 개혁은 단기적인 조직 변화를 넘어, 이스라엘의 대이란 정책이 예상했던 목표를 달성하지 못했음을 시사하며, 이는 향후 중동 지역의 지정학적 변동성에 대한 분석의 중요한 단서가 됩니다.
본문 1: 정보기관의 실패와 역사적 맥락
모사드의 이번 고위직 해임은 단순한 인사 조치를 넘어, 이스라엘의 대이란 전략이 낳은 전략적 실패의 결과로 해석됩니다. 기사는 모사드가 이란을 겨냥한 암살 작전이 국가적 목표 달성 대신 새로운 최고 지도자의 등장을 초래했다는 점을 지적합니다. 이는 모사드가 설정한 목표와 실제 결과 사이의 괴리를 보여주며, 정보 활동이 목표 달성을 위한 수단이 아닌, 복잡한 정치적 결과에 영향을 미치는 변수로 작용했음을 시사합니다. 특히 1997년의 실패 사례는 이러한 전략적 오판이 과거에도 반복되어 왔음을 보여주며, 정보 활동의 성공 여부가 최종 정치적 결과에 직접적인 영향을 미친다는 점을 강조합니다. 이는 정보기관의 역량과 목표 설정이 실제 지정학적 결과를 예측하는 데 얼마나 중요한지를 보여줍니다.
본문 2: 이란의 전략적 우위와 지정학적 위험
이란이 현재 세계 경제를 인질로 잡을 수 있는 능력, 즉 호르무즈 해협을 통제하는 전략적 우위는 이스라엘 및 미국에게 가장 중요한 안보 자산으로 작용합니다. 이란의 이러한 능력은 단순한 군사적 위협을 넘어, 국제 에너지 시장과 글로벌 공급망에 대한 통제력을 의미하며, 이는 이스라엘의 안보 전략에 중대한 제약으로 작용합니다. 모사드가 이란의 보안 구조를 약화시키려 했던 과거의 역할은 이러한 전략적 우위의 변화에 대한 이해를 요구합니다. 이란이 가진 이 잠재적 힘은 외부의 군사적 압력뿐만 아니라, 경제적 레버리지를 통해 국제 관계를 형성하는 데 사용되며, 이는 향후 중동 지역의 에너지 및 무역 흐름에 예측 불가능한 변동성을 야기할 수 있습니다.
본문 3: 장기적 전망과 위험 요소
모사드의 내부 개혁과 이란의 전략적 우위는 장기적인 지정학적 위험을 내포하고 있습니다. 이스라엘이 이란과의 관계에서 목표했던 결과를 얻지 못했다는 사실은, 향후 지역 안보 환경이 더욱 복잡하고 예측 불가능해질 수 있음을 의미합니다. 이란이 가진 경제적 레버리지를 활용하는 전략은 지속될 가능성이 높으며, 이는 이스라엘의 안보 정책에 지속적인 압박 요인으로 작용할 것입니다. 따라서 투자자들은 정보기관의 내부 변화와 이란의 경제적 영향력을 종합적으로 고려하여, 중동 지역의 에너지 및 무역 관련 시장의 변동성을 면밀히 관찰해야 할 필요가 있습니다.
결론
이번 사건은 정보 활동의 성공이 최종 정치적 결과로 직결되지 않는다는 점을 보여주며, 지정학적 목표 설정의 복잡성을 강조합니다. 향후 이스라엘과 이란 간의 관계는 정보전과 경제적 레버리지가 교차하는 복잡한 역학 관계 속에서 전개될 것입니다. 투자자들은 이러한 지정학적 변동성을 고려하여, 중동 지역의 에너지 및 무역 관련 시장의 장기적인 변동성에 대비해야 할 것입니다. 실제 투자 결정에 앞서, 정보기관의 전략적 실패와 이란의 경제적 영향력이라는 두 축을 중심으로 위험을 평가하는 것이 중요합니다.
Original Article
The Mossad Suffers a Crushing Defeat Entirely of Its Own Making - The Intercept
Earlier this month , Roman Gofman, the new director of the Mossad, Israel’s shadowy national intelligence agency, dismissed the heads of its intelligence directorate and Iran division, known only by their heavily anonymized names “K” and “Y,” respectively. The Mossad prides itself on secrecy, and while terminations following the appointment of a new Mossad director aren’t unprecedented, such public oustings, which were reported by Israel’s mainstream news organizations, are almost unheard of.
The last known dismissals for incompetence came in 1997, when a botched attempt to assassinate Khaled Mashal, then chair of Hamas’s political bureau, resulted in the detention of several Mossad agents inside Jordan and a public relations disaster. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government found itself forced to supply the antidote for the poison its Mossad agents had administered, bringing down both the agency’s director and the director of operations.
Israel is now dealing with the aftermath of the largest mistake in its history, one of its own doing: its failed war on Iran. Sold to the United States as an easy war that would quickly bring down the Islamic Republic and its alleged nuclear weapons program, almost nothing Israel desired came to pass.
The promise of assassinating Ali Khamenei was that it would bring about governmental chaos and spur a spontaneous national uprising. Instead, it only led to the selection of his younger son as the new supreme leader, a leadership that may prove to be even more antagonistic to the United States and Israel than the previous one.
Israel also promised that any potential closure of the Strait of Hormuz would be militarily ineffective. Now, Iran’s ability to hold the world economy hostage — despite relentless claims by the U.S. that the waterway is “open” — is its most valuable weapon.
The Mossad’s particular role in this war involved weakening the Islamic Republic’s security structure in hopes of then funneling guns to Kurdish armed groups who would invade the country from Iraq, and then fuel mass demonstrations to topple the state. All of these lofty ambitions completely detonated on impact with reality, with Iran’s security structure remaining intact despite assassinations and airstrikes, Kurdish factions instead suffering constant Iranian military attacks, and no major protests occurring in any Iranian city, despite the massive anti-government protests in January that swept through the country.
For those who witnessed the Mossad’s public campaigns to encourage protests and defections — which it deployed in the open through Farsi-language social media accounts on X and Telegram bearing their name and seal — signs of the inevitable failure of this campaign were becoming evident. While images from June 2025’s Twelve-Day War of Mossad agents operating inside Iran and sabotaging Iranian military operations shocked many inside the country — that sabotage hampering Iran’s initial military response — its ability to change fundamental facts on the ground, and to move an entire country’s population against the sitting government, sputtered.
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The Mossad chose to shift its image as that war began, capitalizing on its perception as an all-powerful and omniscient force to offer its supposedly unlimited power to help the Iranian populace. This shift manifested through cryptic social media posts, sarcastic quote-tweets of Iranian officials, and offering gifts to those who answered questions by direct message. The Mossad offered remote medical services through WhatsApp , and former radio host Menashe Amir, who notably hosted an Israeli radio show in Farsi aimed at anti-Islamic Republic Iranians, made videos on the Mossad’s behalf encouraging Iranians to listen to what the intelligence agency had to say.
The effort produced little. Iranian officials openly mocked the campaign online from the start, and it became increasingly desperate as mass protests failed to materialize. AI-generated videos of Iranian prisons having their walls blown open, and of happy Iranians following their defections to Israel, did next to nothing. The Mossad has continued to post AI-generated videos using Grok to encourage collaboration following the ceasefire.
While accusations were levied (and arrests made) of supposed Mossad agents inside the Iranian protests in January , their infiltration, alleged or otherwise, did not end up toppling or even shattering the Islamic Republic. Instead, more than 7,000 protesters were killed that month, in addition to hundreds of police officers.
After the plan to arm Kurdish groups, in collaboration with the CIA, apparently fell apart — either by Trump’s veto or, as Trump claimed, because the Kurds simply kept the weapons themselves — the Mossad apparently came up with a quick Plan B . The new bright idea: Overthrow the government via an airstrike campaign against Iranian police stations and checkpoints manned by the Basij, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ paramilitary militia component. Despite extensive strikes in broad daylight, with some Iranians tipping off locations to opposition media outlets to help facilitate this campaign, the mass uprising, once again, did not arrive.
The war did not continue long enough for a comprehensive Plan C to come to fruition on the ground, with the Israeli military beginning to strike railways and manufacturing infrastructure, and Trump taking the lead on calling for the destruction of Iran’s energy infrastructure and bridges. Both are unified in their hope to strangle the country economically in hopes of pushing Iranian society into oblivion, but this outcome is only truly possible through American military means.
But even the U.S. has seen itself overextended , unable to resupply its missile interceptors for its own bases in the Middle East, and potentially unable to protect Israel as effectively as it had in the past should open conflict break out over its skies again.
News of the dismissal of the Mossad officials was met with disbelief in the Israeli media and by veterans of the intelligence service, who accused Gofman of suppressing the agency’s ability to function. By firing two deputies, security analysts accused him of foisting the agency’s failure onto underlings to shield the decisions made at the top levels of government from scrutiny.
While overthrowing the Iranian government has remained a popular idea among Israeli officials and other elected politicians, Netanyahu chief among them, other politicians have acknowledged its difficulty. Gadi Eisenkot, the former Israel Defense Forces chief of the general staff, has spoken of the unlikelihood of being able to overthrow the entire Iranian system, instead stating that operations should have continued “in the shadows.”
Reporting from Israel Hayom in May revealed that many in the Mossad were opposed to the idea of focusing resources on overthrowing the Iranian government, seeing it as a massive gamble. The Mossad’s former chief of influence operations, known as O., told the newspaper that he felt he had to sell the operation to many in the agency, despite the fact that “no one actually knows how to overthrow a regime or what the chances are that it will succeed.”
In March, just days before he would be killed in an Israeli assassination strike, Ali Larijani, then-secretary of the Iranian Supreme National Security Council, told the Iranian news outlet ISNA that Netanyahu “seemed to believe that these attacks had set a movement in motion inside Iran and that, by portraying the system as being in disarray, he could incite the public.” But Larijani pointed out that in less than a day, the regime had appointed “replacements for the commanders who had been killed, addressed the public, changed the atmosphere, and, by issuing specific orders, authorized the launch of missiles.”
Netanyahu, having pushed for the military overthrow of the Iranian government across multiple American administrations , finally got the war he wanted. But neither raw force, nor covert operations executed on his orders, were enough to carry out his will.
While Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has remarked upon how the current situation is very much working for Israel — one in which southern Iran is constantly bombarded with no end, and America is doing all of the fighting and dying — Netanyahu has continued his rhetoric about the need to create the conditions for the fall of the Islamic Republic. But in a moment of rare humility, he admitted this may “not happen in a single day.”
Recent reporting from Ynet found Netanyahu’s government instructed both the Israeli military and the Mossad to prepare for a much larger campaign against the Iranian state, with eyes on a potential return to open war in autumn. As has been the case over and over again, in Yemen, Lebanon, Gaza, and now Iran, Israel hopes that what was not solved with bombs can still be won — this time with even more bombs.
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