Weltschau

The dominant narrative is that each state has its own rationality and that rational decisions emerge through the interaction of bureaucracy and politicians. It is stated that the negotiation processes carried out within the state when a political decision is taken lead to the emergence of rational decisions. It can be said that these readings from a realist perspective are insufficient to explain reality. If a leader does not feel his/her power threatened in the domestic political atmosphere and does not face an existential threat in the international arena, it can be argued that he/she usually makes decisions based on ideological, emotional, and political baggage.

In this context, the main factor that leads to rational decision-making is that the leader shares the responsibility for the decision with all institutions of the state. It can be said that leaders who feel relatively powerless and have strong political rivals are more compromising and tend to comply and compromise with the purges of the bureaucracy. In this respect, it can be stated that in countries with authoritarian leadership, all decisions are made by the leader and small groups clustered around the leader, and that these decisions are made according to ideological priorities. In democratic countries, if a leader feels strong within the state and does not have a strong enemy in the international system, ideological and political priorities determine the color and tone of policy. In this context, the question of how leaders use intelligence in decision-making processes is important. The answer to this question can be illustrated with two case studies. The Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq and the Netanyahu government’s failure to prevent Hamas’ attack on October 7 are examined. These two examples will facilitate a clear understanding of how leaders use intelligence.

It is claimed that the Bush administration came to power to invade Iraq and that it will find a justification to invade Iraq no matter what. The main basis for this view is the statements of the neo-conservatives in Bush’s close team, starting from the Clinton era, that Iraq should be invaded. For Bush, Iraq was the unfinished business of his father, and it had become a personal matter. Bush was a personal enemy that Saddam wanted to kill his father. Bush, who came to power with these feelings and thoughts, used the September 11 attacks as a justification to invade Iraq. Between September 11, 2001, and 2003, when Iraq was invaded, the Bush administration politicized intelligence to convince American and world public opinion, declassified some intelligence information, and used it to shape public opinion for the invasion of Iraq.

The use of intelligence as a public relations and public diplomacy tool is not new in this respect. It can be said that once a leader has cognitively reached a decision, he or she starts looking for selective information to support his or her judgment. In this respect, he or she works the intelligence until it supports his or her political preferences. He politicizes the intelligence services with intense and manipulative demands and feedback and runs the intelligence wheel until he hears what he wants to hear. So, if leaders have made a policy decision in the cognitive process, why do they ignore alternative policy options and become desensitized to stimulating information?

The answer to this question can be explained by cognitive dissonance theory. Leaders try to reduce the cognitive dissonance they experience by ignoring all information and alternative options that contradict a decision they have made in the cognitive process. For Bush, Saddam was an enemy that had to be destroyed, so to justify the war, Saddam was made to appear to have chemical weapons that he did not have. All the words of former Secretary of State Colin Powell in his speech at the UN, backed by former Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet, were forced interpretations and fabricated information to justify the war. If you read Bush’s book, Moments of Decision, you can see that he made the decision to overthrow Saddam on September 13, 2001. In this respect, in the cognitive process, if a leader has reached a decision, all the negotiations, diplomatic processes, and all the intelligence reports that are constructed within the state are constructed to support the decision of the leader. In such decision-making processes, intelligence is politicized to support the decision-makers rather than telling the truth, and if the pressure increases, the intelligence service becomes a producer of evidence.

In the second example, the October 7 Hamas attacks, the situation is more complex. Both the newness of the incident and the lack of relevant information make it difficult to make a definitive diagnosis. However, for such a major intelligence and policy failure to occur, there has to be disharmony, rivalry, and even conflict between the institutions within the state mechanism. Even a body with cancer is able to fulfil some of its functions while others are not, and the body produces symptoms and warnings over a period of time.

The October 7 Hamas attack exposed the discord and conflict between the Netanyahu government and Israel’s security elite. Prior to the October 7 attacks, the Netanyahu government’s steps towards judicial reform had offended the Israeli public and the security elite. In addition, Netanyahu’s security policies and his view of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict were at odds with the views of the Israeli establishment. According to the information reflected in the press, in the intelligence report called the Jericho Wall, information on how Hamas would attack Israeli territory seems to have been obtained by the Israeli intelligence community, but this information was ignored on the grounds that Hamas did not have the capacity to carry out such an attack.

Underestimating an enemy’s capacity is always an error of judgment. In the Yom Kippur war, the Israeli intelligence community considered the third President of Egypt, Anwar Sadat, to be an incompetent leader incapable of starting a war. Nevertheless, this information must have reached the relevant state institutions and government officials, who should have taken precautions. If the first possibility is true, the Israeli intelligence community may not have passed this information on in order to eliminate Netanyahu. If this is the case, we can speak of intelligence negligence. However, if information about the attack was obtained and policymakers did not take action, political negligence may be involved. If this possibility is true, the Netanyahu government, which is stuck in domestic public opinion, may have paved the way for this attack in order to postpone the polarization within Israel and strengthen its power by fighting an external enemy and to liquidate the security elites resisting the government. In times of war and conflict, political differences and polarization within a country are frozen for as long as the war continues.

The October 7 attack appears to have been a failure of intelligence and policy. To call it a failure, it must not exceed the limits of intent. In this case, it can be said that the limits of intent were exceeded in both respects and that the Israeli state system failed to prevent the October 7 attack due to a fight between the Israeli security and intelligence elites and the Netanyahu government. In this context, it can be said that leaders develop three types of responses to intelligence. Leaders can use intelligence, ignore it, or politicize it and make it support their political preferences.

Under the given circumstances, i.e., if the leader does not feel his/her power threatened and there are no international constraints, it can be said that the ideologies, emotions, and political agendas of the leaders shape policy, not the facts. In such circumstances, intelligence is used as a pliant tool by policymakers. When intelligence services dare to resist leaders, the showdown is brought to the forefront of politics as a crisis. To understand the decision-making processes of states, it is necessary to focus on how they use intelligence, the power and influence of leaders over the state bureaucracy, the emotions and cognitive capacity of leaders, the groups around leaders, and the state’s ability to perceive and utilize elements of national power. It must be said that old theories are insufficient to explain today’s world.

Dr. Hasan Mesut Önder

He graduated from Çanakkale 18 Mart University, Department of Economics, and received his bachelor’s degree. He received his Master’s degree in the Department of International Relations with a thesis titled “Intelligence Foreign Policy Relationship: The Panopticon Model and Israel” in the Department of International Relations at the same university. He received his Ph.D. title with his thesis, “Use of Intelligence in the Securitization Process: The Case of the US Invasion of Iraq” in the Department of International Relations.  He continues his studies on intelligence theory, security theories, Middle East politics, and Israeli intelligence.