Al-Monitor: Beyond the heated US campaign rhetoric, what do you make of the wider perception that, even though Obama has actually used force quite a bit, and successfully oversaw the operation that killed Osama bin Laden, that he is perceived, or misperceived, as not wanting to use force, and the US is seen therefore as weak.
Halevy: I think nobody who has been involved in ordering the use of force can forget the angst, the days and nights of concern, as to what and how it can be done.
Romney has said, Anybody could have decided to finish bin Laden. Even [Jimmy] Carter. This again was a mistaken concept. President Obama didnt just decide [one day to kill bin Laden]. The operation to end the life of bin Laden necessitated multiple points of decision by him. I know from operations I have been involved with on a smaller scale.
They are very intricate. You dont just give the order and wait in your office for commanders to come three months later and say its done. No. This kind of operation, which is accident prone, hands on operation, one has to make one decision after the other [
] It took courage and cool headedness and leadership. Anyone who says it was an easy thing to decide, doesnt understand what hes talking about. [Such comments] show a total lack of understanding of what this kind of operation means.
Once I was in charge of an operation and Netanyahu was Prime Minister. One day, because of the intricacy of what we were doing, I talked to him 10 times on the phone [
] Ten times. It was a Friday, a day I will not forget.
This kind of operation, every minute, an issue comes up, that sometimes requires a decision on the political level.