Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu extended the tenure of the Mossad chief to an eighth year on Sunday, a testament to the spymaster's perceived success in waging shadow wars against Iran and its allies.
Meir Dagan, a former commando and retired general, took over Mossad in 2002 with what security sources described as a mandate to monitor and sabotage the Iranian nuclear programme ahead of any decision by Israel to launch full-scale pre-emptive strikes.
Mossad also has been credited with spotting an alleged Syrian nuclear reactor which Israel bombed in 2007, and with assassinating Islamist guerrillas such as Imad Moughniyah of Lebanon's Hezbollah militia, who was slain in Damascus in 2008. "This is an excellent man who, at the head of an excellent team, has improved the country's capabilities," an aide to Netanyahu quoted him as telling the Israeli cabinet in its weekly session.
The son of Holocaust refugees, Dagan, 64, has spearheaded assessments that a nuclear-armed Iran would present a mortal threat to Israel. Iran - which denies seeking the bomb - could produce its first such warhead by 2014, Dagan said last week.
He also played down prospects of the current civil upheaval over Iran's disputed June 12 election leading to a change in government, but said Tehran could be persuaded to curb sensitive nuclear technologies if US-led sanctions are intensified.
Failing that, Israel, which is widely assumed to have the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal, has hinted at a military option, though many analysts think Iranian sites are too dispersed and fortified for its air force to take on alone.