11 September, 2003
''Can Israel Maintain its Nuclear Superiority in the Middle East?''
n the Middle East, Israel is the only state that has developed and acquired nuclear weapons. Israel's nuclear program dates back to 1952 with the creation of the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC). With the assistance of France, Israeli and French technicians secretly created a 24 megawatt reactor at Dimona, in southern Israel, in the Negev desert. Israel was finally prodded by France to make this nuclear plant public, which it did under the guise of creating peaceful nuclear energy. When U.S. weapons inspectors visited the Dimona reactor in the 1960s, they were unable to detect whether Israel was clandestinely developing nuclear weapons. According to the Federation of American Scientists, this was largely due to the massive secrecy employed by the Israelis, such as installing "false control room panels and [placing] brick over elevators and hallways that accessed certain areas of the facility."
The primary reason for Israel's nuclear weapons program was to protect the small state's survival from more powerful Middle Eastern states. Ernst David Bergmann, the first chairman of the IAEC, argued that Israel needed to become nuclear-armed in order to ensure "that we shall never again be led as lambs to the slaughter." Indeed, during the 1967 Six Days War, when it is believed Israel had two nuclear bombs, the Federation of American Scientists mentions that Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol ordered their two nuclear weapons to be armed in case an offensive nuclear attack became necessary. Furthermore, and most revealing as to why Israel sought nuclear weapons, in the Yom Kippur War in 1973, when Egypt and Syria attacked Israeli positions in the Sinai and the Golan Heights, the Federation of American Scientists claims that the Israeli leadership assembled 13 twenty-kiloton atomic bombs for use in case Israel came close to defeat.
Seen from the examples of the 1967 and 1973 wars, Israel's nuclear weapons program was designed as a last recourse military option. If Israel were to face defeat from surrounding states, it could lash out with its nuclear arsenal and turn the tide of a war in its favor. This survival tactic is why Israel has been adamant about preventing its regional rivals from also becoming nuclear-armed. If Israel faced a war with a nuclear-armed state, and found itself losing the conflict, it would be far too risky to launch a nuclear attack against a nuclear-armed rival; for if Israel were to launch a nuclear attack against another nuclear-armed state, it would certainly face massive nuclear retaliation. Massive nuclear retaliation against a state as small as Israel could result in enormous casualties too intense for the state to handle or, quite simply, eradication.
Yet since the 1973 war, Israel has found itself growing in power while its enemies have become weaker. The major conflict between Iran and Iraq in the 1980s helped to diminish the two states' power, which indirectly acted in the interests of Israel. Therefore, in recent years, rather than being used as a last recourse military option, Israel's nuclear-capability has given it foreign policy leverage to take drastic military action against its neighbors. The most serious such incident took place on June 6, 1982 when Israeli troops invaded Lebanon in an attempt to destroy Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) military strongholds in addition to bringing the thriving capital city of Beirut under siege. Neighboring states were unable to compete with Israel's military strength at the time, and also could not use nuclear blackmail to try and curtail Israel's foreign policy objectives.
Because of Israel's nuclear superiority, Middle Eastern rival states have attempted to negate Israel's nuclear leverage by developing nuclear weapons of their own. The most memorable such attempt was followed by the Ba'ath Party in Iraq, in which Baghdad began to acquire nuclear technology in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1981, when Baghdad was close to completing a nuclear reactor at Osirak, Israel decided to launch a military strike to destroy this reactor. While Israel was aware that even if Baghdad were to acquire nuclear weapons they would most likely not be used against Israel, the leadership in Tel Aviv did not want to lose their nuclear superiority and thus lose some of their foreign policy leverage in the region. Israel also wanted to prevent a future scenario in which Israel and Iraq were engaged in a conflict and Israel could not exercise its last recourse military option: launching a nuclear attack on Iraq to turn the tide of the war in its favor.
After Israel attacked the Osirak reactor, Baghdad recognized its own insecurity. The leadership in Baghdad understood that they needed a powerful nuclear weapons program in order to deter future Israeli attempts to limit Iraq's power. Comprehending this reality, Baghdad began to escalate their nuclear weapons program in the hopes of quickly being able to develop a nuclear deterrent to prevent future Israeli attacks.
However, after invading Kuwait, and demonstrating the growing power of the Iraqi state, the U.S. feared that Iraq could cause instability in the Middle East -- both politically and economically. The Bush administration at the time feared that they had a small window of opportunity to weaken the Iraqi government before Baghdad was able to acquire a nuclear deterrent. The Bush administration translated their worry into the Gulf War which successfully weakened Saddam Hussein's government. In addition, by engineering some of the toughest sanctions ever implemented, the Bush and Clinton administrations were able to use the United Nations to keep Iraq weak and vulnerable. Indeed, all evidence as of now reveals that Baghdad never was able to truly rejuvenate its nuclear weapons program.
Operation Desert Storm and the subsequent Operation Iraqi Freedom worked in Israel's favor as they both diminished the power of a rival Middle Eastern state. With Iraq now weak and standing no threat to Israeli foreign policy, the next powerful and potential rival to Israel's supremacy in the Middle East is Iran. Tehran is well aware of Iraq's failure to prevent both Israel and the United States from attacking, and therefore will attempt to build up their military defense capabilities to a point where they are able to deter attack from both Israel and the United States. This can be clearly seen in Iran's recent moves toward developing peaceful nuclear energy, which is a guise for future development of nuclear arms in the same way it was for Israel in the 1960s.
While Israel is aware of this threat, it does not have the same military options available in Iran as it had in Iraq. For one, Israel learned from its Osirak attack that a simple air power mission cannot successfully destroy a country's nuclear weapons program. The attack on the Osirak reactor failed to destroy Iraq's other nuclear facilities; most importantly, the attack only hastened the pace of Baghdad's attempt to develop nuclear arms. The Iranians have dispersed their nuclear development facilities throughout the country, making it difficult for Israel to deal a devastating blow to the Iranian nuclear program. Also, Iran's physical relation to Israel is important. While Iraq lies close to Israel's borders, Iran is situated on Iraq's eastern border, far from the state of Israel. A military strike by Israel, similar to the one launched against the Osirak reactor, would involve greater risks due to the distance and size of Iran and also have a lower success ratio.
Because of these facts, Israel has been pushing to get the international community involved in inspecting Iran's nuclear facilities. While Iran has been compliant with inspections thus far, Israel wants continued pressure on the Islamic Republic to decrease its possibility of developing nuclear arms. This strategy may not be altogether successful. Tehran can continue to work with the international community while also increasing their knowledge and potential of developing and creating nuclear arms. It is unlikely that the international community will take strong action against Iran even if they suspect the country is developing nuclear weapons. It would take interference and pressure by the United States for this to occur.
With this in mind, Israel has also been lobbying its ideological allies in the Bush administration, such as Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. It is their hope that the United States will put pressure on Iran similar in the way the U.S. put pressure on Iraq. In fact, if a "regime change" were to occur in Iran, and the country would become as weak as Iraq now is, it would also serve in Israel's interests.
Unfortunately for the leadership in Jerusalem, foreign policy hawks in the Bush administration linked with Israeli hawks have lost clout in recent weeks due to the outcome of the war in Iraq. In addition to being incorrect thus far regarding their accusations of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program, the Bush administration also admittedly failed to prepare for the reconstruction efforts in Iraq. An unexpected amount of U.S. military casualties, the failure to bring order and control to the country, and the inability to provide basic services to the Iraqi people such as electricity and water have all acted as a public relations disaster for the Bush administration. These mistakes have led to a weakening of support for the administration at home, making it more difficult for them to push through their more radical foreign policy objectives, such as "reshaping" the Middle East. In addition, with the failure to provide stability in Iraq, Washington is well aware that if they repeated the Baghdad model in Tehran, it could result in the same kind of instability seen in Iraq and thus deal a devastating blow to Middle Eastern oil output.
Therefore, Israel finds itself in a difficult position. While it is more comfortable now that Saddam Hussein is out of Iraq, and the country is under U.S. occupation, it is now concerned with the potentially powerful state of Iran. Unable to rely on the international community to further Israel's security needs, and possibly unable to rely on the United States, Israeli leaders will have to decide what actions to take in order to eliminate all major threats to their regional military and nuclear superiority. If Israel finds itself in a desperate situation -- for example, in mid-2004 before the main Iranian reactor at Bushehr becomes operational and the environmental risk of an attack would become too great -- it may decide to risk the political and military hazards of launching another preventative strike on a potential rival Middle Eastern power.