As Israel continues to pound Iran’s nuclear weapons program, the planet should take note once again: Israel, not the U.S. or even NATO, has been the world’s best enforcer of nuclear non-proliferation for nearly half a century.
Earth owes Israel a debt. It is a debt first incurred 45 years ago. This week’s attack on the Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear weapons program is the fourth time in history that Israel has advanced the cause of world peace by doing mankind’s wet work.
Israel’s service in this regard started in 1981.
Iraq: Saddam Hussein, the brutal dictator of Iraq, was completing work on Osirak Tammuz-1, a light-water nuclear reactor at the Al-Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center near Baghdad. The reactor, built with help of our friends, the French, was designed to produce plutonium.
On June 7, 1981, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin launched Operation Opera. The Israeli Air Force sent eight F-16s escorted by six F-15s on a long-range precision strike. Israel destroyed the reactor before it became operational. The blast killed 10 Iraqi soldiers and one French nuclear technician. It ended Iraq’s path to a plutonium bomb. Not a single Israeli pilot was shot down or injured.
In the realm of international relations and military strategy, Operation Opera marked the beginning of the “Begin Doctrine.” This was an extension of the traditional principle of preemptive self-defense. The doctrine asserts that in our era of nuclear proliferation, a nation must use preemptive military force to prevent a hostile state from acquiring weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).
Libya: In the next application of the Begin Doctrine, Israel also gets much of the credit. Israeli intelligence, foresight, and planning led to the dismantling of Muammar Gaddafi’s Libyan nuclear program in 2003—without firing a single shot.
Beginning in the early 1990s, Israel started tracking Gaddafi’s attempts to build a uranium bomb. Aided by rogue Pakistani nuclear scientist, A.Q. Khan, Libya’s proposed device was a 25-kiloton mirror image of Pakistan’s first weapon.
Mossad implemented a multi-pronged approach to thwart Gaddafi’s nuclear ambitions. They tracked and mapped Libya and A.Q. Khan’s procurement networks. Instead of assassinating Khan, the Mossad kept him alive and tracked his every move, every contact, and every supplier. Israel also benefitted by discovering which other radical Islamic states sought out Khan’s services.
Israel next enlisted the help of its ally, the United States. Together, Israel and the US formed an intelligence sharing coalition and included several other western countries. Armed with Israeli intelligence, the CIA approached several key suppliers to the Libyan program. Under duress, some firms agreed to subtly compromise and misalign various components, guaranteeing Gaddafi would never get a bomb. Suppliers that did not cooperate were arrested and imprisoned. Mossad even blew up the warehouses and corporate offices of others, without any loss of life.
Following years of setbacks, failures, and embarrassments, including the 2003 interdiction of a Libya-bound cargo ship containing centrifuge parts, Gaddafi started to fold. Under extreme pressure from George W. Bush, Gaddafi agreed to shut the program down.
There is no limit to what can be accomplished when Israel, the United States, and western countries cooperate.
Syria: Team Israel was back at work again four years later, now in Syria. Syria’s new dictator, Bashar al-Assad, began pursuing nuclear weapons after taking power in 2000. North Korea was glad to help him.
Construction of a covert plutonium production reactor in the desert near Deir ez-Zor started in 2003. It was a gas-cooled, graphite-moderated plutonium reactor, modeled after North Korea’s own Yongbyon reactor. By mid-2007, it was nearly operational.
On September 6, 2007, Israel launched Operation Orchard. A strike force of four F-15s and four F-16s flew at low-altitude to avoid radar, entered Syria via Turkish airspace. They dropped precision-guided munitions and obliterated the reactor. The operation lasted just minutes. No Israeli aircraft were lost. An unknown number of Syrians and 10 North Koreans were killed in the attack.
Iran: Iran’s 30-year quest to become a nuclear power posed an even tougher challenge for Israel and the west. In what can be called the Netanyahu Codicil to the Begin Doctrine, Netanyahu understood that the pressure for a preemptive military strike is magnified when your adversary is undeterred by the prospect of a nuclear second-strike by Israel. Put another way, mutual assured destruction (MAD) does not create an equilibrium when your enemy is awaiting the Twelfth Imam.
Israel’s preemptive attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons facilities and other military targets is a great litmus test. Who should have nuclear weapons? Should they be limited to stable, western democracies? Or should they be available to apocalyptic radical Islamicists who yearn for the end of the west?
In another age, the world would honor Israel. The leftists in Oslo would award Nobel prizes for Israel’s contribution to nuclear non-proliferation. Yet a medal is not enough. All Israelis, soldiers and civilians alike, deserve a superhero cape this week. The Jews are saving the planet again.
Rami Robbins writes about Foreign Policy. He is in Jerusalem