07 Jan The London Times Reports on Alleged Israeli Nuke Strike Plans Against Iran
According to the Sunday Times of London:
Israel has drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran’s uranium enrichment facilities with tactical nuclear weapons.
Two Israeli air force squadrons are training to blow up an Iranian facility using low-yield nuclear “bunker-busters”, according to several Israeli military sources…
The Israeli weapons would each have a force equivalent to one-fifteenth of the Hiroshima bomb.
Under the plans, conventional laser-guided bombs would open “tunnels” into the targets. “Mini-nukes” would then immediately be fired into a plant at Natanz, exploding deep underground to reduce the risk of radioactive fallout.
“As soon as the green light is given, it will be one mission, one strike and the Iranian nuclear project will be demolished,” said one of the sources.
The plans, disclosed to The Sunday Times last week, have been prompted in part by the Israeli intelligence service Mossad’s assessment that Iran is on the verge of producing enough enriched uranium to make nuclear weapons within two years.
The full article is here.
I, for one, would like to know what Opinio Juris contributors think about this….
Yes, I’d like to hear opinions on how Iran will/should handle this. And will this conflict spread to the region? Is this a new cold war? What are the sides?
I find it very unlikely that Israel would use nuclear weapons, even low-yield ones, in the Middle East without being attacked first. The foreign policy ramifications and the widespread condemnation such a move would provoke, its blatant illegality notwithstanding, would outweigh any possible benefits that Israel might draw from temporarily hindering Iran’s nuclear program.
Sorry for not having put in further analysis from the get go. I’m trying to write an article and I saw this and wanted to point it out this report but didn’t think I had time for much more. But since you asked…I’ll just mention a couple of thoughts that come to mind. Reading the Times article, of course the main legal issue that springs up is the whole question of pre-emptive self defense/anticipatory self-defense that was so hot in the run up to the Iraq War. So, for me, the interesting questions are (a) has the international community come to some sort of consensus on the legality of pre-emption and (b) the issue of proportionality of using nuclear weapons, even tactical nukes, when you have not yet been attacked (the legal side of Marko’s point). On the first issue: John Ikenbery, Charles Kupchan, and other political scientists have written (persuasively in my opinion) that one of the ways hegemonic states (like the U.S.) project power is through the socialization of other states into their world view. This can be all well and good for the hegemonic power until other countries start acting based on these new norms to which… Read more »
Prof. Borgen and all, I’ve submitted a paper for the Opinio Juris Symposum that tries to put this issue in the larger context. However, to be brief, I think we can see that Iran crisis in the Council today is like looking in a cracked mirror of the Israel-Iraq crisis concering the Osirak Reactor 25 years ago. Both the resolution from two weeks ago (on Iran/ Non-proliferation) and Security Council Resolution 487 of 19 June 1981 puport to defend the same values and indeed the same non-proliferation framework, but intervening history helps make sense of the absolute reversal of the terms, and how the Security Counicl would pose the questions today. Res. 487 was the Council’s resolution condemning Israel’s unilateral strikes in 1981 targeting the Osirak reactor in Iraq, which is still the only precedent for a successful preventive strike against a fledgling nuclear program. At that time, however, to support the NPT and IAEA framework, the Security Council condemned the destruction of the nuclear reactor and defended the aspiring proliferant’s “sovereign right” to pursue peaceful nuclear program in conformity with the NPT. It appears in retrospect that the Security Council and IAEA’s threat assessment and reading of Iraq’s intentions… Read more »
Chris and Vik, Yes, of course, the legal problem here would be the permissibility of anticipatory self defense in international law, but I don’t agree that the 2003 Iraq episode is legally as relevant as you both suggest. I must confess that I have become a big fan of formalism when it comes to the law on the use of force, a la the ICJ’s 1986 Nicaragua judgment. It is true that the US has invoked pre-emption as a (political) rationale for invading Iraq, but that is NOT the legal case that it has made before the Security Council. What it did argue, in the end, like the UK, is that Iraq was in material breach of the previous SC resolutions, and that this gave the US the right to invade Iraq to enforce these resolutions. Its legal case, therefore, was implied SC authorization, and this is the only legal argument which should matter (for a detailed discussion, see Dino Kritsiotis’ EJIL article ‘Arguments of Mass Confusion‘). When it comes to Afghanistan, the question was again not preemptive self-defense in the classical sense, as an armed attack has already occurred. The problem there is whether the UN Charter allows for… Read more »
Many thanks to Marko, Chris and Vik for the helpful and illuminating treatment of the salient legal issues. I also appreciate the references.
While I don’t have anything to really add regarding the legal issues here, the strategic thrust of this “revelation” is of interest. Obviously, if the leakers really did scotch a plan already in motion and decided upon, their betrayal of Israel is rather grave.
I’m inclined to think, however, that this leak was quite intentional and no real plan to carry through with this existed. By floating this type of plan, Israel puts pressure upon the US and international community to act, as well as making any future strikes seem like restraint by comparison.
They’ve mentioned the nuclear-tipped missiles either to represent a future, non-nuclear attack as “restraint” or “compromise,” or to float a convenient scapegoat if a conventional attack fails. Essentially “See, we needed to use nukes to destroy those facilities.”
Marko: Thank you for your comments. I have two thoughts concerning the points you raised: The Debate over Pre-emption. I agree that the U.S. did not emphasize the doctrine of pre-emption before the Security Council. My point (and I believe Alvarez’s) is that the effect of the SC resolutions was to broaden the application of pre-emption as a legal justification. Even if the words “pre-emption” or “anticipatory” were never uttered in the Council debates (and I don’t know if that’s the case), everybody knew that that was a major issue (regarding not only Iraq but also Afghanistan). Pre-emption was a key part of the September 18, 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force by the U.S. Congress. Your interpretation of “the” issue in Afghanistan being about non-state actors I think narrows the actual debates that occurred at the time. That was an issue, not the issue. Pre-emption was all over the mass media and political speeches. The SC presentations were about risk of future actions, either by terrorists (Afghanistan) or in support of terrorists (Iraq). It was largely about pre-emption as a legal matter even if it was not formally framed that way. And, particularly in regards to the… Read more »
Marko &Vik:
I just want to add that I think that my argument that formalism may be eclipsed by state practice in use of force issues is essentlially in agreement with Vik’s analysis and particularly his last paragraph. (I don’t know if Vik agrees with that, though…)
Chris
Chris, Yes, you’re quite right – formalism can indeed lose touch with reality, as your sushi anegdote amply demonstrates (touche btw, and I suddenly have a craving for a California roll). And I also, to a point, accept your discussion on differences between European lawyers and common lawyers. I have certainly heard myself many instances of a European lawyer saying that article so and so resolves what is in reality a very complicated issue. There is also, I’m afraid, a parallel problem, and not with common lawyers generally, but with American lawyers more specifically, who are brought up on so much legal realism that they sometimes fail to grasp the difference between law and politics, especially in issues of constitutional or international law. But enough with generalities and glorious Japanese food. I am not just making an argument out of formal logic, but from actual state and judicial practice. It is this practice which shows that we must indeed differentiate, as lawyers, between legal and policy arguments, and that the one legal argument that counts is the one which a state actually chooses to advance in the relevant forum. That I think goes without saying in any court, and I… Read more »
Marko, On Iraq (2003) you’re right that the U.S. “did argue, in the end, like the UK, is that Iraq was in material breach of the previous SC resolutions, and that this gave the US the right to invade Iraq to enforce these resolutions.” They also took the last of these resolutions as specific (enough) authorization. This seems to be an emerging strategy toward hegemonic ends. Maybe we should call it “stockpiling” resolutions. Following Iraq, the North Korea and Iran strategies would be an escalating series of resolutions, before introducing one lightly touching on military action. The most dramatic development in the past few months has been the passage of Chapter VII resolutions against North Korea and “against” Iran (though the text returns again and again to general support for NPT/ IAEA goals and away from Iran in crucual passages). In the US, the media has done a poor job of explaining the significance of Chapter VII (though its interesting to see them try) and the public perception I think it benefits the U.S. position, is that these resolutions provide a kind of global AUMF. That’s the kind of deformalization that gave momentum towards the Iraq War (both at the… Read more »