The dilemma of a ‘trigger happy’ protégé – Israel, France and President Carter’s Iraq policy

ABSTRACT

What should a powerful patron do when a weaker protégé plans to launch a counter-proliferation strike against the nuclear facilities of a target country? This paper identifies three possible strategies available to the patron when handling a ‘trigger happy’ protégé. These strategies range from lending ‘tacit support’ to the protégé’ on the one end, to ‘intervention by exposure’, on the other end, where the raid is effectively sabotaged. Occupying the middle ground is a strategy termed ‘status quo adherence’, in which the patron attempts to warn the protégé against launching the raid, while simultaneously bidding to mitigate the protégé’s concerns by other diplomatic measures. By accessing previously untapped documents from several archives, the study uses the Carter administration’s approach to Israel’s growing agitation with the Iraqi nuclear programme to explore the strategy of ‘status quo adherence’ and its lessons.

KEYWORDS:

• Nuclear
• counter-proliferation
• Carter
• Iraq
• Israel

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank the two anonymous reviewers, as well as Professor Alexandre Debs, Yale university, for the helpful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ Neal Bascomb, The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler’s Atomic Bomb (NY: Mariner Books 2016).

² David Alan Rosenberg, ‘The Origins of Overkill: Nuclear Weapons and American Strategy, 1945–1960’, International Security 7/4 (Spring 1983), 3–71, William Burr and Jeffrey Richelson, ‘Whether to Strangle the Baby in the Cradle”: The United States and the Chinese Nuclear Program, 1960–64’, International Security 25/3 (Winter 2000–2001), 54–99, Or Rabinowitz, Bargaining on nuclear tests: Washington and its Cold War deals (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2014), 143–44. See comments by William Perry, special coordinator for North Korean affairs, to South Korean President Kim Dae Jung. Document 7. Cable, from American embassy in Seoul 6928 to Secretary of State, 8 December 1998, Subject: Former Secretary Perry’s Meeting with President Kim (Confidential), in: ‘Engaging North Korea II: Evidence from the Clinton Administration’, Briefing Book 612, the National Security Archive, https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/korea/2017-12-08/engaging-north-korea-ii-evidence-clinton-administration

See also: James Jungbok Lee, ‘The Importance of Status: The US-ROK Alliance Cohesion and the First Korean Nuclear Crisis, 1993–4’, The International History Review 40/2 (April 2018): 315–57.

³ Mark Landler, ‘Obama says Iran Strike is an Option, but Warns Israel’, 2 March 2012, New York Times, (last accessed: 29 May 2018), https://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/03/world/middleeast/obama-says-military-option-on-iran-not-a-bluff.html .

⁴ Julian Borger, Donald Trump’s threat to Kim Jong-un: make a deal or suffer same fate as Gaddafi, The Guardian, 18 May 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/may/17/north-korea-trump-latest-warning-kim-jong-un-gaddafi (Last accessed on 6 December 2018).

⁵ ‘IRT 5000 Reactor’, IAEA, Iraq decommissioning project, (last accessed: 29 May 2018) http://www-ns.iaea.org/projects/iraq/tuwaitha/irt5000.asp?s=8&l=66.

⁶ David E. Sanger, Obama order sped up wave of cyberattacks against Iran, 1 June 2012, New York Times, (last accessed: 29 May 2018) https://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/middleeast/obama-ordered-wave-of-cyberattacks-against-iran.html .

⁷ The concepts of Patron and Protégé here refer to a nuclear power, a Patron, which maintains either a formal, or an informal alliance with a smaller, protégé state, as applied by Monteiro and Debs. See: Nuno Monteiro and Alex Debs, ‘The Strategic Logic of Nuclear Proliferation’, International Security 39/2 (Fall 2014), 7–51.

⁸ Daniel Sobelman, ‘Restraining an Ally: Israel, the United States, and Iran’s Nuclear Program, 2011–2012’, Texas National Security Review 1/4 (2018).

⁹ Nuno Monteiro and Alex Debs, ‘The Strategic Logic of Nuclear Proliferation’, 17.

¹⁰ Vipin Narang, ‘Strategies of Nuclear Proliferation: How States Pursue the Bomb,’ International Security 41/3 (Winter 2016/17), 110–50, 122.

¹¹ Gene Gerzhoy, ‘Alliance Coercion and Nuclear Restraint’, International Security 39/4 (Spring 2015), 91–129, 91.

¹² ‘The Strategic Logic of Nuclear Proliferation’, 17.

¹³ Dan Reiter, ‘Security Commitments and Nuclear Proliferation’, Foreign Policy Analysis 10 (2014), 61–80.

¹⁴ Matthew Fuhrmann and Todd Sechser and ‘Signaling Alliance Commitments: Hand-Tying and Sunk Costs in Extended Nuclear Deterrence’, American Journal of Political Science 58/4 (October 2014), 919–35, 19. Philipp C. Bleek, and Eric B. Lorber, ‘Security Guarantees and Allied Nuclear Proliferation’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 58/3 (2014), 429–54.

¹⁵ Rachel Elizabeth Whitlark, Nuclear Beliefs: A Leader-Focused Theory of Counter-Proliferation, Security Studies 26/4, 545–74.

¹⁶ Sarah Kreps and Matthew Fuhrmann, ‘Attacking the Atom: Does Bombing Nuclear Facilities Affect Proliferation?’ Journal of Strategic Studies 34/2 (2011): 161–87.

¹⁷ For studies framing the raid a successful operation see: Jeremy Tamsett, ‘The Israeli Bombing of Osirak reconsidered: successful counterproliferation’, The Nonproliferation Review 11/3 (2004), 70–85; Uri Bar-Joseph, Michael Handel and Amos Perlmutter, Two Minutes Over Baghdad (Abingdon: Routledge 2003). For studies framing the raid as having a negative result see: Malfrid Braut-Hegghammer, Unclear Physics: why Iraq and Libya failed to build nuclear weapons (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2016); Jacques E. C. Hymans, Achieving Nuclear Ambitions: Scientists, Politicians, and Proliferation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2012); Richard K. Betts, ‘The Osirak Fallacy,’ National Interest 83 (Spring 2006), 22–25.

¹⁸ Steven L. Spiegel, The Other Arab-Israeli Conflict (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986); William B. Quandt (Ed.), The Middle East: Ten Years After Camp David (Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press 1988); Dennis Ross, Doomed to succeed: The U.S-Israel relationship from Truman to Obama (New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2015); Abraham Ben-Zvi: From Truman to Obama, the rise and early decline of American-Israeli relations [Hebrew] (Tel-Aviv: Yedioth Ahronoth Books 2011).

¹⁹ Shlomo Nakdimon, ‘Tammuz in flames’, [From Hebrew: Tammuz Balehavot] Tel Aviv, Yedioth Aharonot & Hemed publishing, updated edition, 2007. The first edition of Nakdimon’s book appeared in English as: Shlomo Nakdimon, First Strike: The Exclusive Story of How Israel Foiled Iraq’s Attempt to Get the Bomb, Harper Collins, New York, 1987. However, the Hebrew edition was updated in 2007, while the English edition was not, and this article will use the updated Hebrew version for reference, as ‘Tammuz in Flames’.

²⁰ Uri Sadot, ‘Osirak and the Counter-proliferation Puzzle’, Security Studies 25/2, 646–76.

²¹ Ehud Olmert, ‘In Person’, [From Hebrew: Beguf Rishon], Miskal – Yedioth Ahronoth Books, Rishon Lezion, Israel, 2018, 199. Excerpts were also published in the Israeli press. See: ‘Mr Prime Minister, the target has been eliminated [from Hebrew], Shiva’a Yamim, Yedioth Ahronoth, 2826, 23 March 2018, 38–50.

²² Elliott Abrams, Bombing the Syrian Reactor: The Untold Story, 1 February 2013, Commentary magazine, https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/bombing-the-syrian-reactor-the-untold-story/ (last access: 15 April 2018).

²³ Ibid.

²⁴ Ibid.

²⁵ George W. Bush, Decision Points (New York: Broadway Books, Reprint edition 2011), 420–22.

²⁶ Condoleezza Rice, No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington (New York: Broadway Books 2012), 708.

²⁷ Dick Cheney, In My Time: A Personal and Political Memoir (New York: Threshold Editions 2011), 469–72.

²⁸ David Makovsky, The Silent Strike, The New Yorker, 17 September 2012, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/09/17/the-silent-strike (last accessed: 18 April 2018).

²⁹ William Burr and Jeffrey Richelson, ‘Whether to “Strangle the Baby in the Cradle”: The United States and the Chinese Nuclear Program, 1960–64’.

³⁰ Bharat Karnad, Nuclear Weapons and Indian Security: The Realist Foundations of Strategy (New York: Macmillan 2002), 346. Also quoted in: Adrian Levy, Cathy Scott-Clark, Deception: Pakistan, the United States and the Global Nuclear Weapons Conspiracy (NY: Atlantic Books), 2007, 104–05. Sushant Singh, In fact: Did India plan a covert military attack on a Pakistani nuclear reactor? The Indian Express, 26 October 2015, https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/in-fact-did-india-plan-a-covert-military-attack-on-a-pakistani-nuclear-reactor/ (Last accessed on 7 October 2018).

³¹ Ibid.

³² Ibid.

³³ Peter A. Clausen, Non-Proliferation and the National Interest (New York: HarperCollins 1993), 133.

³⁴ Clausen, 134.

³⁵ Clausen, 133.

³⁶ Zbigniew Brzezinski Material, Agency Files (NSA 8), Box 2, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency 1977 Annual Report, [with comments, unsigned, undated] March 1978, JCL, 5–6.

³⁷ Ibid, 11.

³⁸ Clausen, 142–43.

³⁹ Frederick Williams, ‘The United States Congress and Nonproliferation’, International Security, 3/2, 1978, 45–50., J. Michael Martinez, ‘The Carter Administration and the Evolution of American Nuclear Nonproliferation policy, 1977–1981’, Journal of Policy History 14/3 (July 2002).

⁴⁰ William Glenn Gray, ‘Commercial Liberties and Nuclear Anxieties: The US-German Feud over Brazil, 1975–7,’ The International History Review 34/3 (2012), 449–74, Fabian Hilfrich, ‘Roots of Animosity: Bonn’s Reaction to US Pressures in Nuclear Proliferation’, The International History Review 36/2, 277–301.

⁴¹ Anna-Mart van Wyk, ‘South African Nuclear Development in the 1970s: A Non-Proliferation Conundrum?’ The International History Review 40/5, (2018) Aspects of the global nuclear order in the 1970s, 1152–73.

⁴² Secret, Memo of conversation, Subject: Meeting with Foreign Minister Vajpayee of India, 24 April 1979, Staff Material, North-South files, NLC-98-3-13-0, JCL.

⁴³ The controversy over US fuel shipments to Tarapur ended only in 1982. See: John Walsh, ‘India-U.S. Wrangle Over Nuclear Fuel Ended’, Science 217/4560 13 (August 1982), 614–16.

⁴⁴ ‘Political implications of United States nuclear Policy, Report by Ministry of External Affairs (R&I Division), [document not signed], 23 November 1977, file: HI/102(52)/77, box: 225, Diplomatic cables, INA, 14.

⁴⁵ ‘President Carter’s visit to India – Summary by Ministry of External Affairs’ [1–3 January 1978], 23 May 1978, file: HI/102/19/78, box: 225, Diplomatic Cables, INA.

⁴⁶ National Security Council Memo, Secret/sensitive, Policy Review Committee Meeting, Subject: Minutes: PRC meeting on Pakistan, 9 March 1979, in: NSC Institutional Files, (1977–81), NLC-73-6-5-3, JCL.

⁴⁷ Ibid.

⁴⁸ Secret, Policy Review Committee meeting, Subject: PRC on Pakistan and subcontinent matters – minutes, 23 May 1979, NLC-73-6-5-3, JCL.

⁴⁹ Rabia Akhtar, The Blind Eye: U.S. Non-Proliferation Policy Towards Pakistan From Ford to Clinton (Lahore: University of Lahore Press 2018), 135–40.

⁵⁰ Farzan Sabet ‘The April 1977 Persepolis Conference on the Transfer of Nuclear Technology: A Third World Revolt Against US Non-Proliferation Policy?’ The International History Review, 40/5, 1134–51. 2.

⁵¹ Or Rabinowitz. ‘Signed, Sealed but Never Delivered: Why Israel did not Receive Nixon’s Promised Nuclear Power Plants’, The International History Review 40/5: Aspects of the global nuclear order in the 1970s. 1014–33.

⁵² Ibid.

⁵³ Ibid.

⁵⁴ Comments by Simcha Dinitz, [from Hebrew], 26–29, in: ‘The trilateral strategic forum: issues in the relations of Israel, the U.S. and American Jewry, Publication 9: Israel’s nuclear policy as a component in its relations with the U.S.’, the American Jewish Committee, Israel and Middle East Office, 17 September 1998, ISBN 96-7005-06-X., 27.

⁵⁵ Ibid.

⁵⁶ The Other Arab-Israeli Conflict, 331.

⁵⁷ The Middle East: Ten Years after Camp David, 20-204. Doomed to succeed, 166–67. From Truman to Obama, 142–67.

⁵⁸ Doomed to succeed,

⁵⁹ Yoel Markus, ‘It sounds different in Russian’ [From Hebrew], Ha’aretz, 24 April 2009. https://www.haaretz.co.il/opinions/1.1257298 (Last accessed: 23 December 2018).

⁶⁰ Rabinowitz, Bargaining on nuclear tests (Oxford: OUP 2014), 141–42. Akhtar, The Blind Eye, 135–40.

⁶¹ Avner Cohen and William Burr, What the U.S. Government Really Thought of Israel’s Apparent 1979 Nuclear Test, Politico, 8 December 2016, https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/12/1979-vela-incident-nuclear-test-israel-south-africa-214507 (Last accessed on 6 January 2018). Leonard Weiss, A double-flash from the past and Israel’s nuclear arsenal, Bulletin of the atomic scientists, 3 August 2018, https://thebulletin.org/2018/08/a-double-flash-from-the-past-and-israels-nuclear-arsenal/ (Last accessed: 23 December 2018).

⁶² Bargaining on Nuclear tests, 92–98.

⁶³ Jeanne J. Grimmett, Nuclear Sanctions: Section 102(b) of the Arms Export Control Act and Its Application to India and Pakistan, CRS Report for Congress, 98–486 A, 9 December 1999, 2.

⁶⁴ ‘Secret Memo to Mr. [Thomas] Pickering from Harold H. Sanders, Subject: Draft Presidential Letter Suggesting Collective Sanctions against Any Country Exploding a Nuclear Device, 20 October 1979ʹ, Staff Material – Global Issues Files (NSA 28), Box 52, NLC-28-52-8-1-5, JCL.

⁶⁵ Ibid.

⁶⁶ Ibid.

⁶⁷ Ibid.

⁶⁸ 23 October 1979, Secret, [Papers Relevant to proposed discussion with Mr. Owen of Generic Sanctions for nuclear explosions by NNWS], ‘Background paper for October 23 meeting with Mr. Owen ‘Possible Elements of Presidential announcement about the Consequences of a Nuclear Detonation by any Non-Nuclear Weapon State’, Staff Material, Global Issues, Box 52, Folder 8, NLC-28-52-8-1-5, JCL.

⁶⁹ Ibid.

⁷⁰ Ibid.

⁷¹ Confidential, U.S. non-proliferation policy and programs: an assessment, 30 October 1980 [From Gerald Smith to President Carter, attached to Memo for the President, Subject: Non-Proliferation policy – Report of Gerry Smith, 24 November 1980, Staff Material, Global Issues, Box 52, Folder 11, NLC-28-52-11-1-1, JCL.

⁷² Ibid.

⁷³ Ibid.

⁷⁴ Zbigniew Brzezinski Material, Agency Files (NSA 8), Box 2, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency 1977 Annual Report, [with comments, unsigned, undated] March 1978, JCL, 23.

⁷⁵ The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty: Looking Toward the 1980 Review Conference, a research paper, National Foreign Assessment Center, 802,511, Oplinger – Bloomfield’s Subject Files (NSA 28), Box 50, Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, September 78 – December 79, JCL, p.4.

⁷⁶ Peter A. Clausen, Nonproliferation and the National Interest (New-York: Harper Collins College Publishers 1993), 133.

⁷⁷ Document 130. ‘U.S. Relations with Libya and Iraq’, Memorandum From the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Brzezinski) to President Carter, Washington, 24 February 1977. In: FRUS, 1977–1980, Vol. XVII, Middle East Region, Arabian Peninsula, Iraq (documents 130–142), https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1977-80v18/ch3 [Hereafter ‘FRUS, 1977–1980, Vol. XVII’].

⁷⁸ Ibid.

⁷⁹ Document 131. ‘Improving Relations with Other Nations’, Memorandum from Secretary of State Vance to President Carter, Washington, 15 April 1977. FRUS, 1977–1980, Vol. XVII.

⁸⁰ Ibid.

⁸¹ Document 132. ‘Subject: Under Secretary Habib Meets With Iraqi Foreign Minister’, Telegram From the United States Interests Section in Baghdad to the Department of State. Baghdad, 18 May 1977. FRUS, 1977–1980, Vol. XVII.

⁸² Ibid.

⁸³ Draft Statement for Assistant secretary Saunders before the House Subcommittee on Europe and the Middle East, 12 June 1978, Zbigniew Brzezinski Material, Country Files (NSA 6), Box 51, Middle East, 6–78, JCL, p.14.

⁸⁴ Document 135. ‘Improving Relations with Iraq’, Action Memorandum from the Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs (Saunders) to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (Newsom), Washington, 2 January 1979. FRUS, 1977–1980, Vol. XVII.

⁸⁵ Document 137. ‘Iraq’s role in the Middle East’, NIE 36.2–1–76, National Intelligence Estimate, Washington, 21 June 1979. FRUS, 1977–1980, Vol. XVII.

⁸⁶ Document 139. ‘Subject: Saddam Hussein: Part I’, Telegram from the United States Interests Section in Baghdad to the Department of State, Baghdad, 4 February 1980. FRUS, 1977–1980, Vol. XVII.

⁸⁷ Ibid.

⁸⁸ New Realities in the Middle East, Interagency Intelligence Memorandum, December 1979, Zbigniew Brzezinski Material, Country Files (NSA 6), Box 51, Middle East, August – December 1979, JCL, 3.

⁸⁹ Memorandum, US Relations with Radical Arabs, CIA, National Foreign assessment Center, 7 December 1979, Zbigniew Brzezinski Material, Country Files (NSA 6), Box 51, Middle East, August – December 1979, JCL, 5.

⁹⁰ Document 6, Memorandum of Conversation, page 26, Foreign Relations of the United States, 16 February 1977, 1977–1980, Volume VIII, Arab-Israeli Dispute, January 1977–August 1978, (last accessed on 26 February 2018), https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1977-80v08/d6 .

⁹¹ Ibid.

⁹² Rabinowitz & Sarkar, ‘It isn’t over until the fuel cell sings’. 13–21/27.

⁹³ Subject: next step on Pakistan reprocessing deal, cable 227,260 from State department to embassy

in Paris, 12 November 1978ʹ, in Brzezinski Material, Cables File, JCPL. See also: ‘It isn’t over until the fuel cell sings’, 293.

⁹⁴ Feroz Hassan Khan, Eating Grass: The Making of the Pakistani Bomb (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2013), 198.

⁹⁵ Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb (NY: Columbia University Press 1999), 58–59, 75.

⁹⁶ Nakdimon, 74.

⁹⁷ Untitled, Begin’s letter to Thatcher regarding Pakistan’s nuclear programme, 17 May 1979, FCO 93–2105, TNA.

⁹⁸ Ibid.

⁹⁹ Secret, from Mason [John Mason, ambassador], Tel-Aviv embassy, [on Begin’s letter to Thatcher on the Pakistani nuclear program] 3 July 1979, FCO 93–2105, TNA.

¹⁰⁰ JIC assessment from 26 April 1980 on ‘Possible Arab Assistance for Pakistani Nuclear Development’ is mentioned in: R.J. Alston, Nuclear Unit, ‘Pakistan’s nuclear programme’, [Final remark added by P.H. Moberly, 7 June 1979], 5 June 1979, FCO 93–2105, TNA.

¹⁰¹ Letter from PM Thatcher to PM Begin [regarding Pakistan’s nuclear programme], 19 June 1979, FCO 93–2105, TNA.

¹⁰² Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark, Deception: Pakistan, the United States, and the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons (London: Atlantic Books, 2007), 87–88. Also cited in ‘Eating Grass’, 169. Osirak and the Counter-Proliferation Puzzle, 657.

¹⁰³ Telegram 19028 from Rome, 1 July 1979, in: Appendix B, Chronology, Italian/Iraqi Nuclear Cooperation, attached to Memo for Zbigniew Brzezinski, from Peter Tarnoff, Executive Secretary, Department of State, Subject: Paper on the Iraqi nuclear program, 21 November 1980, Staff Material files, Middle East, Box 47, Folder 1, NLC-25–47-1–13-8, JCL. p.1. [Hereafter Appendix B].

¹⁰⁴ Rome, telegram 29035, 22 October 1979, in: Appendix B, p.2.

¹⁰⁵ Italian request for U.S. assistance on oil supplies [undated, unsigned], Zbigniew Brzezinski Material, Country Files (NSA 6), Box 39, Italy, January-December 1979, JCL.

¹⁰⁶ Rome, telegram 27587, 5 October 1979, in: Appendix B, p.1.

¹⁰⁷ State, Telegram 304489, 23 November 1979. Appendix B, p.2.

¹⁰⁸ Telegram from Rome, 33141, 28 November 1979, in: Appendix B, p.2.

¹⁰⁹ From Stansfield Turner, Director of Central Intelligence, to the President, 22 October 1979, Zbigniew Brzezinski Material, Iraq Country Files (NSA 6), box 34, JCL.

¹¹⁰ Rome 10983, 24 April 1980, in: Appendix B, p.5.

¹¹¹ Rome, 11572, 2 May 1980, in: Appendix B, p.6.

¹¹² Rome 15607, 17 June 1980, in: Appendix B, p.7.

¹¹³ Rome 18974, 28 July 1980, in: Appendix B, p.8.

¹¹⁴ Vienna 9593, 14 July 1980, in: Tab A, chronology of contact with the French, attached to Memo for Zbigniew Brzezinski, from Peter Tarnoff, Executive Secretary, Department of State, Subject: Paper on the Iraqi nuclear program, 21 November 1980, Staff Material files, Middle East, Box 47, Folder 1, NLC-25–47-1–13-8, JCL. [Here after ‘Tab A’], p.3.

¹¹⁵ Ibid.

¹¹⁶ The HEU arrived on 14 July 1980, Begin’s letter arrived at 22 July 1980. Tab A.

¹¹⁷ Nakdimon, Tammuz in flames, 142–144.

¹¹⁸ NSC memo for Zbigniew Brzezinski, David Aaron, from Jerry Oplinger, Subject: Begin’s appeal on the French/Iraqi Nuclear issue, 23 July 1980, Zbigniew Brzezinski Material, Country Files (NSA 6), Box 34, Iraq, April 1980-January 1981, JCL.

¹¹⁹ Ibid.

¹²⁰ Ibid.

¹²¹ Ibid.

¹²² NSC memo for Zbigniew Brzezinski from Robert Hunter and Jerry Oplinger, Subject: Iraqi nuclear issues, 24 July 1980, Zbigniew Brzezinski Material, Country Files (NSA 6), Box 34, Iraq, April 1980-January 1981.

¹²³ Ibid.

¹²⁴ Immediate cable to Tel-Aviv, REF Tel Aviv 13256, Subject: Begin’s Appeal to President Carter Concerning French enriched Uranium Shipments to Iraq, 23 July 1980, Zbigniew Brzezinski Material, Country Files (NSA 6), Box 34, Iraq, April 1980-January 1981.

¹²⁵ Memo from Zbigniew Brzezinski for the secretary of State, Subject: French and Italian Nuclear Cooperation with Iraq, marked ‘Outside the system’, 28 July 1980, Zbigniew Brzezinski Material, Country Files (NSA 6), Box 34, Iraq, April 1980-January 1981, JCL.

¹²⁶ Tammuz in flames, 136. This specific memo cited by Nakdimon has proved difficult to reproduce, an effort by the author to locate it in both Israeli and US archives has failed.

¹²⁷ NSC memo for Zbigniew Brzezinski from Jerry Oplinger, Subject: Iraqi Nuclear Program, 25 September 1980, file: Iran/Iraq, 9/80, Zbigniew Brzezinski Material – Country Files (NSA 6), Box 34, JCL.

¹²⁸ Ibid.

¹²⁹ Memo for the President, From Zbigniew Brzezinski, subject: daily report, 25 September 1980, Zbigniew Brzezinski Material, President’s Daily Report File (NSA 1), Box 17, 21 September 1980–30 September 1980, JCL.

¹³⁰ Nate Jones, Document Friday: When Iran Bombed Iraq’s Nuclear Reactor, 9 March 2012, Unredacted Blog, National Security Archive, https://unredacted.com/2012/03/09/document-friday-when-iran-bombed-iraqs-nuclear-reactor/ (last accessed 7 August 2018). There details of this episode are murky, and some sources indicated two strikes, and not one.

¹³¹ Situation Room Checklist, 30 September 1980, Zbigniew Brzezinski Material, President’s Daily Report File (NSA 1), Box 17, 21 September 1980–30 September 1980, JCL.

¹³² Spot Commentary: Iran-Iraq, 23 September 1980, [unsigned, heavily excised], Zbigniew Brzezinski Material, Country Files (NSA 6), Box 34, Iran-Iraq, September 1980, JCL.

¹³³ Memo for Dr. Brzezinski, from Gary Sick, Subject: Iran-Iraq, 23 September 1980, Zbigniew Brzezinski Material, Country Files (NSA 6), Box 34, Iran-Iraq, September 1980, JCL.

¹³⁴ Meeting Highlights ‘highly abridged summary’ [undated, unsigned, SCC memo, circa 23 September 1980], Zbigniew Brzezinski Material, Country Files (NSA 6), Box 34, Iran-Iraq, September 1980, JCL.

¹³⁵ Ibid.

¹³⁶ Ibid.

¹³⁷ ‘State 215253, 14 August 1980ʹ, (s/nodis), Tab A.

¹³⁸ For President Giscard, the Elysee, From President Carter, The White House, Via Blue Line, [annotated draft] 24 September 1980, Zbigniew Brzezinski Material, Country Files (NSA 6), Box 34, Iran-Iraq, September 1980, JCL.

¹³⁹ Ibid.

¹⁴⁰ Memo for Zbigniew Brzezinski, from Peter Tarnoff, Executive Secretary, Department of State, Subject: Paper on the Iraqi nuclear program, 21 November 1980, Staff Material files, Middle East, Box 47, Folder 1, NLC-25–47-1–13-8, JCL. [Hereafter ‘the Tarnoff memo’].

¹⁴¹ Ibid, 1–2.

¹⁴² Ibid, 1–2.

¹⁴³ Ibid, 8.

¹⁴⁴ Ibid, 6.

¹⁴⁵ Ibid, 7.

¹⁴⁶ Ibid, 7.

¹⁴⁷ Ibid, 7.

¹⁴⁸ Immediate cable 7592 to secstate, from Tel-Aviv embassy, 9 June 1981, Iraq (Israel strike on Iraqi nuclear facility, 6/8/81) [1 of 6], Box 37, Executive secretariat, country file, Iran-Iraq (box 68), RRL. Partial quotes of the meeting based on the Israeli files are in: Tammuz in flames, 189–190.

¹⁴⁹ Immediate cable 7592, 9 June 1981.

¹⁵⁰ ‘An Ounce of Prevention – A Pound of Cure?’.

¹⁵¹ Document 135. ‘Improving Relations with Iraq’.

¹⁵² Document 137. ‘Iraq’s role in the Middle East’.

¹⁵³ Document 139. ‘Subject: Saddam Hussein: Part I’.

¹⁵⁴ For US consideration of a strike against Pakistan see: Richard Burt, US will press Pakistan to halt A-arms Project, 12 August 1979, New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/1979/08/12/archives/us-will-press-pakistan-to-halt-aarms-project-series-of-steps.html (Last accessed: 17 July 2018). Don Oberdorfer, Pakistan: The Quest for Atomic Bomb, Washington Post, 27 August 1979 < https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1979/08/27/pakistan-the-quest-for-atomic-bomb/a0488214-1603-41f4-b168-8ba45057a10b/?utm_term=.778c28a5831a > (Last accessed on 17 July 2018), Thomas Perry Thornton, ‘Between the Stools? U.S. Policy towards Pakistan during the Carter Administration’, Asian Survey 22/10 (October 1982), 959–77, 968. Gordon Corera, Shopping for Bombs: Nuclear Proliferation, Global Insecurity, and the Rise and Fall of the A. Q. Khan Network (London: Hurst and Co. 2006), 28.

¹⁵⁵ Mark Bowden, ‘The Desert One Debacle’, The Atlantic, May 2006 issue, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2006/05/the-desert-one-debacle/304803/ (Last accessed on 10 February 2019).

¹⁵⁶ Meeting highlights ‘highly abridged summary’, [circa 23 September 1980].

¹⁵⁷ For President Giscard, 24 September 1980.

¹⁵⁸ Ben Caspit, How Israeli senior officials deal with an unpredictable Trump, Al-Monitor, 4 January 2019, (last accessed 7 February 2019), https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2019/01/israel-trump-iran-intelligence-syria-exit-security-netanyahu.html.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Or Rabinowitz

Or Rabinowitz (PhD) is an assistant professor at the International Relations Department of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. Her research interests include nuclear proliferation, nuclear history and Israeli–US relations. Her book, ‘Bargaining on Nuclear Tests’ was published in April 2014 by Oxford University Press, and she has since published articles in International Security, Journal of Strategic Studies, International History Review and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, as well as opinion and analysis pieces at the Washington Post and Ha’aretz.