Why Israel launched a preventive military strike on Iraq’s nuclear weapons program (1981): The fungibility of power resources

ABSTRACT

In 1981, Israel launched a preventive military strike against a nuclear reactor that Iraq was constructing at the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center. The low fungibility of Iraq’s power resources, and especially its nuclear weapons program, shaped Israel’s decision-making process. First, it motivated Israel’s executives to disaggregate Iraq’s capabilities. Though they identified Baghdad’s emerging nuclear weapons program as a threat, there was little pressure to act more broadly. Second, it pushed Israel’s leaders to favour delaying strategies to stall Iraq’s program. Third, it motivated Israel’s leaders to favour a preventive military strike to delay Iraq’s nuclear program from becoming more fungible.

KEYWORDS:

• Osiraq
• preventive war
• fungibility
• power resources

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Uri Bar-Joseph, Guy Ben-Porat, Avner Cohen, David Edelstein, Ehud Eiran, Shai Feldman, Eugene Gholz, Ariel Levite, Jack Levy, Shlomo Nakdimon, Daniel Nexon, Galia Press-Barnathan, Norrin Ripsman, Jonathan Rynhold, Ziv Rubinovitz, Ilai Saltzman, Rami Shtivi, Scott Silverstone, Jeffrey Taliaferro and three anonymous reviewers of the Journal of Strategic Studies for their useful comments and suggestions. I would like to recognize Brittany Griffin, Benjamin Krick, Katlyn Mease, Matthew Stern, and William Welby for their research assistance. This work was supported by the URC Faculty Research Award at the University of Utah, the Betty Glad Funds in the Department of Political Science at the University of Utah, and the Israel Institute (grant number 20177). Versions of this paper were presented at the Jewish Studies Program at Sonoma State University and the Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem. All errors and conclusions are mine.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

¹ Shai Feldman, ‘The Bombing of Osiraq-Revisited’, International Security 7/2 (1982), 114–142; Shlomo Nakdimon, First Strike: The Exclusive Story of How Israel Foiled Iraq’s Attempt to Get the Bomb (New York: Summit Books 1987); Amos Perlmutter, Michael I. Handel, and Uri Bar-Joseph, Two Minutes over Baghdad (London: Routledge 2003); Avi Shilon, ‘The Begin Doctrine’, Menachem Begin: A Life (New Haven: Yale University Press 2012), 335–347; and Ronen Bergman, Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassinations (New York: Penguin Random House 2018), 343–61.

² A debate not addressed in this article is whether Israel’s strike delayed or accelerated Iraq’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon. On policy substitutability, see T. Clifton Morgan and Glenn Palmer, ‘A Model of Foreign Policy Substitutability: Selecting the Right Tools for the Job(s)’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 44/1 (February 2000), 11–32.

³ Uri Sadot, ‘Osirak and the Counter-Proliferation Puzzle,’ Security Studies 25/4 (2016), 656–62.

⁴ Matthew Fuhrmann and Sarah E Kreps, ‘Targeting Nuclear Weapons Programs in War and Peace: A Quantitative Empirical Analysis, 1941–2000ʹ, Journal of Conflict Resolution 54/6 (2010), 559.

⁵ William Burr and Jeffrey T. Richelson, ‘Whether to ‘Strangle the Baby in the Cradle’: The United States and the Chinese Nuclear Program, 1960–64ʹ, International Security 25/3 (2000–01), 73–83; Marc Trachtenberg, ‘Preventive War and U.S. Foreign Policy’, International Security 16/1 (2007), 4–5.

⁶ Marc Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement, 1949–1963 (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1999).

⁷ Lyle J. Goldstein, Preventive Attack and Weapons of Mass Destruction: A Comparative Historical Analysis (Stanford: Stanford University Press 2006); Karl P. Mueller, Jasen J. Castillo, Forrest E. Morgan, Negeen Pegahi, and Brian Rosen, Striking First: Preemptive and Preventive Attack in US National Security Policy (Santa Monica: RAND 2006); Scott A. Silverstone, Preventive War and American Democracy (New York: Routledge 2007); Norrin M. Ripsman and Jack S. Levy, ‘The Preventive War that Never Happened: Britain, France and the Rise of Germany in the 1930s’, Security Studies 16/1 (2007), 32–67; Jack S. Levy, Preventive War and Democratic Politics’, International Studies Quarterly 52/1 (2008), 1–24.

⁸ In 2007, Israel launched a preventive strike against Syria’s al-Kibar nuclear reactor on the Euphrates River.

⁹ The quotes from the interviews reflect recent comments about past debates; they are not from the pre-strike debates. I also try to distinguish between beliefs and justifications (pre- versus post-strike) by triangulating comments from the pre-strike period, where possible.

¹⁰ Steven E. Lobell, ‘A Granular Theory of Balancing’, International Studies Quarterly 62/3 (2018), 593–605.

¹¹ Stefano Guzzini, ‘The Use and Misuse of Power Analysis in International Theory’, in Ronen Palan (ed.), Global Political Economy: Contemporary Theories (London: Routledge 2000), 55.

¹² On the FPE, see Norrin M. Ripsman, Jeffrey W. Taliaferro, and Steven E. Lobell, Neoclassical Realist Theory of International Politics (New York: Oxford University Press 2016), 123–29.

¹³ David A. Baldwin, ‘Power Analysis and World Politics: New Trends Versus Old Tendencies’, World Politics 31/2 (1979), 166–175; Mark R. Brawley, Political Economy and Grand Strategy: A Neoclassical Realist View (New York: Routledge 2010), 2, 5–6.

¹⁴ Jed C. Snyder, ‘The Road to Osiraq: Baghdad’s Quest for the Bomb’, Middle East Journal 37/4 (1983), 565–593; Peter S. Ford, ‘Israel’s Attack on Osiraq: A Model for Future Preventive Strikes?’ INSS Occasional Paper 59 (Colorado: USAF Institute for National Security Studies 2005).

¹⁵ Uzi Eilam, Eilam’s Arc: How Israel became a Military Technology Powerhouse (Portland: Sussex Academic Press 2011), 186–187; Jeffrey T. Richelson, Spying on the Bomb (New York: W. W. Norton 2007), 319. On the specifications of Osiraq, see Snyder, ‘The Road’, 569–72; Malfrid Braut-Hegghammer, ‘Revisiting Osirak: Preventive Attacks and Nuclear Proliferation Risks’, International Security 36/1 (2011), 112–13.

¹⁶ Nakdimon, First Strike, 60

¹⁷ Snyder, ‘The Road to Osiraq’, 576.

¹⁸ Sadot, ‘Osirak’, 657.

¹⁹ On the in-fighting between Quai D’Orsay and the French Atomic Energy Agency, see Steve Weissman and Herbert Krosney, The Islamic Bomb: The Nuclear Threat to Israel and the Middle East (New York: Times Books 1981), 256–260.

²⁰ Nakdimon, First Strike, 107

²¹ Snyder, ‘The Road’, 573–76; Richelson, Spying, 319; Eilam, Elam’s Arc, 187; Malfrid Braut-Hegghammer, Unclear Physics: Why Iraq and Libya Failed to Build Nuclear Weapons (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2016), 52, 56–58.

²² Nakdimon, First Strike, 190.

²³ Government of Israel, ‘The Iraqi Nuclear Threat – Why Israel Had to Act’, (Jerusalem: Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Atomic Energy Commission 1981), 10; Jonathan Renshon, Why Leaders Choose War: The Psychology of Prevention (Westport: Praeger Publishers 2006), 49.

²⁴ Richelson, Spying, 319.

²⁵ Aviezer Yaari, ‘Strategic Intelligence for the Attack on the Iraqi Nuclear Reactor (1981)’, in Israel’s Silent Defender: An Inside Look at Sixty years of Israeli Intelligence (Jerusalem: IICC Israel Intelligence Heritage and Commemoration Center 2012), 96.

²⁶ ‘Statement by the Government of Israel on the Bombing of the Iraqi Nuclear Facility near Baghdad’, 8 June (1981). https://mfa.gov.il/MFA/ForeignPolicy/MFADocuments/Yearbook5/Pages/26%20Statement%20by%20the%20Government%20of%20Israel%20on%20the%20Bo.aspx.

²⁷ Shlomo Aronson with Oded Brosh, The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East: Opacity, Theory and Reality, 1960–1991 (Albany: State University of New York Press 1992), 174; Avizer Yaari, ‘Intelligence Aspects of the Attack on the Iraqi Nuclear Reactor’, Israel’s Strike Against the Iraqi Nuclear Reactor: 7 June 1981 (Jerusalem: Menachem Begin Heritage Center 2003), 40; Goldstein, Preventive Attack, 117; Amos Yadlin, ‘The Begin Doctrine: The Lessons of Osirak and Deir ez-Zor’, INSS Insight, No. 1037, 21 March (2018). https://www.inss.org.il/publication/the-begin-doctrine-the-lessons-of-osirak-and-deir-ez-zor.

²⁸ Government of Israel, ‘The Iraqi Nuclear Threat’, 17–28; Feldman, ‘The Bombing’, 10–16, 49–52.

²⁹ Government of Israel, ‘The Iraqi Nuclear Threat’, 119–21.

³⁰ Eilam, Eilam’s Arc, 187.

³¹ Nakdimon, First Strike, 155–57

³² Aronson, The Politics and Strategy, 174.

³³ Rodger Claire, Raid on the Sun: Inside Israel’s Secret Campaign that Denied Saddam the Bomb (New York: Broadway Books 2004), 120.

³⁴ Christopher Herzig, ‘Correspondence: IAEA Safeguards’, International Security 7/4 (1983), 195–198; Snyder, ‘The Road to Osiraq’, 580.

³⁵ Ivry interview, 1/22/2014. Tel Aviv, Israel.

³⁶ Kenneth Waltz, Theory of International Politics (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley 1979); John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: Norton 2001); Nuno P. Monteiro, Theory of Unipolar Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2004); Joseph M. Parent and Sebastian Rosato, ‘Balance in Neorealism’, International Security 40/2 (2015) 51–86.

³⁷ U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, ‘Joint Operations’, Joint Publication 3–0, 17 January (Washington DC: U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff 2017). https://www.jcs.mil/Portals/36/Documents/Doctrine/pubs/jp3_0ch1.pdf?ver=2018-11-27-160457-910. Also see, Erik Gartzke and Jon Lindsay, Cross-Domain Deterrence: Strategy in an Era of Complexity (New York: Oxford University Press 2019).

³⁸ Barry Buzan, Charles Jones, and Richard Little, The Logic of Anarchy: Neorealism to Structural Realism (New York, Columbia University Press 1993), 54–66; Stephen Van Evera, Causes of War: Power and the Roots of Conflict (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1999), 7–10. Guzzini, ‘The Use and Misuse’, 54–56.

³⁹ Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye, Power and Interdependence (Boston: Scott, Foresman, and Co 1989), 49–52; Robert O. Keohane, ‘Theory of World Politics: Structural Realism and Beyond’, in Robert O. Keohane (ed.), Neorealism and its Critics (New York: Columbia University Press 1986), 184–188; David A. Baldwin, ‘Force Fungibility, and Influence’, Security Studies 8/4 (1999), 173–83; David A. Baldwin, Power and International Relations: A Conceptual Approach (Princeton: Princeton University Press 2016), 70–72, 179–80.

⁴⁰ David A. Baldwin, ‘Power and International Relations’, in Walter Carlsnaes, Thomas Risse, and Beth A. Simmons (eds.), Handbook of International Relations (Thousand Oaks: Sage 2003), 179, 187.

⁴¹ Baldwin, Power and International Relations, 70.

⁴² Robert J. Art, ‘Force and Fungibility Reconsidered’, Security Studies 8/4 (1999), 183–89.

⁴³ Mark R. Brawley, ‘The Political Economy of Balance of Power Theory’, in T.V. Paul, James J. Wirtz, and Michael Fortmann (eds.), Balance of Power (Stanford: Stanford University Press 2004), 80, 87–88, 98; Mark R. Brawley, Political Economy and Grand Strategy: A Neoclassical Realist View (New York: Routledge 2010), 2, 5–6; Brian C. Schmidt and Thomas Juneau, ‘Neoclassical Realism and Power’, in Asle Toje and Barbara Kunz (eds.), Neoclassical Realism in European Politics: Bringing Power Back In (Manchester: Manchester University Press 2012), 62–65; Brooks and Wohlforth, ‘The Rise and Fall’, 8, 48–54.

⁴⁴ Guzzini, ‘The Use and Misuse’, 55.

⁴⁵ Oliver E. Williamson, ‘Credible Commitments: Using Hostages to Support Exchange’, American Economic Review 73/4 (1983), 519–40.

⁴⁶ Brawley, ‘The Political Economy’, 8, 48–54.

⁴⁷ Scott D. Sagan, ‘Nuclear latency and nuclear proliferation’, in William C. Potter and Guakhar Mukhatzhanova (eds.), Forecasting Nuclear Proliferation in the 21st Century: The Role of Theory (Stanford: Stanford University Press 2010), 80–101; Matthew Fuhrmann and Benjamin Tkach, ‘Almost Nuclear: Introducing the Nuclear Latency Dataset’, Conflict Management and Peace Science 32/4 (September 2015), 443–461.

⁴⁸ Randall L. Schweller, Unanswered Threats: Political Constraints on the Balance of Power (Princeton: Princeton University Press 2008).

⁴⁹ Sarah E. Kreps and Matthew Fuhrmann, ‘Attacking the Atom: Does Bombing Nuclear Facilities Affect Proliferation?’ Journal of Strategic Studies 34/2 (2011), 165–66.

⁵⁰ On supply-side nuclear proliferation, see Matthew Fuhrman, ‘Spreading Temptation: Proliferation and Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation Agreements’, International Security 34/1 (Summer 2009), 7–41; Matthew Kroenig, Exporting the Bomb: Technology Transfers and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 2010).

⁵¹ Brawley, ‘The Political Economy’, 8; Schmidt and Juneau ‘Neoclassical Realism,’ 63.

⁵² Lobell, ‘Granular Theory’.

⁵³ A nuclear Iraq means Iraq as a nuclear weapons state, rather than an Iraqi nuclear latent option or an active weapons program.

⁵⁴ Nakdimon, First Strike, 163.

⁵⁵ Hal Brands, ‘Saddam and Israel: What Do the New Iraqi Records Reveal?’ Diplomacy and Statecraft 22 (2011), 505–09; Hal Brands and David Palkki, ‘Saddam, Israel, and the bomb: Nuclear Alarmist Justified’, International Security 36/1 (Summer 2011) 137, 148–50. Also, see Jack S. Levy, ‘Declining Power and the Preventive Motivation for War’, World Politics 40/1 (1987), 87–90.

⁵⁶ Jack S. Levy, ‘Balances and Balancing: Concepts, Propositions, and Research Design’, in John A. Vasquez, and Colin Elman, (eds.), Realism and the Balancing of Power (Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall 2003), 134–35.

⁵⁷ Na’aman Belkind, interview by author, Tel Aviv, Israel, 27 January 2014.

⁵⁸ Yaari interview by author. Also see, Yaari, ‘Strategic Intelligence’, 96. Also, see Eilam, Eilam’s Arc, 187–88.

⁵⁹ Whitney Raas and Austin Long, ‘Osirak Redux: Assessing Israeli Capabilities to Destroy Iranian Nuclear Facilities,’ International Security 31/4 (1997), 10–11; Sadot, ‘Osirak’, 663.

⁶⁰ Shlomo Brom, ‘Is the Begin Doctrine Still a Viable Option for Israel?’ in Getting Ready for Nuclear-Ready Iran, (eds.), Henry Sokolski and Patrick Clawson (Carlisle: U.S. Army War College Strategic Studies Institute 2005), 141.

⁶¹ Ibid.

⁶² Perlmutter, Two Minutes, 76–77; Silverstone, Preventive War, 7–8.

⁶³ Azriel Nevo, interview by author, Jerusalem, Israel, 16 January 2014; Aronson, The Politics and Strategy, 175, 178. On Israel as a small state, see Van Evera, Causes of War, 163; Yair Evron, Israel’s Nuclear Dilemma (New York: Taylor and Francis, 2012), 123–24.

⁶⁴ Aronson, The Politics, 167.

⁶⁵ Naor interview by author, 21 January 2014, Jerusalem, Israel.

⁶⁶ Naor, interview.

⁶⁷ Brom, Getting Ready, 141.

⁶⁸ Naor, interview by author, June, 2018, Jerusalem, Israel,

⁶⁹ Aronson, The Politics and Strategy, 175.

⁷⁰ Scott Silverstone contends that diplomacy is a form of punishment if it entails denial of particular goods or services from the international market to prevent normal economic exchange with other states. Silverstone, Preventive War, 8–9.

⁷¹ Goldstein, Preventive Attack, 118.

⁷² Government of Israel, ‘The Iraqi Nuclear Threat’, 29–35; Feldman, ‘The Bombing’, 119–21.

⁷³ Sadot, ‘Osirak’, 667–69.

⁷⁴ Perlmutter, Two Minutes, xxxii.

⁷⁵ Snyder, ‘The Road to Osiraq’, 569. Snyder sees this decision as confirmation that France was concerned about Saddam Hussein’s intentions.

⁷⁶ Yair Evron, interview by author, 30 January 2014, Tel Aviv, Israel; Yair Evron, Israel’s Nuclear Dilemma (New York: Taylor and Francis 2012), 27.

⁷⁷ Or Rabinowitz, ‘The dilemma of a “trigger happy” protégé – Israel, France, and President Carter’s Iraq policy’, Journal of Strategic Studies (2019), 19–23.

⁷⁸ Amos Perlmutter, ‘The Israeli Raid on Iraq: A New Proliferation Landscape’, Strategic Review 10/1 (1982), 35.

⁷⁹ Peter Jessup, ‘Ambassador Samuel W. Lewis’, Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, 9 August (1998). file:///C:/Users/Steven/Downloads/Lewis,%20Samuel%20 W.toc%20(2).pdf.

⁸⁰ Nakdimon, First Strike, 72.

⁸¹ Yaari, interview by author; Nissim, interview by author, 10 June 2018.

⁸² Eilam, interview by author, 15 January 2014, Tel Aviv, Israel.

⁸³ Eilam, Eilam’s Arc, 190.

⁸⁴ Yaari, ‘Intelligence Aspects’, 97.

⁸⁵ Aviezer Yaari, interview by author, Tel Aviv, Israel, 26 January 2014.

⁸⁶ Yaari, interview by author.

⁸⁷ Ian Black and Benny Morris, Israel’s Secret Wars: A History of Israel’s Intelligence Services (London: Hamish Hamilton, Ltd 1991), 334; Brom, Getting Ready, 135–36; Sadot, ‘Osirak’, 657–59; Richelson, Spying, 321; Bergman, Rise and Kill First, 61–85, 348–53.

⁸⁸ According to Claire, Hofi was trying to buy time for Ivry to plan the mission. Claire, Raid on the Sun, 82.

⁸⁹ Claire, Raid on the Sun, 66; Perlmutter, Two Minutes, 51–58; Rafael Ofek, ‘’Operation Opera’: Intelligence Behind-the-Scenes’, Israel Defense, 4 September (2015). http://www.israeldefense.co.il/en/content/operation-opera-intelligence-behind-scenes.

⁹⁰ Yaari, interview by author. On the disagreement in the Cabinet about whether the reactor should be damaged by sabotage or destroyed in an attack, see Ariel Sharon with David Chanoff, Warrior: An Autobiography (New York: Simon and Schuster 1989), 382.

⁹¹ Yehoshua Sagi, interview by author, Beit Hanah, Israel, 28 January 2014.

⁹² Ibid.

⁹³ Naor, interview by author. Na’aman Belkind, interview by author, 27 January 2014.

⁹⁴ Ned Temko, To Win or Die: A Personal Portrait of Menachem Begin (New York: William Morrow and Company 1987), 257.

⁹⁵ Eitan Rafael, ‘The Raid on the Reactor from the Point of view of the Chief of Staff’, Israel’s Strike Against the Iraqi Nuclear Reactor 7 June 1981 (Jerusalem: Menachem Begin Heritage Center 2003), 31. According to Yadlin, the failed U.S. attempt to rescue (April, 1980) American hostages held by Iran might have contributed to Israel’s rejection of a ground operation against Osiraq. See, Yadlin, ‘The Begin Doctrine’.

⁹⁶ Bergman, ‘Rise and Kill’, 348.

⁹⁷ Yaari, ‘Intelligence Aspects’, 97–99.

⁹⁸ Yaari, ‘Intelligence Aspect’, 41. AMAN believed the political fall-out would be minor, though Yaari is clear that the American government did not give Israel approval to attack the reactor. Uri Dromi, ‘Quiet Man, Unquiet Times’, Haaretz 18 June (2004). https://www.haaretz.com/life/books/1.4717253.

⁹⁹ Ibid.

¹⁰⁰ Yaari, interview, January, 2014; Yaari ‘Strategic Intelligence’, 98–99.

¹⁰¹ Yaari, interview by author.

¹⁰² Yaari, interview by author.

¹⁰³ Uri Bar-Joseph, ‘The Special Means Collection: The Missing Link in the Surprise of the Yom Kippur War’, Middle East Journal 67/4 (2013), 533.

¹⁰⁴ Ivry, interview by author, Tel Aviv, Israel, 22 January 2014.

¹⁰⁵ Ibid.

¹⁰⁶ Ibid.

¹⁰⁷ Ibid.

¹⁰⁸ Goldstein, Preventive Attack, 120.

¹⁰⁹ Nakdimon, First Strike, 159.

¹¹⁰ Eilam, Eilam’s Arc, 190.

¹¹¹ Nakdimon, First Strike, 163; Arye Naor, ‘Analysis of the Decision-Making Process’, Israel’s Strike Against the Iraqi Nuclear Reactor (Jerusalem: Menachem Begin Heritage Center 2003), 25.

¹¹² Van Evera, Causes of War, 74.

¹¹³ Ivri, interview.

¹¹⁴ Government of Israel, ‘The Iraqi Nuclear Threat’, 55–60. Richard Wilson inspected the damaged reactor in December of 1982 and rebutted the claim that once the reactor was active, attacking it would have spread radioactive fallout over Baghdad. Richard Wilson, ‘A Visit to the bombed Nuclear Reactor at Tuwaitha, Iraq’, Nature, 302/31 (1983), 373–76.

¹¹⁵ Shilon, Menachem Begin, 341.

¹¹⁶ Moshe Nissim, interview by author, Tel Aviv, Israel, 10 June 2018.

¹¹⁷ David Ivri, ‘The Attack on the Osiraq Nuclear Reactor – Looking Back 21 Years Later’, (Jerusalem: Menachem Begin Heritage Center 2003), 37.

¹¹⁸ Nevo, interview by author, 16 January 2014.

¹¹⁹ Ariel Naor, interview by author, Jerusalem, Israel, 24 January 2014.

¹²⁰ Eilam, Eilam’s Arc, 188; Yaari, ‘Intelligence Aspects’, 40.

¹²¹ Goldstein, Preventive Attack, 119.

¹²² Nakdimon, First Strike, 166–67.

¹²³ Ivry, interview.

¹²⁴ Shlomo Nakdimon, interview by author, Tel Aviv, Israel, 19 January 2014; Yaari interview by author.

¹²⁵ Yaari, interview by author.

¹²⁶ Yaari, ‘Intelligence Aspects’, 42; Claire, Raid on the Sun, 120; Goldstein, Preventive Attack and Weapons, 119.

¹²⁷ With the immediate threat of enriched uranium production on hold, Begin was under pressure by Sagi and Hofi to call off the strike. Claire, Raid on the Sun, 120.

¹²⁸ Ilan Peleg, Begin’s Foreign Policy,1977–1983: Israel’s Move to the Right’, (New York: Praeger 1987), 186.

¹²⁹ Sagi was again out of town.

¹³⁰ Naor, interview by author; Eitan, ‘The Raid on the Reactor’, 32; Yaari, ‘Intelligence Aspects of the Attack’, 42.

¹³¹ Nakdimon, First Strike, 187–88.

¹³² Ivry, interview by author.

¹³³ Ivry, interview by author.

¹³⁴ Perlmutter, Two Minutes, xliii; Naor, ‘Israel’s Strike’, 27.

¹³⁵ Bass, A Surprise out of Zion, 31. Also, see Michael Bar-Zohar, Shimon Peres: The Biography (New York: Random House 2007), 353.

¹³⁶ On 26 May, according to Nakdimon, the new French foreign minister declared that ‘France would honor in full all agreements signed by the previous administration’. Nakdimon, First Strike, 202.

¹³⁷ Weissman and Krosny, The Islamic Bomb, 286, 291; Aronson, The Politics and Strategy, 173.

¹³⁸ Eilam, Eilam’s Arc, 190.

¹³⁹ Feldman, ‘The Bombing’, 124; Brom, Getting Ready, 141.

¹⁴⁰ Sadot, ‘Osiraq’, 673.

¹⁴¹ I would like to thank the editors for suggesting this point.

¹⁴² I would like to thank a reviewer for this point. Sasha Palokaow-Suransky, The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa (New York: Pantheon 2010), 136–53.

¹⁴³ Braut-Hegghammer, ‘Revisiting Osirak’, 118.

¹⁴⁴ Sarah E. Kreps and Matthew Fuhrmann, ‘Attacking the Atom: Does Bombing Nuclear Facilities Affect Proliferation?’ Journal of Strategic Studies 34/2 (2011), 171.

¹⁴⁵ Lobell, ‘Granular Theory’.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Israel Institute [Israel Institute]; Betty Glad Award [Betty Glad Award].

Notes on contributors

Steven E. Lobell

Steven E. Lobell is a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Utah. His research interests include neoclassical realism, the political economy of security, the challenges of hegemony, beyond great powers and hegemons, and escalation dynamics in pre- and near-crises. He is the PI of a Minerva Research Initiative award on ‘Power Projection, Deterrence Strategies, and Escalation Dynamics in an Era of Challenging Near Peers, Rogue States, and Terrorist and Insurgent Organizations’.