Faced with a near-nuclear Iran and a Palestinian state, Israel must start to end its nuclear ambiguity - By Louis René Beres and Leon (Bud) Edney - http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/world-report/2015/05/06/in-the-face-of-a-near-nuclear-iran-israel-must-unveil-its-own-weapons
Following the April 2015 announcement of the proposed P5+1 diplomatic agreement with Iran Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his security cabinet will need to focus more intently on their country's nuclear deterrence posture, especially its longstanding policy of deliberate nuclear ambiguity. This is because (1) the proposed pact cannot plausibly expect to prevent a nuclear-capable Iran; and (2) effective nuclear deterrence against a nuclear-capable Iran will require, inter alia, certain recognizably precise confirmations of Israel's usable, secure, and penetration-capable nuclear retaliatory forces. In proceeding with such an indispensable strategic focus, Jerusalem will also have to fend off new and expectedly shrill calls for Israel to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and/or a so-called regional nuclear weapons free zone.
Repeatedly, Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called publicly for Israel's eradication. In this connection, current international law criminalizes such calls as incitement to genocide. For his part, Netanyahu has consistently stated that the proposed diplomatic agreement with Iran will not prevent a nuclear weapons capable Iran. Rather, warned Netanyahu, it will render Israel subject to a prospective genocide.
Israel has every right to refine its national security policies on preemption, deterrence and active defense. An especially critical element of this needed refinement should involve closer assessments of deliberate nuclear ambiguity, or the "bomb in the basement." Until now, this de facto policy has allegedly made good sense. After all, both friends and foes of the Jewish state recognize that Israel possesses nuclear capabilities that are (1) survivable and (2) capable of penetrating all pertinent enemy air defense and ballistic missile defense systems.
So, why change things? A partial answer may be discoverable in today's chaotic instability in the Middle East, a condition resulting from the ragged remnants of the "Arab Spring," and one steadily enhanced by still-escalating atrocities of radical Islam.
Also relevant for Israeli security policy is the insistently refractory and possibly interpenetrating issue of Palestinian statehood. Among other things, because no Palestinian leader has ever willingly recognized the Jewish state of Israel, a Palestinian state could pose a significant threat to Israel. Under international law, every state has the "inherent" right to arm and defend itself. Palestinian statehood, therefore, could create a substantially more viable base for terrorist operations against Israeli citizens.
A Palestinian state would itself remain non-nuclear. However, when viewed together with Israel's other regional foes, this new and 23rd Arab state could still have the consequential effect of becoming a "force multiplier." Any such militarily synergistic effect would impair Israel's already-minimal strategic depth, and thereby render the Jewish state even more vulnerable to a panoply of conventional and unconventional attacks. In certain foreseeable synergistic relationships, moreover, the corrosive whole could become greater than the simple sum of its parts.
A key question then arises: Going forward, what should Israel do about its still-ambiguous nuclear posture and its associated order of battle?
In the arcane world of Israeli nuclear deterrence, it can never be adequate that enemy states simply acknowledge the Jewish state's nuclear status. It is equally important that these adversarial states believe that Israel holds usable and survivable nuclear forces and is also willing to employ them in certain clear and readily identifiable circumstances.
Current security instabilities in the Middle East, including still-impending Palestinian statehood, will create sound reasons for Israel to re-examine its continuance of nuclear ambiguity. Israel's nuclear doctrine and weapons are vital to various scenarios that could require conventional preemptive action, or even a nuclear retaliation. Nonetheless, for Israel, the core purpose of nuclear weapons must always be deterrence ex ante, not revenge ex post.
An integral part of Israel's multi-layered security system lies in maintaining effective ballistic missile defenses, primarily, the Arrow or "Hetz." Yet, even the well-regarded and successfully-tested Arrow, now augmented by the newer and shorter-range operations of Iron Dome, could never achieve a sufficiently high or leak-proof capacity for intercept, a probabilistic condition needed to protect Israeli civilians from the threat of nuclear attack. In essence, this means that Israel cannot rationally accept a nuclear weapons capable enemy that has repeatedly threatened its extinction.
And what of the prospect of an irrational Iranian adversary? Any Israeli move from ambiguity to disclosure, however selective, might not help in the improbable but conceivable case of a crazed nuclear enemy. It remains possible, or even plausible, that elements of Iranian leadership will continue to subscribe to certain end-times visions of a Shiite apocalypse.
We have argued that removing the bomb from Israel's basement could enhance Israel's strategic deterrence, at least to the extent that it would heighten enemy perceptions of the severe and likely risks involved in striking first. This argument should also bring to mind the so-called "Samson Option" response (a residual variant of Mutually Assured Destruction named for the Biblical figure Samson who brought down the great Philistine temple, destroying both his enemies and himself), which could allow various enemy decision-makers to note and emphasize that Israel is prepared to do whatever is needed to survive. In terms of apt Samson imagery, taken from the biblical Book of Judges, many Israelis would have to die, but this time, they would not die alone.
Regarding any soon-to-be-required retreat from "deliberate nuclear ambiguity," the German Federal Security Council recently approved the delivery of another Dolphin-II class submarine to Israel (the fifth of six such promised boats). A too-immediate Israeli departure from deliberate ambiguity would not sit well anywhere in that assisting country, or, more generally, in Europe and NATO. The reaction/opposition of the wider international community to any Israeli nuclear policy change could also be alarmingly negative. Israel, therefore, would need to take very careful note of these particular factors, including also the eventual prospect of U.S. non-support.
When it is finally time for Israel to selectively ease away from nuclear ambiguity, a fully-survivable, hardened, and dispersed strategic second-strike force should be made recognizable by friend and foe alike. Such a robust strategic force should be designed to make any rational foe understand that the costs of any planned nuclear aggressions against Israel would result in the "assured destruction" of the attacker's own cities. On this point, there can be no good reason to argue that the P5+1 agreement with Iran ought in any way limit Israel's sea-basing of nuclear forces.
Anticipating such an argument, Jerusalem should already be moving with increasing urgency to prepare five submarines for carrying a portion of its pertinent retaliatory nuclear weapons. In the fashion of America's own SSBNs (armed with Trident submarine launched ballistic missiles, or SLBMs), at least one of these boats should be deployed 24/7, and at least two during certain aptly identifiable periods of increased tension and palpable instability.
To be sure, growing instability in the Middle East now heightens the potential for expansive wars, either by deliberateness, or by miscalculation. From the altogether critical perspective of maintaining credible deterrence against a still-nuclearizing Iran, Israel should prepare to reexamine and modify, as necessary, its longstanding policy of deliberate nuclear ambiguity. Such preparations must become part of a much wider effort to resist any post-Iran agreement calls for Israeli membership in the NPT, and/or in a regional nuclear weapons-free zone.
The growing threat from Israel's northern border - Brian Schrauger - http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/The-growing-threat-from-Israels-northern-border-400880
Last week, two "projectiles" landed in the Golan Heights. Alarms went off and nerves were rattled, but in the end officials called them "errant mortars."
Errant or not, mortars or not, the reality behind headline news is that Israel is bracing for conflict. Skirmishes and sorties at the border and across it too, into Syria, hint at a growing tension that many here believe could quickly turn into war.
Hezbollah, literally "the party of Allah," is currently estimated have 130,000 missiles in its arsenal, maybe more. Most of these are not mortars. Israeli military experts have issued warnings that these missiles, manufactured with Iranian technology, are sophisticated, long-range and deadly. It is estimated that when the next conflict starts, Hezbollah will launch as many as 1,500 missiles into Israel every day. Many of these missiles, these same experts warn, will be able to reach targets anywhere in the Jewish state.
This conflict, when it comes, will not be so easily contained as last year's war with Hamas in Gaza. Fewer missiles will be intercepted and casualties will be greater.
All of Israel's citizens will be in range, all will have to seek shelter when sirens sound. All cars will stop, all businesses will be interrupted. There will be no place in the country to which beleaguered civilians can escape from Hezbollah's assault. And all the more so if, from Gaza, missiles once again are launched throughout Israel's south.
Iran's not-so-hidden hand inside the "glove" called Hezbollah was exposed on Facebook two days ago. The Tower, a news division of The Israel Project, reported that "an analyst with close ties to the Iranian defense ministry...posted that Iranian, Syrian, and Hezbollah officials will meet shortly to discuss their combined response to recent attacks in Syria that have been attributed to Israel."
The analyst, Amir Mousavi, is "director of the Center for Strategic and International Relations in Tehran and a former advisor to the Iranian Ministry of Defense."
Last week, several Hezbollah weapons depots in Syria were destroyed. Their destruction has been attributed to unconfirmed Israeli operations.
Mousavi called the operations "the beginning of the straw that broke the camel's back."
Attributing Israel's alleged activity to support of "its stepdaughters, [anti-Assad] terrorist groups in Syria," Mousavi pledged that "leadership in Iran will not remain silent."
What might Iran do? According to Mousavi, Tehran may step out from behind its Hezbollah curtain and openly place its own troops, the Islamic Resistance Brigades, throughout southern Syria.
Assad's government, for its part, said Mousavi, would transfer its forces to northern Syria. Once divided, Assad to the north and Iranian troops to the south, Mousavi said that Tehran's troops would "deter the Zionist enemy" from further depot destruction and do so with "major surprises" that "this criminal entity" cannot anticipate.
Conventional wisdom among analysts in Israel is that the only reason Hezbollah has not yet attacked is because Iran has not authorized it. Hezbollah, acting for Iran, has been fighting groups that desire to overthrow Syria's President Bashar Assad. One of those groups is Islamic State (IS). Iran, it is thought, does not want Hezbollah fighting on two fronts. It also has not wanted to hurt chances of successful negotiations to lift international sanctions. Hence it has held off an assault against Israel.
Iran's apparent willingness to place its own troops in southern Syria may indicate a change in Tehran's Hezbollah policy. If Hezbollah is released from involvement in Syria, it will be free to focus all of its destructive ambitions - and firepower - on Israel. And it will be empowered to do so by Iranian troops at its side, just across Lebanon's border in southern Syria.
Mousavi's scenario may also signal Iran's laissez faire attitude toward negotiations regarding its nuclear program. Already able to produce a nuclear weapon in as little as one month, Iran's primary goal for negotiations has been removal of international economic sanctions.
In recent weeks, those sanctions have begun to crumble without a negotiated agreement.
Russia has agreed to sell a sophisticated missile system to Iran, China has quietly restarted business, and Europe too is ready to once again allow trade.
In short, Iran may believe it has achieved everything it wants without US President Barack Obama and his fellow P5+1 international negotiators.
If both of these things are so, war from Israel's north may come sooner than later. Much sooner.
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