War with Iran: Nuclear dialectics of an expected conflict - opinion

On its face, the current strategic balance between Israel and Iran favors the Jewish state. In extremis, because it represents the only already nuclear adversary, Israel is in a dominant position to achieve “escalation dominance.” At the same time, (1) an “asymmetrical nuclear war” could be fought with Israel as the sole nuclear combatant, and (2) Iran is verifiably close to becoming a nuclear combatant state.

How should Israel proceed? The only reasonable answer is to choose strategy and tactics that could offer it a continuous bargaining advantage without incurring unacceptable war risks. The optimal way for Jerusalem to ensure an “escalation advantage” would be to engage Iran directly (not just via its assorted jihadist proxies) while that state enemy is still pre-nuclear.

Once Iran was able to join the “nuclear club,” Israel’s capacities to manage military crises could become severely limited or non-existent. At that uncertain point, any residual Israeli prospects for a successful preemption would almost certainly have vanished.

Though necessary, keeping Iran non-nuclear would not automatically remove that adversary’s ability to inflict catastrophic harm on Israel. Even a pre-nuclear Iran could make compelling use of radiation-dispersal weapons and/or launch conventional combat missiles against Israel’s alleged Dimona nuclear reactor. 

In a conceivably worst-case scenario, North Korea, as an Iranian ally, would place its nuclear assets at Tehran’s operational disposal. Significantly, North Korea has previously been involved in Middle Eastern military matters (e.g., it built a nuclear reactor for Syria at Al Kibar that was preemptively destroyed by Israel’s Operation Orchard on September 6, 2007) and is now forging assorted “mutual security ties” with Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

For the most part, an Israel-Iran war would be without precedent or sui generis. Accordingly, a core question arises: How should Israel proceed with gainful war planning? Two interrelated and mutually reinforcing answers should be advanced.

Immediately, Jerusalem needs to undertake a doctrinal shift from “deliberate nuclear ambiguity” (the “bomb in the basement”) to “selective nuclear disclosure” and to clarify its widely assumed “Samson Option.” Whatever its tactical particulars, the overriding point of any last-resort Israeli military option would not be to “die with the Philistines” (per Samson in the biblical Book of Judges) but to support the credibility and efficacy of its nuclear deterrent. 

More specifically, a partially but properly disclosed Samson Option would reveal that Israel has aptly calibrated nuclear remedies and that these remedies could apply at the highest end-point of realistic war scenarios.

If Iran were an already nuclear enemy state, Israel’s capacity for effective self-defense would face staggering tactical limitations. But because the Islamic Republic is still pre-nuclear, Iranian aggression could even prove net-positive for Israel. Ironically, such an Iran-created war could offer Israel an eleventh-hour opportunity to prevent or at least delay enemy nuclearization and to avoid or delay a vastly more destructive war. In formal legal terms, this argument pertains to Israel’s capacity for “anticipatory self-defense.”

“The safety of the people,” declared Roman philosopher Cicero, “is always the highest law.” During the past several months, Tehran has been taunting Israel as if the Jewish state was the weaker adversary. Still, in any intra-war search for “escalation dominance” by an already-nuclear Israel and a not-yet-nuclear Iran, competitive risk-taking would favor the former.

From the standpoint of international law, preemption would likely represent a permissible strategic option for Jerusalem. While a “bolt from the blue” Israeli preemption against Iran would involve multiple and reinforcing difficulties, these difficulties are unlikely to apply during any ongoing conventional war. Viscerally and lasciviously, Iran has repeatedly declared its intention to strike Israel as “punishment.” In law, such an openly barbarous declaration represents nothing less than an admission of mens rea or “criminal intent.”

There is more. Even if Iran were not in a condition of self-declared belligerency with the Jewish state, an Israeli preemptive action could still be lawful. Israel, in the fashion of every state under international law, is entitled to existential self-defense.

International law is not a suicide pact

Today, in an age of uniquely destructive weaponry, this universal code does not obligate Israel to expose its citizens to shamelessly declared extermination. When hostilities are already underway, Israel’s legal right to attack selected Iranian hard targets would be unassailable. Such hostilities could include Iranian proxy attacks on Israeli noncombatants by jihadist terror groups (e.g., Hamas, Fatah, Houthis, Hezbollah).

These are interdependent matters. What should Israeli strategic planners conclude about Iran’s likely strategy and tactics? The “correct” answer will factor in their views of Iran’s reciprocal judgments of Israel’s policy directions.

Would these judgments suggest a leadership in Jerusalem that believes in the potential net benefits of a measured nuclear retaliation? Or do they suggest an Israeli leadership that believes such a reprisal would bring upon the Jewish state intolerable levels of conventional Iranian destruction? And what would such judgments say about leadership rationality in Tehran?

In all pertinent matters, Israeli calculations should assume adversarial rationality. Absent calculations that compare the costs and benefits of all available operational alternatives, what could take place between Israel and Iran would remain a matter of conjecture. Simultaneously, the prospect of non-rational judgments in this belligerent relationship is always possible, especially as the influence of Islamist/Jihadist ideology remains tangible among Iranian decision-making elites.

What about the Gaza War? While Iran and Hamas declare that the Palestinian dead have all become shahids (“martyrs”), these politics-inspired declarations of immortality are never applied to themselves. Unsurprisingly, these leaders are not interested in acquiring the martyr’s “sacred” power over death for themselves. Conspicuously, they prefer the secular circumstances of five-star hotel suites in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey.

There is still more. Israel’s active defenses have previously proven effective against Iranian missile and drone attacks, but these defenses against nuclear-armed missiles would have to meet much higher standards. In essence, they would have to be “leak-proof.” It follows, inter alia, that Iranian aggressions could offer Israel an eleventh-hour opportunity to avoid later preemptions against an already-nuclear enemy.

For Israel, Cicero’s “Safety of the People” could be served by waging a “just war” against a not-yet-nuclear Iran. Though such a law-based and permissible war would still create monumental human and material costs, it would be less catastrophic than a war between two already nuclear enemies (a “symmetrical nuclear war”). This fact rings true even if a newly nuclear Iran was determinably “less powerful” than a conspicuously nuclear Israel. In any conceivable nuclear conflict scenario, even a recognizably “weaker” Iran could sometimes inflict unacceptable harm on a “stronger” Israel.

Summing up, though the dialectics of an Israel-Iran war could involve unprecedented scenarios and outcomes, Jerusalem would still have to fashion various gainful strategies and tactics. More than anything else, this means keeping the Islamic Republic non-nuclear without generating an intolerably destructive conventional war. In the final analysis, Israel requires a prompt shift from “deliberate nuclear ambiguity” to “selective nuclear disclosure” and a coinciding acknowledgment of its “Samson Option.”

The writer is an emeritus professor of international law at Purdue University and the author of many books and scholarly articles on international law, nuclear strategy, nuclear war, and terrorism. His 12th and latest book is Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (Rowman & Littlefield, 2016; second edition, 2018).