"Tehran Will Burn": Is Israel Threatening Iran with Nuclear Attack or Coercing the US?

Israel’s Dimona nuclear weapons facility.

AP reports today that Israeli “defense” minister Israel Katz said: “If (Iranian Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali) Khamenei continues to fire missiles at the Israeli home front — Tehran will burn.”

This is clearly a nuclear threat.

Israel has a nuclear weapons arsenal, though it is incredibly avoided. I believe Iran was the only nation to mention it at the UNSC meeting yesterday.

Longtime independent activist and writer John Steinbach has done extensive work on nuclear weapons and Israel’s nuclear weapons in particular. His 2008 paper “The Israeli Nuclear Weapons Program” spells out much regarding Israeli policy.

He said today: “Israel’s nuclear threat may not be directed not so much at Iran and other states, through what is sometimes called the 'Samson Option', but also to compel the United States government through ‘nonconventional compellence’”.

This is at odds with arguments that have been made by analysts like John Mearsheimer that Iran has “escalatory dominance” because they have claimed nuclear weapons are not usable.

These Israeli schemes were apparently hatched after the 1956 crisis in which the US and USSR used Uniting for Peace at the UN to compel Israel, Britain and France to withdraw from the Sinai and Gaza.

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From Steinbach's in-depth paper:

The aftermath of the 1956 Suez Crisis precipitated top-secret talks that cemented and accelerated the Israeli-French nuclear collaboration. From its inception in the 1950s, Israeli scientists were active partners in the French nuclear weapons program, including development and testing, and providing critical nuclear expertise. The current Israeli nuclear program should be understood largely as an extension of this earlier collaboration.

The United States became aware of the Dimona construction in late 1960 and the outgoing Eisenhower administration demanded an explanation. The official response was that Dimona was for “peaceful purposes,” including scientific, industrial and medical. In reality, the sole purpose of the Dimona plant was to produce nuclear bombs. …

Israel uses its nuclear arsenal not just in the context of deterrence or of direct war fighting, but in other more subtle but no less important ways. For example, the possession of weapons of mass destruction can be a powerful lever to maintain the status quo, or to influence events to Israel’s perceived advantage, such as to protect the so called moderate Arab states from internal insurrection, or to intervene in inter-Arab warfare. In Israeli strategic jargon this concept is called ‘nonconventional compellence’, exemplified by a quote from Shimon Peres,

“acquiring a superior weapons system (nuclear) would mean the possibility of using it for compellent purposes- that is forcing the other side to accept Israeli political demands, which presumably include a demand that the traditional status quo be accepted and a peace treaty signed.”

“Israeli nuclear weapons were important in encouraging Arab realism… [They were] instrumental in bringing Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to Jerusalem in 1977 and may have been even more important in convincing other Arabs, particularly the Palestinians, to recognize that the Arab-Israeli conflict could not be resolved by the sword.”

From a slightly different perspective, neo-conservative writer Robert Tucker asked, “What would prevent Israel… from pursuing a hawkish policy employing a nuclear deterrent to freeze the status quo?” Discussing the Israeli Nuclear Compellence doctrine, dissident historian Israel Shahak further observes, “Israel is preparing for a war, nuclear if need be, and for the sake of averting domestic change not to its liking, if it occurs in some or any Middle Eastern states.”

Another major use of the Israeli bomb is to compel the U.S. to act in Israel’s favor, even when it runs counter to its own strategic interests. As early as 1956 Francis Perrin, head of the French A-bomb project wrote “We thought the Israeli Bomb was aimed at the Americans, not to launch it at the Americans, but to say, ‘If you don’t want to help us in a critical situation we will require you to help us; otherwise we will use our nuclear bombs.'” During the 1973 war, Israel used nuclear blackmail to force Kissinger and Nixon to airlift massive amounts of military hardware to Israel. The Israeli Ambassador, [Simcha] Dinitz, is quoted as saying at the time, “If a massive airlift to Israel does not start immediately, then I will know that the U.S. is reneging on its promises and. we will have to draw very serious conclusions...”

John Steinbach does not believe this means Israel holds all the cards: "Iran is a big, widely dispersed country. Israel cannot sustain itself. The US and Israel are conducting an offensive operation. The US and Israeli governments are desperate and must conform to global will."

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