There’s much hubbub lately about a couple of things. One is a “completely unsourced article”:http://www.nzz.ch/nachrichten/international/wie_iran_syriens_nuklearbewaffnung_vorangetrieben_hat_1.2221863.html in the Swiss newspaper _Neue Zürcher Zeitung_ that makes a number of sensational claims about Syria’s -nuclear reactor at al-Kibar- “secret military pencil factory”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1881/update-from-the-pencil-factory. One of these claims is that Iran financed the facility and North Korea built it.

This is “not a new claim”:http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,561169,00.html, certainly not in the German-language press, where seemingly “unreplicable”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/283/word-of-the-day-geheimdienst “reporting”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1411/irans-scud-stunt on unconventional weapons in the Middle East often seems to crop up. _Sei vorsichtig._

[Update: “Jeff has got ahold of this story”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2228/ripping-off-ronen-bergman.]

The other thing is a “briefing at the CSIS website”:http://www.csis.org/component/option,com_csis_pubs/task,view/id,5337/ suggesting that Israel has conventionally armed ballistic missiles precise enough to knock out Iran’s nuclear facilities. Some of which are deeply buried, lest we forget.

Anything’s possible, right?

I’m going to go out on a limb to say that Israel almost certainly lacks this capability, because if they had it, it’s a very good bet they would have used it by now.

Reading this _NYT_ “article”:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/weekinreview/15SANGER.html the other day reminded me of this portion of a “piece”:http://armscontrol.org/act/2006_10/IAEAIranIntel I wrote about 2-1/2 years ago:

By contrast, Israeli government estimates suggest that Iran could master the enrichment process within six to 12 months and produce enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) for a nuclear weapon in as little as three years, according to a knowledgeable Western official.

Asked about *differences between the two government’s estimates, [then-DNI John] Negroponte said that both countries “basically operate from the same knowledge base” but that Israel will “sometimes…give you the worst-case assessment.”*

The transcript of that interview is “here”:http://www.dni.gov/interviews/20060901_interview.pdf. Not that this has been going on for a while or anything…

Reacting to “this post”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1919/on-israeli-nuclear-disclosure, an astute reader observes that

bq. Without that taboo [of disclosure], some Israeli officials would make nuclear threats fortnightly. If you think it’s hard to deal with the Iranians now, just imagine if some Israeli loose cannon were threatening to annihilate Tehran on a routine basis.

The reader also cited a “piece”:http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/05/31/opinion/edcohen.php written by Avner Cohen a couple of years back. Note the part about “away from politics”:

Israel is now uniquely distinguished among all nuclear states in its
legacy of extreme nuclear caution, keeping nuclear affairs low
profile, nearly invisible and away from politics.

One more reason why the rise of nuclear Iran is so perilous is that it threatens to change the subtle nuclear ground rules in the Middle East that were built upon the nuclear legacy of the 1967 war. This legacy is a reminder of why a nuclear Iran must be prevented. If Iran’s goes nuclear, then Israel’s reluctant style of being nuclear will no doubt be replaced by a major nuclear arms race throughout the Middle East.

I hadn’t thought much about the potential domestic Israeli implications or their ramifications. I’m still not sure that Israeli nuclear threats would result in more nuclear weapons states in the region; such threats would indeed represent a qualitative change in regional countries’ security situation, but those governments would still face some serious constraints, regardless of Tel Aviv’s actions. Also, it’s not clear that the security situation would change _so much_ that states would develop nuclear weapons; my impression is that many governments may already view Israel’s nuclear weapons as a threat.

Still, the point is very well taken. And, as I said, I don’t want this science project to be undertaken.

I had a couple of thoughts the other week during a conference about Iran’s nuclear program. I will note that someone else has almost certainly done more thinking about this issue than I and that these thoughts are likely unoriginal. Any interested readers please weigh in.

I know that many people worry that Israeli disclosure of its nuclear weapons could destabilize the region, lead to nuclear or CBW proliferation, etc. Now, I have no more desire than anyone else for this social science experiment to be carried out, but I’m not sure that disclosure really would be so bad.

The reasoning is fairly simple – since both governments and the public in Israel’s neighborhood already assume that Israel has nuclear weapons, it’s not clear that Israeli disclosure would be a game-changer sufficient to compel regional governments to take the _very_ significant step of developing their own nuclear weapons.

To elaborate…

First, it seems unlikely that governments would make radical chanegs to their military forces, since their material security situations would remain unchanged.

Second, there would, one imagines, be a spike in public anger over Israeli disclosure, but, since the information wouldn’t be new, it’s not at all clear that such anger would be sufficient to produce what, again, would be pretty drastic changes in regional governments’ policies.

The most likely impact I can think of is that some countries may take additional steps to augment their conventional or CW arsenals, since those options are considerably easier than developing nuclear weapons.

Those steps would not be trivial, but my point is that public discussions of this topic often lack sufficient nuance.