Begin Doctrine: Israel's Secret History of Striking Nuclear Facilities of Adversaries in the Middle East

Amid rife speculations of an impending Israeli airstrike on Iran's nuclear and oil facilities, in retaliation, for the recent ballistic missile attacks on Israel; it becomes imperative to look back on the Begin Doctrine and Israel's history of carrying out preemptive airstrikes on its adversaries' nuclear facilities in the Middle East region to mitigate the threat of them developing nuclear weapons capability.

Operation Opera - June 1981

The Begin Doctrine was duly established in June 1981, following Israel's most prominent airstrike on Iraq's under construction nuclear facility, near Baghdad, on June 07, 1981 and was named after Israel's prime minister at the time, Menachem Begin. Codenamed as Operation Opera, the daring mission entailed Israeli Air Force's F-16As and F-15A interceptors, with the former entering the Iraqi airspace and bombing the under construction 90MW Uranium-powered nuclear reactor which was suspected of being used by Iraq for its nuclear weapons program.

The airstrike destroyed the reactor and thwarted Saddam Hussein's plans to develop nuclear weapons of his own for the time being. However, the strike merely delayed the program as it re-emerged from the ashes in its below the ground avatar later. The Israeli airstrike, however, led to a major uproar internationally as the U.S. as well as the UNSC criticized Israel's actions. The LA Times had even described the airstrike as an act of "state-sponsored terrorism".

Israeli PM, Menachim Begin, however, described it as an act of self-defense as Israeli intel indicated that the reactor was about to go critical in less than a month from the strike. He even referred to it as the 'Begin Doctrine' which was to be used as a baseline and reference for future Israeli governments.

Operation Outside the Box - September 2007

Israeli Air Force also struck the Syrian nuclear facilities, at Al Kibar/Dair Alzour on September 6, 2007, under Operation Outside the Box, just when Syria was believed to have been very close to developing a nuclear weapons capability of its own using a under construction nuclear reactor. A formation of F-16I and F-15I fighter jets entered Syria and destroyed the facility completely with their massive firepower after the U.S., under the Bush Administration, refused to exercise the military strikes option on its own after being told about the nuclear threat.

The Syrian airstrike, however, unlike Iraqi strikes earlier, did not elicit any media or diplomatic reactions as the attack was kept completely under the wraps by Israel as well as the U.S. Government for more than 6 months subsequently. The Begin Doctrine, thus, was in action again for Israel.

This time around, in 2024, Israel could, once again, revert to the favorite trick in its anti-nuclear playbook, which could be airstrikes on Iran's nuclear facilities which poses the biggest threat to Israel, at present, with Iran, reportedly, engaging in Uranium enrichment once again since the collapse of the Iran Nuclear Deal of 2015 under the Trump Administration. with any subsequent rapprochement highly unlikely on the horizon.

The U.S. President Joe Biden, however, has advised Israel to exercise caution and devise a proportional response to Iran's ballistic missile attacks days ago just as Israel-Iran tensions reach new lows over Israel's lethal decapitation strikes on Hamas and Hezbollah earlier and the exploding Pagers saga in the regional rivalry...

About the Author: Rajat Narang is the Co-Founder & Partner of Noealt Corporate Services apart from being an A&D Industry Researcher & Specialist, Serial Author and Nuclear, Aviation & Cold-War Historian. For his full bio and list of books authored by him on the Global A&D Industry, access his author page on Amazon.com

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Image Credits: William Burr & Joyce Battle, National Security Archive, Usage under CC-BY-SA 4.0