Ariel Ilan Roth maintains that Israel’s objection to Iran acquiring nuclear weapons is not based on a fear that those weapons would be used against it as he believes that the certainty of a devastating Israeli response is likely to deter the ayatollahs.

He also discounts the idea that Iran might provide its client Hezbollah with a nuclear weapon and sets out the core of the first part of his argument concerning Israel’s attitude to Iran’s nuclear ambitions like this:

Israel fears that Iran’s nuclear ambitions could undermine its qualitative superiority of arms and its consistent ability to inflict disproportionate casualties on adversaries — the cornerstones of Israel’s defense strategy. […] most Israelis believe the key to enduring peace in the Middle East is convincing Israel’s adversaries that ejecting Israel through force is an impossible task not worth pursuing. […]The Iranian nuclear program threatens Israel’s ability to do this in two ways. First, an Iranian nuclear capability would likely force Israel to restrain itself due to fears that Iran’s nuclear weapons could provide an implied security guarantee to other anti-Zionist forces — the sort of guarantee that would prevent Israel from causing the massive losses it has in the past, while giving anti-Israel forces the confidence to keep up the fight.

Israeli restraint during a war could take many forms, but it is unlikely that the unmitigated rout of the 1967 Six-Day War or the direct threat posed to Arab capitals at the end of the 1973 Yom Kippur War would have occurred if a nuclear guarantee had been forthcoming from a true regional adversary such as Iran, rather than from a distant superpower such as the Soviet Union, whose chief interest lay in the humiliation of its rival, not the destruction of Israel.

The key part of the argument is the idea that the existence of a nuclear-armed Iran would cause Israel somehow to restrain itself in future armed conflicts. I’d like to object to this on two grounds. Firstly, it rests on a false premise, namely that in all previous conflicts Israel has failed to restrain itself.  Let’s take the two examples given by Roth, the 1967 and 1973 wars. In the case of the former, Israel crossed the start line deeply unsure of its prospects of success. When, with some exceptions, its enemies showed that they didn’t have much stomach for a fight Israel certainly went to win a great victory but I don’t think one can seriously argue it  acted without restraint. For example, what was there to stop it from capturing and sacking Damascus before obliging the Syrians to permanently cede the Golan Heights in return for withdrawing? The answer, of course, was the UN ceasefire resolution. Much the same goes for the 1973 war. It started very badly for Israel but by the time it was brought to an end by a UN ceasefire resolution backed by the superpowers of the day the Israel was well placed to inflict a humiliating and game-changing defeat on its enemies.

It is not, therefore, a question of whether Israel has a need to behave in an unrestrained manner. Israel has conducted wars both well and badly and inflicted greater and lesser degrees of harm on its enemies but in all cases the degree to which it was able to exploit its power and those advantageous positions it obtained was sharply limited by the international community.

My second objection to Roth’s initial thesis concerns the mechanics of just how a nuclear Iran would be able to restrain Israel in its conduct of war. Let us turn our minds back to Operation Cast Lead and imagine that while it was going on Iran had already demonstrated itself to be a nuclear weapons state. Would that have allowed it to influence how Israel conducted its offensive? It’s not clear to me that it would because the basic rules of deterrence would have continued to apply. Iran could have huffed and puffed all it liked but a nuclear attack on Israel would have brought a shattering and immediate response. Or, to put it another way, would the leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran have been willing to sacrifice Tehran in a futile attempt to save Hamas?

Roth then goes on to outline a second set of Israeli fears, those concerning proliferation:

The even greater threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program is its potential to unleash a cascade of proliferation in the Middle East, beginning with Egypt and Saudi Arabia […] The development of nuclear weapons by Egypt or Saudi Arabia would pose a grave danger to the Jewish state, despite the fact that Egypt has signed a peace treaty with Israel […] Just as an Iranian nuclear capability would imply a nuclear guarantee for anti-Zionist proxies, an Egyptian or Saudi nuclear capability would reduce incentives for other Arab states to make peace with Israel because, shielded under an Arab nuclear umbrella, they would no longer fear catastrophic defeat or further loss of territory.

Roth is right partly right here. If Iran acquires nuclear weapons then the temptation for Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and perhaps others, to do likewise will be considerable. And there’s no doubt that the more states in the region acquire nuclear weapons then the more complex and risky the calculations of deterrence become. However, I think this part of his argument suffers from the weaknesses of the previous one. It’s not obvious how an Egyptian or Saudi bomb is going to serve as a restraint on Israel anymore than an Iranian one would. Would Egypt or Saudi Arabia be willing to sacrifice their capitals for the sake of Hamas? The same argument applies to the wooly notion of an Arab nuclear umbrella protecting states that don’t have the bomb from catastrophic defeat by Israel. Again, in the event of Israel going to war with Syria, what proportion of its own population and infrastructure would Saudi Arabia be willing to sacrifice to save the Assad dynasty from being toppled?

Such developments [nuclear proliferation] would shatter the perception of Israeli invincibility on which successive Israeli governments have pinned their hopes for eventual peace in the region. As a result, Israel’s security would be dependent on maintaining a state of perpetual armed readiness and hair-trigger alert that could counter immediate threats but only in an inconclusive manner, as displayed recently in Lebanon and Gaza.

Again, and without wishing to downplay the acute risks that go with proliferation, I don’t think that it “shatters the perception of Israeli invincibility” and I don’t think it will necessarily do much for the security of those states that would acquire nuclear arms.  The myth of Israeli invincibility is itself something of a myth. The IDF failed badly in its initial reprisal raids after independence, sacrificed the lives of many good soldiers in a pointless conspiracy with France and Britain against Egypt in 1956, fought badly at Karameh in 1968 and its overweening arrogance very nearly led to the loss of the Yom Kippur War. One could think of further examples. Israel’s security doesn’t depend on myths. It depends, among other factors, on its ability to inflict more pain on its enemies than they are willing to bear in exchange for destroying it.  More nations with nuclear weapons aren’t going to change that that equation.  It just means that Israel would have to be sure to have sufficient nuclear weapons  and an adequate strategy to be able to deter them all.

With regard to the effects on its own security of a state acquiring nuclear weapons, consider the case of Pakistan. Would you say that openly going nuclear has made it more secure? I certainly wouldn’t, what with its territorial sovereignty violated on a daily basis by the United States and Taliban while its population continues to sink ever deeper into poverty and backwardness. So, whether having such weapons does any good for a state’s security can’t be predicted in advance, it depends on its circumstances and the quality of its leadership.

Roth is right about wars ending in unstable ceasefires followed by periods of sullen calm and hair trigger readiness. That, in the epoch of asymmetric conflict, is the nearest thing to victory on offer to state actors.

Finally, the reason Israel doesn’t  want Iran to have nuclear weapons  is  not because this would place constraints on its conduct of wars not already present in the shape of the international community’s allergy about allowing the Jews’ state to eliminate, as opposed to just badly beat up, its enemies. It doesn’t want Iran to have them because Iran is a vastly bigger, more populous and better resourced country and one of the cornerstones of its political creed is its determination to end Jewish self-government in the Middle East.  Does Israel really need other, more subtle and trickier to perceive reasons than that?

And what about deterrence? Well deterrence is fine if it works, it should work, but we don’t know that the Iranian leadership will always behave with rationality. If Iran does get its hands on nuclear arms we  all  ought to pray that Jerusalem has invested wisely and heavily in developing as big and effective a nuclear arsenal as possible because it’s on that arsenal and the will of the Israeli government to use it if necessary that deterrence and the avoidance of a general war in the Middle East will primarily depend. And if other states get their hands on their own nuclear weapons you can redouble those prayers. (Via Norm)