By:Professor Louis René Beres and Major General (IDF/Res.) Isaac Ben-Israel Wednesday, December 19, 2007

It has now been almost five years since the Project Daniel Group advised then Prime Minister Sharon on how to deal with Iranian nuclear weapons. Our report, Israel’s Strategic Future, urged the prime minister to enhance Israel’s deterrence and defense postures, to consider an end to deliberate nuclear ambiguity if Iran should somehow be allowed to “go nuclear,” and to refine certain preemption options. Under no circumstances, we concluded, should Israel entertain any hope to coexist long-term with a nuclear Iran.

Today, Israel’s basic program for active defense against future Iranian nuclear missiles remains the Arrow anti-ballistic missile program. Although this plan is sound as part of a much broader security strategy, it wouldn’t suffice in the case of a nuclear Iran. This plan must be augmented by improved Israeli deterrence and by corollary preparations for defensive first strikes against relevant Iranian hard targets.

A possible Israeli-Iranian “balance of terror” should not be compared to U.S.-Soviet deterrence during the Cold War. A presumed balance with Iran could never assure the required rationality of decision-makers in Tehran. Moreover, terrorist proxies instead of missiles could deliver Iranian nuclear weapons and materials. This fact underscores Jerusalem’s critical need to maintain and codify appropriate preemption options.

All deterrence logic invariably rests upon the key assumption of rationality. An Iran that might sometime value certain religious expectations more highly than its own national survival could be immune to threats of nuclear retaliation. Faced with this improbable but entirely conceivable prospect, Israel cannot depend upon even a “perfect” combination of nuclear deterrence and ballistic missile defense.

If the Arrow were one hundred percent efficient in its expected reliability of intercept, even an irrational Iranian adversary armed with nuclear and/or biological weapons could be kept at bay without defensive first strikes or threats of massive retaliation. After all, were Israel’s nuclear deterrent immobilized by a fanatical Iranian enemy willing to risk a massive counter-city Israeli reprisal (a suicide-bomber writ large), any first-strike by Tehran could still be blocked by Arrow.

But this sounds far better in theory than in practice. In the real world of international conflict, ballistic missile defense cannot attain such needed levels of reliability. No BMD system, even the successfully tested Arrow, can be “leak proof.” Where the warheads upon an enemy’s missiles would be nuclear, nolevel of leakage could be tolerable.

Israel cannot fully depend upon its anti-ballistic missiles to defend against any future WMD attack from Iran any more than it can rely only on nuclear deterrence. Let us be perfectly clear. This means that even the best possible Arrow system, complemented by credible and capable nuclear threats, would not obviate Israel’s preemption option.

At the same time, none of this is to suggest that Arrow fails to play an important role in protecting Israel. To be deterred, a rational Iranian adversary will always need to calculate that Israel’s second-strike forces are substantially invulnerable to any first-strike aggressions. With Arrow in place, Iran will require, among other things, many more missiles to achieve an assuredly destructive first-strike against Israel. Therefore, Israel’s BMD system will at least compel a rational enemy in Tehran to delay any intended first-strike attack. This would allow Israel to “buy time” until Iran could deploy a more fully capable nuclear and/or biological offensive missile force.

Up front, this is good news for the Jewish state. But Israel still faces an Iran whose undisguised preparations for Israel are authentically genocidal, and whose leaders may not always be rational. Awaiting the Shiite apocalypse, President Ahmadinejad may seek to convince other Iranian leaders that war with Israel is necessary to “redemption.”

Nowhere is it written that Israel must sit back passively and respond only after a nuclear and/or biological attack has been absorbed. Israel has the same right given to all states to act preemptively when facing an annihilatory assault. Known formally as “anticipatory self-defense,” this right is affirmed in international law. The 1996 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice even extends such authority to the preemptive use of nuclear weapons in certain existential circumstances.

Israel must continue to develop, test and implement an interception capability to match the growing nuclear missile threat from Iran. It must also continue to prepare for critical preemptions. If Iran should be allowed to become nuclear, Israel will have to fully enhance the credibility of its nuclear deterrent and to deploy a recognizable second-strike force, adequately hardened, multiplied and dispersed. This strategic force would be fashioned to inflict a decisive retaliatory blow against selected enemy cities.

Every state has the inherent right under international law to ensure its own survival. Israel is no exception.

Copyright © The Jewish Press, December 21, 2007. All rights reserved.

LOUIS RENÉ BERES (Ph.D., Princeton) is Professor of International Law at Purdue University. He was Chair of Project Daniel, and is the author of many major books, articles and monographs on nuclear strategy and nuclear war.

ISAAC BEN-ISRAEL (Ph.D., Tel-Aviv University), is a retired Major General from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), a professor at Tel Aviv University, and a member of the Foreign Relations and Security Committee of Israel’s Knesset. He was a member of Project Daniel.

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