An Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities could backfire

Since Iran’s October 1 missile attack on Israel in response to the killing of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, there has been much speculation about how Tel Aviv will retaliate. Some observers have suggested that it could hit Iranian oil installations, and others, its nuclear facilities.

US President Joe Biden’s administration seems to oppose both options, but it has approved the deployment of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missile defence system and United States troops to Israel, possibly in anticipation of an Iranian response to an Israeli strike.

Meanwhile, Biden’s political adversary, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, has egged on Israel to “hit the nuclear first”. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has also suggested the same.

While Trump, Kushner and other staunch Israel supporters are happy to cheer on an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, they likely know very little about the consequences of another such Israeli attack that targeted an Iraqi nuclear site.

Israel’s destruction of Iraq’s French-built Osiraq nuclear reactor in 1981 actually pushed what was largely a peaceful nuclear programme underground and motivated Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein to invest in the pursuit of a nuclear weapon. An aggressive act against Iran’s nuclear programme will likely have a similar effect.

A ‘pre-emptive’ strike

Iraq’s nuclear programme started in the 1960s with the USSR building a small nuclear research reactor and providing it with some know-how. In the 1970s, Iraq purchased a bigger reactor from France – called Osiraq – and expanded its civilian nuclear programme with significant French and Italian assistance.

The French government had made sure that technical measures were in place to prevent any possible dual use of the reactor and it shared this information with the US, Israel’s closest ally. Iraq, which was a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and had its nuclear sites inspected regularly by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was not “on the brink of” developing a nuclear weapon, as Israel falsely asserted.

Nevertheless, the Israeli government, which was facing growing discontent domestically and a potential loss at the approaching legislative elections, decided to proceed with the “pre-emptive” strike.

On June 7, 1981, US-made F-15 and F-16 fighter jets flew from Israel, refuelled mid-air, and carried out a strike on the Osiraq reactor, completely destroying it and killing three Iraqi civilians and one French engineer.

The attack provoked nationalist fervour among Israelis that helped Prime Minister Menachem Begin pinch a narrow victory in the elections three weeks later.

A trove of declassified US documents released in 2021 demonstrates that Israel’s strike did not eliminate Iraq’s programme, but rather made Saddam more determined to acquire a nuclear weapon.

It also motivated more Iraqi scientists to sign up to work on their nation’s nuclear programme. As Iraqi nuclear scientist Jafar Dhia Jafar wrote in his memoir: “the Israeli bombing of Tammuz I [i.e. Osiraq] had infuriated many, and they were practically forming a line to participate in ending the Jewish state’s monopoly of nuclear weapons in the Middle East.” They proved to be more valuable to Saddam than the hardware – the reactor – that he lost in the attack.

In the following years, Saddam’s regime made nuclear activities clandestine and started reaching out to nuclear powers like Pakistan to seek assistance in developing capabilities that could be used to produce a nuclear weapon. It also tried to rebuild the destroyed reactor.

These efforts slowed down only in the early 1990s due to the first Gulf War, which decimated Iraqi infrastructure, and the subsequent sanctions, which drained state coffers.

The consequences of a strike on Iran

Over the past few years, a number of Iranian nuclear scientists have been assassinated. Most recently, in November 2020, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, a nuclear physicist and high-ranking member of the nuclear programme, was shot dead in an ambush near Tehran. Iran has accused Israel of carrying out this assassination and others in the past.

While these assassinations may have killed key cadres, they have inspired a new generation of Iranians to pursue nuclear science, part of an Iranian “nuclear nationalism” emerging as a result of the constant attacks on Iran’s nuclear programme.

The events since October 7, 2023 have further fuelled this sentiment. A poll conducted between February and May this year showed that not only has public support in Iran for a peaceful nuclear programme remained incredibly high, but that now there is a growing public consensus the country should acquire a nuclear weapon. Some 69 percent of the respondents in the survey said they would support it.

Clearly, Israel’s actions so far are only increasing Iranian determination to continue its nuclear programme. A strike on any of its nuclear facilities would make that determination even stronger. And if we are to go by the Iraqi example, it may drive the Iranian nuclear programme underground and accelerate it towards the development of a nuclear weapon.

Today, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finds himself in his predecessor Begin’s shoes. He is also leading a government widely criticised for various failures, including the one on October 7, 2023. He is also desperate to show the Israeli public a “victory”.

But what Netanyahu is doing in Gaza and Lebanon now and will do in Iran will not bring victory to Israel. His strategy produces resentment in these countries and across the Middle East, which will help Iran and its allies rebuild swiftly whatever capabilities they lose to reckless Israeli strikes.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.