updated Sun. September 8, 2024
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The National Interest Online (blog)
April 1, 2018
As a footnote, there are an estimated 14,200 nuclear weapons in the world, according to the Federation of American Scientists. Russia has the largest number at 6,600 active and retired warheads, just slightly larger than the American total. The rest of the world (France, China, Britain, Pakistan, India, IsraelÃâà...
Asia Times
March 30, 2018
There is concern that in the long-term this will allow the Saudis to run an independent nuclear weapons program. This places Israel in a dilemma. On the one hand, rapprochement with Saudi Arabia is the cornerstone of the Israeli strategy of containing Iran. Much has been made of the depth of cooperationÃâà...
War Is Boring
March 29, 2018
It's difficult to assess how far Syria would have been from developing a nuclear weapon if its efforts had gone unhindered. ... regional sense of Israeli military power after the failures of the war against Hezbollah, and undoubtedly also convinced both Washington and Tehran that Israel would consider usingÃâà...
Mosaic
March 27, 2018
In 2007, Israeli planes destroyed a nuclear reactor in Syria that was a near-exact replica of a North Korean one and was manned by North Korean technicians; Iran's most sophisticated missiles are variants of North Korean models; some of Syria's chemical weapons were most likely developed with NorthÃâà...
WTVA
March 27, 2018
July 14, 2015 - After 20 months of talks, negotiators finalize a landmark nuclear deal between Iran, the United States and five other countries. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) states "Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will (it) ever seek, develop or acquire nuclear weapons.
World Politics Review
March 27, 2018
Syria, most agreed, considered its chemical weapons program to be the strategic counterbalance to Israel's nuclear weapons. But after the United States and the United Kingdom persuaded Moammar Gadhafi to give up Libya's nascent nuclear program in late 2003, the Israeli national security communityÃâà...
Haaretz
March 27, 2018
The next customer was Iran, which was in the early stages of its nuclear weapons development effort. Next was Muammar Gadhafi's Libya. This connection became public knowledge when Gadhafi, after a number of U.S. airstrikes, agreed in 2003 to dismantle his weapons of mass destruction programs.
Haaretz
March 25, 2018
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has said unequivocally that if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, Saudi Arabia will too. .... North Korea and Israel, which are not signatories of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and don't forget the Israeli intelligence failure in identifying the Syrian nuclear reactorÃâà...
The National Interest Online (blog)
March 25, 2018
On September 6, 2007, Israeli fighter-bombers destroyed a mysterious installation near the Euphrates River in the Deir-ez-Zor region. The strike incurred curiously little response from Damascus. A cyber-attack reportedly pre-empted a defensive Syrian military mobilization, and even the diplomatic outcryÃâà...
The National Interest Online (blog)
March 24, 2018
Still, Israeli policymakers worried that Iraq, among the most industrially sophisticated Arab countries, could effectively use the reactor as part of a plan to develop nuclear weapons. This would offset the advantage that Israel had achieved with its own nuclear program. Moreover, Saddam's Iraq had alreadyÃâà...
Haaretz
March 21, 2018
Through the bombing of the reactor at the time, "the Israeli government, the Israeli army and the Mossad [spy agency] prevented Syria from developing nuclear capabilities," Netanyahu said. "Israel's policy was and has remained consistent – preventing our enemies from obtaining nuclear weapons.".
Antiwar.com
March 18, 2018
Israel was viewed by CIA as a proliferation threat via sales of turn-key nuclear weapons systems to its close allies such as apartheid South Africa. This was corroborated in year 2012 news reports revealing Israeli sales contracts. Although the now-defunct Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) demurred, theÃâà...
The National Interest Online (blog)
March 15, 2018
Israel didn't have long to wait for its first nuclear crisis. The 1973 Yom Kippur War saw Arab armies achieve strategic surprise, sending Israeli ground forces reeling in both in the Sinai desert and the Golan Heights. Israeli nuclear weapons were placed on alert and loaded onto Jericho I surface-to-surfaceÃâà...
