The Strategic Impact of an Iranian Nuclear Weapons Capability on Israel

Abstract

This paper will address the likely strategic impact of an Iranian nuclear weapons capability on Israeli security, both in terms of the country’s regional standing within the Middle East, and in terms of its homeland security issues. It should be emphasized that an Iranian capacity to produce and deploy nuclear weapons in a fairly short period of time will have largely the same strategic impact on Israel as an already existing Iranian nuclear weapons capability because Iran will be able to claim that, by developing this capacity, it will be able to counter Israeli “aggression” in the Middle East, thus enhancing its prestige in the region and beyond. Moreover, an Iranian capability to develop and deploy nuclear weapons may embolden Iran to risk further confrontation with Israel, the United States, and America’s Arab allies because a nuclear weapons capability is likely to be perceived in Teheran, particularly by regime hardliners, as an insurance policy against a catastrophic attack on Iran that could threaten the regime’s hold on power. Finally, even if Iran does not actually build nuclear weapons, once it has the capacity to build them in a short period of time, Israel will need to think about the implications of their use against Israeli cities and what this means for its homeland security.

Given the aforementioned, Iran does not need to actually possess nuclear weapons in order to reap the benefits of being a nuclear power, particularly since there is little evidence to suggest that Iran, although an extremist power, acts irrationally and would actually want to use such weapons against Israel. Despite the anti-Israeli views held by Iran’s leadership, Tehran’s relationship with Jerusalem seems to have been impacted by Iranian perceptions of their geopolitical interests rather than motivated solely, or even largely, by ideology (Trita Parsi, Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), Kindle Edition, location 3581.). The problem for Israel is that Iran views itself as a major regional player, given its size and historical importance, and this means that it will almost necessarily view Israel, which is arguably the strongest military power in the Middle East, as a rival. This tendency is reinforced by the understanding in Teheran that the key to enhancing Iran’s regional influence and undermining American power lays in gaining Arab allies rather than in developing friendly relations with Israel (Dalia Dassa Kaye, Alireza Nader, Parisa Roshan, Israel and Iran: A Dangerous Rivalry (Santa Monica: RAND, 2011), p. 56.). Moreover, Iran takes its self-proclaimed role as a leader in the Islamic world seriously and this too, given the widely perceived view that Israel is occupying the city of Jerusalem, with its Muslim shrines, and oppressing the (mainly Muslim) Palestinian people, also ensures that it stands to benefit more from a state of rivalry with Israel than one of rapprochement (Michael Eisenstadt, The Strategic Culture of the Islamic Republic of Iran: Operational and Policy Implications, MES Monographs, No. 1 (Quantico, VA: Marine Corps University, 2011), p. 3.). This is not to suggest that Iran will have an interest in risking its own security by engaging in a nuclear war with Israel, only that having a nuclear capability of some sort (either existing or easily acquired when needed) will provide Iran with more leverage in its “Cold War” with Israel.

This analysis will be organized around three elements: (1) the nature of recent changes in the Middle East and their implications for the rivalry between Israel and Iran, (2) how an Iranian nuclear capability (realized or potential) may impact that rivalry and events in the region more broadly, and (3) a brief discussion of Israeli homeland security/civil defense issues in the context of the extremely low probability, but unimaginably high consequence, possibility of an Iranian nuclear strike on Israel.