World - 3 weeks ago

While is Israel Attacking Nuclear Facilities of Iraq, Syria and Iran persistently?

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Over the past 44 years, Israel has used its intelligence and air force capabilities to attack

and incapacitate the weapons-oriented nuclear programs of Iraq, Syria, and Iran.

In June 2025, Israel and the United States have attacked Iran’s nuclear weapons-oriented facilities. For Israel, this was the third such assault in 44 years. Like its strikes on Iraq in 1981 and Syria in 2007, Israel’s strike on Iran adhered to its inherent doctrinal principle of destroying the illegitimate nuclear faculties possessed by its enemies. (It is worthy of note that in contrast to the intelligence that led up to these strikes, Israel’s intelligence community did not detect a progressing Libyan military nuclear program that was ultimately foiled by the US and UK in 2003)

Back to Iraq, Syria and Iran. Israel’s destruction of Iran’s nuclear capacities was a composite strike in that it targeted three facilities rather than one. Over the course of several days, the IAF struck active and highly fortified facilities along with additional strategic installations. The attack was somewhat expected, as it took place one day after the expiration of a 60-day deadline President Trump had given Iran to renew a nuclear agreement.

The Iran strike was complemented, vitally, by a US military blow. While no retaliation was delivered by Iraq or Syria, Iran retaliated massively against Israel (though largely without result), targeting both civilian and strategic sites. Among the latter, the most conspicuous were the Nuclear Research Center in Dimona and the Biological Research Center in Ness Ziona. It is uncertain whether or not Iran’s retaliation has ceased, considering its cyber warfare capabilities.

The following chart offers a comparative analysis of the strikes against Iraq, Syria and Iran.

Targeted Nuclear Facility:

	Iraq	Syria	Iran
Type of facility	French-supplied Osiris-class reactor (plutonium-capable)	North Korean-designed gas-cooled plutonium reactor	Uranium enrichment facilities (centrifuges)
Stage of completion	Near-complete but not operational	Near-operational	Operational, advanced with redundancy
Fuel/weapons potential	Not yet fuelled; preventive	Not yet fuelled; preventive	Enriched uranium already stockpiled (some >60%)

Israeli Motivation:

	Iraq	Syria	Iran
Strategic concern	Saddam Hussein’s open threats; fear of eventual bomb	Covert reactor with N. Korean assistance; weapons-oriented	Existential threat; public vow to prevent Iranian nuclear capability
Doctrine applied	Fixed doctrine of preventing enemy nukes	Persistent preventive doctrine	Aggravated preventive conception stemming from Iranian maliciousness
Urgency	Imminent fuelling; a later strike would have risked radioactive fallout	Same as Iraq – pre fuel window	High due to unpredictability of Iranian inception of final weaponisation phase.

Enabling and Timing:

	Iraq	Syria	Iran
Chief intelligence supplier	Head of IDF Intelligence Directorate (M.G. Yehoshua Sagi)	Head of IDF Intelligence Directorate (M.G. Amos Yadlin)	Head of IDF IntelligenceDirectorate (M.G. Shlomi Binder)
Attack Provider	Air Force Commander (M.G. David Ivri)	Air Force Commander (M.G. Eliezer Shkedi)	Air Force Commander (M.G. Tomer Bar)
Timing	June 1981, just before fuelling	September 2007, just before activation	June 2025 – probably amid worsening diplomacy and IAEA deadlock; one day after the 60 days granted by Trump to Iran to reach a nuclear agreement

Strike Forces and Modes of Attack:

	Iraq	Syria	Iran
Strike force	8 F-16s with F-15 escorts	4 F-15Is (Ra’am) + EW support	Likely a mix of F-35Is (stealth), drones, missiles, cyber and sabotage
Range & logistics	Long-range strike, ~1,100 km	~600 km, in/out rapidly	~1,200-1,500 km with complex logistics (air refuelling and/or forward basing)
Support measures	Precise air-to-ground bombs, minimal electronics	Extensive EW (jamming Syrian radar)	Likely integrated: cyber-attacks, air defence jamming, long-range munitions (Rampage, Spice bombs)

Results of the Strikes:

	Iraq	Syria	Iran
Immediate outcome	Reactor destroyed; program set back indefinitely	Reactor flattened; program fully halted	Severe damage but not complete elimination
Casualties	10 Iraqi personnel	Unknown, probably very low	Likely some Iranian military/technical casualties
Visibility	Publicly acknowledged by Israel	Silent for a year; then Israel acknowledged	Overt, mostly in real time

Strategic and Political Impact:

	Iraq	Syria	Iran
International reaction	Global condemnation, even from US; UN censure	Minimal backlash; US quietly cooperated	Divided: Western states muted; Russia and China condemn
Effectiveness	Set back Iraqi bomb by decades; Iraq never went nuclear	Termination of highly secret program	Mixed: appreciable delay, but may accelerate clandestine weaponization or justify breakout
Long-term impact	Justified preventive doctrine in Israeli security ethos	Confirmed the effectiveness of the doctrine	Possible regional escalation; shift in Iran’s nuclear posture; internal deterrence logic recalibration

Overall Estimate:

	Iraq	Syria	Iran
Surgical precision	High	Extremely high	Satisfactory; might have required even greater precision due to dispersed and hardened targets
Diplomatic fallout	Severe but manageable	Minimal due to global silence and Syrian denial	Expected to be bearable; depends on unstable geopolitical climate
Doctrine evolution	Implementation of Israeli preventivestrike doctrine	Refined, clandestine enforcement	Maximalist application under existential threat calculus

The effort by Libya, a Muslim enemy country, to run a military nuclear program was completely missed by Israeli intelligence. This failure yielded essential lessons that were laboriously projected onto the Iranian and Syrian arenas, where exceptionally meticulous intelligence monitoring was conducted by Israel. That monitoring enabled the early tracing of non-civilian nuclear elements and their eventual destruction without generating environmental pollution, a highly consequential element.

The three strikes tightly followed the long-term Israeli fundamental concept of disabling the acquisition by a foe of nuclear weapons, no matter how difficult the circumstances (distance to the targeted facilities; likely diplomatic fallout; expected retaliation by the attacked country). This cardinal rule was made manifest through pinpointed, surgical strikes, carefully timed and anchored in arduous intelligence.

With that said, there are important differences between the three cases. While the actual strikes against Iraq and Syria (rather than the intelligence operations that led up to them) were relatively uncomplicated, the attack on the Iranian nuclear alignment was extraordinarily challenging in many respects, indicating increased Israeli intelligence faculties, offensive capacities, and operational manoeuverability. The attack also required utmost cooperation with the US military, which participated in the attack. The involvement of the Americans was a vital factor that differentiated the Iran strike from the earlier strikes on Iraq and Syria. In addition to assisting in the success of the strike, it had a mitigating effect on negative international reactions and diplomatic fallout, as it was a direct signal of Washington’s unwillingness to tolerate Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.

While Iraq and Syria have since ceased their quest for nuclear weapons, Iran is now at a crossroads in this regard. We should expect that no matter what its true intentions may be, the Iranian regime will continue to publicly claim that it does not seek nuclear weapons.

Team Maverick