Saddam, Israel, and the Bomb: Nuclear Alarmism Justified?

Abstract

Efforts to understand Saddam Hussein's strategic thought have long been hampered by the opacity and secrecy of the Baathist regime. Newly available, high-level Iraqi archival documentation demonstrates that in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Saddam viewed nuclear weapons through a fundamentally coercive, revisionist lens. He had long hoped to wage a grinding war of attrition against the Israeli state, and he believed that Iraqi acquisition of the bomb would neutralize Israeli nuclear threats, force the Jewish state to fight at the conventional level, and thereby allow Iraq and its Arab allies (with their larger economic and population base) to prosecute a prolonged war that would displace Israel from the territories occupied in 1967. These findings have implications for the existing theoretical literature on the causes and consequences of nuclear proliferation, as well as for the growing body of work on “nuclear alarmism.” The Iraqi case undermines the thesis that states proliferate primarily because of defensive concerns. Saddam certainly viewed possession of the bomb as a means of enhancing Iraq's security, but his attraction to nuclear weapons revolved around offensive objectives. Saddam hoped to exploit the deterrent balance with Israel to initiate a bloody conventional war that would have likely been immensely destructive and destabilizing for the Middle East as a whole. In other words, though Saddam never obtained nuclear weapons, his views on their potential utility give good cause for both pessimism and alarm.

The Secret Success of Nonproliferation Sanctions

“… 74. Although the United States imposed nonproliferation sanctions against Iraq following the Gulf War, Iraq did not have an active nuclear weapons program in this period and thus is not included in the data set. It is possible, however, that the threat of further sanctions may have been responsible for the halting of the Iraqi program (see Brands and Palkki 2011, 162–63). The United States also imposed nonproliferation sanctions against India from 1978–82; by this point, however, India had already tested a nuclear bomb.…”

Why Arms Control Is So Rare

“…Iraq’s temptation to cheat on any deal was high because acquiring the prohibited arms would have had a large impact on the outcome of conflict, and an effort to develop them would likely have succeeded quickly. Both Saddam and the United States anticipated that Iraq’s acquisition of WMD—especially but not only nuclear weapons—would radically shift the balance of power in Iraq’s favor (Brands and Palkki 2011; Iraq Survey Group 2004, Key Findings, 24–8, 33; Pollack 2002, 175–7, 249–53, 268–70, 272–6). Moreover, Iraq had possessed biological and chemical weapons and had come very close to acquiring nuclear weapons before the Gulf War (Richelson 2007, 464).…”

The Rise and Fall of Iraq in the Social Sciences*

“…The first utilization of the CRRC documents focuses on trying to understand Iraq's diplomatic, geostrategic, and military posture during the Iran‐Iraq War and the First and Second Gulf Wars (Brands, ; Woods and Stout, ). Later research sought to bring Iraq into more theoretical discussions of deterrence (Brands and Palkki, ; Brands, ). The closure of this archive in 2015 due to Pentagon budget cuts leaves the future of these documents uncertain (Gordon, ).…”