Can Nuclear Card Give Israel a Higher Level of Stability?

In recent months a new and dangerous phase in the search for security in the Middle East seems to have commenced. The evidence is by no means clear-cut. It also lacks uniformity--the signs are stronger in the Arab-Israeli arena than in the Iran-Iraq context. Nevertheless, considering their implications, these subtle changes bear close watching.

For example, consider the nuances in Israeli behavior toward Syria. Few would dispute that a key element of Shimon Peres’ tenure as Israel’s prime minister was restraint in the Arab-Israeli conflict--this in spite of a long list of strategic and tactical Syrian challenges. Syria’s President Hafez Assad has alarmed many in Israel with his military buildup, especially his introduction of sophisticated surface-to-surface missiles and development of chemical weapons. In the past two years Syrian provocations also have included the deployment of SA-2s on the Syria-Lebanon border, the establishment of a system of trenches in southern Lebanon--only 10 to 15 miles from the Israeli border--that could be used by tanks and artillery, and the attempt last May to blow up an El Al plane on its way from London to Israel. Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin also has accused the Syrians of masterminding a similar plot at the Madrid airport the very next month.

Surprisingly, Israel refrained from reacting to any of these developments, although its military analysts were quoted as indicating that Assad had begun “nibbling” at Israel’s strategic advantage. Paradoxically, the downplaying of the Israeli military option was highlighted in the only instance of Israel’s using force vis-a-vis Syria during Peres’ tenure. When Israel downed two Syrian MIG-23s last Nov. 19, it was reliably reported that Peres rushed messages to Assad, through U.S. channels, assuring him that the incident “did not represent a change in Israel’s policy”--that is, restraint had not been abandoned.

To be sure, in the wake of the 1982 war Israel became weary of military conflict. The cost of a new round, especially in light of Syria’s military expansion, also seems to militate against an Israeli initiative. Other disincentives include the potential role of the Soviet Union in a new Syrian-Israeli war, as well as the United States’ pressure on Israel to show restraint--as in the aftermath of the Madrid airport plot.

Still, even the newspaper of Peres’ own party, the Jerusalem Post, expressed dismay over his open efforts to divert attention from the Syrian development of chemical weapons: “What should the average Israeli . . . think,” the Post asked last Aug. 24, “when his prime minister reveals new serious advances in the development of poison gas and missile warhead technologies aimed at him . . . and then on the same day goes ahead to express his lack of concern over that news, instead . . . commiserating with the economic problems of our Arab enemies?”

In fact, among Israel’s current leadership Peres is unique in his thinking about the unconventional aspects of the Arab-Israeli conflict. As early as 1965 he wrote that the main danger of missiles was that only the “aggressive side”--the Arabs--will have them. Conversely, if both sides possess such weapons “their offensiveness might be contained and the danger of war averted.” To bring peace closer, Peres advocated that Israel use “science” (a Peres euphemism for the nuclear option) to “convince” the Arabs that they had no chance of defeating Israel now or in the future. Gripped by a mixed sense of technological pessimism and strategic optimism, Peres finds that the world has been moving steadily to a point at which the launching of war by anyone would be utter madness. “The Middle East cannot lag far behind this development,” he wrote in 1970. Thus he expected the Arab-Israeli conflict to enter a “postwar” period in which the price of war would be such as to make war simply unacceptable.

Peace, in Peres’ doctrine, has a strategic role. Israel needs to pursue peace to contain the threat of nuclear proliferation, for which, he has said, there is “only a political solution.” It appears that he also regards Arab-Israeli peace as a hedge against the irrational factor in the Middle East: “If we do not pursue the peace, then all of a sudden all of the rage which is latent in the Middle East may break out . . . . (In the Middle East) the weapons are modern whereas the considerations are old-fashioned, and this combination is what gives me great concern.”

By contrast Peres’ predecessor, Menachem Begin, cultivated the “monopolist” doctrine: Israel must be the dominant power in the regional strategic balance. That doctrine sought to preempt Arab efforts to develop mass-destruction weapons, and led to the June, 1981, attack on Iraq’s nuclear reactor.

In a pointed rejection of the Begin doctrine, Peres used the circumstances brought about by the 1982 war to introduce a new security concept into the Middle East.

Peres’ doctrine can be said to have two key elements: It signals acquiescence in Syria’s drive to reach “strategic parity” with Israel, including the development of a chemical-weapons option. (However, this apparently does not apply to Syria’s acquiring nuclear weapons.) And it reaffirms Israel’s ability to respond massively with nuclear weapons.

From this perspective the Oct. 5 report of the Sunday Times of London concerning Israel’s nuclear arsenal, whether it was an intentional leak or not, came at a propitious time for Peres. Even if the report had not been published, attention to Peres’ new concept would have been valid. In fact, mid-1985 reports about Israel’s nuclear progress, including its alleged deployment of nuclear-tipped surface-to-surface missiles, were seen by some as attempts to signal the onset of a new phase in Israel’s strategy of deterrence.

In combining the above two elements, the Peres doctrine seeks to establish stability in the Middle East via a “higher” balance of deterrence. This has led to a surprising tolerance on Israel’s part of Syria’s strategic buildup. At the same time, it apparently has involved a switch in Israel from a “bomb-in-the-basement” to a “bomb-in-the-closet” posture.

Last month Peres stepped aside to become foreign minister. Whether his concept will hold depends on how Prime Minister Yitzak Shamir, another “monopolist,” reacts to this doctrinal modification --not to mention Syria’s development of weapons of of mass destruction.