If Israel does join the U.S. war on Iran there’s a high risk it could go nuclear. Prof. Louis René Beres, in an op-ed published in Israel National News, argues that therefore, Israel should make adjustments to its policy of nuclear ambiguity, under which it neither confirms nor denies the existence of its nuclear arsenal. Beres, the author of many books, monographs, and articles dealing with Israeli nuclear strategy over 50 years and Emeritus Professor of International Law at Purdue University, argues that Iran’s drone and ballistic missile capabilities could prod Israel to issue measured nuclear threats. If such threats were subsequently carried out, Israel and Iran would find themselves locked in an “asymmetrical nuclear war.”
“To clarify, even while it holds a regional nuclear monopoly, Israel will face intermittent Iranian attempts at ‘escalation dominance,’” he writes. “To manage such challenges, Jerusalem will need to adjust its ‘ambiguous’ nuclear posture. Among other things, this means trading a traditional ‘bomb in the basement’ strategy for a stance that favors ‘selective nuclear disclosure.’”
Beres later discusses possible four scenarios the last of which includes the introduction of nuclear weapons by both sides, after which he concludes: “For the moment, an operational Iranian nuclear capacity remains limited to radiation dispersal weaponry, but even that inferior capacity could be sufficient to trigger massive conventional exchanges with Israel and/or an asymmetrical nuclear war. Though the second prospect would favor Israel, it could still produce grave harm to the Jewish State, either directly from Iran or by Iranian allies that are already nuclear.” Throughout this lengthy article, however, Beres treats the nuclear element of the Iran conflict as if it were a binary matter between Iran and Israel, without even implying that an Israeli use of nuclear weapons against Iran might be a matter of concern for the entirety of humanity.