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On Iran, Israel’s Policy of Nuclear Ambiguity Is Outdated and Dangerous
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei visits the Iranian centrifuges in Tehran, Iran, June 11, 2023. Photo: Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Israel’s nuclear posture remains “deliberately ambiguous.” In the past, this stance appears to have been sensible, even incontestable. Today, however, during a continuing Gaza War and following unprecedented missile aggressions from Iran, it requires fundamental reconsideration. In essence, there are compelling reasons to argue that Israel’s traditional “bomb in the basement” posture is no longer tenable.
There are clarifying particulars. A prudent nuclear posture for Israel should necessarily be based upon calculable assessments of all plausible options. At a minimum, any cost-effective changes of Israeli nuclear ambiguity would need to be readily identifiable but also not be gratuitously provocative. For a time, such changes might need to remain implicit in the small country’s codified military doctrine.
Israel, after all, is less than half the size of America’s Lake Michigan.
A comprehensive Israeli strategic doctrine represents the general framework from which any specific posture of deliberate nuclear ambiguity or selective nuclear disclosure would be extracted. More precisely, the principal importance of Israeli nuclear doctrine lies not only in the several ways that it can animate, unify, and optimize the state’s armed forces, but also in the more-or-less efficient manner in which it could transmit cautionary messages to enemy state Iran and sub-state surrogate Hamas.
Understood in terms of Israel’s many-sided strategic policy, any continuous across-the-board nuclear ambiguity could have existential consequences. This is because effective deterrence and defense policies call for a military doctrine that is at least partially recognizable by adversary states and terrorist proxies. Today, as Israel decides on whether to re-ignite a multi-front war with Iran — a war that could prove indispensable to preventing Iranian nuclear weapons — such “wise counsel” is conspicuously urgent.
For Israel, any ultimate and durable military success against Iran must lie in credibly-layered nuclear deterrence options, never in nuclear war-fighting. Recalling ancient Chinese military thought offered by Sun-Tzu in The Art of War, “Supreme excellence consists of breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.” Soon, in the overriding matter of nuclear deterrence, Israeli decision-makers will need to acknowledge that there are occasions when too much further secrecy would degrade the country’s national security.
Israel’s nuclear weapons should always be oriented to deterrence ex ante, not revenge ex post. Nuclear weapons can succeed only in their calculated non-use. By definition, once they have been used for actual battle, nuclear deterrence will have failed, perhaps irremediably. Once they were used in any possible form, tactical or strategic, all traditional meanings of “victory” would immediately become moot.
Israel’s nuclear deterrence posture could have certain counter-terrorism benefits, but only with direct regard to Iran. Reciprocally, allowing itself to be weakened by Iran-backed terrorists (Sunni or Shia) could enlarge Israel’s existential vulnerabilities to the Islamic Republic. In evaluating such perplexing interconnections, Israeli planners will have to devote continuous attention to all possible synergies and “force multipliers.”
The original Cold War is over; still, “Cold War II” is underway between the United States, Russia, and (this time) China. If Iran is allowed to become nuclear, Israel’s deterrence relationship with Iran would never be comparable to what earlier was obtained between the US and the USSR. In such unique or sui generis circumstances, any unmodified continuance of total nuclear ambiguity could cause an already-nuclear Iran to underestimate or overestimate Israel’s nuclear retaliatory capacity. Either kind of misestimating could lead to catastrophic war.
The world is a system. Accordingly, various uncertainties surrounding Israel’s nuclear posture could lead other enemy states to reach similar kinds of misunderstanding. For example, Israel’s willingness to make good on any threatened nuclear retaliation could sometime be taken as inversely related to weapon system destructiveness. Ironically, therefore, if Israel’s nuclear weapons were thought “too destructive,” they might not deter.
Any continuing Israeli posture of deliberate nuclear ambiguity could cause terrorist-mentoring Iran to overestimate the first-strike vulnerabilities of Israel’s nuclear forces. This could be the result of a too-rigorous silence concerning measures of protection deployed to safeguard Israel’s nuclear weapons and infrastructures. Alternatively, such an over-estimation could represent the product of Israeli doctrinal opacity regarding the country’s potential for defense, an absence of transparency that would be wrongly interpreted as fragile or “porous” ballistic missile defense.
Though any such Iranian conclusion would seem preposterous after Israel’s extraordinary recent success at active defense, anything less than a 100% probability of interception would be inadequate vis-a-vis Iranian nuclear attacks.
To deter an enemy state attack or post-preemption retaliation against Israel, Jerusalem must always prevent a rational aggressor, via threats of unacceptably damaging retaliation or counter-retaliation, from deciding to strike first. Understood in such a “classic” context, Israel’s national security should now be sought by convincing a presumptively rational Iranian attacker that the costs of any considered attack on Israel would exceed the expected benefits.
Assuming that Iran values its national self-preservation more highly than any other preference or combination of preferences, and that it would always choose rationally among all alternative options, that enemy state will refrain from launching any attack on an Israel that is believed willing and able to deliver unacceptably damaging reprisals.
The “bottom line” should be clear in Jerusalem. Israel’s security posture of deliberate nuclear ambiguity is outdated and dangerous. With Israel’s operational nuclear forces and doctrine kept locked away in its metaphoric “basement,” Iran could conclude, rightly or wrongly, that a first-strike attack or post-preemption reprisal against Israel would be rational and cost-effective. But if relevant Israeli doctrine were made more obvious to Tehran, Israel’s nuclear forces could more reliably serve their existential security functions.
Another critical success factor of Israeli nuclear doctrine is “presumed willingness.” How can Israel convince Iranian decision-makers that it possesses the resolve to deliver an appropriately destructive retaliation or counter retaliation? The answer to this core question lies in antecedent strategic doctrine, in Israel’s estimated strength of commitment to carry out such an attack and in the tangible nuclear ordnance that would likely be available.
Any continued ambiguity over Israel’s nuclear posture could create the erroneous impression of a state that is unwilling to retaliate. Conversely, any doctrinal movement toward some as-yet-undetermined level of nuclear disclosure could heighten the impression that Israel is actually willing to follow-through on its pertinent nuclear threats.
What if Iran were ultimately allowed to become nuclear? To be deterred by Israel, a newly-nuclear Iran would need to believe that a critical number of Israel’s retaliatory forces could survive an Iranian first-strike and that these forces could not subsequently be prevented from hitting pre-designated targets in Iran. Concerning the “presumed survivability” of Israeli nuclear forces, continued sea-basing (submarines) by Israel would be self-evidently gainful.
If carefully articulated, expanding doctrinal openness or selective nuclear disclosure would represent a rational and plausibly imperative option for Israel. The operational benefits of such an expanding doctrinal openness would accrue from certain deliberate flows of information concerning Israeli weapons dispersion, multiplication or hardening of nuclear weapon systems and other technical weapon features. Most importantly, doctrinally controlled and orderly flows of information could serve to remove any intermittent or lingering Iranian doubts about Israel’s nuclear force capabilities and intentions. At some point, if left unchallenged, such doubts could undermine Israeli nuclear deterrence with unprecedented suddenness and lethality. This is the case, moreover, whether Iran were pre-nuclear or already-nuclear.
A summarizing thought dawns. As Israel confronts a state enemy that would best be countered while still in its pre-nuclear form, Jerusalem should understand that avoiding active warfare with Iran need not be in Israel’s best security interests. Ipso facto, if Israel could fight a law-based and comprehensive war against a still pre-nuclear Iran, it could plausibly avoid a nuclear war in the future. Under authoritative international law, such a defensive war could represent a fully permissible expression of “anticipatory self-defense.”
Looking ahead, Israel must do whatever possible and lawful to prevent a nuclear Iran. In this genuinely existential obligation, a pronounced shift in strategic posture from deliberate nuclear ambiguity to selective nuclear disclosure would represent Israel’s most expressly rational decision. By drawing upon such “wise counsel,” Israel could prudently plan for a no-choice war against a still non-nuclear Iranian foe.
The author is Emeritus Professor of Political Science and International Law at Purdue University. Educated at Princeton (Ph.D., 1971), he is the author of twelve major books dealing with international relations, military strategy and world affairs. Dr. Beres was born in Zürich, Switzerland on August 31, 1945, and lectures and publishes widely on issues of terrorism, counter-terrorism, nuclear strategy and nuclear war. Professor Beres’ latest book is Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (2016; 2nd ed. 2018). A version of this article was originally published by Israel National News.
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In Reversal, Trump Says Russia Attacked Ukraine
US President Donald Trump and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin shake hands as they meet in Helsinki, Finland, July 16, 2018. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
President Donald Trump reversed course on Friday and said Russia did in fact invade Ukraine, and that Kyiv would soon sign a minerals agreement with the United States as part of efforts to end the Ukraine war.
Trump had said on Tuesday that Ukraine “should have never started” the war three years ago, prompting a wave of criticism both domestically and internationally. Pressed on the subject in an interview with Fox News Radio on Friday, he acknowledged Russia had invaded Ukraine on the order of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“Russia attacked, but they shouldn’t have let him attack,” Trump said, adding that Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky and then-US President Joe Biden should have taken steps to avert the invasion.
Later, Trump predicted a minerals agreement would be reached soon.
“We’re signing an agreement, hopefully in the next fairly short period of time,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office when asked about a possible deal for Ukraine’s minerals.
Zelensky said separately on Friday that Ukrainian and US teams were working on a draft agreement. “I am hoping for … a fair result,” he said in a video address after sharp exchanges this week between the two leaders.
Trump denounced Zelensky as a “dictator” on Wednesday and warned he had to move quickly to secure peace with Russia, which invaded Ukraine nearly three years ago, or risk losing his country.
The change in tone from the United States, Ukraine’s most important backer, has alarmed European officials and stoked fears that Kyiv could be forced into a peace deal that favors Putin.
Zelensky had said Trump was trapped in a “disinformation bubble,” but later toned down his statements and said he was hoping for American pragmatism.
Zelensky on Wednesday rejected US demands for $500 billion in mineral wealth from Ukraine to repay Washington for wartime aid, saying the United States had supplied nowhere near that sum so far and offered no specific security guarantees in the agreement.
Ukraine has valuable deposits of strategic minerals that the US wants. These include uranium, lithium, cobalt, rare earths and more and are used in applications such as batteries, technology and aerospace.
‘THEY DON’T HAVE ANY CARDS’
Speaking at a White House event earlier on Friday, Trump was critical of Zelensky while refraining from negative comments about Putin.
“I’ve had very good talks with Putin, and I’ve had not such good talks with Ukraine,” Trump said. “They don’t have any cards, but they’re playing tough.”
Separately, the United States on Friday proposed a United Nations resolution to mark the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The three-paragraph US draft, seen by Reuters, mourns loss of life during the “Russia-Ukraine conflict” and “implores a swift end to the conflict.”
Kyiv and its European allies want their own text to be adopted by the UN General Assembly on Monday calling for de-escalation, an early cessation of hostilities and peaceful resolution to the conflict.
The German government said on Friday that Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Zelensky agreed in a phone call that Ukraine must have a seat at the table in peace talks.
Polish President Andrzej Duda, meanwhile, urged Zelensky to keep up calm and constructive cooperation with Trump.
Duda, whose term in office expires this year, was one of Trump’s preferred international partners during his 2017-2021 presidency and they have described themselves as friends.
Poland’s president is due to meet Trump in Washington on Saturday, Poland’s state news agency PAP reported.
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Syrian Refugee Arrested After Berlin Stabbing as Germany Prepares to Vote
Police officers work at the Berlin Holocaust memorial after a suspected knife attack, February 21, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch
A Syrian refugee arrested over the stabbing of a tourist at Berlin’s Holocaust memorial had been planning “to kill Jews,” prosecutors said on Saturday, the day before an election which is expected to see a surge in support for the anti-migrant AfD.
The 19-year-old suspect appears to have been planning to kill Jews for several weeks – apparently motivated by the Middle Eastern conflict – which is why he chose this location, the prosecutors said in a statement.
Police arrested the suspect, whose hands and trousers were smeared with blood, shortly after the stabbing on Friday evening.
He was found to be carrying a prayer rug, a Quran, a note with verses from the Quran dated the previous day, and the suspected weapon in his backpack, which suggests a religious motivation, the prosecutors’ statement said.
The 30-year-old Spanish tourist underwent emergency surgery after sustaining injuries to his neck and was placed in an induced coma, the statement added, although he was no longer in a life-threatening condition.
Campaigning for Sunday’s election has been marred by a series of high-profile attacks in which the suspects are from migrant backgrounds, shifting the focus away from Germany’s ailing economy and boosting support for the far-right Alternative for Germany. Opinion polls show the AfD is on track to secure second place behind the conservative CDU/CSU bloc.
A January stabbing in which two people were killed, including a toddler, was blamed on an Afghan immigrant, prompting the CDU/CSU bloc to break a taboo on cooperating with the far right to push a motion cracking down on migration through parliament with the AfD’s support.
In December, a Saudi man who had lived in Germany for years, and whose social media posts indicated he sympathized with the AfD, rammed a car into a Christmas market, killing six and injuring hundreds.
The Holocaust memorial, one of the German capital’s most sacred sites, commemorates the six million Jews murdered by Adolf Hitler’s Nazis during World War Two, one of the darkest episodes in human history and a continuing focus of German historical atonement.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser of the center-left Social Democrats, who have been accused of not doing enough for German security, said the perpetrator must be punished with the full severity of the law and immediately deported from prison.
“We will use all available means to deport violent offenders back to Syria,” she said. “Anyone who commits such acts and so disgustingly abuses the protection offered in Germany has forfeited any right to remain in our country.”
There is, so far, no evidence linking the suspect in Friday’s stabbing to any other persons or organizations, prosecutors said.
The suspect, who arrived in Germany as an unaccompanied minor, had no prior criminal record in Berlin and was previously unknown to both the police and the judicial authorities.
He was, however, known to police in the eastern state of Saxony, where he lived, for minor offenses related to general criminal activity, Bild newspaper cited the Saxon interior ministry as saying. The ministry did not reply to a request for comment.
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US Piles Pressure on Iraq to Resume Kurdish Oil Exports
FILE PHOTO: An oil field is seen in Kirkuk, Iraq October 18, 2017. Photo: REUTERS/Alaa Al-Marjani/File Photo
US President Donald Trump’s administration is piling pressure on Iraq to allow Kurdish oil exports to restart or face sanctions alongside Iran, eight sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.
An advisor to the Iraqi prime minister denied in a statement there had been a threat of sanctions or pressure on the government during its communications with the US administration.
A speedy resumption of exports from Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region would help to offset a potential fall in Iranian oil exports, which Washington has pledged to cut to zero as part of Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign against Tehran.
The US government has said it wants to isolate Iran from the global economy and eliminate its oil export revenues in order to slow Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon.
Iraq’s oil minister made a surprise announcement on Monday that exports from Kurdistan would resume next week. That would mark the end of a near two-year dispute that has cut flows of more than 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Kurdish oil via Turkey to global markets.
Reuters spoke to eight sources in Baghdad, Washington and Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, who said that mounting pressure from the new US administration was a key driver behind Monday’s announcement.
All of the sources declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the issue.
Iran views its neighbor and ally Iraq as vital for keeping its economy afloat amidst sanctions. But Baghdad, a partner to both the United States and Iran, is wary of being caught in the crosshairs of Trump’s policy to squeeze Tehran, the sources said.
Trump wants Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani to sever economic and military ties with Iran. Last week, Reuters reported that Iraq’s central bank blocked five more private banks from dollar access at the request of the U.S. Treasury.
Iraq’s announcement on export resumption was hurried and lacked detail on how it would address technical issues that need to be resolved before flows can restart, four of the eight sources also.
Iran wields considerable military, political and economic influence in Iraq through its powerful Shi’ite militias and the political parties it backs in Baghdad. But the increased US pressure comes at a time when Iran has been weakened by Israel’s attacks on its regional proxies.
Farhad Alaaldin, a foreign affairs adviser to the Iraqi prime minister, said in a statement there was no U.S. threat to impose sanctions if oil exports were not resumed. He noted Iraq’s parliament had already passed a law establishing a price for the oil and it was down to the companies involved to start pumping it to the pipeline.
“Decisions related to the management of national resources are taken in accordance with Iraqi sovereignty and in a way that serves the country’s economic interests,” he said.
CURB SMUGGLING
With the pipeline taking Kurdish crude to the Turkish port of Ceyhan closed since 2023, the smuggling of Kurdish oil to Iran by truck has flourished. The US is urging Baghdad to curb this flow, six of the eight sources said.
Reuters reported in July that an estimated 200,000 barrels per day of cut-price crude was being smuggled from Kurdistan to Iran and, to a lesser extent, Turkey by truck. The sources said the exports remained at around that level.
“Washington is pressuring Baghdad to ensure Kurdish crude is exported to global markets through Turkey rather than being sold cheaply to Iran,” said an Iraqi oil official with knowledge of the crude trucking shipments crossing to Iran.
While the closure of the Turkish pipeline has prompted an uptick in Kurdish oil smuggling via Iran, a larger network that some experts believe generates at least $1 billion a year for Iran and its proxies has flourished in Iraq since al-Sudani took office in 2022, Reuters reported last year.
Two US administration officials confirmed the US had asked the Iraqi government to resume Kurdish exports. One of them said the move would help to dampen upward pressure on oil prices.
Asked about the administration’s pressuring of Iraq to open up Kurdish oil exports, a White House official said: “It’s not only important for regional security that our Kurdish partners be allowed to export their own oil but also help keep the price of gas low.”
There has been close military cooperation between authorities in Kurdistan and the United States in the fight against Islamic State.
Trump’s restoration of the “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran was one of his first acts after returning to office in late January. In addition to efforts to drive Iran’s oil exports to zero, Trump ordered the US treasury secretary to ensure that Iran can’t use Iraq’s financial system.
Trump also came into office promising to lower energy costs for Americans. A sharp drop in oil exports from Iran could drive up oil prices, and with it the gasoline price worldwide.
The resumption of Kurdish exports would help offset some of the loss to global supply of lower Iranian exports, but would cover only a fraction of the more than 2 million bpd of crude and fuel that Iran ships. However, Iran has proven adept in the past at finding means to circumvent US sanctions on its oil sales.
Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank, said the restart of exports from Kurdistan could help increase global oil supplies at a time when output was disrupted from other regions, such as Kazakhstan, where exports have dropped this week following a Ukrainian drone attack on a major pipeline pumping station in southern Russia.
“At this point in time, I believe the market has adopted a relatively neutral but nervous stance on crude oil prices,” he said.
HURDLES TO RESTART
The pipeline was halted by Turkey in March 2023 after the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) ordered Ankara to pay Baghdad $1.5 billion in damages for unauthorized exports between 2014 and 2018.
There are still unresolved issues around payment, pricing and maintenance, the sources told Reuters. Two days of talks in the Kurdish city of Erbil this week failed to reach agreement, sources said.
The federal government wanted exports to restart without making commitments to the KRG on payments and without clarity on the payment mechanism, a source familiar with the matter said.
“We can’t do that. We need clear visibility on guarantees,” the source said.
Oil companies working in Kurdistan also have questions over payments.
Executives from Norwegian firm DNO told analysts on Feb. 6 that before agreeing to ship oil through the pipeline to Ceyhan they wanted to understand how the company would be paid for future deliveries and how it would recoup $300 million for the oil it had delivered before the pipeline was shut.
Turkey has yet to receive any information from Iraq on the resumption of flows, Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar told Reuters on Wednesday.
A restart could also cause issues in OPEC+, or the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries plus Russia and other allies, where Iraq has been under pressure to comply with its pledge to reduce its output. Additional supply from the Kurdish region could put Iraq over its OPEC+ supply target.
An Iraqi official said it was possible for Iraq to restart the pipeline and remain compliant with OPEC+ supply policy.
Giovanni Staunovo, a commodity analyst at investment bank UBS, said the overall impact of the resumption could be muted.
“From an oil market perspective, Iraq is bound to the OPEC+ production deal, so I wouldn’t expect additional production from Iraq in case of a pipeline restart, but just a change in the way it is exported (currently, among others, using trucks),” he said.
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