STIMSON CENTER
A Prisoner’s Dilemma for Prohibiting Attacks Against Iranian and Israeli Nuclear Facilities
By Ludovica Castelli
- May 15, 2024
Although fears of a wider war between Israel and Iran have begun to dissipate, there have been a flurry of statements and calls for action against Iran’s nuclear program from members of both Israeli and U.S. policy elites.
In parallel, Brig. Gen. Ahmad Haghtalab, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander responsible for the security of Iran’s nuclear facilities, has warned that Iran would retaliate against Israeli nuclear sites if Iran’s nuclear facilities were targeted.
While the threats are not new, the volatile context in the aftermath of April’s strikes and reprisals between the longtime regional foes, make the risk of a conventional attack against nuclear facilities seem more tangible.
Analyses of a potential Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear infrastructure have questioned its strategic value and operational feasibility. Many have argued that an Israeli or U.S. attack on Iranian facilities would actually spur Iran to weaponize its nuclear program. This viewpoint was further reinforced by Gen. Haghtalab, who, on April 18, explicitly stated that Israeli “threats against Iran’s nuclear facilities makes it likely [for Iran] to reconsider and deviate from declared nuclear policies and considerations.”
Some contend that even a major strike against non-nuclear targets, which could shake Iran’s sense of security and confidence in its deterrent capabilities, also carries the risk of provoking an escalatory change in Iranian nuclear policy.
On May 9, former Iranian foreign minister Kamal Kharrazi, a senior advisor to Iranian Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, stated, “We have no decision to build a nuclear bomb but should Iran’s existence be threatened, there will be no choice but to change our military doctrine.” One hardline member of the Iranian parliament even claimed that Iran had already built weapons but was not yet ready to publicly acknowledge this.
Israel added an additional dimension to Iranian deliberations on April 19 in its response to Iran’s barrage of drones and missiles the previous week – itself a retaliation for Israel’s assassination of Iranian military officers in a diplomatic compound in Damascus on April 1. By targeting an S-300 long-range air defense system in Isfahan, the Israeli attack carried an implicit threat. Isfahan, housing many IRGC military facilities, is also close to two important nuclear sites: the Isfahan uranium conversion facility and the Natanz uranium enrichment facility. In the aftermath of Israel’s counterstrike on Iran, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed that Iran’s nuclear sites were not harmed and reiterated that nuclear facilities should never be a target in military conflicts.
A less contemplated aspect of a possible strike on Iran’s nuclear program is the normative impact underlying the narrative and the problematic paradox that has tainted for decades the issue of protecting nuclear facilities against attacks.
Indeed, the day before Israel hit the air defense system in Isfahan, the IAEA received reports of another attempted drone attack on the training center of the Zaporizhzhia plant – the third reported attack on the facility, following two episodes weeks ago.
Over the past two years, Russian attacks against the Zaporizhzhia nuclear facility have provoked strong condemnation from the international community driven by apprehension regarding potential radioactive fallout. The situation has highlighted the security, humanitarian, and environmental ramifications uniquely associated with attacks on nuclear facilities.
There are inadequacies in existing international legal frameworks, such as Article 56 of Protocol I and Article 15 of Protocol II to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, the 2005 International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism (ICSANT), and the 2005 Amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material (A/CPPNM). This has compelled the adoption of a combination of ad hoc responses to address the threat of radioactive fallout, such as the shutdown of Ukrainian nuclear facilities and combat exclusion zones. Persistent loopholes in the protection of nuclear facilities against attacks are exacerbated by issues related to universal adherence, with the United States and Iran yet to ratify Protocols I and II, and Israel yet to sign them, as well as technical ambiguities concerning the legal state of certain conflicts.
A further complication is the fact that Israel has a large but undeclared nuclear weapons arsenal that has never been inspected by the IAEA.
Contemporary political responses encounter many persistent unresolved technical and political obstacles that have impeded previous initiatives. Foremost among these challenges remains the implicit legitimation of attacks on military nuclear facilities as a strategy for counterproliferation. The Middle East stands out historically as the region most frequently exposed to episodes of kinetic and non-kinetic counterproliferation and associated threats. The mutual exchange of threats between Israel and Iran adds to a long list, including not only threats of potential kinetic actions but also non-kinetic attacks such as assassinations of Iranian scientists, sabotage, drone strikes, and cyberattacks, for which Israel has assumed responsibility or been accused of responsibility.
The use of military and other punitive means as nonproliferation strategies has been progressively perceived as indispensable to preserve the global nonproliferation regime, even when they have come at the expense of compromising the integrity of the IAEA’s safeguards system and of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Indeed, Iran has responded to such measures by advancing its nuclear program and is now a nuclear weapons threshold state, with the capacity to enrich sufficient uranium for several nuclear weapons within weeks, all while being insufficiently monitored by the IAEA.
On May 7, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi held discussions with the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Mohammad Eslami, during a rare visit to Iran. The goal was to reach a compromise on “tangible measures” Iran could commit to under the “Joint Statement” on future cooperation they had previously agreed to in March 2023 and clear up questions about past Iranian nuclear activities. At present, it remains uncertain whether and how Iran will cooperate or whether Grossi received any reassurance over the recent Iranian statements suggesting a potential shift in Iran’s traditional nuclear stance.
This counterproductive trend is observable in evolving political responses, which consistently maintain the latitude to undertake more attacks. The justifications rooted in nonproliferation imperatives have solidified resistance within the global nonproliferation regime against crafting an absolute prohibition on attacks on civilian nuclear installations.
Consequently, as long as coercive measures remain permissible and threats are normalized, broader efforts to ensure the safety of nuclear facilities in conflict zones, as evidenced by the Zaporizhzhia case, are likely to be in vain. This is the classic prisoner’s dilemma, in which adversaries acting in their self-interest wind up making matters worse for both.
Ludovica Castelli is a Doctoral Researcher at the University of Leicester and focuses on the nuclear history of the Middle East.
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