Iran, in a bold move earlier this week, declared that it would not conform to guidelines laid down by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Instead, reported the Monitor’s Scott Peterson Friday, it said it plans to resume uranium enrichment activities which are part of a larger nuclear program that was started in 1974.

It’s also the latest episode in an ongoing saga of nuclear rivalry and politics in the Middle East and South Asia. In 1979, then Prime Minister of Pakistan, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, made the following statement:

We know that Israel and South Africa have full nuclear capability. The Christian, Jewish and Hindu civilizations have this capability. The communist powers also possess it. Only the Islamic civilization was without it, but that position was about to change.

Following the Iranian statements, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said that while there’s “a clear understanding now that Iran must satisfy the concerns that have been expressed by the international community,” and that the U.S. was “talking about diplomacy and political efforts to stop this movement on the part of the Iranians toward nuclear weapons,” adding, “we’re not talking about strikes.”

The punch line came next. “But every option…of course, remains on the table.”

However, the idea of striking a country in possession of nuclear capabilities is not new. The Center for Non-Proliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies notes that Iraq attacked Iran’s Bushehr plant six times throughout the Iran-Iraq War (or Iraq-Iran war, depending).

The Israeli attack on the Osirak, or Tammuz I, nuclear facilities in Iraq in June of 1981 is undoubtedly the most famous, and it has been lately invoked by the press in the wake of statements coming out of Iran and Israel.

Some commentators have turned the tables and drawn renewed attention towards Israel’s nuclear program. And while, downplaying a nuclear preemptive move, Israel has recently announced acquisition from the United States of 5000 "smart bombs" worth $319 million, including 500 so-called "bunker busters," or BLU-109s, capable of penetrating 7ft of concrete.

Herbert Krosney and Steven Weissman, in their book, The Islamic Bomb, set up an earlier strike against Tammuz that occurred the year before and set off a wave of confusion and misinformation.

It was September 30, 1980, the ninth day of the Gulf War between Iran and Iraq. Iranian Phantom jets had just bombed a power plant on the outskirts of Baghdad, when low on the horizon, two Phantoms came streaking in over the desert sands, rushing headlong at a new target.

[ . . . ]

Early announcements said that the rockets had missed the big new Tammuz I reactor and had scored only “minor damage” to some buildings nearby. A later report in the French magazine l’Express claimed that the rockets had hit the base of the reactor dome, badly damaging the entire structure. It would set the Iraqi nuclear program back at least a year, l’Express suggested.

At the time of the attack, French technicians were still completing construction of Tammuz I, which was not scheduled to go “critical” for at least three months. But a smaller research reactor from France and possibly an older one from the Soviet Union were very much in operation when the rockets struck.

Never before had a nuclear reactor site become a military target in time of war, and perhaps it was the novelty of it al, or the apparent brilliance of the attack, that led l’Express to drop a bombshell of its own. The Phantoms hadn’t come from Iran at all, the magazine had insisted. They were Israeli, and they had taken advantage of the war with Iran to knock out the Iraqi nuclear complex.

But it was not Israel. Not this time.

The truth, it seems, was more prosaic. The later-to-be-deposed Iranian President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, who was also the military commander-in-chief, admitted the Phantoms were his. And according to eyewitnesses, it is likely that the place called Tuwaitah was not even a primary objective, but simply a target of opportunity for those two Phantoms on the way home after the bombing of the power plant on the outskirts of Baghdad.

[ . . . ]

The September bombing of Tuwaitah was not the first of the violence in the trouble-plagued history of the Iraqi nuclear program, and it would not be the last. Back in April 1979, unidentified saboteurs broke into a storage hangar at a small engineering firm near Toulon on the French Riviera and dynamited the Osirak, or Tammuz, core only hours before it was due to be shipped to Iraq. In June 1980, in a hotel room in Paris, an unknown intruder bludgeoned to death an Egyptian nuclear engineer who was playing a leading role on the Osirak project. In August, a series of bombings and letter and telephone threats against French and Italian engineering firms sparked a continuing campaign of terror.

The details of the Israeli attack on Osirak are fully exploded in a new book by Roger Claire, but here’s the rough outline of the Israeli attack from Krosney and Weissmann:

But the big attack came on Sunday, June 7, 1981, the eve of the Jewish religious holiday of Shavuot, the celebration of the giving of the Ten Commandments to Moses in Sinai. The thoughts of most Israelis were far from the battlefield…

… The attack itself went strictly according to plan. Late in the afternoon, about four o’clock Israeli time, eight of Israel’s new fleet of American-built F-16 jet fighters took off from Etzion air base in the Sinai. Originally designed for high-speed dogfights, the planes had been equipped with extra fuel tanks, to increase their range, and special bomb racks which carried two 2,000-pound MK-84 iron bombs.

…The first bombs to hit the lead and concrete walls had delayed-action fuses. This allowed them to penetrate the dome before exploding, opening holes with pinpoint accuracy and destroying the reactor inside.

The U.S. role in the lead up to the attack is intriguing, according to the biography by Joseph Persico of former CIA director William J. Casey. In it Persico paints a picture of a quid pro quo between Casey and parties in Israel who want something in return for a muted reaction to the shipment of AWACS aircraft to Saudi Arabia.

First on his agenda was helping to get the AWACS deal through the Congress. The government of Saudi Arabia wanted to spend $8.5 billion for these “airborne warning and control systems” surveillance aircraft. The Reagan administration was eager to make the sale to cement its friendship with the Saudis. Israel was understandably unnerved by the prospect of an Arab state getting supersophisticated planes. …

Casey went to the Middle East and met in Tel Aviv with the Israeli intelligence chief, Major General Yitzhak Hoffi, known as Haka. How could he be helpful? Casey wanted to know. Haka told him that any information the Israelis could acquire from the CIA on certain installations in the Arab world could be most useful. Any in particular? Casey asked. Yes, the Israeli told him. Ten miles outside of Baghdad in Iraq was the Osirak nuclear reactor. The reactor’s core contained 26.4 pounds of weapons-grade uranium 235. The Israelis estimated that their Iraqi antagonists were within five years of producing nuclear weapons.

Casey understood Israel’s concern. Of course he could help—but did Israel really need to be so worried about the AWACS sale to the Saudis? Couldn’t the Jewish lobby in the States be called off? The heads of the intelligence service of the United States and of Israel managed, before Casey left, to arrive at a mutually helpful arrangement.

On Sunday, June 8 Israeli aircraft bombed the Osirak reactor. Casey was notified at home at four-fifty that afternoon. Within two hours, and American KH-11 Big Bird photo reconnaissance satellite was diverted from its customary orbit over the Soviet Union and China; and within six hours, Israeli intelligence was getting KH-11 photos direct by satellite revealing the destruction wrought on the Iraqi plant.

…During the administration’s push to win approval of the AWACS deal, Casey had watched with admiration the energy of two military officers on the project.”

Oliver North and Richard Secord.

For further reference

Iran (Nuclearfiles.org)

Iraq Nuclear Weapons Program—Import Table

Osirak and Beyond

Nuclear Rights and Wrongs

Ikonos Imagery of Dimona, Negev Nuclear Research Center

Iran boasts Dimona now 'within range'

Israel and the Bomb

2000 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons

A Monitor article Wednesday discusses the importance of presidential debates
as the electorate's opportunity to see the candidate's character, which is evident despite much coaching, grooming and scripting.

While the declining audience in presidential debates is well documented, a recent Pew poll indicates that there is high interest in the debates this year, with six in ten voters, or (61%) saying it is "very likely" they will watch the debates between Bush and Kerry, a higher percentage than in past presidential elections.

The debates' locations, dates and formats have been confirmed and agreed upon by the candidates. The Commission on Presidential Debates, which proposes these terms, also encourages viewers to watch them in groups with friends or members of their community.

Third party candidates cannot debate unless they are on the ballot according to criteria of this commission. Supporters of third party candidates object to the requirement that third party candidates have a level of national support of at least 15%.

All three major networks will air the debates. The web site HowStuffWorks.com has an entry by its editor on what it is like to attend a presidential debate.