Patrick Sullivan
On June 7, 1981, the Israeli Air Force conducted an airstrike against the Osirak nuclear reactor at the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center in southeastern Baghdad. Although Iraq claimed the reactor—purchased from France in 1976—only served scientific purposes, the Israelis were convinced that it supported a secret nuclear weapons development program and thus justified the attack as an act of self-defense. Israel further justified the attack as needing to occur before the reactor achieved criticality, as destruction past this point could induce a nuclear meltdown.
Measured against Israel’s justification, Operation Opera was successful: The Israeli F-16s destroyed the Osirak reactor and other facilities in Tuwaitha, along with any proximate weapons development program tied to them. Measured against the broader goal of enhancing Israel’s regional security over a longer time scale, however, Operation Opera could be considered a strategic failure. Much of the international community—including the United States—condemned the airstrike as an unprovoked and unjustified act of aggression, thereby damaging Israel’s political standing among both allies and neutral states. Additionally, evidence that became available after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 shows that the Israeli airstrike actually compelled Saddam Hussein to undertake “a nuclear weapons program where one did not previously exist.” Saddam committed to a tenfold increase in scientists and money at Tuwaitha, and by 1987 had begun weaponization of fissile material for bomb production. Had Saddam not given cause for an American-led coalition to attack Tuwaitha again during Operation Desert Storm in 1991, this program may in fact have produced an Iraqi nuclear deterrent—precisely the outcome the Israelis thought they had thwarted with Operation Opera.
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