Motivation for a Syrian Reactor and Israel's Strike?

by CKR

Let us, for the moment, assume that the Syrians were building a reactor at al Kibar. They seem to have been doing it for a long time, since the late nineties.

Somewhere, in my intensive reading on the subject over the weekend, someone suggested that the Syrians might have been building a reactor as a bargaining chip with Israel. I can't recall who made the suggestion, so I apologize for not linking.

Let me expand on that suggestion and its implications.

Syria lost the Golan Heights to Israel in the 1967 war and would like to get them back. Since 1967, it has become clear that Israel has built about 100-200 nuclear weapons and has delivery vehicles for them, particularly for its neighborhood. Negotiations by Israel with its neighbors for peace have been up and down, mainly down, since 1967. So it would be reasonable for a neighbor who wanted something back to consider developing a bargaining chip.

A reactor could be used as a bargaining chip in at least two ways: toward the return of the Golan Heights, or toward a Middle East Nuclear Weapons Free Zone. In fact, in 2003, it was Syria that called for the formation of such a zone. Arab states have been issuing such calls for some long time, no doubt partly to show up Israel's hypocrisy and even scores. The calls are routinely rejected by Israel and the United States.

Failing such bargaining, Syria would have the option of producing plutonium in their bargaining chip. So it would look like a win-win with the small problem of building the bargaining chip being against Syria's obligations to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Last week's CIA briefing claimed that the United States has known about the project since the late nineties, so we may assume that Israel did, too.

We now learn that Israel and Syria have been preparing, with Turkey's help, for talks on the return of the Golan Heights for about a year now. We might look to what was happening in those talks for the timing of Israel's strike on al Kibar. Destroying one of your opponent's bargaining chips is one way to prepare for such talks.