Imagine ISIS with a Nuclear Reactor - Shai Baitel
In 2007, Syria was suspected of initiating a nuclear program - quite possibly designed to produce weapons-grade plutonium, with a sizable assist by North Korea. When it became clear that the U.S. was not going to intervene, Israel went for it herself, and destroyed the Al Kibar nuclear reactor construction site, located in Syria's Deir ez-Zor region.
Despite serious concerns about Syrian retaliation, Israel acted out of conviction of the necessity of a strike and a belief that it is the supreme duty of a state to protect its citizens. That decision was validated four years later when the International Atomic Energy Agency officially confirmed that the site had been a nuclear reactor. Had it never been destroyed, the reactor would have been smack in the center of Islamic State territory.
Thinking about the Jewish state's action at the Deir ez-Zur reactor site, now in ISIS territory, it might be time to thank Israel.
The writer is a fellow in the Program on Applied Decision Analysis at the Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy at IDC Herzliya, Israel.
(New York Daily News)
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