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Chargement... Shadow Strike: Inside Israel's Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power (édition 2019)par Yaakov Katz (Auteur)
Information sur l'oeuvreShadow Strike: Inside Israel's Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power par Yaakov Katz
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"The never-before-told inside story of how Israel stopped Syria from becoming a global nuclear nightmare--and its far-reaching implications On September 6, 2007, shortly after midnight, Israeli fighters advanced on Deir ez-Zour in Syria. Israel often flew into Syria as a warning to President Bashar al-Assad. But this time, there was no warning and no explanation. This was a covert operation, with one goal: to destroy a nuclear reactor being built by North Korea under a tight veil of secrecy in the Syrian desert. Shadow Strike tells, for the first time, the story of the espionage, political courage, military might and psychological warfare behind Israel's daring operation to stop one of the greatest known acts of nuclear proliferation. It also brings Israel's powerful military and diplomatic alliance with the United States to life, revealing the debates President Bush had with Vice President Cheney and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert as well as the diplomatic and military planning that took place in the Oval Office, the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem, and inside the IDF's underground war room beneath Tel Aviv. These two countries remain united in a battle to prevent nuclear proliferation, to defeat Islamic terror, and to curtail Iran's attempts to spread its hegemony throughout the Middle East. Yaakov Katz's Shadow Strike explores how this operation continues to impact the world we live in today and if what happened in 2007 is a sign of what Israel will need to do one day to stop Iran's nuclear program. It also asks: had Israel not carried out this mission, what would the Middle East look like today?" -- Aucune description trouvée dans une bibliothèque |
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Google Books — Chargement... GenresClassification décimale de Melvil (CDD)327.569405691Social sciences Political Science International Relations Asia Middle East The Levant Israel/PalestineClassification de la Bibliothèque du CongrèsÉvaluationMoyenne:
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There is an assumption that some countries act responsibly when it comes to nuclear weapons and others are not. Israel, while never admitting publicly it has nuclear weapons, clearly does, yet cannot seem to understand why that knowledge would not encourage hostile neighbors to want the same. Another assumption is that democracies will always act more sensibly than authoritarian governments. Recent events in the United States reveal just how fragile that assumption is. It's an assumption Plato warned about a millennia ago when he foresaw the seeds of its own destruction built into democratic governments.
Israel has determined (at least the more recent governments) that countries in the Middle East will not (except for itself) be permitted to have nuclear weapons nor nuclear power plants that might be used to create the seeds of a nuclear weapons program. They see it as an existential threat. Then again, they see almost everything they don't like as an existential threat.
From his extensive interviews with the decision-makers, advisers and planners — American and Israeli — Katz, the editor-in-chief of the Jerusalem Post, has written a gripping story of the Sept. 6, 2007 destruction of a secret, nearly completed al-Kabar nuclear reactor in Syria. knowledge of which was confirmed only in March of 2018. The Syrian strike at al-Kabar was not the first time the Israelis felt compelled to act. On June 7, 1981, the IAF destroyed a nuclear reactor in Osirak, Iraq, which was, at the time, a nation ruled by Saddam Hussein, another dictator willing to use chemical weapons.
A fascinating portion of the book is devoted to the discussions within the Bush administration on the proper response to the intelligence that had been shared by Israel about the construction of a reactor in Syria. It was the hawks (Cheney et al) v diplomats (Rice eta al.) each with valid concerns and suspecting different outcomes. What was the possibility of a wider war? What would be the reaction of the Russians? Would this help or hurt the Iranians? Was the intelligence legitimate. It was an example of how government should work, but often doesn't.
Cheney, ever the hawk and advocate of preemptive strikes, whatever the issue, was alone in thinking the U.S. should bomb the site. Everyone else in the Cabinet thought otherwise. The Iraq war, begun on faulty intelligence, was not going well and the feeling was that each administration gets just one war; trying to conduct two would lead to disaster. A more nuanced role proposed by a few was that the facility should be destroyed, but better that Israel should do the bombing. It would reinforce the view that Israel had rebounded from the Lebanese debacle and help issue a warning that Israel could handle its own affairs and protection and was not the minor stepchild of the U.S.
The author claims at the end of the book that it was less about the strike than decision-making. That's certainly true. But what a messy process, indeed, influenced less by reality than perceptions, ideology, religion, and politics.
**It was just learned that Syria fired a missile that landed perilously close to an Israeli nuclear plant in April 2021. Israeli responded with a retaliatory strike. Agence France has reported that Israel is suspected to have between 100 and 200 nuclear weapons.
[https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20210422-israel-strikes-targets-in-syria-after-missile-lands-near-nuclear-reactor] ( )