From Iraq 1981 to Iran 2025: How the Begin Doctrine disciplines the world
The final summer in the life of the late President Anwar Sadat was one of turmoil. It marked his last visit to the US, where he met with the newly elected Republican President Ronald Reagan in early August 1981. Soon after came the wave of mass arrests in September, just weeks before Sadat’s assassination on Oct. 6, 1981.
That same summer, a deep crisis of trust erupted with his supposed friend Menachem Begin, who had returned to power after defeating the socialists led by Shimon Peres and forming his second government—this time in coalition with far-right religious parties.
Fate did not allow Sadat the time to show how he would have confronted his growing unease with the peace treaty he had only recently signed. Nor is there any way of knowing what he would have made of those who now imagine that peace alone can blunt Israel’s military ambitions.
Yet his concerns at the time were far from unfounded: stalled Palestinian autonomy talks, escalating Israeli violence and settlement expansion that fueled Egyptian and Arab resentment towards the treaty, and delays in dismantling Israeli settlements in Sinai.
Most fundamentally, his unease stemmed from the emergence of what is now known as the Begin Doctrine, the same rationale used today to justify Israel’s war on Iran as a preventive strike to cower real or perceived enemies. 44 years ago, this doctrine convinced Sadat that nothing could be guaranteed when confronting Zionist belligerence.
June 4, 1981 Sharm El-Sheikh, Israeli-occupied Sinai
Begin hosted Sadat in the coastal town of Sharm El-Sheikh, then still under Israeli occupation. The two discussed bilateral ties, normalization setbacks, and the situation in Lebanon. According to the memoirs by Egypt’s first ambassador to Tel Aviv, Saad Mortada, Sadat, ostensibly the guest, but the real owner of the land, appeared stern and displeased with the outcome.
Less than 72 hours later, Israel bombed Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor—an event that greatly angered and embarrassed Sadat, amid rumors that he had prior knowledge of the strike.
June 7, 1981 Tuwaitha, Iraq
Codenamed Operation Opera/Operation Babylon, the Israeli strike on Iraq’s Tuwaitha nuclear facility near Baghdad marked the first use of preemptive warfare that went beyond an immediate threat to target a still-developing military capability.
Ordered by Begin without direct coordination with Washington, the operation unleashed overwhelming force outside the context of any specific event and without regard for the French involvement in the facility, violating all norms of international conflict.
The Begin Doctrine began to crystallize with Israel’s first official statement, which was a declaration of unrestrained military prerogative: “We shall defend the citizens of Israel in time, and with all the means at our disposal.”
June 7–19, 1981 US East Coast
Global condemnation followed. Declassified US documents reveal that the State Department scrambled to assure Baghdad it had no foreknowledge of the raid and no legal grounds to halt the F-16 jets that had trained over the Mediterranean.
A White House situation room memo noted that Egyptian Vice President Hosni Mubarak calmly criticized the strike, warning of its fallout for Cairo and Washington during a “confidence-building” phase. He deemed Begin’s move “unbalanced” and driven by electoral self-interest.
Nicholas Veliotes, US assistant secretary of state, also informed Israeli ambassador Ephraim Evron that the US would vote for a UN resolution condemning the strike but would veto any sanctions.
UN Security Council Resolution 487 was passed unanimously on June 19, 1981. Rarely had Israel faced such consensus condemnation. The resolution called the attack a “clear violation of the UN Charter,” warned against such acts in the future, and affirmed Iraq’s sovereign right to peaceful nuclear development under IAEA safeguards. It called upon Israel to submit its own facilities to inspections and to compensate Iraq for the destruction it acknowledged causing.
Ironically, the legal norms embedded in that resolution are now applicable to Israel’s and America’s assaults on Iran’s nuclear sites—raids the IAEA has warned could have catastrophic consequences. But who can stand up to Benjamin Netanyahu and the Zionist lobby backing him?
June 7–19, 1981 Tel Aviv
Those circumstances did not deter Begin from further solidifying his doctrine, exploiting the upcoming Israeli elections, and his main rival Peres’ opposition to the attack. Begin declared that he “bears full responsibility for this exceptional operation,” vowing to make preemptive war against any enemy threatening Israel’s security a “long-term national commitment.”
Letting Saddam Hussein build nuclear bombs would doom this country and these people, Begin declared, warning of another Holocaust in Jewish history.
The similarity between Begin’s rhetoric and Netanyahu’s language about Hamas and now Iran is striking. Begin’s doctrine, with some differences, still governs Israeli strategic thinking. Netanyahu has gone so far during the current war to place his name alongside Israel’s founding leader David Ben-Gurion, boasting of his own historic legacy.
The Security Council resolution issued at the time, along with a temporary American decision to suspend the delivery of fighter jets to Israel for a few months while officially investigating the attack, reflected a seeming balance in the international system. The primary reason for this, according to a secret US intelligence report dated Jul. 1, 1981, was the fear that the Soviet Union would gain broader opportunities for friendship with Arab nations seeking “to boost their security and protect their interests, in the absence of US restraints on Israel.”
Today, that international balance of power is gone. This has liberated the “US veto” from any ethical considerations or political balances. Other global powers have diminished in relevance, and the Arab world—once feared by Washington—has fractured. As the CIA memo put it, “deep-seated anger [has not] been translated into action.”
“Iraq’s agreement to the compromise resolution at the United Nations Security Council undercut demands for the use of the oil weapon... Saddam Hussein did not repeat even standard criticisms of the United States in his first public speech after the raid,” the report noted.
July 1, 1981 Washington
That same CIA report highlighted the unease of “moderate leaders,” particularly Sadat, who lacked tools to restrain Israeli power yet relied on US stewardship of the peace process. It warned that they were increasingly vulnerable to domestic pressure.
The CIA redacted most of the paragraphs about Egypt in the report, but one can still sense Sadat’s anxiety. “The Egyptian leader does not want to give Tel Aviv any excuse for refusing to return the eastern Sinai on schedule in April 1982. The raid probably has increased the chances, however, that after April Egypt will look for new alternatives to the autonomy talks and seek to reestablish its position in the Arab world by substantially cutting back its ties to Israel.”
Although the report dismissed the idea that Egypt would abrogate the peace treaty, it left open the possibility that Sadat could “halt the normalization process if provoked further.”
Late July 1981 Washington
Another CIA assessment picked up Sadat’s growing alarm over the Begin Doctrine before it had a name. It reported that the Iraq raid “reinforced Sadat’s deep personal dislike of Begin. Nonetheless, Sadat has agreed to meet with Begin again in Egypt this summer.” Cairo was also worried over the rise of Israel’s far-right, which would harden positions on Sinai, settlements, and Palestinian autonomy.
The memo, likely prepared for President Reagan, warned that the Israeli strike revived long-suppressed doubts on the Cairo street and within the Egyptian government about Israel’s trustworthiness in negotiations. It also warned of the harm inflicted upon the Egyptian President: “Many Egyptians charge that Sadat has been too friendly towards Israel. The timing of the attack, shortly after his meeting with Begin, was a blow to Sadat’s credibility.” The report also claimed that the slowdown in the normalization process was a response to “popular outcry.”
The report concluded with several predictions based on the widening rift between Sadat and Begin and Israel’s uncontainable surplus of power. The most prominent among these predictions were: offering more military privileges and facilities to Washington in exchange for pressure on Israel; expanding talks with Iraq, Jordan, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia to end Egypt’s isolation, abandoning the normalization process, and “perhaps even downgrade diplomatic relations with Israel in order to create new pressures for a settlement.”
August 25, 1981 Alexandria
Sadat hosted Begin in Alexandria for the first meeting since the doctrine’s announcement. Israeli rhetoric now shifted from justification to open threats. Ambassador Mortada recalled Begin and his ministers justifying the establishment of settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, insisting on their continuation, and defending the bombing of Beirut for the first time, a year before the invasion of Lebanon.
Over fish at a restaurant in Abu Qir, Israeli Defense Minister Ariel Sharon bluntly told his Egyptian counterpart Gen. Abdel Halim Abu Ghazala: “We’ll hand you back Sinai without a single Israeli on it. In return, we expect you to honor every commitment. If you don’t, our government will fall—and war will follow the next day.”
1995 Tel Aviv
In his book “A Place among the Nations,” Netanyahu called for restoring the military’s full freedom of action in all occupied territories, including preemptive operations and unlimited intelligence capabilities. For him, peace only comes through deterrence or force.
June 2025 Washington
Netanyahu now wields unmatched influence—not just in the Middle East but also in Washington and, arguably, the world. He has bent President Donald Trump to his will, enlisting him in a campaign to subjugate Iran and reshape the region.
“God bless Israel and God bless America,” Trump declared, boasting of their joint strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites. He described the campaign as a seamless collaboration with Netanyahu. This is the apex of the Begin Doctrine, as Israel unleashes devastation while we are drowning in explanations of theatrics and justifications for retreat.