Nuclear weapons were subjected to some serious verbal abuse this week, but in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) there are those who maintain that the bad-mouthing is for no good reason, but is only due to the test conducted by North Korea.

"Nuclear weapons are not prohibited per se," the Military Advocate General's Office states in the latest edition of its pamphlet "Laws of War on the Battlefield," which was printed in May and recently distributed to the army's commanding officers. "[Nuclear weapons] are weapons like any other and are subject to the regular rules that apply to arms. They must not be used against civilians, just as it is prohibited to aim a rifle at civilians. They can be used for tactical purposes against military targets, though it would appear there is no way to limit their effect to just the military target. Because of the sweeping damage to the environment and to civilians, it is clear that the use of nuclear weapons is prohibited when there is no existential threat to a state's survival."

If these observations were to be taken literally, the Israeli campaign against the nuclear weapons that Iran denies it is seeking would be derailed, as long as these weapons were not to be used offensively or against civilians; and if it were believed, in Israel and abroad, that this opinion by the IDF's legal department obligates the government and the General Staff, then the deterrence embodied in Israel's believed nuclear capability would dissipate.

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Official sources in Israel do not admit that any such capability exists and talk only about an "option" - yet now the Judge Advocate General's Office has come and stated that not every target is valid. For example, nuclear weapons shall not be used to bomb civilian targets, such as enemy capitals, with their millions of residents. If Israel faces an existential threat, it may use nuclear weapons against military targets, even if this causes collateral environmental and civilian damage. But to limit oneself in advance to targets of this kind - such as attacking batteries of surface-to-surface missiles armed with nuclear warheads after they have already been fired - is effectively to forgo second-strike potential, which is supposed to persuade an enemy that a nuclear attack would be suicidal.

Nuclear weapons in the hands of the fanatic regime in Tehran will not only grant it a membership card in the open nuclear club - number 9, if we count the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, India and Pakistan, and give North Korea number 8. It will not only be a blow to the nuclear nonproliferation regime and the opening of the floodgates through which Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and all the others will flow; it will be an option for immediate realization.

Destabilizing impact

Five members of the Israeli defense establishment are on the forefront of the preparations to address the Iranian danger: Chief of Staff Dan Halutz, Air Force commander Elyezer Shkedy, Mossad chief Meir Dagan, Military Intelligence director Amos Yadlin and Atomic Energy Commission director general Gideon Frank. At the end of last month, Frank addressed the 50th General Conference of the International Atomic Energy Agency, held in Vienna, on the contrast between the approach of Iran (without mentioning its name specifically) and the Israeli approach. His remarks suggest, among other points, that it is not necessary to respond in kind to nuclear weapons.

Frank told the conference that Israel views "with special concern the alarming nuclear and missile proliferation developments in and around the Middle East." If allowed to intensify, they will, he said, have a seriously destabilizing impact on the region and the globe, "and pose an existential challenge to Israel. This is all the more so, because they are accompanied by sustained efforts by certain leaders in the region to deny the very legitimacy of our sovereign existence and by calls for our destruction. Naturally, we cannot and will not remain indifferent to such developments." The hint was clear: If diplomacy is not effective, Israel will act.

On the other hand, Frank praised Israel's behavior in the nuclear sphere. "We live in times in which possession of advanced nuclear technology is increasingly recognized to carry with it an especially heavy burden of responsibility as well as accountability to internationally promulgated norms," he said. "We in Israel recognize the special responsibility this state of affairs confers on us. Moreover, our Jewish heritage and democratic values have predisposed all Israeli governments to tread in this domain with special caution, continuously exercising maximum self restraint even in the face of grave challenges or seemingly attractive opportunities."

This is the kind of talk the Americans like to hear, and to sing to those who tell them that with the Israelis, it's the pot calling the kettle black. They are eager for every report that documents the supremacy of the political echelon over the military, such as what former defense minister Moshe Arens related in 2002 (in a pamphlet published by Tel Aviv University) about a confrontation he had with Ehud Barak, then the chief of staff. When Arens wanted "to establish a Defense Ministry department that would deal with special means, Barak was of the opinion that such a department should be established within the army and subject to the authority of the chief of staff. I was of the opinion that the department should be subject to the authority of the political echelon, the civilian section of the administration," Arens wrote. "A serious argument ensued between us. There were even hints that he would resign if I were adamant. I stuck to my guns, and this is indeed the situation: the department operates within the Defense Ministry."

The department deals declaratively with "special means," but when the state comptroller examined the National Security Council, the Defense Ministry's security chief insisted that he use a new term: sensitive means. This is not sensitivity of the type familiar in the personal ads. It lacks humor, and it is best if it doesn't have even an iota of spontaneity.

Temptation for a shortcut

The Iranian nuclear project is not stuck on the shelf. It's progressing, and the main connection between it and the North Korean test lies in the temptation for a shortcut. In recent months the Iranian project has been plagued by many hitches, whether from heaven or man, and the project is taking more time than Iran hoped and Jerusalem feared. This is an achievement with two disadvantages: politically, Israel might hear from others that the situation is not so serious and not so urgent; militarily, if the Iranians despair of the pace of their independent work, they will try to acquire ready-made North Korean nuclear missiles. North Korea, because of its own considerations, is liable to sell to Iran, or at least to deploy there, a nuclear force of its own under its control, as the Soviets did in Cuba in 1962, in order to gain for host and guest alike an additional dimension of deterrence.

Between Israel and North Korea lie years of indirect enmity and Israel's fondness for South Korea and Japan, dating back to David Ben Gurion's tenure as prime minister and defense minister. According to U.S. Navy publications, the C-802 missile Iran bought from China was upgraded in cooperation with North Korea before being made available to Hezbollah and slamming into the Israeli missile boat Hanit during the second Lebanon war. This fact has three worrisome aspects: North Korea's readiness to assist Iran and through it Hezbollah; Israeli intelligence's blindness; and the encouragement to Iran to use such missiles to threaten maritime traffic in the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf.

If Iran, which was aided by North Korea, armed Hezbollah with surface-to-surface missiles (which were attacked by the Israeli Air Force) and sea-shore missiles, it is also capable of supplying the Lebanese Shi'ite organization and other terrorist groups with chemical, biological and even atomic substances. This is known as TABAK (nonconventional terrorism) in the IDF. The "Baywatch" exercise, conducted by the Home Front Command in the North at the end of June, dealt with the scenario of a flare-up on the border with Lebanon. In the exercise, a volley of chemically tipped missiles was also taken into account.

Iran's leakage of destructive substances is troubling officers such as General John Abizaid, the commander of CENTCOM, the U.S. Central Command. Iran is not a responsible state that would be content with nuclear capability for deterrence alone. If it acquires nuclear weapons, it is liable to make use of them, or to transfer them to its proxies. Officers from Strategic Command (which will be assigned the task of bombing Iran to delay its nuclear project by a few years), cite additional reasons to thwart the military progress of Iran and North Korea - they say they are liable to strike at American communications and espionage satellites in space.

The Americans have plenty of reasons to engage Iran in a confrontation, even without North Korea, but the crisis at the far end of Asia is heightening the Bush administration's determination to foil Iran's nuclear program. From the other end of the prism, the crisis is Iran's North Korean test: If the U.S. backs down, it will make Iran believe that it, too, can get away without punishment.

The Iranians and the other Islamic fanatics have missiles and a bit of nuclear know-how. The Americans, in addition to hundreds of bombers around the world, have hundreds of missiles on submarines and in underground silos with nonnuclear warheads and precise navigation systems waiting to be launched at targets in western, and perhaps also eastern, Asia. And there are also other countries that will not place their necks on the chopping block. Saudi Arabia, for example, which doesn't like open Western aid, was happy to get U.S. military assistance after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, and will likely turn a blind eye if planes and missiles fly overhead on their way to Iran.

Air Force headquarters in Tel Aviv contains the world's largest concentration of professional combat pilots with the rank of brigadier general and above who talk about the Iranian danger and the remembrance of the Holocaust in the same breath. It is not difficult to guess how seriously they are preparing, and also what they will recommend when the time comes.