Operation Opera, and related Israeli government statements following it, established the Begin Doctrine , which explicitly stated the strike was not an anomaly, but instead "a precedent for every future government in Israel".
Israel's counter-proliferation preventive strike added another dimension to its existing policy of deliberate ambiguity , as it related to the nuclear weapons capability of other states in the region. In , Iraq purchased an Osiris -class nuclear reactor from France. At the time of its occurrence, the attack was met with sharp international criticism, including in the United States , and Israel was rebuked by the United Nations Security Council and General Assembly in two separate resolutions.
Iraq had established a nuclear program sometime in the s, and in the mids looked to expand it through the acquisition of a nuclear reactor. Construction for the megawatt light-water nuclear reactor began in at the Al Tuwaitha Nuclear Center near Baghdad. The shipment was the first of a planned six deliveries totalling 72 kilograms.
Iraq and France claimed that the Iraqi reactor was intended for peaceful scientific research. That was obvious to me on my visit". In an interview in , Wilson again emphasised: "The Iraqis couldn't have been developing a nuclear weapon at Osirak. I challenge any scientist in the world to show me how they could have done so.
Richter testified that only part of Iraq's nuclear installation was under safeguard and that the most sensitive facilities were not even subject to safeguards. In Israel, discussions on which strategy to adopt in response to the Iraqi reactor development were taking place as early as Yitzhak Rabin's first term in office — Israel's Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan initiated diplomatic negotiations with France, the United States and Italy Israel maintained that some Italian firms acted as suppliers and sub-contractors over the matter but failed to obtain assurances that the reactor program would be halted.
