Crash Course for Nuclear Apocalypse - The Samson Option

The most disturbing thing I've read in a long time

I made a brief primer on the Samson Option last night if you prefer to watch: https://youtube.com/shorts/Tkdbla0b5XY

This wiki article really covers the Samson Option well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Samson_Option:_Israel%27s_Nuclear_Arsenal_and_American_Foreign_Policy

What is the Samson Option?

The Samson Option: Israel's Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy is a 1991 book by Seymour Hersh. It details the history of Israel's nuclear weapons program and its effects on Israel-American relations. The "Samson Option" of the book's title refers to the nuclear strategy whereby Israel would launch a massive nuclear retaliatory strike if the state itself was being overrun, just as the Biblical figure Samson is said to have pushed apart the pillars of a Philistine temple, bringing down the roof and killing himself and thousands of Philistines who had gathered to see him humiliated.

Please note, the author is a Pulitzer prize winning journalist.

Seymour Myron Hersh (born April 8, 1937) is an American investigative journalist and political writer. He gained recognition in 1969 for exposing the My Lai massacre and its cover-up during the Vietnam War, for which he received the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. During the 1970s, Hersh covered the Watergate scandal for The New York Times, also reporting on the secret U.S. bombing of Cambodia and the Central Intelligence Agency's (CIA) program of domestic spying. In 2004, he detailed the U.S. military's torture and abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq for The New Yorker. Hersh has won five George Polk Awards, and two National Magazine Awards. He is the author of 11 books, including The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House (1983), an account of the career of Henry Kissinger which won the National Book Critics Circle Award.

This is not something we can dismiss out of hand as being baseless conspiracy. I think there's been a very successful disinformation and astroturfing campaign surrounding the Samson Option with lots of conspiracies thrown in to muddy the waters. But there’s been extensive and legitimate reporting on this topic.

"There exists a doctrine within the Israeli strategic playbook that is as feared as it is misunderstood —a doctrine veiled in ambiguity and born from the nation’s darkest fears. Known as the Samson Option, it refers to Israel’s implied readiness to resort to nuclear weapons if it were ever facing the prospect of annihilation." https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-samson-option-will-the-temple-columns-soon-fall-on-israels-enemies/

That's the Times of Israel. An authoritative news outlet.

In the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Arab forces were overwhelming Israeli forces and Prime Minister Golda Meir authorized a nuclear alert and ordered 13 atomic bombs be readied for use by missiles and aircraft. The Israeli Ambassador informed President Nixon that "very serious conclusions" may occur if the United States did not airlift supplies. Nixon complied. This is seen by some commentators on the subject as the first threat of the use of the Samson Option.^{[26][27][28][29][30]}

Israel has been building nuclear weapons for 30 years. The Jews understand what passive and powerless acceptance of doom has meant for them in the past, and they have ensured against it. Masada was not an example to follow—it hurt the Romans not a whit, but Samson in Gaza? What would serve the Jew-hating world better in repayment for thousands of years of massacres but a Nuclear Winter. Or invite all those tut-tutting European statesmen and peace activists to join us in the ovens? For the first time in history, a people facing extermination while the world either cackles or looks away—unlike the Armenians, Tibetans, World War II European Jews or Rwandans—have the power to destroy the world. The ultimate justice?^[35]

In his 2012 book How the End Begins: The Road to a Nuclear World War III, the American Jewish author Ron Rosenbaum described this opinion piece as "goes so far as to justify a Samson Option approach".^[36]
In that book, Rosenbaum also opined that in the "aftermath of a second Holocaust", Israel could "bring down the pillars of the world (attack Moscow and European capitals for instance)" as well as the "holy places of Islam." and that the "abandonment of proportionality is the essence" of the Samson Option.^{[dubious – discuss][37]}

Israeli “nuclear ambiguity,” its lack of official confirmation or denial that it possesses nuclear weapons, persists to this day. Nevertheless, as of 2021, researchers estimate that the country possesses ninety nuclear warheads, capable of being delivered by aircraft, land-based ballistic missiles, and sea-based cruise missiles. Israel is reserving these weapons for “the Samson Option”: an all-out assault on the civilian population centers of its opponents.

“Israel’s policy of never formally acknowledging its nuclear arsenal makes its doctrine ambiguous, but the Samson Option is believed to refer to Israel’s plans for overwhelming nuclear retaliation against non-nuclear adversaries if the country faces an imminent, existential threat,” says Davenport. “It would likely include deliberate, disproportionate nuclear strikes against non-military targets, such as cities, despite the clear violation of international humanitarian law."

The Samson Option stands in contrast to doctrines embraced by other nuclear powers, such as “Mutually Assured Destruction” (MAD). Developed during the Cold War, MAD posits that nuclear powers like the United States and the Soviet Union could deter each other from ever using nuclear weapons through the threat of retaliatory strikes—that is, if one nuked the other, the other would nuke back, meaning neither would survive. Unlike MAD, Israel’s Samson Option specifically threatens its non-nuclear opponents.

“MAD is designed to deter war or prevent war from escalating to nuclear use,” explains Davenport. “The Samson Option is not designed to deter a nuclear adversary from a first strike or counter strike—Israel is the only nuclear-armed state in the region. Rather, its purported purpose is to ensure Israel’s survival. Under the Samson Option, nuclear weapons would be deliberately used against a non-nuclear adversary as a last resort to prevent an Israeli defeat.”

https://progressive.org/latest/the-samson-option-israels-plan-to-nuke-its-opponents-dilawar-20240624/

Commenters on my videos were saying "this is no different than mutually assured destruction", but actually this is starkly and psychotically different, no? Losing a war to an enemy using conventional arms is not the same existential threat as a nuclear nation launching a first-strike nuke against your country and then responding with your second strike option.

I don't think it is correct to conflate the two. MAD is centered around second-strike response to first-strike nuclear attacks.

If you have a different view I would love to hear it, I'm still having some difficulty in articulating why I feel the Samson Option is fundamentally different than the nuclear postures of other nuclear armed nations but struggling a bit.

Israel and Iran

If Iran's nuclear capability hasn't been fully destroyed then they will be putting every single resource into attaining the bomb. What other option do they have? They have lost the war already. If Israel and the US wants to they can continue to obliterate the country from the air. If the US really wanted to they could put boots on the ground and occupy the nation. It would be bloody and messy but the US would be able to occupy the country. The US has that capacity. Israel by itself does not.

The ONLY way the Iranian regime can stay in power and deter further attack is by attaining the bomb.

This creates a deeply disturbing scenario where logic dictates to the Iranian leadership that they now MUST attain the bomb. Because of this, logic dictates that Israel MUST destroy their nuclear capacity. And then if Israel truly is using the Samson Option as one of its points of leverage to gain support from Western nations, this essentially necessitates that the US and the West help Israel in removing Iran's nuclear capability.

Logically, Iran could trigger the conditions for the Samson Option if they attain a nuclear bomb and then detonates it over Tel Aviv. This action could then trigger the Samson Option and Israel would nuke Iran into oblivion and possibly even other nations in the Middle East which aren't even part of the conflict!!!

The stakes are so high that even a 1% chance of this happening is unacceptable, so any logical leader making decisions would see no other option than to support Israel. In a very dark way it is brilliant. But the brilliance requires a degree of psychopathy that's difficult to comprehend.

And the course that has now been set there really is no other option. The only logical course of action now is for Iran to be totally neutered. Any scenario in which Iran does achieve the bomb would cause Israeli leadership to feel their nation is in existential danger, which could trigger an all-out first-strike nuclear option. Wild. Absolutely wild.

Please note, I am not at all advocating for or endorsing this war of aggression against Iran. I firmly and unequivocally do not support this war of aggression. I do not support the US entering this war of aggression.

But I don’t see anyway out, aside from Israel backing down and scrapping its psychotic suicide-pact Samson Option of nuclear annihilation. And that’s not going to happen. The logic for the decision makers dictates that Israel and the West are going to be drawn headlong into a all-out war with Iran. Their logic is they must destroy Iran utterly lest it attain the bomb. It’s bleak, it’s psychotic, and it’s the reality we are currently in.

Again, I'd love to hear dissenting opinions on this. But this is just the logic that I see in the situation right now.