The stakes are bound to be higher this time

Flashback to June 1981 ... and see how the Bush administration has conveniently forgotten how an earlier U.S. administration, of Ronald Reagan no less, thought of one pre-emptive strike in the Middle East.

Thanks to the advocacy of Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, among others, this approach has become central to this administration's new National Security Strategy.

In short, it marks a strategic shift of America's long-held defence doctrine from one based on deterrence and containment to one stressing pre-emptive military action as one way in dealing with weapons of mass destruction. Some have described it as "the most profound shift in U.S. foreign policy in the last 50 years."

On the seventh day of that June, American-supplied Israeli warplanes launched a pre-emptive strike against Iraq, demolishing its nuclear reactor, Tammuz 1 or Osirak, which the French government sold to Saddam Hussein.

The Israeli justification, advanced by then Prime Minister Menachem Begin, claimed that the attack was vital to Israel's security because, he alleged, Iraq was building a nuclear bomb that will be used against Israeli targets.

After several days of debate and U.S.-Iraqi negotiations behind closed doors at the United Nations, Reagan's ambassador to the world body, Jeane Kirkpatrick, joined the other 14 members of the UN Security Council in a 15-0 vote on June 19 that "strongly condemned" the Israeli raid - a vote which Time magazine described then as "one of the harshest United Nations rebukes of Israel that the U.S. has supported."

Interestingly, the then U.S. Secretary of State Alexander Haig, who now is often seen at pro-Israeli institutions in Washington, opposed any provision, reportedly urged by Kirkpatrick, that provided for compensation.

Ambassador Kirkpatrick said of the surprise Israeli action before she was seen to be raising a "limp hand" to cast the much-awaited American vote: "The means Israel chose to quiet its fears have hurt, not helped, the peace and security of the (Middle East)."

The UN resolution said Israel had been "in clear violation of the United Nations charter and the norms of international conduct." The Security Council also defended Iraq's "inalienable sovereign right" to engage in nuclear development programmes "for peaceful purposes" and called upon Israel to open its own nuclear facilities to international inspection.

Iraq, the resolution added, was entitled to "appropriate redress" for the destruction of its reactor, a point Newsweek thought, "hint(ed) broadly that Israel should pay damages to Iraq."

Newsweek of June 29 that year had this to say: "For Kirkpatrick, a staunch conservative who takes a dim view of Third World posturing in the UN, working with Iraq to put together a resolution condemning Israel was a personal dilemma.

"'She is one of Israel's strongest supporters in the Administration and obviously not one to engage in condemnation lightly,' said one colleague. 'There is no question that she agonised over the whole affair and it was not an easy thing for her to do. But she genuinely believed that what she did was in the best interests of both the United States and Israel.'

"Had Kirkpatrick and the United States backed away, a U.S. veto in the Security Council would have opened the field for an Arab campaign in the General Assembly to drum Israel out of the UN altogether."

In fact, the late Egyptian President, Anwar Sadat, was infuriated by the sneak Israeli action which took place three days after Begin had visited him in Cairo to iron out arrangements for implementation of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty.

At that time, the Reagan administration was concerned that Begin may find the Syrian missiles, reportedly present in Lebanon and subject of international attention, an "equally irresistible target of opportunity."

Reagan had in fact cautioned that Israel may have violated a 1952 agreement with the United States by using American-made F-15s and F-16s to knock out the reactor outside Baghdad.

Undersecretary of State Walter Stoessel Jr. took "a tougher line." Asked if the evidence supported Begin's assertion that the Iraqi reactor was designed to produce atomic bombs, Stoessel replied: "We would not agree."

The Israeli surprise attack on Iraq took place prior to an Israeli national election a few days later. The raid helped Begin retain his position, much as the Bush administration is now being accused of switching from its Al Qaida target to a more winnable war in Iraq, because of the upcoming Congressional election in November which is crucial to Bush's presidency and hopes for a second term.

Shades of similarities abound. But this time the tables seem to have turned, or to use another cliché, the Israeli tail is now wagging the American dog.

One would think the Bush administration would not want to subject itself to the wrath of the international community should it undertake any intervention without UN approval.

Yet Bush remains enamoured by his Israeli partners and their practices, particularly Ariel Sharon, architect of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon that came a year after the preemptive strike on Iraq, and which led to the massacre of 1,700 Palestinians at Sabra and Shatila refugee camps outside Beirut, 20 years ago last month.

The American president is, in effect, aping the Israeli pre-emptive strategy of yesteryear that was condemned by another American administration and all members of the Security Council. Be it in Iraq or Palestine, Bush has unwittingly allowed the current Israeli leader, to borrow a line from a recent Washington Post editorial, to "push (him) around." But this time around the stakes are bound to be much higher.