June 18, 2025
MM#417--Connecting the Dots: From Syria 2007 to Iran Today
FAN MAIL--We would love YOUR feedback--Send us a Text Message What happens when a nation faces an existential threat and decides to act alone? The 2007 Israeli strike on Syria's nuclear reactor provides a powerful case study in preemptive action and strategic courage. When Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert received intelligence about a Syrian nuclear reactor being built with North Korean assistance near the Euphrates River, he faced a momentous decision. Despite U.S. President George W. Bus...
FAN MAIL--We would love YOUR feedback--Send us a Text Message
What happens when a nation faces an existential threat and decides to act alone? The 2007 Israeli strike on Syria's nuclear reactor provides a powerful case study in preemptive action and strategic courage.
When Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert received intelligence about a Syrian nuclear reactor being built with North Korean assistance near the Euphrates River, he faced a momentous decision. Despite U.S. President George W. Bush's hesitation following intelligence failures in Iraq, Olmert ordered Operation Soft Melody (also called Operation Orchid) to neutralize the threat. The elite Shaldog unit (Unit 5101) infiltrated the area to laser-designate targets, enabling a precision strike that completely destroyed the Al-Kabar facility before it became operational.
Fast forward to today, and Iran's dispersed nuclear infrastructure presents a far more complex challenge than the single-facility targets in Syria and Iraq. With sites buried deep underground in multiple locations, many analysts believe only American bunker-buster bombs can effectively neutralize the threat. But Israel has repeatedly demonstrated innovative capabilities that surpass expectations. As tensions escalate, we're left wondering: will Israel again find a way to act when diplomacy fails? The shadow war continues, with the security of millions hanging in the balance.
our book of the day is "Shadow Strike: Inside Israel's Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power"
Key Points from the Episode:
• Iranian-controlled drone carrying explosives into Israel in 2018 showed Iran's willingness for direct confrontation
• Operation Soft Melody destroyed Syria's Al-Kabar nuclear reactor in 2007, which was built with North Korean assistance
• Prime Minister Ehud Olmert ordered the strike despite U.S. President George W. Bush preferring diplomacy
• Elite Israeli unit Shaldog (Unit 5101) likely laser-designated the Syrian target for precision airstrikes
• Iran presents a more complex challenge with multiple fortified nuclear sites scattered throughout the country
• The Begin Doctrine states Israel will not allow nuclear threats capable of reaching its homeland to exist
Keep fighting the good fight and pray for Israeli success to eliminate the evil in our time.
Other resources:
LM#39--Israel's 9-11, part 2--Don't look away
LM#54--Black Saturday, October 7th -- One Year Later
Want to leave a review? Click here, and if we earned a five-star review from you **high five and knuckle bumps**, we appreciate it greatly, thank you so much!
00:00 - Iran's Drone Attack on Israel
04:20 - Operation Soft Melody Revealed
08:27 - Al-Kabar: Syria's Secret Reactor
10:00 - Special Forces Unit 5101
12:45 - The Iran Challenge Ahead
16:12 - Closing Thoughts and Prayer
WEBVTT
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Welcome to the Theory to Action podcast, where we examine the timeless treasures of wisdom from the great books in less time, to help you take action immediately and ultimately to create and lead a flourishing life.
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Now here's your host, david Kaiser.
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Hello, I am David and welcome back to another Mojo Minute.
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As is our custom, let's begin with our first pull quote.
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It was in February 2018 when Israeli Air Force radar systems detected the infiltration of an unmanned aerial vehicle a drone into northern Israel.
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The drone had taken off from T4, syria's large airbase near the city of Homs.
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Time was short.
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While the radar system tracked the drone from the moment it left T4, israel had no way of knowing if it was carrying explosives, missiles or simply was on a reconnaissance mission.
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An Apache helicopter was scrambled from a nearby base and quickly caught up with the drone.
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It locked on its missiles, fired and scored a direct hit.
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Later on, upon analyzing the wreckage, israel discovered that the drone had been packed with explosives and it was likely on its way to crash and explode on a near-IDF base.
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The drone was Iranian and it was called Sega.
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It was a copy of America's RQ-170, an advanced stealth drone made by Lockheed Martin, one of which had crashed in Iran in 2011.
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The infiltration was a violation of Israeli sovereignty in the first direct Iranian attack on a Jewish state.
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In the past, iran used proxies like Hezbollah in Lebanon or Hamas in the Gaza Strip to attack Israel this time Tehran and was doing it all on its own.
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The drone was Iranian and the drone operator was Iranian.
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Israel didn't waste time.
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Four F-16s were scrambled from the nearby Ramat David Air Force Base.
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As they approached the border with Syria, they dropped their GPS guided missiles, which made their way straight to the Iranian caravan from which the drone had been operated in T4.
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It was a direct hit.
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But then, as the F-16s began returning to base, an alarm in one of the cockpits went off.
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An S-200 surface-to-air missile carrying a 200-kilogram warhead was heading directly toward one of the fighter jets it had locked on.
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The Israeli F-16 was about to be hit.
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The pilot and the navigator didn't hesitate.
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They ejected mere seconds before the aircraft was blown to pieces.
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The country was shocked.
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Israel had carried out dozens of strikes against Syrian targets but had never met a response like this.
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Additionally, over 30 years had passed since Israeli fighter jet was shot down by an enemy missile.
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This wasn't a simple matter.
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For the first time since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, israel and Iran were on the brink of a direct confrontation.
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Israel retaliated swiftly and aggressively.
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The three remaining aircraft launched the rest of their missiles at a dozen more Iranian and Syrian targets throughout the country, including the surface-to-air missile battery that had downed the F-16.
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Including the surface-to-air missile battery that had downed the F-16.
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Had the air crew been killed, had they not ejected in time, israel might have felt compelled to escalate its response.
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It was an example of the volatility along Israel's northern border with Syria.
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Israel had operated covertly over Syria in the past, but on this day it was all made public, showing that even small operations can sometimes have deadly consequences.
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Now imagine that Syria had nuclear weapons, that it still had a nuclear reactor in northeast Syria, that in 2007, israel had not stopped it.
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And that is where Israel and the world found itself in 2007.
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But that quote comes to us from a book called Shadow Strike inside Israel's secret mission to eliminate the Syrian nuclear reactor I'm sorryiminate the Syrian Nuclear Power.
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It's a fascinating book by Yaakov Katz that details Operation Soft Melody.
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The ability of Israel by themselves to take out Syria's nuclear reactor is the subject of the book, and that operation was Israel overcoming George W Bush's weakness after getting the WMD question wrong in Iraq because of an ambiguous agent named Curveball, which there is a book pretty good book about that we have not covered here Now.
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You might remember that the Bush administration depended deeply on that agent to prove the weapons of mass destruction question right in Iraq at the time, in 2004 and 2005.
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But fast forward to 2007 and back to Israel.
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After consulting with the United States, bush and others largely favored diplomacy and, to his credit, israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert showed incredible courage ordering the strike on the nuclear reactor.
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This book reads like a thriller, and yet it really happened.
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Now the context is that Israel discovered the nuclear reactor in the far northeastern part of Syria, near the Euphrates River, largely 15 kilometers from the ancient town of Deir ez-Zawar in 2007.
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The nuclear reactor's name was Al-Kabar.
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Now, according to our book, Al-Kabar's nuclear reactor in Syria was primarily funded by Syria, but had significant technical assistance from North Korea.
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The reactor was a gas-cooled, graphite-moderated design, similar to North Korea's Yom Beyond facility.
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It was constructed under a clandestine agreement between the Syrian government, led by Bashar al-Assad, and North Korea.
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North Korea provided the expertise, the materials and likely the personnel to build the facility, motivated by financial gain and a strategic alignment with Syria against their common adversaries.
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So this story is certainly worth your time because of the rapidly changing events that we are witnessing right now in the Middle East, and I would suggest that, while the whole world is looking at Whiteman Air Force Base, where the B-2 bombers are stationed at and the reason the world is looking at Whiteman is because the conventional wisdom is saying right now that only the United States with its bunker buster bombs can reach down far enough into Iran's nuclear sites to dismantle them and to demolish them.
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But but may I offer another suggestion Based on this book, in the capabilities of the Shadog unit, also known as Unit 5101, the elite Israeli Air Force Special Forces unit specializing in clandestine operations, special reconnaissance and target designation, it was in 2007 that Shaldog was reportedly involved in Operation Orchid, also known as Operation Outside the Box, the Israeli airstrike that destroyed a suspected Syrian nuclear reactor at the Al-Kabar site at Deir Ezzor on September 6, 2007.
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Sheldog's role in the operation involved infiltrating an underground depot near the suspected reactor to designate the target for laser guidance for missiles being fired from Israeli fighter jets.
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The unit's operatives conducted covert reconnaissance, likely marking the site with laser designators to ensure the precision strikes by the IAF.
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That was critical, as the operation required absolute accuracy to neutralize the facility without triggering a broader conflict.
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Now the mission was a complete success.
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The reactor was destroyed before it could become operational, and no Israeli casualties were reported.
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So I would suggest that, while the world continues to watch Whiteman Air Force Base, perhaps Unit 5101 is already in place, ready at a moment's notice to laser tag the buildings and the reactors of Iran's nuclear capabilities at each of its multiple locations around the country, to dismantle them and to remove this threat to Israel and the wider world.
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Now, I don't have any insider knowledge.
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I'm just a guy with a microphone who reads a lot of books but begins to connect those books and those dots from one to the other.
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So, with that said, let's go back to the book to understand and ask more questions about all of this.
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Had Israel not blocked Syria's nuclear aspirations in 2007, would it have been able to take preemptive military action to stop the transfer of advanced weapons to Hezbollah?
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Or would its hands have been tied out of fear that Assad would retaliate with nuclear weapons?
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What about his own people?
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Assad used gas against them?
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Would he have used nuclear weapons if he had them?
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Despite the years that have passed, even the smartest intelligence analysts cannot say for certain.
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And later on we read this it's impossible to know, but in this one story, seemingly just about the bombing of a nuclear reactor in Syria, we bear witness to the dangers that lurk around the globe, to how radical regimes without ideological linkage work closely to proliferate the most devastating weapon known to mankind.
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And this story shows how two countries, israel and the United States, joined hands to stop them.
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Israel and the United States joined hands to stop them.
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Now, most experts in the region do believe that Assad had he had nuclear weapons, if they had been operational, that he would have used them.
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Now one final quote, going back to the book.
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But even if the Begin doctrine exists, it does not mean that Israel will always be able to implement it.
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Fyi, the Begin doctrine is Israel will not allow any nuclear threat to exist capable of hitting the homeland.
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Going back to the book, an attack against Iran's nuclear facilities is not comparable to the two previous strikes against the Syrian and Iraqi reactors that Israel had carried out.
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In those two cases, the targets consisted of one main facility above ground, without protection by advanced air defense systems.
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In each case, destroying that single facility was enough to set back and delay the country's nuclear program.
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In Iran, though, the Ayatollahs have learned the lessons from Ostrich in Iraq and al-Kabar in Syria and have scattered their nuclear facilities throughout the country.
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Some are built in heavily fortified underground bunkers, making them impenetrable to conventional aerial bombings.
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Will Israel continue to live by the sword that it used in 1981 and 2007, or has it reached the point when it will decide that it can preempt no more?
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Are there limits to even when the mighty Jewish state ends Of what it's capable of doing?
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Or is what happened in 2007 just the curtain riser for an even bigger face off with Iran, one that still looms on the horizon?
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And I think I said the Iraqi nuclear reactor's name wrong.
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It's Osirak Osirak.
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I don't know what I said, but I don't think it's Osirak Osirak.
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I don't know what I said, but I don't think I said Osirak.
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Now, I included that last quote because this book was written in 2019, and many are speculating that if the United States doesn't provide those bunker buster bombs, that Israel will have no choice but to go it alone, those bunker buster bombs, that Israel will have no choice but to go it alone.
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So, in today's Mojo Minute, if Israel has to go alone to dismantle the nuclear capability of Iran across two or three or four, perhaps sites, then watch for Bibi Netanyahu perhaps to pull a rabbit out of his hat yet again with a new capability, just like they did in 1981 and in 2007, and perhaps again in 2025, at multiple sites, at multiple sites, and let's pray, god, that regime change happens to the world's worst exporter of terror in the last 46 years.
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Let us pray and, as always, keep fighting the good fight and pray for Israeli success to eliminate the evil in our time.
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Be sure to check out our show page at teammojoacademycom, where we have everything we discussed in this podcast, as well as other great resources.
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Until next time, keep getting your mojo on.
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