by Jasmin Ramsey

Another Israeli expert has contradicted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s assessment of Iran’s nuclear program.

“The Iranian nuclear program will only be operational in another 10 years,” said Uzi Eilam, the former head of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, during an interview with Ronen Bergman published today in the Israeli [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Jasmin Ramsey

Another Israeli expert has contradicted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s assessment of Iran’s nuclear program.

“The Iranian nuclear program will only be operational in another 10 years,” said Uzi Eilam, the former head of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, during an interview with Ronen Bergman published today in the Israeli daily, Ynet.

“The main issues are still ahead of us, but it is definitely possible to be optimistic. I think we should give the diplomatic process a serious chance, alongside ongoing sanctions,” said Eilam, who has held senior roles in the Israeli defense establishment.

“And I’m not even sure that Iran would want the bomb — it could be enough for them to be a nuclear threshold state — so that it could become a regional power and intimidate its neighbors,” he added.

Netanyahu has implored the international community to set a “red line” on Iran’s nuclear program, which he says is aimed at a nuclear weapon. The Israeli PM used a “cartoon bomb” prop to make this argument during his Sept. 27, 2012 UN General Assembly speech. Two weeks earlier, Netanyahu had said that Iran was 6-7 months from being 90% of the way to building a bomb during an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press” program.

The next year, during his Oct. 1 2013 address to the UNGA, Netanyahu admitted that Iran had not crossed the line he had drawn on his diagram, but said Tehran was still positioning itself to be able to create a bomb and that this “vast and feverish effort has continued unabated” under Iranian President Hassan Rouhani.

Netanyahu has also called the interim deal on Iran’s nuclear program that was reached on Nov. 24, 2012 between Iran and the P5+1 (the U.S., Britain, France, China, and Russia plus Germany) a “historic mistake.”

The Israeli PM, who has been warning about an impending Iranian nuclear bomb for almost 20 years, has been relatively quiet during this year’s round of talks toward a comprehensive deal with Iran, which are set to resume on May 13 in Vienna Austria.

US officials have also detected a shift in Tel Aviv’s position toward a somewhat more reasonable stance, according to a report in Al-Monitor.

Several current and former Israeli defense and intelligence officials have cast doubt on Netanyahu’s statements on Iran’s nuclear program, which Tehran, a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, insists is peaceful.

“[Israel's leadership] presents a false view to the public on the Iranian bomb, as though acting against Iran would prevent a nuclear bomb. But attacking Iran will encourage them to develop a bomb all the faster,” said Israel’s former Internal Security Chief, Yuval Diskin, at an Israeli forum on Apr. 26, 2012.

“[Iran] is going step by step to the place where it will be able to decide whether to manufacture a nuclear bomb. It hasn’t decided to go the extra mile,” noted the head of the Israeli military, Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, during an interview with Haaretz on Apr. 25, 2012.

“I don’t think [Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei] will want to go the extra mile. I think the Iranian leadership is composed of very rational people,” he said.

“[Attacking Iran is] the stupidest thing I have ever heard…It will be followed by a war with Iran,” said Meir Dagan, the former head of the Mossad, during a May 2011 Hebrew University conference.

“It is the kind of thing where we know how it starts, but not how it will end.” he added.

by Mitchell Plitnick

US Secretary of State John Kerry was shuttling between Jordan and Saudi Arabia on Sunday, shoring up support for his efforts to find some kind of framework for negotiations that Israel and the Palestinian Authority could both sign on to. But back in Israel, the difficulties Kerry faces [...]]]> via LobeLog

by Mitchell Plitnick

US Secretary of State John Kerry was shuttling between Jordan and Saudi Arabia on Sunday, shoring up support for his efforts to find some kind of framework for negotiations that Israel and the Palestinian Authority could both sign on to. But back in Israel, the difficulties Kerry faces became even more apparent.

First, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman stated that, while he believed the deal Kerry envisions is the best Israel is likely to get, he would not support any peace deal that did not involve transferring Arab towns in Israel to the Palestinian Authority. In other words, Lieberman is insisting on a condition he has long held that forces the expulsion from Israel of some significant number of its Arab citizens. That is something that even the United States will find difficult to endorse, although most in Congress probably would have no problem with it (as long as AIPAC pushes them in that direction). The PA is not going to accept that condition, so Lieberman is basically putting a poison pill inside conciliatory language.

By the end of the day, Yuval Steinitz, a far right wing member of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud coalition and Minister of Intelligence, Strategic Affairs and International Relations, stated that Israel could not accept anything less than a sole Israeli military presence for an indefinite period in the Jordan Valley, a clear non-starter. Steinitz made this statement despite the insistence of the former head of the Mossad that the Jordan Valley was not a vital security concern or Israel, so one has to wonder about the motivation for Israel’s insistence on this point.

And in between, Steinitz set off a row in a cabinet meeting by presenting the latest update of the so-called “Palestinian Incitement Index,” and claiming it is proof that the current negotiations are futile. Minister of Justice and lead Israeli negotiator with the Palestinians Tzipi Livni took umbrage at that, and must have been even more convinced of her own irrelevance when the Prime Minister, though stopping short of agreeing with Steinitz that the talks were futile, agreed with him that the report reflected hatred of not only Israel but of Jews in general and that this was why the talks were not succeeding.

The report in question was recently compiled, according to the Israeli media, but the conclusions seem to be virtually identical to the one that was issued one year ago and is available in powerpoint format at the Prime Minister’s web site. Most of that report is simply a rehash of familiar Israeli claims, with some threadbare innuendo mixed in with a few examples of youth contributions to school Facebook pages that do reflect some very objectionable images and statements that are clearly anti-Semitic. It is the greatest stretch of argument to claim that this report (compiled by the Netanyahu government itself) can amount to the “core reason that peace is unattainable” as Netanyahu has repeatedly claim.

The link above takes you to the report, which you can judge for yourself. There is no doubt that some of the images and messages are offensive, even classically anti-Semitic, and, as a Jew, this author was certainly bothered by them. But nothing there indicates to my eyes anything like the pattern of indoctrination of hate that the Netanyahu government has claimed.

On a personal note, as a Jew who has been the victim of anti-Semitic violence in my youth, I am highly sensitive to such images as the objectionable ones in the report. I hope that more thoughtful members of the Palestinian community will intervene against such images and the ideas they reflect. But they are not indicative of some massive conspiracy among the Palestinians to indoctrinate youth into a culture of hate. As the Israeli peace activist (and former Irgun militant) Uri Avnery has pointed out, Israel, with its killings, closures, denial of rights, destruction of homes, confiscations of land and other activities, does this quite adequately all by itself. Conflict breeds hate of the other, and the effect is visible for Israelis as well as Palestinians.

It is precisely to stop that very cycle of suffering that the occupation needs to end and Palestinian rights and security, hand in hand with Israeli rights and security, need to be firmly and equally established and protected. Unfortunately, that is still not the approach the United States is taking.

by Marsha B. Cohen

For most Israeli politicians, the news of the election of moderate cleric Hassan Rouhani as president of Iran, is not good. That it is considered good news by anyone else makes it that much worse.

In Poland last Wednesday, two days before Iranians went to [...]]]> via Lobe Log

by Marsha B. Cohen

For most Israeli politicians, the news of the election of moderate cleric Hassan Rouhani as president of Iran, is not good. That it is considered good news by anyone else makes it that much worse.

In Poland last Wednesday, two days before Iranians went to the polls, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu declared that the results would bring about no meaningful change in Iran. Hours before reports of the election’s outcome began to be announced, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Yaalon told the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), a pro-Israel think tank, that Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, would decide who the next Iranian president would be.  The imminent Iranian election would change nothing.

As news of Rouhani’s garnering more than half the votes cast in Iran began to emerge, Israel’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, Yigal Palmor, echoed the widespread view that it is Khamenei who makes all the decisions concerning the Iranian nuclear program, not the Iranian president. “After the elections, Iran will continue to be judged by its actions, in the nuclear sphere as well as on the issue of terror,” Palmor said in a statement.” Iran must abide by the demands of the international community to stop its nuclear program and cease the dissemination of terror throughout the world.”

In a cabinet meeting on Sunday morning, Netanyahu derided not only the possible impact of a Rouhani-presidency on Iran’s policies, but also whether Rouhani even deserved to be considered a moderate since Khamenei had allowed him to run:

“Let us not delude ourselves,” Netanyahu said. “The international community must not become caught up in wishes and be tempted to relax the pressure on Iran to stop its nuclear program. It must be remembered that the Iranian ruler, at the outset, disqualified candidates who did not fit his extremist outlook and from among those whose candidacies he allowed was elected the candidate who was seen as less identified with the regime, who still defines the State of Israel [in an address last year] as ‘the great Zionist Satan.’”

Referring to the unexpected election of Mohammed Khatami as Iran’s president in 1997, the Israeli Prime Minister reminded his cabinet that “Fifteen years ago, the election of another president, also considered a moderate by the West, led to no change in these aggressive policies.”

Perhaps Netanyahu should be reminded that in 1992, he claimed Iran was “3 to 5 years” from having a nuclear weapon. That same year, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres (Israel’s current president) told French TV that Iran would have a nuclear warhead by 1999. This contention, shared by Netanyahu’s political rival, Yitzhak Rabin and echoed here by the Israel lobby, provided much of the impetus to push harder for the anti-Iran sanctions that were a major factor in constraining the ability of the last reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, to improve the economy and gain political capital against regime hard-liners.

In an interview with AP and Reuters, Peres made the opposite argument, praising the election results as a blow to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, “who was sure that the people would vote according to his decision.” According to Peres, Rouhani will now have to be judged by his actions, rather than his words.

(Now what would happen if the U.S. were to judge Israeli leaders by their actions rather than their words, with regard to resolving the Israel-Palestinian conflict or coming clean about Israel’s nuclear weapons program?)

Knesset Foreign Relations Chair Avigdor Lieberman of the hardline Israel is Our Home party, barred from assuming the post of Foreign Minister until the pending corruption charges against him are resolved, sized up Iran’s president-elect as being “not more moderate, but more sophisticated” than his predecessor. “We have not heard from [Rouhani] any announcements that he plans to stop the nuclear program.”

Minister of International Relations Yuval Steinitz, whose ministerial duties include “Israel’s intelligence efforts on Iran,” told Army Radio on Sunday morning that “the results are a credit to the Iranian people,” but expressed doubts as to whether Supreme Leader Khamenei, who “actually manages foreign affairs, national security and Iran’s nuclear program,” would alter Iran’s “path and behavior.” Steinitz asserted that the election results would have no effect on Iran’s nuclear progress, which he claimed is ever-closer to crossing the nuclear “red line.” Were any changes in to occur, he opined they would come about solely as a consequence of “increased pressure” by the international community. Steinitz therefore insisted that international sanctions against Iran “must continue, regardless of the desire of the Iranian people for progress.”

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni – praised by J-Street last year when she resigned from the Knesset for defining “the ideal of public service in Israel, pursuing her vision of the best interests of Israel with passion, dignity and integrity,” but who immediately jockeyed for and won a cabinet position in the right-wing Netanyahu government elected in January — also told Army Radio that Rouhani’s election would test the West’s determination to keep Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. While Rouhani might seem like a more moderate face for Iranians, Livni was in agreement with her Likud colleagues that it would be “wise” to continue pressuring Iran. “The test will be that of action,” Livni said, parroting the official Israel position that Iran’s new president should be judged by actions instead of words.

MK Zahava Gal-on of Israel’s pro-peace and progressive Meretz party, which is in opposition to Netanyahu’s government, issued a sardonic statement of condolence to Israel’s political leadership on the departure of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who for the past eight years has provided a treasure trove of  anti-Israel invective that Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders have been able to quote when making their case that Iran is an imminent threat to Israel:

I extend my sympathy to the Israeli government that, with heavy heart and head hung low, must bid farewell to Ahmadinejad, who served as propaganda card and as an excellent source of excuses to avoid dealing with Israel’s real problems,” she said in a statement.

Where will the prime minister turn to now, when someone asks him about the Palestinian conflict? What about the out-of-control budget deficit for which he was responsible?… What about the racism that exists within Israeli society?… What will he do?”

I fear that the election of the moderate Rouhani is not just a blow to the extremists in Tehran, but also to the extremist leadership in Israel, which will now have to replace intimidation with actions.”

Gal-On’s sarcasm is closer to reality than it might sound. After Ahmadinejad was declared the winner of the contentious 2009 runoff presidential election, despite charges that his opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, had received more votes, the pro-settler, nationalist news site Arutz Sheva included some quotes reflecting the attitudes of many Israeli politicians and pundits about the 2009 victory of the outgoing Iranian president who Israeli leaders have delighted in comparing to Haman and Hitler, among them:

• Mossad director Meir Dagan told the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that “if the reformist candidate Mousavi had won, Israel would have had a more serious problem because it would need to explain to the world the danger of the Iranian threat.”
• Ephraim Inbar, director of the Begin Sadat Center at Bar-Ilan University, explained to CBS News, “If we have Ahmadinejad, we know where we stand. If we have Mousavi we have a serpent with a nice image.”
• Political commentator Ron Ben Yishai declared Ahmadinejad “a diplomatic asset for the West in general and for Israel in particular. His Shi’ite fanaticism and Holocaust denial have frightened Arab and Western countries and assisted in creation of a global anti-Iranian front.”

So it’s not surprising that, as the results of the 2013 Iranian election became known on Saturday, Deputy Defense Minister Gilad Erdan expressed concern that Rouhani’s reputation as a centrist and the support he received from Iran’s reformists might tempt the West to give Iran “more leeway in diplomatic contacts over its rogue nuclear drive,” agreeing to more talks, and then more talks.

Regardless of the outcome of any Iranian election offering the possibility of change — admittedly not the prospect or an outright promise — Israeli politicos will be displeased, and for the wrong reasons. Expect to hear more from them in the days and weeks ahead in the media, and from the Israel Lobby in the United States.

by Peter Jenkins

There has been good news out of Israel this week – all the more welcome for being relatively infrequent where Iran is concerned.

Sheera Frenkel, a McClatchy correspondent, reported on Monday that Israeli intelligence officials had told the news service over the last two months that they [...]]]> via Lobe Log

by Peter Jenkins

There has been good news out of Israel this week – all the more welcome for being relatively infrequent where Iran is concerned.

Sheera Frenkel, a McClatchy correspondent, reported on Monday that Israeli intelligence officials had told the news service over the last two months that they now estimate that Iran will be unable to build a nuclear weapon before 2015 or 2016.

This estimate will have come as no surprise to those who monitor official US statements for insights into related US judgements. Back in August 2012, a National Security Council spokesman stated: “We continue to assess that Iran is not on the verge of achieving a nuclear weapon.” And since late 2007, US National Intelligence Estimates have been pushing the date at which Iran would reach the nuclear threshold (an ability to make nuclear weapons) towards 2015.

Nor is the latest Israeli estimate unprecedented. On 9 January 2011 the Washington Post reported that outgoing Mossad chief Meir Dagan had told Israeli reporters that Iran could not build a bomb before 2015 at the earliest.

However, the estimate raises questions about the performance of Israel’s Prime Minister during last autumn’s UN General Assembly. Mr. Netanyahu seemed to want listeners to believe that Iran could make a nuclear device as soon as mid-2013.

For those of us who are outside government, and without access to intelligence reports, reconciling such contradictions is all but impossible. If, though, I had to hazard a speculative guess, I would say that Mr. Netanyahu was focusing solely on Iran’s ability to produce sufficient highly enriched uranium for one device, and that Israeli intelligence officers are looking beyond the production of fissile material to Iran’s ability to produce a deliverable nuclear weapon.

Anyway, what really matters is that this latest Israeli estimate will make it much harder for the Israeli government to convince the US government that the “window of opportunity” for diplomacy is closing and will have closed before 2013 is out.

That is a godsend — all the more helpful as the days and weeks pass, confusion and uncertainty mount, and the prospect of Iran and the P5+1 (the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany) getting into a serious nuclear negotiation recede towards the second half of 2013, after the installation of a new Iranian president (early August). Helpful, too, in quelling the concern some will feel when they read a Reuters report that Iran is at last about to install more efficient centrifuges at the Natanz plant, to produce low enriched uranium (under 5%).

Suggesting that good news, and not just Shakespearian sorrows, come “not as single spies”, a 25 January Daily Beast report from Davos quoted outgoing Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak stating that: “What we basically say is that if worse comes to worst, there should be a readiness and an ability to launch a surgical operation that will delay [Iran] by a significant time frame and probably convince them that it won’t work because the world is determined to block them.”

This sentence seems to imply that the Israeli government is now aligned with its US counterpart in drawing a line at a point where there is evidence that Iran has decided to cross the threshold and embark on the manufacture of nuclear weapons.

This would be a significant development. For years Israeli politicians have been saying that Iran cannot be allowed to retain a dual-use uranium enrichment capability, and that Iran’s enrichment plants should be destroyed by force unless Iran agrees to their dismantlement. Now Mr. Barak is saying that the use of force should only be contemplated “if worse comes to worst”. I suppose that could mean: “If Iran refuses to capitulate to Israeli demands”. But “if Iran embarks on nuclear weapon production” seems like a more natural interpretation.

If that is so, it is a second boost in a matter of days to nuclear negotiation prospects. There has never been much likelihood that Iran would agree to surrender its dual-use enrichment capability — and EU insistence on it doing so was the prime cause of the breakdown of the promising negotiation between three EU members and Iran that was launched in October 2003. But Iranians have often alluded to their readiness to back up their word with practical measures when it comes to respecting their non-nuclear-weapon state treaty commitments.

Of course, Mr. Netanyahu has just been re-elected, and, on past form, he may not be deterred from raising a hue and cry by anything as dull as evidence-based logic. Still, the odds on him being taken seriously in Washington seem to have lengthened since last Friday.

It’s June 15, 1992. A news nugget on page A-12 of the Washington Post reports that the chief of Israel’s Air Force believes military action might be necessary to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons:

Maj. Gen. Herzl Budinger told Israeli television that if Iran’s intensive effort to develop [...]]]> via Lobe Log

It’s June 15, 1992. A news nugget on page A-12 of the Washington Post reports that the chief of Israel’s Air Force believes military action might be necessary to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons:

Maj. Gen. Herzl Budinger told Israeli television that if Iran’s intensive effort to develop atomic weapons is not “disrupted,” the fundamentalist Islamic nation will become a nuclear power by the end of the decade. Earlier, the air force commander told reporters that “the greatest disruption possible, whether military or political,” is necessary to keep nuclear weapons out of the Middle East and prevent a world war. By “disruption,” Budinger said he meant “international political action, and aggressive action, if needed.”

This was the birth of what we can now look back on as two decades of threats by Israel to “bomb Iran” — with or without the consent, assistance and/or leadership of the United States — to prevent Iran’s impending development of nuclear capability.

Iran was struggling to recover economically from the ravages of its eight year war with Iraq (1980-1988). Its firebrand revolutionary leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, had died three years earlier. A US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE 34-91, Oct. 1991) viewed Iran’s president, Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, as a pragmatic nationalist who “is likely to move slowly and prudently to repair relations” with the US but conceded that “Iran’s major foreign policy goal is to foster a more stable regional environment conducive to Iranian security and economic development.” Although it would be a “nuisance,” Iran’s becoming “more dangerous” was viewed by the NIE as a “less likely scenario.” The Israeli defense establishment thought otherwise.

Fast forward a decade. Weeks after Iran had quietly assisted the US in achieving its initial victory over the Taliban in Afghanistan, President George W. Bush branded Iran as part of an “axis of evil” during his 2002 State of the Union speech. In an interview with the London Times, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called on the international community “to target Iran as soon as the imminent conflict with Iraq is complete.” Sharon insisted that the day after the Iraq war (which had not yet begun) ended, the war against Iran must begin.

Fast forward another decade…

During 2012, not a month passed when the prospect of an Israeli attack on Iran didn’t generate hyperventilated headlines. To mark the end of the 20th anniversary of “the Iranian threat,” here’s a look back at some of the articles that kept the about-to-happen war against Iran’s nuclear program in the headlines last year.

January 2012: The year started with a bang…at least in the press. Foreign Affairs features an essay “Time to Attack Iran” by Matt Kroenig, reinforced by “The Case for Regime Change in Iran”, a commentary by Jamie M. Fly and Gary Schmitt, alongside of which are two pieces critical of Koenig’s arguments: “Not the Time to Attack Iran” by Colin H.Kahl” and “The Flawed Logic of Striking Iran” by Alexandre Debs and Nuno P. Monteiro. Also weighing in with a totally contrarian view was neorealist Kenneth Waltz, who contributes “Why Iran Should Get the Bomb” to the debate. An astute critique of Fly and Schmitt, which remains timely, is Simon Tisdall’s piece in the Guardian, “An Iran War is Brewing From Mutual Ignorance.”

A noteworthy pro-war attention grabber that reaches a much wider and more diverse audience outside policy wonk circles is Ronen Bergman’s cover story for the New York Times Sunday Magazine, “Will Israel Attack Iran?”, which concludes, ”After speaking with many senior Israeli leaders and chiefs of the military and the intelligence, I have come to believe that Israel will indeed strike Iran in 2012.”  Ira Chernus provides a takedown of Bergman’s arguments a few days later in the Huffington Post. Also contradicting Bergman is a draft of an Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) report, arguing that Iran would not be capable of building a nuclear weapon in 2012 and that a a military attack wouldn’t effectively prevent Iran from building one if it made the decision to do so.

February: David Ignatius reveals in a Washington Post op-ed, “Is Israel Preparing to Attack Iran?”, that US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta’s biggest worry is that Israel may be preparing to attack Iran in the spring. Ignatius’ scoop goes viral, eliciting commentary from all directions within the mainstream media and blogosphere. Charles Krauthammer immediately infers that such a leak would not have occurred unless an Israeli attack was “certain” and concludes it’s a done deal. Gareth Porter argues that the leak brings into sharper focus “a contradiction in the Barack Obama administration’s Iran policy between its effort to reduce the likelihood of being drawn into a war with Iran and its desire to exploit the Israeli threat of war to gain diplomatic leverage on Iran”. In the New York Times, former Israeli military defense chief Amos Yadlin demands ”an ironclad American assurance that if Israel refrains from acting in its own window of opportunity — and all other options have failed to halt Tehran’s nuclear quest — Washington will act to prevent a nuclear Iran while it is still within its power to do so.” Jonathan Marcus at BBC News provides a step-by-step blueprint of “How Israel Might Strike at Iran.”

March: Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu tells Israeli media that he had assured President Obama during their talks in Washington that Israel had not yet decided whether or not to strike Iran in the next few weeks. Within days, a front page piece in the Sheldon Adelson-owned Israeli daily Israel Hayom by headlined “Difficult, Daring, Doable”, propounds the feasibility and desirability of an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. Mark Perry exposes what his sources believe to be a secret Israeli plan to attack Iran from Azerbaijan; the neoconservative and right-wing media are divided as to whether the story is a hoax or another deliberate leak by the Obama administration intended to thwart Israeli plans.

April: It’s spring and there are no signs of an Israeli attack. Slate’s Fred Kaplan suggests that Israel might launch an “October surprise” just before the US elections:

If they started an attack and needed U.S. firepower to help them complete the task, Barack Obama might open himself up to perilous political attacks—for being indecisive, weak, appeasing, anti-Israel, you name it—if he didn’t follow through. It could cost him the votes of crucial constituencies.

May: In the May/June issue of World Affairs Journal, Elliott Abrams and Robert Wexler debate whether the time for an Israeli attack on Iran has finally arrived. Abrams calls for immediate action and Robert Wexler argues “not yet.” After numerous reports in the right-wing blogosphere cite Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Benny Gantz in arguing that Israel is about to attack Iran, Gantz slams the “public chatter” about the Iranian nuclear issue by people who used to know things about Iran’s nuclear program but no longer do,” while assuring the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that Israel is “super ready” for military action. A temporary lull in war rhetoric from Israel fuels mid-month speculation that the top echelons of the Israeli government are in “lockdown” in preparation for a military strike. The surprise formation of a national unity government, Reuters infers, is reflective of Netanyahu’s desire for “a strong government to lead a military campaign,” particularly one that includes Iranian-born Shaul Mofaz, a former Israeli Chief of Staff and a veteran soldier in the coalition:

‘I think they have made a decision to attack,’ said one senior Israeli figure with close ties to the leadership. ‘It is going to happen. The window of opportunity is before the U.S. presidential election in November. This way they will bounce the Americans into supporting them.’

June: In another op-ed, David Ignatius rings alarm bells:

It’s clear that Israel’s military option is still very much on the table, despite the success of economic sanctions in forcing Iran into negotiations. ‘It’s not a bluff, they’re serious about it,” says Efraim Halevy, a former head of the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service. A half-dozen other experts and officials made the same point in interviews last week: The world shouldn’t relax and assume that a showdown with Iran has been postponed until next year. Here, the alarm light is still flashing red.

July: Chief of Staff Benny Gantz refutes rumours that he is opposed to war with Iran. “The IDF will carry out orders to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities if it receives them from the government,” he declares. Mofaz leaves Netanyahu’s coalition, revivifying the need for Israeli elections. Charles Krauthammer opines to Fox News that Israel will attack Iran if it appears that President Obama will win re-election.

August: During Panetta’s visit to Israel, Netanyahu informs him during closed talks that Israel is prepared to defend itself from Iran with or without the help of the US and that he is prepared to accept the consequences. Barak Ravid of Haaretz reports that others at the meeting believed that Netanyahu’s comments were part of a “psychological warfare” campaign waged by Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak “in order to pressure the U.S. into attacking Iran itself.” Two weeks later, Panetta tells the press that the Israelis have not yet “made a decision as to whether or not they will go in and attack Iran at this time,” while Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey incurs the wrath of Israeli political leaders when he asserts that an Israeli attack “could delay but not destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities”.

September: Among the questions that Lesley Stahl asks “The Spymaster” — the former head of Israel’s Mossad, Meir Dagan — in a Sixty Minutes interview is whether an Israeli attack on Iran could succeed. Although she opens the interview with a Dagan quote asserting that “Israel attacking Iran was the stupidest idea [he] had ever heard,” she insistently argues that he ought to believe otherwise, sometimes even putting words in Dagan’s mouth despite his clear resistance.

Netanyahu’s speech before the UN General Assembly on Sept. 27 becomes an iconic moment when the Israeli leader literally draws a line with a red marker on a crude graphic of an incendiary device. “Ladies and gentlemen, the relevant question is not when Iran will get the bomb. The relevant question is at what stage can we no longer stop Iran from getting the bomb,” he said. Netanyahu’s use of the “Wile E. Coyote” rendition of an Iranian nuclear weapon evokes disapproving frowns as well as irreverent mockery: “I’m hearing ridicule of that stunt from people in the United States government who are a) militant on the subject of Iran, and b) needed by Israel to carry-out effective anti-proliferation efforts,” Jeffrey Goldberg fumes in The Atlantic. Goldberg, normally a staunch defender of Netanyahu, also complains:

Netanyahu’s constant threats, and warnings, about Iran’s nuclear program have undermined Israel’s deterrent capability. Netanyahu spent much of this year arguing, privately and publicly, that soon it would be too late to stop the Iranians from moving their centrifuges fully underground. He knows full well that the Iranians could soon enter the so-called zone of immunity, by moving the bulk of their centrifuges into the Fordow facility, where Israeli bombs can’t reach. But he’s now kicked the can down the road until next spring.

October: Israeli Foreign Minister Ehud Barak tells Britain’s The Daily Telegraph that Iran has used up to a third of its enriched uranium to make fuel rods for a medical research reactor, thereby delaying progress towards a weapon for 8-10 months. Barak speculated that Iran’s “ruling ayatollahs” may be trying to reduce tension over the nuclear issue until after the US presidential election, or convince the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) of Iran’s willingness to cooperate. Barak said this did not change Israel’s view that Iran was seeking to develop nuclear weapons.

The threat of an October surprise immediately before the US election subsides. The alliance of Netanyahu’s Likud party with Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s even more hardline Yisrael Beiteinu (“Israel is our home”) party leads to concerns that the PM is forming a war cabinet that would make a military confrontation inevitable. According to Aluf Benn of Haaretz:

…he announced that the top priority of his next government will be preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. The merger with Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu party will dissolve any domestic opposition to the war, since after the election, Netanyahu will be able to argue that he received a mandate from the people to act as he sees fit. Ministers and top defense officials will have a hard time arguing with him. From now on, only American opposition is liable to delay, or even prevent, a command to the Israel Air Force to take off for Iran.

November: Netanyahu vows to stop Iran’s nuclear progress, even if it means defying the US. In a joint press conference at the Pentagon, after Panetta implied that retiring Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak agreed that “there is time and space for an effort to try to achieve a diplomatic solution” with Iran — which Panetta said “remains, I believe, the preferred outcome for both the United States and for Israel” — Barak undercuts his host, stating that Iranian leaders would have to be “coerced” into ending their nuclear program. Barak predicts this will happen in 2013.

December:  On Dec. 31, in a Haaretz article headlined “Bibi’s Strange Silence on Iran,” Uzi Benziman wonders what has become of the Iranian threat, which suddenly vanished from Israel’s national conversation, with the exception of a single unremarkable mention as part of a list of challenges in a political party speech by Netanyahu last week:

Since his [Netanyahu's] In a joint press conference at the beginning of the month with Panetta, retiring Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak anyahu’s] resounding appearance at the United Nations, where he pointed to the Iranian threat by means of a ludicrous drawing, this fateful issue (from his perspective ) has somehow dropped from the public eye. It’s a strange turn of events considering the fact that the Iranian nuclear program topped Netanyahu’s agenda during his entire current term in office, and that the manner in which he handled it cast a pall of palpable existential threat over Israel.

But according to former Obama national security adviser Dennis Ross, 2013 will be “the decisive year” in the showdown with Iran’s nuclear program. “If by the end of 2013 diplomacy hasn’t worked, the prospects for use of force become quite high,” he said.

A new year, with new possibilities, which will probably include more talk of an impending war with Iran (that Lobe Log will continue to track and report on). Elections are coming up in both Israel and Iran, opening the door to a range of events that can seriously impact the US and Israel’s Iran policy, as well as Iranian foreign policy. And while total peace may be unlikely, one can at least hope that past predictions of war with Iran will be as accurate in 2013 as they have been in the past.

A new twist was added to the longrunning media theme of a threat by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to go to war with Iran when news stories seemed to suggest Monday that Netanyahu had ordered the Israeli military to prepare for an imminent attack on Iranian nuclear sites in [...]]]> via IPS News

A new twist was added to the longrunning media theme of a threat by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to go to war with Iran when news stories seemed to suggest Monday that Netanyahu had ordered the Israeli military to prepare for an imminent attack on Iranian nuclear sites in 2010.

Netanyahu backed down after Israeli Defence Forces chief of staff Gabi Ashkenazi and Mossad director Meir Dagan opposed the order, according to the reports.

But the details of the episode provided in a report by Israel’s Channel 2 investigative news programme “Truth”, which aired Monday night, show that the Netanyahu order was not meant to be a prelude to an imminent attack on Iran. The order to put Israeli forces on the highest alert status was rejected by Ashkenazi and Dagan primarily because Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak had not thought through the risk that raising the alert status to the highest level could provoke unintended war with Iran.

All the participants, moreover, understood that Israel had no realistic military option for an attack on Iran.

Most stories about the episode failed to highlight the distinction between an order for war and one for the highest state of readiness, thus creating the clear impression that Netanyahu was preparing for war with Iran. The stories had to be read very carefully to discern the real significance of the episode.

The Israeli Ynet News report on the story carried the headline, “Was Israel on verge of war in 2010?” and a teaser asking, “Did Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak try to drag Israel into a military operation in Iran without cabinet approval?”

AFP reported that Netanyahu and Barak “ordered the army to prepare an attack against Iranian nuclear installations.”

The Reuters story said Netanyahu and Barak “ordered Israeli defence chiefs in 2010 to prepare for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities but were rebuffed….”

And AP reported that the order from Netanyau was for a “high alert for a looming attack on Iran’s nuclear program” and that the episode “indicated that Israel was much closer to carrying out a strike at that time than was previously known.”

Washington Post blogger Max Fisher certainly got the impression from the press coverage that Netanyahu and Barak had “attempted to order the Israeli military to prepare for an imminent strike on Iran but were thwarted by other senior officials….” Fisher concluded that Netanyahu was “more resolved than thought to strike Iran….”

The coverage of the story thus appears to have pumped new life into the idea that Netanyahu is serious about attacking Iran, despite clear evidence in recent weeks that he has climbed down from that posture.

The details of the episode in the original Channel 2 programme as reported by the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth suggest that none of the participants in the meeting believed that Netanyahu had decided on actual war with Iran.

The incident occurred, according to the programme, after a meeting of seven top cabinet ministers at an unspecified time in 2010. As Dagan and Ashkanazi were about to leave the meeting room, the programme recalls, Netanyahu ordered them to prepare the military for “the possibility of a strike” against Iran by putting the IDF on the highest level of readiness.

Netanyahu used the code word “F Plus” for the alert status, according to the Channel 2 programme.

Ashkenazi and Dagan reacted strongly to the order, and Netanyahu and Barak eventually backed down. But both Ashkenazi and Barak appear to agree that the issue was not whether Israel would actually attack Iran but the alert itself. Ashkenazi’s response indicated that he did not interpret it as a sign that Netanyahu intended to carry out an attack on Iran. “It’s not something you do if you’re not sure you want to follow through with it,” Ashkenazi was quoted as saying.

Barak sought to downplay the order for the high alert status, asserting that raising the alert level “did not necessarily mean war”.

“It is not true that creating a situation in which the IDF are on alert for a few hours or a few days to carry out certain operations forces Israel to go through with them,” the defence minister said.

Ashkenazi was not asserting, however, that Netanyahu would be forced to attack. Rather, he feared it would have the unintended consequence of convincing Iran that Israel did intend to attack and thus trigger a war.

The former IDF chief highlighted that danger in commenting, “This accordion produces music when you play with it,” according to “sources close to” Ashkenazi – the formula usually used when an official or ex-official does not wish to be quoted directly.

Barak also said Ashkenazi had responded that the IDF did not have the ability to carry out a strike against Iran. “Eventually, at the moment of truth, the answer that was given was that, in fact, the ability did not exist,” Barak is quoted as saying on the programme.

Significantly, Barak made no effort to deny the reality that the Israeli Air Force did not have the capability to carry out a successful attack against Iran. Instead he is blaming Ashkenazi for having failed to prepare Israeli forces for a possible attack.

Ashkenazi angrily denied that obviously political charge. “I prepared the option, the army was ready for a strike but I also said that a strike now would be a strategic mistake,” he is quoted as saying.

Israeli military leaders are still saying publicly that the IDF can carry out a strike. But while Ashkenazi is quoted as saying the army was “ready for a strike”, that is not the same as claiming that Israel had a military option that had any chance of success in derailing Iran’s enrichment programme. And in February 2011, he told then Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen that references to such a military option were “empty words”, because “Israel has no military option,” according to an earlier report by Yedioth Ahronoth.

Despite the public political feud between them, both Barak and Ashkenazi implied that the purpose of the high alert was to achieve a political effect rather than to prepare for an actual attack.

Both Ashkenazi and former Mossad director Dagan were apparently shocked that Netanyahu and Barak would be so irresponsible as to run the obvious risks of feigning preparations for a war with Iran. Dagan concluded that Netanyahu is unfit for leadership of the country – a point that he had made repeatedly since leaving his Mossad post in 2011.

Netanyahu sought to manipulate the supposed threat of military force against Iran to put pressure on U.S. President Barack Obama to adopt harsh sanctions against Iran and even get him to pledge to use force if Iran did not yield on its nuclear programme. The firm rebuff to that ploy by Obama last summer brought that phase of the Netanyahu military option ploy to an end, as indicated by his failure to include any implicit threat in his U.N. address in late August.

Netanyahu continues to insist publicly, however, that he is considering the military option against Iran. In an interview for the Channel 2 programme, he said, “We are serious, this is not a show. If there is no other way to stop Iran, Israel is ready to act.”

Israeli political observers have suggested that Netanyahu’s belligerent posture has now become primarily a theme of his campaign for reelection as prime minister. But as the coverage of the 2010 episode indicates, the news media have not yet abandoned the story of Netanyahu’s readiness to go to war against Iran.

*Gareth Porter, an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy, received the UK-based Gellhorn Prize for journalism for 2011 for articles on the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

Laura Rozen’s recent interview with former Mossad director Efraim Halevy focuses heavily on diplomatic options for the US, Israel and Iran in the impasse over the Iranian nuclear program. Halevy, like former Mossad director Meir Dagan and a number of past and present US and Israeli national security officials, opposes preventive [...]]]> via Lobe Log

Laura Rozen’s recent interview with former Mossad director Efraim Halevy focuses heavily on diplomatic options for the US, Israel and Iran in the impasse over the Iranian nuclear program. Halevy, like former Mossad director Meir Dagan and a number of past and present US and Israeli national security officials, opposes preventive military action against Iran because he fears it will lead to the collapse of the international sanctions regime, a regional war and only embolden Iran to build and deploy nuclear weapons as a deterrent in the years following the attack.

Particularly interesting is Halevy’s description of Obama and Romney’s approach to the Iran issue.

Obama has placed emphasis on negotiations. In this current election for the US presidency, his hands are tied. He cannot proceed, because he cannot appear soft on Israel’s security.

Negotiating with Iran is perceived as a sign of beginning to forsake Israel. That is where I think the basic difference is between Romney and Obama. What Romney is doing is mortally destroying any chance of a resolution without war. Therefore when [he recently] said, he doesn’t think there should be a war with Iran, this does not ring true. It is not consistent with other things he has said. […]

Meir Dagan, the former director of Israel’s Mossad, has received a liver transplant in Belarus. Reports from the Israeli press that have now made their way into western media sources state that Belarus’ president, Alexander Lukashenko, announced at a press conference on Oct. 16 that the operation had taken place [...]]]> via Lobe Log

Meir Dagan, the former director of Israel’s Mossad, has received a liver transplant in Belarus. Reports from the Israeli press that have now made their way into western media sources state that Belarus’ president, Alexander Lukashenko, announced at a press conference on Oct. 16 that the operation had taken place ten days earlier and had been completed successfully.

Dagan has been among the most outspoken opponents of an Israeli military strike on Iran in Israel’s intelligence community. During a March 2012 interview with CBS’s Sixty Minutes he told Lesley Stahl that an Israeli attack on Iran would not only trigger a regional war, it would be ineffective. Hardly a dove, Dagan much prefers that a war against Iran be launched by the US, and believes that sabotage and other efforts to effect regime change in Iran can stave off Iranian nuclear capability until the US is ready to take action.

Why would a prominent Israeli, a citizen of a country whose medical system is renowned  for its sophisticated and cutting edge medical research and groundbreaking innovations in liver transplants, choose to surreptitiously go to a third world European backwater, which boasts that it now ranks 53rd out of 190 countries in the world,  for lifesaving treatment?

According to the Jerusalem Post:

“Lukashenko said that surgeons in several countries, including the US, Germany and Sweden, had refused to operate on the patient after learning of his former career as a spymaster, though he didn’t mention Dagan by name. The president added that doctors in these countries had recommended the Belarusian Transplant Center as the best place for the man to undergo his operation.”

Y-Net, the English language news site of the Israeli Daily, Yediot Acharonot, offered no grounds for the refusal, but cited sources close Dagan who claimed “Sweden was never asked to operate and the US did not fulfill criteria for the transplant”. UPI, citing Y-Net as its source, says ”because of his condition, Dagan was found to be unsuitable for a transplant in the United States.”

Based on details provided to Al-Monitor by Israeli journalist Yossi Melman, Laura Rozen reports that Dagan had gone to Sloane Kettering hospital in New York two months earlier hoping to find a compatible organ but could not. “He returned to Israel and his health was deteriorating,” Melman said.

“Dagan’s illness, cancer, was known for a couple of months to a small group of confidants and colleagues and me, but it was decided for reasons of not invading his privacy not to report it,”  Yossi Melman told Al-Monitor by email Tuesday. “Tonight the Belarus President Alexander Lukaschenko revealed it in a press conference trying to gain for himself and his pariah regime.”

Although Israel is among the most medically advanced countries in the world, organ transplants are subject to intense bureaucracy. At least part of that bureaucracy stems from religious concerns of many orthodox Jews about desecrating a human body after death by autopsy or organ removal. Defining “death” has also proven to be a religious obstacle, since once the standards of total brain death and respiratory death have been fully satisfied according to Jewish law, certain organs cease to be viable. Despite efforts to boost the number of available organs for transplants by promising would-be donors a slot at the top of the donor list should they need a transplant,  only 12% of Israelis are registered organ donors. Bloomberg News reports that desperate Israelis are among the biggest clients for organ transplants abroad, which are often acquired by respectable hospitals from black market sources.

The US has a waiting list of nearly 17,000 patients for liver transplants, about 10,000 of whom have been awaiting a donor for more than a year. Whenever a prominent person like Steve Jobs receives a transplant, the question of  “jumping the list” arises. It is more likely that Dagan would have been asked to wait his turn, rather than turned down because of his prominent role in Israel’s intelligence community, as Lukashenko claimed.

This, however, does little to address the question of “Why Belarus?”

Belarus, against which the EU renewed its sanctions the other day for persistent human rights violations, has much less stringent criteria for consent of organ donors than Israel, the US, and most western countries. These lower standards of consent allow it to promote “medical tourism” and advertise the ease and economy of organ transplants performed in Belarus. According to the website MedTravel Belarus:

Transplantation of organs taken from cadaveric donor is forbidden in many countries of the world and this is a reason for considerable increase of the list of those who need this operation because the amount of donors decreases significantly.

The problem of the removal of cadaveric organs is primarily related to the issues of legal and ethical qualities. For example, in the USA and many European countries, the principle of “consent of the requested” works, this means that the usage of a person’s organs without his legally formalized permission is forbidden, so the doctor is not entitled to do the removal. A presumption of consent to the removal of organs works in our country so the law permits the removal of cadaveric organs, but on condition that the deceased person during his lifetime, or his relatives have not expressed their opposition to it.

That is why Belarusian clinics are so popular among people all over the world. The transplantations of bone marrow, kidney, heart, liver are performed in our country, tissue transplantations and stem cells transplantations are performed as well. It also should be taken into consideration that the prices for this type of medical service in our country are much lower than in other countries.

In other words, Belarus is not bound by some of the bio-ethical constraints on transplants that apply in the US and Israel, and much of Europe. MedTravel Belarus claims that 70 liver transplants have been performed in the country since 2010.

While Dagan has devoted most of his career in the Mossad to countering “the Iranian threat” to Israel, Belarus –formerly part of the Soviet Union, and now part of the successor Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) — is one of the very few European countries with whom Iran maintains good relations. In late June, Iran and Belarus co-sponsored an “International Conference on Modern Application of Nanotechnology” in Minsk. Ironically, Belarus, which apparently was Dagan’s best and perhaps only hope for obtaining a liver transplant, has been accused of aiding Iran in missile development and in evading western sanctions against its nuclear program:

Diplomats told Reuters on condition of anonymity that Belarus is beginning to act as a kind of middleman to help secure the Iranians access to Russian technology.

“Belarus is becoming a key element in Iran’s efforts to develop its SSM (surface-to-surface missile) and nuclear capabilities, especially with regard to navigation and guidance products, which are defined as dual-use,” a diplomat said.

Politics, indeed, makes for some strange bedfellows.

In the interview, Meir Dagan said that, contrary the contention made by of [...]]]> The former head of Israel’s vaunted Mossad spy agency told the Atlantic magazine that an attack on Iran would not spur the Iranian people to rise up against the regime and could cause the international sanctions regime imposed against Iran to crumble.

In the interview, Meir Dagan said that, contrary the contention made by of many Iran hawks, should Israel attack Iran, the population may well rally behind the regime. He went on to say, in his interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, that the U.S.-led international sanctions regimen imposed on Iran would crumble in the face of an attack, making pursuit of a nuclear weapon easier for the Islamic Republic. Goldberg writes:

Some senior Israeli officials have argued to me that a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities might actually trigger the eventual downfall of the regime. Dagan predicts the opposite: “Judging by the war Iran fought against Iraq, even people who supported the Shah, even the Communists, joined hands with (Ayatollah) Khomeini to fight Saddam,” he said, adding, “In case of an attack, political pressure on the regime will disappear. If Israel will attack, there is no doubt in my mind that this will also provide them with the justification to go ahead and move quickly to nuclear weapons.” He also predicted that the sanctions program engineered principally by President Obama may collapse as a result of an Israeli strike, which would make it easier for Iran to obtain the material necessary for it to cross the nuclear threshold.

Dagan’s previously said that an attack could “ignite… a regional war” and “could accelerate the procurement of the bomb” by Iran because it would “provide them with the legitimacy to achieve nuclear capabilities for military purposes.” That puts him in line with the former head of Israel’s internal security service, and the former head of Israel’s military intelligence service. Perhaps taking their cues from predecessors, a majority of Israel’s current security chiefs reportedly oppose an attack on Iran.

A potential Iranian nuclear weapon is widely considered a threat to both the security of the U.S. and its allies in the region, as well as the nuclear non-proliferation regime. U.S., U.N. and Israeli intelligence estimates give the West time to pursue a dual-track approach of pressure and diplomacy to resolve the crisis. Questions about the efficacy and potential consequences of a strike have led U.S. officials to declare that diplomacy is the “best and most permanent way” to resolve the crisis.

Among Israel’s former top security officials, a growing consensus has emerged over the past several months that a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities would be counterproductive to Israeli interests. Yesterday, former Israeli spy chief Meir Dagan emphasized that point, telling an audience that “a strike could accelerate the procurement [...]]]> via Think Progress

Among Israel’s former top security officials, a growing consensus has emerged over the past several months that a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities would be counterproductive to Israeli interests. Yesterday, former Israeli spy chief Meir Dagan emphasized that point, telling an audience that “a strike could accelerate the procurement of the bomb” and “provide them with the legitimacy to achieve nuclear capabilities.” But a new report by Ynet, suggests that the consensus opposing an Israeli attack on Iran extends all the way to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s defense chiefs.

“[P]olitical sources told Ynet on Wednesday that IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz, Mossad Chief Tamir Pardo and several top section chiefs in the Mossad are against a strike at this time,” reads a report by Ynet. “Without Gantz’ support the chances of mounting a strike are slim,” an anonymous “political source” said.

Indeed, Gantz and Pardo have expressed reservations in the past about the effectiveness of an Israeli strike.

In December, Pardo warned that while Iran poses a threat to Israel, “The term existential threat is used too freely,” a view closely mirrored by former Mossad Chief Ephraim Halevy, Meir Dagan and a number of former high-ranking Israeli security officials.

And while hawks in the U.S. and Israel frequently misrepresent the intelligence on Iran’s nuclear program to portray an Iranian nuclear weapons as imminent, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Benny Gantz pushed back last month, telling Haaretz, “[Iran] hasn’t yet decided whether to go the extra mile.” That assessment is shared by U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.

Gantz also told Haaretz, “I don’t think [Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei] will want to go the extra mile. I think the Iranian leadership is composed of very rational people.”

Ynet looked at Netanyahu’s nine-minister security forum and concluded that Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman support an attack. But Vice Premier Moshe Yaalon, Kadima Chairman Shaul Mofaz and ministers Dan Meridor, Benny Begin, Eli Yishai and Yuval Steinitz oppose a strike.

A potential Iranian nuclear weapon is widely considered a threat to both the security of U.S. and its allies in the region, as well as the nuclear non-proliferation regime. However, intelligence estimates give the West time to pursue a dual-track approach of pressure and diplomacy to resolve the crisis. Questions about the efficacy and consequences of a strike have led U.S. officials to declare that diplomacy is the “best and most permanent way” to resolve the crisis.