(AP)
Just as the United States is preparing to unwind itself from its involvement in the Middle East--departing Iraq and transferring lead security responsibilities in Afghanistan to Afghans by 2014--a new round of tension appears to be surfacing between Iran and Israel.Reports in the Israeli press indicate that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are working to convince other members of Netanyahu's cabinet and Israeli security chiefs that Israel needs to launch a pre-emptive strike on Iran's nuclear program.
Netanyahu and Barak "are trying to muster a majority in the cabinet in favor of military action against Iran, a senior Israeli official has said," Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported Wednesday in a piece co-bylined by four reporters. ?The two officials "recently persuaded Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who previously objected to attacking Iran, to support such a move," according to the Ha'aretz acount, which has garnered an unusual degree of attention from western policymakers.
The Ha'aretz report followed a piece late last week by Israel's leading columnist, Nahum Barnea, on the front page of Israel's largest circulation daily Yediot Ahronoth,?titled "Atomic Pressure." It begins: "Have the prime minister and defense minister settled on a decision, just between the two of them, to launch a military attack on the nuclear facilities in Iran?" The piece then continues:
This question preoccupies many people in the defense establishment and high circles of government. It distresses foreign governments, which find it difficult to understand what is happening here: One the one hand, there are mounting rumors of an Israeli move that will change the face of the Middle East and possibly seal Israel's fate for generations to come; on the other hand, there is a total absence of any public debate. The issue of whether to attack Iran is at the bottom of the Israeli discourse.
In the bigger picture, such developments aren't earthshaking. Israel has long harbored serious concerns about Iran's developing nuclear capacity--and Netanyahu has sought to rally global opinion behind efforts to stem Iran's nuclear ambitions. What's striking, however, is that American diplomacy hands are paying exceptionally close attention to these latest reports.?Read More ?
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