How they see us: Will Israel strike without U.S. support?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak Israel have issued repeated threats of a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

“If one is to believe the threats that are ramping up at warp speed, Israel will strike Iran’s nuclear facilities before spring,” said Gideon Levy in the Tel Aviv Ha’aretz. The best-case scenario is that the repeated warnings of imminent war from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are “mere pressure tactics.” But even if that’s true, it’s a dangerous game. “Threats of this scale take on a life of their own” and could create an irreversible momentum toward war. If Israelis don’t want this war, we have to speak up loud and clear so Netanyahu and Barak get the message. “We can no longer depend on the United States to stop it.”

President Obama is certainly downplaying the threats, said Kaveh L. Afrasiabi in the Hong Kong Asia Times. U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta recently conceded that Israel had a plan to attack Iran “within months,” and National Intelligence Director James Clapper said Iran was planning terror attacks on the U.S. Yet Obama, in an interview this week, contradicted both those officials, saying pointedly that Israel had not yet decided whether to attack and denying Iran’s capacity to hit U.S. soil. With that, Obama sent “an important signal to Iran and the rest of the world” that he is seriously committed to continued diplomacy and to avoiding war.

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