Obama reportedly sent an official to Israel every few months to 'Bibisit.' It almost didn't work.

(Image credit: SEBASTIAN SCHEINER/AFP/Getty Images)

Israel was reportedly far closer to attacking Iran in 2012 than the general public knew.

The strong possibility of war between Iran and Israel reached a head near the end of former President Barack Obama's first term, when Israel learned of secret nuclear negotiations between the U.S. and Iran. It all precipitated into the strong possibility of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu ordering a strike on Iran, and it "wasn't a bluff," he tells The New York Times Magazine in an article published Wednesday. If he'd "had a majority" of his cabinet behind him, Netanyahu says he "would have done it ... unequivocally."

It's possible Netanyahu is more confident today than he was at the time, but Obama sure took the threat seriously. Obama sent a senior official to Israel every few weeks to "Bibisit," a former senior official tells the Times. "For an Israeli official, it meant you knew you could not strike without feeling that you've deceived somebody while they were sitting in your office," Obama's then-ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro explained. The former president's Pentagon also bombed a "full-size mock-up of an Iranian nuclear facility" in the U.S. desert in anticipation of an Iran-Israel war, the Times reports.

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Then-Israeli ambassador to Washington Michael Oren fully anticipated a possible attack as well. "I went to bed every night, if I went to bed at all, with the phone close to my ear," he said, ready to tell the White House if and when Israel took action. Read more at The New York Times Magazine.

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Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.