Duck, duck … wolf

One thing that’s been bugging me about the endless Washington parlor game "Will Israel attack Iran?" — it’s not a simple, binary question. It’s actually a somewhat complicated series of interlocking questions, the answers to which will send us to different branches of Bibi Netanyahu’s decision tree. Yes, Israel might attack Iran. And yes, Israel ...

One thing that's been bugging me about the endless Washington parlor game "Will Israel attack Iran?" -- it's not a simple, binary question. It's actually a somewhat complicated series of interlocking questions, the answers to which will send us to different branches of Bibi Netanyahu's decision tree.

One thing that’s been bugging me about the endless Washington parlor game "Will Israel attack Iran?" — it’s not a simple, binary question. It’s actually a somewhat complicated series of interlocking questions, the answers to which will send us to different branches of Bibi Netanyahu’s decision tree.

Yes, Israel might attack Iran. And yes, Israel keeps threatening to attack Iran in order to (a) tighten the sanctions regime by indicating to wayward countries in Europe and Asia that the alternative is worse; (b) frighten Iran into agreeing to meet the West’s demands; (c) leverage President Obama’s debilitating fear of being painted as anti-Israel to extract various promises from Washington; (d) prepare the world and the Israeli public for the possibility of a strike against Iran’s nuclear program; and (e) keep the focus on the Iranian threat, not the settlements or the stalled "peace process" with the Palestinians.

All of these things can be and are true at the same time. Israel may not ever attack (though increasing numbers of people believe Bibi is not bluffing this time around), but there are items on its wishlist that could make the possibility even more remote than it is today.

The one being talked about now is a strong public commitment from Obama to take out Iran’s nuclear program (of this variety) in exchange for Israel agreeing not to take matters into its own hands. Israel’s former military intel chief, Amos Yadlin, floats a variation on this idea in today’s Washington Post:

The U.S. president should visit Israel and tell its leadership — and, more important, its people — that preventing a nuclear Iran is a U.S. interest, and if we have to resort to military action, we will. This message, delivered by the president of the United States to the Israeli Knesset, would be far more effective than U.S. officials’ attempts to convey the same sentiment behind closed doors.

Former Obama advisor Dennis Ross makes a similar case in Friday’s New York Times, though he takes the possibility that diplomacy might work a little more seriously than does Yadlin.

In any case, the point is this: Israel might strike Iran, eventually. But in the meantime, there are other goals at work in this very public drumbeat of warnings. And both of these things can be true at the same time.

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