WarSclerotic

Why Israel must ponder pre-emptive strike vs. Iran.

Charles Krauthammer Washington Post Writers Group

Former minister says US not committed to stopping Iran | The Times of Israel.

In light of this week’s IAEA report, Tzachi Hanegbi says Israel has more legitimacy to attack alone

Tzachi Hanegbi in 2010. (photo credit: Kobi Gideon/Flash90)

The United States is not determined to halt Iran from getting a bomb and this week’s IAEA report granted Israel even more legitimacy to strike Iran on its own, former minister Tzachi Hanegbi said on Saturday.

Hanegbi said that Israel is not bluffing and that “if there is no credible threat of military action, then there is no other way to convince the Iranians of halting their nuclear enrichment program.” An IAEA report published earlier this week stated that Iran increased its uranium enrichment capacity by 30% in recent months.

Without the Americans, however, Israel will have no choice but to attack on its own. “The American threat is the most genuine threat there is,” he continued. “American capabilities, the might this superpower possesses… worry the Iranians much more than Israel does.”

Hanegbi was skeptical that the Obama administration’s would indeed employ military force to halt Iran’s nuclear program. He called White House statements like one made the day before that it is President Barack Obama’s “firm commitment that we must prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon,” amorphous and general.

“In practice, I don’t see this phrase being translated into a more concrete intent. That may be the main reason why the Iranians belittle this threat, protest it, show contempt for it,” he said.

Besides, Hanegbi added, what does the United States have to worry about 5 nuclear bombs for when it has survived under the threat of thousands of Soviet and Chinese nuclear missiles for decades.

“The US really doesn’t have any wish to pay the price of a confrontation between Israel and Iran, should such a thing occur. Otherwise it would have initiated such a confrontation to begin with, without waiting for us.”

The last-minute attempt to prevent an Israeli strikeIsrael News – Haaretz Israeli News source..

Short of standing in front of the camera and telling Israel’s Prime Minister directly not to attack Iran, downsizing the joint U.S.-Israeli military drill next month is the clearest message Obama could have sent Netanyahu.

If we needed any more proof that Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak are still seriously considering an attack on Iran in the near future, the Time Magazine report Friday supplied it. The report said the U.S. has decided to downsize the scale of American forces participating in next month’s joint U.S.-Israeli missile defense exercise. There could have been no clearer message from the Obama Administration to Israel’s leaders that they want nothing to do with an independent Israeli strike.

The Austere Challenge 2012 military drill, already postponed once, has been planned for a long time. Nearly 5,000 American troops are scheduled to arrive to Israel and attend the exercise, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Martin Dempsy declared only a month ago.

But now, the very same Dempsey who is on close terms with his Israeli counterparts and apparently speaking with IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz almost on a weekly basis, said Thursday in London that he doesn’t want to be “complicit” in an Israeli attack on Iran, as if it was some sort of an international crime. And now the news broke that the U.S. is downsizing the military force participating in the Austere Challenge drill by about three-quarters.

Short of standing in front of the camera and specifically telling Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “do not attack Iran,” an unthinkable act so close to the November 6 U.S. elections, this is the clearest message Barack Obama could have sent.

Now, the number of U.S. troops who would potentially be exposed to a retaliatory attack by Iran and its proxies has been minimized, as also the impression that the Austere Challenge drill is actually used as a cover for the positioning of anti-missile defense batteries in preparation of an American attack on Iran.

In fact, the U.S. administration has now announced quite openly that it will not be striking Iran this side of November, and will do everything in its power to discourage Israel from doing so either.

The latest quarterly report issued by the International Atomic Energy Agency on Iran’s full-throttle-ahead uranium enrichment efforts also changes nothing. None of the information specified in the report was new to both the U.S. and Israel. Clearly, the two countries have supplied the IAEA with much of the information, while there is no longer a dispute over the facts. The disagreement between Israel and the U.S. over the timing, effectiveness and desirability of a strike still remains, as does the political distrust between Netanyahu and Obama, which only deepens as Netanyahu’s patron Sheldon Adelson intensifies his efforts to bring about Obama’s defeat in two months.

The scaling back of Austere Challenge along with Dempsey’s words is also an indication that the Americans are not willing to bank on the assumption that Netanyahu is bluffing. As President Shimon Peres, who two weeks ago abandoned the Israeli President’s constitutional non-political position to warn against a unilateral attack on Iran, the Americans also realize that this is crunch-time – this is the time that the opposition to an Israeli strike, within Israel and in the U.S., has to pull out all the stops.

Iran to hold major air defense drill: commander – chicagotribune.com.

Iran, North Korea sign technology agreement | The Times of Israel.

Scientific cooperation pact signed in Tehran in the presence of Ahmadinejad and Pyongyang’s number two; Khamenei says both states have ‘common enemies’

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, right, and president of the Presidium of North Korea’s Supreme People’s Assembly Kim Yong-nam, listen to their national anthems during an official welcoming ceremony in Tehran, Iran, Saturday. (photo credit: AP)

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran and North Korea on Saturday signed a scientific and technological cooperation agreement, bringing the two nations deeply at odds with the US closer together.

Iran’s state TV reported that the agreement was signed in Tehran in the aftermath of last week’s Non-Aligned summit, in the presence of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and North Korea’s No. 2, Kim Yong Nam. State TV did not provide further details on the document.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Kim that the Islamic Republic and North Korea have common enemies and that both should resist threats and pressures to reach their goals.

Both countries are bitter enemies of the US and the West. Iranian and North Korean officials have said in the past that their nations are in “one trench” in the fight against the Western powers.

Now is not the time to strike Iran – Israel Opinion, Ynetnews.

Analysis: Iran racing towards nuclear ‘breakout’ capability, but conditions not ripe for solo Israeli attack

Although the most recent report published by the International Atomic Energy Agency supports Israel’s claims and indicates that Iran could produce enough highly-enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb within four to six months, this is not the time for an Israeli attack on the Islamic Republic.

The report indicates that by February 2013, at the latest, Iran will have nuclear-weapons “breakout” capability, meaning it will have all the skills and parts needed to quickly build an atomic bomb if Supreme Leader Khamenei gives the order to do so. Essentially, this is Israel’s red line.

This does not mean that by the end of 2013 Iran will have a nuclear bomb. Khamenei will most likely delay the decision on a measure that would result in additional sanctions and perhaps even a military strike. He will also want to accumulate fissionable material and a few warheads so that when Iran “comes out of the closet” it will already pose a credible nuclear threat.

This may occur in 2015, maybe even toward the end of 2014. But even before this, as a country “on the brink of nuclear capability” at the end of 2013, Iran will be able to directly threaten its neighbors and Israel to achieve its strategic goals and become a regional and global power.

This situation, which would accelerate the nuclear arms race in our region, threatens our security in the long term more than Hezbollah‘s rockets, Syria and Hamascombined. Washington fears that the Non-Proliferation Treaty will collapse and allow terror groups and other rogue states to acquire a nuclear bomb.

The IAEA’s quarterly report is basically an admission that the efforts exerted by the UN and the West to set Iran’s nuclear program back have failed completely. The report also determined that the military installation in Parchin was built in 2000, but the IAEA learned of its existence only in 2010.

This forced Iran to halt activity at the site and work to conceal the suspected nuclear weapons-related experiments there. The facility has been covered with pink tarps, effectively blocking the UN agency’s attempts to monitor a suspected cleanup of the site. The agency has tried to gain access to Parchin since February – and failed. The Pink plastic sheeting hiding the suspected nuclear facility is apparently also aimed preventing the site’s detection by drone and satellite sensors.

In any case, the IAEA said it would not resume negotiations with Iran until its inspectors are given access to the Parchinmilitary site. Even if the inspectors are allowed into the site, the UN nuclear agency sees no point in looking for poof at a site which has been cleaned up.

The IAEA further revealed that Iran is enriching uranium not only with centrifuges but with laser technology as well. Iran, the report said, is also developing new, faster centrifuges for uranium enrichment that will allow it to produce fissionable material at a record pace. It is safe to assume that Iran wants to produce uranium and develop nuclear warheads before the US, Britain and France (and maybe Israel) get organized and launch a military operation against it.

The report also indicates that Iran accelerated the production of low-enriched uranium (a level of less than 5%) and uranium enriched to 20% purity during the months when the “stifling sanctions” went into effect and Tehran was negotiating with the western powers.

Strike justified?

The West demanded that Iran halt the activity at the Fordo facility, near the city of Qom. The site is buried deep inside a mountain to better protect it against any enemy strikes. Defense Minster Barak is referring to Fordo when he speaks of an “immunity zone.” According to Barak, Israel will find it difficult to launch an effective military strike to delay Iran’s nuclear program after the Islamic Republic implements its plan to install 3,000 advanced centrifuges at Fordo and after it transfers its enriched uranium to the site. Some 1,400 centrifuges have already been installed in Fordo, but most of them are not operational.

The IAEA report says Iran’s facilities have produced 189.4 kilograms (417.6 pounds) of uranium enriched to 20%. In order to produce a bomb or a nuclear warhead Iran would need 260kg (about 570 pounds) of uranium refined to a fissile concentration of 20%. This means that Iran is on track to stockpile enough 20% enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon by February 2013.

The report seemingly justifies an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. There is no doubt that if and when Iran installs an additional 3,000 centrifuges in Fordo and activates them, a solo Israeli strike would most likely not succeed in stopping or even delaying Iran’s race towards a nuclear bomb.

Iran is not showing any signs that it is succumbing to the West’s pressure, and the pace at which it is installing centrifuges (which at the current phase of the nuclear program is more crucial than the actual uranium enrichment) is impressive and poses a major threat. Therefore, if the decision-makers in Jerusalem have decided not to rely on the US and whoever is elected president in November, they must convene the Cabinet and order the IDF to act soon.

True, it would be very risky for Israel to trust an American president to fight its battles, but there are other reasons why Israel should act with restraint:

• The fighting in Syria is weakening the army and the regime in Damascus, thus reducing the likelihood that Syria would want or be able to take part in any Iranian response to an Israeli strike. The war in Syria minimizes the threat on Israel’s home front and would make it easier for the IDF to act in Lebanon against Hezbollah. The rebels have already taken out two Syrian army anti-aircraft batteries, and they are not through. Therefore, Israel should not rush to launch an attack in Iran.

• Moreover, the IDF has also been improving its long range capabilities. Therefore, it is safe to assume that if we wait, Iran’s “immunity zone” will shrink as a result of Israel’s enhanced military capabilities.

• The best way to stop Iran’s nuclear program is to overthrow the regime in Tehran or force it to change its policy due to pressure from the masses. Only economic sanctions can achieve these objectives. This is why we mustn’t give the international community an excuse to soften the sanctions.

• Finally, and perhaps most importantly, there is no consensus within the Israeli public in support of a military strike. The public senses that Iran’s nuclear sword is not hanging over its neck just yet, and it is not convinced that setting Iran’s nuclear program back a few years justifies the heavy toll Israel would pay for attacking the Islamic Republic. The security establishment is also of the opinion that now is not the time to strike, and it does not believe Iran will obtain nuclear weapons if Israel does not act immediately.

So far, Netanyahu and Barak have failed to create legitimacy in the local and international arena for a military operation. Past experience has taught that we should not go to war in such conditions.

US disowns Israel over Iran strike: No weapons or military backup.

DEBKAfile Exclusive Analysis September 1, 2012, 10:04 AM (GMT+02:00)

Putin gave Obama more time

US Gen. Martin Dempsey’s assertion Thursday, Aug. 30 that the US would not be “complicit” in an Israel strike against Iran, together with the drastic reduction in the scale of next month’s joint US-Israeli war game disclosed by TIME, add up to a blunt message from US President Barack Obama to Israel: You are on your own! See how you manage without special US weapons and US military backup, including a shield against missile counter-attack, if you decide to defy us and go through with a military operation against Iran.
Instead of the 5,000 US troops originally assigned for Austere Challenge 12, the annual joint exercise, the Pentagon will send only 1,200 to 1,500 service members. The missile interception systems at the core of the joint exercise will be reduced in number and potency: Patriot anti-missiles will come without crews and maybe one instead of two Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense warships, according to the magazine.

debkafile’s military sources: The Obama administration has put Israel on harsh notice that an attack on Iran to disrupt or delay its nuclear armament will be refused US missile backup – both in the course of the operation and to cover Israel’s back in the event of a counter-strike widening into a general Middle East conflict. The Netanyahu government will bear full and exclusive responsibility for the consequences of attacking Iran.

Obama, who has repeatedly pledged his commitment to Israeli security, is the first American president to cut Israeli adrift against a major threat to its security explicitly posed by Iran.

The US president has put his campaign for reelection next month at great albeit calculated risk. His rival Mitt Romney will not doubt follow up on the charges he made during his acceptance speech to the Republican convention Thursday that Obama threw “allies like Israel under the bus” and failed utterly to stop Iran’s centrifuges spinning.

Obama may find the Jewish vote and campaign contributions fading. For Romney an incumbent president  throwing Israel to the wolves against the ayatollahs is a dream come true.
Binyamin Netanyahu and his defense minister Ehud Barak must bear some of the onus for one of the most damaging ruptures US-Israel relations have ever faced – as will be discussed later. However, the prime cause must be sought elsewhere.
In the last month, Obama has undergone a change of face: The top US soldier and ambassador Dan Shapiro were told to start treating Israel like a pest and telling its leaders that the administration is fed to the teeth with their clamor for action on Iran.

This change did not come out of the blue. debkafile’s Washington and Moscow sources report it evolved from three events:
1. During this month, President Vladimir Putin severed Russia’s military ties with Iran and Syria as debkafile reported earlier: Obama reciprocated by cutting Israel down to size. Moscow informed Tehran and Damascus that there would be no more Russian arms supplies after the delivery of the last items in the pipeline. Putin therefore left both Iran and Syria high and dry amid war dangers in return for Obama cutting Israel off from advance military hardware at a time of peril.
The Russian and American leaders thus put in place the first bricks of an accord for resolving their disputes over a nuclear Iran and the Syrian crisis by the device of slashing the military capacity of Iran, Israel and Syria.
The Russian president took another step as a gesture to Obama: He pulled Russian warships out of the Syrian base of Tartus and the eastern Mediterranean, leaving only a floating dry dock.
In return, he counted on Washington forcing Israel to abandon any plans to strike Iran.
2.  But this exercise in symmetrical reciprocity ran into a major snag: Obama found a tough nut in Jerusalem: Binyamin Netanyahu held out for a pledge of US military action against Iran as his price for holding back. Despite the massive pressure Obama threw at the Israeli government, both through the highest ranking US political and military channels and by mobilizing the government’s most vocal opponents and anti-war circles at home, Netanyahu and Barak did not budge.
They understood, despite Obama’s concealment, that the secret US-Russian deal would in fact preserve Iran’s nuclear program at a point at which Iran’s leaders could have a weapon assembled and unsheathed at any moment.
The also realized that as long as Israel’s military option against Iran was alive, the Obama-Putin deal was stuck, because both Iran’s Ali Khamenei and Syria’s Bashar Assad would likewise refuse to fall into line.

When Romney said he would give America’s friends “more loyalty” and Putin “a little less flexibility and more backbone,” he was referring to President Obama’s request from Putin on June 18, at the G20 conference in Mexico, for more time against his promise to the Russian leader of “more flexibility” later.
To keep his deal with Putin in motion, the US president will have to tighten his squeeze on Israel’s leaders to forego an attack on Iran.
3. The Netanyahu government, for its part, committed three tactical errors:

One: They dragged out the dialogue on Iran with the US administration for far too long – three years or more – and come away for it empty-handed. If their purpose was to persuade the United States to carry the can against Iran, as many Israelis believed, they failed.  No Israeli leader has the right to procrastinate to this extent on action affecting its fundamental security, if not existence. Netanyahu fell into the trap of crying wolf by shouting year after year that Iran must be stopped – and doing nothing.
Two:  Israel’s deterrent capacity, already sapped by inaction, was further eroded by US General Martin Dempsey’s assertions that Israel lacks the capacity to destroy the Iranian nuclear program.
Three:  They failed to act expeditiously to prevent the political opposition using a campaign against an attack on Iran as a stratagem for bringing the government down.
It has been four weeks since the former Mossad director Ephraim Halevi said that if he was an Iranian, he would be worried in the next twelve weeks.
That was on Aug. 2.
Thursday, Aug. 30, Halevi said: “It is important for Israel’s military threat to be credible.”

He was throwing down the gauntlet for Netanyahu and Barak to show they were serious about striking Iran – or else back down completely.
His timeline gives them another eight weeks to show their mettle. During that time, they will be under heavy bombardment from Washington.

Bitter Jerusalem slams US for ‘lack of determination’ in face of Iran’s nuclear drive | The Times of Israel.

After Dempsey says he doesn’t want to be ‘complicit’ in Israeli attack, analysts highlight that US army chief used a term with criminal connotations

Martin Dempsey, left, and Benny Gantz saluting during a visit by the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff to Israel in January. (photo credit: Gideon Markowicz/Flash90)

Israel responded bitterly on Friday to comments by the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, who said on Thursday that he did not want “to be complicit” if Israel were to strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Dempsey’s comments were “strange” and characterized the failure of the United States to take a determined position against Iran’s nuclear drive, a source in Jerusalem was quoted as saying.

The comments “show once again that the US is not demonstrating determination against Iran’s nuclear program,” the source said, according to Israel’s Channel 2 news.

“It is strange that next to the oaths and blood libels of [Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei, the production in Iran [a reference to this week’s Non-Aligned Movement summit], and the [latest] IAEA report — which states that Iran is speeding up uranium enrichment under its nose — the American chief of staff decides to talk about [an Israeli strike] rather than giving a determined message to the Iranians,” the source said.

Speaking to journalists in London, Dempsey on Thursday made by far the clearest public comments from a senior American official distancing the US from any Israeli strike on Iran. He said an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, which is reportedly being seriously contemplated by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, would “clearly delay but probably not destroy Iran’s nuclear program.” Then he added: “I don’t want to be complicit if they [Israel] choose to do it.”

The “international coalition” applying pressure on Iran, warned Dempsey, “could be undone if [Iran] was attacked prematurely”. Sanctions against Iran were having an effect, and they should be given a reasonable chance to succeed, he added.

Israeli commentators made much Friday of Dempsey’s use of the word “complicit.” The US army chief could have said he did not want to be Israel’s “partner” or its “ally” in an attack on Iran, noted analyst Oren Nahari on Channel 1 state TV, but instead Dempsey employed a term with criminal connotations.

On the same channel, analyst Ari Shavit said that the events of the past week — including the publication of the IAEA report showing Iran expanding its nuclear enrichment program, and Iran’s hosting of the Non-Aligned Movement at which it declared it would continue its nuclear drive — showed that both diplomacy and sanctions have failed, and yet the US was doing nothing to ratchet up pressure on Iran.

Two weeks ago, Shavit noted, Israel’s President Shimon Peres publicly placed his faith in President Obama to thwart Iran’s drive to the bomb. America’s current policy, emblemized by Dempsey’s comments, said Shavit, “constitutes a resounding slap in the office for Peres and those other Israeli moderates who want to place their faith in the US.”

Given the US’s publicly stressed disinclination to act, “Israel is being pushed into a corner, in a way that is really dangerous,” said Shavit. “If all these moderate players, in the US and Europe, are so concerned about a dangerous Israeli action [against Iran], why haven’t they taken any meaningful action?” he asked.

Why, for instance, Shavit went on, did the US not condemn the Non-Aligned Movement gathering in Tehran. And why, asked Shavit, didn’t Obama “respond in his own voice to the IAEA report, which essentially said, ‘Mr Obama, you have failed’?”

Regional analyst Oded Granot said on the same program that Iran “does not think Obama will act” by force to stop its nuclear program.

On Channel 2, diplomatic reporter Udi Segal said comments like Dempsey’s might be bolstering the sense in the Israeli leadership that “maybe there’s no-one else who’s going to help us.”

US reiterates commitment to Israel’s security – Israel News, Ynetnews.

Responding to Mitt Romney’s criticism of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy, White House says that the US’ military, intelligence cooperation with Israel has never been closer

Yitzhak Benhorin

Washington – The White House on Friday dismissed Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney‘s criticism of President Barak Obama‘s foreign policy, claiming that the United States’ ties with Israel have never been closer.

“I can simply say that, under President Obama, cooperation with Israel between our military and intelligence communities has never been closer,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters.

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“Assistance provided to Israel by the United States has never been greater than it has been under President Obama.”

Carney’s remarks came in response to Romney’s speech at the Republican Convention, during which the latter accused Obama of throwing “allies like Israel under the bus.”

Carney admitted that he had not discussed Republican presidential hopeful’s remarks with Obama, but stressed that the charges were unfounded.

“We have an extremely close relationship with Israel, which is appropriate given our unshakeable commitment to Israel’s security,” he said.

Iranian issue

Addressing Iran‘s nuclear program, the press secretary emphasized the incumbent leader’s unwavering pledge to prevent

the Islamic Republic from obtaining atom weapons. Obama’s efforts, Carney said, organized “a consensus of approbation” within the international community meant to compel Iran to renounce its nuclear aspirations.

“And that effort has resulted in the most severe sanctions regime ever levied against – or leveled against a country in history, with greater international consensus on this issue than has ever existed,” he said.

“When President Obama took office, the world was divided on this issue, and Iran was united; the opposite is now true,” he added. “The Iranian regime is under intense economic as well as political pressure, thanks to the efforts of the international community, led by the United States.”

Carney reiterated the White House’s stance that the diplomatic measures aimed at curbing Iran’s atom program have yet to be exhausted, but noted that these attempts to reach a compromise do have an expiration date.

“It is the president’s belief that the best way to ensure that Iran does not acquire a nuclear weapon is to achieve that goal through a diplomatic solution and a choice by Iran to forgo its nuclear ambition,” he said.

“The opportunity to achieve that goal remains available, that window remains open. But it is absolutely the case that that window will not remain open indefinitely.”

Romney, who accepted the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday, claimed Obama abandoned Israel and other American allies even as he has relaxed sanctions on Castro’s Cuba.

“He (Obama) abandoned our friends in Poland by walking away from our missile defense commitments, but is eager to give Russia’s President Putin the flexibility he desires, after the election,” he said. “Under my administration, our friends will see more loyalty, and Mr. Putin will see a little less flexibility and more backbone.”

Review & Outlook: Why Israel Doesn’t Trust Obama – WSJ.com.

The U.S. is harder on its ally than on Iran’s nuclear program.

Barack Obama is fond of insisting that he “has Israel’s back.” Maybe he should mention that to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.

In remarks to journalists in London quoted by the Guardian, General Martin Dempsey warned that any Israeli attack on Iran would “clearly delay but probably not destroy Iran’s nuclear programs.” He also said economic sanctions on Iran were having an effect and needed more time to work, but that the good they were doing “could be undone if [Iran] was attacked prematurely.”

And to underscore the firmness of his opposition to an Israeli strike, the Chairman added that “I don’t want to be complicit if they choose to do it.”

We don’t know what exactly Gen. Dempsey thinks American non-complicity might entail in the event of a strike. Should the Administration refuse to resupply Israel with jets and bombs, or condemn an Israeli strike at the U.N.? Nor do we know if the General was conducting freelance diplomacy or sending a signal from an Administration that feels the same way but doesn’t want to say so during a political season.

Whatever the case, the remarks were counterproductive and oddly timed, with this week’s report by the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran’s nuclear programs haven’t been slowed in the least by U.S. or international sanctions. In fact, they are accelerating.

Iran has now installed 2,140 centrifuges at its underground Fordo facility near the city of Qom. Its stockpile of uranium enriched to 20%—or 87% of the enrichment needed to reach bomb-grade levels—has grown from effectively zero to some 200 kilograms in a year. Only 50 more kilograms of 20% uranium are needed to produce a bomb, and that’s saying nothing of Iran’s additional large stockpiles of reactor-grade uranium that can also be enriched to higher levels of purity.

Administration officials have also repeatedly told the media that they aren’t entirely sure if Iran really intends to build a bomb. We’ll grant that ultimate intentions are usually unknowable, especially in closed societies such as Iran’s.

Yet as the IAEA noted, “the Agency has become increasingly concerned about the possible existence in Iran of undisclosed nuclear related activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile.” These activities, by the way, “continued after 2003,” according to the report. This puts paid for the umpteenth time the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate that misleadingly claimed the contrary.

No wonder the Israelis are upset—at the U.S. Administration. It’s one thing to hear from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that he wants to wipe you off the map: At least it has the ring of honesty. It’s quite another to hear from President Obama that he has your back, even as his Administration tries to sell to the public a make-believe world in which Iran’s nuclear intentions are potentially peaceful, sanctions are working and diplomacy hasn’t failed after three and half years.

The irony for the Administration is that its head-in-the-sand performance is why many Israeli decision-makers believe they had better strike sooner than later. Not only is there waning confidence that Mr. Obama is prepared to take military action on his own, but there’s also a fear that a re-elected President Obama will take a much harsher line on an Israeli attack than he would before the first Tuesday in November.

If Gen. Dempsey or Administration officials really wanted to avert an Israeli strike, they would seek to reassure Jerusalem that the U.S. is under no illusions about the mullahs’ nuclear goals—or about their proximity to achieving them. They’re doing the opposite.

Since coming to office, Obama Administration policy toward Israel has alternated between animus and incompetence. We don’t know what motivated Gen. Dempsey’s outburst, but a President who really had Israel’s back would publicly contradict it.