Israel Likely Won't Attack Iran This Year

(AP)

The first meeting between Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu, as leaders of the United States and Israel, has resulted in one unspoken headline: There is hardly any chance that Israel will bomb Iran this year.

Netanyahu publicly thanked President Obama for keeping all "options on the table," the current euphemism for a possible military strike aimed at Iranian nuclear facilities. Mr. Obama, however, for the first time specified that he wants to talk to the Islamic Republic of Iran until the end of this year -- and then assess whether there has been any progress.

Israel's new government leaders have clearly stated they will not get in Mr. Obama's way in his desire to engage with Iran. The Israelis strongly doubt that such efforts will work -- and certainly clandestine activities by the Mossad will continue, as will planning by Israel's air force -- but it is an extremely important part of Israel's foreign and defense policies not to anger the President of the United States. So long as Mr. Obama is talking with Tehran (assuming that Iran agrees to start talks after that country's national election on June 12), he will not give the green light to an Israeli attack.

Dan Raviv is host of radio's CBS News Weekend Roundup and author of Friends In Deed: Inside the U.S.-Israel Alliance and other books.

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George Washington on Israel


"A passionate attachment of one nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification." ~George Washington Farewell Address


"The nation which indulges toward another habitual hatred or habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interests." ~ George Washington


"Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none." ~ Thomas Jefferson