What Will Israel Do?

A unilateral military strike against Iran is much more likely following the latest intel report about Tehran's nuke program.

By Michael Hirsh
Newsweek

"Ehud Olmert, like George W. Bush, is trying hard to make it seem that nothing has changed, and that the international diplomatic coalition against Iran is still intact.....

But Olmert is not Moses; he can't hold back elemental forces all by himself. And a rising tide of opinion in Israel's intelligence and national-security circles believes that the NIE does signal American retreat--and, more profoundly, renewed Israeli isolation over what is deemed an existential threat out of Tehran. Gen. Ephraim Sneh, a former deputy defense minister who has warned for years that Israel would eventually have to confront Iran alone, told me that "today we are closer to this situation than we were three weeks ago ... we have to be prepared to forestall this threat on our own.".....

Bush may also reassure the Israelis and Arab allies that the NIE overstated things in letting Iran off the hook. In yet another briefing to angry congressmen Wednesday, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell conceded that "we could have written parts of it more clearly," according to a senior congressman who was there. The ranking Republican member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Rep. Peter Hoekstra, says he's calling for an independent commission to probe the report. "Most of the world looks at it and says it's an embarrassment to the United States because once again the U.S. intelligence community has dramatically changed its position," Hoekstra told NEWSWEEK. And it may well be that Washington must take back its words one more time to prevent the Israelis from acting on their own."