Israel has flatly refused to give the Obama administration a promise to abstain from attacking Iran's nuclear sites. US and Israeli military experts disagree on most things except that there would be no real military obstacles to reaching all of Iran's nuclear sites.

The West and Israel have no option but to admit the failure of a decade of sanctions, military threats, diplomatic penalties, cyber war and covert operations to abort Iran's drive for a nuclear bomb. Tehran has never wavered from its goal, citing the "Persian Carpet Doctrine" as its secret ...

Major US-Israel differences surfaced suddenly Thursday, Dec. 1, over the timing and circumstances of an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, when Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint US Chiefs of Staff, said: "I don't know whether Israel would alert the United States ahead of time if it decided to take military action against Iran." Three hours later, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak maintained US policy would enable Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon without the possibility of attacking it. Meanwhile, facilities are being hidden underground.

It is within the next six months or never. Israel's defense minister has finally confirmed its time frame for an attacking Iran's nuclear sites, having given up on sanctions present or future and strong UN nuclear agency counter-measures having any effect.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak told the PBS interviewer Charlie Rose Wednesday, Nov. 16 that none of the experiments Iran was conducting was based on a neutron source.  "It's always simultaneous explosions on heavy metals and certain other activities which cannot be explained," he said. DEBKAfile notes his stress on the lack of evidence that Iran was developing tactical neutron bombs, but it did confim experiments with uranium- and plutonium- based explosives, i.e.,large nuclear bombs, not small, tactical warheads.

The IAEA circulated its Iran report Tuesday night, Nov. 8. It establishes that Iran is clearly working on developing atomic weapons: Its clandestine computer-simulated and practical tests on nuclear detonators, uranium enrichment at hidden sites and tests for adapting nuclear warheads to missiles have no explanation other than work on nuclear weapon components. Israel may decide to delay its military option to give sanctions a chance - even though Washington has dropped them.

It is feared in Jerusalem that the war will develop from a Syrian-Hizballah attack on Israel. If the US opts out of a strike against Iran, it will be left to Israel to do the job singlehanded.

Israeli leaders focus on Palestinian UN bid for state recognition to escape grappling with far more serious issues – hostile Turkish steps, Egypt's retreat from peace norms and Hamas' military and weapons buildup.

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas surprised a group of Israeli intellectuals whom he received in Ramallah Monday, Sept. 5, by informing them that he had met Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak in Amman on Aug. 24. debkafile's sources disclose that the Barak-Abbas conversation in Jordan was more businesslike than diplomatic. It revolved around the Palestinian UN application to be submitted on Sep. 20 and clear security limits laid down by Barak for the Palestinian popular street response. Jordan's intelligence chief was also present.

Prime Minister Netanyahu has dropped his long-time ally and partner-in-policymaking Defense Minister Ehud Barak and turned to hardline Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman as his only adviser. But essentially, Bibi has dispensed with a circle of advisers and taken over the solo lead in all defense affairs and important foreign relations.

Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak phoned the Egyptian council head, Defense Minister Mohamed Tantawi, Saturday night, Feb. 12, to thank him for transferring 900 men of two 18th Division battalions to Sinai to rein in the lawless rampage raging there. The Council acted within 24 hours of taking the reins of office from Hosni Mubarak. There is some speculation that the army is hiding the deposed president in a base on the Red Sea coast – far from Sharm el-Sheikh.

The government headed by Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak survived the Galant episode drummed up by the media and opposition, but lost its preferred candidate for chief of staff of the armed forces. The contest is not yet over.

Skillful choreography, not just spontaneous popular dissent, brought Hosni Mubarak's 30 years as president to an end Tuesday night, Feb. 2. In fact, the hands of the United States, Britain and Egyptian army heads were plain to see at every stage.The axing of Maj. Gen. Yoav Galant as Israel's next chief of staff – on the same day - was contrived too. Maj. Gen. Gaby Ashkenazi has been building momentum to challenge Binyamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak as a future political leader.

Behind the obvious effects of the defense minister's parting with Labor and creation of a new party, there were two unpublished determining factors: A new opening for talks with the Palestinians and the defense minister belief that he cut short a dangerous coup against the government with military overtones.

In private conversations, Defense Minister Ehud Barak who Monday, Jan. 17 resigned as Labor chairman and established a new party with four supporters, has accused President Shimon Peres of plotting his downfall with MK Haim Ramon of the opposition Kadima and Ofer Eini of Labor, debkafile's exclusive sources report.

Early Tuesday, Binyamin Netanyahu's Likud and Atzmaut (Independence) sign a coalition agreement assigning four cabinet portfolios to the new party.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak has resigned from Labor and formed a new party called Atzmaut (Independence.) Four of the 13 party members have so far followed him. Barak stays on as defense minister in the coalition headed by Binyamin Netanyahu. debkafile reports the two were in sync every step of the way. Three Labor ministers, Yaacov Herzog, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer and Avishai Braverman quit the government. Barak introduced the new party Monday, Jan. 17, as "centrist, Zionist and democratic."

Washington and Jerusalem have fallen out on issues relating to Israeli security and current estimates of where the Iranian nuclear program stands, debkafile's military and Washington sources report. Wednesday, Dec. 15, Defense Minister Ehud Barak denied permission for the president's Special Adviser on the Middle East Dennis Ross to meet separately with the IDF's incoming and outgoing chiefs of staff and head of intelligence as an attempt to go over the heads of the Prime Minister Netanyahu and himself.

The "Galant document" expose started out last month as a shabby ruse trumped up, or forged, to sway defense minister Ehud Barak in his choice of the next chief of staff. It has ballooned into a major scandal sweeping up Israel's top generals and hanging over the defense minister's head.
Tuesday, Aug. 17, Chief of staff Lt. Gen. Gaby Ashkenazi told police investigators he had received the document weeks ago and not reported it.

US and Israeli defense chiefs Robert Gates and Ehud Barak told reporters at the end of their talks in the Pentagon on April 27: "Syria and Iran are providing Hizballah with rockets of ever-increasing capability...  and we're watching it very carefully" - Gates; and "We do not intend to provoke any kind of major collision in Lebanon or with Syria, but are watching closely..." - Barak.

debkafile: Neither sounded ready to halt the headlong Iranian-Syrian-Hizballah drive for a summer war.

Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak warned that Hizballah and its 45,000 rockets - including "some which many sovereign countries do not have" - are directed by Iranian and Syrian civilian and military officials already present in Lebanon.  He termed the differentiation between Hizballah terrorists, the state of Lebanon and their sponsors artificial. Iran's nuclear program aims at jumping straight into the second- or second-and-a-half generation of nuclear warheads."