US-Israeli discord over Iran went into overdrive Sunday, Jan. 15 when the White House called off Austere Challenge 12, the biggest joint war game the US and Israel have every staged, in reprisal for a comment by Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon in an early morning radio interview. He said the United States was hesitant over sanctions against Iran's central bank and oil for fear of a spike in oil prices and Israel must be ready to defend itself. Yaalon exacerbated the row over US objections to any Israeli role in military action against Iran.  

Iran has crossed another red line in its drive for a nuclear weapon with the announcement Sunday, Jan. 8 that the underground uranium enrichment site at Fordo near Qom goes on stream soon. debkafile's military sources:  60 percent enriched uranium can be produced at this facility - just one step before weapons grade. Israel has warned that once Fordo is operational, Iran's nuclear bomb program will be immune to attack and hidden from Western surveillance.  US and Israel launch military deployment.

Iran has embarked on "activities related to possible weaponization," said American sources Thursday, Dec. 22, thereby crossing the Obama administration's red line. This accounts for the dramatic reversal of the US administration's wait-and-see policy on attacking Iran, as articulated this week by Leon Panetta and top US soldier, Gen. Martin Dempsey. debkafile reports the US and Israeli are now in sync on action against Iran and have tightened cooperation.

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.

Iran exhibited the top-secret US stealth drone RQ-170 Sentinel captured on Sunday, Dec. 4. Its almost perfect condition confirmed Tehran's claim that the UAV was downed by a cyber attack, meaning it was brought in undamaged by an electronic warfare ambush. This is a major debacle for the stealth technology the US uses in its warplanes and the drone technology developed by the US and Israel.  It obliges both to revise their strike plans against Iran's nuclear program.

Complaints about the gaps in the Obama administration's knowledge of Israel's intentions to attack Iran's nuclear facilities were heard in Washington Wednesday, Dec. 7. In its latest issue out Friday, DEBKA-Net-Weekly revealed exclusively what the US administration asked of Israel in this regard, its response and their plans for a nuclear-armed Iran. Our experts examined how the arrival of the US stealth drone RQ-170 in Iranian hands affect a potential attack.
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US President Barack Obama declared in ringing tones Wednesday, Nov. 30, "We don't compromise when it comes to Israel's security." Three days later, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in a lecture to the Brookings Institute outlined America's demands of Israel: To abstain from attacking Iran and rely on the US; to negotiate with the Palestinians; to reach out to Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, and to pursue only goals shared with the US – demands almost synonymous with the Israeli opposition's platform.

Adm. Michael Mullen is rightly acclaimed as the American military leader who contributed most to the depth and breadth of US-Israeli security ties and to the IDF's preparedness for a potential war with Iran. While holding Israel back from attacking Iran, Mullen was responsible for making the IDF America's senior military partner.  Before he retires as Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff on September 30, Adm. Mullen arrived Monday, July 18, to take leave of Israel's top command.

In his address to the US Congress, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu indicated  Israel may act against a nuclear-armed Iran, ruled out return to the 1967 borders, stressed Israeli troops would stay on the Jordan River and agreed to negotiate the status of Jewish settlements, while retaining Israeli troops on the Jordan River. US senators and congressmen on both sides of the aisle rose thirty times to give him cheering ovations.

President Barack Obama is about to withhold the US veto from a Palestinian-Arab motion due to be tabled at the UN Security Council condemning Israel for its settlement policy in the West Bank and Jerusalem, debkafile's Washington sources report. If he does, he will be the first US president to let an anti-Israel motion go through the Security Council and building on the West Bank and even in the forty-year old suburbs of East Jerusalem would become illegal.

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 first batch of WikiLeaks released Sunday, Nov. 28, covered five years of private exchanges from 2005 between US embassy diplomats and Israeli security chiefs on Iran. Defense Minister Ehud Barak is quoted as estimating in 2009 that 18 months remained as a "window of opportunity" for destroying Iran's nuclear sites. Israel is not in a position to underestimate Iran and be surprised like the US was on September 11, 2001," said Military Intelligence Chief Maj.-Gen. Amos Yadlin in May, 2009.

Binyamin Netanyahu must have hoped those generous US benefits would persuade his ministers to endorse a second settlement construction freeze. He therefore misled them into believing they were on offer. No such commitments were made and the freeze never took off either.

As the UN General Assembly opens with speeches by US President Barack Obama and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, US media carry a plethora of leaks maintaining that the United States has embarked on a clandestine cyber war against Iran and that Israel has established elite cyber war units for this purpose.

Stuxnet, rated as the most advanced and dangerous virus ever devised, is said to have crippled 3,000 enrichment centrifuges.

On Aug. 6, the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency informed Congress of the sale to Israel of 60 million gallons of unleaded gasoline, 284 million gallons of JP-8 aviation jet fuel and 100 million gallons of diesel fuel worth an estimated $2bn, saying: "Israel will have no difficulty absorbing this additional fuel into its armed forces." debkafile notes the date: Ten days after a Japanese supertanker tanker carrying 200,000 tons of oil was attacked heading out of the Strait of Hormuz.

Netanyahu accuses Obama of reneging another set of understandings - both on Iran and on the talks with the Palestinians, raising suspicions in Washington that Israel plans to attack Iran.

Iran has declared a state of war on its northwestern border and is pouring Revolutionary Guards units with equipment into the Caspian region against what Tehran claims are US and Israeli forces concentrated on army and air bases in Azerbaijan ready to strike Iran's nuclear facilities.
Iranian officials often speak of impending US and Israeli attacks in general terms; never until now have they named a specific location under threat.

In a rare public expression of concern, Meir Dagan, head of Israel's Mossad, warned Tuesday, June 1, that the progressive decline of American strength over the past decade and the perception of the Obama administration as "soft on military options for solving disputes" have cut deep into Israel's military and diplomatic maneuverability and made it fair game for its enemies. Barack Obama has not given up on an imposed peace solution - or radically amended his attitude toward Israel.

Barack Obama is suddenly enamored of Israel and its prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu. He has even lifted his arms embargo against the Jewish State. Netanyahu is reserving his options.

Palestinian Authority Chairman, Mahmoud Abbas stated Monday, April 26 that he is willing to go back to negotiations with Israel, without pre-conditions, if the Arab League's monitoring committee session on May 1 approves. "Try me," he said in an exclusive interview with Israel Channel 2 TV's Ehud Yaari.
debkafile notes that Abbas appears to have radically changed direction after 15 months of stalling against US efforts to restart the talks on one pretext or another.