An Iran war has become inevitable since international diplomacy gave Iran the time and freedom to accelerate its progress towards a nuclear bomb. While rapidly fortifying its nuclear facilities against bombardment, Tehran is also raising the level of uranium enrichment, developing dirty bombs and sending terrorists to blow up Israelis abroad. Sanctions have failed to force Iran to give up its drive for a nuclear weapon or the development of nuclear-capable ballistic missiles. These dangerous developments are generating the current an eve-of-war climate.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz are rightly using a necessary austerity package as a lever for getting the country on track for a war economy, without saying so. They avoid discussing the consequences and duration of the new measures because they can’t tell how long a war, which they believe may be close, will last or how it will end. debkafile estimates that they are quietly building a $25-30 strategic financial reserve for the worst-case scenario.

As the US and Israel continued to bicker over an attack on Iran, their war preparations continued apace. debkafile's military sources report that flight after flight of US warplanes and transports were seen cutting eastward over Sinai on their way to Gulf destinations, presumably Saudi Arabia, at a frequency not seen in the Middle East for many years. Sunday, Feb. 5, Alireza Forghani, strategic adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said, "It would only take nine minutes to wipe out Israel."

Tuesday, Dec. 6, the US, France and Britain went into concerted action to contain the Syrian crisis before it detonates a regional conflict and deteriorates into civil strife. At the same time, Syria and its neighbors sharply intensified their war preparations, fully expecting diplomacy to fail.  In Geneva, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the leaders of Syrian opposition groups that the Obama administration had stepped up its pressure on Assad and now referred to his regime as the "Assad gang."