Iran had two bellicose messages for President Barack Obama, The were offered by Deputy Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Brig. Gen. Massoud Jazayeri: 1 “Our commanders have been authorized to respond to any kind of hostile move by the enemy.” debkafile notes that Iranian officers are also deployed in Syria and Lebanon. 2. A mocking “Mr Obama, make no mistake. We too have all our options on the table. Before you get deeper in the region’s quagmire, go back home!”

Israeli Patriots were not deployed against further Iranian drone incursions but potential Iranian/Hizballah missile attacks from Lebanon or Syria. debkafile: US intelligence now warns President Obama that Iran’s nuclear breakthrough will be much earlier than predicted - late November, only seven weeks off. A Congressional Research Dept. report concludes Israel has sufficient air force and refueling capacities to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, including Fordo, alone. The two findings led to the new Foreign Policy proposal of a joint US-Israeli “October surprise.”

US Gen. Martin Dempsey said Tuesday, Aug. 14 Israel could “delay but not destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities.” debkafile: Israel's leaders and military chiefs don’t pretended otherwise, because even a US strike could no longer destroy those capacities. Today, an Israeli attack could delay Iran for a couple of years; an American strike, for 4-5 years. 2007 was the last moment for totaling the program. But the longer action is held off now the shorter the delay achievable in Iran’s bomb-building time table.

In the wake of failed diplomacy, US President Barack Obama is in the process of “reconsidering” his decision to hold off on military action against Iran. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta was in Riyadh to sound out Saudi rulers on a combined US-GCC operation.  In its latest issue, out last Friday, DEBKA-Net-Weekly explores the prospects of this operation, along with revelations about President Vladimir Putin’s talk with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. From Jerusalem, Putin issued his “most striking warning to Obama.”

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 US President Barack Obama has again persuaded Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to hold off attacking Iran’s nuclear program in the coming months by promising a new set of tough sanctions against Iran. US administration officials assured debkafile’s Washington sources that Israel’s leaders, were won over once more – this time by the Obama administration’s promise to impose an air and sea blockade on Iran, failing progress at the Moscow nuclear talks. Tehran may hit back by closing the Strait of Hormuz.

US President Obama recently vetoed a detailed Franco-Saudi plan for ending President Bashar Assad’s rule by means of a massive air strike against his palace that would wipe him, his family and top leadership circle out, debkafile reports. French warplanes from the Charles de Gaulle aircraft carrier off Syria and Saudi and United Arab Emirates bombers flying in through Jordan would devastate the palace atop Mount Qassioun northeast of Damascus. The US was asked to pitch in by disrupting Syrian air defenses.

Israel has withdrawn its pledge to US President Barack Obama not to strike Iran’s nuclear sites before the November presidential election after he rejected its minimal demands for the nuclear negotiations with Iran. This is reported exclusively by debkafile as the Six-Power talks with Iran in Baghdad drag into a second day on Thursday, May 24. Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned Wednesday: “No one has to tell us what to do [or not to do]. All options are on the table.”

Only on DEBKA-Net-Weekly: In the latest edition out Friday, find out what the US President and the Israeli Prime Minister really said to each other and the measure of understanding they reached with regard to military action against Iran this year. We can reveal in which areas they agreed on separate US and Israel steps for the common purpose of cutting down Iran’s nuclear weapon capability and in which they will work in harness. Timetables are the key.

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The new round of European sanctions will not stop Iran's pursuit of a nuclear weapon, Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned in a radio interview Tuesday, Jan. 24.  debkafile: The Obama administration and EU delayed oil sanctions to July 1 for back-channel contacts to ripen and produce a fresh round of nuclear talks with Tehran. Barak stressed Israel's hand was always near the trigger and advised taking "very seriously" Israel's military option which had not been taken off the table.

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.  

Hours after US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told CBS that Iran could build a nuclear bomb in a year or less, Gen. Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint US Chiefs of Staff, issued a warning: "Iran is playing a dangerous game that could ensnare the Middle East, the Middle East and others into conflict and a renewed arms race. Don't push it." The loss of the drone is not the end of US efforts, he said, adding: "America is sharing intelligence with Israel."

"Despite the efforts to disrupt the Iranian nuclear program, they have reached a point where they can assemble a bomb in a year or potentially less," said US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta in a CBS interview Tuesday, Dec. 20 marking a radical change in US administration policy. "That's a red line for us and that's a red line, obviously, for the Israelis," he said. Instead of warning Israel against striking Iran, Panetta said: "If we have to do it we will deal with it."

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.