“I would be surprised if there is no knowledge about the Saudi positions (in Israel) or knowledge in Saudi of the Israeli positions,” said David Menashri, director of the Center for Iranian Studies at Tel Aviv University.
It’s part of a complicated mix of mutual worries and divergent risks — the Gulf, unlike Israel, has critical commercial and diplomatic ties with Iran — that puts Washington in the middle as the common ally and chief Western architect of pressure tactics on Iran.
The next moves are expected after the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency releases an intelligence report Tuesday to its 35 board members.
Last week speculation reached a fever pitch that Israel was preparing to launch a strike at Iran designed to set back or destroy its burgeoning nuclear capability. As Joel Greenberg reported :
Days of feverish media reports about possible Israeli plans to strike Iran, coupled with a long-range missile test, publicized air force drills abroad and a civil defense exercise Thursday, have heightened speculation here about the likelihood of military action against the Iranian nuclear program.
Taken separately, none of the recent military actions is novel or unprecedented. But the combination of events, along with renewed warnings by Israeli leaders this week about the Iranian threat, have intensified the media focus on Israel’s military option, leading some cabinet ministers to complain that sensitive security matters were being compromised.
The International Atomic Energy Agency is slated to publish a report next week on Iran’s nuclear program, and the developments in Israel have been interpreted by some commentators as part of an orchestrated effort to prod Western nations into stiffening their sanctions on Tehran.
Israel’s security chiefs are reported to oppose an attack, concerned about possible retaliation by Iran and Iranian-backed militants on Israel’s northern and southern borders.
But the idea of high-level support for such action was catapulted into the headlines after the well-connected columnist Nahum Barnea asked in an article in the Yediot Ahronot newspaper last Friday whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak had decided between them to attack Iran’s nuclear installations.
Barnea wrote that the question is preoccupying Israeli security and government officials, as well as foreign governments.
The Haaretz newspaper reported Wednesday that Netanyahu and Barak were working to mobilize support in the Israeli cabinet for a military strike and had won over Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, although a majority of senior ministers opposed the move.
More from The Washington Post
Behind anti-Iran rhetoric, fears of nuclear gains
Former Sec. of State Rice says US should toughen Iran stance
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