GOING OUT LIKE A BUTTERHEAD IN THE SUN:

Netanyahu's public warmongering ‒ threatening to bomb Iran since he came to power for his second term in 2009 ‒ and his confrontational and defiant policies unwittingly played a major role in shaping the US strategy against Iran. [...]

Israel's words and actions under the two previous prime ministers, Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert, were based on two tenets. First, not to make it appear that Israel was spearheading the campaign ‒ "to be positioned on the rear slope," in Israel military parlance, to stop Iran's nuclear program. This position, recommended by the Mossad, Military Intelligence and the Atomic Energy Commission, derived mainly from fears that if Israel took a leading role in the campaign, it would backfire.

After all, Israel is considered by foreign observers to be the sixth largest nuclear power in the world and questions were bound to be asked why the international community was focusing only on Iran, and not on Israel, too.

"If you have butter on your head, don't stay out in the sun," a former senior Israeli official summarized.

The second reason not to be at the frontline of the struggle was that all major Israeli strategic decisions traditionally are coordinated with the US. On the Israeli side, the overall responsibility for executing the anti-Iranian policy was given to the Mossad. Its chief at that time, Meir Dagan, became the undisputed "czar" of attempts to slow down Iran's progress to a nuclear bomb.

The Israeli policy, which was shared and accepted by US president George W. Bush's administration, was to create the conditions that would cause the Iranian leadership to understand that it was under international siege, which eventually might lead to its collapse. In other words, to make the Iranian leaders realize that their choice was between the continuation of the nuclear project or the regime's survival.

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