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all want the apparent security of a nuclear umbrella. The most volatile region on Earth would then be replete with mankind’s most dangerous weapons.
    Obama also said that he was “not bluffing” about possible use of a “military option” against Iran.
    American military commanders chose to say little about what could be done against Iran, and leaders at the Pentagon kept insisting that there was “time and space” to try all other options before resorting to armed force.
    Israeli officials worked themselves into a rhetorical frenzy of warning that their patience with Iran was running out. Even more urgent, they pointed out, was the fact that Israel had a limited number of missiles, airplanes, and bunker-buster bombs that could penetrate hardened and buried Iranian facilities. That meant that Israel’s window of opportunity was rapidly closing in 2012.
    Defense Minister Ehud Barak, a former prime minister and before that a commando soldier with plenty of behind-enemy-lines irregular missions, coined the phrase “zone of immunity”—his way of suggesting that if his country waited too long, it would be too late for an Israeli strike on Iran to have much effect.
    Barak’s and Netanyahu’s comments were part of a concerted campaign to keep the American media, politicians, and people highly engaged in this topic, as though to let the notion gain wide credence that someone would have to bomb Iran. Sharing intelligence data with their U.S. counterparts, the two Israeli politicians stressed that even as Iran bought more time by agreeing to negotiations, it was secretly moving forward in uranium enrichment, bomb design, and missile construction.
    Wielding some powers of persuasion and helped by the congressional access of the AIPAC lobby, Israelis kept reminding the U.S. that Iran was a growing threat. Israeli leaders were attempting to manipulate public opinion and government decision making, but this could also be seen as urging America to pay attention to something big that might otherwise go unnoticed in the noisy background of Iraq, Afghanistan, terrorism, and economic issues.
    The official Israeli message was that Iran’s nuclear program endangered American interests all over the Middle East, the shipping lanes for oil, and even targets in Europe that could be reached by Iranian missiles. The Mossad joined in hammering home the message—in Washington—that if Israel did agree to restrain itself and do nothing overt, then the United States should guarantee that America would do everything necessary to take care of the problem.
    The pitch was partly aimed at intimidating Iran’s leaders, of course, so that they would believe that refusing to stop their nuclear program could trigger devastating attacks. The message was also directed at Europe and especially at Russia and China, which were reluctant to tighten sanctions against Iran. Surely they would not want Israel to take military action, with all the consequences for oil supplies and other disruptions.
    The Mossad, even before Dagan’s retirement at the end of 2010, helped lead a campaign to leak information about Iran’s clandestine nuclear labs and weapons factories. But Dagan felt that Netanyahu and Barak were saying too much in public. It did not seem useful to be extremely alarming, huffing and puffing but perhaps never blowing the enemy’s house down.
    The Mossad director continued to hope that delay or destruction could be accomplished by sabotage, low-intensity covert warfare, and more efforts to bring down the radical Islamic government in Tehran. He predicted that if Israel were to bomb Iran, the people of that country would “rally around the mullahs,” and that would set back hopes of a regime change that could make Iran far more friendly.
    Dagan certainly agreed that a nuclear-armed Iran, with a radical Islamic government, would pose a threat to the existence of his country. He always sought to honor the memory of his grandfather and other