By OSAMA AL SHARIF

US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta predicts that Israel will direct a pre-emptive strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities “in April, May or June,” according to David Ignatius, the widely-circulated Washington Post columnist. In the view of many Western analysts, Israel has taken the decision to bomb Iran and is only waiting for an opportune time to direct its blow.

The New York Times writer Ronen Bergman, who interviewed Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak and other prominent Israeli officials last month, says that there are three categories of questions that matter today: Israel’s ability to cause severe damage to Iran’s nuclear sites and its readiness to withstand an inevitable counterattack, securing overt or tacit support from the United States, and deciding that this is really the last resort; a virtual point of no return for Israel.

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So why are Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu and his defense minister exaggerating Iran’s threat? According to Robert Haddick, writing in Foreign Policy last week, there are four reasons to do so; time pressure as Iran expands its nuclear operations, especially its uranium enrichment capabilities, failure of other alternatives especially political and economic, the need to escalate the crisis by dragging the US and Gulf countries into the conflict, and finally managing the endgame in the form of a long-term war of attrition that will keep Iran bogged down.

There are other reasons as well. Israel’s security is indeed threatened but not by Iran as much as by the changing geopolitical realities in the region brought about by the Arab Spring. Israel is not happy with the arrival of the Islamists to the helm in Egypt and other Arab countries. It is concerned that the United States is now willing to open dialogue with moderate Islamists in Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco and others.

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