Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nearly ordered strikes on Iran in 2012 in defiance of then-President Barack Obama, The New York Times is reporting.
American spy satellites had detected clusters of Israeli aircraft in what appeared to early preparations for an attack during the summer of 2012, the newspaper said Wednesday. This came after more than a year of warnings to the Obama administration by the Israelis that they might attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Michael Oren, the then-Israeli ambassador in Washington, said: “I was ready to be called in by Israel and sent to the White House or the State Department to tell them we had attacked, or if they already knew from their own sources, straight to CNN.”
The Obama administration became so concerned that it sent a senior representative to Israel every few weeks to meet with Netanyahu and other officials.
“For an Israeli official, it meant you knew you could not strike without feeling that you’ve deceived somebody while they were sitting in your office,” Dan Shapiro, Obama’s ambassador to Israel said.
The newspaper reported the moves transpired when the Israelis found out about secret talks between the U.S. and Iran aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear development.
Netanyahu said that “the knowledge that we were capable and prepared to strike had a great effect on the Americans and on their involvement in the matter of Iran.”
And he maintained the threat of an Israeli attack was real.
In the end, he pulled back because he could not get a majority of his cabinet to support him.
“If I’d had a majority, I would have done it,” he said. “Unequivocally.”
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