The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and U.S. defense and intelligence officials have said that they believe that Iran has not made a decision on whether to acquire nuclear weapons. The New York Times reported on Sunday the difficulties that intelligence officials encounter when coming to that conclusion but that officials are still confident that Iran’s leaders have not given the go-ahead:

Publicly and privately, American intelligence officials express confidence in the spy agencies’ assertions. Still, some acknowledge significant intelligence gaps in understanding the intentions of Iran’s leaders and whether they would approve the crucial steps toward engineering a bomb. [...]

American intelligence analysts still believe that the Iranians have not gotten the go-ahead from Ayatollah Khamenei to revive the program.

“That assessment,” said one American official, “holds up really well.”

The Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz reported in January that Israeli intelligence (Mossad) concurs with this assessment, and the Times quoted an American official confirming that report:

“Their people ask very hard questions, but Mossad does not disagree with the U.S. on the weapons program,” said one former senior American intelligence official, who, like others for this article, would speak only on the condition of anonymity about classified information. “There is not a lot of dispute between the U.S. and Israeli intelligence communities on the facts.”

And the AP reports today that Israeli intelligence and defense officials have also confirmed this view:

Several senior Israeli officials who spoke in recent days to The Associated Press said Israel has come around to the U.S. view that no final decision to build a bomb has been made by Iran. The officials, who are privy to intelligence and to the discussion about the Iranian program, said this is the prevailing view in the intelligence community, but there are also questions about whether Tehran might be hiding specific bomb making operations.

Yet, Israelis also agree with U.S. intelligence and the IAEA that Iran is moving toward a nuclear weapons capability. The Israeli officials’ concern, the AP reports, “is about allowing the Iranian program to reach the point where there is enough enriched weapons grade material that a bomb could quickly be assembled, within a year.”

President Obama shares these concerns as well. In a recent speech, Obama ruled out a policy of containing a nuclear-armed Iran, warning that an Iranian bomb posed a threat to the U.S. and its allies, as well as the international non-proliferation regime. But at this point the Obama administration believes that a diplomatic end to the crisis is “best and most permanent way” to end the standoff.

Speaking before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference this morning, GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich promised that if elected president “we would not keep talking while the Iranians keep building.” Gingrich laid out his “red lines” — the term frequently used to describe the U.S. and/or Israel’s conditions for going to war with Iran — and indicated that Iran had already crossed the lines he would enforce as president.

Gingrich told the audience:

In a Gingrich administration we would not keep talking while the Iranians keep building. We would indicate clearly that their failure to stop their program is in fact crossing a red line. The red line is not the morning a bomb goes off. The red line is not the morning our intelligence community tells us they have failed once again. The red line is now because the Iranians now are deepening their fortifications, deepening their underground laboratories, deepening their commitment to nuclear weapons while we talk.

Watch him:

The former House speaker’s “red lines” suggest he is in favor of immediate military action and that the time for diplomacy has passed. But his characterization of Iran “deepening their commitment to nuclear weapons” completely disregards the intelligence reports from the IAEA and U.S. intelligence leadership.

In January, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and CIA Director David Petraeus both endorsed the view that Iran has not yet decided whether to pursue a nuclear weapon. The IAEA has expressed concerns about possible military dimensions but has not concluded that Iran has restarted its nuclear weapons program.

While Gingrich’s scare statements like “the red line is now” serve as a political prop as he attempts to set himself apart in the GOP primary field as the most hawkish candidate, his words may undermine U.S. efforts to deter Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon. President Obama told an AIPAC audience on Sunday that “already there is too much loose talk of war” and warned “such talk has only benefited the Iranian government, by driving up the price of oil, which they depend on to fund their nuclear program.”

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney went on the offense at last night’s Republican Presidential Debate, attacking the White House’s treatment of Israel and charging that the Obama administration has “time and time again shown distance from Israel.” That distance, said Romney, has resulted in a “greater sense of aggression” from the Palestinians.

But Romney’s attacks are based on wholesale fabrications of President Barack Obama’s track record as a close ally of Israel for the past three years. Romney charged:

This president went before the United Nations and castigated Israel for building settlements. He said nothing about thousands of rockets being rained in on Israel from the Gaza Strip.

The smear may have garnered applause from the debate audience but a National Jewish Democratic Council fact check found that Obama’s September 21, 2011 U.N. speech had explicitly addressed the issue of rockets fired into Israel. Obama said:

Let us be honest with ourselves: Israel is surrounded by neighbors that have waged repeated wars against it. Israel’s citizens have been killed by rockets fired at their houses and suicide bombs on their buses.

Romney went on to charge the White House with “[throwing] Israel under the bus” by “defining ’67 borders as a starting point for negotiations” — a position also held by the George W. Bush and Clinton administrations — and accused Obama of “[disrespecting] Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — Bibi Netanyahu.”

Watch it:

Following Obama’s U.N. speech in September, Netanyahu said to President Obama:

I think that standing your ground, taking this position of principle… I think this is a badge of honor and I want to thank you for wearing that badge of honor.

And last May, Netanyahu praised Obama’s commitment to Israel’s security, telling the audience at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference that Obama had made an “ironclad commitment to Israel’s security” and “[has] backed those words with deeds.”

Israel and discussion of U.S Middle East policy is one of the few foreign policy topics to emerge as a wedge issue for the GOP presidential candidates. Indeed, in the previous GOP debate three days ago, Newt Gingrich also made false claims about Obama’s policy toward Israel. But Obama’s track record of close cooperation with Israel requires critics like Romney and Gingrich to resort to outright fabrications to smear Obama as a weak ally to the Jewish state.

A Politico article yesterday on CAP’s Middle East posture cited Josh Block, who described CAP’s bloggers as writing “borderline anti-Semitic stuff.” In a leaked email to a right-wing listserv, Block, now senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute, disclosed he had compiled thousands of words of opposition research on CAP and Media Matters bloggers, while urging neoconservative journalists to “amplify” the Politico article.

Block’s message as reported by Politico was made even more strongly in his email sent out to the right-wing journalist listserv. He wrote, “These are the words of anti-Semites, not Democratic political players,” adding, “This kind of anti-Israel sentiment is so fringe it’s support by CAP is outrageous.” Ironically, Block’s own personal business and political interests find him frequently on the fringes of the Democratic party and mainstream political dialogue in Washington.

Last year, upon his departure from AIPAC as a spokesperson for the organization, Block told Ben Smith: “There is an important debate taking place inside the Democratic Party and the progressive movement, and I’m relishing my return to the political, as well as the policy, conversation, politics with Israel-centric policies.” But when not pushing a hard-line on U.S.-Israel policy within the Democratic party, Block partners with Lanny Davis — who represented business interests backing the 2009 coup in Honduras — in a joint lobbying practice.

Block’s firm has proven itself as one of the go-to lobby shops in Washington for human rights abusers such as Ivory Coast strongman Laurent Gbagbo and the the new Honduran government.

Block’s firm’s willingness to represent unpopular interests in Washington, for the right price, is further exemplified by their status as registered lobbyists for Agility DGS, a company suspended from government contracts after it was accused of defrauding the U.S. government as a contractor in Iraq.

Block’s business acumen and pursuit of the next payday raises the question of whose account Block was working on when he compiled the opposition research document on CAP and Media Matters bloggers.

Yesterday, Politico published an article written by Ben Smith purporting to highlight a divide on the left on Middle East policy. The story quoted sources — including former AIPAC spokesman Josh Block — saying that bloggers here at the Center for American Progress are “borderline anti-Semitic” and “anti-Israel.” In the process, Politico also cherry-picked a few posts out of hundreds ThinkProgress has written on Middle East issues to back up its case. Yet Politico misrepresented the posts in question and CAP’s wider Middle East positions.

Salon’s Justin Elliott reports today that Block sent out an email to a neoconservative journalist list-serv called “The Freedom Community” urging members to read and “amplify” Politico’s story, promoting it because in his view it shows that CAP bloggers are “anti-Israel” and vilify “pro-Israel Americans, Jews, Members of Congress, and pretty much anyone who thinks Iran with nuke is a problem, or supports a strong US-Israe [sic] relationship.” He said of our writing, “These are the words of anti-Semites, not Democratic political players.” Block also said in the email — without offering any evidence — that we engage in “hate speech.” (CAP and its affiliated bloggers are pro-Israel, support a strong U.S.-Israeli relationship, believe Iran with a nuclear weapon is a serious problem and do not vilify Jews). While it’s unclear who is on this list-serv, Jen Rubin at the Washington Post, Commentary and the Weekly Standard amplified the Politico article shortly after it was published.

Block also accompanied his email with an extensive 3,000 word opposition research document against ThinkProgress bloggers — which appears to have been completed on Nov. 8 — that contains a number of ad-hominem attacks against us without any evidence backing up those attacks. Instead, Block simply links to dozens of previous posts this blog has written on the Middle East. Some examples:

The CAP writers are not above smearing Democratic politicians and mainstream journalists for being Israel-firsters, for carrying AIPAC’s water, etc. But the personal attacks speak to personal unprofessionalism and borderline libel, while the substantive stuff exposes how far out of the mainstream CAP’s work has actually gotten.

Across everything, there’s a weird combination of sneering recklessness and smug childishness that underlies a lot of their rhetoric. On the recklessness side, there’s a degree to which they really don’t know how shrill they sound and how far off the reservation they’ve strayed. It’s almost as if, in talking to each other, it’s now just natural to talk about Jewish money in politics, about treasonous politicians, etc.

And on Twitter today, Ben Smith acknowledged that he accepted this research document before his article was published yesterday:

Salon’s Elliott notes that Block is a go-to for reporters looking for a right-wing view on the Middle East and that he now is a senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute and also a partner in a lobbying and PR firm, Davis-Block. “It’s not clear,” Elliott adds, “whether Block is shopping the oppo trove on progressive bloggers as a personal project or as part of work for a client.”

By Ken Gude and Faiz Shakir

An article published today by Politico’s Ben Smith charges that Center for American Progress bloggers are at the heart of an “Israel rift” in the “Democratic ranks.” While we welcome the discussion, the article misrepresents our views by cherrypicking a few posts from over 300 we’ve written this year on Iran and the Middle East. In the process, Smith makes a number of mistakes. We take this as an opportunity to clarify our positions on Iran and call attention to the article’s errors.

Our view in favor of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the consensus view of administrations of both parties dating back to President Clinton. Our position is based on our strong belief that it is in the national security interests of the United States to achieve a resolution to this conflict. Politico relies on sources who claim our work is “anti-Israel” and “borderline anti-Semitic.” We categorically reject and are offended by the idea that any of our work is anti-Semitic, unless one believes the Middle East peace plan itself and ensuring Israel’s long term security by securing its neighborhood is anti-Semitic.

Iran’s nuclear program is a strong point of concern for us, the U.S., and its allies. CAP’s view is that the multilateral sanctions framework engineered by the Obama administration is an important tool in pressuring Iran to comply with U.N. Security Council resolutions and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) requirements. While we take nothing off the table, we do not believe there is any evidence that a military strike would achieve those goals, a view shared by America’s top military officials. Furthermore, we will continue to push back against the overheated rhetoric that regularly throws around calls for full scale war with Iran because such activity has an impact in the real world. Indeed, it is our belief that conservative sabre rattling not only undermines American diplomacy but also emboldens hardliners in Iran and strengthens their push for nuclear weapons.

Therefore, the best policy to weaken Iran’s push for nuclear weapons rests on diplomacy — not a military strategy. So we believe it is critically important for assertions made on policy towards Iran and elsewhere in the region be subject to careful scrutiny with the goal of ensuring that U.S. policy will be as effective as possible in limiting threats posed by Iran.

Politico also misrepresents a number of our writings on Iran. The article states:

ThinkProgress National Security reporter Eli Clifton took issue with a Quinnipiac University poll that made reference to Iran’s “nuclear program.” The belief that such a program exists undergirds the Obama administration’s drive for sanctions, and was recently bolstered by a report from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which wrote of “increasing” concerns, though not definitive evidence.

It is a widely accepted fact that Iran has a nuclear program but Eli’s post on the Quinnipiac poll took issue with the pollsters’ reference to the existence of “Iran’s nuclear weapons program” in polling questions. The pollsters’ assumption that a nuclear weapons program exists, a determination that neither the IAEA nor the White House has made, may have impacted the poll’s outcome. Politico, by conflating the Iranian “nuclear program” and alleged “nuclear weapons program,” is making the same mistake we were trying to highlight.

The article also asserts:

ThinkProgress also scrambled to call into question an alleged Iranian plot to assassinate Saudi diplomats in the United States.

This we find very odd. Practically the entire U.S. foreign policy establishment reacted with skepticism to the bizarre and amateurish details of this plot. Eli’s post pointed to the leap to judgment made by a number of hawkish think tanks using the allegations to justify military action against Iran. Urging policymakers to wait for the conclusion of the investigation is not “call[ing] into question” the details of the plot. It is an observation that the rule of law should be respected and that all suspects are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

And in the very next paragraph after quoting Eli’s post on the plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador, Politico gave the false impression that we were blaming the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) for the rush to judgment:

The villain: AIPAC. “It would appear that AIPAC is now using the same escalating measures against Iran that were used before the invasion of Iraq,” Clifton wrote in August.

AIPAC is not mentioned in Eli’s post about the assassination plot nor have we suggested that AIPAC bears any responsibility for rush to judgment on the plot, nor the right-wing calls to attack Iran because of it.

Politico’s article inaccurately portrays our positions as: anti-Israel; denying the seriousness of the charges in the alleged assassination plot against the Saudi ambassador; and denying the existence of an Iranian nuclear program. None of these positions are reflected in any posts by CAP bloggers.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) told reporters that he “would not at all be surprised that there may be a pre-emptive attack” by Israel against Iran — and he doesn’t think the U.S. could do anything about it. Savannah Now reports Chambliss said that, though he has “no indication of anything right now,” he could foresee a strike:

If Iran keeps moving down the road they’re moving on now, Israel has every reason in the world to [be] concerned about the future of its country and people. … I’m not sure there is anything the United States could do to stop Israel.

When news of an alleged plot by Iran to assassinate a foreign diplomat in the U.S. broke, right wingers pushed for war. At the time, Chambliss, who has a poor (at best) understanding of Iran, “urge(d) the administration to hold the Iranian regime accountable in a direct and meaningful way.”

But much of the U.S. security establishment — as represented in the periodic National Journal “National Security Insiders” poll — doesn’t agree with either a U.S. or Israeli strike. A slim majority of respondents said that “no military strike should be carried out,” no matter the circumstances. And none of those polled thought the U.S. should undertake the mission alone. Ninety-five percent of respondents also thought it was a bad idea for Israel to strike Iran. Here’re the results:

Respondents, who come from among the well-connected National Journal’s sources, said that an attack on Iran “would set in motion a conflagration, set back the Arab Spring, and destroy what little is left of U.S. credibility as an arbitrator of the Middle East peace process,” among other given reasons to not attack. Another respondent said: “It’s a dream for us to think that a strike will solve this problem.”

Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that Koch Industries had been flouting U.S. sanctions with Iran when the company sold millions of dollars of petrochemical equipment to the Islamic Republic over several years. But the powerful pro-Israel lobby group AIPAC — which has for years been one of the most vocal proponents of tougher sanctions on Iran — has given the conservative mega-corporation a pass for dealing with the country.

As Politico’s Ben Smith reports, in a memo AIPAC sent to members of Congress with suggested questions for Obama administration officials, the Israel lobby suggests it is uninterested in holding Koch accountable (the memo presents questions lawmakers could use, so “I” represents the congressman):

Last week, the Bloomberg Markets Magazine ran a story titled, “Koch Brothers Flout Law Getting Richer With Secret Iran Sales.” The article alleges that a foreign subsidiary of the U.S.company, Koch Industries Inc., sold petrochemical equipment to Iran. My concern today is not with the Koch Brothers. That company did the right thing in 2007 and voluntarily ended all of its subsidiary’s business in Iran. However, I am concerned that other American companies continue to use foreign subsidiaries to profit from sales to Iran, and it is completely legal. [...]

Do you know which American companies have foreign subsidiaries conducting business with Iran that would be illegal for their parent companies to do? Do you do anything to discourage this practice?

“Every single chance they had to do business with Iran, or anyone else, they did,” said George Bentu, a former employee of Koch-Glitsch, a German Koch subsidiary which did much of the company’s business with Iran. The company “took elaborate steps” to sidestep the sanctions, Bloomberg reported.

But apparently to AIPAC, Koch is off the hook because they stopped trading with terror-sponsor Iran in 2007. This seems a little disingenuous, since U.S. companies have been banned from trading with Iran since 1995. One would think AIPAC would condemn any company that did business with Iran, especially after elements of the country’s government have been tied to a potential assassination plot against Israeli and Saudi officials, instead of going out of their way to defend them.

Speaking on MSNBC this morning, former President Bill Clinton said GOP presidential candidate Gov. Rick Perry (TX) may well believe that Israel in entitled to keep the occupied Palestinian West Bank because of a “biblical mandate.”

Clinton, citing his own background as a Southern Baptist, said that American evangelical Christians like Perry often believe that the West Bank belongs to the Jewish state of Israel.

Clinton, who referred to the West Bank several times by its bibilical name Judea and Samaria (the name also used by Israel’s settler movement), noted that Christian evangelicals are often more hardline on these issues than are most Israelis:

I also believe that Rick Perry — look, that’s my culture. I’m from next door. There is an enormous resevoir of support for Israel in the Christian evangelical community. And a lot of them believe, as some of the more militant settler groups do, that God meant for all of Judea and Samaria to be in the hands of Israel, and that Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak, when he was prime minister, and all the — and Shimon Peres and everybody that’s signed all these peace agreements have violated the biblical mandate by wanting to give the West Bank to the Palestinian State. [...]

That’s what they believe: that Judea and Samaria is a what God intended to be Israel. So, those Congressmen that were over there working on Netanyahu during the break, they’re more militant than the Israelis are — or than a lot of them. So, I wouldn’t be surprised if Rick Perry really believes that. I’m sure there are hundreds of thousands of people that never miss church on Sunday in Texas who believe that.

Earlier in the interview, Clinton expanded on his view of the congressional delegations that traveled to Israel last month sponsored by a group with close links to the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the flagship of the Israel lobby in Washington. A week after a Democratic delegation, a Republican delegation followed. The 55-member GOP trip was the largest ever to go to the Jewish state. Clinton said their message was that Israel could continue to occupy the West Bank indefinitely if a Republican was able to take the White House:

[Perry's statement] was good politics and it was sort of like the trip that 70 — I think there were 70 [sic] Republican House members that went to Israel during the break and basically said, “You guys do whatever you want. Keep the West Bank. We’re comin’ back. We’ll have the White House and the Congress and then we’ll let you do whatever you want.” I believe that’s essentially what was going on.

Watch the video of the Clinton interview: