Despite efforts from congressional hawks like Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and John McCain (R-AZ), Senate Democrats are resisting efforts to limit President Obama’s policy options on Iran.

The hawkish Senators’ lack of success is noticeable as the three men are seen as as some of the most influential Senators on foreign policy and national security. But their efforts to roll out a piece of bipartisan legislation pressuring the White House’s hand on diplomacy with Iran has found few allies across the aisle. Sens. Bob Casey Jr. (D-PA) reportedly signed onto the legislation and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) is rumored to be on board. But Senate Democrats are concerned that the resolution “would be seen as creeping toward an authorization of military force against Iran,” reports The Hill’s Alexander Bolton.

A Senate aid denied that characterization of the legislation and emphasized that it is not an authorization of military action and leaves the option of further negotiations.

However a statement last month from Graham and Lieberman stated, in no uncertain terms, that they would support a bipartisan resolution explicitly opposing containment. The statement read:

When it comes to addressing the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran, all options must be on the table — except for one, and that is containment. [...] Containment is failure, and failure cannot be an option.

Neither U.S. intelligence officials nor the IAEA have concluded that Iran has decided to pursue a nuclear weapon.

Indeed the IAEA has stated concerns about possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program but senior U.S. intelligence officials have expressed support for ongoing sanctions and diplomacy.

Efforts to press Obama to employ the “military option” continue to be discussed in Washington but the partisan divide between those urging action — be it in Congress or outside pressure groups — and those pursuing diplomacy and sanctions is becoming increasingly distinct as Republicans seek to portray the President as weak on national defense and foreign policy.

Last Thursday, NBC News reported that the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), an exiled Iranian opposition group designated a “foreign terrorist organization” by the State Department, conducted a series of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists.

Former CIA official and visiting Georgetown professor Paul Pillar, citing the U.S. government’s definition of terrorism, observed that “with or without confirmation of details of this story, the assassinations are terrorism.” But numerous right-wing pundits and politicians here in the United States — many of whom regularly decry the use of terrorism as a means to political ends — have celebrated the MEK’s alleged attacks.

Appearing on Fox News on Sunday, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani declared that the MEK should be the Time Magazine “person of the year” if they were behind assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists.

An editorial in Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post said on Friday that the MEK deserves a Nobel Peace Prize:

Let’s be frank: Were the MeK to play the critical role in derailing an Iranian bomb, it would be far more deserving of a Nobel Peace Prize than a certain president of the United States we could mention.

And Commentary’s Jonathan Tobin justified the MEK’s action and Israel’s alleged role in financing, arming and training the group:

To those who say it is immoral to use those who have employed terrorism, the only reply can be that it would be far worse for Israel’s government to allow such scruples to prevent them from carrying out actions that might stop the Iranians from going nuclear.

Noticeably, the MEK’s defenders chose not to address the NBC report’s other major disclosure. The MEK reportedly worked with Ramzi Yousef, the terrorist behind the first attack on the World Trade Center, to bomb an Iranian shrine, killing at least 26 people.

The NBC report did not go on to substantiate any direct links between the Israeli government and the assassination campaign, and the MEK denied any involvement in the attacks.

Indeed, the MEK’s American supporters find themselves in the increasingly difficult position of lobbying to remove the organization from the State Department’s terror list while openly celebrating the group’s involvement in terrorist attacks.

Republican Presidential candidate Rick Santorum, hot off his primary victories in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado, accused President Obama of allowing Iran to obtain nuclear weapons.

According to the former Pennsylvania senator, because the Obama administration rejected the Keystone pipeline, it “knows” America will need oil. And where will the U.S. get that oil? Iran. And how will the U.S. get access to Iranian oil? According to Santorum, Obama will throw “Israel under the bus” and allow Iran to get nuclear weapons:

SANTORUM: They know that oil is drying up. And they know that not building that pipeline we’re not going to have access to oil reserves. And they know they’re going to be more dependent upon OPEC and so what are we doing? We’re throwing Israel under the bus because we know we’re going to be dependent on OPEC. We’re going to say ‘Oh Iran, we don’t want you to get a nuclear weapon, wink, wink, nod, nod, go ahead just give us your oil.

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While Santorum’s accusations that the president is allowing Iran to develop a nuclear weapon at Israel’s expense is a serious allegation, Obama’s track record on Iran sanctions and Israel simply don’t match up with the former senator’s harsh rhetoric.

Neither the IAEA nor U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that Iran has decided to pursue a nuclear weapon and last week, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper told Members of Congress that economic sanctions were the best strategy to weaken the government in Tehran. The IAEA and the Obama administration have expressed concern over possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program.

And on Monday, Obama tightened sanctions, freezing assets of any entities that do business with Iran’s central bank.

Indeed, a nuclear weapons possessing Iran would pose a security threat to Israel but accusing Obama of being a weak ally to Israel has become a right-wing talking point as Republican presidential candidates struggle to attack the administration’s national security track record, which includes killing Osama Bin Laden and participating in NATO operations that brought the end of Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi’s 42 years in power.

While Santorum may claim that Obama “threw Israel under the bus,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) conference in May that Obama made an “iron clad commitment to Israel’s security. [...] And he has backed those words with deeds.”

An exclusive report by NBC News cites two U.S. officials confirming links between an assassination campaign against Iranian scientists and an Iranian exile group designated as a foreign terror organization by the State Department since 1997. Two officials confirmed to NBC that the group, the Paris- and Iraq-based Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), was involved in the assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists.

The State Department designates the MEK as a “foreign terrorist organization,” though the group’s supporters have mounted an aggressive lobbying effort aimed at getting delisted through claims it laid down arms in the early 2000s.

The NBC story cited two U.S. officials linking the MEK to the recent spate of assassinations, and a third who neither confirmed nor denied the allegation:

Two senior U.S. officials confirmed for NBC News the MEK’s role in the assassinations, with one senior official saying, “All your inclinations are correct.” A third official would not confirm or deny the relationship, saying only, “It hasn’t been clearly confirmed yet.” All the officials denied any U.S. involvement in the assassinations.

The group, through its political wing (which was also added to the State designation), denied any involvement in the latest attacks. A “representative” of the group in Washington also denied involvement.

The NBC report also claimed that Israeli intelligence services “financed, trained and armed” the MEK, though the story did not go on to substantiate any direct links between the Israeli government and the assassination campaign.

The U.S. denial of involvement last month, after the latest killing by a bomb blast in Tehran, was unequivocal: “I want to categorically deny any United States involvement in any kind of act of violence inside Iran,” said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, condemning the attacks.

Founded in the mid-1960s as an armed revolutionary group, the MEK fought against the Shah and his U.S. backers — allegedly killing Americans — in the 1970s, but then split with Iran’s clerical leadership in the early 1980s. Eventually, the group ended up based in Paris and Iraq, where, from the latter location, it was helped by Saddam Hussein to raise arms against Iran during the war between the two countries. Since 1997, when such designations were introduced, the MEK has been considered a “foreign terrorist organization” by the State Department. As many as 3,400 members of the group, which it claims are former fighters who laid down their arms in the early 2000s, are still based in Iraq.

Right-wing pundits and politicians are loudly declaring that diplomatic efforts to stop Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program have failed and the time has come for Obama to either participate in a military attack against Iran or stand back while Israel launches airstrikes. The argument increasingly hinges on a “closing window of opportunity” which, according to various reports, limit the Israelis to striking this spring or living with a nuclear weapons armed Iran.

While neither the IAEA nor U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that Iran has decided to pursue a nuclear weapon, the IAEA has expressed concern about military dimensions of the Iranian nuclear program. But right-wing hawks — from GOP presidential contender Mitt Romney to Wall Street Journal columnist Bret Stephens — are repeating talking points that the Israelis are on the verge of unilaterally attacking in the face of an “existential threat” from Tehran.

Today, former Israeli intelligence chief Meir Dagan slammed Netanyahu’s government for representing fringe political positions, adding that Israel does not face an existential threat. The AP reports:

Meir Dagan, the former head of the Mossad spy agency said he does not believe Israel faces an existential threat from Iran, a view that contrasts with Israel’s prime minister and other leaders. [...]

At the launch of an electoral reform movement he chairs, he observed, “I don’t think there is an existential threat.” He did not specifically mention Iran, but the use of the phrase “existential threat” in Israel generally refers to Iran.

Dagan is joined by the current Israeli intelligence chief Tamir Pardo who reportedly told a gathering of Israeli ambassadors in December that Iran doesn’t pose an “existential threat” and “the term existential threat is used too freely.”

Last week, retired Israeli Lt. Gen. Amnon Lipkin-Shahak told The Independent that the Israeli military’s leadership does not support a strike on Iran and the Associated Press reported that Israel’s new air force chief, Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel, is “less enthusiastic about a possible attack on Iran” than his predecessor.

There is no doubt that Iran’s nuclear program, if weaponized, is incredibly worrying and constitutes a threat to nuclear non-proliferation efforts as well as Israel’s security. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said recently that Iran can be dissuaded from nuclear weapons through diplomacy and economic sanctions.

The past week brought heightened discussion of a potential Israeli unilateral attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. But House Intelligence Chairman Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), appearing on CNN’s State of the Union with Candy Crowley this morning, agreed that an Israeli attack would “light the Middle East on Fire” and could be “a real problem for the national security interests of the United States.”

Rogers, commenting on Washington Post columnist David Ignatius’ report that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta believes “there is a strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June,” told Crowley:

MIKE ROGERS: [...] My argument is this is too important for us not to get this right. If Israel does a unilateral strike this could be a real problem for the national security interests of the United States.

CANDY CROWLEY: Well it lights the Middle East on fire basically.

ROGERS: Absolutely.

Rogers defended diplomatic and economic efforts to persuade Iran to cooperate fully with U.N. nuclear inspectors:

ROGERS: [The sanctions] seem to be working. The financial pressure right now on Iran is devastating. [...] It’s effecting every sector of their economy. [...] Our argument is can we work with the Israelis on this and other programs to try to delay or stop this program by bringing Iran to the table. That to me is a better outcome than inflaming the Middle East.

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Rogers is not alone in voicing misgivings about an Israeli unilateral attack. In January, George W. Bush’s CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden disclosed that the Bush administration concluded that attacking Iran “would guarantee that which we are trying to prevent — an Iran that will spare nothing to build a nuclear weapon.” Speaking last June, retired Israeli spy chief Meir Dagan warned that an Israeli attack on Iran was “the stupidest thing I have ever heard” and the fallout from such an attack would pose an “unbearable” security challenge. A recent Council on Foreign Relations report highlighted one of the immediate consequences of a military escalation with Iran: a sudden oil price shock (about $23 per barrel in the first days) following an Israeli strike.

Last week, retired Israeli Lt. Gen. Amnon Lipkin-Shahak told The Independent that the IDF leadership doesn’t support military action at this point and Panetta told reporters, “Israel has indicated they are considering this, and we have indicated our concerns.”

Rogers’ worries about blowback from an Israeli strike may also be shared by Israel’s new air force chief, Maj. Gen. Amir Eshel. The Associated Press reports that Eshel is “less enthusiastic about a possible attack on Iran” than outgoing air force chief Maj. Gen. Ido Nehushtan.

For the past 24 hours, news outlets have feverishly reported on Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s belief, as first reported by the Washington Post’s David Ignatius, that “there is a strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June.” The views attributed to Panetta were quickly echoed by Israeli officials. But the appearance of a consensus that Israel has already decided to bomb Iran is undermined by various statements from U.S. and Israeli officials.

Former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Moshe Ya’alon, speaking at the Herzliya conference on Thursday, boasted that all of Iran’s nuclear facilities “can be hit, and I speak from experience as the IDF chief of staff,” and Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, speaking at Herzliya later in the day, warned that there is a consensus among many nations that “a nuclear Iran will be more complicated to deal with, more dangerous and more costly in blood than if it were stopped today.”

While Panetta’s reported views, along with those of senior Israeli officials speaking at Herzliya, were interpreted by many as evidence of an emerging consensus that Israel will attack Iranian nuclear facilities before June — when Iran enters what Israelis describe to Ignatius as a “‘zone of immunity’ to commence building a nuclear bomb” — U.S. and Israeli officials are not in agreement on the inevitability of an Israeli attack.

Panetta, speaking in Brussels yesterday, refused to comment on Ignatius’s column but told reporters that “Israel has indicated they are considering this, and we have indicated our concerns.” The Associated Press reported Panetta’s comments in an article emphasizing that “Israel’s major allies in the West are working hard to talk it out of a unilateral military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities, arguing forcefully that an attack ultimately would strengthen, not weaken, the regime in Tehran.” And in a seeming effort to deter an attack, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey reportedly warned Israeli leaders last month that the U.S. would not participate in a war against Iran initiated by Israel.

U.S. defense officials are not alone in expressing serious misgivings about an Israeli attack. While Ya’alon, Barak and Panetta’s comments dominated news coverage yesterday, The Independent reported that almost the entire hierarchy of Israel’s military and security establishment is concerned about the consequences from a premature Israeli attack on Iran, according to Lt. Gen. Amnon Lipkin-Shahak. Lipkin-Shahak, in comments starkly contrasting with Ya’alon and Barak’s hawkish warnings at Herzliya, warned that there had been little analysis of what happens the “day after” Israel strikes Iran and “It is quite clear that much if not all of the IDF [Israeli Defence Forces] leadership do not support military action at this point.”

Earlier this week, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper advocated that economic pressure could dissuade Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon and CIA Director David Petraeus urged policymakers to examine the current and upcoming IAEA reports to determine Iran’s nuclear intentions. The IAEA has said it has concerns about military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program and inspectors returned from a monitoring trip to Iran this week. But with reports of inspectors not receiving full access to sites mentioned in the IAEA’s November report, Tehran will be under heightened pressure to cooperate with the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency during its next trip to Iran later this month.

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.”

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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.