Shlomo Gazit

In an interview on Tuesday, former Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) intelligence head Shlomo Gazit joined the chorus warning against attacking Iran. Gazit agreed with Diskin that attacking Iran would not destroy Iran’s nuclear program, and could even accelerate it, the Jerusalem Post reports:

The public discourse over a strike largely neglected the likelihood that Iran would resume its program after being attacked, Gazit noted.

He said he agreed with Diskin that an Israeli attack would not destroy the program, and could even accelerate it, while enabling Iran to legitimize its efforts diplomatically.

Diskin raised eyebrows last week when he slammed Barak and Netanyahu as “our two messiahs” and charged:

[Israel's leadership] presents a false view to the public on the Iranian bomb, as though acting against Iran would prevent a nuclear bomb. But attacking Iran will encourage them to develop a bomb all the faster.

But Gazit urged those who agree with Diskin’s assessment to direct their criticisms to the electorate:

Even if they have messianic considerations, this is not important. They were legally elected through a ballot, and Diskin should direct his claims [against them] to the electorate.

In New York on Friday, former Mossad Chief Meir Dagan backed up Diskin’s criticisms, telling the Jerusalem Post that Diskin was speaking his “internal truth” and characterized him as a good friend and serious person.

Sources “close to the prime minister” told the Jerusalem Post that Diskin’s attacks were “irresponsible” and “motivated by personal frustration that he wasn’t chosen to lead the Mossad.” But another former head of Israel’s internal security service, and current member of the Knesset, Yoel Hasson, was reported by the Jerusalem Post as warning that Netanyahu should be concerned about the criticms he is facing from former heads of the security establishment, such as Diskin, Dagan and Gabi Ashkenazi.

While a potential Iranian nuclear weapon is widely considered a threat to both the security of the U.S. and its allies in the region, as well as the nuclear non-proliferation regime, those estimates give the West time to pursue a dual-track approach of pressure and diplomacy to resolve the crisis. Like their Israeli counterparts, American officials including President Obama vow to keep “all options on the table” to deal with the Iranian nuclear program, but questions about the efficacy and consequences of a strike have led U.S. officials to declare that diplomacy is the “best and most permanent way” to resolve the West’s crisis with Iran.

Ehud Olmert, who left office in 2009 under a corruption scandal, told a conference in New York on Sunday:

There is enough time to try different avenues of pressure to change the balance of power with Iran without the need for a direct military confrontation with Iran.

He went even further in interviews with news media, warning off an Israeli attack. Olmert told Israel’s Channel 10:

There is no reason at this time not to talk about a military effort, but definitely not to initiate an Israeli military strike.

In an interview with the New York Times, he echoed concerns of Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel, retired Israeli brigadier general Shlomo Brom, and his successor atop the Kadima opposition party Tzipi Livni that the Israeli government’s rhetoric on Iran was getting too heated. Olmert, who eschewed comparisons between Iran and Nazi Germany, said:

They talk too much, they talk too loud. They are creating an atmosphere and a momentum that may go out of their control.

At the conference in New York, the former top military officer in Israel, Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, said the Israelis “still have time” before they need to launch an attack and called for “crippling sanctions and much more severe sanctions.” His successor at the top military post Gen. Benny Gantz last week echoed reported Israeli and American intelligence estimates and said Iran “hasn’t yet decided whether to go the extra mile” and build a bomb.

While a potential Iranian nuclear weapon is widely considered a threat threat to both the security of the U.S. and its allies in the region, as well as the nuclear non-proliferation regime, those estimates give the West time to pursue a dual-track approach of pressure and diplomacy to resolve the crisis. Like their Israeli counterparts, American officials including President Obama vow to keep “all options on the table” to deal with the Iranian nuclear program, but questions about the efficacy and consequences of a strike have led U.S. officials to declare that diplomacy is the “best and most permanent way” to end the West’s crisis with Iran.

Former Israeli internal security chief Yuval Diskin

According to the Jerusalem Post (with slightly differing translations from Yedioth Ahronoth), Diskin referred to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defense chief Ehud Barak as “our two messiahs,” going on to lambast the country’s leadership:

(T)hey are not fit to hold the steering-wheel of power. I have no faith in the current leadership in Israel and its ability to conduct a war. …

[Israel's leadership] presents a false view to the public on the Iranian bomb, as though acting against Iran would prevent a nuclear bomb. But attacking Iran will encourage them to develop a bomb all the faster.

While a potential Iranian nuclear weapon is widely considered a threat to both the security of the U.S. and its allies in the region, and the nuclear non-proliferation regime, serious questions remain about the efficacy of strike — like Diskin’s — and its potential consequences. Leaving “all options on the table” to deal with the possibility of an Iranian nuclear weapons push — one that neither American nor Israeli intelligence think Iran has decided on — the Obama administration, for the meantime, has pursued a dual-track of pressure and diplomacy aimed at yielding a negotiated resolution to the crisis.

Diskin’s not alone in his assessments — other analysts think attacking now could very well convince the Iranian leadership that they need a weapon for deterrence. The former Shin Bet chief is also joined by a bevy of other current and former top-ranking Israeli security officials. At the Huffington Post, Joel Rubin, the Director of Policy and Government Affairs at the Ploughshares Fund, offers a rundown:

In one of the most astounding public breaks by the Israeli national security establishment with a sitting prime minister, Netanyahu’s own military Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz has stated that Iran’s leadership is rational. Gantz is not alone.

In the past several months, as Netanyahu has ramped up his rhetoric on Iran, senior Israeli national security leaders from the military and intelligence communities have pushed back. In addition to Gantz, the current head of Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency Tamir Pardo has stated that Iran does not pose an existential threat to Israel. And many more retired military and intelligence leaders echo the same sentiment.

After Gantz’s public comments, Barak made a speech restating a harder Israeli line and adding that “chance(s) appears to be low” for a breakthrough during the upcoming talks between Iran and Western powers in late May. (HT: Ori Nir)

Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz

Lieutenant General Benny Gantz told Haaretz that Iran has not yet made critical decisions:

[Iran] is going step by step to the place where it will be able to decide whether to manufacture a nuclear bomb. It hasn’t yet decided whether to go the extra mile.

Gantz also emphasized that Iran is a rational actor, a departure from hawks who claim that Iran’s leadership is irrational:

[The acquisition of a nuclear bomb] will happen if [Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei judges that he is invulnerable to a response. I believe he would be making an enormous mistake, and I don’t think he will want to go the extra mile. I think the Iranian leadership is composed of very rational people. But I agree that such a capability, in the hands of Islamic fundamentalists who at particular moments could make different calculations, is dangerous.

The Israeli military chief said that all options — including the military one — remain on the table for Israel and that “This is a critical year, but not necessarily ‘go, no-go.’” And he reported that diplomatic presure and economic sanctions are begining to bear fruit.

Gantz’s comments contrast with Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hawkish rhetoric on Iran. In an interview with CNN’s Erin Burnett last night, Netanyahu questioned Iran’s rationality:

I don’t think you want to bet the peace in the Middle East and the security of the world on Iran’s rational behavior.

A potential Iranian nuclear weapon is widely considered a threat to both the security of the U.S. and its allies in the region, and the nuclear non-proliferation regime. While hawkish rhetoric towards Iran is becoming a normal occurrence in the political discourses in both Israel and the U.S., neither IAEA, Israeli nor U.S. intelligence estimates conclude that Iran has decided to build a nuclear weapon. The Obama administration has vowed to keep “all options on the table” to deal with the possibility of Iran pursuing a nuclear weapon but the efficacy and consequences of such a military strike continue to raise serious questions.

TheLandOfIsrael.com co-founder Jeremy Gimpel

Many of the clips in the films, including one of Mitt Romney’s controversial adviser Walid Phares, are drawn from the documentary “Iranium,” a film by the Islamophobic organization Clarion Fund that also pushed a hawkish perspective on Iran.

One of the films, titled “Israel vs. Iran — No Fear,” has to date received more than 2 million views since its release five days ago. In it, the narrator says, “Everyone knows Iran is on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons, or they have them already.” No credible media accounts or experts claim Iran already has a nuclear weapon, and, while regarding the Iranian program as a potential threat, reported U.S. and Israeli intelligence estimates both conclude that Iran has not decided to build a bomb. “But why isn’t anyone doing what we all know needs to be done?” the film’s narrator goes on.

Watch it:

One of The Land Of Israel .com’s founders, Jeremy Gimpel, told ThinkProgress by phone that the clips were used by permission from the Clarion Fund after they explained they were making videos as a part of a campaign to “assert Israel’s right to defend itself.”

Like Clarion official Alex Traiman, who wrote and directed “Iranium,” Gimpel lives in an Israeli settlement in the West Bank. “I live in Judea,” he said, using the biblical term for a region of the West Bank. “I live in Neve Daniel.” Gimpel and TheLandOfIsrael.com’s co-founder Ari Abromowitz host a radio show on a station run by pro-settler media outlet Arutz Sheva. (Traiman hosted a show on the same station before jumping to the Clarion Fund.)

Asked about numerous factual inaccuracies and misleading points in the two short films, Gimpel — who said an attack on Iran would be “like going to the dentist, and who wants to go to the dentist?” — dismissed the criticisms as “semantics.”

For instance, in the other film “Iran vs. Israel – Back to the Future,” the narrator says Iran “built intercontinental ballistic missiles” (ICBM). While Iran’s focus on improving its mid-range missiles (2,500 km) allows for research that could be used for ICBMs, no reliable reports indicate Iranian development of an ICBM system. Asked about this, Gimpel responded: “I don’t know if there’s a definition on Wikipedia. The point is it’s a threat to Europe and threat to Israel.” Wikipedia in fact defines ICBMs as missiles with a range of greater than 5,500 kilometers. (In an earlier e-mail responding to the absence of credible accusations that Iranian ICBMs exist, Gimpel wrote, “We’ve spoken to experts that say otherwise,” but could not name any such experts by phone.)

Confronted with the differences between stopping and delaying Iranian nuclear progress, Gimpel said he hoped an attack would result in a delay long enough for regime change in Tehran. If that didn’t work, he said, “Israel will do what it has to do. If it means (striking) every five years, they that’s what they’ll do.”

Gimpel rejected the notion that he was building a case for war. “What I’m doing is building a case for peace,” he said. “What I’m saying is that there will never be peace if Iran has a nuclear bomb.” But he rejected a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear crisis, declaring, “I think the negotiations are wasting our time.”

Amanpour dove into Iran issues and commented on Barak’s repeated references to Iran’s “military nuclear program.” Amanpour cited reports about American intelligence estimates which — along with Israeli and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) estimates — doesn’t conclude that Iran has decided on building a weapon. “You’re obviously very concerned, and so are many, should Iran get a nuclear capability that’s military. As I said, the U.S. does not believe any such decision has been made,” she said. Barak shot back: “No, no, no. The — I want to correct you.” He didn’t, however, contradict what she said, but rather added to it his own assessment:

BARAK: I’m talking to the American intelligence. I’ve talked to American leaders. There is no difference in the assessment of intelligence. It’s true that probably [Iranian Supreme Leader] Khamenei did not give an order to start building a weapon or a device.

But why he’s doing this, just because he understands that if he starts to break the IAEA and start to actually build a weapon, he might find himself faced with an American response, Israeli response or whoever, in a way that might damage him. And that’s the only reason why he did not give the order. But they’re clearly heading toward this objective.

AMANPOUR: But if that’s the case, then, then surely the pressure is working, that they’re not doing it, as you said, because the pressure is there and the threat of what you might do.

BARAK: These are quite effective sanctions. But it’s still far away from working.

Watch the video:

Barak is right to say that sanctions have not worked, as such, because Iran has yet to answer many questions from the IAEA about its past activities and allow unfettered access to sites on the IAEA’s list — both points Barak made. But Barak’s conclusion, which buttressed Amanpour’s point, is also correct: pressure is having an effect, as evinced by Iran’s willingness to come to the table and engage — albeit on what will almost certainly be a rocky path. President Obama has vowed to keep all options on the table and limits the window for successful negotiations, which his administration considers the “best and most permanent way” to end the crisis.

Barak’s comments that sanctions “are quite effective” track with those of Israel’s Ambassador to the U.N. Ron Prosor, who said earlier this month that the sanctions track is “much more effective than people think and it might change, hopefully it might change behavior patterns if we continue with it.”

In his interview with the Hebrew paper Globes and partially translated by the Times of Israel, Wiesel said nothing compares to the Holocaust. Asked about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s frequent allusions to the Holocaust when talking about Iran, Wiesel responded:

Iran is a threat, but can we say that it will make a second Auschwitz? I don’t compare anything to the Holocaust. …

Only Auschwitz was Auschwitz.

The Times of Israel paraphrased Wiesel as saying that “he did not approve of the frequency with which comparisons with the Nazis were made” and noting that not all genocides are like the Holocaust and such comparisons, “aside from being inaccurate, only belittle the Holocaust itself.”

Yesterday, at Israel’s Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem to commemorate the Holocaust, Netanyahu brought up Iran and criticisms of his frequent comparisons between Iran and the Nazi-led genocide. He said:

Remembering the Holocaust is not merely a matter of ceremony or historic memory. Remembering the Holocaust is imperative for learning the lessons of the past in order to ensure the foundations of the future….

I know that some people don’t appreciate me speaking such uncomfortable truths. They would rather we not talk about Iran as a nuclear threat, they claim that, though it may be true, this statement serves to sow panic and fear.

Israeli President Shimon Peres also made a similar comparison at the ceremony:

Humanity has no choice, it must learn the lessons of the Holocaust and stand up to existential threats before it is too late. Iran is at the center of this threat, it is the center of terror. It poses a threat to world peace.

Given what is indeed Iran’s record of supporting designated terror groups, a potential Iranian nuclear weapon is widely considered a threat to both the security of the U.S. and its allies in the region, and the nuclear non-proliferation regime — though U.S. and Israeli intelligence has not concluded that Iran has made a decision to pursue a weapon. The Obama administration vows to keep “all options on the table” to deal with the possibility, but the efficacy and consequences of a strike raise serious questions, leading the U.S. to pursue, for the meantime, a pressure track aimed at a negotiated resolution of the Iranian nuclear crisis.

But that potential threat hasn’t stopped even Israelis — the subject of the Iranian regime’s heated rhetorical attacks who feel the threat acutely — from criticizing the Holocaust comparison. The Associated Press reported last month that many Israelis say the Holocaust imagery when discussing the Iranian theat cheapens its memory and unnecessarily escalates tensions, particularly when President Obama is urging restraint. Former opposition leader Tzipi Livni called Holocaust imagery when referring to the Iranian threat “hysterical.” Dan Halutz, a former Israeli military chief, said the Holocaust comparison was “out of place.” Retired Israeli brigadier general Shlomo Brom, citing Holocaust comparisons, said last month in Washington that the Iran debate was “plagued with emotion.”

But while both Obama and Netanyahu have kept all options — including the military one — on the table, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor publicly warned today that an attack on Iran could prove damaging to Israeli security interests. Meridor spoke with Metro International’s Elisabeth Braw at the Israeli embassy in London:

ELISABETH BRAW: What about ending it with a military strike?

DAN MERIDOR: That option was recently mentioned by President Obama in a positive way. He said he ruled in this possibility. It’s possible that we have to use force. All this pressure should persuade Iran to end its nuclear program. But I don’t think Israel should use the military option. I don’t agree with some of my colleagues who support a military strike. An attack on Iran wouldn’t add anything to our security.

The Deputy PM’s views closely match those expressed by former Israeli spy agency Chief Meir Dagan last month. Dagan warned that bombing Iran would “ignite, at least from my point of view, a regional war,” and that no military attack would be able to permanently halt the Iranian nuclear project. The opinion that military action won’t be able to stop Iran’s nuclear program is shared by Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta.

Meridor went on to emphasize that a military strike on Iran would be nothing like the Six-Day War, a comparison occasionally floated by Iran hawks, and emphasized that Iran might be persuaded, through rational self-interest, to accept a diplomatic solution to the standoff over their nuclear program:

In the past, at least once or twice, the Iranians took to reason. For example, when [Ayatollah] Khomeini stopped the war with Iraq, he did so with a very illuminating statement that hade nothing to do with God but with a practical approach: “we can’t afford this war.” I hope the Iranians will engage in this kind of thinking again.

Top U.S. officials and the IAEA agree that Iran is making progress on its nuclear capabilities and warn that some of their activities may have a military dimension. But the IAEA, U.S. and Israeli intelligence agree that Iran has not yet made the decision to develop a nuclear weapon.

Right-wing donor Irving Moskowitz

Moskowitz generates his millions from a bingo enterprise in California. The catch is that the gambling license requires that Moskowitz only hand over 1 percent of gross receipts to the city so long as the rest of the profits go to the tax-exempt Irving I. Moskowitz Foundation (net holdings: $52 million). Through this foundation, Moskowitz gives to a bevy of less-than-savory causes — American Crossroads and its dishonest attacks are just the latest. Blumenthal notes that donations involving electoral politics are a relatively new thing for Moskowitz, but he’s got a long history of backing far-right-wing causes. Here are some of his greatest hits:

Islamophobia – Since 2002, the foundation has given $485,000 to the Center for Security Policy, a hawkish Washington think tank run by former Reagan administration official and conspiracy theorist Frank Gaffney. As reported in CAP’s “Fear, Inc.,” Gaffney’s group pushes Islamophobia in the U.S., and Gaffney has proclaimed that practicing the Islamic faith is tantamount to “sedition.” Gaffney, who thinks President Obama is Muslim, also leads the advisory group of the Islamophobic group Clarion Fund, which produces documentaries that have been denounced as “inflammatory” and once published approving comments about Norwegian anti-Muslim mass-murderer Anders Breiviks views.

“Birthers” – Since 2006, Moskowitz’s foundation gave $200,000 to the Western Center for Journalism (WCJ), a non-profit founded by Joseph Farah. WCJ describes Farah as “the brains behind WND.com news website.” Formerly known as World Net Daily, WND is a hub for “birtherism,” the conspiracy theory that President Obama’s publicly released birth certificate is a fake, and that Obama therefore is not a U.S. citizen nor eligible to be president. WND even hosts conferences on the issue and WND Books published Jerome Corsi’s “Where’s the Birth Certificate?” tome just after Obama’s long-form certificate was publicly released — though that hasn’t stopped WND’s conspiracy theories. WCJ’s blog, naturally, pushes the same, lame discredited theories.

Israeli settlements – By far, Moskowitz’s most generous philanthropic work — and other non-philanthropic funding — goes toward projects linked to Israel’s settlement enterprise in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, considered “illegitimate” by the U.S. government and international bodies. In addition to gifts of at least $1.985 million to projects in West Bank settlements like Kiryat Arba and Kedumim, Moskowitz’s and his wife’s foundations have donated more than $300,000 to the Hebron Fund, which supports some 800 ideological settlers living in the Palestinian West Bank city. Moskowitz also focuses on East Jerusalem, giving huge sums to developments there, including one million dollars in the late 1980s to purchase a defunct hotel and, as of the late 1990s, more than $2 million to support a religious pro-settlement group in East Jerusalem called Ateret Cohanim.

So far, the millionaire-backed American Crossroads took cash from an oil speculator to run an ad campaign absurdly accusing Obama of driving up gas prices. If the ad campaigns are, as with this case, linked to the donor’s pet causes, American Crossroads could be on its way to putting out some of the most vicious attack ads of the election season.

The Romney camp’s request led Dr. Colin Kahl, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East, to wonder, “Does Governor Romney think we should release all the notes and transcripts of the President’s conversations with our allies such as the Israelis and Europeans, tipping our hand to Tehran about every last element of our strategy to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon?”

Apparently, the answer is no. Today on his radio show, Mike Huckabee asked the former Massachusetts governor how the U.S. relationship with Israel would be different if he were to be elected president. Romney of course re-hashed all his stale (and baseless) talking points that Obama is “throwing Israel under the bus,” and said he would keep his disagreements with Israel private:

HUCKABEE: Describe conversations that you might have had that you can talk about as to the difference your administration, if elected president, would have with Israel than we currently have with President Obama? [...]

ROMNEY: I think this president has disrupted that relationship with Israel by one, criticizing Israel at the United Nations in his inaugural address. Two, throwing Israel under the bus with regards to demanding that we return to the 67 borders and then there’s the personal disrespect that was shown for Benjamin Netanyahu.

The best course for America is to stand very united with our allies to show that there’s not a dime’s worth of distance between us, at least in public. And if we have some private disagreements, why, we keep them in private. But we should show the world that we are united and I think the president’s failure to do that with Israel has emboldened the Palestinians.

Listen to the clip:

Romney’s baseless bashing of Obama’s record on Israel is nothing new. CNN once called his claim that Obama criticized Israel at the U.N. “misleading,” and of course, Obama never said Israel should “return to the 67 borders.” Indeed, Obama has simply reiterated long-standing U.S. policy that there should be a final settlement to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that is based roughly on the pre-1967 borders and mutually agreed land swaps.

But to answer Huckabee’s question, how would the U.S. relationship with Israel be different under a President Romney? The New York Times this weekend quoted Martin Indyk, a United States ambassador to Israel in the Clinton administration, saying that Romney’s past statements have implied that he would “subcontract Middle East policy to Israel.”

Indeed, the international sanctions regime has increasingly squeezed Iran’s ability to engage in the global economy, according to U.S., European and Israeli sources, and given Iran growing incentives to engage the P5+1 in negotiations on its nuclear program. But in an interview with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria on Sunday, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak voiced misgivings:

It is clear that the depths of the sanctions is different for what we had in the past, and it has its impact both the closing of the SWIFT clearing system as well as the sanctions on the oil export and, of course, the coming negotiations that will probably encourage them to move.

But to tell the truth, we hope for the better, but I don’t believe that this amount of sanctions and pressure will bring the Iranian leadership to the conclusion that they have to stop their nuclear military program.

Watch it:

But Barak’s pessimism isn’t shared by other Israeli government officials. Last week, Israeli ambassador to the U.N., Ron Prosor, wrote that sanctions have been “much more effective than people think” and “hopefully it might change behavior patterns if we continue with us.”

And Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told the CBC last week, “there is evidence that these sanctions are hurting, that it’s impacting on their economy, it’s impacting on their ability to govern themselves.”

In his CNN interview, Barak said Iran is moving forward with a “nuclear military program” and also said Iran is “determined to reach nuclear military capability.” Top U.S. officials and the IAEA agree that Iran is continuing to develop its nuclear capability and that some of their activities may have military dimensions. But the IAEA, and U.S. and Israeli Intelligence agree that Iran has “not made the decision to actually produce a nuclear weapon” as Panetta said last week.

Referring to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication’s (SWIFT) recent decision to expel 30 Iranian financial institutions — including the Central Bank — from using the key banking industry communication network, Prosor said the sanctions are “important” and “have an effect,” Foreign Policy’s Colum Lynch reports:

[H]e also credited international sanctions, particularly a set of financial measures imposed by the United States and the European Union, with exacting a steep enough price that it may force Tehran to change its behavior. Prosor cited a recent decision by the Belgium-based Society of World Wide Interbank Financial Telecommunications, or Swift, blocking dozens of Iranian firms from doing business as the latest evidence the sanctions are having an impact.

“I think the international community at this stage has really moved forward and have made at least clear to Tehran that there is a certain price tag for continuing” its pursuit of nuclear weapons, he said. “The decision on SWIFT, the issue of the sanctions by the EU, are important and have an effect on Iran…I do see really a movement on the international stage, especially on the economic side…It’s much more effective than people think and it might change, hopefully it might change behavior patterns if we continue with it.”

The New York Times noted last month that the SWIFT decision “severs a crucial conduit for Iran to electronically repatriate billions of dollars’ worth of earnings from the sale of oil and other exports.”

“It is a very efficient measure,” said a European Union official. “It can seriously cripple the banking sector of Iran.”

On Friday, President Obama announced further economic measures directed at Iran, making the determination that global oil supplies were sufficient enough to allow countries to reduce their imports of Iranian oil thereby clearing the way for the Obama administration to impose harsh penalties on foreign banks that purchase Iranian oil.

“There is evidence that these sanctions are hurting,” Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said in a recent interview, “that it’s impacting on their economy, it’s impacting on their ability to govern themselves.”

Lynch also reported that Proser said that he believes Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons. Top American officials and the IAEA agree that Iran is continuing to develop its nuclear capabilities and that some of their activity has a military dimension. However, U.S. and Israeli intelligence and the IAEA say Iran has, as Panetta said, “not made the decision to actually produce a nuclear weapon”

Yesterday on CBS’s Face the Nation, Vice President Biden shot back at Romney, calling him “uninformed“:

BIDEN: But what I think is most revealing about it is the Governor’s response. The Governor talking about this hurts Israel. He either hasn’t been informed yet or doesn’t know that this missile defense system we put in, and I was responsible as you remember for going to Europe and selling the new system which better protects them, also better protects Israel and in terms of the early warning capability. I mean, he just seems to be uninformed, or stuck in a Cold War mentality. So, I think what the– the exchange did, it exposes how little the Governor knows about foreign policy.

Watch the clip:

Indeed, Romney is uninformed. Since President Obama took office in 2009, the United States security commitment to Israel increased significantly and is unprecedented. Top Israeli officials regularly make this point. In fact, similar baseless GOP claims on Obama and Israel led the Associated Press to get involved. An AP “fact check” notes that Republican attacks on Obama that he’s not sufficiently pro-Israel “have strayed well beyond reality.”

Just last week, the Pentagon asked Congress for more money for Israel’s Iron Dome system which is designed to intercept short-range rockets and mortars. In recent weeks, the system was credited for intercepting more than 80 percent of the nearly 300 rockets fired by Palestinian militants from Gaza into southern Israel. “Supporting the security of the state of Israel is a top priority of President Obama and Secretary Panetta,” DOD spokesman George Little said in a statement.

Later on Face the Nation yesterday, Newt Gingrich also had trouble sticking to reality on Obama and Israel. Gingrich claimed that in a previous “hot-mic” incident with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Obama made a “derogatory reference to Israel.” “It was Sarkozy complaining about Prime Mister Netanyahu of Israel, and Obama actually sort of trumping him and saying it’s even worse I have to deal with him every day.” In fact, as Media Matters pointed out, Obama was actually advocating for Israel’s position at the time, requesting that Sarkozy ask the Palestinians to slow their push for U.N. membership.

The CRS report’s (PDF) summary states:

By all accounts, such an attack could have considerable regional and global security, political, and economic repercussions, not least for the United States, Israel, and their bilateral relationship. It is unclear what the ultimate effect of a strike would be on the likelihood of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons.

A potential Iranian nuclear weapon is widely considered a threat to both the security of the U.S. and its allies in the region, and the nuclear non-proliferation regime — though U.S. intelligence has not concluded that Iran has made a decision to pursue a weapon. The Obama administration vows to keep “all options on the table” to deal with the possibility, but the efficacy and consequences of a strike raise serious questions, leading the U.S. to pursue, for the meantime, a pressure track aimed at a negotiated resolution of the Iranian nuclear crisis.

An Israeli decision to carry out air strikes could hinge on the potential it sees for inflicting long-term damage on Iran’s nuclear program. One aspect of that potential — and one that gives rise to uncertainty — rests on Iran’s ability to reconstitute aspects of its program. Iran, over the years, dispersed it’s program into different locations, some shrouded in mystery.

The report honed in on Iran’s ability to preserve nuclear knowledge and the capability to rebuild its program through its opaque “workshops” for building centrifuges. Bloomberg News noted, “The possibility of dispersed facilities complicates any assessment of a potential raid’s success.” The CRS report went on to cite a former U.S. official with direct knowledge on the issue stating:

Iran’s centrifuge production is widely distributed and that the number of workshops has probably multiplied ‘many times’ since 2005 because of an increase in Iranian contractors and subcontractors working on the program.

Iran withdrew from the rigorous inspection standards of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty’s Additional Protocols in 2006. While the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) maintains access to Iranian enrichment sites, activities related to the construction of those centrifuges — before they get moved into enrichment sites — remain largely in the dark since 2006.

CRS estimated that Iran could largely rebuild its centrifuge construction “workshops” within six months of an attack. The Arms Control Association’s Peter Crail told Bloomberg news that a military strike would likely cause Iran to kick out IAEA inspectors, allowing the Islamic Republic to construct an entirely new enrichment facility dedicated to weapons-grade uranium away from international eyes. Crail told Bloomberg:

At some point they are going to reconstitute the program. It’s really just a question of can they do it within a year or two or is it going to take them a little bit longer.