Rumor of war: Is Israel about to attack Iran?

facilities was a folly. It would be premature, and it carries costs which might well be prohibitive. Moreover, the four agreed that Israel had other means — for example, cyber attacks and assassination of Iranian scientists — to slow down the Iranian nuclear weapons project.

The second thing these four shared was not only a long experience in national security issues, but also a reputation for toughness tempered by pragmatism.
We now know that the four of them, consistently and forcefully, objected to moving forward with a military action against Iran — and that they did so in the face of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s and Defense Minister Ehud Barak’s support for such action. Insiders say that the united front these four formed against an attack made it impossible for Netanyahu and Braak to go ahead with their preferred policy.
The views on Iran of the four individuals who replaced the retiring four are not known, but the reputation three of them have — Ganz being the exception — is of being more hawkish than the people they have replaced.
More importantly, Pardo, Cohen, and Kochavi certainly do not have the standing of their predecessors or their reputation, and it is doubtful that they would be as adamant or forceful in objecting to policies clearly supported by Netanyahu and Barak — or if they were adamant and forceful, it is not clear that they would be as effective as their predecessors. Ganz is an enigma: Netanyahu and Barak preferred another general to succeed the retiring Ashkenazy because that general, Yoav Galant, was a hawk’s hawk — but Galant became mired in a personal scandal, and Netanyahu and Barak turned to Ganz, who was already out of uniform. Ganz is highly respected as a military officer and is known as a low-key pragmatist — but he has a reputation as a conciliator who prefers compromise to confrontation.
3. Regional developments
The two main developments in the Middle East are the Arab Spring and the growing Iranian influence. The Arab Spring saw the overthrow of authoritarian regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya, and a similar on-going struggle against the regimes in Yemen and Syria. Iran has been gaining influence not only through its nuclear program and its championing of the Palestinian cause, but also through support for indigenous Shi’a movements to destabilize pro-Western regimes (two examples: Lebanon and Bahrain), fundamentalist Sunni movements willing to do Iran’s bidding (for