“The warm public words expressed by both sides about US-Israeli coordination are heartfelt. Behind the scenes, the exchanges of information and assessment are truly open, serious and constructive. The US representative to the P5+1 talks, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman, to give just one example, is in constant communication — in person, by phone and via video — with key Israeli officials including National Security Adviser Yaakov Amidror, seeking their input, consulting them on P5+1 tactics.

But there is one great unspoken secret at the complicated heart of this highly sensitive relationship between two true allies facing what, for one of them — the weaker and more immediately threatened one — is a potentially existential danger: There is no circumstance, absolutely no circumstance whatsoever, in which the United States will empathize with an Israeli decision to strike alone at Iran’s nuclear facilities.

No American official will come out and say this. No Israeli official will acknowledge it. But that is the case, notwithstanding Obama’s declared support for “Israel’s sovereign right to make its own decisions about what is required to meet its security needs.””

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