JERUSALEM: Speculation over whether Israel is preparing for a unilateral military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities has intensified in the past few weeks after a period in which the atmosphere was less febrile.

The visit of four senior US administration officials — the secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, the defence secretary, Leon Panetta, the national security adviser, Tom Donilon, and the counter-terrorism chief, John Brennan — suggests that Washington is renewing its efforts to rein in Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu's inclinations towards military action.

It can be assumed that the administration is also anxious to reassure Netanyahu that it is committed to tackling the Iranian nuclear threat following presumptive Republican candidate Mitt Romney's visit to Jerusalem earlier this week. Romney, assisted by his senior aide Dan Senor, positioned himself in hawkish solidarity with Israel. Senor even suggested that Romney would back unilateral action launched by Israel, although there was some later backtracking on that stance.

The message to Israel from administration officials boils down to this: the US is serious about preventing a nuclear-armed Iran, you need to trust us on this, we will in the end use force if we have to and we are much better equipped to do so than you, so don't muck it all up by going ahead on your own.

An analysis in the Jerusalem Post by Yaakov Katz summarises the debate within Israel's political and military establishment:

“The debate that is raging within the government and the defence establishment is not about the value of an attack, since no one really wants Iran to be allowed to go nuclear. The question, however, is about the timing of such an attack and whether it needs to happen over the summer, before the US elections, or if it can wait until afterward, maybe as far away as next spring.

“At the heart of this question are two additional questions — first, whether Israel can afford to wait that long and second, if Israel can really rely on the US to use military force one day if and when everything else has clearly failed.”

Some commentators believe Netanyahu will only respond to a clear and powerful message from Barack Obama. Writing in Haaretz, Ari Shavit says:

“The key to preventing disaster is ... in the hands of the US president. Barack Obama is a brilliant orator. Obama has made quite a few exemplary speeches both as presidential candidate and as president. But the American president's most important speech is the one he has not made so far — the Iran speech. A speech in which the leader of the free world pledges in public that the free world will prevent Iran from obtaining military nuclear ability — at any price. A speech in which the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says that if the sanctions don't stop Iran, America's military power will.

“A speech in which the US president stands before the citizens of the United States and its allies and says — it's on me. I will not ignore your existential needs nor abandon our strategic interests, nor let Iran become a nuclear power. In my name and in the name of Mitt Romney and the bipartisan leadership, I hereby pledge that in the course of 2013 America will paralyse the Iranian centrifuges that could bring an historic catastrophe on us all.”

Such a speech will prevent an Israeli strike and “almost” guarantee Obama's re-election, says Shavit.

An unusual view is taken by Larry Dernfer, writing on the +972 website. In a piece headlined “It's over — there will be no Israeli attack on Iran”, he says: “Israel is not going to attack Iran. Not before the 6 November presidential election, not afterward if Obama wins, and maybe not afterward even if Romney wins, which is unlikely.

“It's not that Netanyahu doesn't want to bomb Iran — he does, and he makes that clearer every day. What's happened is that there's been such a torrent of opposition in the Israeli media this week from the security establishment, starting with IDF [Israel Defence Forces] chief Benny Gantz, and backed by the Obama administration and Pentagon, that there's no way Bibi [Netanyahu] can get his cabinet to vote for a war, and without the cabinet's backing, he can't do it.

The ministers will not support Bibi in an extremely risky war opposed by the heads of the IDF, IDF intelligence, the air force, the Mossad, the Shin Bet and the United States of America.

Dernfer adds: “So I think the game is up. Making the case for war with Iran is now a losing battle, and people are going to start running away from it, beginning, I expect, with Ehud Barak, who has been Bibi's equal partner in this whole scaremongering affair.”

By arrangement with the Guardian