What's happened to the New York Times columnists? Really, I'm getting scared of the reality that's emerging from The Times these days. It's frightful. Cohen's column, coupled with this post by Tina, and some other developments in the recent past make it pretty damn clear that two things are going to happen soon. But first, here's a highlight from Cohen's column:

You can’t accuse the Israelis of not crying wolf. Ehud Barak, now defense minister, said in 1996 that Iran would be producing nuclear weapons by 2004.

Now here comes Netanyahu, in an interview with his faithful stenographer Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, spinning the latest iteration of Israel’s attempt to frame Iran as some Nazi-like incarnation of evil:

“You don’t want a messianic apocalyptic cult controlling atomic bombs. When the wide-eyed believer gets hold of the reins of power and the weapons of mass death, then the entire world should start worrying, and that is what is happening in Iran.”

I must say when I read those words about “the wide-eyed believer” my mind wandered to a recently departed “decider.” But I’m not going there.

That's just a beautiful twofer if you ask me!

So now about those two things that are going to happen soon. One, Bibi and Obama are going to have a showdown. Weeks ago I was pretty sure that Obama would cave to Bibi. But now I'm not so sure, especially in light of his speech to the Turkish parliament.

The second thing that looks increasingly likely in light of a recent softening of rhetoric out of Iran in the wake of Obama's Nawruz address and America's softening of nuclear demands, likely to recognize Iran's self-evident right to own it's own fuel cycle, seem to presage some kind of denouement is in the works. Bibi won't like either. But from what I've learned about Israel in the recent past gives me some hope, politics aside. Bibi may end up just being full of bluster.

In diplomacy it is often hard to decipher words from actions; the art of diplomacy is words. But in the case of Iran the simple fact that we are now openly talking with them is action. And that is good.