My read on the current fever pitch of "bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" rhetoric coming from Israel, its supporters and general intervention-loving warmongers in the U.S. is that it is mostly a "coercive public diplomacy campaign", part of a strategy of strategic ambiguity designed to bring Iran humbly to the negotiating table. But I know that there are many in the foreign policy community who are now convinced that Israel will launch a strike by July at the latest unless the U.S. can dissuade it or Iran's intractability unexpectedly crumbles.

I'd really hate to be wrong on this but the word from some "in the know" is that the Obama administration is trying to head the Israelis off from taking unilateral action that would be disasterous for the U.S. Thus Panetta and Clapper's recent warnings about the danger of an Israeli strike, the leak of Dempsey's warning to Israel that it would be on its own - and thus leaks like this one:

Deadly attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists are being carried out by an Iranian dissident group that is financed, trained and armed by Israel’s secret service, U.S. officials tell NBC News, confirming charges leveled by Iran’s leaders.

The group, the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, has long been designated as a terrorist group by the United States, accused of killing American servicemen and contractors in the 1970s and supporting the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran before breaking with the Iranian mullahs in 1980.

The attacks, which have killed five Iranian nuclear scientists since 2007 and may have destroyed a missile research and development site, have been carried out in dramatic fashion, with motorcycle-borne assailants often attaching small magnetic bombs to the exterior of the victims’ cars.

U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Obama administration is aware of the assassination campaign but has no direct involvement.

Israel is conspiring with terrorists who have killed Americans and perhaps planning a war that would cause many American deaths in its wake when Iraq, the Gulf and Af/Pak blow up in anger. isreal has even been warned not to do something so inimical to U.S. interests. Is there a prima facie case for saying a unilateral Israeli attack now would be tantamount to a declaration of war on the United States? Imagine if the old Bush Doctrine - "you're either for us or against us" - were to be being applied.

But that's mostly by way of being snark and a little of a thought experiment. No such logic will ever be applied to US/Israeli relations.

However, this leak does confirm one important fact long maintained by Iran - the MeK were flat-out lying when they said they had given up terrorism. The Islamo-Marxist, cultlike group, who believe their founder is the 12th Imam have spent an inordinate amount of money in the UK and France to buy politicians in order to have themselves removed from those nations' terrorist lists. Neocon groups have always loved their potential as a weapon and source of propaganda against Iran and have backed them whole-heartedly. But the MeK has also paid hefty speaker fees to Howard Dean, Rudolph Giuliani, Bill Richardson, Wes Clark, two former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, former FBI director Louis Freeh and former CIA director Michael Hayden, among others, in an attempt to get the State Dept. to copy the European delisting.

John Dean went so far as to bluntly state in an NPR interview last year: "So they are unarmed. They are not terrorists."

Not any more, Mr. Dean, if they ever were. Time to admit you were willingly duped by dollars.