We don’t know whether Israel will attack Iran. This issue involves complicated questions: Does Israel have the political will? Does it have the capability? What can it achieve? To what degree (politically and/or technically) does Israel need the approval of the U.S. administration?

Here are two recent answers to this last question. Aluf Benn doesn’t think Israel can act alone:

However, despite our operational capabilities – which remain unproven – many defense experts say an attack against Iran is “too big a mission for Israel.” They raise two main arguments: concerns that Iran’s response will be harsh and start a general war, even if the operation fails, and more importantly, the United States’ determined opposition to an independent Israeli operation. This view is held by Defense Secretary Robert Gates. The defense experts say that without a green light from Washington, Netanyahu and Barak will not be able to send in the air force.

But according to the Jeffrey Goldberg piece on Netanyahu (to which Rick Richman referred earlier), Israeli military advisors argue that no American approval is needed:

Neither Netanyahu nor his principal military advisers would suggest a deadline for American progress on the Iran nuclear program, though one aide said pointedly that Israeli time lines are now drawn in months, “not years.” These same military advisers told me that they believe Iran’s defenses remain penetrable, and that Israel would not necessarily need American approval to launch an attack. “The problem is not military capability, the problem is whether you have the stomach, the political will, to take action,” one of his advisers, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told me.

If Bibi’s first speech at the Knesset gives any hint as to what Israel might do — it’s the latter view that seems to prevail: “The Jewish people has [sic] experience with dictators and it cannot overestimate megalomaniac dictators who threaten to destroy it,” he said.

And while this is not a guarantee that Israel can actually do it, it’s worth remembering that Netanyahu is a leader and also a politician: he knows that a nuclear Iran might be closer than people might think. The words he utters now will haunt him later if he doesn’t act.