The group, Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MEK), is designated as a terrorist group by the United States and is accused of carrying out terrorist attacks in the past, including on American citizens. With the help of Israel, MEK has carried out five assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists since 2007 and may have destroyed a missile research and development site.

U.S. officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the Obama administration knows of the assassination campaign but has no direct involvement. However, there has been a big money push by many influential people in Washington to get MEK removed from the State Department’s terrorist list, presumably to make them eligible for U.S. funding.

The Iranians have made these allegations of Israeli terrorist attacks carried out by MEK for quite a while, but only now does it have confirmation from U.S. officials. Mohammad Javad Larijani, a senior aide to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in a recent interview with NBC News claimed they knew Israel was funding MEK, sharing intelligence, and training them inside Israel in the use of motorcycles and bombs.

The Iranians say much of their intelligence on this matter has come from interrogations with an MEK member that carried out one of the assassination attempts. The MEK has denied these allegations, issuing a statement calling them “absolutely false.”

Even if its true, as U.S. officials insist, that Washington has no involvement in these terrorist attacks, they do support Israel through unmatched economic aid, arms sales, and diplomatic support. As Larijani recently told NBC News, if America, Israel’s closest ally, is aware of this terrorism, “the United States has an obligation…to push Israel not to do it” and “to pursue it, like pursuing us, at the United Nations with different resolutions.”

In Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, however, the concern among embassy staff is a little more short-term. With the Israeli attack treated as virtually a foregone conclusion by many, the question immediately becomes what happens when Iran inevitably retaliates.

Foreign diplomats stationed in Israel are struggling to make “contingency plans” for the event that Iranian missiles begin flying in retaliation for an Israeli attack, and what they will do not just with their staff, but with their citizens who are in Israel on vacations or business.

It could be a monumental task for some nations, and with even the US unsure that Israel will give them advanced notice, smaller nations have to assume they’ll first hear about the war on TV, or when rockets start falling.

This is a problem in a number of third-world nations where war could break out any minute, but, unlike most third-world nations, Israel has such a massive number of tourists visiting at any given time, and these threats have been ongoing for decades, so the timing is impossible to predict.

The European Union has already conceded that it does not have the means to evacuate all the EU citizens in Israel in a timely fashion if a war breaks out, and the best Israel’s government is offering is a list of public bomb shelters for them to hide in. This is not so reassuring and embassies are likely to be overrun by mobs of their own desperate citizens hoping for safe haven.

The deal provided no timetable, however, which has led some to speculate that it will be just another empty exercise in negotiation. The two camps had struck a previous “reconciliation pact” in May, which has yet to lead to much.

Further practicality inactivity on the part of the Palestinian groups would suit the Israeli government. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as he has in the past, angrily condemned the agreement, saying Fatah could have peace with Israel or Hamas, but never both.

This has been Israel’s position for quite some time, but with the latest round of Israel-Fatah negotiation producing nothing resembling progress, the threat that Abbas won’t be able to look forward to his once yearly sit-down with Israeli negotiators to be reminded that Palestine will never be independent is unlikely to dissuade Fatah from moving forward on the deal.

Experts, however, say that the drones are a “total impossibility” and that any Israeli attack would rely more on the nation’s known conventional arsenal than its rumored secret weapons.

Click here to read more from Alternet

Yet an attack on Iran, if indeed it happens, is a much bigger matter, potentially involving weeks of bombings by Israel and inevitable retaliation by an Iranian government that has been preparing for decades.

The war would not be limited to Israel and Iran, but would have enormous global repercussions. President Obama has already conceded that, even if he prefers “diplomacy,” he intends to commit the US “in lockstep” to whatever Israel decides.

This is part of the Israeli strategy. Israeli Vice Premier Moshe Ya’alon has urged the world to think of it as “Iran versus the West, the United States, Europe and so on.” There is little doubt, however broad Iran’s retaliation might be, that it would be Israel firing the first shot in this war.

Europe’s role in any such war would seem to be entirely involuntary. Many predict that the ensuing oil price spike would bring the entire Eurozone into recession, probably drive Greece and Italy into default, and likely cripple the Euro as a viable currency.

Turkey appears to fear the consequences as well, saying such a war would “be a disaster.” And Iraq, a close Iranian ally, would probably get the worst of it, experiencing virtually instant bankruptcy, many predict.

On the other hand, the Pakistani government is said to feel obliged to support Iran in its retaliation if war breaks out. Since US involvement on Israel’s side is already a foregone conclusion, it would also likely mean an American war with Pakistan. Given China’s close ties with Pakistan, this could rapidly extend the tensions east.

The US, for its part, issues fairly regular threats against Iran, but those threats have been coming since the Reagan Administration and have never been particularly credible. Israel has been threatening to attack Iran “within a matter of months” for decades themselves, but officials say that this time they really mean it.

Officials familiar with the situation say that the odds are “better than 50-50″ that Israel will actually launch an attack this time, and more than one official was quoted as saying there was a 70% chance of it happening.

Much has been made of the potential timing of such an attack, and Israeli officials, notably Defense Minister Ehud Barak, have been insisting that time is of the essence and an attack must occur soon. Some Israeli analysts, however, warn that attacking Iran’s civilian nuclear program won’t necessarily do much to slow it without a protracted bombing campaign.

An Israeli attack would start a major war, and would almost inevitably draw the US in. The Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned that an attack by the US would “harm America” and US officials have said as much several times, a fact that never seems to occur to the many hawkish officials who have long been pushing this war.

Well if you’re into agricultural equipment, you’ll be at Agritech, the top International Agriculture Technology Exhibition in the world, being held this year in Tel Aviv, Israel. And that’s true even if you’re Iranian.

Decades of hostility between the Israeli and Iranian governments will not get in the way of a really good expo, not for the delegation of Iranian businessmen planning to attend with an eye toward acquiring some advanced hothouse equipment.

 Click here to read more from CNN

“Panetta believes there is a strong likelihood,” writes Ignatius, “that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June,” in an attempt to impede Iran’s quest to acquire nuclear weapons.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu disagrees with U.S. assessments that Iran’s nuclear program is civilian in nature and doesn’t want to risk Israeli security waiting for America to bomb Iran, which U.S. officials have said they won’t do under current circumstances.

“President Obama and Panetta are said to have cautioned the Israelis that the United States opposes an attack,” writes Ignatius, favoring instead a harsh set of economic sanctions as punishment for not building nuclear weapons.

“The Obama administration is conducting intense discussions about what an Israeli attack would mean for the United States: whether Iran would target U.S. ships in the region or try to close the Strait of Hormuz; and what effect the conflict and a likely spike in oil prices would have on the fragile global economy.”

While U.S. officials reportedly believe that Israel has not made a final decision to attack, the prospect of war is as close as ever.

Some commentators have claimed that a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities could not possibly destroy all of them, and therefore may incentivize Iran to actually start building a bomb after the strike. Ya’alon’s comments appear to push back against those arguments.

Ya’alon said that “the West has the ability to strike, but as long as Iran isn’t convinced that there’s a determination to follow through with it, they’ll continue with their manipulations,” adding that “it’s possible to strike all Iran’s facilities, and I say that out of my experience as IDF chief of staff.”

But the Vice Prime Minister must not be hearing officials in the U.S. Military and intelligence officials in Washington have expressed reluctance towards striking Iran. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey told Israeli leaders on Jan. 20 that the U.S. would not participate in a war against Iran begun by Israel unless explicitly agreed upon beforehand.

Ya’alon made other unhinged comments as well. Referring to an explosion at an Iranian missile base late last year, he hinted that Israel had been behind the explosion and that they were targeting a missile system Iran was developing “with a range of 10,000 kilometers” that could have reached the United States.

There is no evidence of this claim, and the notion that Iran would militarily attack the United States is ridiculous. Furthermore, there is no evidence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program, and the opinion of the U.S. intelligence community, the Obama administration, and the latest IAEA report is that Iran’s enrichment is so far civilian in nature.

“It is correct to continue economic pressure and sanctions,” Grantz continued, “from which we are starting to see signs of achievement and progress in terms of what is going on in Iran. It is correct to act and continue to disrupt processes associated with the development of the Iranian nuclear project and to work to enhance oversight over what is happening.”

Actually, the sanctions and other aggressive postures have been detrimental to regional stability and have failed to deter Iran from its nuclear policy, precisely the opposite of what Grantz claimed. In response U.S. sanctions, for example, Iran threatened to close the Straits of Hormuz. And in response to a European embargo on Iranian oil imports, Iran preempted the move six months early, banning oil exports to Europe. More pressure has brought more reactionary postures from Iran.

Diplomacy, on the other hand, has done the opposite. The International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) three day negotiations with the Iranian government were “constructive,” according to reports. And both IAEA and Iranian officials said they look forward to additional talks which can then lead to more negotiations with the P5+1.

Grantz added: “we must not forget one basic thing: Israel is the only country in the world which someone is calling for its destruction and which someone is building the tools to do so. This is something that cannot be ignored.”

Iran denies any intention to build nuclear weapons and there is yet no evidence of any nuclear weapons program. All 16 U.S. intelligence agencies concluded in 2007, and again in 2011, that there is no military dimension to Iran’s nuclear program. And despite the hyperbolic reporting on it, the latest report from the IAEA said, “the Agency continues to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material.”

As Adm. Dennis Blair, Obama’s former director of national intelligence, told Congress in March 2009, “We judge in fall 2003 Tehran halted its nuclear weapons design and weaponization activities” but that Tehran “is keeping open the option to develop them.” This is likely a deterrence strategy, as opposed to a desire to actually attain nuclear weapons, which would increase their risk of being attacked.