But on the critical question of Iran, his speech also highlighted the small but significant divide that continues to split U.S. from Israeli policy.  Obama offered a rhetorical embrace, but a much less-than-desired military promise to Israel on Iran, while delivering a slap in the face to human rights, international law, and any U.S. responsibility for ending support for Israel’s anti-Palestinian occupation and apartheid policies.

The Atlantic’s longtime correspondent James Fallows noted “what I found odd about the AIPAC performance is that an American president was expected to make similar pleas about his reliability in support of another country’s government.”  But that denies the longevity and intensity of the U.S.-Israeli “special relationship.”  As that relationship was consolidated during the post-1967 Cold War years, it was shaped by the mutually reinforcing influences of the pro-Israel lobby and those of the powerful military-strategic forces, from the Pentagon to the weapons manufacturers to members of Congress.

As a result, that exact expectation of presidential reliability in supporting Israel began to be taken for granted.  What was in fact more odd than the usual verbal genuflections to Israeli interests was the fact that his actual policy assertion towards Iran differed significantly from what Netanyahu was so insistently demanding.

The rhetorical obeisance, for sure, was beyond full-throated. Responding to his Republican challengers and other critics who claim he has been too tough on Israel (and not tough enough on Iran), Obama proudly catalogued his long list of support, bragging that “when the chips are down, I have Israel’s back.” He reminded skeptical Israel supporters that U.S. military and intelligence cooperation with Israel “has never been closer.” With U.S. military assistance to Israel higher than ever, $30 billion over these ten years, Obama reasserted his commitment to “preserve Israel’s qualitative military edge,” and boasted about his administration’s additional funding of Israel’s anti-missile Iron Dome system. He bragged of protecting Israel in the UN, where U.S. vetoes defend illegal settlements and U.S. opposition prevents Israeli military and political leaders from being held accountable for potential war crimes.

In an unmistakable recognition of how civil society activism is cutting into the once-uncritical pro-Israel discourse of the United States, Obama won applause for his declaration that “when there are efforts to boycott or divest from Israel, we will stand against them. And whenever an effort is made to de-legitimize the state of Israel, my administration has opposed them.”

President Obama also endeared himself to the crowd by referring to the “Jewish state of Israel.”  In the last couple of years Washington has accepted Israel’s demand for Palestinian recognition of Israel as a “Jewish state” as a new precondition to restarting the long-failed peace talks.  But accepting Israel as a “Jewish state” is widely viewed as legitimizing the inequality of rights and privileges available to Jews and not to Palestinians both inside Israel and in the occupied territories.

Bomb Iran?

The president was clear that the Iran war gap between Washington and Tel Aviv remains. On the critical question of whether the U.S. would join, defend, participate in, or even lead an Israeli military strike, Obama made it clear at AIPAC that he really doesn’t want to go to war against Iran. It shouldn’t be a surprise, given what $5.00/gallon gasoline would do to his November re-election prospects.

Obama’s talk was rhetorically tough–“The entire world has an interest in preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon”–but he rejected Israel’s demand, reasserting the U.S. position that only the actual acquisition of a nuclear weapon by Iran might trigger a U.S. military response. For Tel Aviv (along with AIPAC and several U.S. senators), that red line is Iran reaching nuclear weapons capability, which really means the scientific know-how (remember Israeli officials’ chortling over those assassinated scientists?) and enrichment facilities.

Israel’s political leadership, especially Prime Minister Netanyahu, claim Iran has already reached capability, and their demand is for a U.S. commitment to back an Israeli strike against Iran’s nuclear power infrastructure.  In fact, Israel wants a military strike really soon, on the grounds that Iran is building some of its enrichment facilities in a mountainside. Tel Aviv is outraged that Iran is thus creating a “zone of immunity,” as if Iran were somehow obligated to build its legal enrichment facilities within easy air-strike access.

But Obama clearly rejected that demand. He described every possible future use of U.S. military force as “preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” not preventing weapons capability. His rejection of containment was similarly in favor of “a policy to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.” The words “capability” or “capacity” did not appear in the speech.

In fact, any U.S. military strike against Iran, whether or not Iran moved towards weaponization, would still be in violation of the UN Charter, requiring powerful opposition even now.  But the U.S. version still differs significantly from Israel’s demand.  In that context, Obama’s justification for using force “when it is necessary to defend the United States and its interests” – he didn’t say “the U.S. and its allies” – was significant, as was his reminding the AIPAC audience that “there is too much loose talk of war.”

So despite his rhetorical escalation in political pandering, Obama at AIPAC did not show any willingness to acquiesce to Israel’s demand for a military assault on Iran.

Palestine out in the cold

But if the speech did not include new threats of military force against Iran, it did demonstrate the breadth of problems in U.S. policy towards Iran, Israel, Palestine and the region as a whole. Along with claiming legality for what would under any circumstances still be an illegal U.S. military strike against Iran, Obama reasserted the legitimacy of U.S.-led sanctions. He admitted that sanctions have only been “slowing” Iran’s nuclear energy program (which is legal under the Non-Proliferation Treaty and remains under inspection by the UN’s nuclear watchdog agency), but bragged they have been “virtually grinding the Iranian economy to a halt.”  Sanctions that aim to “cripple” the economy on which 74 million people depend, are clearly in violation of international law.

It’s good that President Obama reminded AIPAC that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon – but how much more powerful it would have been if he had reminded them that Israel, the only actual nuclear weapons state in the Middle East, does have an arsenal of several hundred nuclear warheads, which remain out of reach of UN or any other inspectors. How much more important would this speech have been, bringing it to the level of global game-changer, if he had used the occasion to add U.S. support to the urgent global call for creating, now, a nuclear weapons-free zone throughout the Middle East – with no exceptions?

Aside from the rhetorical pandering on Iran, perhaps the biggest failure in Obama’s AIPAC speech was in its giving Israel a get-out-of-accountability-free card. Clearly Israel has no reason to worry about any possible U.S. pressure to end its occupation and apartheid policies. Any Obama administration commitment to working to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is over, at least till after the elections. Yes, everyone knew that the main focus of his speech would be Iran, but those few defensive lines mentioning the Palestinians made all too clear that the days of at least rhetorical calls for a settlement freeze (however lacking in real pressure), the recognition of the 1967 borders (however spurious by acceptance of Israeli-determined “swaps”), the willingness to admit that maybe Israel had some obligations (see the lack of real pressure, above…) – all that is over. Maybe until the presidential election, maybe for good.

So what’s the score? No additional threats of war against Iran, that’s good.  And yes it’s AIPAC. No one expected a serious condemnation of Israeli occupation and apartheid. No one expected a robust defense of human rights and equality in Israel and Palestine.No one expected the president to be even even-handed.  But really – abandoning even the pretense of concern for Palestinian rights, or even a sotto-voice admission that ending Israel’s occupation just might help bring some level of stability, if not peace, in the region?

President Obama really missed his chance here, to take advantage of the degree to which the public discourse has changed so dramatically on this issue in these last few years. Criticizing Israel hasn’t meant political suicide for quite a while now. One of the Washington Post’s top political analysts, Walter Pincus, wrote that the U.S. “needs to reevaluate its assistance to Israel” and the sky didn’t fall. Salon has reported that  “The media consensus on Israel is collapsing” noting that “across the political spectrum, once-taboo criticism is now common.”

Members of Congress remain frightened of the lobby’s campaign financing clout – but AIPAC doesn’t hold the loyalty of nearly the percentage of Jewish voters it once did.  Maybe Obama is afraid of the money clout too – AIPAC, like the Israeli prime minister, pretty clearly favors Republicans these days (every Republican candidate except the anti-intervention Ron Paul was featured on the AIPAC dais).  So maybe the answer is that the Obama administration and his campaign strategists are just too nervous to acknowledge that discourse shift that has been so evident since he’s been in office. It’s just more change than the president is ready for.

That clues you in, at least a little, to the deceptive philosophical complexity of this 76-minute video essay, which quite literally begins with silence and ends with fireworks. “This Is Not a Film” at first appears to be a haphazard visual diary of Panahi’s daily life, drinking tea, feeding his daughter’s iguana and rattling around inside his upscale Tehran high-rise apartment as he waits for the final dispensation of his legal case. Once a well-regarded filmmaker who specialized in low-budget, documentary-style comedies and dramas with nonprofessional actors — he is best known for his mildly seditious crowd-pleaser “Offside,” about a group of girls who try to sneak into an all-male soccer stadium — Panahi is now an international cause célèbre.

He has been sentenced to a six-year prison sentence and a 20-year ban from the film industry, all for making a movie the Iranian mullahs apparently decided would lend aid and comfort to the opposition. He remains free on appeal at this writing, and the theocratic regime’s willingness to enforce such an outrageous sentence against an artist remains in question. But by the time “This Is Not a Film” is over it becomes something quite different, something almost impossible to describe: a co-created documentary about a political prisoner on house arrest (some of it shot on an iPhone), a master class on filmmaking with non-actors, a work of accidental cinema that uses one chance encounter to launch a meditation on the current state of Iran. Any way you slice it, it’s a brave and brilliant act of defiance.

“This Is Not a Film” was smuggled out of Iran in time for the Cannes Film Festival last May, and in some sense it reaches America at the perfect moment — or at least at a critical moment in the troubled recent history of our two countries’ relationship. Right-wing hawks in America and Israel are calling for a preemptive strike against Iran’s nuclear program, whose existence and potential threat remain little more than a hypothesis. Meanwhile, Asghar Farhadi’s film “A Separation,” which offers an unstinting portrait of a middle-class Iranian marriage and class, religious and gender conflict in Iran, has won worldwide acclaim and just captured the nation’s first Oscar. Both the Tehran regime and Iranian dissidents have tried to claim “A Separation” for their side, with the state-friendly TV network broadcasting a fictitious version of Farhadi’s Oscar speech in which he mentions the nuclear dispute (he did not), and opposition figure and former President Mohammad Khatami offering his congratulations. (While Farhadi has wisely avoided political statements during awards season, his sympathies are clear. He never thanks or even mentions the Iranian government, and has frequently praised “Iranian filmmakers,” a code phrase often used by Panahi’s supporters.)

As the international success of “A Separation” and numerous other Iranian films over the last two or three decades should remind us, even in its current state of high tension Iran is not North Korea. This is a society with an enormously rich artistic and literary tradition, which has remained somewhat autonomous under the ayatollahs, as it did under the Shah. There isn’t a single individual or ruling oligarchy that calls all the shots, and the political, religious and bureaucratic classes are all, to a greater or lesser extent, at war among themselves. In fact, I would suggest that “A Separation” offers a more damning indictment of the multiple hypocrisies of Iranian daily life than Panahi’s films generally do, but for whatever reason Farhadi has been left alone and Panahi has clearly pissed off the wrong people.

Panahi had already been arrested in 2009, during the protests after that year’s disputed presidential election, and then was arrested again in March 2010, partway through making what the Iranian regime apparently decided was an “anti-state” film, which we see a few snippets of acted out in the living room. (His real crime may have been the remarks he made — and green scarf he wore, a symbol of resistance — as jury president at the Montreal Film Festival.) Although the attendant global publicity and support from many prominent Iranian and Western filmmakers got him out on bail after three months in custody without charge, he was ultimately convicted of “the intention to commit crimes against the country’s national security and propaganda against the Islamic Republic.” It’s a cliché to call something Orwellian, but sometimes the shoe fits.

In “This Is Not a Film,” we overhear his phone calls with his lawyer and with Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, Iran’s leading female filmmaker, neither of whom offers much room for optimism. It’s possible that Panahi’s sentence will be reduced, but unlikely it will be voided entirely — and the authorities are no doubt delighted to let him stew in his gilded cage for a good long time. There was obviously considerable risk involved in making “This Is Not a Film” — which does indeed credit Panahi as co-director, along with Mirtahmasb — and one imagines the mullahs are not pleased. You get the feeling he simply couldn’t help himself, which is the secret of his work, and the thing that got him in so much trouble. After trying and failing to tell the story of his banned screenplay, Panahi talks us through a couple of scenes in previous films (first “The Mirror,” from 1997, and then “Crimson Gold,” from 2003) to explain how the things that go wrong — the unpredictable human factor — dictate the final work.

As if to illustrate this principle in action, after Mirtahmasb departs Panahi takes his camera into the elevator with a talkative young man, a student who moonlights collecting trash in this fancy apartment building, and then finally out into the street, where anti-government protesters are setting off fireworks. The young janitor urges him to turn off the camera, for fear of being recognized, and that’s the end of the film that is not a film. “This Is Not a Film” does not make an argument for or against war or Iran’s supposed nukes or anything else; as Panahi himself told the court that convicted him, he believes in a “socially conscious, humanistic and artistic” vision of cinema that “tries to stay beyond good and evil.” Instead, this non-film is an ambiguous statement from a man persecuted by a society in crisis. In its own way it’s an inspiring testament of courage and sacrifice and even patriotism, as hackneyed as all of that may sound. As Panahi told his judges, “Despite all the injustice done to me, I, Jafar Panahi, declare once again that I am an Iranian, I am staying in my country and I like to work in my own country. I love my country, I have paid a price for this love too, and I am willing to pay again if necessary.”

“This Is Not a Film” opens this week in New York and Los Angeles. It will open March 23 in Hartford, Conn., and New Orleans; March 25 in Albuquerque, N.M.; March 31 in Columbus, Ohio; April 6 in San Francisco; April 9 in Nashville; April 13 in Chicago, Madison, Wis., and Seattle; April 20 in Boston and Houston; and April 27 in Cleveland, with more cities to be announced.

In the past few weeks, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey and National Security Advisor Tom Donilon have all held high level meetings in Jerusalem. Barak is scheduled to meet with Panetta and with Vice President Joe Biden. Peres will meet with President Barack Obama, as will Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will fly to Washington for a much anticipated meeting on March 5.

The subject at hand is nuclear Iran — not the movie version, and not even the proxy war version, which has seen the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists, the attempted assassinations of Israeli diplomats, and genial computer viruses attack Iranian nuclear installations, making centrifuges spiral out of control, as in Hollywood’s imagination.

On the eve of the Israelis’ Washington visits, there is a divergence of opinion between the United States and Israel regarding the utility of the recently hardened sanctions on Iran, and a growing apprehension on both sides about what the other may be prepared to accept from the Islamic Republic’s leadership.

Eytan Gilboa, an expert on U.S.-Israel bilateral relations who holds posts at Bar Ilan University and at the University of Southern California, said the situation is stark and in some ways unprecedented.

“The Obama administration has little trust in Netanyahu and vice versa. The new sanctions that have been imposed have produced economic hardship in Tehran, but this does not mean they are working. To work, they have to change the Iranian government’s policy toward nuclear development, and this has not yet happened.”

“The UN Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has just announced that Iran has substantially increased enrichment, which seems to contradict American statements that have appeared in all the media suggesting that Iran has not yet made the decision whether to develop nuclear weapons.”

Two points of dispute stand out in creating what Sen. John McCain, also on a visit to Israel last week, called the “daylight” between the two countries regarding Iran’s nuclear plan.

The first is the question of what constitutes unacceptable progress toward the manufacture of an armed nuclear device, or, in Barak’s words, Iran’s entry into a “zone of immunity.” The other is the extent of uranium enrichment at a nuclear site near the holy city of Qum, which was highlighted by the IAEA report.

The United States and Israel agree that the secret underground structure is better protected from a possible military strike than other known Iranian facilities. But from that point of agreement, different conclusions are drawn.

Israeli analysts believe Iran is moving fast toward a nuclear military option, and taking advantage of the pressure of sanctions and the time granted by European offers to negotiate in order to assemble all the parts necessary to build a bomb. The United States, which is in the midst of an election year, meanwhile, thinks sanctions may yet bring Iran — “if it is behaving as a rational actor,” in Gilboa’s words — to negotiate.

“The process is preparing everything for the building of bombs, with the aim of creating all the parts and then needing only a very short period of time to assemble a weapon. So it is just playing with words if we say that we don’t know whether they have made a decision. If you produce all the parts, it is obvious that means you intend to produce a bomb,” Gilboa said.

“I think that what Obama wants from Netanyahu next week is a commitment not to strike Iran at least until the American election, to give heavier sanctions a chance and not to surprise the United States.”

Gilboa does not believe Israel would attack Iranian nuclear installations without notifying the Americans beforehand.

Still, he points out, “The current situation is unprecedented. The U.S. has never before asked Israel to refrain from military action, and Israel has never before asked the U.S. for permission. This is all new ground.”

The 1981 Israel Air Force attack on Osirak, Saddam Hussein’s French-built nuclear reactor is now ancient history. In that campaign however, only eight jets were involved.

The New York Times estimated that at least 100 Israeli fighter planes would be needed today for a crippling attack on Iran. At the time of the Osirak strike, the United States angrily condemned Israel. But in 2005, former President Bill Clinton said, “Everybody talks about what the Israelis did at Osirak in 1981, which I think, in retrospect, was a really good thing.”

The current disagreement between Israel and the United States seem not to be on the substance of Iran’s nuclear program, or even on the possibility of a necessary, last-resort, military strike, but on the timetable and method of response to the threat.

Many Israeli analysts believe the Obama administration and Europe are not convinced that the full effect of sanctions has yet been felt. Israelis are concerned that by the time they are felt, possibly by next summer, when Europe’s oil embargo on Iran is scheduled to go into effect, it might be too late.

“What Obama would like is to put the crippling sanctions to the test. He thinks that the sanctions being used this time, alongside the oil embargo, will actually have an impact,” said Tel Aviv University professor Uzi Rabi, the director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies.

“He is in effect saying to Israel, don’t surprise us. We want to be updated from A to Z. The second thing, I think Israel is being asked is to play down the shadow war and really just let sanctions work. If the sanctions are going to be fully implemented it could inflict a lethal blow on the Iranian regime, and since what we are talking about is the survival of the regime itself, this could be very effective.”

As to Israel, Rabi says, “It would like to make sure everybody knows that from its point of view, a nuclear Iran is unbearable. This combination of ayatollahs and power is something that poses an existential threat to Israel, and it is something Israel is really afraid of. What Israel thinks is the right thing to do is to make sure the military option is not only on the table, but actually feasible.”

Not many in Israel think that Iran, even with a nuclear weapon in hand, would attack Tel Aviv.

“Based on rational thinking, which is not one of the strongest characteristics of the Middle East, if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, it would be tantamount to suicide were they to use them. Iran would be wiped out by Israel’s second strike capability and by American nukes,” Gilboa said.

“I think they want them in order to acquire hegemony in the Middle East. By becoming a nuclear power they can threaten anybody. The power of threat is much more than the power of destruction.”

Gilboa predicts that next week Netanyahu will ask Obama how he plans to ensure Iran’s non-nuclear status in the event sanctions fail to cripple the nuclear program, and that Obama “will evade the answers.”

Rabi says “Israel is afraid to be left alone. I don’t think Iran would attack Israel. But their actions provide a source of inspiration for lunatic radical movements like Hamas and Hezbollah, and the fact that they are attacking Israelis in Baku, Delhi and Tbilisi, though ineffective for now, show that this is a state that could act in accordance with the modus operandi of a terrorist group. This has very negative implications for the stability of the Middle East.”

Not all Israeli experts see in the commotion of transatlantic visits and consultations evidence of tension between the United States and Israel. Shlomo Shpiro, vice chair of the Department of Politics at Bar Ilan University, believes those claims to be overstated.

“I think there anxiety among some in the U.S. administration who fear that a powerful Israeli military action against Iran could have an impact on the election in November. I don’t think there is tension. A whole range of senior American officials have been visiting Israel almost on a weekly basis.”

“I think the threat assessment is very similar in Washington and in Jerusalem,” he adds. “I think Obama is very concerned about the possibility of Iran getting nuclear weapons. Both are very worried, and both countries agree the process is moving quickly. The disagreement is only about how to prevent or delay it.”

Any Israeli military option, Shpiro says, would be a “last resort.”

“But if it comes to a last resort, I think Israel’s leadership will not hesitate. It all depends on the progress of Iran’s nuclear program and on information that the U.S. and Israel obtain about that program.”

For now, the war of nerves will play on, with Israel pressuring the U.S. and Europe to fully implement severe sanctions as soon as possible, and demanding assurances, perhaps impossible to give, about what the West will do if sanctions do not deter Iran.

The psychological warfare, many say, may lead Iran to believe it can “safely assume it can continue with its plan to build nuclear weapons without much interference,” Gilboa said. “There is a possibility the Iranians are laughing at everybody. For example, why announce sanctions and then say you’ll impose them only in six months?”

“The Iranians are the only ones producing consistent statements, and this is our problem. Too many of the statements coming from the West are confusing and could be interpreted in any number of ways.”

On the part of the government, the prideful rhetoric is nothing new. The threats of preemptive strikes, oil embargoes and the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, together with bluster about its capture of a downed U.S. spy plane, all appear to be posturing as the conflict with the West over its nuclear program continues to seethe.

More quietly, however, everyday Iranians too are beginning to feel the pull of national pride. Crippled in their daily lives by skyrocketing energy costs and the weight of economic sanctions, many of Iran’s citizens appear to be seeking refuge in their own history, steeped as it is in power and prestige.

“For years I wanted to leave Iran, but now I just want to stay,” said Nazanin, a 27-year-old graduate student who asked that his last name not be used because, like many in Iran, he fears potential retribution from his government.

While some in Iran are attempting to get out of the country while they still can, others, like Nazanin, are embracing their complicated country in new ways.

At a sprawling exhibition complex in Tehran, delegates from more than 70 countries took part in a conference on “Youth and Islamic Awakening” earlier this month. Many of them were there to discuss what the rest of the world refers to as the Arab Spring, the series of upheavals that was sparked in Tunisia by a street vendor who set himself on fire.

But to the Iranians present, and leaders as well, it is they who deserve the credit for the democracy movements that have raged through the region.

Even as daily life in Tehran trudges along in the face of incessant talk of war, many said they a growing desire to sacrifice for the defense of their country, even if that means pursuing a career in what has become perhaps the country’s most dangerous field — nuclear physics.

After the apparent assassination in January of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, an Iranian nuclear scientist and a professor at Tehran’s highly-regarded Sharif University, more than 100 students signed a petition requesting to change their majors to fields related to nuclear studies.

Although some cast the move aside as nothing more than propaganda, it was nonetheless a sign that younger Iranians — with bright futures — are still willing to go to bat for their country.

Sharif University has long been a major source of pride for Iran and many alumni and faculty have both studied and taught at top U.S. universities. Iranian nationalism was further stirred earlier this month when Seyed Mojtaba Atarodi, a professor at Sharif, was detained by U.S. authorities in Los Angeles and held on $460,000 bail for violating US sanctions. He was accused of exporting electronic equipment to Iran. The school community and Iran’s foreign ministry have come to the professor’s defense, demanding his release.

Also stirring for Iranians this year has been the success of the film “A Separation,” which won a Golden Globe and is up for two Academy Awards, including best foreign film. While the film deals with domestic issues of a husband and wife in Tehran, Iranians everywhere are gushing over the film’s success, and its prospects of winning an Oscar.

“I’m so happy about the film’s success even though I didn’t see it,” said Lida, a Tehran office worker, adding, “It’s just something for Iranians to be proud of right now.”

During the Golden Globes the director of the film, Asghar Farhadi, dedicated the award to Iranians, who he called a “truly peace-loving people.”

For many Iranians this simmering pride has little to do with their government, which they don’t necessarily support. They say there is a big difference between supporting Iran as a country and supporting their country’s leadership.

“First of all, I won’t give [Iran] to foreign invaders, but I certainly will not let this regime force me to leave, either. This is my country,” added Nazanin, who was recently arrested by Tehran’s morality police for wearing a jacked deemed to short.

And then there are those who have simply not been moved to support their country at all, and acknowledging both a deteriorating security situation and a sputtering economy, are plotting a course to leave. Many, in fact, said they see the current state of affairs as a testament to how far Iran has fallen.

At Iran’s National Museum, a subtle monument to one of the world’s oldest civilizations, artifacts are on display dating back to 7000 BC. The museum has long been an inspirational landmark for people here. But these days, some worry that the grandeur it houses is symbolic of only a time that is now long gone.

“When I look at these things, I really feel sad that we’ve become so disconnected from our glorious past,” said Javad, who works as a tour guide at the museum.

Sensing the gathering clouds, some Iranians are choosing instead to get out before things get too bad. Hamshari newspaper, one of Iran’s most widely circulated dailies, reported recently that between 50,000 to 80,000 educated elites have left Iran in the last year.

These Iranians are looking for an escape from a standard of living that has decreased dramatically in recent months, and which seems destined to deteriorate further as international sanctions continue to expand.

“There’s nowhere in the world better than Iran for making money,” said Kazem, a currency trader, wistfully. “But right now is just not the time. Too much uncertainty.”

Some are simply hoping to hedge their bets and achieve residence status in another country until the current difficulties pass. Others are resorting to escape plans that include applying for tourist visas to countries in Europe’s Schengen zone, and then seeking asylum at U.S. embassies.

Many more are looking for legal immigration to other countries that are still open to receiving Iranians, like Malaysia and Turkey. The United Arab Emirates, for example, has made it nearly impossible for Iranians to receive work visas, although it welcomes thousands of Iranians each month as tourists.

“I love my country and I want to live here,” said Niloofar, a teacher. “But I would like to have resident status in another country for peace of mind.”

While all this seems true, it doesn’t necessarily tell you which of them is more determined to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, and Ha’aretz is reporting (here and here) that U.S. officials say Barak is the one. As National Security Advisor Thomas Donilon and National Intelligence Agency chief James Clapper arrived in Jerusalem this week to press the case against an Israeli attack, Ha’aretz reported:

The Americans are particularly worried about the hawkish line that Defense Minister Ehud Barak has adopted on the matter. They apparently have the impression, however, that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has yet to come to a final stance on the dispute.

Knowing where Netanyahu and Barak stand on the Israeli political spectrum is little help in gauging which one will be more in favor of the military option when decision time comes, which could be as early as spring. Their war records as prime minister, their character, their readiness to withstand American pressure, and the power relationship between them are much stronger indicators of what they will do on Iran than their views on West Bank settlements.

For all their militant rhetoric, neither one ever started a war from the prime minister’s office, which was held by Netanyahu for six years (1996-99 and 2009-present), and by Barak for a year-and-a-half (1999-2001). Both followed standard-issue, tough Israeli policy on Palestinian terror, but the most notable military move by either one was Barak’s withdrawal of armed forces from Lebanon. (The most enthusiastic warrior of 21stcentury Israel was the most dovish P.M. of all on the Palestinian question: Ehud Olmert, who in three years fought Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, and in between bombed Syria’s upstart nuclear reactor.)

Judging by their records, then, neither Netanyahu nor Barak is eager to attack a foreign country. But the specter of a regime as radical as Iran’s closing in on nuclear capability is something Israel has never faced, so past performance counts for only so much.

As for which man is more likely to stand up to pressure from the Obama administration, that’s clearly Netanyahu. He and President Obama are fundamentally different, not to say natural enemies. The prime minister is a Toscanini in orchestrating congressional opposition to White House strong-arming.

For Barak, White House pressure was never much of an issue. He was regarded as an ally by Clinton and Obama, until the current administration saw he was stringing them along on Netanyahu’s sincerity about peace. Now that he’s reportedly considered the true Iran hawk in Israel’s government, the White House would seem to have little use for him.

“He panics under pressure”

Then there’s the character issue, and on this score I’d say Barak would be more likely than Netanyahu to point for war. One of the three most decorated soldiers in Israeli history, Barak has bragged about killing Arab enemies while “seeing the whites of their eyes.” He’s a menacing individual, a systems analyst with a taste for violence; while playing “no, after you” with Yasser Arafat at Camp David in 2000, he grinned while manhandling the Palestinian through the door. Years later, in his political comeback, Barak stormed a Labor Party stage, his bodyguards tailing him, tore the microphone out of a party elder’s hand and demanded that the membership give him his way. He’s more ruthless than Netanyahu, and no less ambitious.

As for the prime minister, if this were strictly an issue of character, or personality, I think that when the moment came to bomb or not to bomb, he would back off. To quote Ariel Sharon: “Netanyahu lacks the sound judgment and iron nerves required of an Israeli prime minister. He panics under pressure.” On the basis of personality alone, bombing Iran and starting what could turn into a long regional war seems too big for Bibi. Political cartoons often show him in a nervous sweat. It’s commonly noted in the media that he is intimidated by his (third) wife, Sara, and that she runs her own personal “court” inside his bureau. As Israeli leaders go, he radiates instability.

Commenting on the latest shakeup in Netanyahu’s office, Yediot Aharonot diplomatic correspondent Shimon Shiffer wrote on Wednesday: “I’ve been covering the activities of prime ministers since Menachem Begin. I spent many hours watching their bureaus at work, and I can honestly say that I’ve never come across a working environment so divisive and anarchic as this one.”

The only prime minister’s office he ever covered that rivaled Netanyahu’s for intrigue and disorder, Shiffer wrote, was Barak’s.

I asked two retired Mossad chiefs, an army ex-chief of staff and a former defense and foreign minister, all of whom made life-or-death decisions separately with Barak and Netanyahu, which seemed more likely to go to war with Iran, and which seemed to have more influence over the other. The Mossadniks and the army man had no comment,  another indicator that the Israeli security officials don’t care to debate the issue publicly. Former defense and foreign minister Moshe Arens, a hawk on Iran, said there was no reason to assume the two men differed in their views. As for which had more influence over the other, Arens said: “I don’t know. Maybe they themselves have no way of knowing.”

Much has been written about the two men’s relationship, which goes back 40 years to when Barak was Netanyahu’s commander in Sayeret Matcal, Israel’s most legendary  commando unit. Barak, at 70, is eight years older than the prime minister. Face-to-face, the defense minister would seem to be the senior partner. However, there’s no evidence that Netanyahu is submissive at work to his former commander.

Moreover, Barak needs his one-time lieutenant much, much more than the other way around. Without Netanyahu, the defense minister’s political career is over. In recent years he’s become terminally unpopular on a personal level with the public and his political colleagues. He’s highly respected, though, as Israel’s top military technocrat, which is the reason Netanyahu keeps him around.

But the most important element in the power relationship between the two, certainly in a decision on starting a war with Iran, is that Netanyahu is the prime minister and Barak isn’t. It will be Netanyahu calling (or calling off) this shot.

Myself, I cannot envision him as prime minister of Israel on the day after Iran has reached the point where it is beyond Israel’s ability to stop it from building nuclear weapons, a point Israelis estimate will arrive around September. I can’t imagine Netanyahu envisioning himself in such a helpless predicament facing such a threat. From childhood, from his family – especially his 101-year-old father, Benzion, a great historian of the Spanish Inquisition whose stated political views make his son’s seem positively  liberal – from the heroic death of his brother, Yonatan, in the raid on Entebbe, from his understanding of history, Bibi Netanyahu inherited, and has nurtured, a grim certainty of what happens to Jews when they are vulnerable.

Speaking about International Holocaust Day in a cabinet meeting early this month, he said that what’s changed for Jews since the Holocaust is “not the lack of enemies – the same will to exterminate the Jewish people, first of all the state that was founded; that will remain and has not changed.” What’s different, he said, is that now Jews have the power and will to defend themselves.

“The Jewish people, the government of Israel,” he said, “have the right, the duty and the capability to prevent another extermination of the Jewish people or attack on its state.”

On May 5, Netanyahu will be at the White House to hear from Obama why he shouldn’t go to war. According to Ha’aretz, the president will come to the meeting armed with a statement of support from Israeli President Shimon Peres, who will convey it privately to Obama at the AIPAC convention.

The Americans will be ganging up on Netanyahu, isolating him from his supposedly more hawkish partner, Barak. But even by himself, Netanyahu should prove an awfully hard nut for Obama to crack, especially on the matter at hand.