An important story from James Risen shows why anyone with a passion for more war who talks about the “intelligence” on Iran’s nuclear program should not be listened to. In fact, we know precious little about that program, and even what we do know gets shifted by new information all the time.

In the President’s press conference, he focused mostly on Iran, to the exclusion of even a single question about Eric Holder’s asserted right to kill American citizens without a trial. I think the President runs a risk asserting that he didn’t have a “containment policy” on Iran. But his focus has been on the near-term consequences of Israel acting along to strike at Iranian facilities. He also took aim at the amped-up rhetoric at home pushing the world into war; in his presser, he had some pretty strong words about that

Undercutting Israeli saber-rattling on the topic, Western leaders agreed today to new negotiations with Iran on their nuclear program. And Iran possibly agreed to new inspections. That may give diplomacy a chance for now, but the President’s speech to AIPAC, in which he ruled out a “containment policy,” may be more ominous in the long run.

For those thinking that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would say one thing in public and another in private while in the White House, you can probably put that to rest. For reports are leaking out about that White House meeting, and the best that can be said about it is that Netanyahu hasn’t put the bombers into the sky just yet.

A day after speaking at the AIPAC conference, President Obama met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu today. The telegraphed message from the President for this meeting was to tell Netanyahu that he has a friend in the United States, that sanctions should be given time to work, and that Israel should not seek a unilateral strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. And Netanyahu basically said “I’ll do what I want.”

The prospect of an Israeli attack on Iran has become more realistic in recent weeks. Israeli officials told the AP that they would not even inform the United States in the event of a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. And there’s a sense that the window for an attack that would actually damage the nuclear program is short, perhaps just through this spring.

And Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrives in Washington next week for talks with the White House.

To the extent that the federal government has a role to play in lowering gas prices, one of the biggest things they can do is stop making the world believe that Iran faces an imminent attack on their nuclear facilities that will potentially inflame the entire Middle East and threaten the security of oil shipments. So it’s fortuitous that this intelligence assessment was released in the past 48 hours.

I’m sure this will be given as evidence that Obama “lost” Iran: “International nuclear inspectors reported on Friday that Iran is moving rapidly to produce nuclear fuel at a deep underground site that Israel and the United States have said is virtually invulnerable to attack…”

Ehud Barak, the Israeli defense minister, said today that Israel was “very far off” from any attack on Iran. More important, Israeli intelligence indicates that they have not yet determined that Iran has decided even to build a nuclear weapon. These are things you don’t hear much in the US press, so let’s run the [...]

Prior to all the rising tensions around Iran, the US and Israel had scheduled a large set of joint military exercises in the spring. Maybe this wasn’t necessarily a provocative act, but with everything happening around Iran, it gained a new resonance. So today, when the two sides postponed the exercises, some saw it as a way to cool those tensions.