The president should have built a credible threat of military action and made it very clear that the United States of America is willing, in the final analysis, if necessary, to take military action to keep Iran from having a nuclear weapon.”

This, according to most Israeli sources, is the essence of the position that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is taking to his meeting with President Barack Obama in their meeting in Washington Monday.

It also happens to be an exact quote of what presidential candidate Mitt Romney said on January 7 at the Republican debate at St Anselm College in New Hampshire.

And though most people wouldn’t suspect Netanyahu of coordinating his positions on such an existential issue with the Republican Party, some of the people close to Obama suspect that this is exactly what he’s been doing. According to this conspiracy theory, Netanyahu and the Republicans are in cahoots: the Republican role is to portray Obama and his Administration as weak in order to push it to adopt a harsher position on Iran; Netanyahu’s role is to strike a bellicose pose that not only confirms the Republicans’ accusations against the president but also ratchets up tension in the Middle East, drives up the price of oil, increases the price of a U.S. gallon of gas and thus sows voter dissatisfaction in advance of the upcoming presidential campaign.

For more, go to Haaretz.com

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