A 2009 American government cable released Sunday by the WikiLeaks website quotes Defense Minister Ehud Barak as telling visiting American officials that a strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities was viable until the end of 2010, but after that “any military solution would result in unacceptable collateral damage.”

The whistle-blowing website obtained some 250,000 diplomatic cables between the U.S. and its allies, which Washington had urged the site not to publish. But by Sunday evening Israel time, major news organizations around the world had released a significant amount of documents touching on subjects ranging from Iran’s nuclear aspirations, to espionage at the United Nations and even the behavior of the British monarchy.

The June 2009 cable also quotes Barak as describing the Iranian leadership as “chess, not backgammon players,” with a U.S. diplomat quoting the defense minister as saying Tehran would “attempt to avoid any hook to hang accusations on, and look to Pakistan and North Korea as models to emulate in terms of acquiring nuclear weapons while defying the international community.”

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