ISRAEL is troubled by the perception the US is an "empire of the past" and wants a resurgent America to lead a decisive confrontation with Iran, a top official has said.

"America is tested" at a pivotal moment in the history of the Middle East, said Israel's Deputy Prime Minister, Dan Meridor, who is also the Minister for Intelligence and Nuclear Energy.

The Arab world was watching the US closely: "They look to America. If America does not seem to be able to contain the Iranian threat, will they go with Iran?"

"This is of world-order magnitude," he told the Herald in an interview. Israel, which depends on the US as its security guarantor, itself appears to have new doubts about US judgment.

Mr Meridor said he was "surprised" at the Obama administration's treatment of a longstanding US ally, Egypt's former president: "Was it necessary to immediately empower the demonstrators against him and let [Hosni] Mubarak go? It's seen by all the allies of America in the Arab world. I don't know where the tide of history will go and I'm not sure they know."

http://www.smh.com.au/world/israel-worried-by-weakening-us-20110411-1db5i.html?from=smh_sb

From Chris Floyd...

Dear Good Concerned Engaged Enlightened Rule-of-Law Liberal Progressives: Is it clear enough for you now? Does he have to spell it out for you, slowly, using short and simple words, and maybe some cartoons to make it clear? Your noble Nobel Peace Laureate – bringer of hope and change, restorer of the rule of law, world-historical paradigm-shifter, etc., etc. – has just publicly (not to mention arbitrarily) committed the nation to “the supreme international crime”: aggressive war.

He has pledged the blood and treasure of the United States to "regime change" in Libya: that is to say, an act of military aggression designed to overthrow the government of a sovereign nation which has not attacked your own country nor posed the slightest threat to it. This is, of course, precisely the same blatantly illegal posture taken by that great monstrous bogey-man of all good concerned engaged enlightened rule-of-law liberal progressives everywhere, George W. Bush, in his invasion of Iraq.

On Friday, Barack Obama scribbled his name at the bottom of a newspaper article written by hired minions of the leaders of Britain and France, pledging to keep killing people in Libya until Moamar Gadafy is driven from power. Nothing short of "regime change" will satisfy these towering colossi of world statesmanship; as the Guardian reports, they utterly reject any calls "for an immediate ceasefire, or a negotiated exit for the Libyan dictator."

Peace? Pah! No, it will be war, war, and more war until these leaders of the great Western democracies get the outcome they demand: the ouster of their clapped-out former client-tyrant, and his replacement by what they hope will be more amenable operators. Or is that too cynical? Surely what these Three Amigos of the Apocalypse are seeking is nothing less -- and nothing other -- than the "freedom of the Libyan people," right?

You know, the kind of freedom where your leader can take your country into an open-ended campaign of military action without the consent of the people or the people's representatives -- and then escalate the conflict far beyond the mandate of an already rubbery UN resolution into outright, undeniable aggressive war, through the oh-so-constitutional method of ... an op-ed piece in the Washington Post.

"The Americans and the Europeans withheld important documents and information from us. They weren't interested in a compromise with the government in Tehran, but regime change -- by any means necessary," Mohamed ElBaradei told the Der Spiegel on Tuesday.

The US and its Western allies accuse Iran of seeking to develop nuclear arms, and used this as a pretext to pressure the UN Security Council into adopting a fourth round of sanctions against Tehran in 2010.

Iran says that as a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency and a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, it has the right to use the peaceful applications of nuclear energy for electricity generation and medical research.

ElBaradei unveils West's stance on Iran

elsewhere .....

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed willingness to join Ehud Olmert's government in 2007 if Israel initiated an attack on Iran, a document from the Israeli WikiLeaks collection has revealed.

On July 20, 2007, Marc J. Sievers, the political counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv, sent a telegram to the State Department in Washington on the matter. The telegram was classified "Confidential," the level between "Unclassified" and "Secret."

Sievers' message dealt with the formation of a new Israeli government and was written on the eve of the release of the state comptroller's report on the Second Lebanon War, a year after it started. Ehud Olmert was still prime minister and headed the Kadima party. The Labor Party was his senior partner in the ruling coalition. Two days before Sievers sent his message, Defense Minister Amir Peretz, the head of Labor, resigned as defense minister and deputy prime minister.

Part of the telegram was devoted to the possibility of the establishment of a national unity government, in which the Likud Party would join Kadima, with Olmert as prime minister.

One of Netanyahu's advisers, whose name was not revealed in the message, spoke with American officials on the matter. "The adviser commented that the possibility of a national unity government, bruited in the press, is a possibility, but only if Olmert initiated such a move in order to galvanize Israel for action against Iran. He said that in such a scenario, Netanyahu would probably accept an offer of the Foreign Ministry," wrote Sievers.

This was the second time Netanyahu expressed willingness to support the prime minister if he initiated an attack against Iran. In the summer of 2005, Netanyahu resigned as finance minister in Ariel Sharon's cabinet over the Gaza disengagement plan. In December that year, Sharon left the Likud and founded Kadima. At the time, Netanyahu told Sharon he would "support him if he acted against Iran before the elections," reported Aluf Benn in Haaretz two years ago.

Netanyahu agreed to join Olmert's government if Israel attacked Iran