It started with intermittent, meaningless and senseless babble. Then it picked up, turning into furtive whispering and then a buzz. Now it has resurfaced and in full volume: Iran. Once again, it’s Iran. By the end of the summer or early fall, or by the end of fall, or something to that effect, Israel will strike Iran, on its own, independently.

Having already buried the military option for Iran and having believed that the election of the Iranian President Hassan Rouhani would give everyone another year of quiet, we see it coming up again. Just when we thought that the Americans would not let Israel strike before exhausting the talks with Rouhani’s administration and figuring out this man, just as we thought that we had gotten rid of this saber-rattling that recurs every spring like migrating birds flying home, it’s happening all over again.

Basing itself on “European sources”, the Wall Street Journal this week [Aug. 5] reported that Iran would be able to make a plutonium bomb next year once the reactor in Araq was completed.

A plutonium bomb? Where has this come from? Well, it turns out that all along the Iranians had been quietly poring over an alternative plutonium track in the event they had to freeze the uranium and centrifuges track. It has now become apparent that they are about to complete this dramatic move.