A few months ago the host of one of America's late-night talk-shows - the ones that are off the air now because of a writers strike - cracked a joke at the expense of the European powers, in their supposed determination to halt the Iranian race toward a nuclear bomb: "France and Germany warned Iran this week not to pursue their nuclear research program. In fact, France and Germany warned Iran that if they didn't stop their program, they would, you know, warn them again," he scoffed.

This week that seemed like a joke made at the expense of the American administration, which continues to be determined to halt Iran even in the face of the sigh of relief heard around the globe. The United States' policy had evaporated, all at once. Without an obvious and immediate nuclear threat, there is no military option and there is no pressure on the rest of the world to join in the implementation of sanctions. President George W. Bush has been transformed from the accuser to the accused: Why did he threaten a third world war when, in the corridors of his administration, a reassuring picture with respect to Iran was taking shape? Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose declaration a few weeks ago that Iran is not aspiring to nuclear military capability aroused confusion and rumors, suddenly came across as a prophet of truth.

Israel had already received signals of the expected change in the U.S. position a few weeks ago. At a joint meeting of the Israel's Institute for National Security Studies and the Council on Foreign Relations, of New York, all of the American speakers came out strongly against a military attack on Iran. They warned that the use of force would only strengthen the Iranian regime and described horror scenarios, ranging from a tremendous surge in oil prices to terror attacks in the United States and harmful consequences to its soldiers in Iraq and the Gulf. All of them supported dialogue with the Iranians and signaled that this could be beneficial to Israel as well. Even though currently active administration officials did not participate in the meeting, it was clear that those present were expressing the prevailing spirit in the corridors of power.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert suspected that the Americans had eased up a bit in their determination to deal with the Iranian problem, and before he left for the Annapolis conference, he spoke - by way of giving a little background - about the military option. Perhaps he thought that was the way he would arouse a sense of urgency among the Americans. Olmert and other senior Israelis who visited Washington last week told reporters about perfect understanding with President Bush. "There is no place where I am afforded greater understanding when I discuss existential issues than in the Oval Office," he told us last week. And we believed him. Olmert related that in the first of his two meetings with Bush, "I spoke very directly about the issues - and this was accepted without ambivalence and in an extraordinary way - [and] about the freedom we reserve for ourselves and what we will do and what we will not do." Are you referring to Gaza, Olmert was asked. "Not necessarily," he replied without elaborating.

But the freedom ostensibly reserved for Israel this week is mainly the freedom to grumble. Under a flood of reports and reactions, its complaints came across like a musty old tune from a different era, when the world still believed that Iran wants nuclear weapons. It was the eve of Hanukkah, a holiday about Jews and Greeks - not Purim, which is about Jews and Persians - but consternation reigned in the city of Jerusalem. Serious professionals who analyzed the weaknesses of the report had a hard time believing that nuances aren't a formula for changing public opinion. Their analyses were washed away in the great, soothing wave of good news from the intelligence community. On Wednesday, various sorts of spokesmen were still worrying whether and to what extent Israel should take part in the internal American debate that is heating up. Olmert, at the advice of Defense Minister Ehud Barak, asserted that we mustn't argue with our friends from America, even if Israel does not like what was written in the American National Intelligence Estimate (NIE).

In January, 2001, even before the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center collapsed, the secretary of defense at the time, Donald Rumsfeld, wrote a memo asserting that "the post-Cold War liberalization of trade in advanced technology goods and services has made it possible for the poorest nations on earth to rapidly acquire the most destructive military technology ever devised, including nuclear... We cannot prevent them from doing so." The NIE, which finds that at the moment, the Iranians are not advancing their military nuclear program, also reiterates Rumsfeld's assertion: There is no way to stop the Iranians from obtaining a bomb if they want it badly enough. The obvious conclusion, which has been adopted enthusiastically by many columnists and commentators, is that it would be a pity for the United States to enter into a conflict that it is impossible to win. It is better to talk with the Iranians.

A change of tune

The Tuesday before last, Barak went to meet his old friend and current counterpart, American Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. The two have known each other since the 1980s, when Barak was head of Military Intelligence and Gates was deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Gates apologized on behalf of Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, who had canceled his meeting with Barak at the last minute, and when the two men were alone in the room, Gates read the NIE report on Iran to Barak in McConnell's stead. Barak briefed Olmert, who discussed the matter on the following day with Bush. In Israel they did not like what they heard, but at least they were not surprised. When the American report was made public, on Monday evening, they were already waiting for it at the Prime Minister's Bureau with talking points aimed at damage control.

Gates, like Barak, is skilled in the twists and turns of defense and intelligence establishments. At the end of the 1980s, he managed to annoy then-secretary of state George Shultz, when he refused to be impressed by Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev's charm offensive. This happened toward the end of Ronald Reagan's presidential tenure, and Shultz, like his president, was invested politically and possibly also emotionally in the reformer from Moscow. But Gates continued to argue that the Soviet Union was and remained a dedicated enemy of America.

This was one of those confusing moments that complicate simplistic distinctions between "doves" and "hawks" in the American administration. With respect to the Soviet Union, Reagan was the hawk who had softened into a near-dove. His successor, president George H.W. Bush, and most of the top people in the administration that followed Reagan - among them Gates, who was appointed deputy to national security advisor Brent Scowcroft - enjoyed a more dovish image than Reagan's administration, but in the Russian arena it was in fact quite hawkish in those years. In the ongoing conflict between Gorbachev's supporters and opponents, Gates, like then- defense secretary Dick Cheney, today vice president, was suspicious. Secretary of state James Baker was on the other side of the controversy, and in the middle was current Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, then with the National Security Council. She managed to maneuver her positions so that both sides believed she was with them.

Gates, who even by his own admission did not succeed in predicting the total breakup of the Soviet empire, knows a thing or two about the disadvantages of intelligence estimates. Sources familiar with nuclear issues this week enumerated three "critical" elements necessary to the advancement of the Iranian military nuclear program: fissionable material, the means for launching and a weapons system. Of the three, they said, there is no doubt that at least on two and a half, they are making progress. The enrichment of uranium is going on and the centrifuges are spinning. The missile program is developing and improving. The "half" is the weapons system, of whose existence American intelligence has had difficulty finding conclusive proof.

It's not only the Israelis who find it difficult to understand the rationale at the basis of the lenient American analysis. They have been joined by professionals from Britain and France, but these, perhaps under instructions from their political superiors, have on the whole preferred to remain silent even in the face of many questions.

Senior sources in both the U.S. and Israel agree that the basis for the information in Israel's hands is very similar to that which guided the American assessment. There isn't anyone who is going to complain about the cooperation between the intelligence agencies of the two countries. And even if Israel does have a few more details, which it has held back for reasons of protecting sources, they are marginal. In any case, it wasn't in the intelligence arena that Israel suffered a blow this week, but rather in the public opinion arena. The U.S. public, which the surveys say has become convinced over the past several years that Iran is dangerous, is liable to change its mind.

Nearly all the American commentators and experts sang the same refrain together this week: The military option is dead, long live dialogue.

Political issue

The NIE report will sit on Bush's desk until the end of his term in office and it is doubtful that it is within anyone's powers to change this. A meeting with Israeli Military Intelligence chief Amos Yadlin or Mossad espionage agency head Meir Dagan will not lead U.S. intelligence to admit that it has erred. Even if is misleading, unintentionally or deliberately, the report has tied Bush's hands - and, indirectly, also Israel's.

A senior policy source in Jerusalem said this week that the report will not prevent Israel from attacking Iran, if it decides that there is no alternative. "The Americans aren't going to tell any other country what to do and certainly not us," said the source, adding that Israel's margins of security are different from those of the U.S. "As far as I am concerned, if there is only a small likelihood that Iran will reach the stage of having nuclear weapons in 2009, we must relate to this in all seriousness."

In a discussion that he held on Wednesday, Olmert said that Israel's working assumption would not change. As far as Jerusalem is concerned, Iran still has an active nuclear program, which is liable to push Israel, which will feel isolated, to consider "difficult decisions" in the (expected) case that the diplomatic effort fails. Olmert believes that if he concludes that Israel is in danger of annihilation, Bush will give him the permission to take off.

An Israeli attack on a distant country like Iran - and not on any neighbor across the border, such as Syria - entails American agreement. The reason is that en route from Israel to Iran, there are tens of thousands of American soldiers, in Saudi Arabia and Iraq, who would be at risk of an Iranian reaction should Israel attack the nuclear installations at Natanz and Arak, and should the U.S. be accused of cooperating with it.

To fly to Iran, the air force would need the American codes that would open the flight path to it, in order to prevent a collision between friendly forces. In the Gulf War of 1991, the Israel Defense Forces were eager to respond to the Scud attacks from Iraq, but the Americans refused to release the codes. This, and not only prime minister Yitzhak Shamir's stubbornness, was the main reason that the air force remained at its home bases. Former secretary of state James Baker related in his memoirs how he kept the flight codes from Israel and instead gave it words of support and even batteries of Patriot missiles with American crews. The main thing was that Israel shouldn't be pushy.

This time, too, the Americans have hastened to give Israel a consolation prize, in the form of the announcement of Bush's plan to visit Jerusalem next month. Olmert and President Shimon Peres wanted to invite Bush for the 60th anniversary celebrations for the state in the spring and the contacts surrounding that invitation were proceeding slowly. On Tuesday, the day after the publication of the Iran report, a surprising announcement came in from the White House - that Bush would be stopping in Israel and the Palestinian Authority on his way back from a visit to the Gulf. In this way, at least, there will be a softening of the impression that between Jerusalem and Washington, something very important started to break apart this week.

Nevertheless, it is difficult to understate the importance of the blow that landed on Olmert and his policy this week. "A terror attack by intelligence," is what one Israeli defense source called it. If Olmert wanted to play the Iranian card and hazard the chance that the U.S. would destroy the nuclear installations in order to enlist support for another withdrawal in the West Bank - "Itamar in return for Natanz" - he has lost this card. And it is also going to be a lot harder for the Americans to persuade Israel, which has been left isolated on the Iranian front, to take security risks vis-a-vis the Palestinians and also perhaps with respect to the Syrians.