The story of how this simmering crisis began is in many ways a story about the complexities of America’s relationship with Israel, a story that has never been fully told. It is the story of a war narrowly averted, an arms agreement negotiated behind Israel’s back, two bedrock allies spying on each other and a battle over who will ultimately shape American foreign policy. Interviews with dozens of current and former American, Israeli and European officials over several months reveal the startling details of how close the Israeli military came to attacking Iran in 2012; the extent to which the Obama administration felt required to develop its own military contingency plans in the event of such an attack, including destroying a full-size mock-up of an Iranian nuclear facility in the western desert of the United States with a 30,000-pound bomb; how Americans monitored Israel even as Israel monitored Iran, with American satellites capturing images of Israel launching surveillance drones into Iran from a base in Azerbaijan; and previously unknown details about the scope of Netanyahu’s pressure campaign to get Trump to leave the Iran deal.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/04/magazine/iran-strike-israel-america.html
