Has the Obama administration inadvertently given Israel a green light to bomb Iran's nuclear programme?
That would certainly seem the most obvious conclusion to be drawn from the mounting diplomatic stand-off between Washington and Tel Aviv over the Israeli government's decision to press ahead with the construction of 1,600 colonist homes in north occupied Jerusalem.
Israeli officials say relations between the countries have not been this bad for 35 years, when the oil embargo imposed by Arab states in reaction to the 1973 war saw Washington attempt to distance itself from Tel Aviv.
Nor does there seem much prospect of a thaw following Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's frosty exchange with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Clinton, who has been highly critical of Israel after it announced the colony construction programme just as US Vice President Joe Biden arrived in the country to revive peace talks, demanded that Netanyahu cancel the project altogether. In response Netanyahu said he was prepared to freeze the programme, but not cancel it, a response that falls well short of Clinton's requirements.
In the past such gestures from an Israeli government would normally be sufficient to smooth over a diplomatic row. While not entirely giving in to Washington's demands, the Israelis would go far enough to draw the sting from the argument to allow both sides to resume the normal business of diplomatic discourse.
But what is really concerning Israeli officials is that the Obama administration appears to have no interest in re-establishing cordial relations. They point to the fact that Netanyahu immediately issued an apology to Biden after Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's hawkish foreign minister, had taken it upon himself to announce the occupied Jerusalem construction programme without even giving his own prime minister prior notice.
The Americans, for their part, appear to be relishing the opportunity to give Israel what one US official has described to me as "the mother of all kickings." Many of Obama's senior foreign policy officials are veterans of the former Clinton administration, when Netanyahu was held responsible for trying to block Bill Clinton's attempts to negotiate a comprehensive peace deal between Israelis and Palestinians. On that occasion Washington succeeded in getting Netanyahu's government voted out of office in the 1999 Israeli election, and no doubt there are many American officials who hope they can repeat the experience in 2010.
Balancing act
It is for this reason that, by his standards, Netanyahu has attempted to make conciliatory gestures to Washington since he was re-elected Israel's prime minister. After Obama made it clear that resolving the Israel-Palestine dispute would be one of his administration's central foreign policy objectives, Netanyahu responded by offering to freeze all Israeli colony construction on the occupied West Bank, a gesture that Clinton herself hailed as an "unprecedented concession." But while Netanyahu has been prepared to make concessions on the West Bank, which might one day form the basis of an independent Palestinian state, he has less room for manoeuvre on the issue of occupied Jerusalem, which most Israelis regard as the indivisible capital of the Jewish state. Even if Netanyahu was unaware of the new construction programme in north occupied Jerusalem, it would be political suicide for him to oppose the development.
The deterioration in relations between Tel Aviv and Washington will also give Netanyahu pause for thought about the other major issue that has dominated US-Israeli relations for the past year, Iran's nuclear programme.
Like many right-wing Israelis, Netanyahu is demanding that the West take a firm line with Tehran's continued non-compliance with its international nuclear obligations. And while there are several senior members of his Cabinet, such as Lieberman, who argue in favour of Israel launching unilateral military action to destroy Iran's nuclear programme, until now Netanyahu had agreed to co-operate with Obama's more softly, softly approach, where the US president is attempting to coax Iran into a peaceful resolution of the dispute.
But if Washington has no interest in maintaining a constructive dialogue with Israel — which is the conclusion most Israeli officials have drawn from the recent row — then where's the incentive for Netanyahu to continue co-operating with an administration that holds him in contempt?
The announcement by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin that Moscow will shortly provide the technical expertise to make Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactor operational by this summer will be further cause for alarm in Israel. Although the Russian-built Bushehr reactor is designed for civilian use, the spent material could be reprocessed to make nuclear weapons.
Israeli officials have always said that they would launch unilateral military strikes against Iran to prevent the regime from acquiring nuclear self-sufficiency. If Putin keeps his promise, Netanyahu will come under immense pressure from his electorate to take pre-emptive action. And if Israel does launch a military assault on Iran later this year, with all the implications that will have for global security, then the Obama administration will have no one but itself to blame.
The new edition of Con Coughlin's book Khomeini's Ghost is published by Pan Macmillan and available from Telegraph Bookshop.
