I think we're at a point where just watching the daily news will provide as much information as we're going to get on the situation. Speaking for myself, I'm not paying a whole lot of attention to what President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu say. I'm a whole lot more interested in what they do.

For Netanyahu to say that "...Israel reserves the right to defend itself" doesn't mean they're going to attack Iran, although that comes a lot closer to what might happen than Obama saying "...we'll stand by our friend and ally Israel; we've got your back".

In both cases I think there's a whole lot of political posturing going on in an attempt to draw other countries, who have been standing on the sidelines, to enter the situation. Russia and China have not only been non-committal on their support of an Iran anti-nuclear policy, but they've actually blocked formal sanctions in the UN. But both China and Russia will be a whole lot closer to a shooting war in the Middle East than we are. And if oil production and shipping facilities are destroyed in any armed conflict, they will suffer the same consequences that we do.

Us "standing by" Israel is a very undefined term that could range from continuing to try to negotiate and expand the sanctions against Iran to the sharing of intelligence. Or it could mean that we'd finally agree to sell Israel our highest-level "bunker buster" bombs, which until now we've witheld from them. What the President has said is a long way from saying that our naval fleet and troop ships are on their way to the Middle East.

Reach whatever conclusion you wish, but I don't think that the POTUS will make a major commitment of U.S. blood and treasure to assist Israel in attacking Iran without serious conversation and maybe even debate in the Congress. When the President says, "I mean what I say...", that doesn't mean much until he gets the representatives of the people to agree that we're willing to enter and pay for another war. Remember, if people are serious about "listening to the commanders on the ground", our senior-most commanders have already told all who will listen that an attack on Iran is a very bad idea.

And remember, Israel can't just send their bombers directly to Iran. They have to fly over either Turkey, Syria and Iraq, or Saudi Arabia to get there. It's almost certain that none of those countries will approve of Israeli overflights to bomb Iran. Israel's only alternative to violating sovereign air space and encountering unfriendly air defenses would be to fly almost three times the distance to and from, down the Red Sea and around the entire Arabian peninsula and enter Iraq from the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman, a route requiring at least one mid-air refueling and giving Iran hours to prepare it's air defenses. You'll almost certainly be reading news of how Israel might negotiate this obstacle before anything happens.

I think about all we can do to understand the diplomatic posturing and verbiage is to watch the news and see what really happens in the region.