Benjamin Netanyahu is taking off his gloves. He's been taking them off for a while, but if press reports out of Israel are accurate, he's boiling over with frustration at President Obama:



Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ramped up on Tuesday threats to attack Iran, saying if world powers refused to set a red line for Tehran's nuclear program, they could not demand that Israel hold its fire.



"The world tells Israel 'wait, there's still time'. And I say, 'Wait for what? Wait until when?' Those in the international community who refuse to put red lines before Iran don't have a moral right to place a red light before Israel," Netanyahu, speaking in English, told reporters in a press conference with Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov.



By "the world," please read, "Obama (and Cameron, and also the Germans). We know from Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, that Netanyahu is "at wits' end" over Obama's decision not to provide the Iranians with clear red lines. Now we see the prime minister taking it to 11, stating in public what he previously stated only in private.

Why is he doing this?

My guess is that he's saying what he's saying because he knows he can't attack, especially before the U.S. election, barring a yellow light from Obama, which he's not getting. Sheer frustration at what he sees as Obama's obtuseness is causing these undiplomatic outbursts.

Ehud Barak, the defense minister, who is his partner in confronting Iran, has apparently decided that attacking Iran now would risk Israel's relationship with the U.S., and Bibi, who is a student of U.S.-Israel relations, understands why Barak thinks this way. It is almost impossible to believe that Netanyahu would risk alienating Congress, and the American people (he's already alienated the President, or, to be fair, they've alienated each other) by attacking Iran against the stated wishes of the U.S. (It is not the attack itself that could risk alienating the affections of Congress and American citizens -- it is the chance that Iran would retaliate by targeting U.S. interests, soldiers and civilians.)