For those thinking that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would say one thing in public and another in private while in the White House, you can probably put that to rest. For reports are leaking out about that White House meeting, and the best that can be said about it is that Netanyahu hasn’t put the bombers into the sky just yet:

Benjamin Netanyahu assured President Barack Obama on Monday that Israel has not made any decision on attacking Iran’s nuclear sites, sources close to the talks said, but the Israeli prime minister gave no sign of backing away from possible military action.

With Obama appealing for more time to allow international sanctions to work against Tehran, the two men agreed to keep up their coordination on the issue, but differences remained on how to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons [...]

Behind closed doors, Netanyahu confirmed to Obama that Israel has yet to decide whether to hit Iran’s nuclear sites, though it retains the right to use military action, the sources close to the meeting said.

But there was no immediate sign that Obama’s sharpened rhetoric against Tehran and his plea for Israeli restraint had caused Netanyahu to reconsider what Washington fears could be a rush to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu later last night addressed AIPAC and said, “None of us can afford to wait much longer. As prime minister of Israel, I will never let my people live in the shadow of annihilation.”

So isn’t this the imminent attack on foreign soil that Eric Holder was talking about, the one we cannot wait to become operationalized? (removes tongue from cheek)

Netanyahu held a prop in his AIPAC speech, a letter from the US Department of War turning down a request from world Jewish leaders to bomb Auschwitz. The implications are terrifying. Here, by the way, was the summation of the evidence presented by Netanyahu to contradict the consensus of the US intelligence community and, if reports are to be believed, the Israeli intelligence community:

“Amazingly, some people refuse to acknowledge that Iran’s goal is to develop nuclear weapons. You see, Iran claims that it’s enriching uranium to develop medical research. Yeah, right,” he said. “If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then what is it? That’s right, it’s a duck. But this duck is a nuclear duck and it’s time the world started calling a duck a duck.”

So “I said so is why” will stand as the logical basis for military attack. Good for the Guardian for pointing out that US intelligence maintains that Iran has in fact not decided yet to build a bomb.

If this wasn’t “loose talk of war” I don’t know what is. You see it everywhere. As Paul Werdel expertly pointed out, the chyron on former AIPAC lobbyist Wolf Blitzer’s show read, “A military strike on Iran’s nukes?” The potential has become temporal. They just have nukes now. The goalposts have shifted. It’s no different than what Mitt Romney did in his op-ed today, only it’s coming from CNN.

If a rush to war looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. And in this case, we’ve seen this duck before and it doesn’t end well.