A wire service is reporting that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is renewing his pledge to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, even in the teeth of Obama administration objections. The wire service report appears at the online edition of the Washington Times.

Mr. Netanyahu is correctly blaming the Iranians for stepped up rocket attacks from Gaza and an increase in cross-border violence initiated from Palestinian territory. The Prime Minister would be wise to attack Iran this year if his cabinet and he have any belief that President Obama will win re-election.

There's quite a bit of complicated political and military arithmetic that is going into Mr. Netanyahu's calculation when - not if - to go after Iranian nuclear facilities. Though it's hard to say what's going on behind the scenes, certainly the Prime Minister is weighing President Obama's re-election chances as a critical factor in timing an attack.

As American Thinker readers appreciate, a lame duck term for Mr. Obama gives him a free hand to act even more boldly in pursuing his leftist agenda at home and abroad. Mr. Obama has been hostile to Israel for the better part of his term.

Erosion of support for Mr. Obama among the nation's Jewish voters has caused him to soften his anti-Israel stances. The president's election year posturing isn't fooling the Israelis and shouldn't fool Israel's American supporters.

Mr. Obama receives daily national security briefings. Intelligence data simply must confirm Mr. Netanyahu's charge about continued Iranian complicity in Palestinian attacks on Israel. Moreover, Mr. Obama is fully apprised of the Iranians' longstanding financial and logistic support for terrorism against the United States, its allies, and American interests overseas. Retarding Iran's nuclear weapons development is an imperative for Israeli and American security.

But hard realities have never stopped Mr. Obama and the American left from stubbornly clinging to their fancies - or their prejudices. Civil and democratic Israel ranks below the Islamic thugocracies and the terrorist-controlled Palestinian territories in Mr. Obama's universe. You know about Mr. Obama and the left: Third World solidarity and all that gunk.

Prime Minister Netanyahu is correct to insist that the Israel's exercise their fundamental right to strike the Iranians in self-defense, regardless Mr. Obama's objections. Let's hope that the elections of a Republican president and Congress become more evident as the election season progresses. It would certainly be optimal for the Israelis to strike the Iranians at a time of their choosing rather than being forced to do so by the American election clock.

And it would be most helpful for the Israelis to strike Iran with the blessings and full backing of an American president whose name isn't Obama.