Israeli Hidden Agenda On Iran

For examples of Israeli hidden agendas regarding Iran, see Trita Parsi's new article, which also discusses the cost of having hidden agendas. Sometimes, they can box you in. I discussed hidden agendas in theoretical terms here. Parsi also exposes inter alia how servile the U.S. media can be.

Parsi notes:

the huffing and puffing ensured that the American military option remained on the table; that Washington would not deviate from the Israeli red line of rejecting uranium enrichment on Iranian soil; and that the Iranian nuclear program was kept at the top of the international community's agenda.  

He also notes:

Inflating the Iranian threat served several purposes domestically. It provided Israeli Prime Ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres a rationale to push for peace with the Palestinians in the 1990s, while more recently Benjamin Netanyahu has used it to resist pressure from Washington to do just that. But the domestic benefits came at the price of limiting Israel's options and flexibility vis-à-vis Iran. As Israeli politicians built up the Iranian threat and established a near-consensus that Tehran constituted an existential threat, it became increasingly difficult for any Israeli politician to walk back the threat depiction without losing critical political capital at home. As a result, there was a steady escalation of the threat depiction from Iran and no clear ways to de-escalate.

Inter alia, one can also see something that is extremely important to Americans but denied by virtually all its politicians - the danger to U.S. national security of having an alliance with a country like Israel. It is one thing that Israeli politicians would play dangerous games with hidden agendas risking their own country's security and threatening an adversary, but this game tricked a lot of naive U.S. politicians and thus harmed U.S. security as well, and Israel is supposed to be a friend of the U.S.