Bergman's piece did not forecast dates, but gave the impression that decision time was approaching — again. The defence minister would not have been so candid, after all, on such a high-security matter, if it was not for the purpose of sending warnings and messages.

Goldberg's and Bergman's predictions may not have been spot-on when it came to timing — who, after all, would reveal such details even to a friendly journalist? — but the war drums kept beating in Jerusalem.

 By the summer of 2012, Israeli and US officials were locked in a verbal war of sorts, with senior Israeli officials sounding the alarm about a window of opportunity closing, and their American counterparts spending more time discussing the outcome of an Israeli strike than the consequences of a nuclear Iran.

In September, amid mounting speculation about a looming Israeli strike — perhaps in the middle of America's presidential election campaign — Israel's prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu addressed the UN General Assembly in New York. The speech was a coup — Netanyahu's colourful illustration of Iran's nuclear progress earned him the front page of most of the world's newspapers the next day. But it also made it clear that "too late" was not October 2012 — as everyone seemed to have assumed until a moment before his speech. Netanyahu mentioned "spring to summer 2013" as too late.