Russian intelligence leak: U.S. to strike Iran this Friday

On Sunday, the Jerusalem Post reported that the U.S. may attack Iran as soon as Friday.

The United States will be ready to launch a missile attack on Iran's nuclear facilities as soon as early this month, perhaps "from 4 a.m. until 4 p.m. on April 6," according to reports in the Russian media on Saturday.

According to Russian intelligence sources, the reports said, the US has devised a plan to attack several targets in Iran, and an assault could be carried out by launching missiles from fighter jets and warships stationed in the Persian Gulf.

Two weeks earlier, the paper ran a French-language report that predicted the "point of no return" had been reached in late February, when the IAEA was unable to confirm Iran's claim that its nuclear program was solely a civilian endeavor.

But don't buy April 6 in the office when-are-we-going-to-blow-up-Iran's-shit pool just yet. Because the media leak -- true leaks, false leaks, whatever -- is an integral tool in multi-party negotiations, and there's a lot of diplomacy going on behind the scenes between Russia, the EU, the U.S., the UN and Iran.

Read the accounts of veterans of multi-party negotiations -- like Richard Holbrooke's case study of the lead-up to the Dayton Accords -- and it's clear that leaks in that context are often designed not to inform the public, but to send a message to one party or another. You leak stories that might shame one side, or that might lead one side to believe the other will get credit for a breakthrough, or that send a message that time is running out. James Baker, writing about getting the Israelis and the Palestinians to the table in Madrid, described how he'd leak stories that would "lay the dead cat" on one or another party's doorstep if the negotiations fell apart in the early stages.

And, of course, those moves are held very close to the vest; if it's a leak designed to send a message rather than to inform, we won't know that until those on the inside start retiring and/or writing books.

Personally, I don't think the sale's pitch for an attack against Iran has been sufficient thus far -- the drums haven't been beaten hard enough on the domestic front -- to expect anything to happen in the very near future.