Former Defense Minister Ehud Barak's comments that Israel nearly attacked Iran's nuclear facilities but the plan was scuttled by military men and cowardly politicians could shake up Israeli politics.
The leaked interview, in which Barak also described Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as indecisive and obsessively pessimistic, was the talk of the town today in an Israel obsessed about Iran.
But beyond the hand-wringing, the always calculating Barak may have been focused on the future, perhaps for a final run at the country's leadership.
Also a former prime minister, Barak enjoys respect as the last leader of the moderate Labor Party to win an election, defeating Netanyahu in 1999. But he also is seen by analysts as having squandered his opportunity, lasting just two years in a term that cemented his reputation as brilliant but arrogant, and prone to overcomplicated analysis and nonstop machinations.
Barak later returned to politics, serving as defense minister from 2007 to 2013, when he was aligned with a re-elected Netanyahu on the dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran.
He left politics as the Labor Party was weak and torn between factions. Now 73, Barak may running out of chances for another comeback.
Barak's interview, leaked Friday to Israeli Channel 2 television coincide with the release of a new biography about him, immediately thrust him back in the limelight.
"I imagine he would like to return to politics," veteran commentator Rina Mazliach told the privately owned broadcaster. Barak wants "to return to the Israeli consciousness."
In the recordings, Barak addressed one of the country's deepest secrets whether Israel really was prepared to take military action against Iran's nuclear facilities.
For years, both he and Netanyahu issued veiled threats to attack if the world did not take action. Those threats, while often dismissed by commentators as bluster, were widely seen as a key factor in rallying international sanctions against Iran.
Barak told his interviewer that both he and Netanyahu favored an attack in 2010, but the military chief of staff at the time, Gabi Ashkenazi, said Israel did not have the operational capability.
"You can't go to the Cabinet when the chief of staff will go and say 'Excuse me, I told you no,'" Barak said.
