Asked in the radio interview whether the United States had pressed for notice of a possible Israeli strike on Iran, Barak said: “We haven’t made a decision to go ahead with this matter. We have no date for making decisions. The whole thing is very far off. . . . I don’t want to provide estimates. It’s certainly not urgent. . . . I don’t suggest that we deal with this as if it’s about to happen tomorrow.”…

U.S. officials are reportedly pushing Israel to allow time for international sanctions on Iran to take effect. Dempsey’s visit comes a week after President Obama discussed the issue in a telephone call with Netanyahu.

Israel announced Monday that a major joint Israeli-U.S. missile defense exercise had been postponed, a move widely interpreted as an effort to defuse tensions with Tehran, which recently held naval exercises near the Strait of Hormuz. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman attributed the postponement to regional “tensions and instability,” and a spokesman for Netanyahu said “it was not the right timing” for the drill.