Via INN:

A top White House official has declared that Israel’s proposal that Iran totally dismantle its nuclear capacity in exchange for sanctions relief would likely lead to war.

According to JTA, the unnamed official made the comments in a conference call on Wednesday with think tanks and advocacy groups sympathetic to the Obama administration’s Iran strategy.

A think tank participant on the call said that Israel’s posture, demanding a total halt to enrichment and the dismantling of all of Iran’s centrifuges, was a path to war.

Agreeing that such reasoning was “sound,” the White House official said that given a choice between “total capitulation” and advancing toward a nuclear weapon, Iran would choose the weapon.

That posture would “close the door on diplomacy” and would “essentially lead to war,” the official said, according to JTA, which obtained a recording of the call on condition that it not name the participants or fully quote them.

The official sounded frustration with Israel’s pushback against the U.S. proposal for a “first step” deal that would exchange some sanctions relief for some rollback of Iran’s nuclear program, saying it would provide Israel with a six-month window to influence the shape of a final deal.