WASHINGTON — President Bush deflected a secret request by Israel last year for specialized bunker-busting bombs it wanted for an attack on Iran’s main nuclear complex and told the Israelis that he had authorized new covert action intended to sabotage Iran’s suspected effort to develop nuclear weapons, according to senior American and foreign officials.

White House officials never conclusively determined whether Israel had decided to go ahead with the strike before the United States protested, or whether Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of Israel was trying to goad the White House into more decisive action before Mr. Bush left office. But the Bush administration was particularly alarmed by an Israeli request to fly over Iraq to reach Iran’s major nuclear complex at Natanz, where the country’s only known uranium enrichment plant is located.

Instead, the US stepped up attempts to sabotage the Iranian nuclear program by tampering with the goods it procured from foreign suppliers, and kept the Israelis informed on their efforts.

Iran’s nuclear program is going to be an issue again this year, or, if not, 2010 at the latest. Despite the US efforts, Iran has already produced enough low-enriched uranium to (with further processing), arguably, make one bomb. If they keep operating their centrifuges, and expand their enrichment plant, they will be in a position to turn their stockpile into an arsenal at short notice.

There’s obviously plenty of room to debate what should be done about these continuing developments; frankly, the best option might be “nothing”. But it’s important to keep an eye on the facts of the situation. And, on the basis of the fairly conservative IAEA’s reporting, Iran is going to have a for-real capability to make nuclear weapons pretty soon. And, given its past history, it’s unlikely that Israel will be blithely accepting of that idea, even if they were warned off this time around.