Tel Aviv — For weeks the possibility of an Israeli strike on Iran threatened to upend the presidential race between President Barack Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney. But now, it looks more likely that Iran will figure prominently in Israel’s elections next year.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu removed the cloud of possible war with Iran from the U.S. election when he told the United Nations last week (with the help of his by now famous bomb chart) that it would be take at least until spring 2013 to reach the “red line” for a military attack.