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For some in Israel, the issues of Jewish settlements and Iran's nuclear programme are not connected. But for the United States, they are becoming more and more intertwined.

The factor that links them together is American concerns about casualties in the region.

According to Mark Perry writing in Foreign Policy, one of the main parties in Washington calling for Barack Obama to put his foot down against Israel's settlement expansion, even before Vice-president Joe Biden's recent call, has been General David Petraeus. In the Pentagon's view, the Obama administration's inability to stop the expansion of settlements is eroding America's military posture in the Middle East. Such erosion could embolden Muslim extremists to increase their attacks on US forces in the...