I don't know if this is standard operating procedure or not - it would be for the military, a half-decade of anti-Bush leaking aside - but it certainly has something of a whiff of stifling dissent. Via MR sister site Is Iran's Fist Still Clenched?

Dennis Ross, the U.S. Secretary of State's special adviser on Iran, says in a new book that the United States will not make progress toward peace in the Middle East with the Obama administration's new plan... Contrary to the position of the president and other advisers, Ross writes that efforts to advance dialogue with Iran should not be connected to the renewal of talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Other senior officials in the Obama administration told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his recent visit to Washington that Israeli gestures and the advancement of talks with the Palestinians will help the administration get Iran to suspend uranium enrichment. Because of Ross' position, his superiors at the State Department do not allow him to promote the book or be interviewed about it.

Unless I'm misreading that, it means that linkage is now the official position of the Obama administration. That's been predictable since the election, when the ostensibly pro-Israel Obama blamed Israel for the entire length and breadth of Middle East instability. But it's interesting to see it codified as official State Department policy.

It's also doesn't make much sense, except maybe as a way to put the US and Israel on a collision course. Even anti-Israel realists admit that Iran is going nuclear, at a minimum, because of: national pride ala the Pakistani Bomb, regional power projection, Sunni-Shiite tensions and the tramau of the Iran-Iraq War, and the cache that comes with being a member of the nuclear club. But at least the left is no longer blaming Iran's Manhattan Project on the US presence in Iran. I wonder why that meme got dropped so quickly.

It's also kind of neat how, any time Arab and Muslim nations want stall on something, it becomes Israel's fault. Convenient, that.

References:
* Dennis Ross vs. Obama: No link between Iran, Mideast peace [Ha'aretz]
* Clenched For Reasons That Have Nothing To Do With The Israeli-Arab Conflict [Is Iran's Fist Still Clenched?]
* New Palin Smear: She Supports Hamas (Plus: Obama's Anti-Israel FP Sensibility, Support From Hamas) [MR]
* 'US shouldn't link Iran, Palestinians' [JPost]
* Mathematical Proof That Negotiating With Iran Is Stupid. Not Wrong. Stupid. [MR]

Previously:
* US Security Assistance To Lebanon Already Being Turned Against Israel
* UNRWA: It's Israel's Fault That Our Schools Teach Kids To Be Terrorists
* Rice: Failure Of Peace Process Is Israel's Fault (Plus: The Two Dogmas Of Foreign Policy Faux Sophistication)