Chief of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Nikolai Makarov says that a decision by the U.S. and Israel on whether or not to launch a military attack on Iran will be taken before the summer.

“Iran, of cause, is a sore spot. Some kind of decision should be taken, probably nearer to summer,” Makarov told RIA Novosti.

He added that Russia has created a new crisis center that receives information regarding Iran in real time.

Discord between the Obama administration and Israeli leaders over the timing of a planned strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities has characterized the build-up to war.

Newsweek reported yesterday that Mossad boss Tamir Pardo made a secret visit to officials in the United States earlier this month to determine what the consequences would be if Israel bombed Iran’s nuclear facilities without first receiving the green light from Washington.

Pardo had a number of questions, including: “What is our posture on Iran? Are we ready to bomb? Would we [do so later]? What does it mean if [Israel] does it anyway?”

Meanwhile, the ratings agency Standard & Poor’s has issued three reports that predict Iran will engage in “low-level provocation” in response to sanctions by disrupting shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, a critical oil choke point that Tehran has repeatedly threatened to close.

“Iranian authorities could disrupt supplies of oil from the Persian Gulf by imposing tanker inspections or boarding merchant ships in its territorial waters, supporting oil prices because markets would increasingly view armed conflict as “a real, if remote, possibility,” the report stated.

This would be beneficial for oil-producing states in the region such as Saudi Arabia, U.A.E., Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, and Bahrain, notes the report, because such tension would push the price of oil to $150 a barrel.

Israel blamed Iran for two attacks yesterday targeting cars belonging to the Israeli embassies in New Delhi, India and Tbilisi, Georgia. Iran has denied having any involvement in the attempted bombings in which the wife of Israel’s defense attache was injured, saying they were false flag attacks launched by Israel itself to “tarnish Iran’s friendly ties with the host countries.”

A man thought to be an Iranian national was also maimed by his own bomb today after throwing a grenade at a taxi in Bangkok. When police attempted to apprehend him, he then threw another grenade which bounced off a tree and blew both of his legs off.

A “senior Israeli official says Thai police believe incident was botched terror attack,” reports Haaretz, though why the man chose an unknown Bangkok taxi driver as the target of his “terror attack” and what this has to do with Israel has not been properly explained.