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The 12th round is no time to pull punches.

And so, at this late hour in the fight to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman didn't sugarcoat his message during his meeting with German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier.

"Lieberman sees us Europeans as a pile of cowards," German foreign policy expert Werner Hoyer told the daily Berliner Zeitung, a day after the May 7 meeting.

Lieberman had pointed out that Europe simply isn't doing enough to stop Iran, and that there is an unacceptable disparity between what European countries -- Germany chief among them -- can do, and what they are doing.

It was only the latest salvo with the new Israeli government's weapon of choice: common sense. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has employed logic in abundance and straight-talk in doses Western diplomats may be unable to absorb. But this medicine is for their own good.

The Jerusalem Post followed up on the report: "Lieberman, according to his office, told Steinmeier that the conflict in the Middle East was not between Israel and the Palestinians, but rather between extremists and moderates. He pointed out that Egypt's major challenge right now was the Muslim Brotherhood, just as Lebanon's major problem was with Hezbollah, and the Palestinian Authority's was with Hamas and Islamic Jihad, not Israel."

As Netanyahu said in his address to the annual AIPAC Policy Conference, that point about extremists vs. moderates -- put in the larger context of Iranian meddling in the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Iranian threat in general -- offers a chance to forge cooperation among the various Mideast states, including Israel.

"The common danger is echoed by Arab leaders throughout the Middle East; it's echoed by Israel repeatedly," Netanyahu said. "It's echoed by Europeans, by many responsible governments around the world. And if I had to sum it in one sentence, it is this: Iran must not be allowed to develop nuclear weapons. If I had to sum up the opportunity in one word, it would be cooperation -- cooperation between Israel and the Arab world, and cooperation between Israel and the Palestinians."

The Israeli and American publics should be delighted to know that the common-sense approach by Netanyahu is not confined to his "wing" of the governing coalition. By bringing Labor leader and former prime minister -- and political rival -- Ehud Barak into the coalition, Bibi isn't just paying lip service to the much sought-after ideal of the Israeli political "center."

Take settlements, for example. Netanyahu has consistently said building new settlements isn't prudent, but he cannot stop residents of existing settlements from having babies and building houses for those children. Elliot Abrams, former adviser to George W. Bush, predicted that this is precisely what Bibi would say to President Barack Obama if the settlements issue came up in their first meeting.

"Mr. Netanyahu will explain, pol to pol, that no democratic government can 'freeze' life in a town of 38,000 like Maale Adumim," Abrams wrote May 9 in the Wall Street Journal. "He might ask the president how long could you 'freeze' 100% of construction in Bowling Green, Ky., or Salem, Mass., which are about the same size, before voters revolted and citizens just ignored such an edict. Mr. Netanyahu may offer some compromises -- constrained settlement growth, perhaps no growth beyond the security fence or no 'physical' growth, meaning 'build up, not out.' "

Is this acceptable to the coalition's left wing? Entirely. As Barak recently told Haaretz: "First of all, we have nothing against that [expansion] within the [existing] settlement blocs.... In the settlements, in the isolated ones on the other side of the [security] fence, the only things that are happening are expansions that I would say are for natural needs."

The rest of the administration's policies -- such as helping the Palestinians build the proper infrastructure for a state before committing to establishing that state -- have mirrored such common sense. But logic, of course, is no guarantee of success, nor does it even guarantee its own implementation.

As the historian Andrew Roberts notes in his World War II history of Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Sir Alan Brooke, and George C. Marshall, "Masters and Commanders": "Although it is taken for granted that emotion, persuasiveness and charisma have a large part to play in politics, the same is not generally thought to be true of grand strategy." Yet, he noted, decision makers are human, "prey to the same subjective influences as everyone else."

Netanyahu and Obama are quite possibly the world's two smartest and charismatic heads of state. Their military chiefs preside over a devastatingly effective U.S.-Israeli alliance. But emotion and pride are bound to enter the fray. If Bibi's cold logic survives, both countries -- not to mention the free world -- will be the better for it.

Seth Mandel is the managing editor of The Jewish State.