It's a well established fact that they don't have the best of relationships.

I'm speaking about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Barack Obama.

Two issues of late have only served to further sour relations between the two leaders. The first was summed up by Susan E. Rice, President Obama's national security adviser who called Netanyahu's plans to address a joint meeting of Congress next week just a fortnight before the Israeli elections, as "destructive" to the fabric of US - Israeli relations.

To say that Netanyahu's invitation, which was made by US Republican leaders, has not gone down well with the White House, would be an understatement.

Indeed Rice's comments marked the strongest public rebuke to date by the Obama administration

since Netanyahu accepted an invitation from Speaker John A. Boehner to make his case to Congress against a nuclear deal with Iran.

And that thorny issue of a deal with Iran over its nuclear ambitions remains a real bone of contention.

But anyone who thinks this is simply a two way face off between a Netanyahu and Obama, needs to stop and think again.

From Washington to Jerusalem to Tehran, this issue of a nuclear deal and rapprochement faces threats from political renegades within all three camps.

In Washington, US Senators, Mark Kirk and Robert Menendez are leading a faction in Congress that says it will follow Netanyahu's lead when it comes to dealing with Iran. In Netanyahu's case of course that lead stems from his vehement opposition to Iran acquiring nuclear weapons and imposing

heavy additional sanctions on Tehran.

But even the Israeli Prime Minister is dealing with his own rebel faction simultaneously. Recent leaks have indicated that all is not well in Jerusalem either. There Netanyahu appears to be at loggerheads with Israel's chief intelligence agency, the Mossad, over how to deal with Iran.

Never one to miss an opportunity US Secretary of State John Kerry has used this split to put the political boot in. Only last month he rammed home that point when he announced that "one of the top intelligence personnel" in Israel warned a visiting US congressional delegation that the sanctions bill would be like "throwing a grenade" into the negotiation.

According to the independent US- based intelligence analysis think-tank Stratfor, after

a forthright discussion with his boss, Mossad chief Tamir Pardo issued a strangely detailed denial asserting that he supported the sanctions pressure on Iran while qualifying that the grenade comment was meant to convey a temporary crisis that would lead to better terms in the negotiation, as opposed to blowing the negotiation apart.

Not letting up Kerry has taken every opportunity since to turn the screw on Netanyahu whenever the chance presents itself or the Obama administration feel sufficiently goaded.

"Israel is safer today with the added time we have given and the stoppage of the advances in the nuclear programme than they were before we got that agreement, which by the way the prime minister opposed," Kerry said during a House Committee on Foreign Affairs hearing on Wednesday. "He was wrong."

Amidst all these denials and clarifications few analysts doubt that serious schisms exist and continue to flare up within the Israeli political, military and intelligence establishment over how to manage the threat from Iran.

Likewise the same analysts are agreed that Iran too has rebels within its own camp determined to undermine the negotiations in Geneva aimed at securing a deal.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has already geared up his campaign to undermine opponents to the deal. This week he visited the holy city of Qom to appeal to its clergy, religious students and laypeople to back his efforts to secure and agreement.

The senior clergy of Qom, a centre of religious authority in the Islamic Republic, has long played a key role in Iranian politics, shaping public opinion and mobilising the population, and some hardline figures among them still need convincing.

Rouhani's speech appears to be an attempt to damp down their criticism before the deadline for the outlines of an agreement expires at the end of March.

Even Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the highest religious and political authority in Iran who is perceived by many as a hardliner, has given reserved support to the negotiations, but he remains distrustful of Western intentions and has expressed doubts that any outcome could be favourable for Iran. So too do the critics in Qom that Rouhani addressed. Like Khamenei they question the motives of the major powers involved. They are also deeply resentful of Western sanctions imposed on Iran over its nuclear programme and accuse the West of fomenting unrest in Iran after disputed presidential elections in 2009.

The sanctions, widely blamed for weakening Iran's currency and shrinking its economy, have shut the country out of the global banking system, battered its trade and lost it billions of dollars in oil revenue.

"In the negotiations, we will not accept imposition, humiliation and the continuation of sanctions," Rouhani said, according to Fars News.

In Tehran meanwhile, hard-liners in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps will use the apparent chaos in the US-Israeli relationship to argue that this Obama administration is an unreliable negotiating partner.

"Like all of the days of the history of this revolution, the government desires the support of the people and especially the support of the people of Qom, the seminary and the senior clerics."

But Rouhani also said there would be no tolerance of those who try to impair the government's efforts.

"We will always respect critics and we tell them, just like supporters, that they have received government protection and will continue to do so," Rouhani said. "But subversion has no place in this country."

While Rouhani did not elaborate, he appeared to be referring to hardline critics of the nuclear talks who have repeatedly expressed doubts that Rouhani's negotiators can strike a deal with Western powers that is acceptable to Tehran.

Last month Rouhani accused such critics of in effect 'cheering on' the other side in Tehran's talks with world powersText here