Ready To Strike

A FORMER senior Israeli diplomat has warned that Israel is ready to launch a military offensive against Iran to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons. In an exclusive interview, Dan Gillerman, Israel's permanent United Nations representative from 2003 until last September, said the time for diplomatic efforts to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear capability might already have expired. "The world cannot afford to live with a nuclear Iran," he said. "I hope diplomacy will work, but I'm not sure we have the time for [it] to work. "Israel has made it very clear that it will not live with a nuclear Iran, and I believe that Israel has the ability and the capacity to make sure that it will not happen."

Mr Gillerman, who is to visit Australia this month and is one of Israel's most senior diplomatic voices, said two clocks were running with respect to Iran. "There is the technological clock of Iran, and there is the diplomatic clock, and I think the Iranian clock is running much faster. "Israel has both the responsibility to defend itself and the capacity to defend itself, and I am sure that when the time comes and all other options have been exhausted, Israel will act in the only way it must to protect its people." Detailed military plans to bomb Iran's nuclear enrichment facilities have long been on the table of Israel's senior military commanders.

Israel's Prime Minister, Ehud Barak, was believed to have requested support from the US for a military strike on Iran last May, but the plans were aborted after president George Bush declined to endorse them. Last June Israel carried out a military exercise over the Mediterranean involving more than 100 F-16 and F-15 fighters in what was interpreted as a rehearsal for a bombing attack on Iran's nuclear facilities. On Tuesday the man most likely to lead Israel's next government, the Likud party leader Benjamin Netanyahu, made a direct reference to Iran in his speech claiming victory in general elections.