Israeli opposition head nixes unilateral Israeli strike on Iran

Israel's Opposition leader said Friday that any unilateral Israeli attack on Iran would not succeed in stopping Iran's suspected drive to nuclear weapons and would be a "disaster" if carried out without US support, DPA reported.

"Israel cannot strategically change the Iranian nuclear program," Shaul Mofaz, a former defence minister and military chief of staff who now heads the centrist Kadima party, told Channel 2 television.

Mofaz made his comments a day after President Shimon Peres told the same television channel that the US should lead any strike on Iran.

The remarks by both men come after days of mounting speculation - "national hysteria," Israeli commentator Attila Somfalvi has called it - that an Israeli attack on Iran is only a matter of months, or even weeks.

One unsourced and unattributed newspaper report last Friday said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak are pushing for an attack in the autumn.

The Iranian-born Mofaz, who stormed out of Netanyahu's coalition last month, said Friday night that the "constant chatter" from the premier and Barak has closed the window of opportunity for a strike against Iran before the US presidential elections in November, since the Iranians are now expecting an attack.

Israel sees a nuclear-armed Iran as an existential threat, pointing to repeated statements by Iranian leaders that the Jewish state should be wiped off the map.

Iran denies Western allegations that it is seeking to build a nuclear weapon and insists that its nuclear programme is solely for peaceful purposes.

Washington opposes a unilateral Israeli attack, insisting that the diplomatic track, and sanctions against the Islamic Republic, be given more time.

However, US officials have intimated that the US could attack Iran if sanctions do not work, with Defense Secretary Leon Panetta saying during a visit to Israel earlier this month that Washington will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon, and "will exert all options in the effort to ensure that that does not happen."