ISRAELI PRIME minister Binyamin Netanyahu has urged the US to react immediately to the news that Iran is constructing a second enrichment facility.
Mr Netanyahu phoned US congressional leaders over the weekend after US president Barack Obama and the leaders of Britain and France revealed details of the new site near the holy city of Qom.
The Israeli leader, who has made stopping Iran’s nuclear drive his top priority, told US House speaker Nancy Pelosi “action must be taken in all areas to increase pressure on Iran and impose crippling sanctions”.
Quoting the Jewish leader Hillel, who lived in Jerusalem in Roman times, Mr Netanyahu asked: “If not now, then when?”
Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman was more outspoken, calling for the overthrow of what he termed “the mad regime in Tehran”.
He said the latest revelations “remove the dispute whether Iran is developing military nuclear power or not, and therefore the world powers need to draw conclusions”.
“Without a doubt it is a reactor for military purposes, not peaceful purposes,” Mr Lieberman told Israel Radio.
According to Israeli officials, the exposure of the new Iranian nuclear site came as no surprise to Israel, and the announcement at the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh was made in co-ordination with Jerusalem.
Israel considers Iran’s nuclear drive, together with the ongoing development of missiles that could deliver a nuclear warhead, a direct strategic threat.
Israel is refusing to rule out a military option, and senior generals have made it clear that the armed forces continue to plan for every possible scenario.
In 2007, Israeli jets destroyed a site in Syria, which US officials later confirmed was being constructed with North Korean help to produce plutonium.
In 1981, in a pinpoint raid deep into Iraq, Israeli aircraft demolished the Osirak nuclear plant, ending then president Saddam Hussein’s nuclear ambitions.
But with Iran’s nuclear sites spread out and mainly underground, any military strike against Iran would be an entirely different matter.
US defence secretary Robert Gates has cautioned against such a move, warning that an Israeli attack would only succeed, at best, in delaying the Iranian nuclear programme by a few years.
Most commentators in Israel believe that even with stepped-up sanctions Tehran is unlikely to stop uranium enrichment and, probably by some time next year,Iran will have manufactured enough fissionable material to produce a few nuclear bombs.
For Israel, the window of opportunity is closing rapidly. But an Israeli strike against Iran without at least tacit approval from Washington is unlikely.
Israel will be keeping a close watch on developments at Thursday’s meeting in Geneva between Iran and representatives of six world powers, which will discuss the future of Tehran’s nuclear programme.