Lieberman, who joined the cabinet earlier this year to deal specifically with the alleged Iranian nuclear threat, defended his government’s policy by calling Iran “the foundation of the Axis of Evil” and that full cooperation with the US regarding Iran continues.

Lieberman said that one must also read the ‘fine print’ in the American report. “Unlike the Security Council’s decision, (the report claims) that they are continuing to enrich uranium. Is there another UN member nation in the world that so often declares its intention to destroy Israel?” Lieberman wondered aloud.

Some security experts say they don’t rule out the possibility that the Israelis may decided to launch their own military strike against Iran, just as they did with the Iraqi nuclear reactor in the early 1980s and an alleged nuclear plant in Syria last September. Former CIA official Bruce Riedel, who visited Israel late last year, said he emerged with the impression that Israel would attack Iran. Citing conversations he had in Israel with officials in the Mossad secret service and the Israeli defence establishment, Riedel concluded in an article published in Newsweek that “Israel is not going to allow its nuclear monopoly to be threatened.”

Some US experts doubt Israel’s ability to tackle Iran alone, but David Albright, of the institute for Science and International Security in Washington, has argued that although information on the exact location of Iran’s nuclear facility is incomplete, Israel’s air strike on an alleged Syrian nuclear facility last September 6 could be seen as a test run for any future strike on Iran’s facilities, as well as a direct warning to Tehran.

... contd.