'Unavoidable' attack on Iran looms, says Israeli minister

An Israeli minister has said an
attack on Iran's nuclear sites will be "unavoidable" if Tehran refuses
to halt its alleged weapons programme.
In the most explicit
threat yet by a member of Ehud Olmert's government, Shaul Mofaz, a
deputy prime minister, said the hardline Iranian president, Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, "would disappear before Israel does".
"If Iran
continues with its programme for developing nuclear weapons, we will
attack it. The sanctions are ineffective," Mofaz, who is also Israel's
transport minister, said in comments published today by the Yedioth
Ahronoth newspaper.
"Attacking Iran in order to stop its nuclear plans will be unavoidable."
Iranian-born
Mofaz is a former army chief and defence minister. He is a member of
Olmert's security cabinet and leads regular strategic coordination
talks with the US state department.
Iran denies trying to build nuclear weapons and has defied western pressure to abandon uranium enrichment.
The
leadership in Tehran has threatened that if attacked the country will
retaliate against Israel - believed to have the Middle East's only
nuclear arsenal - and American targets in the region.
Ahmadinejad
has repeatedly called for Israel to be wiped off the map since becoming
president. On Monday, he said Israel was "about to die and will soon be
erased from the geographical scene".
Olmert met the US president,
George Bush, on Wednesday to discuss concerns over Iran. The Israeli
prime minister, who is being pressured to resign over a corruption
scandal, has said that Iran's nuclear threat "must be stopped by all
possible means".
Israeli planes bombed Syria in September,
destroying what the US administration said was a partly built nuclear
reactor using North Korean help. Syria denied having any such facility.
UN inspectors announced this week that they would be visiting Syria to
investigate the American claim.