Netanyahu says Iran must fear military strike

Israel's prime minister told U.S. Vice President Joe Biden that Iran must be made to fear a military strike against its nuclear program, Israeli media reported Monday - a departure from the Israeli leader's previous emphasis on using diplomacy to curb Tehran's nuclear ambitions.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meeting with Biden in New Orleans on Sunday, said that although sanctions have hurt Iran, Tehran will be determined to produce nuclear weapons unless it thinks a military strike is a real option, the media reported, citing unidentified Israeli officials.

Netanyahu's call for a "credible military threat" drew a swift response from the U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who said international sanctions were "biting more deeply" than the Iranians anticipated.

"I disagree that only a credible military threat can get Iran to take the actions that it needs to," Gates said in Australia on Monday. "At this point we continue to believe that the political and economic approach that we are taking is in fact having an impact on Iran."

Israel, like the West, disputes Iran's claims that its nuclear program is designed to produce energy, not bombs. In the past, it has said it prefers to block the Iranian threat through diplomacy, though it has not ruled out a military strike.

Israel sees Iran as its fiercest threat because of its nuclear program, its ballistic missiles capable of hitting the Jewish state and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's repeated references to Israel's destruction.

Last week, Israel's military intelligence chief said Iran possesses enough enriched uranium to build one nuclear bomb and soon will have enough to produce a second. The CIA and the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog have offered similar assessments, but any Israeli commentary on Tehran's nuclear program is closely watched because Israel is considered the most likely nation to launch a military strike to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

In 1981, Israeli aircraft destroyed an unfinished nuclear reactor in Iraq. Experts judge that the Iranian nuclear program would be harder to cripple because facilities are scattered across the vast country and some are located underground.

> ---

AP National Security Writer Anne Gearan contributed to this report from Melbourne, Australia.