Tel Aviv /Washington - Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert will ask President George W Bush Wednesday to step up US and international action against Iran and prepare for a possible military strike against its nuclear facilities, the Yediot Ahronot daily reported.

Citing "officials close to Olmert," the daily said Wednesday the Israeli leader would tell the president that the measures taken so far to stop Iran's nuclear programme had run their course and had not yielded results.
Israel views Iran as its main existential threat, given Tehran's nuclear drive and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejd's often-repeated statements that the Jewish state needs to be erased from the map.

Olmert, speaking Tuesday night to the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), called Iran "the most serious and imminent threat to global security and stability" and said that "the Iranian threat must be stopped by all possible means."

"International economic and political sanctions on Iran, as crucial as they may be, are only an initial step, and must be dramatically increased," he told the AIPAC policy conference in Washington.

Addressing the same conference, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice noted there was a serious debate in both Israel and the US on how to address the perceived threat from Iran.

"This debate, though, should not be about whether we talk to Iran," she said. "Diplomacy is not a synonym for talking. True diplomacy means structuring a set of incentives and disincentives to produce change in behaviour."

While the Iranian government was "dangerous," she said, Iran had vulnerabilities which could and should be exploited.

"America will continue to rally the world to hold Iran accountable," she said.
"But the world needs to rise to this challenge. Our partners, in Europe and beyond, need to exploit Iran's vulnerabilities more vigorously and impose greater costs on the regime economically, financially, politically, and diplomatically."

She added, however, that "a path is open for Iran to improve its relations with the international community and with the United States."

"If Iran suspends its enrichment and reprocessing activities," she continued, "I will join my UN Security Council colleagues. I will meet with my Iranian counterpart. I'll do it anytime, anywhere, on any issue." (dpa)