Israel's deputy prime minister said on Monday Israel has the technological capabilty to make a military strike against Iran, hardening its language in its campaign against Tehran's nuclear programme.
Addressing a conference on air power, Deputy Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon said Israel's experience in carrying out air strikes against militants along its borders could easily be extended to distant sorties in Iran.
"There is no doubt that the technological capabilities, which improved in recent years, have improved range and aerial refuelling capabilities, and have brought about a massive improvement in the accuracy or ordnance and intelligence," he said.
"This capability can be used for a war on terror in Gaza, for a war in the face of rockets from Lebanon, for war on the conventional Syrian army, and also for war on a peripheral state like Iran," said Yaalon, a former chief of Israel's armed forces.
Israel, which is assumed to have the region's only atomic arsenal, bombed Iraq's nuclear reactor in 1981 and launched a similar sortie over Syria in 2007.
It has rarely used the term "war" in official statements on how to deal with Iran over a nuclear programme which Israel and the West believe is aimed at building atomic weapons. Iran denies it has hostile designs.
Israeli leaders ususally speak only of leaving all options on the table in addressing the question of possible military action against Iran, and they have endoresed efforts by U.N. Security Council powers to impose new sanctions.
Israel's veiled threats against foe Iran have been questioned by some independent analysts who see the potential targets as too distant, dispersed and well-defended for Israeli jets to take on alone.
In his address at the Fisher Institute for Air & Space Strategic Studies, Yaalon posited air strikes to "decapitate or blind" an enemy by targeting its leadership or early-warning defences.
"As far as I'm concerned, attack remains the best form of defence," he said.
Israel saw itself at a de facto war with Iran due to its sponsorship of Hezbollah and Palestinian Hamas, Yaalon said.
"There is no doubt, looking at the overall situation, that we are already in a military confrontation with Iran," he said. "Iran is the main motivator of those attacking us."
