UNITED NATIONS — Despite widespread speculation that a military attack against Iran is being considered, the country’s foreign minister is saying he does not believe that America and Israel are positioned politically to carry out such a military “adventure” against the Islamic Republic this year.

While President Bush said yesterday that all options are on the table, he added that he has “made it very clear to all parties that the first option ought to be to solve this problem diplomatically.” The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, went further, warning against a destabilization of the region and opening up a new military front in the Middle East.

At the United Nations, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki yesterday asked for more time to respond to a Western proposal for the suspension of its nuclear program. European diplomats, saying they could already hear “new language” coming from Tehran, dangled a new offer designed to coax Iran into negotiations, an offer which could override an earlier demand for verifiable suspension of uranium enrichment.

But Iran watchers in Israel saw little new content in Iran’s recent statements and warned against any erosion in Western demands. A former Israeli defense official, Ephraim Sneh, said European diplomats are allowing themselves to be seduced by “spin” from Iran’s mullahs, even as the centrifuges in Iran’s enrichment facilities spin faster and Iran nears nuclear capability.

Nevertheless, diplomats said a reported recent Israeli air force exercise over Greece, described as a “general rehearsal” for a military attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities, may have changed minds in Tehran.

Ali Akbar Velayati, foreign adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said recently that Iran should “consider” Western offers, and he cautioned fellow Iranian officials to cool their rhetoric on nuclear issues. Mr. Mottaki notably refrained yesterday from reasserting what Iran considers its “right” to enrich uranium.

“We are hearing new language from Tehran that we have not heard before,” the British ambassador to the United Nations, John Sawers, said yesterday. He added, however, “We don’t yet know what it means.”

In addition to a recent package of incentives that the European Union foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, offered in Tehran on behalf of Western powers, including America, Mr. Sawers described a new offer he defined as “freeze for freeze.”

Meant to be a short-term, temporary step, the proposal would call on Iran to leave the pace of its uranium enrichment at its current level while the West would refrain from increasing international pressure by adding new sanctions. If accepted, the approach would lead to negotiations over a complete suspension of enrichment, as several U.N. Security Council resolutions have demanded. South Africa recently pitched a similar idea at the Security Council, but the West rejected it.

“There is a need for suspension, and that suspension needs to be a verifiable suspension,” the American ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, said yesterday.

A State Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity added that Washington supports only Mr. Solana’s package.

It is “very important” for Iran to abide by Security Council demands to suspend uranium enrichment, Mr. Sawers said. But “if they want to take up the ‘freeze for freeze’ offer that has been made as a preliminary to getting into formal negotiations, that too would be a welcome step forward.”

“I want you to give us time,” Mr. Mottaki told reporters at the United Nations. The foreign minister stopped short of promising to abide by a Security Council dictate to suspend uranium enrichment and said his country is not yet ready to give a formal answer to Mr. Solana’s package, either.

“This is the old Iranian tactic,” said Mr. Sneh, who is one of Israel’s most quoted officials on Iranian issues.

While Iranian officials “send one trial balloon after another, spinning Western diplomats, the centrifuges at Natanz are spinning and spinning as well, producing enriched uranium at an ever faster pace,” he said. “The West is allowing itself to be cheated.”

“I have always said that all options are on the table,” Mr. Bush said. “But the first option for the United States is to solve this problem diplomatically.”

The president added that he has “made it clear that you can’t solve a problem diplomatically unless there are other people at the table with you.”

The Middle East “is a very unstable part of the world and I don’t need it to be more unstable,” Admiral Mullen said.

Still, an unnamed Pentagon official was quoted recently as saying Israel would attack Iran before the end of Mr. Bush’s term.

“The Israel Defense Force has a spokesman, and no one at the Pentagon should take his place,” Mr. Sneh said yesterday. “If the Israeli government decides to act, it will not announce it through Pentagon officials.”