UNITED NATIONS – Defense Secretary Rumsfeld yesterday added his voice to a chorus of mounting concern over Tehran’s undeterred quest for the atom bomb, saying he is “deeply concerned” about recent pronouncements by the Islamic republic.

Iran announced Wednesday that it had tested the newest version of the Shahab-3 missile. “This means they have the capacity to hit Israel with hundreds of pounds of warheads and, if they get it, with nuclear warheads,” Ephraim Sneh, who heads the Knesset’s subcommittee for defense and planning, told The New York Sun yesterday.

Mr. Sneh said Israel believes Iran has “dozens” of Shahab-3 missiles. Their range was improved after the recent testing from 800 to nearly 950 miles, he estimated. Israelis also believe that, despite denials, the Iranians are in advance designing stages of the Shahab-4 program, ranging over 1,050 miles and covering large parts of Europe.

Israeli officials speculated recently that Iran might be testing Shahab-4 missiles under the name of Shahab-3, but Mr. Sneh said the latest test was an improvement on the old program, which is based on the North Korean Nodong-1. There is no known proof Iran has already produced Shahab-4s, he said.

Israelis are intently following the recent muscle-flexing by Tehran, and Israeli officials note that the belligerence is aimed not only at Israel but also at America, specifically at its presence in Iraq. Iran watchers say that the Americans’ statements, as well as Europe’s failed diplomacy, have raised concerns among the mullahs in power.

New anti-American statements in Tehran, which coincided with the recently raised anti-coalition activity in Najaf and all over Iraq, have not escaped the attention of the Bush administration, which has raised its rhetoric regarding Iran’s attempt to become a nuclear power.

“One of the gravest concerns the world faces is the nexus between a terrorist state that has weapons of mass destruction and terrorist networks,” Mr. Rumsfeld said on a visit to Azerbaijan yesterday.

“So it’s understandable that nations, not just in this region but throughout the world, are so deeply concerned about what’s taking place in Iran,” he said.

On Sunday, national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, in an interview with NBC, refused to rule out the possibility of a “green light” for Israel to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities, as it did in 1981. “I do think that there are very active efforts under way, for instance, to undermine the ability of the Iranians under the cover of civilian nuclear cooperation to get the components that would help them for nuclear weapons developments,” she said.

With that, Iranians increasingly talk of strategic parity with Israel.

“The Israelis have recently tried to increase their missile capability and we will also try to upgrade our Shahab-3 missile,” Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani said this week, according to the Iranian student news agency INSA.

Other spokesmen tied the Shahab upgrade to the recent successful testing of the Arrow, a joint American-Israeli missile-shield program. “These are two different issues,” Mr. Sneh stressed. “One is a defensive system, the other is purely offensive.”

He added that combined with the recent declared intent to pursue a uranium enrichment program, the Iranian missile testing is “part of a power display” by the clerics in an attempt to address growing internal unrest.

At the same time, Tehran recently raised its rhetoric against the American presence in Iraq, where proxies such as Muqtada al Sadr intensify their anti-coalition activities.

“The global despotism will come to an end soon,” Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said this week, according to the official news agency IRNA. “Symptoms of such a downfall are emerging,” he was quoted as saying.

The official newspaper Jumhuriya Islam recently wrote, “Iran cannot allow a neighbor like Iraq to be ruled by agents of the American infidels.” According to Israel Radio’s director of Farsi broadcasting, Menashe Amir, this statement was the most explicit to date indicating Iran’s concerns about the long-term American presence in Iraq.