UNITED NATIONS – Israel “is not helpless” when it comes to stopping Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons capabilities Prime Minister Sharon said yesterday, reviving discussion of a possible military strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities ahead of an Israeli election.

Speaking to news editors in Tel Aviv, Mr. Sharon noted that his country is not alone in its resolve to prevent the Mullah regime from developing nuclear bombs, and that its policy is coordinated with Washington and others. Jerusalem officials were quick to say that diplomacy is preferable to a military strike, but the chief of the army intelligence, Brigadier General Aharon Ze’evi-Farkash, has warned that international diplomacy on Iran is weakening.

A military option against Iran “of course exists,” Mr. Sharon said yesterday, adding, “Before using it, I am sure all diplomatic efforts to press Iran will be exerted.” He stressed that “Israel, and not Israel alone, cannot accept a nuclear Iran,” saying that his country “is not helpless and it takes all the necessary measures” to face the threat posed by Iran.

Mr. Sharon spoke days after forming a new political party called Kadima, Hebrew for “forward,” which he heads as candidate for a third term as prime minister in the upcoming election, scheduled for the end of March.

“The position of the state of Israel is that the diplomatic track is the correct way to deal with the Iranian nuclear policies,” a former Sharon ally who may compete for the premier seat on the rival Likud platform, Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, told Army Radio.

Israel is hoping to bring the Iranian issue to the U.N. Security Council, where sanctions could be imposed, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mark Regev, told The New York Sun. “Iran must face a decision: Either it gives up its nuclear option, or it risks a deterioration in its ties to the outside world,” he said.

Last Friday, France’s president, Jacques Chirac, told an Israeli newspaper, Ha’aretz, that Paris would support the Security Council option if Iran fails to agree to cease enrichment and proliferation.

Such diplomacy might be too little, too late. “The efforts of the international community on Iran are all but exhausted,” General Ze’evi-Farkash told the Knesset’s Foreign and Security Committee on Wednesday. “If by the end of March [the issue] is not referred to the Security Council, it can be said that the international attempt [to block Iran’s nuclear ambitions] has reached a dead end.”

Israel is concerned that the Bush administration might lose its edge on Iran. Earlier this week, the State Department authorized America’s ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, to conduct meetings with Iranian officials. Although Iran yesterday dismissed the gesture, the move raised concerns in Jerusalem.

An Israeli intelligence source who asked not to be identified told the Sun yesterday that once Iran’s main uranium enrichment plant in Natanz becomes radioactive it could not be bombed. Any decision on a military measure must be taken prior to that, he said, and this means soon.

Israel faced a similar dilemma in 1981, when Prime Minister Begin decided to bomb Iraq’s Osirak nuclear plant. Noting that the decision, while sound strategically, was made on the eve of a crucial election won by Begin, some Israeli analysts speculated yesterday that Mr. Sharon’s statement was also motivated by electoral calculations.

“I would not put too much stock in that,” the director of Bar Ilan University’s Program on Conflict Management and Negotiation, Gerald Steinberg, told the Sun. In 1981, Israel’s top nuclear researcher, Science Minister Yuval Ne’eman, “went from one capital to another, warning about Iraq’s nuclear threat, and no one listened,” Mr. Steinberg said. The current Iranian threat, by contrast, is well understood in international circles, he said.

Mr. Steinberg noted that Begin lagged behind in election polls at the time of his decision, while Mr. Sharon is currently ahead. The latest Ha’aretz poll projects that the centrist Kadima would win 37 seats in Israel’s 120-member Knesset – far more than the left-wing Labor, predicted to win 26, and right-wing Likud, which for the first time in decades is estimated to win as few as nine seats. “Sharon does not need the Iranian issue politically,” Mr. Steinberg said.

“Unlike North Korea or Iraq under Saddam, Iran seeks to be part of the international community,” Mr. Steinberg said. Diplomatic efforts however might not be enough to stop its nuclear ambitions, and Tehran must face other threats. Mr. Sharon’s words yesterday, coupled with the army’s thinking as seen in General Ze’evi-Farkash’s Knesset briefing “reflect a government decision to highlight this danger,” he said.