'The Iranians are the Root of All Evil'

So says a native Iranian who now happens to be a high-raning Israeli politician.

ISRAELI Cabinet minister Shaul Mofaz, a contender to succeed the prime minister, denounced his native Iran on today as "the root of all evil" and said its nuclear programme constituted a threat to world peace.

Mr Mofaz was speaking a day after he launched a campaign for a party leadership election next month that will lead to the replacement of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Opinion polls show that Mr Mofaz, a deputy prime minister and transport minister, is a frontrunner in the contest to lead the centrist Kadima party but trails Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.

Mr Olmert, dogged by a corruption probe, said last week he would step down once a successor for the party leadership was chosen.

"The Iranians are the root of all evil," Mr Mofaz said in an interview on Israel Radio, adding that Tehran's nuclear programme would pose "a threat to Israel's existence".

He urged the West anew to impose stiffer sanctions on Tehran to pressure Iran to stop a nuclear programme that Israel believes is intended to produce atomic weapons.

Iran says the developments are for civilian purposes only, to produce energy.

Israel is widely believed to have assembled the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal which experts say comprises as many as 200 warheads.

Israel does not discuss its nuclear capabilities under a "strategic ambiguity" policy designed to ward off enemies while avoiding the sort of provocation that can trigger arms races.

Mr Mofaz, who was born in Tehran before many Iranian Jews moved to the new state of Israel, accused his native country of trying "simply to bide its time," by rejecting Western proposals to stop enriching uranium.

"This has been the Iranian strategy for years, to bide their time and continue with their enrichment," Mr Mofaz said.

Mr Mofaz, a former head of the Israeli military, has been one of Israel's most outspoken ministers against Iran.