A prominent political observer is predicting that Israel is likely to attack Iran's nuclear facilities before President Bush leaves office.

'The threat of another military confrontation hangs like a dark cloud over the Middle East,' declared Joschka Fischer, who was Germany's foreign minister and vice chancellor from 1998 to 2005.

Writing in the Beirut-based English-language newspaper The Daily Star, Fischer notes that a nuclear-armed Iran would be 'Israel's worst security nightmare,' and the Jewish state takes Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's threat to annihilate Israel very seriously.

He points to several factors that indicate Israel could be readying a strike on Iran:

• When President Bush recently visited Israel as the country celebrated its 60th birthday, it was expected that Palestinian-Israeli relations would be the chief topic discussed. Instead, it was Iran.

  It has been speculated that during his visit, Bush gave Israel the green light for an attack on Iran.

• Political pressure is mounting in Israel for action to halt the Iranian threat.
• The outgoing commander of the Israeli Air Force has said that the air force is capable of any mission, no matter how difficult, to protect Israel's security.
• With the Bush presidency approaching its end and uncertainty about his successor's policy toward Israel and Iran, the 'window of opportunity' for an Israeli attack is potentially closing, and that window 'is now, during the last months of Bush's presidency.'

Fischer observes: 'Although it is acknowledged in Israel that an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would involve grave and hard-to-assess risks, the choice between acceptance of an Iranian bomb and an attempt at its military destruction, with all the attendant consequences, is clear. Israel won't stand by and wait for matters to take their course.'

As Newsmax reported in December, Bruce Riedel, a former CIA official and senior adviser to three presidents, said after talks with Israeli officials that the Jewish state would launch an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities on its own if the rest of the world does not take action.

Fischer concluded: 'Iran must understand that without a diplomatic solution in the coming months, a dangerous military conflict is very likely to erupt. It is high time for serious negotiations to begin.'