Spreading photographs of Iranian nuclear sites over a lunch table at the Bush ranch in Texas on Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon urged President Bush to step up pressure on Iran to give up all elements of its nuclear program, according to senior U.S. and Israeli officials.
Sharon said Israeli intelligence showed that Iran was near "a point of no return," according to the officials. Sharon gave no indication that Israel was preparing to act alone to attack Iranian nuclear facilities, a prospect that Vice President Dick Cheney, who was at the lunch, raised publicly three months ago.
In a conversation that lasted for more than an hour, however, Sharon argued that European nations now negotiating with Iran were softening their position and were willing to allow Iran to hold on to technology to enrich uranium.
U.S. officials said the evidence that Sharon presented, which included aerial photographs of some Iranian sites, was neither startling nor new to Bush. But they said the prime minister was clearly pressuring Bush not to allow the European negotiations with Iran to drag on.
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