Chosen Tuesday by Defence Minister Shaul Mofaz to succeed the outgoing General Moshe Yaalon, Haalutz is the first man with an air force background to be chosen as chief of staff in the history of the Jewish state.

Like Mofaz, who was Yaalon's immediate predecessor, outgoing deputy chief of staff Halutz is also of Iranian origin.

While Halutz's first task will be to oversee the planned evacuation of all 8,000 Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip from July, speculation has already begun to focus on how he will tackle what the political establishment now regards as Israel's biggest strategic threat.

US Vice President Dick Cheney recently warned that Israel might launch a pre-emptive strike against Iran's nuclear programme on its own, an echo of the 1981 attack by the Israeli air force on Iraq's French-built Osirak reactor.

Asked about possible preparations for a strike under Halutz, former air force chief David Ibri told army radio: "As chief of staff, he will in the best position to prepare the military for such a scenario."

Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom underlined the sense of urgency in Israel last week when he claimed on a trip to London that Iran was only six months away from having the knowledge to build a nuclear bomb.

Mofaz himself told French lawmakers last month that Iran was at "the point of no-return" in developing a nuclear arsenal, adding that "the possession of a nuclear weapon by an extremist regime is not acceptable."

Shalom said Iran's nuclear programme was a problem that must be tackled by the entire world, but many in Israel believe that the top brass must have plans in place to deal with Iran swiftly rather than rely on the diplomatic efforts of the European Union's big three, Britain, France and Germany.

"There is not a great deal of faith in Israel there is a diplomatic track worth pursuing. Europe has not got much backbone. There has to be alternate planning," said Gerald Steinberg, an analyst at the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs.

"Beyond the immediate focus of disengagement (from Gaza), clearly the major challenge for Israel and the IDF (Israel Defence Force) is to look towards dealing with a nuclear Iran and that's Halutz's main task," he told AFP.

Uzi Arad, a former intelligence director with Israel's Mossad foreign espionage agency, said military planners in Israel and beyond had to work out how to deal with the regime in Tehran, emphasising that Israel was not in a position to go it alone.

"Iran's programme is very time-sensitive, it is a race against time, and time here is measured by months not by years," said Arad.

While the United States and Europe have so far opted for the diplomatic track, Arad said that the world should be "preparing for serious military action and hinting at it in a productive way" had to be considered "in order not to have to use it."

Iran has dismissed Israeli allegations that it is close to developing a nuclear weapon, saying the accusations are designed to shift attention away from Israel's own large non-conventional arsenal and its "terror" against Palestinians.

Israel itself has never publicly acknowledged that it has any nuclear weapons but foreign experts say it has used a reactor at Dimona in the southern Negev desert to produce between 100 and 200 warheads.

While Iran insists its nuclear activities are strictly peaceful, Britain, France and Germany have been engaged in diplomatic efforts to secure long-term guarantees that the Tehran regime will not seek the bomb.

Iran has agreed to suspend its work on the sensitive nuclear fuel cycle - a process that can be geared to both civil and military purposes - for the duration of the talks with the European Union.

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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