A former CIA director said Sunday he had come around to the view that military action against Iran's nuclear program "may not be the worst of the possible outcomes."

Michael Hayden, a retired US Air Force general and spy chief under president George W. Bush, said in an interview on CNN's "State of the Union" that sanctions have not succeeded in stopping the Islamic republic from pursuing nuclear weapons.

He expressed concern that Iran "will get itself to the step right below the nuclear weapon, the permanent breakout stage, so the needle is not in the red for the international community.

"And that will be as destabilizing as them actually having a weapon," he said.

Hayden said that when he was in office the so-called "kinetic option," a euphemism for air strikes, was "way down on our list."

"In my personal thinking, and I need to emphasize that, I have begun to consider that may not be the worst of the possible outcomes."

In April the Pentagon said that while a military strike against Iran was off the table for the "near term," such action had not been ruled out.

The UN Security Council imposed a fourth set of sanctions on Iran in June, but Tehran, which insists its nuclear program has peaceful aims, has rejected demands that it halt a uranium enrichment program, which the West fears is aimed at producing fuel for atomic bombs.

The United States and the European Union have moved to further squeeze Tehran by imposing unilateral sanctions against the country's energy sector. The EU sanctions go into effect on Monday.

earlier related report
Iran ready to start talks on nuclear fuel swap deal: Mottaki
Istanbul (AFP) July 25, 2010 - Iran is ready to start immediately talks with Western powers over a nuclear fuel swap deal it signed in May, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said here Sunday.

Mottaki told reporters that Tehran would on Monday hand to the UN atomic agency its response to questions raised by the Vienna group -- the United States, Russia and France -- on the fuel swap deal.

"Tomorrow this... letter will be conveyed to the IAEA (the International Atomic Energy Agency) in Vienna and then we can immediately start negotiations for the details of exchanging of the fuel," he said in English.

"All the details on how that exchange should take place will come out through the discussions and talks in Vienna."

Under the deal, brokered by Turkey and Brazil in May, Iran agreed to send 1,200 kilogrammes of its low-enriched uranium (LEU) to Turkey to be supplied at a later date with high-enriched uranium by Russia and France.

But it was immediately cold-shouldered by world powers, which backed a fourth round of sanctions against Iran on June 9 over its refusal to halt its sensitive uranium enrichment programme.

The Vienna group expressed reservations and raised several questions regarding the deal, but said they were nonetheless ready to talk to Iran to clear up the doubts.

Mottaki, who was speaking after talks with his Turkish and Brazilian counterparts Ahmet Davutoglu and Celso Amorim, said Iran would like to see both of these countries take part in the talks, but said it was not a condition.

"The Vienna group talks with Iran either with the presence of Turkey and Brazil or not," he said.

Earlier Sunday, Davutoglu had said that Turkey and Brazil were ready to contribute to the talks only if they were invited by all the parties concerned.

Mottaki gave few details on the response Iran would hand to the IAEA on Monday, saying that it would contain Iran's "own views and what we will talk about in Vienna."

Iran's atomic chief Ali Akbar Salehi said on Saturday that Tehran's response would be a general one and that the technical response to the Vienna group's questions would be "discussed probably in a meeting".

He did not specify when such a meeting might take place.