He asserted that while Washington was inevitably focusing on Saddam Hussein — whom he called “insane” — the White House shared his concern that Iran was also seeking weapons of mass destruction, and developing missiles capable of striking Israel and even Europe.

“I talked about these things with Vladimir Putin a few days ago and I have been to Washington and one of the things I talked about was what will be (sic) later, if Iraq is going to be disarmed.

“One of the things I mentioned is that the free world should take all the necessary steps to prevent irresponsible countries from having weapons of mass destruction: Iran, Iraq of course, and Libya is working on a nuclear weapon.”
He accused Tehran of sponsoring the Lebanese Shia militia, Hezbollah, which he claimed had up to 10,000 short-range missiles stationed in Lebanon ready to strike Israeli towns, of smuggling weapons to the Palestinian Authority, and of trying to turn Israel’s one million Arab citizens against the Jewish state. “Iran is a centre of world terror and Iran makes every effort to possess weapons of mass destruction on the one hand and ballistic missiles,” he said. “That is a danger to the Middle East, to Israel and a danger to Europe.

“They are working now on a ballistic missile of 1,300km. They have almost reached this range already. They were talking in the past about 2,500km and even 5,000km.”

Mr Sharon made it abundantly clear that he would not hold back from retaliating, as Israel did at Washington’s behest in 1991, if his nation came under serious attack. “First, we understand the sensitivity. We are living here, we were born here. Israel will make every effort not to interfere,” he said.

But he warned: “If Israel, and I made it very clear, is attacked by weapons of mass destruction . . . Israel will react. Is it clear? I believe that they understand that Israel will not be able not to defend itself.”

Mr Sharon reiterated that he was willing to work toward the eventual creation of a Palestinian state, but demanded that progress toward it be measured by concrete improvements in security on the ground.