White House contender Barack Obama said Wednesday all options, diplomatic and military, should be considered to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, but that air strikes alone would not solve the crisis.
   
"Iran is a big country. They have dispersed their nuclear capabilities in a way that you're not going to see smooth, surgical strikes solving the problem entirely the way that Israel was able to deal with Iraq's nuclear threat," he told ABC News.
   
The Democratic senator for Illinois, in his interview from Jerusalem, was referring to Israel's 1981 bombing of the Osirak nuclear plant in Iraq.
   
Obama's comments came after world powers warned Iran has only a fortnight to respond to their latest offer seeking to end a five-year crisis over its nuclear program, which Tehran claims has peaceful ends, but others fear masks nuclear weapons ambitions.
   
Obama called for "tough sanctions" coupled with "tough diplomacy that makes the calculus for the Iranians different."
   
He regretted that "a history of weak sanctions, weak inducements" against countries like Iran and North Korea -- both part of what the White House calls the axis of evil -- had made the threat of nuclear weapons "a fact of life."
   
"We've got to get serious about tough sanctions," he said.
   
"If Iran gets a nuclear weapon," Obama warned, "it triggers a potential arms race, a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, that is not only life-threatening to Israel but it is a profound, a game-changing shift when it comes to our (US) national security."
   
While insisting that "war is not a good option," the 46-year-old lawmaker said he "would not take military options off the table when it comes to Iran and dealing with their nuclear capacity."
   
Obama, who has already visited Kuwait, Afghanistan, Iraq and Jordan, heads on after Israel to a three-stop tour of Europe, beginning in Berlin on Thursday.