WASHINGTON: Israel is pressing Barack Obama for an explicit threat of military action against Iran if sanctions fail and Tehran's nuclear programme advances beyond specified “red lines”.

Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, is expected to raise the issue at a White House meeting on Monday after weeks of intense diplomacy in which Obama has dispatched senior officials — including his intelligence, national security and military chiefs — to Jerusalem to try and dampen down talk of an attack.

Diplomats say that Israel is angered by the Obama administration's public disparaging of early military action against Iran, saying that it weakens the prospect of Tehran taking the warnings from Israel seriously.

The two sides are attempting to agree a joint public statement to paper over the divide but talks will not be made easier by a deepening distrust in which the Israelis question Obama's commitment to confront Iran while the White House is frustrated by what it sees as political interference by Netanyahu to mobilise support for Israel's position in the US Congress.

“They are poles apart,” said one diplomatic source. “The White House believes there is time for sanctions to work and that military threats don't help. The Israelis regard this as woolly thinking.

They see Iran as heading towards a bomb, even though they agree there is no evidence Tehran has made that decision yet, and they want the White House to up the ante. The White House has the Europeans behind its position but it's losing the US Congress.”

The mood is not helped by worsening distrust between the two leaders. Relations soured within weeks of Obama coming to power after he attempted to press Netanyahu to halt construction of Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories.

Netanyahu told his weekly cabinet meeting on Sunday that Iran will dominate his talks with Obama.

“There is no doubt that one issue will be at the centre of our talks, and that is, of course, the continued strengthening of Iran and its nuclear programme,” he said.

Israeli officials say that Netanyahu is not happy with Obama's “vague assertion” that all options are on the table in dealing with Iran. The Israeli prime minister wants Obama to state unequivocally that Washington is prepared to use force if Iran's nuclear programme advances beyond specified red lines. Netanyahu met a group of US senators last week, including John McCain, and complained strongly about Obama administration officials publicly opposing an Israeli strike on Iran.

After the meeting, McCain criticised the White House position. “There should be no daylight between America and Israel in our assessment of the [Iranian] threat. Unfortunately there clearly is some,” he said.

McCain described relations between the US and Israel as in “very bad shape right now” saying that differences over Iran have caused “significant tension”. He appeared to side with the Israeli position in noting that “there is very little doubt that Iran has so far been undeterred to get nuclear weapons”.

Last week, 12 senators sent the president a letter warning that he should not allow Tehran to buy time by engaging in fruitless diplomatic negotiations, expected to begin in the coming weeks. They demanded that Obama insist Iran halt its uranium enrichment programme before talks begin.

More than half the members of the Senate have backed a resolution that some see as pressing for an attack in declaring that the White House should not pursue a policy of “containment”.

Critics of the resolution said that it smacks of a congressional authorisation for an attack on Iran. That view was reinforced when the sponsors declined a request from some Democrats to amend it to clarify that the resolution did not imply consent for war.

By arrangement with the Guardian