Tel Aviv/Tehran (dpa) - But Obama on Friday said he would not impose red lines or a deadline on Tehran. "No leader ties his own hands," Obama told a conference call with 1,200 rabbis ahead of the Jewish New Year, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

"I started speaking about the Iranian threat 16 years ago," Netanyahu told the Jerusalem Post. "If I was not a lone voice then, I was one of the few, and then others joined. And then I started speaking about the need for economic sanctions against Iran. I wasn‘t the only voice, but I was one of the few. Now I speak about red lines for Iran. So far I am one of the few. I hope others will join." In what the newspaper interpreted as an indication that a unilateral Israeli strike was not imminent, he added: "It takes time to persuade people of the wisdom of this policy."

Netanyahu also told NBC‘s Meet the Press, that Iran‘s leadership was guided by "an unbelievable fanaticism."It‘s the same fanatics that you see storming your embassies today. You want these fanatics to have nuclear weapons?" Those saying that taking action would be "a lot worse" than a nuclear Iran "set a new standard for human stupidity," he added in a video excerpt of the interview, to be aired in full later Sunday.

Earlier this week US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta also rejected the notion of "red lines." "The fact is," he told Foreign Policy‘s National Security channel Friday, that US presidents and Israeli leaders do not have "a bunch of little red lines that determine their decisions." "Red lines are kind of political arguments that are used to try to put people in a corner," he said. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has also rejected a deadline.

Meanwhile on Sunday, the head of Iran‘s Revolutionary Guards warned of decisive retaliatory action if Israel attacked the country. "Considering the size of the Israeli state, no part of Israel would be safe and nothing of that country would remain (in case of an Iranian retaliation of an Israeli attack)," Mohammad-Ali Jafari told reporters in Tehran. The commander also warned the US that in case of an military confrontation, Iran would attack the US military bases in the region and close the Persian Gulf oil export waterway of Strait of Hormuz.

In his round of interviews, Netanyahu angrily rejected charges that he was manufacturing a crisis with the Obama administration ahead of the US elections. US-Israeli security and intelligence cooperation was "very close" and "very important," but it was "only natural" to have "different perspectives." "When we have a difference of views we don‘t have to sweep them under the rug. I believe there has to be clear limits drawn to Iran‘s advance toward nuclear weapons, and that is not something I intend to be quiet about," he told the Jerusalem Post.

Netanyahu gave interviews with the media ahead of the Jewish New Year, which starts at sunset Sunday and ends Tuesday night.