U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, on a visit to the Middle East, said Sunday in an interview with Channel 10 that speculation about an Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities underscored the risk of failing to persuade Tehran to halt uranium enrichment.

Rice said she believed there was still "plenty of room for diplomacy" in curbing an Iranian nuclear program that Western powers fear could lead to making bombs.

Asked for her view of an Israeli military operation in Iran should diplomacy fail, she replied: "Well, I think that even talk of such just shows how very serious it would be to have Iran continue its program unabated."

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Meanwhile, the commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards said on Sunday the United States, Britain and Israel were an "axis of evil" trying to drive a wedge between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims.

U.S. President George W. Bush originally labeled Iran, North Korea and Iraq - before U.S. troops invaded - as part of an "axis of evil". Washington accuses Iran of backing terrorism and trying to build atomic bombs, charges Tehran denies.

"America, Britain and the Zionist regime are an axis of evil against the Islamic world and the whole of humanity," Guards Commander-in-Chief Yahya Rahim Safavi was quoted as saying by Iran's student news agency ISNA.

"They are trying to make enmity among Islamic countries and to make divisions among Shi'ites and Sunnis," he said.

He was echoing comments by other Iranian officials who have accused Washington of stoking sectarian tensions in Iraq where the majority of Iraqis are Shi'ite Muslims, like most Iranians. Washington blames Iran for fuelling violence in Iraq.

"Our powerful country does not worry about American and Zionist regime threats and in case of any kind of attack by intruders, we are able to defeat them," he added.

London's Sunday Times this month reported that Israel had drawn up secret plans to destroy Iran's uranium enrichment facilities - the part of Iran's nuclear programme that most worries the West - using tactical nuclear weapons. Israel would not comment on the story, which touched on its assumed atomic arsenal.

The United States has said it wants to resolve Iran's nuclear dispute with West diplomatically, but has refused to rule out using force if diplomacy fails.