Israel has warned its US ally that President Barack Obama's attempt to engage diplomatically with Iran over its nuclear weapons programme will fail, according to leaked memos published Sunday.

Several US cables released among a trove of secret documents secured by the WikiLeaks whistleblower site and released to newspapers, show Israel pushing for Washington to consider launching military strikes against Iran.

One memo from November 2009 recounting a meeting between senior Israeli and US military offcials, quotes Israeli defence ministry political and military director Amos Gilad describing Tehran's alleged plans as "intolerable".

"He said Iran remains determined to reach the 'nuclear option'," said the memo, which was tagged "secret" and decribed as an account of a meeting of the US-Israeli "40th Joint Political Military Group".

The documents were part of a trove released Sunday by the WikiLeaks website, and published in full or in part by several international dailies, including Britain's Guardian, which has the Israeli memos in full.

During the meeting, an agent of Israel's Mossad foreign intelligence service said Iran was playing for time to "avoid sanctions while pursuing its strategic objective to obtain a military nuclear capability.

"From Mossad's perspective, there is no reason to believe Iran will do anything but use negotiations to stall for time so that by 2010-2011, Iran will have the technological capability to build a nuclear weapon," he said.

And in a separate meeting in June 2009, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak told visiting US lawmakers the West had only until the end of 2010 to find a way to halt the Iranian nuclear programme or face a Middle East arms race.

"Barak estimated a window between six and 18 months from now in which stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons might still be viable," he said, according to the leaked US cable.

"After that, he said, any military solution would result in unacceptable collateral damage," the memo said.

"He also expressed concern that should Iran develop nuclear capabilities, other rogue states and/or terrorist groups would not be far behind."