An Israeli cabinet minister on Tuesday invoked his country's ostensibly secret 2007 air raid on an alleged Syrian nuclear reactor to suggest Israel could successfully strike Iran without U.S. support.

Israel has never formally acknowledged the bombing of the desert site at Deir al-Zor nor said what was destroyed - a precaution against drawing Syria into a retaliatory war, according to then-U.S. President George W. Bush, who in his memoir described the target as a nascent, North Korean-supplied reactor.