Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's incendiary anti-Israel outbursts have united the international community against his country, thus serving a key Israeli interest, former Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy told an American-sponsored Arab satellite television network on Tuesday.

"Ahmadinejad is our greatest gift," Halevy told the Arab language television network Al-Hurra on Tuesday. "We couldn't carry out a better operation at the Mossad than to put a guy like Ahmadinejad in power in Iran."

Halevy added that the Iranian president's extremist statements "proved to everyone that Iran of today is an Iran that is impossible to live with. [Ahmadinejad] unites the entire world against Iran."

Halevy told Time magazine in an interview published last month that an Israeli attack on Iran "could have an impact on us for the next 100 years" and should only be considered as a last resort.

Halevy, who …