JERUSALEM — Former Mossad chief Meir Dagan said Israel should hold off on attacking Iran and that he would “prefer” that the United States execute the attack when it is time.

Dagan also said in an interview on CBS’ “60 Minutes Sunday night that he feared an Israeli strike on Iran would lead to a regional war that would let loose at least 50,000 missiles on Israel from Hezbollah in the north and Hamas in the south.

“It will be a devastating impact on our ability to continue with our daily life. I think that Israel will be in a very serious situation for quite a time,” Dagan told Lesley Stahl. “And wars, you know how they start. You never know how you are ending it.”

Dagan began the interview by saying that “An attack on Iran before you are exploring all other approaches is not the right way how to do it.”

He also called the regime in Iran “a very rational regime.”

“No doubt that the Iranian regime is maybe not exactly rational based on what I call Western-thinking, but no doubt they are considering all the implications of their actions,” Dagan said. “They will have to pay dearly and all the consequences for it. And I think the Iranians, in this point in time, are going very careful in the project. They are not running in it.”

He said one sign of the Iranians’ forward-thinking is how they stall through diplomacy. 

Dagan pointed out that a nuclear Iran is an international problem, not solely an Israeli one. Because of this, he believes that the United States could be the ones to attack Iran’s nuclear program.

“If I prefer that somebody will do it, I always prefer that Americans will do it,” he said.

He added that an attack would not halt Iran’s nuclear program, only delay it, and asserted that there are dozens of sites throughout the country, not the four that are spoken about publicly.