Making an unusual campaign swing outside his own country, U.S. presidential candidate Rudolph Giuliani said Wednesday that he would like to see a broad expansion of the NATO alliance, including an invitation to Israel, and that the United States would use military force if necessary to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

Giuliani, long a supporter of Israel, acknowledged that pushing its membership in NATO might be viewed as provocative. Still, he said, he thinks it only natural, since the Israelis would be "willing to help us in the effort against terrorism."

Any attempt to include Israel in the alliance, an idea discussed within past American administrations, would most likely face insurmountable barriers, however, given that all NATO member states would first have to sign off.

Giuliani raised the idea of Israel's NATO membership in an interview with The New York Times. The comments by the former New York mayor, a chief contender for the Republican presidential nomination, will most likely appeal to Jewish voters in states like New York and Florida, which hold early primaries this election cycle.

"They are a democracy," he said of the Israelis. "They are an ally of the United States. They would have to decide whether that would be in their own national interest."

That speech capped a whirlwind day in which he gave a half-dozen interviews to foreign and American news organizations and had private meetings with Prime Minister Gordon Brown and former Prime Minister Tony Blair at Blair's offices here.

Giuliani's speech did not dwell on NATO's inclusion of the Israelis, merely listing Israel along with other nations, including Japan, Australia and India, as those that meet the "basic standards of good governance, military readiness" and "global responsibility," IHT reports.