Is Iran goading Israel to strike one of its nuclear facilities? That is one explanation that international nuclear experts and analysts have come up with to explain why Iran recently moved nearly its entire stockpile of low-enriched uranium to above-ground storage, according to a report published Friday in the New York Times.

According to the New York Times, which quotes the latest International Atomic Energy Agency report, on Feb. 14 nuclear inspectors watched as Iran transferred more than 2,000 kilograms (4,300 pounds) of low-enriched uranium from deep underground storage to visible storageabove ground.

Supposedly, this enriched uranium will be used for a further enrichment of 20 percent to be used for its small reactor in Tehran that produces isotopes for medical equipment.

The report says the move makes no sense, because Iran does not need that much fuel to run an aging reactor in Tehran. Iran has repeatedly claimed its nuclear program is intended for peaceful purposes and not for developing atomic weapons.

Analysts have called this a puzzling move, as Iran last September was caught building a new underground enrichment site at a military base near the city of Qom. The site was dug deep inside the Iranian mountainside, and Iran said it was forced to build it there because of the threat of an Israeli or U.S. attack.

One of the explanations analysts have used to explain the about-face is that Iran's Revolutionary Guards are "inviting" an Israeli attack to deflect attention from the eight months of post-election violence that have divided the country.

One senior European diplomat told the New York Times on Thursday that an Israeli military strike could be the "best thing" for the Iranian regime, because it would rally Iranians around the government and against a common enemy.

However, other experts gave a different reason. They say Iran has run short of suitable storage containers for its enriched uranium, so it had to move almost all of it.

Kenneth Pollack, a scholar at the Brooking Institution, told the New York Times that Iran is basically jockeying for a better position in negotiations with the West.

Intelligence experts in Washington and Europe are not certain that Iran is seeking to actually build nuclear weapons or just to have the capability to assemble an atomic bomb if and when it desires.

However, officials have said that U.S. President Obama wants to prevent an Israeli strike and dispatched to Israel both his national security adviser and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to reiterate that point.