Iran's nuclear programma; no referral?

It seems the White House is getting preciously little support for its plan to have the IAEA refer Iran's nuclear programme to the Security Council. Even Condoleezza Rice is not in a hurry. Nor is Jack Straw.

Washington Post

U.S. Agenda on Iran Lacking Key Support

by Dafna Linzer and Colum Lynch

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 15 -- Despite an intense lobbying effort at the most senior levels, the Bush administration failed to persuade three key countries Thursday to back the United States in pressuring Iran to give up sensitive aspects of its nuclear energy program, diplomats and officials said.

Russia, China and India either publicly or privately turned down U.S. requests to help report Iran's case next week to the U.N. Security Council, which has the authority to impose economic sanctions or an oil embargo.

The decision left the administration scrambling for a Plan B, and U.S. and European diplomats said there were backroom negotiations, on the margins of a U.N. summit in New York, to forge a compromise among countries with influence on the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency.

While many countries appear to share U.S. suspicions about Iran's intentions, they have profound differences with the Bush administration over how to respond, and are apprehensive about the goals of a U.S. president who has said that "all options are on the table" in dealing with Tehran.

Even the Europeans, frustrated after two tumultuous years of negotiations with Iran over the future of its nuclear program, said they prefer to avoid going to the Security Council. "Our aim all the way through in this when we started these negotiations was to keep the matter out of the Security Council," British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told reporters after a half-hour meeting Thursday with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. "What we're going to do is to listen carefully to what [Ahmadinejad] is going to say on Saturday afternoon and we'll take it from there."