ROBERT FISK: Well, it's perfect proof that somebody wants a civil war. Um, but the problem for me is that the narrative is that the Shi'ites are being attacked by the Sunnis and their mosques are being blown up and now the Shi'ites are attacking the Sunni mosques and the Shi'ites and the Sunnis are going to fight each other.

I think that's far too simple a version of events. There's never been a civil war in Iraq. Sunnis and Shi'ites, despite the fact that the Sunnis as a minority have always effectively ruled Iraq, have never had this sectarian instinct. It's not a sectarian society, it's a tribal society. People are intermarried.

You know, I was at the funeral of a Sunni and asked his brother, you know, he'd been murdered - probably by Shi'ites, I think - I asked his brother if there was going to be a civil war and he said look, I'm married to a Shi'ite. You want me to kill my wife? Why do you westerners always want civil war?

The first people to mention civil war were the occupation authorities. The Iraqis were not. Some…

ELEANOR HALL: But the Iraqis are now. I mean, Al-Jaafari's talking about civil war.

ROBERT FISK: They're not talking about civil war, they're talking about being frightened of who's doing the bombing. But, you see, we still don't know who's doing the bombings. How many names have we been given of the suicide bombers? Two out of, what, 320 suicide bombings now. Where do they come from, these people?

I mean, we keep hearing about kidnaps. In every case they were kidnapped by people, quote, "wearing police uniforms," unquote. There's a police station on the airport road, it was overrun and all the policemen executed by men wearing, quote, "army uniforms," unquote.

Now, we used to have this phenomenon in Algeria, when I was covering the Islamist government war there, and it took a while before we realised that they were policemen and they were soldiers.

In other words, they were being paid by the authorities. These were not people… there's not a huge wardrobe factory in Fallujah with, you know, 8,000 policemen's uniforms, waiting for the next suicide bomber. It's not like that. What we've got is death squads, and some of them are clearly working for government institutions within Baghdad.

ELEANOR HALL: So you're saying there are death squads, there's chaos, but it's not civil war?

ROBERT FISK: Well, it's certainly chaos, and it's certainly death squads. But I don't regard this as a civil war at the moment. As I said, somebody wants a civil war. I mean, if you really try hard and you kill enough people you may be able to produce this.

ELEANOR HALL: So somebody wants a civil war?

ROBERT FISK: Yes.

ELEANOR HALL: You must have some clues about who.

ROBERT FISK: I don't have… I have suspicions, I don't have clues. I spend a lot of time, when I'm in Baghdad, trying to find out who this is and what this is. Clearly, the Interior Ministry have been torturing people to death, and clearly the Interior Ministry have people who do operate death squads.

But you've got to remember something, that a very prominent figure in politics, and a close friend of the United States, was accused just before the first elections of executing, quote, "insurgents," unquote, in a police station, a police station I know very well. This was reported in Australia at the time.

I suspect the story is true. I think he was a murderer, and he was working for the Americans, and he was a former CIA operative, as we know. I'm not saying the CIA are doing the death squads and this is an American plot - no, I'm not.

But I think that there are all kinds of tendencies and fractures within the current authorities, who all live in the green zone in the former Republican palace of Saddam, surrounded by American barbed wire and American protection.

ELEANOR HALL: What's the rationale of this though? I mean, if these people are in government, why do they want a civil war?

ROBERT FISK: I think what they want to do is to produce a situation in which their side, or their party, will control Iraq.

You've got to realise the insurgents too, most of whom but not all are Sunni, we keep seeing the insurgents as people who want to get the Americans out. But that's a very short-sighted view of it. That's our view of it.

It's quite clear the insurgents want to get the Americans out, but they want to get the Americans out so they can say afterwards, we liberated our country, we want a place in power. That is what this is about. This is about securing political power after the withdrawal of the United States.

ELEANOR HALL: What about the political negotiations that are going on at the moment though? I mean, is there no faith placed in those?

ROBERT FISK: Look, I'm sorry to sound so pessimistic, but all the political negotiations are going on within a few square acres, guarded by American tanks, from which nobody emerges. These people who are negotiating, they don't go into the streets of Baghdad, they don't see the people, they don't see the bombs.

ELEANOR HALL: But the people voted for them.

ROBERT FISK: Yes, the Shi'ites voted for them mostly.

Look, people want to vote. People would like freedom. But they'd also freedom from us, and that we will not accept, because we want to go on controlling Iraq and making sure Iraq does what we want. We want to control the government of Iraq.

I mean, they have a democratic election, and what happens? Bush comes on the telephone and says come on, we want some unity, get moving.

ELEANOR HALL: You say the US will have to get out of Iraq, but it will need the help of Iran and Syria to do so…

ROBERT FISK: Of course, of course it will.

ELEANOR HALL: Now, how would that work?

ROBERT FISK: It'll need the help of Iran to make sure that all Shi'ite resistance to the United States ends during the withdrawal, and it'll need the help of the Syrians, who do have a lot of influence along the border with Iraq, to make sure that there is some kind of deal with the insurgents that the Americans can leave not under fire.

You see, I mean I've said this before, but the terrible equation, of course politically, from an American political point of view as well, in Iraq, is that the Americans must leave, and they will leave, and they can't leave.

And that's the equation that turns sand into blood. And that remains the case. It's very easy to invade other people's countries; it's very difficult to get out of them. It should be the other way around, but unfortunately it's not. That's how it happens.

And the Brits found that, you know, all over the Middle East. And every time, every time, every time the authorities of the occupying power say the same things - we will not talk to terrorists. The Americans say it too. And they don't read history books, because at the end of the day the Americans will have to talk to the insurgents in Iraq, and they will, they will.

ELEANOR HALL: Now, the victory for Hamas, in the Palestinian elections, how closely is the West's reaction to this being watched in the Arab world?

ROBERT FISK: With its usual cynicism, yes. It's the same old story - we demand democracy, we demand they have freedom to vote, and they vote for the wrong people, so we try to destroy the government that's been freely elected. We love democracy, providing the Muslim nations elect the people we want.

I mean, we keep hearing the Israelis will not deal with Hamas. The Israelis created Hamas. When the PLO were in Beirut, and the Israelis wanted to counteract the PLO, they urged Hamas to set up more mosques and social institutions in Gaza.

Even after Oslo a senior Israeli officer, and this was reported on the front page of The Jerusalem Post, held official talks with Hamas officials in Jerusalem. Israel won't deal with Hamas… this is just a facade of narrative, for us, the press.

There is a narrative being set down for us where there will not be negotiations, but there can be any time the Israelis want, and if they find it in their interest, they will.

ELEANOR HALL: And yet you're in no doubt that Hamas, or certain members of Hamas, are terrorists?

ROBERT FISK: Look, I don't use the word terrorist about anybody. This has become a semantically meaningless word. Look, there are people in the Hamas movement who support the murder of innocent people, yes, of course.

There are… I'm not trying to make equivalences here, but when you have an Israeli air force officer, as we did at one occasion in Gaza, who bombs a block of apartments, knowing that he will kill innocent children, as well as a man who is believed to be behind suicide bombings, what is that man? What goes on in his brain too?

ELEANOR HALL: Now, you make the point in your book about the targeted killing of Hamas leaders coming back …

ROBERT FISK: The murder. I don't say targeted killing.

ELEANOR HALL: Okay.

ROBERT FISK: The murder.

ELEANOR HALL: The killing of leaders of Hamas will come back to haunt the leaders of the West. What do you mean…

ROBERT FISK: Well, we already did have - a year and a half ago I think - the murder of an Israeli Government minister in Jerusalem.

Um, you see, once you start going for leaderships, you're opening a door that can come back at you. And the great danger is once you say, you know, we might kill Yasser Arafat, well he died of his own accord, but I mean that was constantly said, so then you open the door to someone saying well, let's kill the Israeli leadership, or let's kill the British leadership.

Once you say we're going to kill Osama Bin Laden, what does that allow him to do? He doesn't need permission of course. But what doors are you opening…

ELEANOR HALL: Aren't these doors already open?

ROBERT FISK: Oh, they've been opened now, yes.

ELEANOR HALL: But weren't they already open for people like…

ROBERT FISK: The moment we turned our back on international law and gave up on justice and wanted revenge, that was the end.

ELEANOR HALL: Now, you describe in your book, you were there for Rafiq Hariri's killing in Lebanon…

ROBERT FISK: I was 400 metres away, yes.

ELEANOR HALL: After that you write you're increasingly stunned by the growing tragedy of the Middle East. Now, I would've thought that's a big statement from someone who's been reporting from the Middle East for 30 years.

ROBERT FISK: Yes, but the Middle East has never been in such a terrible situation, it's never been so dangerous. I've never found myself going on assignments of such danger as I do now. Iraq's the worst assignment I've ever been on, ever.

I think that our hypocrisy towards the Middle East, and the ruthlessness of its own leaders, Arab leaders, has reached such a stage now that there's some kind of… I mean, some kind of explosion is going to come.

Over… I did a CBC interview in Toronto, which I've got a copy of, three years before 2001, and I said an explosion is coming. And obviously…

ELEANOR HALL: But do you think an explosion is still coming?

ROBERT FISK: Oh yes. I don't… it doesn't have to be a real physical one like 'bang'. It might be. But something is coming. I mean, I feel it very strongly.

When I go back, when I went back for the book, I realised I was feeling it because I live there, I live in a Muslim society, I live in the Middle East, and all the people around me are Muslims.

And, clearly, living there, breathing that environment, I knew something was going to happen. And I still think something's going to happen. I don't mean September 11, but something.

ELEANOR HALL: But like what?

ROBERT FISK: Well, I mean, the Americans being driven out of Iraq is one, isn't it?

ELEANOR HALL: But if the Americans leave Iraq the suggestion is that that will create more stability there. Is that not likely to…

ROBERT FISK: Well, I hope it would, yes. Um, yeah but, you see, if the Americans leave Iraq it's an enormous blow to US military and political and strategic prestige throughout the world, there's no doubt about it.

ELEANOR HALL: So you've been warned. That's the Middle East Correspondent for the British newspaper, The Independent, Robert Fisk, who's been reporting on the Middle East for 30 years and is in Australia this week to promote his latest book, The Great War for Civilization. He was speaking to me earlier this morning.

The council will have to decide whether to impose sanctions, an issue that could split the international community as policy towards Iraq did before the invasion.

Yesterday the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, said: "Nobody has said that we have to rush immediately to sanctions of some kind."
However the parliamentary foreign affairs committee, visiting Washington last week, encountered sharply different views within the Bush administration. The most hawkish came from Mr Bolton. According to Eric Illsley, a Labour committee member, the envoy told the MPs: "They must know everything is on the table and they must understand what that means. We can hit different points along the line. You only have to take out one part of their nuclear operation to take the whole thing down."

It is unusual for an administration official to go into detail about possible military action against Iran. To produce significant amounts of enriched uranium, Iran would have to set up a self-sustaining cycle of processes. Mr Bolton appeared to be suggesting that cycle could be hit at its most vulnerable point.

The CIA appears to be the most sceptical about a military solution and shares the state department's position, say British MPs, in suggesting gradually stepping up pressure on the Iranians.

The Pentagon position was described, by the committee chairman, Mike Gapes, as throwing a demand for a militarily enforced embargo into the security council "like a hand grenade - and see what happens".

Yesterday Mr Bolton reiterated his hardline stance. In a speech to the annual convention of the American-Israel public affairs committee, the leading pro-Israel US lobbyists, he said: "The longer we wait to confront the threat Iran poses, the harder and more intractable it will become to solve ... we must be prepared to rely on comprehensive solutions and use all the tools at our disposal to stop the threat that the Iranian regime poses."

The IAEA referred Iran to the security council on February 4, but a month's grace was left for diplomatic initiatives. By yesterday, those appeared exhausted. A meeting of European and Iranian negotiators broke down on Friday over Tehran's insistence that even if Russia was allowed to enrich Iran's uranium, Iran would enrich small amounts for research. Iran says that it needs enrichment for electricity.

According to Time magazine, the US plans to present the security council with evidence that Iran is designing a crude nuclear bomb, like the one dropped on Nagasaki in 1945. The evidence will be in the form of blueprints that the US said were found on a laptop belonging to an Iranian nuclear engineer, and obtained by the CIA in 2004. However, any such presentation will bring back memories of a similar briefing in February 2003 in which Colin Powell, then US secretary of state, laid out evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, which proved not to exist.

While the US and Britain keep a united front over Iraq in the UN security council, there are clear differences over Iran. Britain has ruled out a military option if diplomatic pressure fails. The US has not. There is no serious consideration of large-scale use of ground forces, but there are disagreements in the administration over whether air strikes and small-scale special forces operations could be effective in halting or slowing down Iran's alleged nuclear weapons programme.

Some believe Iran has secret facilities that are buried so deep underground as to be impenetrable. They argue that the US could never be certain whether or not it had destroyed Iran's "capability".

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

The undiplomatic diplomat went on to describe a war on radical Islam: "While it may be true -- and probably is -- that not all Muslims are terrorists, it also happens to be true that nearly all terrorists are Muslim."

But ask people at this week's gathering about Steve Rosen, the father of modern AIPAC, who goes on trial next month for disseminating classified information, and you get the sort of look you'd expect if you inquired about an embarrassing medical condition.

"I'm not the person to ask about that," says Nathan Diament, a Washington representative for Orthodox Jews.

"Who?" responds Neil Cooper, a delegate from the Philadelphia area.

"Rosen? Which one is he?" answers a charity executive, with a smile.

"I need to read more about it," demurs Etan Cohen, a college student.

AIPAC staff members note that, with Iran and the Palestinians to worry about, the indictments of Rosen and former deputy Keith Weissman have not been mentioned in any of the group's public meetings so far. And they say the pro-Israel lobby, unharmed by the Rosen flap, is putting on its biggest and best show ever this week: 4,500 participants, including more than 1,000 students, paying visits to at least 450 House and Senate offices.

Indeed, the scandal doesn't seem to have slowed down the group. At last night's dinner, AIPAC set aside 27 minutes for the reading of its annual "Roll Call" of lawmakers, diplomats and administration officials attending the gathering. As of midday yesterday, RSVPs had come in from 57 embassies, from Burundi to Turkey; a score of Bush administration officials; a majority of the Senate; and a quarter of the House. Even the ambassadors of Pakistan and Oman supped at AIPAC's table.

Any talk of Rosen is confined to private donor meetings and hallway conversations -- where opinions are split on AIPAC's decision to turn its back on Rosen and Weissman.

"I don't like the way AIPAC handled it, hanging them out to dry," said one West Coast delegate, after delivering an on-the-record no comment. "They didn't do anything different from what everybody else does in this town every day."

Rosen and Weissman are the first nongovernment officials to be prosecuted under the all-but-forgotten Espionage Act of 1917. The law, amended in 1950, makes it a crime for an unauthorized person even to have classified information knowingly; if Rosen broke that law, so do hundreds of other lobbyists and journalists as part of their normal course of business.

The New Yorker magazine reported last year that AIPAC's lawyer, Nathan Lewin, recommended that the two officials be fired after he heard from prosecutors about an FBI-recorded telephone call between Rosen, Weissman and The Washington Post's Glenn Kessler, in which Rosen observed that "at least we have no Official Secrets Act." Lewin and the prosecutors may not have realized that the line -- referring to a British law about publishing classified information -- was a stock joke Rosen used in conversations with Kessler and other reporters.

AIPAC at first defended Rosen vigorously, then dismissed him in April over unspecified conduct "beneath the standards AIPAC sets for its employees." The group has advised members that it has not taken a position on whether Rosen acted legally.

That nuance was understandably lost on most of the attendees asked about the matter at yesterday's session. "AIPAC doesn't support passing of state secrets to Israel, and that's my view, too," said Daniel Rathauser, a high school senior from New Jersey.

Max Newman, from Michigan, had no complaints, either. "I respect the way the organization handled it," he said. "What they did was against the policy of AIPAC."

Exactly what they did should come out in next month's trial. In the meantime, AIPAC is clamping down on what information it lets out.

Luncheon speeches by former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and former Virginia governor Mark Warner (D) were declared off the record. At another speech yesterday by Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, reporters were turned away at the door; an AIPAC spokeswoman went through the room making sure no journalists had infiltrated.

At the public sessions, the message was uniform: AIPAC is strong, and getting stronger. "Thank God for AIPAC," Gillerman told the participants. "This is for us the greatest guarantee and insurance policy for the survival of Israel," he added. "Please don't ever change."

As Rosen and Weissman have learned, it already has.

Security council concerns
Iran Sunday again threatened to begin large-scale nuclear enrichment if the case is taken up by the security council.

"The longer we wait to confront the threat Iran poses, the harder and more intractable it will become to solve," Bolton warned.

"The Iran regime must be made aware that if it continues down the path of international isolation, there will be tangible and painful consequences," he told 4,500 delegates to the annual convention of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee, the leading pro-Israel U.S. lobbying group.

He said Iran poses a "comprehensive threat" as a state sponsor of terrorism as well as a nuclear aspirant and so "we must be prepared to rely on comprehensive solutions and use all the tools at our disposal to stop the threat that the Iranian regime poses."

The United States has had sweeping sanctions on Iran since after the 1979 Iranian revolution but is looking at ways to further use its Proliferation Security Initiative to deny Iran materials it needs for its nuclear program, he said.

Bolton reaffirmed that the United States does not see the security council moving quickly to impose sanctions on Iran, but he pointedly noted that "many other governments have begun to include the word sanctions in their discourse on Iran," implying they may take action outside the security council.
Copyright 2006 Reuters Limited.

Officials said the arrival of the Reagan Carrier Strike Group, which contains more than 6,000 sailors, was part of a routine rotation of U.S. ships in the Gulf. The strike group consists of the USS Reagan; USS Lake Champlain missile cruiser, USS McCampbell and USS Decatur destroyers; USS Rainer fast combat support ship; and Explosives Ordnance Disposal Unit 11 Det 15.

The USS Reagan, whose home port has been in San Diego, Calif., was commissioned in July 2003.

Ever since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks the Bush administration has viewed the struggle against terrorist groups like the Taliban and al-Qaida as a war that can be won in the mountains of the Hindu Kush and the deserts of the Sunni triangle. Europeans, on the other hand, remain deeply uncomfortable with the term "war on terror," with many asking how it is possible to wage war on an abstract noun.

"The United States talks of a war against terror," said one senior European Union official at the GMF conference. "We don't subscribe to that view in the European Union." Speaking at the same event, which observed 'Chatham House' rules of anonymity, a NATO official said the 26-member military bloc also preferred to talk about the "fight against terror."

It is more than a semantic issue. The Bush administration -- and many ordinary Americans -- see their country "at war" with terrorism, and argues trenchantly that U.S. troops in Iraq are part of this effort. There is no such feeling in Europe, partly because European nations have lived with terrorist attacks on their soil for decades, if not centuries.

"The European Union sees terrorism through the prism of the past, the United States as a new threat," said one participant at the Italian institute's meeting, adding that the two transatlantic powers are divided over both the nature of the threat faced and the best means of tackling it.

A country that sees itself at war is more likely to take extreme measures to protect its population, even if this leads to an erosion of civil liberties such as the right to privacy, free speech and a fair trial. Gerhart Baum, a prominent German human rights lawyer and former interior minister, told the Belgian institute's conference last month that the United States had "crossed the border between criminal law and war law" in its fight against Jihadi terrorism, resulting in the sanctioning of torture and targeted assassinations.

"The fight against terrorism should be compatible with human rights, but clearly it is not (in this case)," said Baum.

Calls from traditionally pro-American EU leaders, such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi, for the United States to close its internment camp at Guantanamo Bay highlight the gaping divide between Washington and European capitals when it comes to finding the right balance between using state power against terrorist groups and protecting civil liberties.

Another major difference between the two sides concerns the scale of the threat posed by al-Qaida and its offshoot organizations. The Bush administration believes Osama bin Laden is comparable to Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin and that al-Qaida poses as great a menace to Western free-market democracies today as the Nazis did in the 1930s.

Europeans are in no doubt about the lethal threat posed by Jihadi terrorism -- after all, they were the prime victims of it in Madrid, London and Istanbul -- but there is a growing body of opinion that argues the real danger is no longer posed by al-Qaida, but by the freelance franchises the terrorist grouping has spawned.

"I do not believe that we are confronted with a formidable global external foe," Rik Coolsaet, a security expert at the Belgian Institute for International Relations, told the Brussels conference on Jihadi terrorism. "We must stop behaving as if we were in a permanent state of war with a monolithic authoritarian threat, a successor enemy to Nazism or communism."

Dismissing Bin Laden as nothing more than a "leader of a sect," Coolsaet added: "Unduly stressing the global nature of the threat we boost his appeal to would-be suicide bombers who feel boosted by the worldwide success of a potent al-Qaida the west contributes to magnify."

The U.S. administration views terrorism as primarily an external threat emanating from failed states, jihadist groupings and Islamist regimes in the broader Middle East -- hence the decision to oust the Taliban in 2001 and, although a belated justification, to invade Iraq in 2003.

European governments, on the other hand, see the threat as largely internal -- stemming from extremist sects within their Muslim communities. It is a view drawn from bitter experience. Both the London and Madrid bombings were largely carried out by British and Spanish citizens and the killer of Dutch film-maker Theo van Gogh was a well-integrated, Dutch-speaking citizen of the Netherlands.

"We have the impression that they are coming to attack us, but in fact it is the other way around," said Olivier Roy, a terrorism expert at the French CNRS institute. "Europe is actually exporting jihadis to the Middle East. More Germans and Japanese have joined the jihad in Palestine than second generation European Muslims."

The Bush administration believes you cannot and should not negotiate with terrorists. But this is precisely what European governments have been doing for decades. Ultimately, Britain came to a negotiated settlement with the Irish Republican Army, just as the Spanish government is trying to do with the Basque terrorist organization ETA. As yet, no one is proposing inviting bin Laden for talks in Camp David, but history is littered with examples of yesterday's terrorists becoming tomorrow's leaders.

One area where there does seem to be an increasing convergence in American and European opinions is over the root causes of terrorism.

Many well-meaning European analysts used to argue that terrorism is flourishing because of the international community's inability to bring closure to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians and the lingering resentment felt towards the rich West by the "wretched of the earth."

This idea was comprehensively rubbished by European speakers at both recent conferences. "None of those responsible for Jihadi attacks suffered from colonial occupation, illiteracy or poverty," Javier Ruperez, the former Spanish diplomat who now heads the U.N. fight against terrorism, told the Belgian institute's Feb. 13 conference. Added Roy: "There was never a Palestinian flag flying in the Paris suburb riots in November, but this did not stop the media talking about an intifada." Speaking at the GMF/Italian institute's seminar last week, an EU diplomat said: "It would be a strategic mistake to believe that if we solve the Mideast problem, bin Laden will give up targeting the West."

European experts such as Roy and Coolsaet are slowly beginning to build up a more subtle profile of the Jihadi terrorist that has little to do with the popular stereotype of the crazed, Madrassa-educated religious fanatic in the pocket of bin Laden. "They are almost all Westerners," said Roy, adding: "They don't have a traditional religious education." Instead, most European Jihadis are well-educated Muslims who have experienced a personal psychological trauma -- such as drug or alcohol addiction -- before becoming born-again Islamists.

Jihadi terrorism will only be defeated if Europeans and Americans arrive at a joint understanding of the threat posed by violent Islamist groups and a joint plan of action to eradicate the menace. At present, most experts, analysts and policy practitioners would agree this is far from being the case.

Ms. Rice's call came after Dr. ElBaradei suggested to reporters that the standoff with Iran could be resolved in a week or so, apparently an allusion to the Russian proposal. Washington's strategy is to get past the meeting of the I.A.E.A. that opened Monday and, under a resolution passed by the agency's board in February, have the issue turned over to the United Nations Security Council immediately. But officials clearly fear that the Russian proposal is intended to slow that process.

American officials said they had been assured by the Russians that there was no formal proposal on the table. The Russian foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, had dinner in Washington on Monday evening with Ms. Rice and the national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, and he is scheduled to meet President Bush in the Oval Office on Tuesday.

Under the Russian proposal, Iran would temporarily suspend all uranium enrichment activities at its facility at Natanz but then be allowed to do what Russia describes as "limited research activities" in Iran's uranium enrichment program, said the European officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity under normal diplomatic rules.

Iran would have to agree to a moratorium on production of enriched uranium on an industrial scale for between seven to nine years, ratify additional measures that let the nuclear agency conduct intrusive inspections of its nuclear facilities and create a joint venture with Russia on the production of enriched uranium on Russian soil, the officials said. The proposal, which has not been made public, spurred Dr. ElBaradei to give an upbeat assessment about a possible swift resolution of the impasse over Iran's program, an official familiar with his thinking said.

In a tonal shift, Dr. ElBaradei said Iran had made concessions on some issues. Calling Iran's activities at its uranium enrichment plant at Natanz "the sticking point," he added, "That issue is still being discussed this week, and I still hope that in the next week or so that agreement could still be reached."

In an interview on Monday evening, R. Nicholas Burns, the under secretary of state for political affairs, said the administration would reject any proposal that did not require the Iranians to stop domestic nuclear enrichment and reprocessing activities. "The United States will not support any halfway measures," he said. "That means full suspension of all nuclear activities, and a return to negotiations on that basis."

Ms. Rice told Dr. ElBaradei that Washington wanted to see Iran's case before the Security Council as soon as this week's agency board meeting was over; that the United States would seek a presidential statement, which does not carry the weight of a resolution, noting Iran's past failures to comply with its international commitments; and that Iran's case would then be sent back to the nuclear agency for further review, according to an official with knowledge of the conversation.

The Russian proposal is a reversal of its previous stance and seemed motivated by its determination to protect Iran from judgment by the Security Council.

Russia - and even China - had joined the United States and the Europeans in demanding that Iran resume a freeze of uranium enrichment activities at Natanz, reflecting mounting global suspicion that Iran's nuclear program is intended to produce weapons.

The Russian proposal surfaced late last week, when Sergei Kisliak, Russia's chief nuclear negotiator, presented it to officials of Britain, France and Germany.

He said Iran would have to resume full suspension of all enrichment-related activities, including what it calls its small-scale "research and development" while the agreement on the package was negotiated. Once there was an agreement, however, Iran would be allowed to conduct limited uranium enrichment research activities under a pilot program as agreed with the I.A.E.A.

As soon as Iran and the agency agreed on the small-scale enrichment, Iran's Parliament would ratify the "Additional Protocol" to Iran's nuclear agreement. That protocol gives the nuclear agency's inspectors the right to ask for exceptional access to Iran's nuclear facilities. When one of the Europeans asked Mr. Kisliak for his definition of a pilot program, he said there was no real definition, one official said.

A moratorium on industrial-scale enrichment and reprocessing activities would last two to three years while the nuclear agency carried out an investigation of Iran's past nuclear activities and five to six years more until trust with Iran could be rebuilt.

Mr. Kisliak conceded that a major risk of such a package was that Iran would inch closer to mastering the technology for a small cascade of centrifuges that turn uranium gas into enriched uranium that can be used to produce electricity or to make bombs. He added that it would shorten the period needed for Iran to "manufacture a weapon" by a number of months, one official familiar with the briefing said.

Iran has always contended its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, although Russia, like the United States and the Europeans, is convinced it intends to make nuclear weapons.

Mr. Kisliak speculated that Iran was unlikely to accept the proposal, in part because of the long-term constraints on its industrial-scale enrichment program. The proposal threatened to derail a carefully formulated, but fragile strategy to send Iran's case to the Security Council. Last month's resolution by the nuclear agency board demanded that no action be taken in the Council until after the current board meeting, a way to give Iran one last chance to comply with agency demands.

Even though there is no specific timetable to seek economic sanctions on Iran, both Russia and China are opposed to sanctions. There is no need for another resolution to be passed by the agency board this time for the Security Council to act. Certainly, Dr. ElBaradei is looking for a negotiated solution to the Iran impasse even if it means giving Iran a significant concession on making nuclear fuel.

In a conversation with the German and French foreign ministers, a senior British Foreign Office envoy and the European Union's foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, in Vienna last Friday, Dr. ElBaradei expressed the view that Iran needed to continue some uranium enrichment work as a face-saving measure, a European official said. The Europeans, who met earlier with Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, replied that it was not a question of saving face but of maintaining both the credibility of the nuclear agency and a firm position toward Iran.

The crucial issue for Iran is mastering the fuel cycle by enriching uranium. Indeed, in Tehran on Sunday, Mr. Larijani reiterated Iran's position that it would not freeze small-scale production of nuclear fuel even if its case came before the Security Council.

"I am still very much hopeful that that in the next week or so an agreement can be reached," said ElBaradei.

This is bad news for White House strategists who've synchronized their war-plans with the anticipated resolutions by the Security Council. Now, there's a good chance that the 35-member board will slow things down and look for a diplomatic settlement.

This is bound to send the Bush claque into spasms of anxiety. Massive military operations can't be turned off and on at a moment's notice. As we know now, the logistical build-up for Iraq began a full year in advance. So if there is a plan to attack Iran in March (as many analysts believe) it will be hard to change the dates without compromising the entire operation. This means we can expect to see the administration spinning frantically to maintain the momentum for war.

Already State Dept officials are saying that Iran's concessions are insufficient:

"The IAEA has made clear that there needs to be a suspension of these enrichment capabilities for a prolonged period of time necessary to restore confidence. Two years is not a prolonged period of time." (Reuters)

But if the Bush administration really wants peace, then why not wait and see if Iran keeps its word? That's easy enough isn't it?

But Washington's not looking for peace and the State Dept's remarks only confirm that the administration is marching inexorably towards war.

Reuter's is reporting that "Iran may agree to extend a moratorium (on industrial-enrichment) if it is permitted to run a small-scale enrichment research program."

This shows that Iran has no grandiose plans for building nuclear weapons but just needs a face-saving way of freeing itself from the current confrontation.

Will ElBaradei help to bail Iran out or throw them to the wolves?

UN Ambassador John Bolton has added to the drama by threatening to retaliate if Iran resumes nuclear activities which are allowed under the terms of the NPT. Addressing the powerful Jewish lobby, AIPAC, Bolton said that Iran would face "tangible and painful consequences" if it fails to comply with US demands to suspend all enrichment activities. He added ominously that the US would use "all tools at our disposal" to stop this threat.

Bolton said that America is "beefing up defensive measures to cope with the Iranian nuclear threat".

Threat? What threat?

The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) predicted that it would take Iran at least 10 years to develop nuclear weapons! Perhaps, Bolton is referring to the threat of US oil corporations not having access to Iran's prodigious petroleum reserves which are estimated at 10% of the world's remaining supplies.

So far, Bolton's claims have been brushed aside by the IAEA, which has repeatedly said that there is "no evidence" of an Iranian nuclear weapons program or any indication of the diversion of nuclear material.

Bolton's accusations are strictly designed to manipulate public opinion and mobilize the country for another war. They are as baseless as the allegations that dominated the headlines before the war in Iraq.

Did Bolton's vehemence scare ElBaradei and convince him to slow down the process?

We don't know, but the IAEA-chief seems to be following a "foot-dragging" strategy that's intended to dampen Washington's enthusiasm for war.

Bush's trip to India hasn't helped matters either. Bush breezily ignored the NPT (Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty)and promised to provide India's Prime Minister Singh with nuclear fuel and technology without consulting congress, the United Nations, or the IAEA. For Iran, this was just another example of the arbitrary and hypocritical way that nuclear issues are resolved.

Why should India be rewarded for operating outside the NPT when Iran is punished for playing by the rules?

What yardstick is the United States using to decide who gets fuel and technology and who doesn't?

Could it be that India promises open markets, "union-free" labor, and unlimited foreign investment, while Iran sits atop an ocean of oil that begs to be "liberated" by western energy giants?

Hmmmm?

Could be.

Mike lives in Washington State with his charming wife Joan and two spoiled and overfed dogs, Cocoa and Pat-Fergie.

THE US Administration is riven by divisions over how it should tackle Iran's defiance of the international community with its nuclear programme, according to British MPs returning from a fact-finding mission to Washington.

They expressed astonishment that widely differing policies - ranging from military action to diplomatic soft-pedalling - were still being debated even as the International Atomic Energy Agency board prepared for its vital meeting in Vienna today.

Iran yesterday raised the stakes by vowing that it would resume large-scale uranium enrichment if the meeting referred the Islamic republic to the UN Security Council.

Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, who will today hold talks in Washington with Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, is advocating a cautious approach.

"Nobody has said that we have to rush immediately to sanctions of some kind," she said at the weekend.

"I think the Security Council will have to have a serious discussion about what the next steps will be."

Members of the Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee returning from Washington were, however, confused and disorientated about the direction of US policy towards Iran. They had held talks with John Bolton, the US Ambassador to the UN, who is a hawk on the issue. He told the MPs that he wanted a "Chapter 7 resolution" under which the UN would authorise military action, such as air strikes, against Iran.

Mr Bolton was quoted as saying: "They must know everything is on the table and they must understand what that means. We can hit different points along the line. You only have to take out one part of their nuclear operation to take the whole thing down."

Mike Gapes, the committee chairman, said that this was one of "at least three views" they had heard on Iran from within the Administration.

Another option, which he ascribed to the Pentagon, where they had talks with Peter Rodman, the Assistant Defence Secretary, and Brigadier-General Carter Hamm, formerly the US commander in northern Iraq, was to throw the issue "into the Security Council like a hand grenade and see what happens".

However, Mr Gapes said that both the CIA and Richard Lugar, the Republican chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, believed that the US should "ride it out" rather than engage in "posturing", because of a lack of clarity as to what the Security Council would agree. Going to the UN could lead to a rerun of the attempts to get agreement on Iraq before the war.

Ali Larijani, Tehran's chief negotiator, raised the stakes, saying that Iran had a "God- given right" to a nuclear programme. He even said that oil production might be used as a weapon if the crisis deepened.

Iran has already resumed enrichment on a small scale at its Natanz research facility, testing 20 centrifuges, according to the IAEA. Thousands of centrifuges are required to produce enough enriched uranium for a weapons programme.

The Islamic republic, which has the fourth-largest reserves of oil in the world, insists that it needs the nuclear programme for the production of electricity. The West fears that the Tehran Government, which has recently threatened to wipe Israel off the map, is trying to build nuclear weapons.

In the US, hawks such as Mr Bolton have been largely marginalised by the growing foreign policy ascendancy of Dr Rice as well as by the continued carnage in Iraq, which has damaged America's military and political capacity to take action.

The US has, instead, pinned its hopes on the EU3 - Britain, France and Germany - securing a diplomatic solution. Last-ditch negotiations over a compromise proposal, under which uranium would be enriched for Iran by Russia, broke up without agreement on Friday.



The IAEA board today is widely expected to set Iran a new 30-day deadline by which it must halt the nuclear programme and comply with international inspectors - or face being referred to the Security Council for further action.

Both the US and the EU3 are thought to favour sanctions targeted on Iran's nuclear programme and the clerical elite behind the regime.

This could include a ban on its 100 top leaders travelling outside Iran, as well as freezing their bank accounts.

But Dr Rice's meeting today with her Russian counterpart could be crucial in determining how the international community will proceed.

Russia and China, both of which are permanent members of the UN Security Council, are reluctant to authorise even limited sanctions.

In Tehran, Mr Larijani said that Iran still wanted to negotiate but added: "We will definitely resume our enrichment if Iran is referred to the Security Council."

Time magazine reported that the US will show to the Security Council diagrams from a computer, stolen from an Iranian nuclear engineer and obtained by the CIA in 2004, that are believed to depict an atomic bomb.

ROAD TO WAR... OR A DEAL

IRAN

November 2003
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN's nuclear regulator, reports that Iran has concealed a programme to enrich uranium for 18 years. The US says that Iran should be reported to the UN Security Council, then sanctions should be imposed

September 2005
The IAEA agrees in principle that the issues fall within the council's authority

January 30, 2006
Five permanent members of the Security Council - the US, Russia, China, Britain and France - agree that the IAEA should report its decisions on steps required of Iran under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to the council

February 2, 2006
The IAEA holds an emergency meeting on Iran

March 2006
A further IAEA report and a Security Council decision on whether to become actively involved are due

IRAQ

November 2002
UN Security Council resolution 1441 passed. UN weapons inspectors led by Hans Blix return to Iraq for the first time in four years

December 7, 2002
Iraq files 12,000-page weapons declaration

December 19
Secretary of State Colin Powell states that Iraq is in material breach of the Security Council resolution

January 16, 2003
UN inspectors find empty chemical warheads February 5, 2003 Powell appears before the UN, claiming that Iraq harbours an al-Qaeda terrorist network

February 24, 2003
Britain and the United States present a draft resolution to the Security Council declaring that Iraq is in material breach of its obligations under resolution 1441. A diplomatic rift ensues with the US and the UK coming under sustained criticism from France, Russia and Germany. The resolution was eventually withdrawn

March 2003
President Bush gives Saddam Hussein an ultimatum to leave power. UN pulls out inspectors from Iraq

March 21, 2003
Invasion of Iraq begins