It says "Iran shall suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development, to be verified by the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency), and suspend the construction of a reactor moderated by heavy water".

It was submitted to the 15-member council during closed-door consultations on the report delivered last Friday by IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei, which concluded that Tehran had failed to comply with UN demands.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said Thursday Iran insists on developing nuclear energy and hopes the
United Nations Security Council will not politicise this "essential right."

"The member states of the NPT should enjoy... their right, which is peaceful nuclear technology. We are insisting on that," Mottaki said, referring to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Mottaki called on the international community not to violate "the essential rights of countries".

"We hope that will not happen in the Security Council," he said.

The Franco-British text does not call for sanctions at this stage but said the council would "consider such further measures as may be necessary to ensure compliance with this resolution and decides that further examination will be required should such additional steps be necessary".

It stresses that "full verified compliance by Iran, confirmed by the IAEA Board, would avoid the need for such additional steps".

Britain's UN envoy Emyr Jones Parry pointed out that "in terms of the next stage, this is a calibrated approach ...This process is reversible if Iran complies."

The draft also calls on "all states to exercise vigilance in preventing the transfer of items, materials, goods and technology that could contribute to Iran's enrichment-related and reprocessing activities and missile programs".

It says ElBaradei will be given an unspecified number of days to report on Iranian compliance both to the IAEA Board of Governors and the Security Council.

France's UN Ambassador, Jean-Marc de La Sabliere, however told reporters that Iran was expected to comply "no later than early June".

His US colleague, John Bolton, also spoke of a "very short period of time" for Iran to comply, adding "the key lies in Iran's hands".

But there was no sign that veto-wielding council members China and Russia, which are close trading partners of Tehran, were prepared to lift their opposition to sanctions or to the reference to Chapter 7.

Chinese ambassador Wang Guangya said Beijing remained opposed to Chapter 7.

Asked if Moscow would be ready to accept the draft if it was amended to address its concerns, Russia's new UN envoy Vitaly Churkin replied: "Of course, we participated in taking the decision that we should go ahead with the resolution."

"We have some things we feel very strongly about," he said. "If people agree with those things, then as far as we are concerned it could be a very quick process. If not then it will probably take some time."

But Churkin also made clear that his government did not favor the use of force or sanctions to resolve the crisis.

"We do not believe that the matter can be resolved by the use of force," he said.

The draft emerged a day after senior officials of the council's five veto-wielding permanent members -- Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States -- plus Germany failed to agree on a united response to Iran's defiance at a meeting in Paris.

Bolton said he hoped the council would vote on the Franco-British text before Monday when foreign ministers of the same six powers are due to revisit the issue at a meeting in New York.

Bolton said the ministers were meant to concentrate on "the broader picture".

Nicholas Burns, the number three at the US State Department, said after the Paris meeting that "all agreed that the Iran nuclear program should be suspended."

But he also voiced frustration with Russia and China, saying: "It's time for countries to take responsibilities, especially those countries that have close relationships with Iran."

Bolton also voiced impatience Tuesday and threatened to form a coalition of allies to impose sanctions on Iran outside the UN framework.

If the Security Council is unwilling or unable to impose sanctions on Iran, then "I'm sure we would press ahead to ask other countries or other groups of countries to impose those sanctions," Bolton told a congressional committee in Washington.

Iran retorted by accusing the United States of using bullying tactics.

The United States, backed by Britain, France and Germany, alleges that Iran is seeking a nuclear weapons capability under the cover of its civilian atomic program.

But Tehran argues that it has the right as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to conduct enrichment.

TEHRAN - The Iranian military played down threats by a top Revolutionary Guards commander that Israel would be the Islamic state's first target if attacked by U.S. forces over its nuclear plans, a newspaper said on Thursday.

The United States, which accuses Iran of seeking nuclear weapons, says it wants the standoff solved diplomatically but has refused to rule out military action. Iran says it is pursuing only nuclear power generation.

Revolutionary Guards Rear Admiral Mohammad-Ebrahim Dehqani, said on Tuesday that Israel would be Iran's first target in response to any "evil" act by the United States.

But Alireza Afshar, deputy chief of the military staff, dismissed the remarks.

"What he said was his personal view and has no validity as far as the Iranian military officials are concerned," the Kayhan newspaper quoted Afshar as saying.

The 120,000-strong Revolutionary Guards corps, formed shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution and inspired by then supreme leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, is independent of the regular army. It answers directly to Khomeini's successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The Islamic Republic has refused to recognize Israel and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for the Jewish state to be "wiped off the map."

Dehqani also told the student news agency ISNA that large-scale naval wargames, held in the Gulf last month, "carried the warning to those countries that threaten Iran, including America and the Zionist regime."

Experts said the wargames, in which Iran said it had tested new missiles and torpedoes, were a thinly veiled threat that it could disrupt vital Gulf oil shipping lanes if attacked.

The United States, Britain and France have circulated a
U.N. Security Council resolution demanding that Iran curb its nuclear ambitions and said they will push for targeted sanctions if it does not.

But Russia, which has veto power in the council, made clear on Wednesday it would not support any sanctions or the new resolution without modifications. The Western draft did not impose punitive measures.

While the IAEA's report has underscored Iran's disturbing disregard for responding to the concerns of both the IAEA and the UN security council, it does not certify Iran as a clear and present danger, requiring a strong and immediate response from the international community. And yet the IAEA report has generated rhetoric from both the United States and Europe that seems well beyond that which the content of the report seems to merit. The British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, has joined US officials in condemning the Iranian government for its failure to halt its nuclear enrichment efforts, and has called for the UN security council to "increase the pressure on Iran". Many officials in Europe have echoed the UK position, believing, it seems, that such action represents a manifestation of President George Bush's stated objective of resolving the Iranian matter "diplomatically and peacefully".

Just how naive can Europe be? While public sentiment against the US-led invasion (and ongoing occupation) of Iraq remains high, manifesting itself in the reduction of the original "coalition of the willing" to pathetic levels, Europe ("old" and "new") continues to behave as if the current conflict with Iraq and the potential of future conflict with Iran remain two separate and distinct issues.

It is shocking to see European officials, skilled in the heavily nuanced world of EU diplomacy, accept without question the sophomoric equivocation by the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice that "Iran is not Iraq". This phrase has been used repeatedly by Rice to deflect any query as to whether or not there are any parallels between the current US "diplomatic" stance on Iran and the "diplomacy" undertaken in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq, which has widely been acknowledged as representing little more than a smokescreen behind which the Bush administration prepared for a war already decided upon.

Iran may not be Iraq, but these two nations are inextricably linked through the Machiavellian machinations of a US national security strategy that not only embraces the legitimacy of pre-emptive war, but also the notion of America's inherent right to pursue a policy of "regional transformation" in the Middle East, a policy that has as its core operational thematic pre-emptive military action to remove the regimes of so-called "failed" and "rogue" states. In the 2006 version of this national security strategy, Iran is named 16 times as the leading threat to the national security of the United States. I would hope every European diplomat has read this document, and takes its contents to heart. The national security strategy of the United States, circa 2006, can leave no doubt as to what the true intent of the Bush administration is regarding Iran: regime change. The current "crisis" regarding Iran's nuclear ambitions represents nothing more than an emotionally-charged facilitator for war.

Europe continues to act as if the American policy objective of regime change is nothing more than the irresponsible blathering of rightwing media pundits. The self-delusion that encompasses this way of thinking holds that Europe's stance vis-á-vis Iran serves more as a brake toward conflict, than the accelerant it actually is. As such, the European nations taking the lead on the Iranian issue - the UK, France and Germany - will meet on May 2 in Paris with representatives from Russia, China and the United States as a precursor for a meeting of the security council on May 3. The United States has already made clear its intent to introduce a draft resolution under Chapter VII of the UN charter, elevating Iran's obstinacy to the level of a clear and present danger to international peace and security, and paving the way for the imposition of stringent economic sanctions against Iran. The United States will be lobbying quite hard for such a resolution, and is looking to a meeting of the foreign ministers of the Paris group in New York on May 9 as the time and place for bringing this issue to a head.

While such measures appear on the surface to represent sound, measured diplomatic responses, the reality is that once the United States introduces a Chapter VII resolution, even in draft form, war with Iran is all but assured. Russia and China, both permanent members of the security council with veto powers, have made clear their collective objection to any Chapter VII action against Iran. However, by endorsing the transfer of the Iranian issue from the International Atomic Energy Agency to the security council, as well as the original security council "warning" against Iran, both Russia and China have played into the hands of US policy-makers, who have and will continue to use these actions as a clear endorsement of their position that Iran and its nuclear programme represents a threat to international security.

If the Russians and Chinese balk over the imposition of Chapter VII-linked measures against Iran, as they have indicated they will, then the Bush administration will simply declare that the security council has become impotent and irrelevant in dealing with threats that it has itself declared to exist, and, as such, the United States, not wanting to have its own national security interests so hijacked, will have no choice but to move forward void of any security council endorsement or authorisation. This model of action directly parallels that undertaken by the US and UK regarding Iraq, and has been strongly alluded to in recent statements made by Vice-President Cheney, the US ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, and Rice.

The United States has positioned itself masterfully in this regard. But the sense of urgency being pushed by the Bush administration does not match the reality painted by its own director of national intelligence, John Negroponte, who recently testified before the US Congress that Iran was, at best, 10 years away from having a nuclear weapons capability. As such, there is no need for the security council to pursue this matter under the guise of a Chapter VII resolution. In fact, there is no need for the security council to be engaged on this issue at all, at least at this time.

The one real hope of side-stepping this mad rush towards war with Iran lays in a statement made by the Iranian government, offering to deal openly and transparently with the concerns listed in the IAEA's report within a matter of weeks, if the Iranian nuclear issue is transferred away from the security council and back to the International Atomic Energy Agency. The best thing the Europeans could do at this time would be to join ranks with the Russians and Chinese to take up the Iranian offer, defusing a very tense and dangerous situation that, as it currently stands, seems to be spinning close toward yet another needless war in the Middle East.

The Bush administration appears to be psyching itself up for a safe strike against Iran either by itself or via the Israelis, whose new leaders have referred to the Iranian president as a psychopath and a new Hitler. Why has Washington manufactured this crisis? The hypocrisy of Bush, Blair, Chirac or Olmert - their own states armed with thousands of nuclear weapons - making a casus belli of what are, by all accounts, primitive gropings on Iran's part towards the technology necessary for the lowest grade of nuclear self-defence, hardly needs to be spelled out. So long as these powers are allowed to enlarge their nuclear armouries unimpeded, why should Tehran not?
The country is not only ringed by atomic states (India, Pakistan, China, Russia, Israel), it also faces a string of American bases with potential or actual nuclear stockpiles in Qatar, Iraq, Turkey, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. Nuclear-armed US aircraft carriers and submarines patrol the waters off its southern coast. Historically, Iran has every reason to fear outside threats. Its elected government was overthrown with covert Anglo-American aid in 1953, and the secular opposition destroyed. From 1980 to 1988, the western powers abetted Saddam Hussein's onslaught, in which hundreds of thousands of Iranians died. More than 300 Iraqi missiles were launched at Iranian cities and economic targets, especially the oil industry. In the war's final stages, the US destroyed nearly half the Iranian navy in the Gulf and, for good measure, shot down a crowded civilian passenger plane.

For the clerical state, the war on terror has been the best and the worst of times. Oil prices have soared. Enemy regimes on both sides, Baghdad and Kabul, have been overthrown. The Iraqi Shia parties that they have been fostering for years are now in office. Washington has been reliant on their help to sustain its occupations both there and in Afghanistan. Yet social tensions in Iran are high. In this context, the nuclear issue is one of the regime's few unifying projects. It is worth recalling that the Iranian nuclear programme began under the Shah with technology offered by the Americans. Khomeini put the project on hold, considering it un-Islamic. Operations were restarted, with Russians later taking over construction of the light-water reactors at Bushehr begun by the West Germans in the 1970s. From the start, Iran, like Germany, the Netherlands or Japan, has wanted its programme to take in the full nuclear cycle, including uranium enrichment; Russia has several times threatened to impose conditions on fuel deliveries. Enrichment centrifuges were surreptitiously imported from neighbouring Pakistan; not the process, but the failure to report it, was in contravention of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) agreements.

There is no evidence that Iran is much closer to nuclear weapons now than was Iraq in September 2002, when Blair and Cheney assured the world that Baghdad represented a "genuine nuclear threat". Reports in 2003 by a somewhat demented sect, the Mojahedin e-Khalq, of preliminary nuclear research at the Natanz installation were no such proof. But in the competitive scramble by European powers to enhance their standing with Washington after the invasion of Iraq, France, Germany and Britain were keen to prove their mettle by forcing extra agreements on Tehran. The Khatami regime immediately capitulated. In December 2003, they signed the "Additional Protocol" demanded by the EU3, agreeing to a "voluntary suspension" of the right to enrichment guaranteed under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Within three months, the IAEA was condemning them for having failed to ratify it; in June 2004, its inspectors produced examples of Iranian enrichment work, perfectly legal under the NPT, but ruled out by the Additional Protocol. Israel has boasted of its intention to "destroy Natanz" - the contrast to its stealth bombing of Iraq's Osirak reactor in 1981 a measure of the new balance of forces. In the summer of 2004, a large bi-partisan majority in the US Congress passed a resolution for "all appropriate measures" to prevent an Iranian weapons programme and there was speculation about an "October surprise" before the 2004 presidential poll. Plans were thus well advanced before Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's victory in the June 2005 Iranian presidential election.

Ahmadinejad reaped the vote against Khatami's miserable record between 1997 and 2005. Economic conditions had worsened and Khatami was prepared to defend the rights of foreign investors, but not those of independent newspapers or protesting students. Manoeuvring ineffectually between contradictory pressures, he exhausted his moral credit. Contrary to some reports, Ahmadinejad has not so far imposed any new puritanical clampdown on social mores. Instead, the most likely constituency to be disappointed is Ahmadinejad's own: the millions of young, working-class jobless, crammed into overcrowded living conditions, in desperate need of a national development policy that neither neoliberalism nor Islamist voluntarism will provide.

Nor is fundamentalist backwardness exhibited in the denial of the Nazi genocide against the Jews and the threat to obliterate Israel, a basis for any foreign policy. To face up to the enemies ranged against Iran requires an intelligent and far-sighted strategy - not the current rag-bag of opportunism and manoeuvre, determined by the immediate interests of the clerics.

Clearing the way for the overthrow of the Iraqi Ba'ath and Afghan Taliban regimes and backing the US occupations has bought no respite. The US undersecretary of state has spoken of "ratcheting up the pressure". Israeli defence minister Shaul Mofaz has said that "Israel will not be able to accept an Iranian nuclear capability, and it must have the capability to defend itself with all that this implies, and we are preparing." Hillary Clinton accused the Bush administration of "downplaying the Iranian threat" and called for pressure on Russia and China to impose sanctions on Tehran. Chirac has spoken of using French nuclear weapons against such a "rogue state". Perhaps it is simply high-octane rocket-rattling, the aim being to frighten Tehran into submission. Bullying is unlikely to succeed. Will the west then embark on a new war? If so, the battlefield might stretch from the Tigris to the Oxus and without any guarantee of success.

Tariq Ali is the author of Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity - tariq.ali3@btinternet.com

Even though the US and Iran are locked in an international struggle over Iran's alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons, the long-time foes have worked together well in Afghanistan, a place where they have common ground. Pushing Iran against the wall through sanctions or war could deal a setback to the recovery here, the first battlefield in the war on terror, some observers say.

"The disagreements we have with the international community do not have a place in Afghanistan," says Mohammad Reza Bahrami, Iran's Ambassador to Afghanistan. "Our understanding for Afghanistan is that it can be a good model for cooperation among the international community."

Iranian influence is certainly nothing new in Afghanistan. The two countries share centuries of history, thousands of miles of porous borders, and a common language. Nearly 2,000 people commute across the border every day.

But as tensions rise between Tehran and Washington, some speculate that Iran could use its leverage in Afghanistan to cause problems for the US.

"They do have the capacity to cause trouble here. If they were to perceive that the government is siding with the West ... or they felt that the US military based in Afghanistan could be damaging to the internal situation in Iran ... we could expect problems here," cautioned one Western diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the issue.

Cement is a popular example of Iran's oversized influence. Iran once enjoyed a virtual monopoly on cement in Afghanistan, but it recently stopped exporting here, opting for Iraq instead. Prices nearly doubled according to local sources. For many Afghans, the incident exposed Iran's capability to disrupt reconstruction with the flip of a switch.

"If Iran decides to stop exporting goods, it can create a big problem for us," says Alhaj Qulam Qader Akbar, the head of Herat's Chamber of Commerce. "A lot of projects have been suspended because of the price [of cement] going up."

Such disruptive powers are not limited to the market, some say. Journalists talk of Iran's growing involvement in terrorist attacks here. Rumors also abound that Iran's Revolutionary Guard is secretly camped out in Herat.

Syed Ahmed Ansari, a police chief for Shindad, a town in Herat Province, told the Associated Press in February: "From Iran they are bringing explosive material to Afghanistan. They don't want Afghanistan to be at peace because they are at war with the United States."

So far, though, there is no direct evidence of such meddling, and Iran has never been directly implicated in any attacks. "We don't have evidence of that, but that is something we hear. If we want to comment on something, we should have evidence," says Gen. Ayub Salangi, Herat's chief of police.

Mr. Bahrimi, the Iranian ambassador, insists his country's role in Iran has always been a positive one. But he suggests that action taken against Iran could change that role.

"If new circumstances are imposed on us, in proportion to these circumstances, we'll make up our mind," he says, adding, "If [the Americans] control their behavior in Afghanistan, there isn't any reason for concern."

Even in the US, those closely watching Iran are hard pressed to find evidence of misconduct in Afghanistan. Instead, some have found themselves admitting that Iran, despite its activities elsewhere, has proved to be a good neighbor here.

Such was the case during a March congressional hearing on progress in Afghanistan. A panel of experts working on Afghanistan unanimously highlighted Iran's contribution to stability.

"I do not believe Iran is a major, negative player in Afghanistan," Seth Jones of the Rand Corporation told the panel. "If anything, the Iranian government's role in relationship with the Afghan government is actually fairly decent."

Barnett Rubin, a professor at New York University, went a step further, saying: "[W]e should be wary of anyone who is trying to sell intelligence or reports that Iran is trying to destabilize Afghanistan. It is not."

In fact, such are the contributions of Iran here that forcing it to pull out, either through sanctions or war, could hamper reconstruction, particularly by destabilizing the economy, many speculate.

"The tensions that Iran has with the international community are a deep cause of concern for us. If there are sanctions, or other means of exerting pressure, it will have its implications on Afghanistan. And that's the last thing we need," says Naveed Ahmad Moez, spokesperson for the foreign ministry.

Iran's support of the Karzai government stems in part from its antipathy toward the Taliban regime, which killed nine Iranian diplomats in 1998. Tehran supported the Northern Alliance and the US in ousting them.

Many say it's simply not in Iran's interest to make waves. Cross-border business is booming and the western border is stable. But there are those who say the US would be foolish to completely rule it out.

"The Americans should be concerned about Iranian influence," says Najibullah Fahim, professor of political science at Kabul University. "You know that Iran is hostile to America and will create enmity towards Americans here."

Sen. William Delahunt (D) of Massachusetts, who attended the March congressional hearing, seemed to think likewise. But when he pressed Maureen Quinn from the State Department, her retort was short but to the point.

"Iran participated in the London conference," she said, referring to an international donor meeting held in January. "They have contributed to road construction, electricity."

An Iranian judiciary official says charges won't be announced until after he has been interrogated.

Jahanbegloo has criticized the country's leadership in recent weeks and challenged Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's controversial comments about the Holocaust.

Jahanbegloo holds dual Iran and Canadian citizenship.

He was a professor at U of T from 1997 to 2001.