… and PM faces more difficulties on Iran sanctions (Tony Blair)

[IndianaGreen]

Let's see the poodle wag his tail again!

… and PM faces more difficulties on Iran sanctions

By Philip Sherwell in New York

(Filed: 27/08/2006)

Tony Blair faces the embarrassing prospect of once again being asked to back America over the United Nations as Washington prepares to forge a diplomatic "coalition of the willing" to pursue economic sanctions against Iran.

The strategy has been devised by John Bolton, the United States ambassador to the UN, amid increasing signs that the world body may fail to impose its own threatened penalties when Thursday's security council deadline for Iran to halt uranium enrichment expires.

The confrontation deepened yesterday as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad inaugurated a new heavy water plant at Arak, south-west of Teheran, a few days after Iran pledged it would unveil a "momentous" breakthrough in its nuclear programme. Heavy water can be used to create a plutonium by-product for use in atomic warheads.

Iran publicly insists that its nuclear programme, which it operated in secret for 18 years, is for peaceful purposes but Western intelligence and governments are convinced that it is clandestinely pursuing an atomic bomb.

The Telegraph