America, Europe and Iran. Russian fuel, European carrot, American stick

Now Russia is complicating the already tangled diplomacy over how to curb Iran's nuclear ambitions

GIVEN its proven record of cheating, who would want to sell nuclear materials to Iran? The answer, it seems, is Russia. George Bush and his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, had barely managed a parting handshake this week at their summit in Slovakia, when Russian nuclear officials were due to sign a much-delayed agreement with Iran to supply low-enriched uranium fuel to the nuclear-power reactor that Russia has been completing at Bushehr. Next week the 35-nation board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN's nuclear guardian, meets for the first time in two years without having a detailed report on Iran's nuclear transgressions (though inspectors still have some big unanswered questions). Is Iran wriggling off the nuclear hook?

Britain, France and Germany, like America, say they are determined it won't. The Europeans are trying to persuade Iran to give up its dabbling with uranium and its plans for producing plutonium, either of which could be used as the fissile core for a bomb. By rights, Iran should have been reported to the UN Security Council when its multiple safeguards violations were first uncovered, as America's diplomats still argue it should be. The Europeans agreed to hold off, but only so long as Iran continues to suspend all uranium processing and enrichment work of its own.

Neither the European trio nor the Americans are thrilled to see Russia giving more nuclear assistance to Iran. Once the Bushehr reactor is up and running, the irradiated fuel rods in its core will soon be laden with bomb-usable plutonium. Though the spent fuel is to be returned to Russia, it will first have to sit for a year or so in cooling ponds in Iran. Should push come to shove over its nuclear ambitions, the regime would have the option of doing a North Korea--pulling out of the deal with Russia and out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and then extracting the plutonium for a weapons programme. The hope is that Russia will be in no rush to deliver the fuel. The one consolation for the Europeans is that, with a ten-year supply of fuel for Bushehr now agreed with Russia, Iran has even less of a case for pursuing fuel technologies of its own.

Yet talks with the Europeans that began late last year on “objective guarantees” to ensure that Iran's nuclear ambitions remain peaceful, as it has always claimed them to be, have made little progress. Iranian officials insist they have a right to enrichment technology and will accept IAEA inspections to show they are not diverting uranium for military use. But the technology used for civilian power generation can just as easily be abused for bomb-making. The only objective guarantee that Iran is not breaking the rules again, as it has repeatedly in the past, say the Europeans, would be to abandon its dangerous uranium and plutonium work completely.

As enticements for giving up enrichment, they have offered Iran improved trade and political ties. The European three have also offered to send a team to Iran to explore the possibility of supplying a less proliferation-prone civilian nuclear reactor (none is proliferation-proof) in place of one Iran plans to build that would be ideally suited for plutonium-making. But the Iranians say nothing will tempt them to give up these nuclear technologies.

So will Iran eventually press on regardless? The two sides are supposed to review progress later in March. If Iran ends the suspension of its enrichment work, the Europeans have said they will support America in taking the issue to the Security Council. Iran would rather avoid that, so may be happy to see any real confrontation put off until after its presidential election in June.

Might America meanwhile lend its diplomatic weight to the Europeans' effort? Not by offering incentives of its own at this stage, though Mr Bush said this week that he backed the Europeans' efforts and his secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, assured the Europeans that America will not get in their diplomatic way. That, says Gary Samore of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, is inconsistent: America insists on diplomacy to deal with North Korea's nuclear threat, where it seems unlikely to work, yet refuses to engage with Iran, where diplomacy might stand a chance.

But the Europeans also know that America's stick--Mr Bush said this week that fears of an American attack on Iran were “ridiculous” but also that no option was off the table--helped make Iran talk. So far only Britain's foreign secretary, Jack Straw, has said publicly that using force against Iran would be “inconceivable”. Other Europeans have kept uncharacteristically silent. Iran still needs to show willing to give up its dangerous technologies for there to be a prospect of a deal that even Mr Bush would find hard to refuse.