Dissent Grows at U.N. Over Iran

By Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 5, 2006; Page A25

As the Bush administration struggles to rally international pressure on Iran to halt its nuclear program, China and Russia are working to take the most powerful diplomatic weapon off the table: the military option.

Moscow and Beijing insist that a U.N. sanctions resolution under negotiation in New York should avoid language that could be used as a pretext for a military strike against Iran's nuclear facilities. They have received the tacit backing of the United States' key European partners, Britain, France and Germany.

The Bush administration maintains that though it never takes the military option off the table, its diplomatic campaign to rally support for sanctions against Iran and North Korea is not a cover for launching new conflicts.

But Russian and Chinese diplomats note that the United States insisted it was committed to diplomacy in the months leading up to the March 2003 invasion of Iraq. When the United States and Britain failed to secure U.N. backing for a more forceful response, they turned to a 12-year-old resolution as the legal basis for the invasion. Resolution 687 set out the terms of a cease-fire ending the 1991 Persian Gulf War.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Moscow's former ambassador to the United Nations, told reporters in March that the debate over Iran reminded him of the run-up to the U.S.-led invasion. "That looks so deja vu," Lavrov said. "I don't believe that we should engage in something which might become a self-fulfilling prophecy. We are convinced that there is no military solution to this crisis."

The U.N. debate over the use of force in Iran and North Korea has focused on Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, a provision that has traditionally been used to enforce U.N. demands through the threat of economic sanctions or military action. Russia and China have refused to support the provision, arguing that it could be used to justify future military action.