Coalition of the unwilling

Gerard Baker:

By the recent ominous standards of Iranian political theatre Mahmoud Ahmadenijad's declaration this week that his country had promoted itself to the nuclear club was at least mildly entertaining.

From the TV pictures, it looked a little like a low-budget version of an Olympic Games opening ceremony. Austere, athletic-looking men in traditional garb pranced to and fro against a backdrop of doves in flight, while orotund pleas for peaceful cooperation fell earnestly from the mouths of political leaders.

Sadly, like the Olympics it was all a magnificently empty charade. In the nuclear weapons field, Iran is the diplomatic equivalent of one of those Eastern European shot-putters, urgently protesting its innocence while frantically pumping itself full of opposition-crushing chemicals in the locker room. Teheran should have failed its steroid test a long time ago and yet it's still in the international game.

It is to be hoped not many people were taken in by the show this week. The Iranian president's protestations that he would never, never seek to turn the nation's civilian nuclear programme to its military and political advantage (they're going to wipe Israel off the map with bayonets, then, are they?) drew loud guffaws from around the world.

And yet even as universal condemnation rained in on Teheran it was hard to avoid wondering how far the world is really prepared to go to make good on its near unanimous determination that Iran must not be allowed to get the bomb.

The US has invested vast amounts of its national security capital and credibility in the instrument of international solidarity as the means to get Iran to step back from the nuclear brink. Apparently chastened by the experience of Iraq, and Seymour Hersh's breathless, unattributable reporting notwithstanding, the Bush team is acting as though it really thinks a global united front will force the mullahs to back down.

How likely is it that the world will stand firm?

...

Chances are remote.