U.S. Options Few in Feud With Iran

Dispensing with the usual diplomatic niceties, Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton simply read aloud a U.S. position paper. In it, the administration refused to back European negotiations with Iran and instead insisted that Tehran be dragged before the United Nations Security Council to condemn it for concealing a nuclear weapons program.

Irked, the Europeans demanded to know what good it would do to bring Iran before the U.N. when Washington knew it could not muster enough Security Council votes even to slap Tehran's wrist.

Bolton referred them to another U.S. position paper.

"He was not willing to discuss anything," said one stunned participant.

The incident, sketched here from interviews with four people who either attended or are familiar with the meeting of officials from the Group of Eight industrialized nations, is circulating in the diplomatic world as evidence of European frustration with the Bush administration.

Bolton's office had no comment. But critics say it is also emblematic of how divisions within the administration have kept the U.S. from either wholeheartedly joining the European approach or coming up with an alternative.

A bruising round of negotiations with Tehran last month left the Europeans more skeptical than ever about Iran's claim that its nuclear power program was peaceful. But Europeans also are mistrustful of U.S. intentions, top experts said.

Some see the lack of a coherent U.S. strategy for solving the Iranian nuclear standoff as a tacit decision by the stalemated Bush administration to bide its time and hope the situation in Iran turns to its advantage by next year.

Facing diplomatic gridlock, unappealing military options, internal ideological divisions and major domestic and foreign political constraints stemming from the Iraq war, Washington has little choice but to watch and wait.

Some prominent conservatives are arguing for a preemptive U.S. military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities, but State Department, Pentagon and National Security Council officials have been insisting in recent weeks that military action is not under discussion.

"We do not want American armies marching on Tehran," Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said late last month.