HOUR OF TRUTH LOOMS FOR THE EU.

Tehran's resumption of nuclear research activities puts the EU3 contact group (Germany, France and the United Kingdom) trying to broker a deal in the row over the Iranian nuclear programme in an invidious position and highlights the scant room for manoeuvre available to the Europeans on this dossier. The key question now is whether the EU can still influence the course of events. In resuming research activities linked uranium enrichment at its Natanz facility, ostensibly ignoring requests for information from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the EU, Tehran has deliberately crossed the line drawn in the sand by the EU3. There is palpable concern in European capitals that two years of unprecedented efforts on the part of Europe's nascent diplomacy will come to naught.

Iran's decision can be interpreted in two ways. According to the most pessimistic hypothesis, Tehran has decided to go it alone and defy the international community, gambling that it will have neither the desire nor the means to stop it. This analysis is consistent with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad recent anti-Israeli diatribes. Were it to be borne out, the EU's influence would left in tatter and it would have no alternative but to acknowledge a diplomatic failure and accept the transfer of the dossier to the United Nations Security Council and possible sanctions. This in turn raises the risk of opposition from Moscow and Peking undermining the...