TONY BLAIR’S efforts to win a United Nations resolution authorising war with Iraq suffered a new blow last night as Russia suggested that it might exercise its veto.

As Jack Straw and Peter Mandelson gave warning of the dangers of forcing America down a unilateralist path, Igor Ivanov, the Russian Foreign Minister, appeared to dash expectations that Moscow would abstain rather than use the veto. Mr Straw, the Foreign Secretary, declared that Europe could “reap a whirlwind” if it pushed America into acting alone.

But even as Mr Ivanov spoke, it emerged that Britain and America are looking at ways of amending their “war resolution” to help to win over wavering countries. They are examining drafts that might help enough of the United Nations Security Council’s six undecided countries to back it.

They need five of the six — Chile, Mexico, Pakistan, Guinea, Cameroon and Angola — to back a resolution. One option is to introduce a mechanism alongside the resolution giving President Saddam Hussein a deadline to produce chemical and biological weapons, or concrete evidence of their destruction.

However, Washington is particularly wary of such a “benchmark” device, which is being proposed by Canada, fearing that Saddam would seek further to divide the Security Council by beginning to meet part of its requirements but failing to fulfil its demands.

With France apparently hardening its stance against war, Britain and the United States are desperate to avoid a situation in which more than one of the five permanent members of the Security Council exercise their veto.

But Mr Ivanov, before meeting Mr Straw, told the BBC World Service: “Abstaining is not a position Russia can take. We have to have a clear position and we are for a political solution . . . Russia will not support any decision that would directly or indirectly open the way to war with Iraq.”

Pressed on whether Russia would use its veto to block a new resolution, he said: “I do not rule anything out because the right of veto can be used by any permanent member of the Security Council, including Russia. If necessary, Russia can resort to using this right.”

Mr Blair and President Bush are expected to make direct appeals to President Putin to back war, or at least not to oppose it. In a further sign of the importance of Russia’s position, Mr Ivanov stayed on in London last night to meet Mr Blair today. The Prime Minister was in Belfast yesterday for talks on the Northern Ireland peace process.

At Westminster Mr Straw told France and Germany they would “reap a whirlwind” if they pushed America into acting alone against Iraq by demanding more time for weapons inspections.

He told MPs that the greatest risk was not of a split within Nato but of a new climate in which the dominant superpower no longer worked with the international community. “To our European colleagues, I say take care,” he said. “Just as America helps to define and influence our politics, what we do in Europe helps to define and influence American politics. We will reap a whirlwind if we push the Americans in a unilateralist position in which they are at the centre of a unipolar world.”

Peter Mandelson, speaking at the University of Kent, said that if Europeans allowed the international system to develop so the US and Europe were in opposing corners, they would squander the chance of gaining influence. Instead there would be a weakened international system, in which Europe became progressively irrelevant to the US. America would increasingly go it alone, creating coalitions of the willing “like a sheriff and his posse”.

US and British officials are broadly agreed that they have to offer some movement to countries whose votes they are hoping to win, as well as to give France a reason not to exercise its veto. One source said: “If it takes something to win the resolution, then we may have to offer something.”

Much depends on the latest report this Friday from Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector. Any criticisms of Baghdad could be used to shape an amended resolution or a series of separate demands. One US official said: “There’s the possibility of movement.”

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