THERE’S little hope in trying to threaten Iran when oil is $65 (£36) a barrel. It’s just got too many friends.

In New York yesterday, Britain, France and Germany tried to persuade Iran to give up its attempt to master nuclear power, which they suspect is a front for bombmaking. But their threat to get Iran referred to the UN Security Council on Monday sounds hollow.

The European troika, with the US behind them, fear that they lack enough support to win referral to the council from the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency, when it meets in Vienna on Monday.

They may be able to keep the talks alive. Iran’s announcement that it would make new proposals tomorrow for preserving part of its nuclear programme is a positive step, suggesting that it does not want to bring the row to the brink.

But wherever one turns, a new friend of Iran pops up to say that it is not keen on voting for referral. India is the latest, and has China and Russia to give it a hand. Iran has used its energy resources to buy a network of allies and, in effect, immunity from the Security Council. It has shown its confidence this week by offering to sell its nuclear know-how to other Islamic countries.

It has become fashionable to say that the Europeans’ three-year attempt to persuade Iran to drop its ambitions has been futile. That is wrong. Their diplomacy has probablyreached the end of the road.

We now know that Iran has had a sophisticated 20-year nuclear research programme, but that it is still at a pilot stage. Iran also exposed the “nuclear supermarket” of A. Q. Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist who sold Iran — and North Korea, and Libya — their starter-packs of nuclear kit.

Iran doesn’t want more sanctions; it wants the ones already in place lifted. President Ahmadinejad, the conservative elected in June on a wave of popular fury about the failing economy, knows that he is there to make poor Iranians feel better.

But Iran doesn’t take the threat seriously any more: not that the 35 countries on the IAEA board would refer it to the council, nor that the 15 members of the council would agree to punish it.

Three things have changed. First, America’s predicament in Iraq makes the notion of US military action against Iran inconceivable. Two years ago, Iran could not be so sanguine.

Secondly, Mr Ahmadinejad’s election was unexpected. The nuclear issue was peripheral in the election; the economy was everything. But he is of a nationalistic, anti-Western cast, and so are his foreign policy ministers and negotiators — and that has brought new aggression to the nuclear talks.

Thirdly, the soaring oil price, has sent the set goals of US foreign policy up in flames.

Iran has about 10 per cent of the world’s proven oil reserves, and huge gas reserves as well. It supplies about an eighth of China’s oil imports, has big deals with Japan and Russia, and is discussing a gas pipeline with India.

That has given Iran the courage to restart uranium enrichment. In Vienna on Monday India and Russia are expected to argue for Iran to be given more time. This week at the UN General Assembly, Dominique de Villepin, Prime Minister and would-be president of France, has taken the most combative line, warning Iran of Security Council referral.

But Iran’s position has been tougher. The official IRNA news agency quoted Mr Ahmadinejad as saying to Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s Prime Minister: “With respect to the needs of Islamic countries, we are ready to transfer nuclear know-how to these countries.”

That is the authentic voice of confidence, and it is hard to see it wavering while Iran’s newly won allies need its oil and gas so badly.

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