PRESIDENT PUTIN will soon get the distinct feeling that he has travelled back in time to the era when the West focused all its efforts on arms control, the diplomatic euphemism for reducing the Cold War’s massive stockpile of nuclear weapons.

While concern in Washington, London and Paris long ago shifted to the threat posed by Iran’s fledgeling atomic programme, again it is the Kremlin that is feeling the squeeze.

Yesterday’s report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which accused Tehran of accelerating its uranium enrichment work instead of halting it, came as no surprise. President Ahmadinejad of Iran is nothing if not frank about his intentions. He has spent the past month boasting daily that scientists are pushing ahead with a programme many fear is leading inexorably to the development of a nuclear bomb.

So far his provocative stand has paid off handsomely and exposed the impotence of the West, the divisions in the international community and the support in Iran and across the Muslim world for his finger-wagging defiance.

The Iranian leader rightly judged that the supposedly united stand of the great powers to halt Tehran’s nuclear ambitions was nothing but a flimsy alliance incapable of taking tough decisions. All that changed yesterday. The Americans, British, French and Germans are poised to put before the UN Security Council a new resolution with very different consequences.

While the wording will be similar to the resolution passed a month ago, this time it will be under Chapter VII of the UN Charter. Demands for Iran to halt its uranium enrichment and co-operate with nuclear inspectors will be mandatory, not voluntary. Open defiance of international law can be punished with sanctions and ultimately even the use of force.While there is unanimity among Western countries on the Security Council for this next decisive step, Russia and China have so far strongly resisted the move. Both have the power of veto to stop it.

For Moscow, moving down the path to sanctions could damage hundreds of millions of pounds in contracts to supply Iran with everything from nuclear technology to sophisticated weapons, the items likely to be targeted by an embargo.

Beijing also runs the risk of jeopardising trade ties with Iran, which supplies some 15 per cent of the oil that fuels China’s booming economy. Both countries will try to find any excuse to avoid having to vote on a Chapter VII resolution. But they will find that the time for prevarication is running out.

The West has calculated that now is the time to put Mr Putin on the spot. In June he hosts the G8 summit in St Petersburg, representing the leading industrial nations, all outspoken critics of Iran’s policies.

“The period running up to the G8 summit will be when our influence on Russia will be at its maximum, and we need to plan accordingly,” said John Sawers, the senior British diplomat handling the Iran dossier, in a letter last month to his Western counterparts.

Those plans include presenting a Chapter VII resolution before a Security Council and forcing Russia and China to show their hands. They have the power to block the move but would be unlikely to side with Iran against the rest of the international community.

John Bolton, the US representative at the UN, said that Washington would prefer a unanimous vote by the Security Council but was prepared to act without full Russian and Chinese support, meaning that they were likely to abstain.

As this battle unfolds, Iran will be the spectator that will pit the West against Russia and China — just like old times.

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