IRAN will be reported to the UN Security Council today for defying the international community and pressing ahead with its controversial nuclear programme.

But even as a damning report, prepared by the international nuclear watchdog, was being sent to UN headquarters in New York, Tehran stepped up its inflammatory rhetoric and challenged the world to do its worst. President Ahmadinejad of Iran, who has made confrontation with the West the centrepiece of his tenure, said that his country was impervious to outside pressure.

“If you think that by frowning at us, by issuing resolutions . . . you can impose anything on the Iranian nation or force it to abandon its obvious right, you still don’t know its power,” the hardline leader said. “We have obtained the technology for producing nuclear fuel . . . No one can take it away from our nation.”

His remarks reflected Iran’s growing conviction that it can defy the world with impunity because the international community is hopelessly divided about how to proceed. Last night Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, told Nato foreign ministers meeting in Sofia, the Bulgarian capital, that the Security Council would lose credibility if it did not act. But key members remained deeply divided. Although President Bush insists that the military option is still “on the table”, Russia and China recoil from the idea of even modest sanctions.

The report will be delivered today by Mohamed ElBaradei, the Director-General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), who was assigned last month the impossible task of persuading Iran to halt its programme of uranium enrichment and reporting back to the Security Council on Tehran’s compliance.

At the heart of the crisis is Iran’s decision to press ahead with its programme to enrich uranium. Tehran insists that this is to provide fuel for its civilian nuclear programme, but critics contend that the oil-rich country is developing an atomic bomb.

Dr ElBaradei’s attempt to bridge the widening gap between Iran and the international community proved unsuccessful. He spent only one fruitless day in Tehran.

Although some nations might be intimidated by the prospect of taking on the joint will of America, Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia, Iran has positively relished thumbing its nose at the world powers. The Iranian leadership has fired almost daily verbal salvos against its critics. This week alone it has threatened to cut oil production, to export its nuclear technology, to ban international nuclear monitors, to hide its atomic programme and to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

For good measure Mr Ahmadinejad also denounced Israel as a fake regime and predicted that it could not continue to live. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, added that if the US attacked Iran, it would retaliate twice as hard against American interests around the world.

Iran’s defiance is not based on a suicidal wish to take on the world, but rather on an understanding that the international community is crippled by deep divisions on what to do next. While all five permanent Security Council members agree that Tehran should stop its enrichment programme, Russia and China oppose any moves that could lead to sanctions or the use of force.

Britain has been working behind the scenes to persuade Moscow and Beijing to support a resolution under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, which can impose punitive sanctions and even approve force against a country deemed to be a threat to international security. Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, said this week that London was already contemplating sanctions, which would probably include a ban on senior Iranian officials travelling abroad and a freeze on all sales of arms and nuclear equipment to Iran.

But Moscow and Beijing, which have huge commercial interests in Iran, appeared yesterday to reject any embargo against Tehran. President Putin of Russia said: “We think that the IAEA must continue to play a major, key role, and it must not shrug off its responsibilities to resolve such questions and shift them on to the UN Security Council.”

Beijing echoed the need for patienct restraint. “A diplomatic solution is the correct choice and is in the interests of all parties,” a Foreign Ministry spokesman said. “China urges all parties to avoid measures that could worsen the situation.”

There are fears in the region that, without a diplomatic solution, America or Israel may decide to take pre-emptive military action against Iranian nuclear facilities. MajorGeneral Amos Yadlin, the head of Israeli military intelligence, said yesterday that Iran had bought North Korean surface-to-surface missiles that had a range of 1,550 miles (2,500km) and were capable of carrying a nuclear warhead.

Military experts confirmed that the Iranians had received 18 BM15 missiles, which could put countries including the Czech Republic, Italy and Romania within range.

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