THIRTY days. That's how long the UN Security Council gave Iran last week to stop trying to enrich uranium, which could be used for an atomic bomb. And if Iran doesn't politely withdraw its application to join the nuclear club by the time the clock runs out, well, the UN will just have to meet again. Doesn't sound like much of a threat, does it? Especially when you consider the original 30-day deadline was only approved by the Security Council's 15 members after China and Russia refused to sign off if punitive measures were included in the demand. Or that the day after the ultimatum was issued, talks over what to do next fell apart. Sanctions, one of the only options available to the UN, were reportedly rejected out-of-hand by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavarov as impractical. And as disingenuous as Mr Lavarov's statement may have been, he's also right: Iran exports 2.5 million barrels of oil a day and holds the world's second-largest natural gas reserves -- facts that make any sort of sanction or blockade economically unlikely. Furthermore, Iran's senior ministers have openly bragged about their ability to deceive the West about their nuclear program, while Iranian President Ahmadinejad has publicly declared his desire to wipe Israel off the map and is said to be obsessed with the Shi'ite "12th imam", whose coming will herald the end of the world. Can these people really be trusted with the most powerful weapons known to man?

Mr Ahmadinejad's rhetoric places him well outside the boundaries of what Westerners would describe as a "rational actor". But his quest for a nuclear weapon falls within the very rational Middle Eastern penchant for non-conventional warfare that has developed in recent decades. It has been centuries since conventional Muslim or Middle Eastern armies have achieved success on the battlefield; the prophet Mohammed and his succcessors may have been skilled generals able to rapidly spread their new faith over vast swaths of territory, but modern military success has eluded the Islamic world. Seeing the utter disaster -- from their point of view -- of the Six Day War, the bloody stalemate of the Iran-Iraq war and the routing of Saddam Hussein's armies in two Gulf Wars, it is not surprising Middle Eastern leaders are keen to develop non-conventional means of warfare. While often tactically disastrous, low-level non-traditional campaigns such as the use of suicide bombers by Palestinians or insurgency tactics by the terrorists in Iraq have been highly successful in gaining headlines (and even sympathy in some quarters) for some pretty evil people who are more than happy to massacre civilians in exchange for a news grab. Mr Ahmadinejad and his ilk see sophisticated non-traditional weapons as a way to get not just headlines, but strategic results.

The Australian noted recently that Iran's nuclear program was a chance for the UN and its enthusiasts to prove the power of multilateralism to solve an international crisis. So far that hasn't happened, and with each day that ticks by under the UN's phony deadline, Iran is that much closer to acquiring a nuclear bomb. Should that occur, it is anyone's guess what Mr Ahmadinejad will do next -- especially given his equally aggressive missile program, which puts Israel and even some European capitals within range. Military action against Iran has often been dismissed as impractical or impossible, but this defeatist rhetoric immediately gives the game away to the mullahs in Tehran who laugh at, rather than bow to, the moral authority of the UN. Never since the end of World War II have nuclear weapons been so close to the grasp of someone so likely to use them. The Iranians must not be allowed to acquire an atom bomb, and if the UN cannot stop them, someone else will have to.

Twenty-six years after the Islamic Revolution the regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad seems to have lurched back towards radicalism.

Many revolutions have passed through an initial quiet period after an early phase of radicalism, only to experience a resurgence years later. The initial quiet is often marked by corruption and a retreat from revolutionary goals. Believing stronger pursuit of revolutionary ideals is the only way to strengthen their country, idealists seek to inspire a return of the radicals, triggering conflict with pragmatic co-revolutionaries.

The Mexican revolution of 1910 began with peasant uprisings and worker revolts, The revolution's radical phase seemed to end in 1920 when Alvaro Obregon seized power; he limited land reforms and sought reconciliation with the United States. For the next 14 years General Obregon and his ally, Plutarco Calles ruled Mexico.

Then, in 1934, resentment against corruption led General Calles to choose an honest idealist to become president. That honest reolutionary Lazaro Cardenas, toured the country building popular support and then turned on Calles, expelling him from Mexico.

In 1938, 28 years after the reovolution began, Cardenas provoked a confrontation with the US and Britain by nationalising Mexico's petroleum. Only in the 1940s, after Cardenas left power, did Mexico turn to a more conservative path.

Similarly, China's communist revolution began with a decade of attacks on the middle classes, culminating in the Great Leap Forward of 1958-59. That disastrous campaign weakened Mao's influence while pragmatists like Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping grew stronger.

Mao worried that his revolution was going off track, and in the mid-1960s he launched an effort to regain control by educating a new generation of radical youth. The Cultural Revolution tore China apart, returned Mao to supreme power and allowed him to purge the pragmatists.

But in the early 1970s, moderates gained by engineering a reapproachment with the US, capped by President Richard Nixon's visit to China in 1972. Deng was rehabilitated the following year, and in the late 1970s after Mao's death, pragmatists seized control of the regime.

What do these historical examples suggest for Iran? It is likely that the relative calm dating from Ruhollah Khomeini's death in 1989 is over. The election of Ahmadinejad marks new struggles within the ruling Islamic Republic party. These pit the honest radicals - led by Ahmadinejad and supported by younger revolutionaries known as the Abadgaran, or Developers, who are strong in the Iranian parliament - against the more currupt and pragmatic mullahs who head the party, led by former president Hashemi Rafsanjani. Supreme leader Sayyid Ali Khamenie is in the middle, increasingly isolated.

How should the US and European leaders respond? Historically, phases of resurgent radicalism have lasted 5-10 years, marked by aggressiveness against internal and external enemies.

This bodes ill for improved relations with Iran in the short run, and makes it imperative that Western powers unite to make it unambiguously clear any use of nuclear weapons or materials by Iran or terrosit groups aligned with Iran will result in an immediate and devastating response. (China developed nuclear weapons just befores its Cultural Revolution, mainly to deter the Sovient Union, but never used them).

It also seems advisable to offer positive incentives - including US recognition and an end to sanctions - that could empower pragmatists in their intra-party struggle much as Nixon's overtures to China helped blunt China's radicalism and strengthened the hand of pragmatists inthe Communist Party.

Nixon did not demand that China abandon communism or that Mexicao become a democracy, only that they act responsibly and learn to do business with the US. China is still not a democracy, and Mexico is only just becoming one. Neither country always sees eye to eye with the West. But both became counties with which it is possible to do a great deal of business, and both are increasingly integrated in to the global economy. That may be the only realistic goal to taming Iran.

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Iranian Defence Minister Ali Shamkhani warned today that Iran might launch a preemptive strike against US forces in the region to prevent an attack on its nuclear facilities.

"We will not sit (with arms folded) to wait for what others will do to us. Some military commanders in Iran are convinced that preventive operations which the Americans talk about are not their monopoly," Shamkhani told Al-Jazeera TV when asked if Iran would respond to an American attack on its nuclear facilties.

"America is not the only one present in the region. We are also present, from Khost to Kandahar in Afghanistan; we are present in the Gulf and we can be present in Iraq," said Shamkhani, speaking in Farsi to the Arabic-language news channel through an interpreter.

"The US military presence (in Iraq) will not become an element of strength (for Washington) at our expense. The opposite is true, because their forces would turn into a hostage" in Iranian hands in the event of an attack, he said.

Shamkhani, who was asked about the possibility of an American or Israeli strike against Iran's atomic power plant in Bushehr, added: "We will consider any strike against our nuclear installations as an attack on Iran as a whole, and we will retaliate with all our strength.

"Where Israel is concerned, we have no doubt that it is an evil entity, and it will not be able to launch any military operation without an American green light. You cannot separate the two."

A commander of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards was quoted in the Iranian press earlier today as saying that Tehran would strike the Israeli reactor at Dimona if Israel attacks the Islamic republic's own burgeoning nuclear facilities.

"If Israel fires one missile at Bushehr atomic power plant, it should permanently forget about Dimona nuclear centre, where it produces and keeps its nuclear weapons, and Israel would be responsible for the terrifying consequence of this move," General Mohammad Baqer Zolqadr warned.

Iran's controversial bid to generate nuclear power at its plant being built at Bushehr is seen by arch-enemies Israel and the United States as a cover for nuclear weapons development.

The latest comments mark an escalation in an exchange of threats between Israel and Iran in recent weeks, leading to speculation that there may be a repeat of Israel's strike against Iraqi nuclear facilities at Osirak in 1981.

Iran insists that its nuclear intentions are peaceful, while pointing at its enemy's alleged nuclear arsenal, which Israel neither confirms nor denies possessing.

Dimona, in the Negev desert, is allegedly where Israel produces weapons-grade plutonium for its estimated 200 nuclear warheads.

The Bush administration said today that it had received word that Iran had recently arrested some Al Qaeda members operating in its territory, but that the actions had failed to ease American concerns about Iranian support for terrorist activities.

"The steps that the Iranians claim to have taken in terms of capturing Al Qaeda are insufficient," Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, said, after news reports of the arrests from Tehran. "It is important that Iran live up to its commitments and obligations not to harbor terrorists."

Administration officials said it was unclear how many Al Qaeda members had been arrested in Iran, what their identities were and whether they included any of the top officials, who some believe have been functioning with Iranian acquiescence.

Still, they said the arrests had failed to meet the demands that Al Qaeda members not simply be arrested but also handed over to Saudi Arabia or other authorities investigating the bombing of three foreign compounds in Riyadh earlier this month.

Despite the generally tough tone on Iran, however, administration officials said a high-level interagency meeting that had been scheduled for today to decide possible new punitive steps against the Tehran government had been postponed, in part to study the arrests and other developments.

The officials said the information about the arrests needed to be squared with other intelligence on Iran, and also with information from other countries that have an intense interest in Iranian behavior, including Britain and Pakistan.

Mr. Fleischer, dismissing Iran's actions on terrorism, also took a tough position on Iran's nuclear program, which the government in Tehran says is for peaceful purposes.

"The United States rejects that argument as a cover story," Mr. Fleischer said. "Our strong position is that Iran is preparing, instead, to produce fissile materials for nuclear weapons. That is what we see."

American officials said they were also studying official comments in Moscow that Russia was also trying to persuade Iran to keep its nuclear program peaceful, especially the Russian-financed reactor at Bushehr, which the United States says could be used to make weapons-grade plutonium.

Mr. Fleischer, referring to American pressure on President Vladimir Putin to act against Iran, said the United States remained "hopeful that we can effect a change in policy by Russia, but it does remain a matter of some dispute."

Administration officials say there is a split in the administration over how to proceed with Iran, with some advocating tough measures like cutting off diplomatic contacts and possibly supporting antigovernment opposition groups based in American-occupied Iraq.

Earlier this month, a scheduled meeting between Iranian and American officials was canceled. Instead, the United States sent a tough demand on Al Qaeda. Some officials were said to favor that those meetings, which have been going on for more than a year, be cut off.

Today, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell sought to play down the divisions. "Our policies with respect to Iran have not changed," Mr. Powell said following a meeting with the president of Madagascar. "We do not approve of their support of terrorist activities. We have made it clear over the years that we disapprove of their efforts to develop a nuclear capability."

Going further, Richard A. Boucher, the State Department spokesman, dismissed the idea that the United States was close to breaking off diplomatic contact — there have been no formal relations since the Iranian revolution more than two decades ago.

"We have ways of communicating, we have ways of contacting them, and we would expect to do so again," Mr. Boucher said.

The day's developments were a reminder of the fluid nature of American policy in the Middle East in the weeks following the war with Iraq. Some officials said the meeting on Iran due today was put off in part because of a separate preoccupation: planning President Bush's trip to the region next month.

American officials say their priorities toward Iran have been to stop its nuclear weapons program by using a combination of diplomacy and implied threat of force and to try to end Iran's support of terrorist groups.

On terrorism, the main concern has been Iran's support of Hezbollah, which has carried out attacks on Israel and other Western targets, often from bases in Syrian-controlled Lebanon.

Al Qaeda is believed to have operated in different parts of Iran, notably in the north and also in the barren southern mountains of Baluchistan, on the Pakistan border. Some American officials say that Iran has played host to Al Qaeda units that fled Afghanistan after the war there in 2002 and, more recently, from northern Iraq.

American officials say Iran has handed over Al Qaeda members in the past to Saudi Arabia and perhaps Pakistan, but there is disagreement on whether such steps were significant or sincere.

Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld today cited another more recent problem that American officials have been worried about, Iran's support of Shiite groups in Iraq, which may be part of an effort to establish a Shiite theocracy in that country.

"Iran should be on notice: efforts to try to remake Iraq in Iran's image will be aggressively put down," Mr. Rumsfeld said at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

I understand why America is concerned regarding Iran. Iran remains the most serious threat to stability in the Middle East. It has a thriving conventional, nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programme and continues to invest money in developing these areas. The tentacles of Iran's power are long and diverse and circle the globe; criss-crossing boundaries, transcending political ideologies, snaking and intertwining, plotting and manipulating, operating a monstrous self-serving, self-perpetuating clandestine organisation, controlling and directing the affairs of Islamic fundamentalists. It has become a huge web of intrigue and provides Iran with a powerful springboard for further influence not only in North Africa and the Middle East but world-wide. Iran seeks to establish the rule of Islam. Their aims may not be realised is their lifetime, but that does not deter them. What has started has been preordained and cannot be stopped. Iran has provided the unquenchable spark in countries throughout the world and the flames will spread and destroy the old so that a new will be built.

The same scenarios are appearing across the Middle East. Everyone is worried about the instability. The truth is we do not want further Islamic Governments in the Middle East. I have seen and understood many things, it's just hard to comprehend what's happening. Yes, these are strange and dangerous time we live in; the Gulf States have little choice. Events can move quicker than we realise. Hard-core Islamic fundamentalists are more interested in unsurping power than in sharing it. There is no doubt that the Islamic fundamentalists have cells formed in major towns and cities in the Gulf and that the Iranians create unity out of factional conflicts. There are dozens or more organisations involved, who previously squabble amongst themselves, but the Iranians are beginning to pull them together and are effectively gaining control. Iran's only interest is the re-establishment of the dominion of Islam. Can the problems be contained and overcome? The uneasy neighbourhood of the Persian Gulf still holds many fears. The spectre of a pact between Syria and Iran is still a distinct possibility. There are those who still wish to rid the Gulf of remaining Kingdoms. Saudi, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman and the UAE attempts the erase the painful possibility by getting into bed with the Americans.