Iran's latest nuclear provocation is a bluff, experts argue, and the West should be wary of being drawn into talks with Tehran that might hand a victory to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's fragile regime.

This week Tehran more or less managed to muzzle opposition protests called on the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic revolution, undermining hopes that the grass roots "Green Revolution" might sweep away the regime.

Victory on the streets gave President Ahmadinejad and Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei breathing space on the domestic front, but they still face mounting international pressure over their nuclear programme.

France, which holds the rotating presidency of the United Nations Security Council, is preparing a motion that, if passed, would impose crippling sanctions on Iran's oil-dominated economy, a senior Paris official said.

Iran appears defiant in the face of the threat, however, and this week boasted that it had begun enriching its uranium stockpile to the 20 percent level which would allow it to fuel its research reactor.

Western powers believe Iran's eventual goal is to make the highly enriched uranium that would allow it to build a nuclear weapon and radically alter the balance of power in the already unstable Middle East and Central Asia.

But analysts warn that Ahmadinejad may be exaggerating Iran's ability to advance its nuclear programme in order to force the West to come to the negotiating table on his terms and reinforce his shaky position at home.

"In political terms, Ahmadinejad is bluffing, because the Iranian government has been fragilised inside the country," Karim Pakzad, a researcher at the Institute for International and Strategic Relations in Paris, told AFP.

Thirty-one years after the Islamic revolution, Tehran's authoritarian regime is facing unprecedented street protests from a large but diffuse opposition movement, which some think could topple the government.

Western capitals would dearly like to see the end of the regime, in the hope its successor will prove more amenable to a negotiated settlement to the nuclear dispute and be less of a destabilising factor in the region.

But the failure of this week's protests forced many to conclude that the government is in no immediate danger and that US President Barack Obama and his allies should strive for a deal with the current Iranian leaders.

Others warn that this might prove pointless, if the regime can't deliver on its promises, or counterproductive, if the appearance that the West is dancing to Ahmadinejad's tune serves to shore up his domestic position.

"Ahmadinejad wants a deal with the Americans," said Francois Nicoullaud, a French diplomat who served as ambassador to Iran between 2001 and 2005.

"He's said it several times and everyone slapped him down, because no-one wants give him the benefit of overseeing a reconciliation with the Americans, which would give him immediate popularity and revive him politically.

"No-one, even inside the current regime, wants to hand him that gift."

A Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that while Iran appeared capable of stepping up its enrichment programme, it doesn't have the technology to transform the uranium into fuel rods for a reactor.

And for Nicoullaud, Ahmadinejad's posturing is an empty threat.

"He is announcing plans he has no hope of pulling off," he said. "Iran will never develop a serious nuclear programme without international help.

"On the other hand, the West is bandying around sanctions that it knows wont be effective in the short or medium term. We're seeing an odd game: one side announcing impossible plans, the other threatening pointless sanctions."

Clinton asks Gulf to pressure Iran, sees changes in China
Doha (AFP) Feb 14, 2010 - US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Sunday urged Muslim leaders to help halt Iran's sensitive nuclear work and detected a possible shift in China toward supporting sanctions against Tehran.

At the start of a three-day Gulf visit, Clinton told Iran's neighbours it appeared increasingly evident Tehran is seeking nuclear weapons and warned the Revolutionary Guards' rising power poses "a direct threat" to all.

Frustrated that a year-long drive to engage Iran in nuclear and other talks has yielded little, President Barack Obama's administration last week imposed fresh unilateral sanctions against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

US officials also want the UN Security Council to draft new sanctions against a force they say runs Iran's nuclear programme, supports anti-US and anti-Israeli militants and cracks down on Iranian anti-government protesters.

"It's time for Iran to be held to account for its activities which do already and can continue to have destabilising effects," she said in a speech to the US-Islamic World Forum, set up after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

"I would like to figure out a way to handle it," Clinton said after voicing fears about "the rise of the influence and power" of the Revolutionary Guards. "Certainly, we don't want to be engaging while they're building their bomb."

During a regional tour that will also take her to Saudi Arabia, the chief US diplomat added to the US sense of urgency after Iran began Tuesday to enrich uranium to 20 percent purity while insisting its intent was peaceful.

"Iran leaves the international community little choice but to impose greater costs for its provocative steps," she said after talks with Qatar's emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, and Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim Al-Thani, who is both foreign minister and prime minister

"We are now working actively with our regional and international partners... to prepare and implement new measures to convince Iran to change its course," she said.

Obama's National Security Adviser James Jones said earlier in Washington that the United States is pressing for "very tough" new sanctions against Iran this month, suggesting the move could help bring about "regime change."

Clinton also met in Doha with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan whose country has good ties with Iran and has repeatedly offered to serve as mediator on the nuclear issue.

Turkey's foreign minister is due to visit Iran in the coming week.

Clinton struck an upbeat note about support for sanctions among the five veto-wielding members of the Security Council -- the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France.

She said Russia has said "publicly and privately that it can and will support sanctions," and detected a shift in the Chinese position.

"The weight is maybe beginning to move toward not wanting to be either isolated or inadvertently contributing to instability that would undermine their economic interests," she said.

She recalled China's investment stake in Iran and its oil imports from that country.

On the plane from Washington to Doha, Clinton's Middle East aide Jeffrey Feltman said Washington would ask for oil-rich Saudi Arabia's help in pressing China to join the US drive for sanctions against Iran.

But Feltman neither confirmed nor denied suggestions the administration would ask the Saudis to offer China supply guarantees in return for winning Beijing's support for new UN sanctions.

Clinton is due to meet Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah and Prince Saud al-Faisal, the foreign minister, in Riyadh on Monday.

In a follow-up to a speech Obama gave in Egypt last October in which he called for a "new beginning" with the world's Muslims, Clinton shared US disappointment with the region about the failure to achieve a breakthrough in the Arab-Israeli peace process.

"But we need to remember that neither the United States nor any country can force a solution. The parties must resolve their differences through negotiations," she added.

"We are committed to our role in ensuring that negotiations begin and succeed," she said.

The Arab and Muslim enthusiasm that greeted Obama's victory in the US election in 2008 has given way to frustration and disenchantment, particularly over the deadlock in the peace process.

On another issue sensitive to Muslims, Clinton said her country has no interest in either "occupying" Afghanistan or abandoning the war-torn country.