Before the crucial meeting of the IAEA Board of Governors in Vienna, Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the UN nuclear watchdog hailed a recent agreement between the IAEA and Iran as 'a significant step forward'.

A day after the IAEA announced the agreement with Iran and termed it as a "milestone", US envoy to IAEA, Gregory Schulte claimed the plan had "real limitations" and suggested that Tehran had "manipulated" the IAEA into allowing it to make a play of cooperation to head off more sanctions, Reuters reported.

His remarks sparked outrage among agency officials. An IAEA official said it appeared that the United States, which has not ruled out the possibility of a last-resort attack on arch-foe Iran to knock out its nuclear facilities, was mounting a "deliberate campaign".

As Guardian writes, following the July visit of the IAEA team to Tehran, an agreement was reached on a modality plan to address all outstanding ambiguities in relation to Iran's nuclear program within a strict timeframe until November. As the first outcome of this agreement and a strong vindication of its workability, on August 27 the IAEA said the issue pf Iran's plutonium experiments-which the US claims is the evidence of Iran's non-peaceful intentions-has been solved.

Furthermore, the Agency "has been able to verify the non-diversion of the declared nuclear material at the enrichment facilities in Iran and has therefore concluded that it remains in peaceful use."

In fact, the Bush-Cheney leadership has shown no interest in the resolution of the outstanding problems between the IAEA and Iran, as its principal aim is to grossly distort and exaggerate these issues in order to use them as a pretext for a military action against Iran. It reminds the hysteria Washington created over the alleged but non-existent weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, Guardian says.

Tensions have risen in recent months between the Bush administration and ElBaradei, who enraged the United States when he said in June that the world risked a war because of "new crazies" pushing for military action against Iran.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, on her part, has had sharp words for ElBaradei, accusing him in June of "muddying" the message to Iran.

ElBaradei suggested the push for harsher economic sanctions could unravel the IAEA's delicate approach to Iran and rebuked critics of a cooperation deal with Iran as well as those beating "war drums" against Tehran.

"I am familiar with these accusations. They are completely untrue. It's not possible to manipulate us. We are not naive and we do not take sides. Our new Iran report also shows that the Iranian government is not adhering to the requirements set forth by the UN, which demanded an immediate stop to uranium enrichment,” ElBaradei said in an interview with Der Spiegel.
“We found suspicious signs, but no smoking gun. We could now make some progress in setting aside these suspicions by thoroughly inspecting the Iranian facilities and learning details about their history. We can check many things precisely,” he noted.

“Those in the West must realize that if all they expect is confrontation, they might as well forget dialogue,” added ElBaradei.

It was then the United States voiced dissatisfaction with the head of the UN nuclear watchdog.

US and EU officials have criticized the IAEA deal as ambiguous and insist they will pursue a new set of UN sanctions, because to the frustration of the US and EU, the agreement does not address the UN Security Council's main demand that Iran suspend uranium enrichment. Instead, the plan marks a fresh attempt by Iran to cooperate with the IAEA and answer - over a three-month period - a list of questions about 'shadowy' aspects of the program.

While Diplomats from the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany will meet next week to consider a third round of sanctions, Russia and China, two veto wielding Security Council members, are likely to be more sympathetic to the Iranian argument that the agreement with the IAEA should be tested before more sanctions are imposed. ElBaradei is also of that view.

The case for patience at the UN was bolstered by the latest IAEA assessment, which says that Iran appears to be making slower than expected progress in uranium enrichment.

“The only solution is to take it (the issue) from the Security Council and back to the IAEA,” ElBaradei told the Financial Times.

When asked if another round of sanctions would threaten the IAEA agreement, ElBaradei would only say that Tehran would halt “voluntary” measures that it was now undertaking, Financial Times reported.

Diplomats say Iran has probably won itself a reprieve from stiffer sanctions for a few months since Russia opposes them as long as Iranian-IAEA cooperation is proceeding, Reuters reports.

This made The United States to say there was potential merit to Iran's nuclear transparency deal with UN inspectors, after earlier branding it a diversionary gambit to forestall tougher UN sanctions.

On the hand, The Islamic Republic has said it is serious about honoring the cooperation plan but also vowed anew not to stop enriching uranium for nuclear fuel, which Tehran says is for electricity generation, not a clandestine atom bomb project as the West suspects.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Saeed Jalili reiterated that the agreement last month with the International Atomic Energy Agency was “another step to indicate Iran's goodwill”. He said Iran was not seeking to buy time.

It seems that Iran's well-calculated steps have once again pushed the US into the corner and Washington warmongers have to face a bitter and unprecedented isolation in international community.