US President George W. Bush accused Iran's rulers today of using their people's resources to fund terrorists and pursue nuclear weapons but, facing uncertain international support, vowed to seek a diplomatic solution.
In a speech to the United Nations challenging critics of his muscular promotion of democracy in the Middle East, Bush assailed the leaders of Iran and Syria while appealing to their peoples over their heads.
"The greatest obstacle to this future is that your rulers have chosen to deny you liberty and to use your nation's resources to fund terrorism and fuel extremism and pursue nuclear weapons," he told Iranians.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has defended his country's right to peaceful nuclear technology, was not in the chamber to hear Mr Bush, but he was expected to respond in his own address to the UN General Assembly later in the day.
"Iran must abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions," Mr Bush declared after telling reporters he would push for sanctions if Tehran continued to stall on UN demands to suspend uranium enrichment, which the West suspects is aimed at making a bomb.
But with international backing for punitive measures shaky, he stressed Washington would prefer to resolve the dispute diplomatically, allowing the European Union a little more time to seek a formula for launching negotiations.
EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said last night it would be wrong to push for a sanctions resolution against Iran when the Europeans were making "real progress" in talks with Tehran. He said he would meet Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, in New York later this week.
Mr Bush said Syria's leaders had made their country "a crossroads for terrorism" and told Syrians: "In your midst, Hamas and Hizbullah are working to destabilize the region, and your government is turning your country into a tool of Iran."
The US president vigorously rebutted critics, including many opposition Democrats at home, who argue his muscular drive for democracy has destabilized the Middle East from Iraq to the Palestinian territories, empowered Islamists and spread chaos.
"This argument rests on a false assumption: that the Middle East was stable to begin with," Bush argued, rejecting what he called extremist "propaganda claiming that the West is engaged in a war against Islam."
Yet he faced growing skepticism over his policies for Iran and Iraq, with UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan warning Iraq is in grave danger of civil war while France, Russia and China argue against a rush to sanctions against Iran.
French President Jacques Chirac said in his address that "dialogue must prevail" in the stand-off with Iran. In contrast to Bush, he told the assembly: "We do not aim to call regimes into question."
Mr Bush and Mr Ahmadinejad slept at adjacent hotels and were to address the annual UN General Assembly session within hours of each other, but their paths did not cross.