This delay comes at a price. Iran is on the verge of being able to enrich uranium to the level needed for a nuclear weapon. As we get closer to this point of no return, the risk of military confrontation increases too.

We cannot allow our diplomacy on Iran to be held hostage by events in Georgia. As I have long argued, if the Security Council cannot agree new sanctions soon, other like-minded countries must act. European nations, which have been painfully slow to impose sanctions, should take steps to ban investment in new Iranian oil and gas, consider proscribing the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organisation, formally end the practice of subsidising trade with Iran through export credit guarantees and extend the financial isolation of the Iranian regime. These steps are urgently needed if we are not to lose the last remaining chance of persuading Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons ambitions.

If we do not act, we face the prospect of either a nuclear-armed Iran, smashing the non-proliferation treaty and imperilling Israel, or a new military confrontation in the Middle East with far-reaching and unpredictable consequences. Far from being a frozen conflict like the one that triggered the crisis in Georgia, this would be a "hot" conflict, with the prospect of Iranian-backed terrorism in Israel or even Europe, refugee flows destabilising a great swathe of the Middle East and an all-out Iranian rush to produce a nuclear weapon.

If European leaders to do not wake up to the urgency of the situation now, they may live to rue the day.