The U.S. and Western allies clashed with Russia and China on Thursday over Iran¡¯s nuclear intentions, as Washington sought, at the United Nations, to further justify the war it launched against Iran two weeks ago.

At a meeting of the 15-member U.N. Security Council, which is chaired this month by the U.S., Russia and China moved unsuccessfully to block a discussion about a committee established to oversee and enforce U.N. sanctions on Iran. They were overruled 11-2 with two abstentions.

Addressing the council, U.S. envoy to the United Nations Mike Waltz accused Moscow and Beijing of seeking to protect Tehran by blocking the work of the so-called 1737 Committee.

¡°All member states of the United Nations should be implementing an arms embargo against Iran, banning the transfer and trade of missile technology, and freezing relevant financial assets,¡± Waltz said.

¡°The U.N. provisions to be reimposed are not arbitrary, but instead, narrowly scoped to address the threat posed by Iran¡¯s nuclear, missile and conventional arms programs and Iran¡¯s ongoing support for terrorism,¡± he said.

Waltz said both China and Russia did not want a functional sanctions committee ¡°because they want to protect their partner, Iran, and continue to maintain defense cooperation that is now once again prohibited.¡±

Waltz noted that last week the U.N.¡¯s International Atomic Energy Agency had reiterated that Iran was the only state in the world without nuclear weapons to have produced and accumulated uranium enriched up to 60%, and had refused to provide the IAEA access to this stockpile.

Russia¡¯s U.N. ambassador Vasily Nebenzya accused the U.S. and its allies of whipping up ¡°hysteria surrounding supposed plans Iran had to get a nuclear weapon¡± that were never corroborated by IAEA reports.

¡°This was done in order to undertake yet another military venture against Tehran and to ensure great escalation of the situation in the Middle East and beyond,¡± he said.

China¡¯s representative, Fu Cong, called Washington the ¡°instigator¡± of the Iranian nuclear crisis and said it had ¡°resorted to blatant use of force against Iran during the negotiation process, which rendered the diplomatic efforts futile.¡±

Iran¡¯s U.N. ambassador, Amir Saeid Iravani, told reporters later on Thursday that Iran¡¯s nuclear program ¡°has always been exclusively peaceful,¡± and Tehran would not recognize any attempt to enforce sanctions against it.

U.S. President Donald Trump has used Iran¡¯s nuclear program to justify his war on Iran. He said this month that Iran would have had a nuclear weapon within two weeks had the U.S. not struck three key nuclear sites in June, a claim sources have said was not supported by U.S. intelligence assessments.

Britain and France told the Security Council that reimposing sanctions on Iran was justified...