Cuba, Syria and Venezuela voted against the resolution. Algeria, Belarus, Indonesia, Libya and South Africa abstained.

The vote is the climax of a two-and-a-half year campaign by the Bush administration to convince the world that suspicions about Iran's nuclear program are so serious that the issue must come before the Security Council for judgment.

It also signals the failure -- at least for now -- of the two-and-a-half year strategy of France, Britain and Germany that was based on the premise that Iran could be coaxed into freezing, perhaps indefinitely, key nuclear activities if the political, technological, economic and security rewards from the West were enticing enough.