Congressional sources said the defeat of the resolution marked increasing American reluctance to confront Iran. The sources said opposition could increase amid the global credit crisis.

"The next president needs to reorient U.S. policy toward Iran as fundamentally as President Nixon did with China in the 1970s," former National Security Council official Flynt Leverett said.

Leverett published a study with his wife, Hillary Mann, that argued that Washington's policy against Iran has ended up hurting U.S. interests. He called on the next U.S. administration to reach a "grand bargain" with Teheran. "

Pursuing a U.S.-Iranian grand bargain should start with the definition of a strategic framework for improving relations between the United States and the Islamic Republic," the study said. "Iran's security interests, including extending U.S. security assurances to the Islamic republic, lifting unilateral U.S. and multilateral sanctions against Iran, and acknowledging the Islamic Republic's place in the regional and international order."

The study came amid reports that Iran was accelerating its nuclear weapons program. The International Atomic Energy Agency has been investigating reports that a Russian scientist was helping Iran develop methods of detonating a nuclear warhead. LINK