WASHINGTON – With the International Atomic Energy Agency set to formerly refer Iran today to the U.N. Security Council, a key Republican senator is calling on the White House to toughen its stance against the Iranian menace. Yet veteran analysts say the ideas being floated by Senator Brownback of Kansas may not go far enough in chastening a rogue regime that appears bent on securing nuclear weapons and narrowing freedoms.

Mr. Brownback, speaking yesterday at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, called on Congress to increase to $100 million from $10 million its funding for programs aimed at promoting democracy inside Iran; for a suspension of World Bank lending to Iran, and for Secretary of State Rice to appoint a special envoy for human rights in Iran to coordinate democratic reform within the country along with international organizations.

“When the words ‘regime change’ are uttered around Washington, there is a silence that fills most rooms,” Mr. Brownback said. “But we must not be constrained by words that actually promote liberty, equality, and justice. Regime change can happen from within, and I am confident that the Iranian people can champion their future.”

Mr. Brownback’s speech came one day before the IAEA was set to recommend that the United Nations assume oversight of Iran and its nuclear program and on the same day the National Intelligence Director, John Negroponte, told Congress that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon and has not obtained the materials necessary to make them. Mr. Brownback, a likely contender for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, said Iran’s nuclear ambitions are clear.

“Let’s face it. The suspicions of the Atomic Energy Agency, United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, and China are not wrong,” Mr. Brownback said. “Iran is using its peaceful nuclear program as a cover for its illegal weapons program. These tyrants are hiding behind their rights under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to develop nuclear weapons.”

Still, students of the Iranian regime said Mr. Brownback’s support for an internal revolt and his proposals to accelerate it may be too weak to counter the growing Iranian threat. Some also raised questions as to why Mr. Brownback has not signed on to a bill proposed earlier this year by Senator Santorum, a Republican of Pennsylvania, outlining a plan for internal regime change in Iran. As of early this week, the Iran Freedom and Support Act had 42 co-sponsors in the Senate and 333 in the House of Representatives.

“What I took from this speech is that Brownback wants regime change, that he’s in favor of it, so why doesn’t he just come out and say it,” a freedom scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a former special assistant to the secretary of state, Michael Ledeen, said. “Why isn’t he endorsing the Santorum bill? All of this, whatever he wants to do, is easily contained in the Iran Freedom Act, and that appears to be on its way to success.”

Despite President Bush’s appeal to the people of Iran and his warning to its government about the production of nuclear weapons earlier this week, Mr. Ledeen and others have complained for years that the White House lacks a coherent policy for dealing with Iran. A spokesman for the Department of State, Sean McCormack, rejected the assertion, saying the Bush Administration has called attention to human rights abuses within Iran, worked with other countries at monitoring its nuclear program, and supported public and private efforts at thwarting Iran’s role as the largest sponsor of state terrorism in the region.

“I would certainly take issue with that premise,” Mr. McCormack said. “I would point to the integrated and mutually reinforcing efforts with respect to stopping the spread of weapons of mass destruction, and trying to counter Iran’s support for terrorism. … These are things we are constantly reviewing. We don’t have anything new to discuss in public, but it is an issue we continue to review to see if there is something we can do to change the behavior of the Iranian regime.”

Mr. McCormack did not return a call for comment on Mr. Brownback’s request for a special envoy to Iran. Independent analysts characterized as modest that proposal and others by Mr. Brownback.

“This ought to be relatively acceptable to people,” a deputy director for research at the Washington Institute for Near East policy, Patrick Clawson, said. “What he’s proposing is pretty reasonable – $100 million for books and videos. This is a conflict of ideologies, and that sort of approach, I think, is pretty acceptable to people. I think he may be more optimistic than me about the prospects for change, but he’s an elected politician, and elected politicians tend to be more optimistic.”