The main UN body for dealing with matters affecting international peace and security is struggling to put together a collective response to the reports of chemical-weapons attacks in Syria.
As Australia prepares to take over the rotating presidency of the 15 member United Nations Security Council, the Council is severely split over what to do about the crisis in Syria.
Syrian opposition groups claim more than 1300 people died last week in an alleged poison-gas attack near the capital, Damascus.
The Syrian government denies it was responsible for what would be the world's most deadly chemical-weapons attack in a quarter of a century.
As United Nations weapons inspectors investigate, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd insists international consensus on a way forward on Syria is vital.
"We are now working closely with our allies, partners and friends on driving consensus in the Council. The diplomatic activity in New York is now in full speed, and it is important that the international community form a common resolve on this question."
But that is far more easily said than done.
Three of the five permanent members of the Security Council - the United States, Britain and France - have made it clear they believe there was a chemical-weapons attack, and that the Syrian government was responsible.
The Western countries have indicated they believe the world should respond with military strikes on targets in Syria.
Britain has put a draft resolution to the permanent members -- also including Russia and China -- which would authorise what it terms all necessary measures to protect civilians in Syria.
But Russia, expressing doubt about who was responsible for the alleged attack, says the weapons inspectors must be allowed to finish their investigation.
And, regardless, Russia would be likely to use its veto power against any such Council resolution.
It has also warned of what it calls catastrophic consequences for both Syria and the region if the world acts without Council approval.
Russia has steadfastly opposed foreign intervention in Syria during the two and a half year war that UN figures suggest has killed more than 100,000 people.
Russian and Central Asian specialist Kirill Nourzhanov, of the Australian National University in Canberra, says Russia's stance centres around concerns for its own stability.
"The Russians are very worried that Syria is just the latest link in the chain of the creeping arc of instability that is sponsored and promoted by the Western powers, including, first and foremost, the United States. So, in the Russian view, the events in Syria are just a continuation of what started in Egypt and Libya and what the West is trying to achieve with this giant arc of encirclement in Russia's soft underbelly in the south-western periphery of Russia. And just like during the years of the Cold War, the Russians are not particularly happy to see the West encroaching on this geopolitically strategic region for Russia."
Dr Nourzhanov says, in the Russian view, the United States tried to achieve so-called regime change in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, then resorted to softer targets.
As the view goes, they then succeeded in the Balkans and the Mediterranean and, if it happens in Syria, that would open the question of who comes next, even Russia itself.
And Russia is not alone on the Security Council in opposing outside intervention in Syria.
China has remained relatively quiet on Syria, but it has joined Russia in blocking past resolutions critical of the Syrian government.
China, too, has criticised the possibility of military strikes against forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.
Its official Xinhua news agency says the West has jumped to conclusions about who committed chemical attacks, which Syria's government blames on rebel fighters.
Kirill Nourzhanov from the ANU says China's position is very much in step with Russia's stand on what it calls regime change, simply quieter.
"China and Russia have been cooperating within the framework of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation for eight years now. In 2005, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation made a very strong resolution warning the United States and the West, 'Please, please, please do not interfere in our zone of influence. Please do not think about fomenting yet another coward revolution in Eurasia.' It was interpreted at the time in the West as a kind of anti-democratic bloc, as two giant authoritarian powers creating yet another Iron Curtain to prevent the fresh wind of democracy. But, from the Russian and the Chinese point of view, they were protecting themselves against this particular security threat of regime change under the guise of democracy propounded by the West."
The Western permanent Security Council members have pointedly been saying any proposed intervention would not be about regime change.
Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr says the most important role for Australia on the Security Council in the coming days and weeks will be to engage Russia and China.
He's being diplomatic with his words for both as Australia prepares to begin its one-month stint as Council president.
"Russia and China can't be vilified in this. They need to be engaged with, encouraged to look at the evidence and encouraged to think about their attitudes towards the Assad regime and what the world does when a population is being devastated -- and, now, devastated with the application of weapons that terrifyingly enable mass-atrocity crimes."
Syria has defiantly vowed to fight any outside intervention, which it argues would paradoxically only benefit both Israel and al-Qaeda elements among the rebel forces.
However, some non-members of the Security Council have been endorsing calls for intervention.
There is, for example, neighbouring Turkey, which, along with Lebanon and Iraq, has shared the burden of almost two-million refugees who have fled across Syria's borders.
Turkey's sectarian government started out trying to mediate in Syria, but now wants intervention.
At the same time, though, Iran is warning foreign military intervention would result in a conflict that would engulf the entire region.
Iran lies at the heart of complexities that go beyond the UN Security Council when it comes to Syria.
Iran and Syria maintain an alliance that Iranian specialist Shahram Akbarzadeh, at the University of Melbourne's Asia Institute, says is critical to the Islamic republic.
Syria is Iran's only state ally in the Middle East, its other allies comprising the Hezbollah and Hamas groups based within Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, respectively.
"The loss of power by Bashar al-Assad would deprive Iran of a very important regional ally. And add to it that both support Hezbollah, and that combination of Iran's serious support for Hezbollah has given Iran a lot of credibility, or so they think in Tehran, a lot of credibility in the Arab world."
Professor Akbarzadeh says Iran's credibility in the Arab world is up against a major religious barrier within the region which would, otherwise, be hard to overcome.
"Iran is always very conscious of its Shia-minority image in the Arab world. The Arabs are generally Sunni. Iran is a Shia state, and that creates problems and tension. So Iran has been actively trying to present itself as a champion of Muslims in general, not just the Shia sect. And working with Hamas helps Iran to present that image and overcome the sectarian divide. And it helps Iran to work with Syria in opposition to Israel, because that would then present Iran as a champion of the Muslims/Arabs against Israel. So losing Syria, on many levels, could create problems for Iran."
Professor Akbarzadeh suggests that Sunni-Shiite divide in the region largely explains even further complexities.
There is Saudi Arabia, the religious core of the Muslim world, the Sunni rulers of which have long seen it as illegitimate for a minority government of Alawites -- a Shiite sect -- to rule Syria.
Religious edicts, or fatwas, have been issued in Saudi Arabia about the legitimacy of war against the Alawites.
On and on the complex list of allegiances and interests goes, as Australia takes its suddenly very hot seat as head of the U-N Security Council.
And just a week after it does so, if the opinion polls are correct, voters will force it to undergo its own regime change.
