Despite strong words from President Barack Obama, there is no consensus on what additional sanctions the international community should or could impose if Iran continues to ignore concerns about its suspect nuclear programmes.
Tehran is, meanwhile, taking pre-emptive measures to mitigate United Nations or unilateral punishment, sending diplomatic missions to China, central Asia and Venezuela, and stockpiling petrol and gas.
The option many United States congressmen prefer — a ban on exports to Iran of refined fuel products including petrol — looks like a non-starter. Iran imports 40% of its petrol, but it has the world’s second-largest crude oil reserves and China is the world’s second-largest crude oil importer.
For American hawks this is a marriage made in hell, but no divorce is in prospect. Iran provided 10% of China’s crude oil needs last year.
Speaking before this week’s nuclear talks in Geneva, Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu urged the US and Britain and other UN Security Council members to eschew confrontation. “We believe all sides should take more steps to ease tensions and resolve problems, not the opposite,” she said.
The meaning was plain. Even if Beijing supported sanctions in principle — which it does not — it would not support measures that would harm its national economic self-interest.
Russia’s previous opposition to tougher sanctions appeared to soften last week when President Dmitry Medvedev met Obama in Pittsburgh for a mutual admiration session.
But it is unclear what has changed in practice. Moscow views Tehran as an important ally and trading partner in the Caucasus, Caspian and central Asian regions.
Iran’s neighbours are reluctant to jump on the bandwagon. Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, warned: “Those sanctions won’t bring about anything good for the people of Iran. So I think we have to be careful.”
Even less help can be expected from Iraq, whose people experienced devastating UN sanctions in the 1990s and whose Shia leadership is closely allied with Tehran, or from Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, who warmly embraced Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in New York last week and said he looked forward to working closely with Iran “to promote peace and security” and build a “lucrative” joint gas pipeline.
US officials are focusing increasingly on curbs on international companies undertaking financial, banking, insurance, shipping and investment business on behalf of or in Iran, in addition to US and European Union government-level action.
Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, has expressed optimism that Iran could be brought to heel by additional penalties. But many profoundly disagree. Writing in The Wall Street Journal, former Bush administration official Elliott Cohen said Gates was kidding himself. “A large sanctions effort has been under way against Iran for some time. It has not worked to curb Tehran’s nuclear appetite, and it will not.”
Sanctions were a mere fig leaf for weak politicians, he said. Washington’s only logical course was to “actively seek the overthrow of the Islamic Republic” by whatever means necessary, barring invasion.
With such dangerously ill-considered threats emanating from the world’s only nuclear superpower, little wonder Tehran’s own hardliners are circling the wagons. And little wonder Beijing, the new voice of reason in global affairs, is pleading for calm. —