Nobody on any side of the Iran nuclear dispute believes that yesterday's U.N. sanctions vote is going to break the deadlock. Faced with continuing Iranian defiance of the demand that it suspend uranium enrichment until concerns over the intent of its nuclear program can be resolved, the Security Council passed a package that incrementally tightens existing sanctions. It banned travel by certain officials of Iran's nuclear program, freezed the assets of certain companies and barred Iran from importing certain dual-use technologies. But Iran has made quite clear that it has no intention of complying with the U.N.'s demand, which it deems "illegal," and it is more than capable of absorbing the very limited pain inflicted by the new measures. Indeed, the package agreed upon on Monday reflected the lowest-common-denominator consensus between countries such as the U.S., Britain and France, which wanted tougher sanctions, and countries such as Russia and China that want to avoid measures with real bite, both because of their own commercial ties with Iran and because they believe putting Iran's back against the wall will simply exacerbate the conflict.
So, despite being the subject of a new sanctions package adopted by the overwhelming consensus at the Security Council (Indonesia's abstention was the only discordant note), Iran is not feeling particularly isolated or pressured. The Council vote came on the same day that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad concluded his historic state visit to Baghdad, where he was feted and hailed as a friend by a government entirely dependent on the U.S. for its security. Nor is Iraq alone among Arab states in ignoring Washington's calls for Iran's isolation.
Ahmadinejad was the personal guest of the Saudi king during the recent Hajj pilgrimage, and even Egypt is responding to Iranian diplomatic initiatives aimed at ending almost four decades of hostility with the Islamic Republic. It's not that Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Egypt are simply ignoring the sources of tension with Tehran: instead theirs is a regional realpolitik that sees a cooperative relationship as a more productive way of addressing those issues than the more confrontational stance of the U.S.
Similarly, on the nuclear issue, Britain's ambassador to the U.N., John Sawers, told reporters that the Security Council would hold firm in the demand for Iran to suspend enrichment, but would pursue that goal through ongoing negotiations even as the limited sanctions are put into effect. Last year's
U.S. National Intelligence Estimate, which concluded that Iran does not currently have a nuclear weapons development program has, in effect, removed the sense of looming crisis that had once driven the issue, and rendered the option of a U.S. military strike to destroy Iranian facilities highly improbable. (It is acknowledged, however, that Iran's current nuclear activities would put such capability within easy reach if the leadership in Tehran should opt to pursue such weapons.)
This article shows the continuing standoff between the U.S. and Iran over uranium enrichment. The U.S. continues to believe that they have evidence Iran is planning to build nuclear weapons and Iran continues to deny that claim by accepting any sanctions by the U.N.
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