In case you’ve missed them, I want to highlight a number of important developments regarding America’s Iran policy in the last few weeks. With the year 2009 having shown us numerous fruitless attempts at diplomacy with the Iranian regime, and wonderful display of the regime’s barbarism after presidential “elections” in June, policymakers are trying to turn to the “pressure track” of the dual-track system to get Iran to open up to full nuclear inspection. Witness Secretary Clinton’s comments to Aljazeera and speech in Georgetown to that effect.
The sincere diplomatic efforts to resolve the standoff were the right thing to do at the time, especially if any military option is even remotely being considered. Now that they have failed, garnering support for sanctions should be easier than it would have been had we not tried talking to Iran first. The House of Representatives passed the Iran Refined Petroleum Sanctions Act last week—by a vote of 412-12—divesting from foreign companies who deal in Iran’s energy sector. A similar measure in the Senate has 76 cosponsors.
Courtesy China Daily
Here’s the good news: The Obama folks have put some necessary preparation into this stage of the game. The White House and the European Union issued statements several days ago with highly coordinated language, signaling unity on the topic. The U.S. has also let France spearhead the efforts to get a new round of UN sanctions, showing the Iranians that it’s not just Americans and Israelis who are passionate about the issue. Even Russia has hinted at a willingness to back tougher measures than it has previously.
I think we’re also starting to see the footprint of Dennis Ross at the National Security Council. Ross has suggested for years that the U.S. try to get China to back away from investments in Iran’s energy sector by getting the Saudis to fill whatever lost oil would come from the divestment. It seems that that offer has finally been made to the Chinese explicitly.
The bad news: We’ve still got a ways to go. China has apparently rejected the Saudi oil deal—a serious setback that demonstrates the challenge of putting any serious pressure on the Iranians. It remains to be seen if the Chinese can be scared into compliance by the genuine threat of American (or, more likely, Israeli) military strikes.
One last bit of suggested reading—Newsweek’s profile of Stuart Levey, the undersecretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, and his efforts to move private sector investment out of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
