U.S. Plans Economic Push Against Iran

In the wake of a U.N. Security Council resolution to impose sanctions against Iran, the United States plans to push other nations and their financial institutions to curb their cooperation with Tehran, Reuters reported Dec. 23 (see GSN, Dec. 22, 2006).

The council agreed unanimously Dec. 23 to ban international trade in nuclear and missile technologies with Iran and to freeze the foreign-held assets of 12 individuals and 10 Iranian organizations.  The sanctions would be suspended if Iran freezes its nuclear development programs that could give the nation a nuclear weapon capability.

The United States announced quickly, however, that it would pursue additional measures that would be based on the new council resolution.

“We don’t think this resolution is enough in itself,” U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns told reporters.  “We’d like to see countries stop doing business as usual with Iran” (Leopold/Arieff, Reuters I/Washington Post, Dec. 23, 2006).

In pursuit of that goal, U.S. officials plan soon to begin visiting international capitals to urge other nations to interpret the resolution aggressively by reducing their ties to Iran, the New York Times reported.

Some European economic powerhouses, such as France and the United Kingdom, are willing to support Washington’s goal.  Others are more reluctant, including Germany, which has greater economic dealings with Iran, according to the Times (Cooper/Weisman, New York Times I, Jan. 2).

Iran has vowed to press on with its nuclear activities.

“The Iranian nation is wise and will stick to its nuclear work and is ready to defend it completely,” President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yesterday.  “The U.N. resolution against Iran’s atomic work has no validity for Iranians” (Reuters II/New York Times, Jan. 2).

Iran’s parliament last week approved a bill calling for the nation to “revise its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency based on the interests of Iran and its people.”

The bill did not define how to modify Iranian cooperation.

Some lawmakers said the language reflected a moderate tone by rebuffing conservative legislators who sought to pull the nation from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the Times reported (Nazila Fathi, New York Times II, Dec. 28, 2006).

Meanwhile a recent U.S. study appears to bolster Iran’s claims that it needs nuclear power to diversify its energy supply, Reuters reported last week.

A report by Johns Hopkins University researcher Roger Stern found that Iran could run out of oil to export within eight years.  The study, published last month in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that Iran’s need for revenue from oil sales could drive it to try to reduce oil consumption at home by developing nuclear power.

“It therefore seems possible that Iran’s claim to need nuclear power might be genuine, an indicator of distress from anticipated export revenue shortfalls,” Stern wrote (Jim Wolf, Reuters III/Washington Post, Dec. 26, 2006).

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