U.N. Sanctions Spurring Nuclear Debate in Iran, U.S. Says

By Jon Fox
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — An internal political debate in Iran might be pushing Tehran back toward the nuclear negotiating table, the Bush administration’s point man on the Iranian standoff said yesterday (see GSN, Feb. 14).

Speaking at the Brookings Institution, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns suggested there is reason to believe U.N. Security Council sanctions are having an effect within the Iranian capital (see GSN, Sept. 14, 2006).

“It had a major impact in Iran,” Burns said.  He noted the criticism of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by a newspaper backed by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over his management of the nuclear issue, a development Burns called “extraordinary.”

He also cited top nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani’s re-emergence on the diplomatic stage.  Larijani has recently visited European capitals and yesterday was in Saudi Arabia to “to talk again about the possibility of negotiations.”

“This is hopeful,” Burns said.  “It’s hopeful that the Iranians have emerged after 4 1/2 months of utter silence over the course of the autumn and begun to say themselves that they’re seeking some kind of a diplomatic way forward.”

While some suggested late last year that Tehran had weathered international pressure over its uranium enrichment program relatively unscathed, Burns said international sanctions as well as U.S. financial measure are beginning to bear fruit (see GSN, Jan. 9).  “All of the sudden in the middle of February the Iranians are not doing so well,” he said.

The Security Council voted unanimously to impose sanctions on Iran in late December, an outcome that Burns said “stunned” Tehran (see GSN, Jan. 4).  The United States has begun to push against Iranian involvement in Iraq.  U.S. carrier groups have moved into the Persian Gulf (see GSN, Dec. 20, 2006). Decisions by European and Japanese lending institutions to cut off relations with Iran have induced nervousness in Iran’s financial markets.

The combined effects of these developments have pushed certain voices in Tehran to suggest that there might be a price to be paid for being an “international pariah,” Burns said.  “The Iranians are now questioning their own strategy.”

While critics have argued that the administration is laying the groundwork for a military strike on Iran, Burns said such a conflict is neither inevitable nor desirable.

“We are not going to give up,” he said.  “We’re convinced that sooner or later the costs to Iran of its isolation are going to be so profoundly important to them, destructive to their economic potential, that they’re going to have to come to the negotiating table.”

Burns said that the inducements offered by the United States, Russia and the European Union to shut down Iran’s nuclear fuel program still stand. Iran, though, must agree to suspend uranium enrichment activities during the period of negotiations (see GSN, Feb. 12).

Iran has rejected this offer, with officials saying they would not freeze Iran’s nuclear program as a precondition for negotiations, but suggesting they might accept some limitations on its enrichment technology.

Burns called such a suspension a “temporary down payment,” but also said the U.S. position was that ultimately Iran must not be allowed to conduct enrichment on its own soil.  Under the package presented to Iran, any civil nuclear program would be supplied with fuel enriched outside the country.  That remains central to the deal, Burns said.

If Iran continues to ignore international pressure and forge ahead with an enrichment program the United States and others believe is part of a nuclear weapons effort, Burns said sanctions would likely intensify.

During a Wednesday morning press conference, President George W. Bush said that sitting down to bilateral discussions with Iranian officials would be fruitless.  The United States has not had a direct, normalized diplomatic relationship with Iran for more than 30 years.

“This is a world in which people say, ‘Meet!  Sit down and meet!’” he said.  “My answer is, if it yields results, that’s what I’m interested in.”

“If I thought we could achieve success, I would sit down.  But I don’t think we can achieve success right now.  And therefore, we’ll want to work with other nations,” he said.  “We’re more likely to achieve our goals when others are involved as well.”

In pushing for more biting, restrictive financial sanctions against Iran, Washington might collide with European economic interests.  Some critics have described the current U.N. sanctions package as anemic.

“Money trumps peace sometimes,” Bush said.  “Part of the issue in convincing people to put sanctions on a specific country is to convince them that it’s in the world’s interest that they forgo their own financial interest.”

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