U.N. Powers Delay Iran Sanctions Until November

Six major powers said Friday that they would wait until November to place new U.N. Security Council sanctions on Iran to give the country a chance to share details of its nuclear history and halt controversial elements of its nuclear program, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Sept. 28).

The Security Council intends to finalize and vote on a new sanctions resolution against Iran next month unless reports from the EU foreign policy chief and head of the International Atomic Energy Agency “show a positive outcome of their efforts,” said a joint statement issued by China, France, Germany, Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom.

 “We call upon Iran … to produce tangible results rapidly and effectively by clarifying all outstanding issues and concerns on Iran’s nuclear program including topics which could have the military nuclear dimension,” the statement said.

“Full transparency and cooperation by Iran with the [International Atomic Energy Agency] is essential in order to address outstanding concerns,” it said (Lederer/Lee, Associated Press/Google News, Sept. 28).

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei is expected to report on progress in completing a “work plan” developed by Iran and the agency for Tehran to gradually disclose information about its nuclear program, the Financial Times reported.

EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana’s report is expected to address the Security Council demand that Iran halt its uranium enrichment efforts, which could yield a nuclear weapon ingredient.

Top foreign officials for the six nations also asked Solana on Friday to meet with top Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani “to lay the foundation for future negotiations.”  Occasional meetings between Solana and Larijani over the past two years have not yet yielded any significant breakthroughs in the nuclear standoff (Daniel Dombey, Financial Times I, Sept. 28).

Larijani said yesterday that the advanced level of Iran’s nuclear program made suspending uranium enrichment out of the question.

“From a technical point of view we have reached a stage that no one can take away what we've achieved.  This status cannot be ignored.  I'm surprised to hear suspension is still being talked about,” he said (Khalaf/Bozorgmehr, Financial Times II, Oct. 1).

Iran intends to maintain cooperation with IAEA inspectors, Reuters reported Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini as saying yesterday.

“The process that certain radical countries have followed so far is to disrupt the positive climate that has been put in place through the cooperation of the Islamic Republic of Iran with the agency,” he said.

“That has not helped them, therefore they have been forced to be patient,” he said (Reuters, Sept. 30).

Meanwhile, this week’s edition of the New Yorker reported that the office of U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney led a Bush administration effort over the summer to revise plans for U.S. air attacks against Iran to emphasize “surgical” strikes on Revolutionary Guard sites over known and suspected nuclear facilities and other military targets.

Three primary developments have led the Bush administration to reorient its rationale for an attack on Iran from counterproliferation to counterterrorism, the magazine reported.

The White House believes that the U.S. public has not been persuaded that Iran is an immediate atomic danger, meaning the public support does not exist for a significant bombing effort.  The Bush administration also has quietly accepted intelligence assessments that it would take Iran five years to produce a nuclear weapon.  Finally, Washington and the Middle East are increasingly viewing Iran as coming out ahead geopolitically in the war in Iran (Seymour Hersh, New Yorker, Oct. 8).

However, the Bush administration has ordered U.S. diplomats to catalog Iranian violations of international law, possibly with an eye toward justifying attacks against Iranian nuclear sites, the London Telegraph reported.

U.S. diplomatic personnel at the United Nations were asked in September to start “searching for things that Iran has done wrong.”

“There are people more beholden to the Cheney side who have people searching for things that Iran has done wrong — making the case.  They've been given instructions to build a dossier.  They’ve been scouring around for stuff over the last couple of weeks,” said one U.S. diplomat.

A Newsweek report last week said that David Wurmser, former Middle East adviser to Cheney, had told other neoconservatives that the vice president had looked at asking Israel to conduct limited missile attacks on Iran’s Natanz uranium enrichment facility.  That could have set off an Iranian retaliation that could have given the United States a reason to conduct additional military action, according to the newspaper.

Prominent, neoconservative Norman Podhoretz lobbied for an attack on Iranian nuclear plants during a 45-minute meeting President George W. Bush.  He said that he believed that “Bush is going to hit” Iran before the end of his term in power (Tim Shipman, London Telegraph I, Oct. 1).

The U.S. Air Force has been working with its counterparts in Middle Eastern nations to ensure they could work together in the event of conflict with Iran, the Telegraph reported.

“We need friends and partners with the capabilities to take care of their own security and stability in their regions and, through the relationship, the inter-operability and the will to join us in coalitions when appropriate,” said Air Force Deputy Undersecretary Bruce Lemkin (Tim Shipman, London Telegraph II, Oct. 1).

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