The Six Powers-five UN Security Council members and Germany-started another consultation round on a draft Security Council resolution envisaging sanctions against Iran if it refuses to suspend uranium enrichment. The U.K., France and Germany, principal negotiators with Iran, had drafted the document under debate.
Its premises have by now come through preliminary coordination, so finalizing the details would be a routine job but for a clash among the six, which had brought the draft into the limelight even before the consultations started. The U.S. insists on prompt and harsh sanctions, while others call for step-by-step action adequate to the Iranian response to it. The draft is thus under criticism from opposed sides.
Russian experts do not think it worthwhile to stop or suspend negotiations on the Iranian nuclear program before they exhaust their potential-a standard wording for the following argument: the world owes the current stir around the Iranian nuclear issue to the United States' insistence on acting tough, which experts track down to elections-Congressional mid-term, due next week, and approaching presidential-which both demand that resolute efforts are displayed to the electorate. In fact, even greater popularity would come with demonstrating practical results of such efforts, if there are any.
The new draft again demands of Iran an immediate suspension of uranium enrichment and processing, and requires that the IAEA Director-General reports to the Security Council on Iranian compliance or non-compliance, as the case may be, with that and other resolution premises within thirty days from its adoption.
Iran has stuck to its previous stance-it will under no circumstances give up its lawful right to obtain a full nuclear fuel cycle. To put it differently, it will continue with uranium enrichment, whatever the U.S. Administration does. The Six have been trying for too long and too persistently to force Iran into ceding its formal right. That was why all previous efforts ended in a deadlock.
America "should have stopped scowling at Iran long ago", says Alexei Arbatov, director of the International Security Centre of the World Economy and International Relations Institute at the Russian Academy of Sciences. The U.S. has driven itself into a dead end on the Iranian issue, the political scientist remarks as he calls to consider Iranian uranium enrichment "among the other customary arms reduction issues", possibly meaning the parties are to strike the right deal.
Would Iran embark on uranium enrichment? That used to be a pivotal question. It is no longer the crux of the matter with enrichment underway which is an irreversible process. It is high time to ask another question-to what extent will the world put up with the Iranian program? If the issue is regarded in that way, a long-awaited compromise will be possible, Arbatov argues. Iran will be authorized to develop its nuclear industry, which it considers a matter of prestige, while the world will no longer be alarmed with its program. Further talks are imperative if the compromise is to be reached at all. So several countries, Russia the most resolute of them, insist on the talks going on.
A number of European countries cling to the step-by-step option. Their position is close to Russia's, says Vladimir Sazhin, prominent Russian expert on Iran, who took part in an international Iranian nuclear issue seminar recently held by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. However, while evaluating approaches to the issue, one should bear in mind the British mentality, which is much akin to American. The step-by-step pattern appears more instrumental as it envisages sanctions toughened or softened depending on the Iranian response to previous steps, with the continuing negotiations as a necessary precondition.
Russian experts think the UN Security Council-and Moscow, too-were too quick with adopting Resolution 1669. In that, they followed the U.S. If it is to keep its front going, the Security Council now ought to stick to its resolution and mete out punishment on Iran unless it stops uranium enrichment.
Will the sanctions be harsh, American-fashion, or as mild as Europeans would like to see them? To all appearances, the Security Council will choose the latter option with visa limitations for Iranian VIPs and arrested nuke-related bank accounts.
Tough sanctions will most probably mean the end to the talks, while mild ones will be more of a political signal to Iran from Russia and other countries.
