US
Intensifies Push For Further UN Sanctions On Iran
By Peter Symonds
02 November, 2007
WSWS.org
The Bush administration is pressing
for tough new UN Security Council sanctions at a meeting in London today
of the five permanent members—the US, Britain, France, Russia
and China—plus Germany. The demand for a third UN resolution is
one more step in Washington’s campaign to vilify Tehran over its
nuclear programs and to justify US preparations for a military strike
on Iran.
The White House effectively
preempted the UN Security Council by announcing its own unilateral measures
on October 25 branding the entire 130,000-strong Iraqi Revolutionary
Guards Corps (IRGC) as “a weapons proliferator” and the
IRGC’s Quds Force as a “terrorist” organisation. Harsh
US sanctions were applied not only to the IRGC, which has extensive
business interests, but also against more than 20 Iranian companies
and three of the country’s major banks.
The chief target of these
new US sanctions is not so much Iran, but America’s economic rivals
in Europe and Asia—in particular, the other powers present at
today’s talks. Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China all
have significant investment in, and trade ties with, Iran. The Bush
administration has not only made it illegal for American banks and corporations
to have dealings with the IRGC, but is implicitly threatening economic
retaliation against foreign banks and companies that do the same.
The London meeting will be
dominated by the same American bullying. US Undersecretary of State
Nicholas Burns set the tone by declaring yesterday that Washington wanted
a new round of UN sanctions imposed soon. He was particularly critical
of Russia and China for “effectively blocking a third resolution”
after Iran refused to comply with the second passed in March.
“We do hope Russia
and China will come with a serious demeanor and with the basic attitude
that progress has to be made [on a resolution]. It’s time for
Russia and China to re-engage.... The credibility of the [Security]
Council is on the line here,” Burns told the media.
US relations with Russia
have deteriorated markedly over a range of issues, including the Bush
administration’s aggressive moves against Iran. A fortnight ago
Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Tehran for the first time by
a Russian or Soviet leader since 1943. Prior to the trip, Putin told
the media on October 10 that there was “no objective evidence
to claim that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons”, in effect undercutting
Washington’s allegations that Tehran is building a bomb.
In Iran, Putin pointedly
declared his opposition not only to “the use of force but also
the mention of force as a possibility”. This was a reference to
Bush’s repeated declarations that “all options are on the
table”, that is including the military one. Putin’s comments
provoked a response from the White House that underscores just how brittle
relations between the major powers are. After dismissing suggestions
of a US-Russian rift, Bush issued an extraordinarily blunt warning to
America’s rivals that Iran’s nuclear programs had to be
stopped “if you are interested in avoiding World War III”.
While the outcome of today’s
meeting will no doubt be announced in suitably diplomatic language,
what happens behind closed doors is a different matter. Russia has followed
up Putin’s trip with a brief, unannounced visit by Foreign Minister
Sergei Lavrov to Tehran on Tuesday. Lavrov said that he had urged the
Iranian regime to continue working with the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) to clarify outstanding questions surrounding its nuclear
programs. In a shot aimed at Washington, he stressed that further sanctions
would not help the situation.
Russia and China both opposed
additional sanctions in late September, insisting that the IAEA be given
time to implement an agreement reached in August with Iran to answer
all unresolved issues. The Bush administration opposed the IAEA deal
and bitterly criticised IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei for overstepping
his brief. The US has been exploiting a series of outstanding questions
about Iran’s nuclear programs—some of which US and Israeli
intelligence have been directly involved in concocting—to insist
that Iran shut down its Natanz enrichment plant even though such a program
is permitted under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
The IAEA has held a series
of meetings with Iranian nuclear officials. Most recently IAEA deputy
chief Olli Heinonen flew to Tehran this week to discuss Iran’s
use of more sophisticated P-2 gas centrifuges in the enrichment of uranium.
Iran’s chief negotiator Javad Vaeedi said yesterday that Iran
had given the IAEA “the necessary information” to remove
any ambiguities about this aspect of the country’s nuclear activities
and that both sides had been satisfied by the discussion.
IAEA chief ElBaradei is due
to report on the agreement with Iran by mid-November, but he declared
on Sunday that he had “not received any information that there
is a concrete, active nuclear weapons program going on right now.”
He emphasised that the IAEA had found no nuclear material that could
be made into a weapon and expressed his concern about the “building
confrontation, because that would lead absolutely to a disaster. I see
no military solution.”
The following day, the White
House dismissed ElBaradei’s comments, declaring that Iran was
“enriching and reprocessing uranium and the reason that one does
that is to lead towards a nuclear weapon”. But if uranium enrichment
automatically led to building an atomic bomb, it would have been barred
under the NPT and countries like Brazil would also be in the UN spotlight
for building a uranium enrichment plant. Washington’s targeting
of Iran’s nuclear programs is completely hypocritical, given that
US allies such as Israel, Pakistan and India have refused to sign the
NPT and have built and tested atomic bombs.
US Undersecretary of State
Burns underscored Washington’s opposition to the IAEA-Iran agreement
yesterday when he made clear that the IAEA’s clarification of
outstanding issues would not stop further sanctions. “Our judgement
is that if Iran has not suspended [uranium enrichment] in the next couple
of weeks, that’s not sufficient, it will remain a refusal to meet
Security Council requirements. That will be a highly relevant factor
for us,” he said.
As in the case of the WMD
lies told to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the US is stepping up
its lurid claims about Iran’s nuclear programs as a possible pretext
for an American military attack. The White House has no interest in
the IAEA proving that Iran has no weapons programs and regards ElBaradei’s
efforts as a time wasting exercise that impedes its own agenda. As a
number of commentators have noted, time is running out for the Bush
administration with the 2008 US presidential election just a year away.
Washington’s threats
of war against Iran are motivated above all by US ambitions to secure
domination over the Middle East and Central Asia. Iran not only has
huge reserves of oil and gas, but is also strategically located between
these two resource-rich regions. While Russia, China and the European
powers have established economic ties with Iran over the past decade,
the US has maintained an effective economic embargo of the country.
To boost American influence, the Bush administration is seeking to install
a more sympathetic, pro-US regime in Tehran.
While they now oppose the
imposition of further sanctions on Iran, Russia and China along with
the rest of the UN Security Council helped the Bush administration’s
propaganda machine by passing two resolutions demanding that Tehran
shut down its nuclear programs. Moreover, despite the statements of
Putin and Lavrov, it is possible that Russia could do so again—in
return for US concessions on other issues. As far as Beijing and Moscow
are concerned, the fate of the Iranian people is no more than a useful
bargaining chip in their relations with Washington.
Britain and France have also
lined up behind the Bush administration’s menacing threats against
Iran and called for the EU to impose sanctions on Iran, if the UN fails
to. Germany, however, has been more equivocal. After meeting with his
Israeli counterpart yesterday, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter
Steinmeier declared: “Germany’s position does not differ
from that of the United States and some other European countries. If
Iran refuses to provide answers, we should think about the possibility
of European sanctions.” The emphasis on “providing answers”,
rather than suspending enrichment as the US demands, suggests that Germany,
which is Iran’s largest trading partner, is hedging its bets on
further sanctions.
In the final analysis, the
Bush administration may simply dispense with all the diplomatic manoeuvring
in the UN Security Council. For more than a year, the White House has
been concocting an alternate casus belli with a stream of allegations
claiming that the IRGC and its Quds Force have been training, arming
and supporting anti-occupation militias in Iraq. In his September report
to Congress, General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq, alleged
that Tehran was already fighting “a proxy war” against the
US in Iraq.
A border clash with Iran,
a naval encounter in the Persian Gulf or some other US-engineered provocation
could easily become the pretext for putting US plans for a massive air
campaign against Iran into operation.
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