The most significant sanctions?
Just how insignificant are those sanctions that were passed by the UN Security Council on Wednesday? Consider this. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called the U.N. resolution "the most significant sanctions that Iran has ever faced."There are now two options left, says Jennifer Rubin: An Israeli strike or a nuclear Iran. In neither case will the United States be the ultimate decision maker.
But in another sign of the fragile nature of Washington's anti-Iran alliance, the leaders of Russia, Turkey and Iran convened a regional security summit Tuesday to emphasize the realignment of military power in the region. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who backs U.N. sanctions, said the measures should not "be excessive" or impose undue hardship on the Iranian leadership or the Iranian people.
The new U.S.-backed measures have been watered down enough that Tehran's crucial oil sector will probably be spared, and Russia's and China's business dealings with Iran will go largely untouched.
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Meanwhile, new investment is being marshaled to develop pipelines that would carry Iranian gas through Turkey to European countries, including Austria and Germany, that are hoping to reduce their dependence on Russia. "This love story between Turkey and Iran has a lot to do with fact that Iran really needs Turkey to reach European gas," said Gal Luft, executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security.
Luft said that while some of the financial sanctions "may hurt" Iran, he does not think they will change its behavior. Four years ago, Luft conducted an analysis of Iran's consumption of refined petroleum products, showing that more than 40 percent came from abroad. That figure he said, is now closer to 25 percent, making U.S. sanctions on gas imports increasingly irrelevant.
"The U.S. Congress is conveniently unaware of all this," Luft said. "They are pushing for this straw man, which is gasoline sanctions, but the horse is out of the stable."
What could go wrong?
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:44 PM
2 Comments:
From the article: ”Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called the U.N. resolution "the most significant sanctions that Iran has ever faced."
The only problem is that Iran has never faced tough sanctions, so Mrs. Clinton is simply blowing smoke up our rear ends.
From the article: “The new U.S.-backed measures have been watered down enough that Tehran's crucial oil sector will probably be spared, and Russia's and China's business dealings with Iran will go largely untouched.”
There you go, idiot appeasers (but I repeat myself) – the sanctions that you’ve been waiting for with baited breath are worthless. The only exports that concerns Iran (or imports, for that matter) are oil and weapons. They’ll get all the weapons they want through Russia and China, and any non-Russian or non-Chinese business that wants to deal with Iran will simply set up a Russian or Chinese subsidiary (if they don’t already have one), or work out an arrangement with an existing Russian or Chinese business (for a fee, which Putin and his KGB-Russian Mafia comrades, or some Chinese official, will gladly pocket).
I’ve been saying for a long time that sanctions won’t work, and that waiting for them would only give Iran more time to enrich uranium and work on other aspects of building and delivering nukes to Israel, Europe and this country. Sanctions virtually NEVER work – or, if they do, it is over a period of many years. We don’t have that much time, because no one has bothered to really put pressure on Iran. I partially blame Bush, but Obama has been in office for 17 months and has done nothing but extend deadlines (the lesson for Iran in that behavior being “he’s not serious, and we can do whatever we want.”).
Iran delenda est.
The sanctions are what the Russians call "pohazuka" - for show. They will have no meaningful impact on Iran's nuclear ambitions. And they are too little, too late.
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