Israel Matzav

Optimism on EU Iran sanctions

Benjamin Weinthal has a relatively optimistic assessment of the possibility that EU sanctions implemented on Monday could have a positive effect on stopping Iran's nuclear program.

The litmus test will be aggressive enforcement of U.S. and EU sanctions. The EU — particularly Germany, Iran’s largest EU exporter — is notorious for porous and lax export-control policies. Turning the regulation screws on blocking the delivery of technology to and investments in Iran’s Achilles’ heel, its energy sector, might lead to a political transformation in the Islamic Republic.

According to Mark Dubowitz, executive director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and Ilan Berman, vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council, “about 60 percent of the technology used by Iran to exploit its natural gas sector comes from one European nation: Germany.”

All of this means that if Germany and countries like Switzerland, whose energy giant Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft Laufenburg (EGL) is set to implement its 18 billion euro gas deal with the National Iranian Gas Export Company (NIGEC) in defiance of U.S. complaints, pull the plug on their support of Iran’s energy and infrastructure, there might very well be a chance to alter Iran’s jingoistic conduct. The alternative is nothing short of military strikes.

Is Switzerland even part of these sanctions? It's not part of the EU and I cannot see their nutjob foreign minister (pictured with her buddy Ahmadinejad) doing anything to implement sanctions.

Even if Germany does the right thing, Iran may be too far on the road to nuclear weapons to be stopped by anything short of military action.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:47 PM