Follow along with the video below to see how to install our site as a web app on your home screen.
Note: This feature currently requires accessing the site using the built-in Safari browser.
Europe may give an impression of favoring diplomacy over sanctions on Iran, compared with American and Israeli approaches, but it has been early and consistent in pushing both. France in particular spearheaded robust action on Iran’s nuclear program, becoming one of the leaders of European Union sanctions in mid-2010 to ban investment and business activities with Iran, notably in the energy sector. On Jan. 4, European powers agreed in principle to an oil embargo, expected to be implemented gradually after a Jan. 23 meeting of EU foreign ministers to work out the details. “We don’t see sanctions as an alternative to negotiations but as part of them,” says Bruno Tertrais, of the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris. “Even though there is little demonstrated hope for negotiations to resume, we haven’t given up.”
With mounting tensions in the Strait of Hormuz, and increased invective and incidents between Tehran and the West, European states that do not want war see sanctions as a pragmatic alternative. The premise is that, with sanctions, the EU is doing everything possible to avoid a military outcome. Sanctions are also seen here as a step toward opening the issue at the UN Security Council. “France and the UK are concerned about unintended consequences of military action on Iran,” says Richard Whitman of Chatham House, an independent foreign-policy think tank in London. “Like many in Europe, they support every effort to delay a military answer.”
Europe’s decision to punish Iran with oil sanctions stems directly from the November report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Tehran’s nuclear program, which found that Iran had continued nuclear weapons development until as recently as 2009. Iran maintains that its nuclear program is for civilian purposes only. The report was debated in nuclear watchdog circles, since there was no clear smoking gun. Yet EU officials saw the report as showing enough evidence of Iran’s intent to build a nuclear weapon to warrant global action. That the assertions came from the conservative, plodding IAEA – and not US or Israeli intelligence leaks – added to their credibility.
MORE
There were few signs that US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner had any success during his visit to Beijing this month to persuade China to help pressure Tehran over its nuclear program by buying less Iranian oil. "China's regular demand for energy has nothing to do with the nuclear issue and it should not be affected," Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin said Jan. 11, after Mr. Geithner met with top Chinese leaders. China is Iran's largest oil and gas client, and Beijing has consistently played down economic sanctions as an effective way to influence Tehran, or any other government. "Few issues can be solved by sanctions," says Tao Wenzhao, a foreign-affairs analyst at the government-sponsored China Academy of Social Sciences. "We think that the correct way to resolve international issues is through negotiations."
But while Beijing's reluctance to go along with United States sanctions came as little surprise, at the same time there seemed equally little chance that China would increase its Iranian oil intake to help Tehran if other countries cut back their purchases. The European Union has agreed in principle to an oil embargo, and US allies such as South Korea and Japan, two other major importers of Iranian oil, could also join America in pressuring Tehran. "China will not go all the way" to support Iran, says Willem van Kemenade, a Beijing-based expert on Sino-Iranian relations. "They are not going to confront the US in a decisive way." Oil traders here say Beijing, which last year bought 11 percent of its oil imports from Iran, cut back on purchases this month. But this appears to be a result of a dispute over price and credit terms, as China seeks to profit from Iran's straitened circumstances by bargaining for a better deal.
The temporary cutback, for which Beijing has compensated with emergency purchases from Vietnam, Russia, the Middle East, and Africa, does not mean that China has any sympathy for planned US sanctions, analysts here say. On New Year's Eve, President Obama signed a bill that would ban foreign financial institutions that deal with Iran's Central Bank from operating in US financial markets. That would effectively make it impossible for refiners in China to pay Iran for the oil they buy. Chinese officials have repeatedly criticized the effort to make other nations follow America's lead. "To place one country's law above international law and force others to obey is not reasonable," Mr. Liu said Jan. 11. "China is not a US ally, and it is not obliged to abide by US law," adds Dr. Tao. "This is hegemonic behavior."
Chinese leaders may expect that Mr. Obama will exempt Beijing from the effects of the new bill, as he is empowered to do, on national security grounds. They may also be counting on resistance to the congressional bill from US allies such as Japan and South Korea, both of which have expressed reservations about its impact on world oil prices. Previous congressionally mandated international sanctions have failed, Tao recalls. A 1996 bill introduced by Sen. Alfonse D'Amato (R) of New York, punishing foreign companies that made energy deals with Iran, sparked such an international outcry that then-President Clinton issued a waiver to European countries. "I doubt very much that the stipulations of the new law can really be implemented," says Tao. "It will cause widespread opposition around the world, not just from China and Russia but from US allies, too."
Source
Something to keep in mind about all those American traitors here wrapped in our national flag and carrying a cross, when they spew hate about Iran and other nations. Iran or Libya or Iraq or Afghanistan is NOT the one who put America in debt, but their common enemy DID... I'm not talking about any religion or nation, I am talking about criminal cult which hides behind many names and obviously controls the American establishment.
It was also murkins that could only afford this..........Something to keep in mind about all those American traitors here wrapped in our national flag and carrying a cross, when they spew hate about Iran and other nations. Iran or Libya or Iraq or Afghanistan is NOT the one who put America in debt, but their common enemy DID... I'm not talking about any religion or nation, I am talking about criminal cult which hides behind many names and obviously controls the American establishment.
It wasn't Iran or Iraq. It was Republican deregulation.
With this month's assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist widely seen as part of a covert war and impending sanctions targeting Iran's oil industry, tensions between the Islamic Republic and the West have escalated to their highest pitch in years. What began as a US-led carrot-and-stick policy designed to goad Iran into dropping any aspirations of developing nuclear weapons has turned into a purely punitive approach that leaves Iranian leaders little reason to cooperate, say analysts. "[Iranian leaders] have very few tools in their tool kit right now, and in a sense we have pushed them into a corner with sanctions," says Anoushiravan Ehteshami, an Iran specialist at Durham University in England. "So what else do they have to lose? If they retaliate, they can change the game a bit, and that's what they are doing," says Mr. Ehteshami. "Of course, when you start changing the game a bit, you don't quite control how much you change. You can unleash all kinds of forces."
Indeed, the stage appears set for a highly volatile year, as both the United States and Iran prepare for important elections, Tehran faces key decisions on its nuclear program, and an Iranian-American convicted of spying sits on death row in Iran. When Iran's supreme religious leader looked out on his nation's strategic landscape in mid-November, he saw many gathering storm clouds. Enemies were readying tougher sanctions perhaps to embargo oil, Iran's economic lifeblood. They were killing Iranian nuclear scientists. They had sent a computer virus to disrupt Iran's uranium enrichment. Their agents were reportedly inside Iran, replacing street signs and bricks in buildings with new ones equipped with radiation detectors.
And the United Nations nuclear watchdog had just published details of alleged "systematic" nuclear weapons-related work by Iran through late 2003, and declared of "particular concern" more episodic work as recently as 2009 prompting fresh global opprobrium. So Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a warning. "Iran is not a nation to sit still and just observe threats from fragile materialistic powers which are being eaten by worms from inside," he told military college students in Tehran. "Iran will respond with full force to any aggression or even threats in a way that will demolish the aggressors from within." Since then, Mr. Khamenei has stayed true to his promise. When the US and Israel staged or announced military exercises in the neighborhood, so did Iran, unveiling new rocket and missile capabilities.
MORE
