Ahmadinejad, Erdogan and Lula overreached. Barack Obama may be ready to turn the other cheek but Vladimir Putin is not. If Ahmadinejad thought that he can replace with impunity an uranium exchange deal with Russia with an uranium exchange deal with Turkey and Brazil he thought wrong. Moscow may enjoy humiliating Washington almost as much as Tehran but not if the price includes Russia’s humiliation. Even China bulks at paying such a price.
The permanent Security Council members may fight amongst themselves but they will unite against any attempt to water down their power and that it precisely what the Southern triumvirate tried to achieve. So, when the three cheerful leaders announced triumphantly that there is no longer need for additional sanctions. The Security Council veto holders responded with a sanctions draft. Do not expect the non veto members not to be resentful of this obvious muscle flexing.
Just watch the Chinese professor Tao Jao try to explain the strange timing of the sanctions to the Chinese anchor. She asked why the agreement came a day after Iran agreed to a nuclear swap deal with Turkey and Brazil and he answered that it was because the the SC has been dealing with the Iranian nuclear issue for years. If his explanation is inane, his certainty that the measure is sure to pass is interesting though he is careful not to imply that the sanctions would have much impact beyond delivering a message of “international” displeasure.
In Iran all the government can do is “slam” the agreement and try to convince its citizens the measures were unlikely to be approved and would not break its economy if they were implemented. . Ahmadinejad’s overreach has given the Obama administration a sudden surprising diplomatic victory. Just to make sure that Washington understands that nothing has really changed, Russian foreign minister Lavrov warns the US and EU yet again not to try to bypass Russia by imposing their own sanctions on Iran:
“There is information that the US and the European Union are not limiting themselves to a common position on Iran in the UN Security Council and want to introduce additional, one-sided sanctions,” Lavrov said.This he felt amounts to breach of international laws and said that an informal agreement on more punitive sanctions against Iran had been agreed up on by permanent members of the UNSC and Germany.
One cannot refrain from wondering whether Russia extracted a commitment from Hillary to abstain from additional sanctions. Of course, Congress may insist and even overrule an Obama veto as happened with the Jackson amendment during Soviet times.
Be that as it may, one can only hope that the price of oil will continue to drop. Calling Riad.
