Posted By Adam Robertson

September 25, 2007

The five permanent UN members - U.S., UK, France, China and Russia, plus Germany, are discussing how to step up pressure against Iran following its refusal to give up its nuclear program. 

The Iranian nuclear standoff has dominated the international agenda for several years, but this latest round of discussions seems to be different: Two things have happened that have a significant impact on the Iranian nuclear file. 

First, tensions seem to have eased somehow by an agreement made between the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Iran setting out a “work plan”, under which Tehran pledged to answer long-standing questions about its past nuclear activities. 

As expected, this deal angered the Americans, but the French, British and to an extent the German governments are far from enthusiastic either. 

The U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has criticised the IAEA's chief, Mohamed ElBaradei, claiming that he‘s muddying the waters and diverting attention away from two UN Security Council resolutions demanding Iran to halt uranium enrichment and grant broader inspections. 

"It is not up to anybody to diminish or to begin to cut back on the obligations that the Iranians have been ordered to take," Rice said on Wednesday. 

"We believe the diplomatic track can work but it has to work both with a set of incentives and a set of teeth," she added, repeating the U.S. stand that "all options" are on the table -- a reference to military action against Tehran. 

The second event that took place didn’t back, or help, the diplomatic approach that El-Baradei has been following. This is the arrival of new French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who clearly wants to intensify pressure against Iran. His foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, recently warned that the alternative to tougher sanctions may ultimately be military action. 

But the problem in imposing UN-backed economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic has always been consensus, as the U.S. and its allies need to keep Russia and China on board. 

According to an article on the BBC, foreign ministers of the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany want to clarify where Moscow and Beijing stand. Western diplomats say Russia and China are strongly supporting ElBaradei's "work plan". Russian and Chinese resistance, they say, is a major obstacle to imposing new UN sanctions against Iran. 

Asked about another round of sanctions, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters "the third track" was an invention "by the Americans and the French, not us."

Perhaps that’s why the French, backed by the Dutch and others, are seeking tougher additional sanctions through the European Union. 

In an interview with the New York Times, published on the newspaper's Web site late on Sunday, Sarkozy said he would press for "an arsenal of sanctions" to convince Tehran to give up its nuclear ambitions. 

"Between surrender and war, there is a range of solutions that exist like the reinforcement of sanctions which will eventually have an effect.” 

Sarkozy, in New York to attend his first United Nations General Assembly session since his election in May, also said that he’d support the EU adopting additional sanctions against Iran if the UN Security Council was unable to agree on another resolution. He also said that he’d urged Total and Gaz de France to refrain from bidding for new projects in Iran and told French banks to stop doing business there.

However, the idea of imposing EU sanctions against Iran is still in its infancy. EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana told reporters in New York, where he will attend the annual United Nations General Assembly session, that no such idea was on the EU's agenda. "That debate has not started for the moment in the EU. There has been one statement (by Kouchner) but I can tell you the EU as such has not started debating that issue. No country has put that kind of issue on the table.”

French calls for the 27-nation bloc to consider its own sanctions against Iran has been boosted by the U.S., which argues that bilateral economic sanctions are having an impact on Tehran. 

But it is obvious that such sanctions aren’t having the impact the U.S. wants as the Iranian nuclear policy isn’t changing. Tehran’s research program is moving forward, and the country announces nuclear progress every now and then. However, Iran’s failure to satisfy the Security Council may continue to delay the initial shipment of nuclear fuel to its Russian-built reactor. 

Although Iran insists that its nuclear program is strictly peaceful, aimed simply at generating electricity, the West fears that Tehran could go down the weapons route if it mastered the nuclear fuel cycle. 

Tensions get worse by warnings from the U.S., and most recently France, who are using the nuclear case to drum up support for regime-change in Iran. All this revives memories of American accusations against pre-war Iraq and its alleged weapons of mass destruction, which have never been found.

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