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Provocative sanctions

The belligerence and aggression implicit in the decision by the United States to unilaterally impose yet another set of sanctions on Iran has upped the ante in the region. But it is of some relief that recourse was not taken to a more dangerous course of action. It is known that the State Department and the Vice President’s office have been at loggerheads over the policy to be adopted in respect of the West Asian country. Dick Cheney and his right-wing cohorts have b een pushing for a confrontational approach in which the threat of military action is the subtext. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice appears to have given due weight to pragmatic considerations such as the U.S military’s lack of capacity to fight one more war. In this context, the decision to ratchet up the sanctions seems to be the by-product of a bureaucratic struggle. In the face of Washington’s reckless and abrasive policy, Teheran has signalled that it will not agree to suspend the enrichment of uranium, a U.S.-set precondition for multilateral discussions on its nuclear programme. In removing the relatively open-minded Ali Larijani from the post of chief negotiator and posting in his place a bureaucrat, Saeed Jalili, who is likely to toe the government’s line, Iran has declared its intent to play hard ball.

The decision to impose sanctions appears all the more meaningless since the measures announced are likely to be ineffective. The State Department has put the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps on the list of entities involved in the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. In addition, the Al Quds Brigade of the Corps has been termed a sponsor of terrorism and four public sector banks have also been targeted for sanctions. Theoretically, the U.S.-based assets of the Brigade and the banks can be frozen. Companies headquartered in third countries will be banned from doing business in the U.S. if they deal with those entities listed as sponsors of terrorism. But the IRGC is unlikely to have any asset that can be frozen under the new rules and Iran has been under sanctions for so long that it has developed all sorts of mechanisms for bypassing them. Teheran might begin to feel the pinch only if the member-states of the European Union joined the U.S. in strengthening the sanctions regime. Although France has of late indicated that it might do so, Iran will not be bereft of options. So long as Moscow and Beijing continue with their support, Teheran is unlikely to relent. Given this situation, it would be wise for the Bush administration to back off from ratcheting up its confrontation with Iran.

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