Secretary of State Hillary Clinton traveled to Brasilia to mount a full court press on the Brazilian government to support a United Nations Security Council resolution imposing tougher sanctions against Iran over its nuclear activities. (Brazil is presently one of the Council’s ten non-permanent members.) And, as accumulating media reports indicate (see, for example, here and here), she was politely but clearly rebuffed by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his Foreign Minister, Celso Amorim.
Brazil’s rejection of Secretary Clinton’s exhortations to support new sanctions against Iran are focusing media attention on a bigger issue that we have been identifying for some time—namely, that the Obama Administration will not be able to marshal the symbolically useful image of a unanimous Security Council endorsing further sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran (something which the George W. Bush Administration was effectively able to stage for the first three sanctions resolutions). While, in the end, the Obama Administration will probably be able to muster the minimum nine affirmative votes in the Council to pass a new sanctions resolution, the Council will be deeply divided on the issue, with major powers in the developing world refusing to support further sanctions, and either voting “no” or abstaining.
Let’s review the state-of-play on Iran sanctions within the 15-member Security Council. Diplomatic sources tell us that, among the five permanent members, the United States, Britain, and France are all signed up to support an extremely tough draft resolution.
U.S. and European officials express growing confidence that Russia will be “on board” for a new sanctions resolution. But, already, Russian diplomats are demanding that most of the specific measures contained in the draft resolution supported by the United States, Britain, and France be removed. (This is in keeping with statements from officials close to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and in Russia’s Foreign Ministry insisting that any new sanctions against Iran should—like previous sanctions authorized by the Security Council—be focused on individuals and entities directly involved in the Islamic Republic’s nuclear and missile programs.)
China has not yet formally responded to the draft resolution, but continues to express its opposition to any expansion of sanctions against Iran. Obama Administration officials continue to assume that China will not want to be the only permanent member of the Council to veto a new sanctions resolution, and can ultimately be persuaded to abstain, rather than voting “no”. However, getting China to abstain—which would, at least in theory, permit a sanctions resolution to move through the Council—is likely to require that the United States and its European partners scale back dramatically the scope of the specific sanctions contained in the resolution.
If one assumes that Russia will ultimately support a watered-down resolution, along with the United States, Britain, and France, that makes for four affirmative votes among the Security Council’s permanent members. Among the Council’s ten non-permanent members, Gabon, Japan, Nigeria, and Uganda are virtually certain to vote for a new sanctions resolution; added to the four prospective “yes” votes among the permanent members, that makes for eight affirmative votes. (We believe that Japan, at least, is quietly anticipating that the draft resolution which is ultimately voted on by the Council will be significantly watered down from the current draft.) Austria, Bosnia, and Mexico are not automatic affirmative votes, but the United States is likely to get at least one of these states to support a resolution, giving it the minimum nine votes required to pass anything in the Security Council.
But Brazil is clearly indicating that it is not inclined to support new sanctions against Iran, as is Turkey (another non-permanent member). Brazil is emerging as a global economic power in its own right; Turkey has emerged as an important regional power, both economically and politically. The willingness of these two countries—both of them are members of the G-20 and have good relations with the United States—to chart their own course on important international issues is a tangible indicator of the ongoing decline in America’s relative power and influence. The Obama Administration’s apparent failure to understand these countries’ positions on the Iranian nuclear issue is an indicator that President Obama and his most senior advisors fundamentally misunderstand the “race for Iran.”
Lebanon is also highly likely to abstain from voting on a new sanctions resolution. So, assuming that China, in the end, abstains rather than voting “no” (thereby vetoing the resolution), the Obama Administration will still face significant opposition in the Security Council from important emerging powers in what we used to call the developing world. And remember, any sanctions resolution that is ultimately passed by the Council will be substantially much weaker than the current U.S.-British-French draft.
Why is the Obama Administration going down such a useless path? In Brazil, Secretary Clinton said,
“Personally speaking, I think it’s only after we pass sanctions in the Security Council that Iran will negotiate in good faith. That is my belief, that is our administration’s belief: that once the international community speaks in unison around a resolution then the Iranians will come and begin to negotiate”.
How could she possibly believe that? There will not be “unison around a resolution”, and the sanctions which might ultimately be authorized by the Council will add relatively little to those that the Council has previously authorized.
The Obama Administration needs to get serious about an Iran strategy that might actually accomplish something and advance the strategic position of the United States.
–Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett
Very good stuff:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2010/022710.html
Eric
Everyone throughout the F/P community is aware of the issue of rapprochement or normalizing relations with Iran. There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell of such an event occurring in secret like Nixon’s overture to China. The “tough guy” credibility act helped to sell his ‘fait accompli’ to right wingers and defense hawks after the fact. Brawny rhetoric or posturing had nothing to do in accomplishing it. Had Nixon tried to sell rapprochement in the public square where Obama is forced to pursue it, its arguable the US/China visit would ever have happened.
Every day it looks like US not only is trying to isolate Iran, but in the process is also isolating itself and its allies, the world should welcome the age of multi polar politics
In regards to Nixon/China and Obama/Iran
The big difference is Israel.
There is massive opposition to rapprochement with Iran from the powerful Israel lobby and the Zionist sympathisers and this makes Obama’s task much harder than Nixon’s.
Nixon did not have this problem when he dealt with China.
shafagh writes:
“the US is the only country that has ever actually used nuclear weapons, so why should it feel responsible to stop other states from obtaining such weapons? why does it feel that it can tell others what to do? they dont have any legitimacy.”
It’s called “pulling up the gangplank behind you.” The gangplank pullers don’t necessarily have any greater legitimacy — they’re just on the uphill end of the gangplank.
the US is the only country that has ever actually used nuclear weapons, so why should it feel responsible to stop other states from obtaining such weapons? why does it feel that it can tell others what to do? they dont have any legitimacy.
I’m curious to hear others’ thoughts on this sentence in Brzezinski’s “Audacity and Hope” piece:
“Already, at the outset of the negotiating process, Iran’s credibility was undermined by the convoluted manner in which Tehran complicated a promising compromise for a cooperative Iranian-Russian-French arrangement for processing its enriched uranium.”
I gather that “convoluted” and “complicated” meant Iran’s insistence on something other than handing over all of its low-enriched uranium in exchange for a promise that someday it might get back some 20%-enriched uranium – unless, of course, the US had happened to think of some other strings to attach in the meantime. If one believes, as I do, that it was just this side of sheer lunacy for Iran’s representatives even to suggest that Iran’s government might actually approve this fuel-for-promise exchange, then what Brzezinski describes as “convoluted” might better be characterized as “imaginative” good faith.
Any thoughts on this?
rfjk wrote:
“The big difference between Nixon/China and a rapprochement with Iran is the former was a secret undertaking, while any deal with Iran will be accomplished in the light of day.”
A deal with Iran (unlikely as it is) could just as easily be secret until announced. The bigger difference, I think, is that Nixon had tough-guy anti-China credibility. He was not perceived as some watercress-and-parsley eater who would give away the store just so that every one around the world would like him more, which is exactly how Obama would be portrayed if he struck any deal with Iran that’s even remotely close to what Iran predictably would accept.
Short of exhibiting courage, the best political approach for Obama seems to be the one he’s taking. Press for sanctions, and then finger-wag at Russia and China when those don’t get implemented or are too watered-down to have any effect. Timidity cast as toughness. And if Obama is not up to the task of demonizing Russia and China when the need arises, he probably doesn’t deserve to be the leader of the free world in the first place.
By the way, did anyone else come away with the same impression of Brzezinski’s “Audacity and Hope” piece to which someone helpfully posted a link yesterday: that Brzezinski still seemed to be giving Obama credit based entirely on “conceptualizing” rather than actual steps taken? Brzezinski mentioned that he wrote this several months ago (sounds like late November, early December), which may explain his patient optimism, or he may simply feel that the best way to get Obama off the dime is to ignore what has (not) happened and just express a mixture of praise for Obama’s conceptual audacity and hope that he’ll someday act on those audacious concepts.
“We see an Iran that runs to Brazil, an Iran that runs to Turkey, an Iran that runs to China, telling different things to different people,” Clinton said angrily.
Ummm, Hillary, isn’t that exactly what YOU have been doing for the past three weeks?
It is the most absurd manifestation of irony that the single state who caused a nuclear catastrophe in a twin attack on our earth now has assumed the role of the prime preacher in the nuclear field while ever expanding its nuclear weapons capability.
None of this should be surprising, except for those who believe economic or military coercion is the way to go.
The big difference between Nixon/China and a rapprochement with Iran is the former was a secret undertaking, while any deal with Iran will be accomplished in the light of day. In this regard every i and t has to be crossed to make that happen, and the proscriptions of those proselytizing sanctions, confrontation and containment must be proven wrong.
It may be that Obama is giving the opponents of rapprochement enough free berth to play and fail, because if they can’t create an alliance of the willing in the global community their game is dead.
And officials are now saying it will be at least 2 months before any kind of sanctions could be agreed. Which is also about when the NPT review is scheduled to take place, where Iran is believed to have considerable support from the non-aligned movement.
Another reason for a deal sooner rather than later.