US and allies look to targeted sanctions on Iran

The US, Britain and France are looking ahead to sanctions if Iran continues to defy demands that it halt uranium enrichment, but not the sweeping economic and military embargoes the UN Security Council imposed on Iraq after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

What the council’s three veto-wielding Western members will be pushing for are targeted sanctions, which would probably include restricting trade in equipment that has both civilian and military uses, banning travel and freezing the assets of key Iranians who run and oversee the country’s nuclear programme.

“The general idea we have on Iran,” US Ambassador John Bolton said in a recent interview, “is more targeted sanctions aimed at specific individuals responsible for the nuclear programme, and the country’s direction of the nuclear programme.”

He said targeted sanctions would also likely include “restricting trade in dual use and other sensitive items”.

Bolton said the Security Council sanctions imposed on Saddam Hussein’s regime immediately after the August 2, 1990, invasion and annexation of its tiny, oil-rich neighbour were at the time “the most comprehensive economic sanctions the UN ever adopted”.

The resolutions approved by the council to try to end the Iraqi occupation imposed sanctions on all Iraqi imports and exports except food and medicine, banned trade, and authorised inspections of shipments in and out of Iraq to verify their cargo.

The sanctions halted legal oil exports from Iraq, a major oil producer with the world’s second-largest reserves.

While the US is currently focusing on targeted sanctions, Bolton did not rule out tougher measures against Iran if needed at some future date.

But the US, Britain and France face an uphill struggle in winning approval from Russia and China, the other veto-wielding council nations, even for the resolution they plan to submit this week which does not mention sanctions.

It would make the council’s previous demand for Iran to stop nuclear enrichment mandatory, but the Western allies want the resolution authorised under Chapter Seven of the UN Charter, which is enforceable by sanctions or military action.

James Phillips, a research fellow on the Middle East at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, said he thinks Russia and China, which both have “extensive military, economic and strategic ties to Iran … will essentially act as Iran’s lawyers and act to delay and dilute any proposed sanctions”.

“I think it’s going to be very difficult to get anything by Russia and China unless Iran becomes even more belligerent,” he said.

In sharp contrast to the sanctions on Iraq, there has been no talk of economic sanctions that could affect Iran’s oil exports, which are vital to China.

Phillips said some statements by Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “must have been embarrassing to the Russians, but they nonetheless continue to carry Iran’s water at the Security Council”.

Ahmadinejad has sparked international criticism for threatening to wipe Israel “off the map” and for questioning whether the Holocaust happened.

But, in sharp contrast to the handling of Iraq, there has been no talk of economic sanctions that could slow Iran’s oil exports. China is a big customer for Iranian oil, and a cut-off of the oil would be a big blow for the world market’s already high oil prices.

Jon Alterman, director of the Middle East programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, said: “There’s not yet the sort of international unanimity that diplomacy has been tried and failed and we have to adopt a more coercive set of measures.

“There’s a genuine concern in Russia and China about Iran’s nuclear programme, but there’s not a strong conviction that we have to move swiftly on sanctions.”

Between 1945 and 1990, the Security Council imposed sanctions only twice, against white-ruled Rhodesia in 1966 and apartheid South Africa in 1977.

But during the 1990s, the council imposed some form of sanctions against governments or rebel movements 12 times, according to a study of UN sanctions by David Cortright and George Lopez.

Alterman said the sanctions against Iraq and sanctions imposed on Libya in 1992 to force the government to surrender two men wanted in the 1988 Pan Am bombing over Lockerbie, were “largely successful” in curbing nuclear proliferation.

“Iraq was not found to have an advanced programme. Libya did not have an advanced programme,” he said. “So it seems to me that the lesson you can draw is that if you can get to that point of getting international agreement on sanctions, then they can be a useful curb on proliferation.”

“It’s evident we’re not there yet, and if we moved forward on sanctions too soon we could make that goal farther away than closer,” Alterman warned.

While sanctions against Iraq may have prevented proliferation, their wide net led to severe hardship for millions of Iraqis.

In response, the Security Council created the now infamous oil-for-food programme, which succeeded in feeding the vast majority of Iraqis, but was riddled with corruption.

In 1999, Secretary-General Kofi Annan started calling for “smart sanctions” that target regimes or rebel groups with specific measures and not broad-based trade embargoes that often hurt innocent civilians.

The Security Council has generally followed his recommendation. The Sudan sanctions approved recently, for example, imposed a travel ban and asset freeze on four individuals.

Lee Feinstein, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and senior State Department adviser in former president Bill Clinton’s administration, said the main lesson learned from the Iraq experience is that “broad sanctions ended up splintering the coalition against Iraq within the Security Council and more broadly, they had very little impact on Saddam’s hold on power”.

In the case of Iran, he said, “it’s hard to see what would bite the regime” in the way of targeted sanctions.

The best option for the US, he said, is direct negotiations with Iran, with or without other countries.

“Whatever you think about a policy of sanctions,” Feinstein said, “the Security Council is not going to agree to impose them with one caveat, which is if Ahmadinejad takes action that leaves them no choice.”