UN Sanctions Iran over Nukes

The crisis over Iran's alleged uranium enrichment for weaponiziation purposes came to a head today when the UN security council unanimously voted to sanction Iran until it ceases all enrichment activities.

Iran, which refused to end its uranium enrichment work in exchange for economic incentives earlier this year, immediately condemned the resolution as illegal and said it would not affect its ``peaceful'' nuclear activities.

The resolution demands Iran end all research on uranium enrichment, which can produce fuel for nuclear power plants as well as for bombs, and halt all research and development on methods of producing or delivering atomic weapons.

The thrust of the sanctions is a ban on imports and exports of dangerous materials and technology relating to uranium enrichment, reprocessing and heavy-water reactors, as well as ballistic missile delivery systems.

The measure is less restrictive than the original draft, drawn up by Britain, France and Germany, due to Russian objections. A ban on Iran's oil exports was not considered.

In Tehran, Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini told state-run television the resolution ``cannot affect or limit Iran's peaceful nuclear activities but will discredit the decisions of the Security Council.''

He said Iran would continue to install 3,000 centrifuge units at Natanz, the site of a uranium enrichment plant.

Tehran's U.N. Ambassador, Javard Zarif, accused the Security Council and the United States of a double standard by punishing Iran while ignoring Israel's nuclear arsenal.
Iran isn't exactly correct on that last count. While Iran is a party to the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, which specifically forbids the creation of enriched uranium to develop nuclear weapons, Israel is not. So while Israel's "unacknowledged" (but patently obvious) nuclear weapons are not a treaty violation, Iran's most certainly would be.

The US is unsurprisingly pissed at the strength of the measures taken against Iran. Presumably given all of the rhetoric over the past two years, nothing short of declaring Iran "bad bad bad bad bad" and threatening military reprisal would have been sufficient to placate the Bush administration. There are others on the council with different interests in Iran, however.

``We don't think this resolution is enough in itself,'' Under Secretary of State Nicholas Burns said in a teleconference with reporters. ``We'd like to see countries stop doing business as usual with Iran.''

The resolution is under Chapter 7, Article 41 of the U.N. Charter, which makes enforcement mandatory but restricts action to non-military measures, and Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin emphasized this point.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose government had hesitated over supporting the resolution and succeeded in watering down parts of it, called President Bush on Saturday after reviewing the measure until the last minute.

Russia, which is building an $800 million light-water reactor for Tehran that is exempted in the resolution, has tried to maintain close ties with Iran but is also concerned about any bomb-building intentions Iran may have.

``Russia views this resolution as a serious message being sent to Iran regarding the need to more openly and accurately cooperate with the IAEA to lift or resolve the remaining concerns and questions relating to the nuclear program,'' Churkin told the Council.
So Russia's questionable business dealings with Iran prevent it from making as strong a statement as Bush would probably have liked. Which ends up nicely counterbalancing Bush's hard-line stance, even if neither position is close to ideal.

Iran laughed at an earlier deadline issued by the UN and urged by Bush and other western leaders, so this new measure, which is stronger but hardly crippling, may also have a minimal effect. However, given the flimsy UN pretenses Bush and Blair used as justification for invading Iraq, Iran must be at least thinking twice about outright dismissing the UN again.

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