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Iran Unfolds Its Fist to Slap Us in the Face
(Boston Globe) William Tobey - Last month an important deadline passed in nuclear negotiations with Iran. The deadline was for Iran to show progress, but Tehran has refused to talk much at all about nuclear issues. Negotiators have met only twice to discuss a side issue, a proposed uranium swap to refuel Tehran's research reactor. Meanwhile, over the past year, Iran doubled its production of enriched uranium, was revealed to be building a covert enrichment site at Qom, and threatened to build ten more plants - despite UN Security Council resolutions requiring Iran to suspend enrichment activities. Neither Russia nor China sees a nuclear armed Iran as a threat. All other things being equal, they might prefer Tehran's ayatollahs not to control nuclear weapons, but all other things are not equal. Beijing wants access to oil and gas. Moscow wants to rebuild a geostrategic position in the Middle East, sell conventional arms and nuclear reactors to Iran, and foster a regional power capable of standing up to the United States. Yet we must not be stymied from attempting the "crippling sanctions" promised by Secretary of State Clinton. In the financial sector, the U.S., Europe, and Japan play a leading role, and can severely affect travel, trade, and investment in Iran. Squeezing Iran's gasoline imports would also create new leverage. U.S. concessions failed to secure help from Moscow and Beijing. Rather, they signaled that the Iranian nuclear issue is a source of leverage over Washington, and is worth sustaining to extract further concessions. Iran has unclenched its fist to slap us in the face. It is time to wake up. The writer is a senior fellow at Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.