Increasing Economic Pressure on Iran

On the radar: U.S. cobbles together sanctions; U.K. sanctions the CBI; Safe cuts to the nuclear budget; The politics of sanctions; Nuclear amendments; The imperfect NPT; and Reykjavik and the CTBT.

November 22, 2011 | Edited by Mary Kaszynski

Piecemeal sanctions - “The Obama administration cobbled together a new set of best-available sanctions against Iran on Monday that underlined its limited capacity to force Tehran to halt its suspected nuclear weapons program,” AP reports. “The new restrictions essentially amount to a piecemeal addition to dozens of American measures already in place to isolate Iran’s economy.”

--”After three decades of economic estrangement and escalating pressure on Tehran for its dismal human rights record and alleged support for terrorism, the United States has few tools left to coerce or penalize the Iranian regime. And Washington is unlikely to authorize a military strike anytime soon, conscious that an attack may delay but not stop Iran from developing the bomb.” http://owl.li/7BKhT

Stopping short of CBI sanctions - The U.S. sanctions target Iran’s oil and petrochemicals industry, and designate Iran’s financial system a “money laundering concern. But while the UK cut off ties with the Central Bank of Iran, the U.S. refrained from formal CBI sanctions. Joby Warrick reports for the Washington Post.http://owl.li/7BKl9

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A Safe Way to Cut Military Spending - “There are some fairly big-ticket items that could help reduce spending while preserving our national security...Start with nuclear weapons,” writes Andrew Rosenthal in The New York Times. Reducing the nuclear arsenal, reducing the size of the nuclear sub fleet, axing the B61 modenization program, and abandoning plans for the the uranium processing facility are among the author’s recommended cuts. http://owl.li/7BLIa

Domestic politics and Iran sanctions - “Intense pressure” from Congress and presidential election politics is behind the administration's decision to increase economic pressure on Iran, writes Barbara Slavin. With congressional leaders like Senator Mark Kirk calling for a “nuclear option” to formally sanction Iran’s Central Bank, the administration’s “baby sanctions” may “not be sufficient to placate Congress.”

--Most experts are skeptical that sanctions will change Iran’s posture. “If anything, this will reinforce paranoia in Tehran that this is all about regime change," Brookings’ Suzanne Maloney said. linkhttp://owl.li/7BKoA

Nuclear amendments - Among several key amendments to the FY12 National Defense Authorization Act: sanctions to the Central Bank of Iran, requiring the maintenance of the nuclear triad, and maintaining ICBMs at New START levels. The amendments will be taken up after Thanksgiving. From John Isaacs via Kingston Reif at Nukes of Hazard. http://owl.li/7BKu7

Iran and the NPT - “Not only is there no evidence for any current nuclear weapons program in Iran, there’s nothing in international law that prohibits Iran from gaining a nuclear weapons capability,” notes Yousaf Butt in Polictico. “In a perfect world, it would have been better to have a tougher treaty [than the NPT] that forbids a nuclear weapons capability. But the treaty that we have reflects the political compromises made to get the broad international support that it now enjoys.

--”Possibly the best way to wind down the standoff now is to offer Iran a simple quid-pro-quo: if Iran agrees to more intrusive “Additional Protocol” inspections by the IAEA, both the unilateral and U.N. Security Council sanctions will be dropped.” http://owl.li/7BKvZ

Activity at Iranian facility - “Iran appears to have accelerated work at its Parchin military installation, possibly in a bid to eliminate remnants of atomic efforts that a recent U.N. report suggests were carried out at the site...Personnel with two other governments verified that [photographs] suggest an increased level of movement around the facility, but they did not back the first source's assertion, based on findings by his government, that Iran was pushing to "clean" the facility of indications of nuclear activity.” From Global Security Newswire.
http://owl.li/7BKHX

Talks on Middle East nuclear free zone - No breakthrough resulted from the IAEA-hosted forum on banning nuclear weapons in the Middle East, and the meeting was “marred by the absence of boycotting Iran,” but participants described the meeting as “constructive.” “That both Israel and the Arab states summoned the political will to attend the IAEA session, and thus to allow it finally to take place, was a positive development," said IISS’ Mark Fitzpatrick. http://owl.li/7BKy1

Russia's missile defense concerns - “Russia has warned it might field nonstrategic missiles along its territorial boundaries as well as in Belarus should negotiations with the United States on participation in a planned European antimissile framework prove unsuccessful, a high-level diplomatic insider said on Monday.” From Global Security Newswire. http://owl.li/7BLEM

Reagan, Reykjavik, and the CTBT - “The Senate will soon have the chance to advance that vision [of a nuclear-free world] when it considers the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) for ratification. Our leaders should take this next step toward limiting the nuclear threat,” write Nathan Pyles and James Goodby in The Hill. The authors note vast improvements in verification capabilities, and the fact that, with over 1,000 nuclear tests under its belt, the US no longer needs to test. http://owl.li/7BKCZ