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Sanctions Alone Won't Stop Iran's Nuclear Work

(Ha'aretz) Emily Landau - At the end of September, when the enrichment facility that was built near the Iranian city of Qom was disclosed, President Obama insisted that the situation was serious, and that if Iran did not alter its path there would be consequences. But there weren't. In October, Secretary of State Clinton warned that the U.S. would not wait forever. In the meantime, however, the U.S. is waiting. The end of the year deadline that Obama set for evaluating diplomatic progress on Iran also came and went. And if we assume that ultimately there will be sanctions, so what? The role of sanctions and other pressure, such as credible military threats, is to convince Iran that time is not on its side and it would be better to seriously negotiate with the West. Yet there is no sign that the Obama administration intends to mobilize the necessary political muscle to lead such a process. Without genuine American determination, there is no prospect of preventing the Iranians from developing nuclear weapons. The writer is a senior research associate at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University.
2010-02-18 08:40:30
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