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New Efforts on Iran Sanctions Run into Familiar Snags

(New York Times) David E. Sanger - It was Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who, nearly a year ago, fired the Obama administration's first warning shots about imposing "crippling sanctions" against Iran. Now, no one in the Obama administration has used the word "crippling" in public in a long while; instead, the new line is that taking time and maintaining unity - code words for Chinese and Russian cooperation - are more important than rushing ahead amid international divisions over how best to convince Iran that the cost of continuing uranium enrichment will be prohibitive. The delays and the potential for a substantially watered-down resolution highlight the difficulty Obama has encountered in demonstrating results from the underlying argument of his engagement with Iran: that if he made a bona fide effort to negotiate and was rebuffed, it would be a lot easier to win meaningful sanctions. Some senior administration officials acknowledge that if there are sanctions, they may take months to enact, while Iran steadily adds to its stockpile of fuel. White House officials have dropped, at least for now, talk of cutting off refined gasoline products to Iran, for fear that would hurt the people more than the government.
2010-03-22 10:05:46
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