Opinion: A hidden deal on Iran sanctions?

WASHINGTON, D.C. — For those hoping the international community might finally be getting more serious about possible sanctions against Iran for its continued defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions, the headlines this week were downright discouraging. “In Face of Sanctions Push, China Warms Up to Iran,” The New York Times declared on Friday. “China Lauds Ties with Iran,” according to Thursday’s Wall Street Journal. And, as Charles Krauthammer noted in his column in Friday’s Washington Post, his own paper said on Wednesday: “Russian Not Budging on Iran Sanctions; Clinton Unable to Sway Counterpart.”

None of this, of course, should be a major surprise in light of the Oct. 1 meeting in Geneva of the so-called P5+1 with Iran. At that meeting, Iranian representatives agreed to a process by which Iran might let in international inspectors and might send lightly enriched uranium to Russia for further enrichment. Russia and China have been hoping for that process, which removes the need for even any talk of sanctions, let alone the sanctions themselves.

Russian and Chinese resistance to sanctions is certainly not new. Several U.N. resolutions against Iran passed during the Bush Administration were severely watered down at the insistence of Moscow and Beijing. Now, those capitals don’t even want to talk about the possibility of taking U.N. action against Tehran. It would be “premature,” in the words of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov after meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Added Prime Minister Vladimir Putin several thousand miles away in Beijing: “There is no need to frighten the Iranians” with talk of sanctions. “If now, before making any steps we start announcing some sanctions,” Putin said, “then we won’t be creating favorable conditions for talks to end positively. This is why it is premature to talk about this now.”

Despite this crystal clear rejection from Russia, Clinton voiced optimism in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America” that if sanctions become necessary, “we will have support from Russia.” Her optimism apparently is based on what U.S. officials claim she was told by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Tuesday. These same officials got carried away when Medvedev, in New York for the U.N. General Assembly session last month, criticized sanctions but said they might be inevitable anyway. Alas, for those of us no longer working in the government, we can rely only on Lavrov’s and Putin’s public comments to divine Russia’s position. And based on those comments — and the fact that it is Putin, much more so than Medvedev, who is calling the shots in Russia on issues of this importance — Clinton’s optimism seems sadly misplaced.

While in Moscow with Lavrov standing next to her, Clinton also had this to say: "We did not ask for anything today. We reviewed the situation and where it stood, which I think was the appropriate timing for what this process entails." How could she not have asked for Russian support for sanctions? She schlepped 5,000 miles to Moscow and didn’t seek Russian support for sanctions? Could this be true? Whether Clinton asked or not, Lavrov and Putin seemed to have provided a clear answer — no. The situation with China isn’t much better. As part of a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, Chinese officials hosted Iranian Vice President Reza Rahimi this week, and the two governments “had frequent exchanges, and cooperation in trade and energy has widened and deepened,” according to press reports. That certainly doesn’t sound promising for seeking Chinese support on sanctions either.

It may explain why neither Russia nor China was invited to a meeting organized last week by the U.S. with 10 allies to discuss the prospects for possible sanctions. Having Russia and China at the meeting likely would have led to disagreements on the way forward, but excluding them from it virtually guarantees that they will not support sanctions. Perhaps the Obama Administration is planning to follow a path outside of the U.N. process, where Russia and China have veto power. Perhaps it has already discounted the likelihood of having Russia and China on board. Why, then, the continued spin from Clinton and others?

The problem with both Moscow and Beijing is that they have too much at stake in their respective relationships with Iran. They don’t want to sacrifice that by siding with the U.S. and other members of the P5+1. They’d much rather have the West play the role of the bad guy in applying pressure on Iran. Moreover, they simply don’t share the same sense of threat, notwithstanding the recent disclosure of the nuclear facility in Qum. The Russians reportedly were surprised by this revelation — and then very annoyed that they had not been briefed on it well beforehand.

The clock is ticking, and Iran continues to work away on its nuclear program. One can only hope that the Obama Administration knows what it is doing and is working quietly, behind-the-scenes, in winning support for possible sanctions. The public evidence suggests otherwise.

The writer, a senior transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, served as assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor as well as deputy assistant secretary of state responsible for Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova in the George W. Bush administration.